According to the speaker, the girl had admitted "that her purpose in coming to the festival had not been to work for peace but to see 'what Hungary was like,' and to study art." In view of this incident, the Steering Committee asked the power to investigate similar people whose purposes were "disruptive" in closed hearings, and to recommend their expulsion.

Warshaw's notes detail the remainder of the meeting. "The accused girl was given the right to defend herself publicly. She broke down in tears, but made the following points. She had been questioned at length, by the Steering Committee the evening before. She had been charged with making anti Negro statements. She said she had freely discussed her reasons for going to the Festival with an official of the delegation, and challenged the person she had told them to to corroborate this. The person did not speak up. At one point, the accused girl had to stop, she was crying so much."

According to Warshaw, the same type of incident punctuated the delegation's entire stay. For a week there were persistent rumors within the group that a Time-and-Life photographer was surreptitiously preparing a photo essay on the Festival. Other rumors claimed that FBI and State Department agents and enrolled as delegates and were filing reports on the members.

Embassy Questions

Warshaw notes that there was some basis for these rumors. "The press coverage of the Festival was biased and one sided; one U.S. newspaper, for instance, ran a story claiming Americans were parading through the streets singing the 'Internationale' and forcing Hungarians to join them. It was not true." He also notes that the U.S. Embassy took a strong interest in the leaders and the political affiliations of the members, and that embassy officials frequently attempted to question delegates as to the composition and leadership of their group. But Warshaw and other returning delegates note that the head of the delegation often used fear of the embassy as an "emotional tool" in running their meetings, and that at least one delegate admittedly falsified a report in which he claimed he had been pressured into "turning over names to Foreign Service officials."

Another delegate to the Festival, Thomas Wheeler '50, also a member of the minority, points out that "there was nothing surprising about these tactics. These people believed they were there to promote peace and they didn't want to be hindered in their job. By their own standards, they were doing the only thing they could."