János Péter | |
Order: | Minister of Foreign Affairs of Hungary |
Term Start: | 13 September 1961 |
Term End: | 14 December 1973 |
Predecessor: | Endre Sík |
Successor: | Frigyes Puja |
Birth Date: | 28 October 1910 |
Birth Place: | Alsónyék, Austria-Hungary |
Death Place: | Budapest, Hungary |
Profession: | politician |
Party: | MSZMP |
János Péter (28 October 1910 – 26 February 1999) was a Hungarian politician, who served as Minister of Foreign Affairs between 1961 and 1973. Prior to that, he was a Calvinist bishop.
Dean Rusk, the US Secretary of State reported that Péter had attempted to defraud the United States by pretending to be in contact with the government of North Vietnam. Rusk engaged in what he at the time believed to be serious negotiations to end the war in Vietnam. However, a defector named János Radványi later informed Rusk "that Péter was not in an effective contact with Hanoi, and that they had had no encouragement from Hanoi about the things that Péter was saying to me." Rusk came to believe that the Péter overture "was an instance that was just a plain fraud."[1]