FOREIGN RELATIONS: Welcome to Freedom!

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"Hope in My Heart." Two days before Christmas, the Hungarians told the airmen they would be brought to trial for violating the border. The day a lawyer was assigned to their defense, the trial was held. Three Hungarian officers presided. "They asked me if I pleaded guilty. What else could I do? I was in Hungary." A few days later, the Americans were informed that they would be released at 4 p.m. to U.S. officials on the Austrian border.

"I didn't believe it," said Henderson. "The first I knew of any negotiations was when I met the High Commissioner." During his long imprisonment, had he felt abandoned by his country? Said Henderson: "I always had hope in my heart that we would be remembered."

"Above All Else." The U.S. had indeed remembered. In the two days before Washington announced that it would pay the ransom, a wave of private fund raising swept across the country. The American-Hungarian Federation got pledges of $345,000. Robert Vogeler, who had also known Hungarian captivity, reported pledges of $200,000. The American Legion and the American Highway Carriers

Association each offered to pay the whole $120,000.

The U.S. by & large seemed to share that sentiment. There were some loud dissents. Cried Texas' Senator Tom Connally: rather than cough up the ransom, the U.S. should "get tough," break diplomatic relations, apply an economic boycott. But few Americans were willing to sound off so bravely from the safety of home. The prevailing opinion: pay the ransom first, then crack down hard on the kidnapers.

On the hour that the four airmen were safe in U.S. hands again, the State Department launched the cracking down. The Hungarians were ordered to close their consulates in New York and Cleveland; U.S. travel in Hungary was banned. Possible next steps: confiscation of frozen Hungarian assets in the U.S., and a complaint in the U.N. against Hungary and Russia for violating human rights. It was a measure of the times that the world's most powerful nation was powerless to do much more.