Keyword – cold war

Takács, Róbert:

“The Good Pupil tested.” Hungarian Foreign Policy in the International Debates on Press and Media Affairs after Helsinki (1975–1983) I.

The 1975 Helsinki Final Act, the anchorage of the post-1945 European status quo was seen as the success of Soviet diplomacy. However, by declaring the free movement of people and ideas, and by admitting the respect for human rights as a basic principle of relations between states, its Basket III gave a trump card for Western powers against communist countries. Questions of information policy, including the travel opportunities and working conditions of journalists, the availability of Western press in communist countries, were also listed among these issues. These issues, which were rather unfavourable for the members of the Soviet bloc, rose to an important battlefield of the Cold War ideological struggle in international politics after 1975. This study reconstructs and analyses how Hungarian foreign policy related to these issues before and during the Belgrade conference. It examines if it was capable of transcending defensive attitudes, and whether it could insert the questions of media and information into its broader objectives within Basket III.

Keywords: availability of Western press, Belgrade conference, cold war, cultural exchange, Helsinki Final Act, Hungarian foreign policy, media relations, third basket