Hungarian Leader Paints Bleak Picture : Reform: Inflation, unemployment, an oil shortage and corruption depress Prime Minister Jozsef Antall.

Prime Minister Jozsef Antall doesn’t believe in sugar-coating the truth when describing the woeful state of the nation he governs.

In a three-hour interview Monday, Antall ticked off every depressing detail of the Hungarian economy and likened his leadership task to that of Moses.

Inflation and unemployment are spiraling upward while 90% of industry is still owned by the state, he pointed out.

Formerly, Hungary’s entire economy was designed to depend on Soviet oil deliveries that are now being curtailed, and factory output was aimed at an East European market that has collapsed.

Corruption remains rampant, Antall noted, requiring government monitoring that is slowing privatization.

Workers rightfully fear for their jobs and are preoccupied with plunging living standards. Having lived high on borrowed money in the 1970s and 1980s, with little regard for investing in the future, Hungarians now face a $20-billion foreign debt, the highest per capita in Europe.

“Foreign investors will realize these problems soon enough, so it doesn’t pay to lie about them,” said Antall, concluding a grim balance sheet on Hungary’s economy.

Yet, the dour prime minister has made “the other hand” a trademark addendum to any assessment.

Unlike several of its neighbors, Antall pointed out, Hungary is not on the verge of civil war.

“Despite these heavy economic problems, we are able to provide sound conditions for investment,” Antall said. “I don’t want to draw comparisons with other countries in the region, but if one wanted to compare Hungary with its multinational neighbors, our country is homogeneous. It is not marred by internal ethnic and nationalist rivalries.”

He pointed to Yugoslavia’s threatened federation and continued political strife between Czechs and Slovaks as the best indication that Western investors--especially Americans--will eventually choose Hungary.

In the company of advisers and Cabinet members only slightly more upbeat on Hungary’s future, Antall travels next week to New York, Washington and Los Angeles to drum up financial and moral support for his nation’s political and economic recovery.

More than half of the $1 billion invested in Hungary by foreign companies has come from U.S. firms, and Antall said his government hopes to foster a large American presence by offering further tax breaks and other incentives.

“We aspire to let the United States play a predominant role in making investments,” the prime minister explained. “Americans already have more invested here than in all other former Communist countries put together.”

The Hungarian delegation will also go to Washington in search of relief for the looming energy crisis, Antall indicated during a wide-ranging exchange with American journalists.

He declined to assess the likelihood of gas rationing or other tough measures to deal with a 30% cut in Soviet oil deliveries and skyrocketing prices on the world market. But he conceded that Hungary and the nations of Eastern Europe have only about a week’s worth of oil reserves.

“Western European countries like France have reserves adequate to cover oil needs for 110 days, whereas in Eastern and Central Europe they are sufficient to cover only six to 10 days,” Antall said.

Pessimism pervaded every statement the prime minister made in reference to Hungary’s immediate future. But Hungarians in general take comfort in gloom, a comfort that is difficult for foreigners to fathom.

Antall alluded to the dark side of Hungarian nature in pointing out that his people are the most suicide-prone in the world.

Asked how he expects his compatriots to weather what are certain to be even more trying times ahead in the transition out of communism’s mire, he predicted “great social and political tensions.”

Hungarians have experienced the least benefit of the democratic revolution among the peoples that threw off communism in 1989 because they enjoyed freedom to travel and fewer shortages than their Communist neighbors before the revolution, Antall noted.

With a defensiveness that has become characteristic, the prime minister blamed opposition parties and the media--both domestic and foreign--for contributing to the dejected social atmosphere.

“We are the targets of attack from every side,” complained Antall, who strikes the pose of a hostile witness when meeting with the press.

Seated in a plush gold armchair under the brooding oil paintings that adorn his office, Antall lectured one journalist for asking about a reported rise in anti-Semitism that has been the subject of a recent and heated parliamentary debate.

“Questions like this are something I dislike,” he stated with barely stifled anger. “This government pursues the most consistent policy against any kind of anti-Semitism and has taken all the necessary steps to prevent it.”

As evidence, he produced a letter from the government of Israel inviting him to visit and a citation from the World Jewish Congress in honor of his father, whose Nazi resistance work during World War II is credited with saving the lives of thousands of Jews.

After his bleak forecast of a continuing decline in living standards and mounting public resentment, he was asked whether he feels equal to leading his nation through the difficult transition.

“I must make an attempt to do so, as I am the prime minister,” Antall stated soberly. “Moses probably also had doubts, or he wouldn’t have gone up the mountain for guidance.”