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HISTORY OF THE MILITARY INTELLIGENCE OFFICE OF THE REPUBLIC OF HUNGARY
At the end of October 1918, with the dissolution of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy, Hungary became an independent state again. The country regained its full sovereignty in the fields of foreign and defense affaires, which had belonged earlier to the “common policy” in the era of the dualism. In the wake of the “Aster Revolution” of October 1918, the Károlyi-government was formed and immediately embarked on setting up the machinery of foreign affaires. It also formed those defense organizations that made it possible for the political and military leadership to obtain the most indispensable foreign policy-related information.
The Ministry of Defense established the 1st (Intelligence) Department, with the leadership of a former Imperial and Royal Army Major Döme Stojakovich (later named Sztójay), who earlier served for the Records Office of Vienna. The 8th (Military Policy) Department led by the former Imperial and Royal Army, military attaché General Gábor Tánczos, dealt with the assessment of all military political issues affecting the country and with the training and preparation of the future military representatives (attachés).
In 1919, the Hungarian Soviet Republic set up an Intelligence Subdepartment within the Hungarian Red Army General Staff, and later the 2nd Directorate of the General Staff. There were intelligence groups operating at the army corps as well. In May 1919, the forces and groups fighting against the Hungarian Soviet Republic formed their own government in the French occupied Szeged, which in fact had its residence in Vienna. Vice-Admiral Miklós Horthy, who organized the National Army, became Minister of Defense.
The Intelligence Department of the National Army was formed in June 1919. A military expert was delegated to the government in exile operating in Vienna, who acted in fact as a liaison officer between the government in Vienna and the Defense Ministry in Szeged.
Two power centers were formed in the country after the fall of the Hungarian Soviet Republic: the government residing in Budapest, occupied by Romanian troops, and the National Army Supreme Command in Siófok. In autumn 1919, the real power shifted more and more into the hands of the Supreme Command, which played a determinant role in forming the Hungarian foreign policy as well.
A Records Group was organized from the Intelligence Department. This group was also referred to as the Supreme Command’s 2nd Group. The MoD Intelligence Department led by Lt.Col. Döme Stojakovich pursued parallel intelligence activity. In December 1919, the MoD Intelligence Department was merged into the Supreme Command and its role was newly defined. It was at that time when the Hungarian military intelligence got its three-section-structure (intelligence, recording and counter-intelligence) which specified its scope of activity until the end of the World War II.
After the World War I, military provisions of the Trianon Peace Treaty prohibited Hungary to operate its own General Staff and this prohibition was obviously applied to the military intelligence activity as well. However, the state leadership – well aware of the provisions of the peace treaty concluded earlier with Germany and Austria – embarked on making steps to evade the foreseeable peace conditions. The Horthy-government has never concealed its revisionist plans and its determination to implement them even by using force. It was for this reason that military intelligence became very important. After July 1921 – the ratification of the Trianon Peace Treaty – the Hungarian High Command operated the General Staff under the name of MoD 6th VI. (military) Main Directorate. The Records Office was named as VI-2 Department. The military attaché service, which played a decisive role in this early period – could function only in a concealed manner. The intelligence officers sent abroad by the General Staff worked at the embassies as civilian attachés, secretaries, counselors, or consuls. For internal use these officers were referred to as “military specialists”.
The Allied Military Inspection Board ended its inspection activity in Hungary in March 1927, and the League of Nations assumed the role of monitoring Hungary's compliance with the Trianon Treaty's provisions.
Elimination of the on site military inspection has opened a new chapter in the army development. Although the former inspections proved to be formal in most of the cases, their mere existence represented some restrictions. When this final obstacle had been eliminated, the political and military leadership was allowed the greatest latitude in observing the implementation of the Trianon Treaty's provisions. As a first sign of détente, the winning powers acquiesced in the organization of the Hungarian military attaché service and in the mutual accreditation of military attachés. (That time Hungarian military attachés were delegated to 17 countries.)
The General Staff’s activity was concealed practically until 1938, when the International Conference of Bled declared that all countries had equal rights to pursue armament. There were no more obstacles to the open activity of the General Staff. The MoD VI-2 Department was renamed as the General Staff's 2nd Department. From the mid 30's there was a remarkable reorganization in the department. Each of the major fields of activity (intelligence, records and counter-intelligence) grouped earlier according to frontlines – was organized into centralized sections. A Central Offensive Section ("Koffa"), a Records Section ("Nyil") and a Defensive Section ("Def") were set up. This form of organization (with minor modifications and extensions) existed until the end of the World War II.
