“A Certain Amount of Tactful Undermining” - Herbert C. Pell and Hungary in 1941
“A Certain Amount of Tactful Undermining” - Herbert C. Pell and Hungary in 1941

Summary/Abstract: Direct diplomatic relations between the United States and a truly, although mutilated in the wake of the Trianon Treaty, independent Hungary were established in 1922, when Ulysses Grant-Smith was appointed as first chargé d’affaires ad interim. He was followed by ministers Theodore Brentano, J. Butler Wright, Nicholas Roosevelt, John Flournoy Montgomery and Herbert C. Pell. Diplomatic relations were broken off by Hungary in December 1941, and Hungary declared war on the United States. Except for J. Butler Wright, a career diplomat, these men were political appointees. They all shared much the same picture of Hungary and Hungarian society of the time, believing that the Hungarian political class was characterized by a feudal mentality, and also that Hungary was fervently nationalist and hungry for a revision of the Trianon Peace Treaty. As the 1930s progressed the country gained more importance in the light of brewing instability in Europe. Although Nicholas Roosevelt’s and John Flournoy Montgomery’s work and ideas are fairly well known, this however does not go for Herbert C. Pell. Since he occupied the post of minister in the biggest part of the crucial year 1941, it is all the more important to obtain information about what he did, and his opinions while in Hungary.

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