# The Mindszenty trial for Thai readers: Religious Oppression poster 171d

A Thai-language poster distributed in Bangkok, catalog date 15 September 1954, in a U.S. Information Agency "Religious Oppression" set. Two press photographs of Cardinal Joseph Mindszenty's 1949 trial in Budapest sit on a yellow sheet, and the text calls the charges fabricated and the trial a sham (NAID 6949075).

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      Religious Oppression poster 171d: Cardinal Mindszenty trial (Thai poster distributed in Bangkok)

      The Mindszenty trial for Thai readers: Religious Oppression poster 171d
      Religious Oppression poster 171d (1954, Thai): press photos of Cardinal Mindszenty's 1949 Budapest trial and a text on Communist-style verdicts. NAID

## Techniques named on the archive record

BandwagonCard stacking
      DateSeptember 15, 1954Made byU.S. Information Agency (predecessor: State Department International Information and Educational Exchange Program), Propaganda Posters Distributed in Asia, Latin America and the Middle East seriesMediumPosterCountryUnited StatesRegimeEisenhower AdministrationNARANAID 6949075; Record Group 306SourceUnidentified Source blurred: contractors, cutouts, buried disclosureSourceU.S. National Archives (NARA), Record Group 306, Posters in Asia, Latin America, Middle East , retrieved October 4, 2026SourcePublic domain (U.S. government work; NARA RG 306) U.S. Information Agency / Department of State, September 15, 1954. National Archives, Record Group 306 (NAID 6949075, 306-PPB-171d).
      Object, image, and catalog record from the FRAME archive. Text on this page is CC BY 4.0. Image rights are as the archive records.

      Full record at propagandaarchive.org

  A Thai-language poster distributed in Bangkok, catalog date 15 September 1954, in a U.S. Information Agency "Religious Oppression" set. Two press photographs of Cardinal Joseph Mindszenty's 1949 trial in Budapest sit on a yellow sheet, and the text calls the charges fabricated and the trial a sham (NAID 6949075).

## What the sheet shows

Two press photographs sit on a yellow ground. Cardinal Joseph Mindszenty is shown between uniformed guards and at a microphone beside two other men. A single paragraph of Thai runs with them.

ทั่วโลกพากันตกตลึงเมื่อได้ทราบถึงข้อหาที่เสกสรรขึ้นปลุกขึ้น และการพิจารณาโทษอย่างจอมปลอม [...] ผลของการพิจารณาตามแบบของคอมมูนิสต์ก็ลงเอยอย่างเดียวกันทุกรายคือ "มีความผิด"

[Archive's English translation:] The whole world was shocked on learning of the trumped-up charges and the sham trial and sentencing of Joseph Cardinal Mindszenty in the city of Budapest, Hungary, in B.E. 2492 [1949]. [...] The result of trials in the Communist style ends the same way in every case: "guilty".

Transcription and translation in the FRAME record. The archive marks the translation as a machine translation by Claude, not verified by a fluent reader. Full record at propagandaarchive.org. NAID 6949075, local id 306-PPB-171d.

## Filed in RG 306, dated in the Buddhist era

The National Archives files the sheet in Record Group 306, with the U.S. Information Agency's posters distributed in Asia, Latin America and the Middle East, under a catalog date of 15 September 1954. The maker line names the agency and its State Department predecessor. The Thai text, as transcribed, names no sender, and FRAME classes the source as blurred. The date in the text is given in the Buddhist era, B.E. 2492, which the archive renders as 1949.

## One trial made to stand for all

FRAME tags it bandwagon and card stacking. "The whole world was shocked" recruits the reader into a crowd. One trial then stands for all of them: Communist-style trials, the text says, end in "guilty" every time. The archive files the themes as religion, and security and surveillance.

The underlying charge is the strongest kind a poster can make. A trial whose verdict is fixed before it opens is not a trial. The right to be charged with a real offense, to answer it, and to be judged by someone not taking orders from the prosecutor is the core of due process. The poster says the Mindszenty trial was that kind of sham. The archive's record does not test the charge; the principle the poster appeals to is sound.

The weakness is in the generalization. "Every case" is a claim about a whole system, made from one case and two photographs, with no figures. A reader is asked to accept the rule on the strength of the example. The sheet's sender, too, is left off the page.

The same set holds poster 171e, also in Thai with the same catalog date, which tells of monks killed at Battambang. Hungary returns in the file with Story of Hungary, a photo sheet of refugees from 1956. The program is described on the USIA posters abroad hub.

## Sources

- FRAME object record, Religious Oppression poster 171d: Cardinal Mindszenty trial (Thai poster distributed in Bangkok). Catalog date September 15, 1954.

- U.S. National Archives, Record Group 306, Posters in Asia, Latin America, Middle East, item NAID 6949075, 306-PPB-171d, catalog.archives.gov, retrieved by the archive October 4, 2026. Rights as recorded: public domain (U.S. government work).

Canonical: https://americanpropaganda.org/collection/religious-oppression-171d-mindszenty-thai-1954/