On 23 December 1951, Radio Budapest announced the arrest of four men. The leader of the group was listed as János Weissengruber, who apparently admitted that he had been trained by American intelligence in Salzburg in secret writing and use of weapons.
The Director CIA wrote in his Daily Log on 26 December 1951 that Weissengruber was an agent of the CIA’s Office of Special Operations (OSO):
The Hungarian announcement on 23 December that 4 U.S. intelligence agents have been arrested in Hungary identifies 2 by name. Weissengruber is an OSO agent run by the Salzburg base who entered Hungary on 15 October. Baranyi is one of the agent prospects he was to recruit. OSO surmises that the other 2 may be another Salzburg agent, who accompanied Weissengruber, and a second prospective recruit.
The damage to future Hungarian operations by the compromise of Salzburg facilities is being assessed but is not believed to be critical. The human smuggler who assisted the agents to enter Hungary and might have betrayed them will be thoroughly interrogated and checked by the polygraph.
Newspapers in the United States published details of the case.
Hungary Arrests Four Others On Charges Of Spying BUDAPEST. Hungary, Dec. 22 (UP) The Hungarian government, prepared to try four American airmen aa border violators, announced tonight the arrest of four other persons on charges of spying for the United States. The state security office said the leader of the spy suspects was Janos Weissengruber. a Hungarian laboratory researcher who escaped to Austria last January.
The announcement regarding Weissengruber said that, while he was in Austria, a former Hungarian "fascist Gendarme Colonel" named Nagy had persuaded him to get basic training as a spy and return to Hungary. It added that Weissengruber had Joined various training camps in Austria and the American occupation zone of Germany, including those at Salzburg and Bad Reichenhall headed by U. S. Army officers.
The announcement said Weissengruber had made a confession covering those points. The announcement reported these details: Weissengruber returned to Hungary last October, and got in touch with Bela Baranyai, a radio mechanic (and presumably one of the three associates arrested with him). With Baranyai's help, he set up a radio transmitter to communicate with their "superiors" outside the country and organized persons willing to help American agents and to commit criminal activities. The group's task was to find suitable places in Hungary for parachuting agents from planes. A submachinegun, pistols, poison, maps.10.000 florins ($830) and 1000 Austrian shillings ($47.50) were found with Weissengruber when he was arrested.
The announcement falls in a pattern of accusations against the United States from Communist nations In recent weeks. Hungary and others In the Red bloc have made several announcements of purported spying activities on behalf of the United States, apparently to bolster Soviet charges in the United Nations that the United States is financing "traitors" under the mutual security act. The U. N. rejected the charges. Russia broadcast Wednesday a statement that two men with the Slavic names of A. I. Osmanov and F K. Sarantsev had been executed as saboteur spies parachuted into Russia after training in West Germany. The State Department reported it had never heard of the men. Romania protested last week that two saboteurs had been parachuted into that country from an American plane on Oct. 18. The Romanian note said they confessed. It demanded 'punishment of those responsible.”
