Planted falsehood

Our American revolutionary writer,. Tom Paine, was guided by the theory that "It is an affront to treat falsehood with complaisance," as he put it in 1804 about the time this journal was founded. Through the decades, this journal has adhered to that noble principle, difficult as it has been.

Much history can be uncovered by reading current obituaries. An obituary for the late Hanna Sulner, a handwriting expert who died last January 5 in New York City at age 81, appeared in the St. Petersburg Times (which has the wholesome habit of publishing obits from around the world). That obit said Ms. Sinner "was roped into helping Hungarian Communists frame Jozsef Cardinal Mindszenty on treason charges in 1949 ... She fled to the west soon after the Mindszenty frameup and exposed the plot."

Whoever gave this 'information' to the obituary editor overlooked the many occasions when the Roman Catholic Cardinal Mindszenty collaborated with the Nazis in opposition to the Hungarian regime. The Churchman carried many stories in its news department exposing the cardinal's disservice to Hungary. But I like to refer to the reports of George Seldes, named one of the "great independent journalists of this century" by author Randolph T. Holhut, reporter and columnist for the Brattleboro (Vt.) Reformer and author of The George Seldes Reader (Barricade.) In another refreshing book, Witness to a Century (Ballentine) author George Seldes recalled: "In 1948 the entire American section ofthe resident foreign press in Hungary implored me to report the facts about Cardinal Mindszenty's collaboration with the Nazis during the war, his part in the deportation of the Jewish population to Hitler's death camps, and other criminal actions; and also to expose the scores of fraudulent news items coming from outside Hungary..."

To quote Seldes again: "The proMindszenty campaign in the United States flourished." Included in his several examples was "Lowell Thomas, America's number one radio oracle, detailed the 'drugging' and 'torture' of the cardinal, inventing 'beatings' and the Cardinal's `bloody face.' Total falsehood [included in Seldes' article] Thomas repeated the fake about the cardinal being drugged. ... The New York Post was the only major paper in America to give the lie to this Lowell Thomas broadcast."

Continued Seldes: "Eleanor Roosevelt who was then writing a column for the Scripps-Howard chain, and whose attention had been called to her misuse of the drugging and torture stories, wrote a second column setting the record straight, whereupon she was attacked by Cardinal Spellman; he accused the President's widow of casting `yet another stone [upon ] heroic, helpless men like Cardinal Martyr Mindszenty."'

This exposure is in the American Jeffersonian tradition. Jefferson championed freedom of the press as "the only security," adding "It is also the best instrument for enlightening the mind of man, and improving him as a rational. moral, and social being."

by Edna Ruth Johnson

Edna Ruth Johnson is Editor Emeritus of The Human Quest.

Copyright The Human Quest May/June 1999
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