Ambassador
Simonyi:
Ladies and Gentlemen,
I want to welcome all of you, in particular my colleagues,
Excellencies, fellow ambassadors, the representatives of the diplomatic
community, and members of the U.S. House of Representatives, Congressman
Manzullo. Thank you so much for coming. I'd also, in particular, like to
welcome two very special guests tonight.
One guest is Mickey Hargitay, who will be saying a few
words to you. Welcome Mickey and Ellen. We are very proud that you could join us tonight. You flew all the way
from the other part of the country, the West Coast.
If I may ask Pál Maléter - Pali, would you please join
me? Pali is the son of the Defense Minister of the Government of Imre
Nagy, who was executed after the revolution. It is a great honor to call
upon my friend – you should come up, too.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
What I would like to say is that the Revolution of 1956
commands respect wherever we Hungarians go. It commands respect in every
sense of the word. What the heroes of 1956 did was not more and not less
than creating the first crack on the totalitarian system of the Soviet
Union. We are very proud, and I would like to welcome all of those
compatriots who fled in 1956, who have suffered because of the suppression
that Hungary had to undergo after the revolution failed.
Hungary today is an ambitious country, it is a prosperous
country, it is a free country. It is a friend and an ally of the United
States. The United States is our friend and ally and it is an inspiration
to us, Hungarians. We are so proud that finally we are able to work side
by side in many fields of life, in many walks of life, and we want to
honor all those men and women who at this very moment fight shoulder to
shoulder to keep our democracies free, whether it is in Afghanistan,
whether it is in Iraq, whether it is serving a peace mission in Kosovo or
Bosnia.
Next year will be the 50th anniversary. We will honor the
memory of 1956 properly. We have initiated a month of Hungary, the
"Hungarian October." So the whole next October will be a
celebration of a free and democratic Hungary. We will be remembering and
we will be looking ahead.
It is interesting that probably arts – for which Hungary
is so well known – is going to be our best vehicle to send a strong
message about the Revolution. Plácido Domingo has volunteered to help us
bring the Hungarian national opera, Bánk Bán, to the United States and
we are very proud of that.
We will also launch other projects. For example, we want
to know how strong we are in the United States. So for those Hungarians
who are here, I want to announce: finally, we will be doing a survey of
Hungarian organizations in the United States. And then they will be really
scared of us.
We will be assisting the Hungarian American Coalition to
collect the oral history of those who lived through the revolution, many
of whom fled the country after the Soviet occupation. And I want to
congratulate the editors of this documentary that you saw here on the 1956
revolution. It was produced by the American-Hungarian Federation and I
want to thank Imre and Zsuzsa Tóth.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
Without further ado, I would like to ask Mickey to say a
few words. Mickey is a friend. He used to be Mr. Universe. To me, he is
still Mr. Universe. I just want to say that the reason why I wanted Mickey
to speak tonight is because a couple of months ago we attended an event. I
have not heard anyone to speak with more passion about Hungary, about his
new homeland, the United States, about freedom, and about what it meant to
live a long life knowing that the loved ones are behind the iron curtain.
So therefore I wanted Mickey to come over here, and I thank you, Mickey,
for joining us. Please, the floor is yours. Ladies and Gentlemen, Mickey
Hargitay.
Mickey Hargitay:
Thank you. Washington, D.C. The capital of the world.
Decisions are made about countries – what they are going to do, what
their future is going to be like. Leaders, prime ministers, kings, queens,
even dictators are coming here for advice – even popes, clergymen,
gurus. Everybody. The capital of the world. They are asking for advice,
they are asking for money. This is America. America, the greatest country
you could ever dream of. You cannot create a country like this. It is
here. We have it, we treasure it.
I can tell you one thing: I am very pleased and very
honored that my dear friend has asked me to come over here tonight for
this reception. I really do not know exactly what I am going to say.
Things are flashing into my mind, there is so much to say and I know how
it is – it gets boring, especially when you are standing. I do not want
to be boring.
But I tell you one thing: this is a great occasion, a
reception for the Hungarian Revolution back in 1956. My heart went out for
it the day when I heard it began.
I am a revolutionary. I started my own revolution at a
very young age. I remember in 1944, Germany took over Hungary overnight,
Horthy Miklós went into exile, Szálasi came in, and things got tough.
And it got tougher and tougher. I remember I was praying for liberation. I
was remembering all bombs that fell down – it was like 9/11 every day,
sometimes all day. I went through, I survived.
