Gyula Horn, the man who tore the Iron Curtain, dies at 80
Source: Reuters
(Reuters) - Gyula Horn, who as Hungary's last communist foreign minister ripped a hole in the Iron Curtain in 1989, has died at the age of 80 after long illness, the government said on Wednesday.
His decisions helped trigger off tumultuous months in which European communist regimes collapsed like dominoes, the Berlin Wall was trampled down and Soviet tanks prepared to rumble home from land they had occupied for nearly half a century.
For Horn, it was a breathtaking year in a career marked by paradoxes.
The man who helped dismantle the East Bloc was never forgiven by some of his countrymen for his role, long before, in helping to crush the 1956 Budapest uprising against Soviet domination.
Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/06/19/us-hungary-horn-idUSBRE95I1G320130619
