Former President Reagan honored with Budapest statue

A statue of the late Ronald Reagan was unveiled in Budapest's City Park (Városliget) on Friday, in a successful end to a long-running movement to formally commemorate the American president most closely associated with the collapse of Soviet Rule in Central and Eastern Europe.

In an interview with daily Népszabadság, prominent Hungarian businessman Péter Zwack characterized the achievements of the former U.S. president. "He labeled the Soviet Union the 'Evil Empire,' and pushed it into a ruthless arms race. At the same time, he also understood that [former Soviet leader] Mikhail Gorbachev wanted change. He must be honored and recognized by all means, because his strict anti-communist policy contributed to the fall of the iron curtain, and to the transformation Eastern Europe's communist systems."

The statue, made by sculptor Gábor Veres, was funded by Zwack, who served as Hungarian Ambassador to the U.S. in 1990, and the local government of Budapest. Recalling a meeting with Reagan in Los Angeles, Zwack said: "As he spoke of Gorbachev, I understood: if it wasn't for Reagan, I wouldn’t be sitting in that room as an Ambassador."

A permanent tribute to the "Great Communicator" - who died at age 93 in June of 2004 - was long supported by members of the MDF (Hungarian Democratic Forum), the center-right party that held power in Hungary immediately after the changes, as well as Budapest mayor Gábor Demszky, who in 1983 was freed from state custody after the intervention of then-president Reagan. The project was also strongly supported by American executive Stephen O'Connor, who spent more than a decade living in Hungary as publisher of the Budapest Business Journal.

Sculptor Veres declined to offer any political evaluation of Reagan's achievements, but called him an up-front man with a good character. "I would find [creating a sculpture of] the current American president a lot more difficult," he said. And he added that after the unveiling, some passer-bys were intrigued as why Budapest was commemorating Reagan with a statute in its main park. If so, they might be interested to know that America's 40th president isn't the first to be so honored; A monument to the first - George Washington - can be found nearby.

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