US Ambassador David Cornstein leaves Budapest

“I am deeply proud and somewhat saddened to announce to President Trump and Secretary of State Szijjártó that I will resign as US Ambassador to Hungary on November 1.”

writes David B. Cornstein on the website of the Hungarian Embassy in the United States.

“It was an honor and a privilege to serve the country that I love in a country that I hold in high esteem”

– continues the text. Cornstein writes that he is proud of what the Hungarian and American members of the US embassy have accomplished together and strengthened the alliance between the two countries. As a farewell, he writes that he will miss the country and his friends here, but Hungary and the Hungarian people will remain in his heart forever.

Cornstein met with Melania Trump last week, according to a statement from the White House on Sept. 10. They discussed the status of the epidemic and the relationship between the two countries.

Cornstein, 82, arrived in Budapest in the summer of 2018. In fact, he could not be accused of being a harsh critic of Viktor Orbán. In an Hvg interview, he said that “an ambassador does not care about public criticism”, although Hungary has previously been criticized by US diplomacy for its position in the media, freedoms and NGOs. According to Cornstein, most of his work takes place behind the scenes, as he learned from Henry Kissinger on a longer flight that “if I want to criticize a government’s decision, I don’t pick up a megaphone, I don’t go to television, I don’t go to the newspapers, I say my excuses directly, and we try to get something better than the original. ”

When asked why the private diplomacy mentioned by the ambassador did not work for CEU, he said it broke his heart that the university had to move from Budapest because it was a loss for CEU and the Hungarian capital as well, but it was Soros. and Orbán had a personal debate over which no one had any influence.

Then the US ambassador also addressed the situation of press freedom. “The current state of journalism does not fill me with happiness,” he said, but before it seemed that a behind-the-scenes diplomat could openly criticize the situation in Hungary, he continued: “Take an article from The New York Times, for example.” He said in general that all forms of journalism must be fair, if the government is praised on a radio, for example, then the opposition must also be invited to speak its position. But if the government is criticized, the government spokesperson should also have a chance.

He also said that

“Trump has read a lot about Orban and they think similarly about various things.”

According to press reports, Cornstein tried to ensure that the relaunched Radio Free Europe was not overly critical of the Hungarian government.

An October 2019 article in the New York Times revealed that according to his own disgruntled colleagues,

Cornstein is less and less ambassador of the United States in Budapest, and more and more representative of the Hungarian government in Washington.

According to newspaper sources, Cornstein regularly obstructs the delivery of messages critical of the Hungarian government to Washington and often represents a different position than his Foreign Ministry, which is brazen for a diplomat. There is no longer such a consensus that Cornstein is simply not prepared, or / therefore, is run by representatives of the Hungarian government, or has a very good interpretation of the foreign policy methods and intentions of his old friend Donald Trump.

The article features two revealing scenes that are hard to forget.

1. A meeting

In April, at the invitation of the Hungarian government, the staff of the congressmen arrived in Budapest. American diplomats designed it not only to meet with government figures who kept the text successful, but also to have at least 45 minutes when Hungarian NGOs tell them their views on corruption and the reduction of the rule of law.

Cornstein, uninvited, came to this meeting, picked up the thread of the conversation and said that

then you don’t see corruption.

2. The plane

Cornstein was not very restrained when asked by the Times about his personal relationship with Orbán. He said, for example, that when they came home from Trump’s meeting on the prime minister’s special plane, how could he return it in Hungarian?

Exhausted from the long day, the two men “stripped down in their underwear, fell asleep and crashed into the sofas.”

At the same time, the Russian bank, which moved to Budapest and is closely linked to the Russian political elite, caused serious strains in diplomatic relations between the United States and Hungary.

At the same time, after a lengthy agreement, defense cooperation was signed and the military agreed with the United States on a billion-dollar missile purchase.