In any case, Lendvai was soon rehabilitated, and in 1957 he played an important role in editing the White Papers, which, reaching down to regional levels, sought to prove both domestically and internationally the communist narrative that the 1956 Hungarian Revolution and Freedom Fight was a coup attempt orchestrated by reactionary and fascist cliques.

At first limited by his lack of language skills, he helped foreign correspondents with matters relating to Hungary and wrote smaller articles under aliases such as "György Holló", "Árpád Bécs" or "Paul Landy."

In 1985, a Cultural Forum dubbed the east–west summit was organized by the Hungarian communist leadership, to which 900 politicians, writers and other notable people were invited.

[7] Socialist ex-prime minister Ferenc Gyurcsány came to Paul Lendvai's defence, saying, As for me, I support him in his struggle to make a case for his decisions of yesteryear.

János Nagy, the ambassador whom Lendvai talked to at the time, was interviewed about the matter on Klubrádió and insisted that his reports always faithfully rendered what was said.

[8] An article printed in left-wing Népszabadság agrees with Lendvai's defense that he was not an agent, although it goes on to stress that he was nonetheless a willing and active collaborator to the Communist regime.

Austrian president Heinz Fischer and former Czech foreign minister Karel Schwarzenberg held speeches at the 40th anniversary of the review on 8 November 2013.

[11] In the 1990s, Lendvai tried to obtain the secret service file on himself in a face-to-face meeting with Socialist Prime Minister Gyula Horn but wasn't successful at that time.

Lendvai presents his article on the topic with the subtitle "the story of an unsuccessful recruitment"[16] saying the Hungarian services wanted to enlist him as an agent but failed.

His covert collaboration with Hungarian state security, operating under the guise of a "social contact," was later uncovered by historian Dr. Ilkei Csaba, who published a massive collection of the original archival documents in 2011.

[19] In his own 2007 publication, Lendvai identified his accuser (back in 1953) as Péter Vajda (journalist, born in 1931), who was also an armed officer at the communist State Defence Authority (ÁVH) at the time, and at the time of writing the article (2007), Vajda was still leading the press office of the National Security Cabinet in Ferenc Gyurcsány's government — as an egregious example of the survival of the communist secret service by today.