Liberation happened. On April, 1945 I started seeing
Russian soldiers coming in. I was in jubilee, I was happy. Soon, I had
seen them coming like flies all over Budapest. I said, "My God, we
are free! We are here, we are liberated." I hugged them. They
rejected me. I did not like it. I felt bad. And I said, "What's going
on here?" I don't get the reception that I expected. Soon after, at
about the tail end of December 1945, as I was walking in the street, I was
taken to prison. They put me in a bombed-out store. There were a bunch of
young kids already there and they started talking and they said,
"Well, they wanted to send us as prisoners of the war." I said,
"What?" I stayed there for a couple of hours and I managed to
escape. Now soon after some of the American soldiers came in, started
putting representations in Budapest. Since I spoke only Hungarian, and my
English was not as great as it should have been, but I made friends with
them. And I saw then, there was trouble, something was not right. These
people, the American people, they were wonderful, they gave me a Jeep to
drive, I told them who I was. Driving a Jeep, an American Jeep, a 1944
Jeep – it is the greatest memory I have. I said, "Well, Mickey, you
got to get out of here. There is no future here." I feel bad about it
now, but I tell you one thing: I came to America and I built a bridge
between the United States of America and Hungary, my native country.
I treasure Hungarians. I treasure my heritage. I treasure
my upbringing. My mother said, "Mickey, you were born with a
smile." She used to bake bread, she cut the bread just like that, cut
the corner off. "Give me a corner," she said. "Mickey, go
up the cherry tree and have lunch." We had a cherry tree in the
garden and different types of fruit trees. My brother was already up
there, I spread the bread and I gave it to him and we started talking and
eating these big, beautiful cherries – crisp, crunchy. It was great.
Memories like that I have, they are inerasable. I love my brothers and
sisters. We were very close, but I was far away from them.
I was in America by 1947. I felt that I was the happiest
man in the world. I am sitting on the top of the world, just like a kid,
and I am sure, you had this feeling, all of you, most of you as immigrants
here in America – I felt like I was a kid in a candy factory. Somebody
said, "Go ahead, eat all you want." I tried to make something
out of myself. I worked hard, I was enterprising. I've loved sports all my
life, and I got involved in weight-lifting, bodybuilding in 1949.
By 1953, I got my American citizenship and I was
nationally known as one of the champions of bodybuilding and
weightlifting. I was proud of myself, I said, "Well, I want to be a
success. I have all the opportunities here. I learned everything in Magyarország,
in Hungary, which I can use here for my benefit."
In 1955, I was selected to represent United States of
America in a Mr. Universe title against 45 countries in London, England
– the Palladium. I could not believe it. I said, "Me, representing
the United States?" A dream. I went. It was the first time I returned
to England. Eight years before that, I tried to hassle out of there to get
to New York. I was back in England. I felt bad. I asked organizers,
"Listen, would you please be so kind, there are a bunch of flags
right behind me, 45 countries, but I don't see a piros-fehér-zöld."
I asked them, "Would you please bring a Hungarian flag? My
roots are still there, I am Hungarian. I am representing America. Please
bring one up here." The flag was there. I was fortunate. I was riding
a dream again. I was crying as Mr. Universe 1955. And you know, this
evening I heard the national anthems, the Hungarian national anthem, and
then the American national anthem. Over there they played the American
national anthem, they were not prepared to play the Hungarian national
anthem. But I was humming the Himnusz, "Isten, áldd meg a
magyart!" I had it in my mind. I was born Hungarian – this is
the greatest claim I have to fame in life and here I am talking to you
now. I can carry on, believe me. I am sure you all have experiences the
same way like I do.
I am very fortunate because 38 years ago I married a young
lady who became the instant mother of my children, who had lost their
mother in a tragic car crash. You may remember it was Jayne Mansfield. Our
daughter – this young lady raised her. She is a big star. Why do I
deserve all this? I tell you why:
because of my roots, because I am Hungarian. I am proud to be Hungarian
and I am happy to be here. Now I don’t want to stretch this too long,
but I can carry on.
I'd like all of you to take a moment, close your eyes, and
think of all those great heroes, all those great people who fought in the
Revolution in 1956. And don't let anybody tell you that they did not
change the world. They did change the world. Everything that happened
after 1956 was because of the victory in 1956. It wasn't a defeat. It was
a victory. That is the way I look at it. Don't let anybody tell you
different. You can look at it in the books, you can look at it on the
Internet and all over. It was a victory. Because it will not happen today.
I'll bet you two to one if you ask President George Bush today: "If
you turned back the clock, what you would have done?" He would have
said, "In an hour I would have sent tanks in and I would have
straightened everything out." Kennedy did this. Why Kennedy did this
with the Khrushchev situation in the Atlantic? Because of our Hungarian
revolution. You don't have to go too far, these people are not stupid.
They are presidents. So, Ronald Reagan – I had the pleasure to knew
Ronald, Ronnie – he was a great guy. He had enough balls to go over
there and tell Khrushchev. "Tear down this wall!" And you want
me to tell you something? The wall went down. Why? Because of the 1956
Hungarian Revolution. It was a victory. That is the way I feel about it,
that is the way I give it to you. Nobody is going to tell me different,
because there is no "different."
So now I would like to pay tribute, just one moment of
silence. That’s including Nagy Imre, because he is a guy who proved it
that if the people lead, the leader follows. He followed. He said the same
words that the revolutionaries said. He gave his life, and now I would
like to take a moment of silence for the known and the unknown who died
and gave their lives for this great cause, which changed the world.
Thank you. God bless you all. Isten, áldd meg a
magyart!
