Word: ransoming
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...swallowed its pride and paid the kidnaper's price. The nation suffered a sense of angry shame and outraged honor. But there seemed to be no other course. President Harry Truman, boarding his plane for Christmas in Independence, was asked whether the U.S. intended to pay the ransom. Somberly, he countered: "What...
There seemed to be no constructive answers. Diplomatic and economic sanctions, vigorously applied, might still force Russia's outlaws to forswear their barefaced ransom racket, but the immediate problem was to liberate the men ignominiously held by Hungary. And so the U.S. paid, got its people back, and wondered what to do next...
...voice came from the U.S. Ambassador and High Commissioner in Austria. Walter J. Donnelly had arrived from Vienna to receive the captive airmen for whom the U.S., a few hours before in Budapest, had paid a ransom of $120,000 (plus a C-47 aircraft still held by the Reds). The four flyers-Captain Dave Henderson, Captain John Swift, Tech. Sergeant Jess Duff and Sergeant Jim Elam-did not relax until they were well on the way to Vienna in the ambassador's Cadillac. When they heard over the car's radio an Armed Forces Radio broadcast...
...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...
...Hungarians added their final gesture. Even before the U.S. could wind up to fire another note of protest, a military court in Budapest this week handed down its decision: the four airmen had been tried, found guilty, fined $30,000 each or three months in jail. Hungary's ransom ring, which had made a lucrative haul in goods for the release of Businessman Robert Vogeler, was down to a simpler racket-a barefaced pursuit of hard cash...