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/--------------------------------------------------------\ | DIALOG File 146:WASHINGTON POST_May 1983 - 23 Apr 1992 | | (c) 1992 Washington Post | \--------------------------------------------------------/ 2010038 Narrow Escape for Hungary's Ex-Envoy; Peter Zwack Flees Fire In Budapest Apartment. The Washington Post, April 20, 1991, FINAL Edition By: Peter Maass, Special to The Washington Post Section: Style, p. d01 Story Type: News Foreign Line Count: 79 Word Count: 864 BUDAPEST, April 19 - The saga of Peter Zwack, the Hungarian ex-ambassador recalled home last week after criticizing his boss, took a chilling turn today with his narrow escape from a mysterious fire that gutted his small apartment. Zwack, who suffered minor burn blisters on his fingers, believes the blaze was caused by a firebomb thrown through a window into his apartment in Budapest's historic Castle District. He said he was awakened by the sound of breaking glass about midnight and saw flames engulfing his studio flat. He fled from the burning apartment and told neighbors to call the fire department. Police and firefighters, poking through the ashes, broken glass and charred remains of furniture and books, said they did not know whether the fire was accidental or intentional. The damage was limited to Zwack's rented apartment. Zwack's fairy-tale appointment as Hungary's first post-communist ambassador to Washington has turned into a nightmare that will not go away. Ordered back to Budapest after engaging in a public political dispute with his superiors in the Hungarian government, Zwack says he received 25 to 30 anonymous telephone threats this week and even faced a humiliating assault by egg-throwing women, apparent government loyalists. The scion of a famous Hungarian family that for centuries has brewed the country's favorite liqueur, Zwack fled his homeland when Communist rule began more than four decades ago and settled in the United States. The family took with them their prized asset--the liqueur's secret recipe--and hid it in safe-deposit boxes in New York. Zwack renounced his American citizenship last year to become Hungarian again and qualify for the ambassadorial post. After arriving in Washington seven months ago, Zwack and his stylish wife, Anne, quickly become popular on the diplomatic social circuit. But Zwack, 64, had less success with his own embassy and government, which informed him two weeks ago that he would be replaced in the summer. An embittered Zwack publicly accused his foreign minister of incompetence and called for his resignation. His undiplomatic defiance led last week to a coded telex in which Budapest ordered Zwack to return home in 48 hours and relieved him of his duties immediately. The affair seemed to end at that point, with both sides realizing they had lost credibility and could only do further damage to themselves and Hungary by more wrestling in the rhetorical gutter. Zwack quietly went to the Hungarian Foreign Ministry on Monday and submitted his resignation, which was accepted. His short career as Hungary's most controversial diplomat was over. But the controversy wasn't. Although the opposition-minded media here have focused their criticism on Foreign Minister Geza Jeszenszky, many government supporters say the key problem was Zwack--that he was unstable and incompetent, and now trying to sully the country's reputation to save his own. Zwack is vulnerable to a neo-nationalist backlash because he lived his adult life outside of the country, speaks Hungarian imperfectly and is Jewish. Zwack, however, said his firing stems from professional jealousy on the part of his deputy of chief of mission, Eniko Bollobas, who is close to Foreign Minister Jeszenszky and Prime Minister Jozsef Antall. Zwack said Jeszenszky, who is related to Antall by marriage, became angered over his independence and private opposition to the government's center-right political leanings and, in particular, to a controversial arms sale to the breakaway Yugoslav republic of Croatia. In any event, Zwack said he stepped out of the Foreign Ministry building along the Danube Monday and noticed some women gesturing to him from across the street. He recalls stepping toward them but suddenly they started cursing him as "trash" and threw eggs at him. One egg hit his face. Zwack, who described the women as "lumpen proletariat," said they accused him of trying to bring down Hungary's "best minister"--a presumed reference to Jeszenszky. Zwack said both he and his American daughter, Iris, who lives in a separate apartment in Budapest, received telephone threats this week from anonymous callers who described him as a "son of a bitch," "traitor" and--their favorite insult--"trash." Zwack also said some of the callers threatened to physically beat him, and that human feces were put into Iris's mailbox. The fire raises the unnerving possibility that a dark undercurrent flows beneath the polished surface of life in Hungary, which has avoided the violence and demagoguery that afflict most of the countries emerging from communism. What's clear is that Zwack is becoming more controversial as time passes. He says he plans to stay in Hungary for the long term and will not be chased out of the country by people he regards as trash. But he is not taking any chances--he now has a personal bodyguard. Anne Zwack, who is still staying in the embassy in Washington, said yesterday that her husband would return to Washington this weekend. She said he told her he was "lucky the fire burned fast, because if it had been slow, he would have been suffocated by the smoke." The former ambassador isn't daunted by the attacks, Mrs. Zwack said. "They'd better leave Peter alone," she warned, and suggested she would pick up his efforts for Hungary alone if she had to. "If they got him, they'd have a Corazon Aquino on their hands." Staff writer Sarah Booth Conroy contributed to this report. NAMED PERSONS: ZWACK, PETER DESCRIPTORS: Hungary; Fires and explosions; Ambassadors, attaches, etc.