The Hungary games: how Hillary Clinton and her diplomats kept authoritarianism at bay in Eastern Europe.

• Author: Kounalakis, Eleni

On a cool, early-summer day in 2010, just four months after I had arrived in Budapest as Barack Obama's ambassador to Hungary, I sat in the diplomats' gallery in the stunning Gothic Revival Parliament building and watched Viktor Orban being sworn in as prime minister of Hungary.

A month earlier, Orban's center-right political party, Fidesz, and its coalition partner, the Christian Democratic People's Party (KDNP), scored a huge victory, winning a total of 263 out of 386 seats in Parliament. The ruling Socialists had all but collapsed, coming in second but with a meager fifty-nine seats. Now, from my perch overlooking the horseshoe-shaped arrangement of seats in the well of the chamber, I could see, on the left, the remnants of the Socialist Party; next to them sat the proud but few members of the green party, Lehet Mas a Politika (LMP). To the right sat the radical nationalist, anti-Roma, anti-Semitic Jobbik party. In the middle of the horseshoe, spanning more than two-thirds of the seats, was a sea of Fidesz/KDNP members. Looking at them, I realized that none of us at the embassy or back in Washington had fully comprehended the extent of the party's massive victory.

Nor, at that moment, could we have fully predicted what was to come. It seemed unthinkable that Orban, a former prime minister and anticommunist dissident, would, over the next four years, crack down on the media, cozy up to Vladimir Putin, and rewrite his nation's constitution in an attempt to make Hungary--a NATO ally and member of the European Union--into what he called, approvingly, an "illiberal state."

When I arrived in Hungary I figured my biggest challenge would be orchestrating a complex land swap with the Hungarian government that would move the barracks for the embassy's Marines closer to the chancery building--a fitting assignment for someone like me, who had spent the previous two decades working as a real estate developer and Democratic fund-raiser. Little did I know we would be dealing with a budding strongman.

I first met with Viktor Orban and his advisers in late January, as I was making my courtesy calls to government officials and he was running for office. Orban seemed tired and tense, and his greeting was not warm, but we sat down to talk. "Mr. Orban," I said, "I am very happy to be here in Hungary representing my country. Hungary is an important and reliable friend and ally of the United States. My husband lived in Prague in 1989 and covered the collapse of the Soviet Union for Newsweek. He told me how passionately Hungarians embraced their liberation. He was deeply moved to experience it."

"This is one thing that we can say about ourselves: we are freedom fighters," Orban said, laughing loudly and looking at his colleagues for reassurance.

Figuring that I had broken the ice, I launched into the substance of my talking points. "Over the last few months," I said, "Hungary has handled a dramatic economic crisis with great skill. Hungary took quick action, stabilized the situation, and prevented it from becoming worse." Rather than taking my point as a compliment to the people of Hungary for their resilience during their economic crisis, Orban responded by tearing into the ruling Socialists while hammering home the need to rebuild an economy in which young Hungarians would have a chance at social and economic mobility. I listened carefully, but wanted to steer the conversation away from domestic politics and back to the elements of our bilateral cooperation. "Still," I offered, "Hungary has come a long way from 1989."

Practically jumping out of his seat, the former prime minister snapped, "But this is the problem! Your country thinks that everything has gone very well since the changes." (Hungarians commonly refer to the collapse of the Soviet bloc as "the changes") "But it has not gone well," he continued. "It has been a disaster!"

Instead of a polite courtesy call, our meeting had devolved into a full-blown podium speech, with Orban animated and gesticulating as if he were whipping up a crowd at a campaign rally. "They stole everything! They are all communist millionaires! No, they are Bolshevik billionaires!"

For a split second, we all just looked at one another. Even Orban seemed to suddenly realize that this was not the way to greet the new American ambassador. I was stunned. I still had several items left on my list of talking points, but how could I go on after that? His outburst had been so inappropriate, so unexpected, that I really didn't know what to say in return. So I did the only thing I could: I stood up. Everyone nearly jumped up out of their seats in response. I could see Orban's advisers looking at one another with concern.

I extended my hand to Orban and said, "I want to thank you for your party's votes in Parliament supporting Hungary's contributions to the Afghanistan coalition. It is my president's number one foreign policy priority, and Hungary's contributions are important and appreciated."

Orban smiled tentatively at this and, awkwardly shaking my hand, said, "You see, maybe we can agree on something."

As I watched Fidesz take their oaths that day in the Parliament, seeing their confidence and unity, one implication of the supermajority came into focus for me. This, I thought, was why Orban had been so nervous and excitable when I had met him back in January. He knew then that his party would win and that he would be prime minister again, but he had been anxious about whether the Hungarian people would hand him this kind of power.

Fidesz would be able to change laws that currently required a two-thirds vote of legislators to modify. Orban had been campaigning on this, blaming problems with Hungarian governance on the inability to change these laws. He insisted that if he won a supermajority, he would be able to fix all that ailed his country, in the wake of the global economic crisis--much of which he blamed on not just the Socialists but also foreigners.

To properly understand Orban's sense of nationalistic aggrievement, one must understand the outlines of Hungarian history. Since the founding of their country in 1000 A.D., many invaders have swept over Hungarian sod. The Mongols were the first, in the thirteenth century, followed by the Ottomans in the sixteenth century and the Hapsburgs in the eighteenth. During World War I, World War II, and the Cold War, Hungary was ground zero and on the losing side each time.

The consequences of losing World War I had been enormous. When the Treaty of Versailles was signed, formalizing peace between the Great Powers and Germany, a separate agreement, the Treaty of Trianon, was imposed on Hungary

by the Great Powers. The treaty redrew Hungary's boundaries so that it lost more than two-thirds of its prewar territory and more than half of its prewar population.

For many Hungarians, particularly on the right, the Treaty of Trianon was a defining moment, setting as it did a national narrative that is an amalgam of victimhood, bravado, and an unshakeable belief in Hungarian greatness. Orban became the tribune of this narrative.

Fidesz's sweeping victory was viewed in Washington and Embassy Budapest with caution. But by the summer of 2010, it became clear that the new government intended to move forward not only with the adoption of new laws, but also with the passage of an entirely new constitution.

It was important for us to remember that this was an internal political issue for Hungary. Domestic politics in countries that are democratic friends and allies are generally left outside of the purview of bilateral engagements. We generally don't tell our NATO allies how to run their countries.

But sometimes it's hard to keep quiet.

On January 2, 2011, a day after Hungary took over the presidency of the European Union, the Hungarian Parliament enacted a law that radically transformed the operation and regulation of the country's...