Washington - General Bela Kiraly, one of the last surviving activists of the failed 1956 Hungarian Revolution against Soviet rule, died Saturday at age 97, the Hungarian Defence Ministry said. During the short period that Imre Nagy was prime minister after the Soviet-backed government was ousted, Kiraly served as commander of the military guard and led the battles against the advancing Soviet Army.
After the Soviets regained the upper hand, Kiraly fled to the west and taught history at Brooklyn College in New York until the collapse of communism.
In 1989, the year the Berlin Wall came down, Kiraly returned to Hungary and was elected to the first democratically-elected parliament after Soviet rule ended.
Nagy was executed for his role in the 1956 revolution.
