János Péter

Who is János Péter?

János Péter 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 Peter 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 "that Peter was not in an effective contact with Hanoi, and that they had had no encouragement from Hanoi about the things that Peter was saying to me." Rusk came to believe that the Peter overture "was an instance that was just a plain fraud."