Coming to Terms with the Stasi Past

András Heltai-Hopp, now deputy chief editor of "Pester Llloyd" and one of several former Hungarian foreign correspondents accused by journalist Paul Lendvai of having spied on him in Vienna for the state security service, responds to the accusations in a commentary. "Yes, reports on conversations with Paul Lendvai from over forty years ago were written by me. In times of totalitarian dictatorship, it was the duty of all those working in the West to report on their conversations with citizens from the West. I performed this by no means honourable duty. I regretted it even then – and still regret it to this day. But I won't be written off as an 'agent'. This doesn't mean that I consider myself free of blame. I have – and incidentally I'm the only one to have done so in this affair – publicly recognised my moral responsibility and apologised to Paul Lendvai."

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