Corps Commands also dealt with "H" (intelligence) and "K" (counter-intelligence) activity. G-2 sections of the Corps did their work under double subordination. They reported both to their own Corps Command and the 2nd Department of the General Staff, and they received orders from both command levels. Army Corps took part in radio interception as well. Two independent radio reconnaissance battalions worked on the territory of Hungary.
Right before the beginning of the World War II, and during the war itself, the Hungarian military attaché service underwent deep and far-reaching changes. Former intelligence stations ceased to exist and new ones were set up as a result of the changes in the world policy and war events.
The Austrian Anschluss, the occupation of Czechoslovakia, the blitz war against Poland, the defeat of France, the occupation of the Baltic states, the invasion of the Soviet Union and a series of declarations of war all thinned the number of former stations.
In setting up new stations, both the political and military leadership strove to send their representatives to the neutral countries as well, for the sake of many-sided information collection. The military High Command was uncertain and skeptical in dealing with the intelligence assessments and warnings on the foreseeable developments in foreign policy and military policy. This was due to the fact that the prevailing anti-Communist atmosphere relegated to the background the intelligence describing the real prospects. In the very last months of the war, owing to the rightist turn in the leadership of the department, many officers were forced to leave the service, while others opted for escaping to the West when Hungary became a theater of war.
On the Soviet-occupied territories, months before the entire liberation of the country, a Military Policy Department began to work on 12 March 1945 in the MoD, in Debrecen, with the approval of the Allied Control Commission. Its mission was to identify fascist sympathizers and fascist Arrow-Cross (Hungarian National Socialist Party) men within the armed forces, fight against reactionary activity, prevent enemy intelligence and collect intelligence. The department did its work in close cooperation with the Soviet organizations and was directly controlled by the Central Committee of the Hungarian Communist Party. It actively participated in searching for war criminals, in bringing them to people's tribunal and in gathering all data necessary to screen generals, officers and non-commissioned officers of the Hungarian Defense Forces. The structure of the Military Policy Department changed in accordance with its new status and mission.
As from 1947, the department continued its activity as Military Policy Directorate within the MoD and formally was directed by the Minister of Defense. However, in reality, it operated as an organization serving party politics.
It was on 1 February 1949 that the MoD's Military Counter-intelligence Main Directorate was established. From this moment, the military intelligence (besides the I. Counter-intelligence Directorate and the II. Military Directorate) comprised also the III. Radioreconnaissance Directorate and the IV. Intelligence Directorate. Its mission was to inform the political and military leadership on the revealed and identified intentions, personnel, armament and groupings of the western armed forces.
On 1 February 1950, the Counter-intelligence Directorate of the Main Directorate left the organization and was integrated into the State Security Authorities within the Ministry of Interior. The military intelligence service got a new name, the MoD's IV. Main Directorate. With this renaming, its missions have also significantly changed. Its former main mission – namely the military counter intelligence got out of its sphere of activity. In the spirit of the Cold War, the military operational and strategic intelligence became its new field of activity.
In order to pursue successful intelligence activities, Russian advisors also participated in selecting and training intelligence officers. It was this period when the military intelligence service began to train competent personnel with military, professional and language knowledge – for real practical activity – and improved the professional capabilities in the field of HUMINT (Human Intelligence), assessments and SIGINT (Signal Intelligence). In the very intensive initial period of intelligence activities (between 1950-53) four covert intelligence courses followed each other.
The political changes in the country were indicated also by the fact that the IV. Main Directorate ceased to exist in 1953 and a new service was established with the name of 2nd Directorate of the General Staff of the Hungarian People's Army, conducted by the Chief of the General Staff. The basic missions of the 2nd Directorate remained basically unchanged, however the requirements and expectations increased, as a result of which it became necessary to modify the personnel's composition and improve their working methods. Development of radio reconnaissance equipment continued more intensively, professional training was enhanced and both the military leadership and the troops were more intensively and more frequently informed about the foreign armies. Radio reconnaissance battalions were concentrated as from 1 October 1953 and an independent radio reconnaissance regiment was set up, with the mission to detect – by applying the methods of interception and radio finding – the command and communications systems of NATO (US, Italian, German, French) and Austrian armed forces, as well as to gather information about the armed forces of potential enemy countries.
In the hard days of 1956, intelligence activity came to a temporary halt. In October, during the revolution, self-defense and protection of human, professional and material values came into the focus. The bulk of the personnel spent those days in garrison defense readiness. Professional activity was carried out with limited personnel and focused only on the elementary missions. The leadership avoided any open conflict with the revolutionary forces and allowed them to personally ascertain that the cells – in which hostages had been detained during the activity of the ex- Military Political Department – were empty.
