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brutally crushed four days later. More than 200,000 Hungarians fled to Western Europe as refugees, while Nagy himself sought refuge in the Yugoslav embassy. A new communist hard-line regime under JÁNOS KÁDÁR was installed with Soviet blessings. Nagy remained holed up at the embassy until November 22, 1957, when Kádár granted him a pass to leave the country. But he was suddenly arrested in Romania, sent to Budapest, and tried for treason. Nagy faced the hangman’s noose on June 16, 1958, one of the last victims of the ill-fated Hungarian revolution. He was buried in an unmarked grave until 1989, when communism collapsed in Hungary. The martyred prime minister was then posthumously rehabilitated by the Hungarian Supreme Court. Nagy’s remains were exhumed and interred with all the solemnities befitting a national hero.
Imre Nagy (Library of Congress)
forced Rákosi to resign as prime minister a second time in October 1956, and Nagy was recalled by popular demand to succeed him. At no time did Nagy call for an end to communist-style socialism; instead he simply wanted to adapt it to local circumstances. He subsequently took to the airwaves and called for calm even as communist control of the government crumbled around him. However, Hungary was swept by antiSoviet violence, and street fighting erupted. Russians and communist loyalists beat a hasty retreat, while Nagy assured Soviet premier NIKITA KHRUSHCHEV of the nation’s loyalty to Moscow. But when a new government was formed, Nagy declared the onset of multiparty democracy and withdrew from the Sovietsponsored Warsaw Pact. Khrushchev responded by pledging nonintervention in Hungarian affairs—while massing troops on the border. They rolled into Hungary on November 1, 1956, and the uprising was
Further Reading Bekes, Csaba, Malcolm Byrne, and Janos Ranier, eds. The 1956 Hungarian Revolution: A History in Documents. New York: Central European University Press, 2002. Benziger, Karl P. “The Funeral of Imre Nagy: Contested History and the Power of Memory Culture.” History and Memory 12 (fall-winter 2000): 142–164. ———. “Imre Nagy, Martyr of the Nation: Contested Memory and Social Cohesion.” East European Quarterly 36 (summer 2002): 171–191. Dornbach, Alajos, ed. The Secret Trial of Imre Nagy. Westport, Conn.: Praeger, 1994. Rainer, Janos M. “The Development of Imre Nagy as a Politician and a Thinker.” Contemporary European History 6, no. 3 (1997): 263–277. ———. “The Life Course of Imre Nagy.” Journal of Communist Studies and Transition Politics 13 (June 1997): 141–151.
Nakasone Yasuhiro (1918– ) prime minister of Japan Nakasone Yasuhiro was born in Takasaki, Gumma Prefecture, Japan, on May 27, 1918, the scion of a rich lumber merchant. He passed through Tokyo Imperial University with a law degree in 1941 and took up a position with the ministry of the interior. Soon after he was called away for military service and ended World War II as a lieutenant commander in the Imperial Japanese Navy. Unlike many contemporaries