HUNGARY: Arpad Up

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Magyars love to gamble. After Communist austerity shuttered Budapest's gambling joints, the boys in Szabadsag Ter (Liberty Square) offered outdoor odds of four to one against President Zoltan Til-dy's chances of surviving his precarious alliance with the Communists. Fourteen months ago, when he weathered the storm that whisked ex-Premier Ferenc Nagy into exile, 3,000,000 forints (about $250,000) in bets changed hands. The boys on Szabadsag Ter should have waited.

Last week, the special brand of Communist oblivion reserved for those no longer useful caught up with Tildy. His son-in-law, pudgy Victor Chornoky, recent minister to Egypt, was arrested on charges of treason and espionage. Tiny (5 ft. 4 in.), timorous Tildy, an ex-baron, an ex-Calvinist minister, said: "I can no longer expect the confidence of the Hungarian people, because of his [ Chornoky's] great crimes." Tildy resigned.

For nearly three years, Tildy sat tight while the Communists whittled away at his Smallholders Party, reducing it from the largest in Hungary to an impotent remnant. When Nagy fled, both Tildy and Chornoky helped keep the lid on the indignation of bewildered Smallholders.

Arpad Szakasits was given the presidency of Hungary as his reward for keeping the Social Democratic Party on the same Red line down which Tildy had marched the Smallholders. A month ago Arpad obligingly merged his Social Democrats with the Communists into a new Hungarian Workers Party. Over on Szabadsag Ter, the bettors could open a new set of books.