Despite the internal consolidation and the favorable international changes, the requirements towards the military intelligence increased. Therefore the analysis and assessment of the collected information had to be improved. The military intelligence had been continuously watching the international political situation, collecting and assessing all the necessary information to predict probable developments and inform the political and military leadership about them. The 1962 crises in Cuba, then the conflicts in the Middle-East and Indo-China highlighted the importance of military information collection, and the necessity of enhancing intelligence and reporting activities, as well as of improving cooperation among the intelligence services of the socialist countries. Staffs, troops and organizations of the Hungarian Defense Forces were informed about the situation of foreign armies, their strategical, operational and tactical principles, as well as the latest developments in their combat readiness, via monthly and annual reports, manuals, briefings and other publications. All this helped the Hungarian politicians and soldiers to enlarge their scope of knowledge and modernize military training.
The 2nd Directorate worked in concert with the member-states of the Warsaw Pact. According to its commitment within the pact, the Directorate enhanced and intensified its operational, tactical and radioelectronic reconnaissance. It developed – on domestic scientific-technical basis – advanced radioelectronic equipment and initiated both the theoretical and practical development of the SIGINT.
These indigenously developed radiolectronic appliances gradually proved to be profitable export goods. In the period of the HDF's qualitative development, the training and education of the 2nd Directorate's personnel were in the focus. The period of intelligence education was extended and the curriculum expanded. Intensive and improved language training became a task of high priority. There were new possibilities for the officers to improve their professional knowledge at the staff college and to obtain qualification there.
By the seventies, the 2nd Directorate received new additional tasks. It became responsible for organizing and controlling also the army reconnaissance. As a result, the flow of information became quicker, the training and the activity of the reconnaissance troops improved.
The General Staff’s 2nd Directorate assumed an initiative role in establishing military diplomatic relations. With the altered international situation, the military attaché network expanded in the socialist countries year by year. Political détente made it possible for the service to establish military diplomatic relations with neutral and non-aligned states (like, Switzerland, Austria, Finland and India) and with several third world countries as well. Besides our attaché offices in Washington, London, Paris and Rome, which had been operating since the World War II, a new attaché office was opened in Brussels. There were negotiations with Germany and Turkey for the sake of mutual attaché exchange. During the conflict in Indo-China, the Far East got in the forefront of the military diplomatic activity. The persistent conflict in the Middle East resulted in setting up military attaché offices in Damascus, Cairo, later in Baghdad and Algiers. In the second half of the seventies, 25 attaché offices operated in different countries, and 60 officers – including military experts as well –filled military diplomatic posts abroad.
It was a clear sign of acknowledgement by the international community that Hungary and its soldiers were offered to participate in the International Control and Supervisory Commission in charge of ending the war in Vietnam. The first rotation started to work on 26 January 1973 in Saigon, with the mandate to control the implementation of the peace agreement. The officers of the Directorate – serving in the three rotations among other Hungarian officers – had a determinant role in successfully fulfilling the mission.
Simultaneously with the smooth political and social change of system, the General Staff's 2nd Directorate was gradually reorganized. Following the personal changes initiated on 1 October 1989, the Commander of the Hungarian Defense Forces set up the Military Intelligence Office in subordination of the General Staff on 14 February 1990. As a result of an accurate and purposeful specification of the MIO’s organizational structure, its operational regulations, tasks, sphere of authority and responsibility, the essential conditions for a more effective professional work were created.
No law had ever been framed on the legal framework of intelligence activity since the independent Hungarian military intelligence came to life. Only transitory regulations, commands and orders existed specifying the service’s scope of activity, while there was no law explicitly expressing the constitutionality of military intelligence (pursued in a democratic state). In 1995, the Hungarian Parliament – in compliance with its responsibilities stipulated by the Constitution and other laws – regulated the activity of the national security services in an act. In terms of the Law No.CXXV of 1995 on the national security services, the Military Intelligence Office of the Republic of Hungary is a military national security service of national authority subordinated to the government and financed by the sate budget.
The MIO museum truly reflects the nine-decade activity of the Hungarian military intelligence and faithfully displays its historic relics. The museum preserves, protects and cherishes all the exhibited material for the future generations.
Remark: It is our great pleasure to announce that we commemorate this year the 90th anniversary of the establishment of the independent Hungarian intelligence/reconnaissance.
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