Krayer Reveals Drugging of Cardinal Easy Job for Reds

Hungarian Communists would have had no trouble finding a drug suitable for duping Cardinal Mindszenty into making statements against his will, Dr. Otto Krayer, associate professor of Comparative Pharmacology, declared yesterday.

Cocaine and morphine are among the many drugs which the Communists could have used, according to the Medical School expert. Since a dose of these drugs can last seven or eight hours, they would be just as effective in wringing an oral confession from the Cardinal in an open court as in forcing a signed confession, Krayer stated.

Drugging Not Easily Detected

Krayer cautioned that reports of Mindszenty's trial contained no conclusive evidence that he had been doped. Even an eye-witness at the trial could not have told absolutely whether or not the Cardinal was drugged, he added.

To illustrate his point Krayer recalled the "Reichstag Fire Trial" of 1934. The Nazis allegedly burned down the Reichstag, Berlin meeting place of German Parliament and then utilized the resulting national panic to take over the government. Once in power they arrested a Dutchman, charging him with setting the fire. The defendant made a complete confession in court and was convicted, although most of the world believed him innocent. It was generally thought that the Nazis used drugs to obtain the confession, but even the closest observers couldn't prove it, Krayer remembered.

Suspicions that Mindszenty was drugged arise chiefly from the contradiction between his confession in court and his previous strong anti-Communist stand.

Friends of the Cardinal listening to a broadcast of the trial in Vionna reported that a strange tone of voice, frequent lapses of memory, and faulty grammar in Mindszenty's testimony suggested he had been drugged. Krayer observed, howover, that psychological strain could cause the same symptoms.