CEAUSESCU: AMERICA'S MOST FAVORED TYRANT

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00552R000504840001-1
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: August 11, 2010
• Sequence Number: 1
• Publication Date: January 13, 1986
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

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WALL STREET JOURNAL
ARTICLE APPEARED 13 January 1986
ON PAGE ag 6o
Ceausescu: America's M
By ION MIHAI PACEPA
For many Americans, Romania's Nico-
lae Ceausescu is the leader of the plucky
little country that defied the Soviet boycott
of the 1984 Olympic Gaines in Los Angeles.
For the U.S. government, he presides over
the communist country whose "most fa-
vored nation," or MFN, trade status
should be renewed when it comes up for its
annual review. In Washington's misguided
view, MFN status can help improve human
rights in Romania and encourage a degree
of political independence from Moscow.
But for Mr. Ceausescu, the 1975 grant-
ing of MFN status crowned 10 years of in-
tense propaganda and influence operations
aimed at realizing his grand plan of
strengthening Romanian communism by
getting financial and technological help
from capitalism.
Devotion to Stalinist Marxism
In October, Rep. Chris Smith (R., N.J.)
and Sen. Paul Trible (R., Va.) introduced
legislation that would deny Romania MFN
status for six months. However, even this
modest step is opposed by the State De-
partment. In fact, during his visit last
month to Romania, Secretary of State
George Shultz said that " [The U.S. I would
like to see trade [with Romania] flourish
to the extent that it can. I believe that
it can increase more in the future-and I
hope it does."
Meanwhile, average Romanians-who
receive few, if any, of
the benefits of MFN
status-face another
bitter winter without
adequate heat or
light. The near-col-
lapse of the Roma-
nian economy has led
to rumors that the So-
viets would not at all
mind if the army top-
pled Mr. Ceausescu
and installed a mili-
tary government sim-
ilar to the one that
has run Poland since
1981. However, any such move is unlikely.
For all of his economic bungling, Mr.
Ceausescu still delivers valuable exports to
the Soviet Union and serves as a conduit
for the transmission of embargoed Western
technology to Moscow.
Continuing to renew Romania's MFN
status will not make that nation more inde-
pendent of the Kremlin. Mr. Ceausescu's
devotion to Stalinist Marxism is clear even
to naive observers. I worked with him for
many years, and the one thing I came to
ost F
understand was that his position toward
Moscow was never influenced by the U.S.
Rather, it was primarily determined by
the nature of his personal relationship with
the Kremlin's top man. Yuri Andropov,
whom I met, seemed to show less rigidity
toward Mr. Ceausescu than Leonid Brezh-
nev had; Mikhail Gorbachev is apparently
following the same policy.
According to recent reports, relations
with Moscow are getting closer again, with
p large Soviet presence once more in Ro-
mania. In addition, secret bilateral agree-
inents with Moscow, such-as t those between
the two intelligence services for the pro-
curement of Western technology, are sa-
cred obligations for Mr. Ceausescu.
Human rights in mania have been
strangled since the granting of MFN status
in 1975. The proportion of security person.
nel in the population has steadily increased
over the years, reaching a ratio of 1:15-
the world's highest-by the time of my
break with Bucharest in 1978. Selective
mail censorship was replaced in 1976 with
total censorship, with every single letter
and package from abroad being opened. In
February 1977 a secret Communist Party
decision approved the complete monitoring
of all international telephone calls. At the
same time, Mr. Ceausescu personally or-
dered that the only legally permissible
telephone device to be used was one devel-
oped by the security police that can be in-
stantly converted into a microphone to
monitor people's private conversations.
During the mid-1970s electronic moni-
toring devices were secretly installed in
every Roman Catholic church and Jewish
synagogue. In March 1978 a top-secret de-
cision by Mr. Ceausescu required that all
but a few token Jews be quietly removed
from the military and security forces as
well as from sensitive posts in the party
and government.
Bucharest's terrorism against the West
has also increased substantially. In the
mid-1970s there was a surge in the secret
training given in Romania to Western com-
munists, especially Spaniards and Greeks,
in sabotage and other forms of guerrilla
warfare. In 1975 the DIE, the Romanian
foreign intelligence service, made secret
agreements wi Palestine Ltb-ration Qr_-
ganization terrorists, providing them with
significant logistical support and using
them in operations against Romania's own
political opponents in the West.
In 1975, only days after receiving MFN
status, Romania had its DIE secretly kill
three militant anti-communists in the
West, one of whom, Vasile Zapartan, was a
priest. The DIE later organized assassina-
tion attempts and savage beatings of emi-
gres who had publicly criticized the cult of
personality in Romania, using PLO terror-
ists in France in 1976 and criminal merce-
naries in both West Germany in 1976 and
France in 1977. In July 1978 1 personally
received the order to arrange unattribut-
able assassinations of emigres working for
the U.S. government in Radio Free Eu
rope, and to bomb the radio's Munich
headquarters (an action that finally took
place in February 1981).
On July 28, 1981, Emil Georgescu, a se-
nior editor at Radio Free Europe in Mun-
ich, was stabbed 22 times by criminals
hired by Bucharest and barely escaped
with his life. (He was one of the people I
had been ordered to have killed.)
Nevertheless, Bucharest has always
considered itself able to outwit Washington
in obtaining the annual renewal of MFN.
The only significant step I saw Mr. Ceause-
scu take to ensure the renewal was his Au-
gust 1975 appointment of a permanent
MFN task force, consisting of the minister
of foreign affairs, the minister of interior,
and the deputy chief of the DIE (at that
time myself). Because the U.S. indicated
that Romania's emigration policy was the
key to MFN renewal, Mr. Ceausescu de-
cided to maintain emigration from Roma-
nia (mostly Jews and ethnic Germans) at
the minimum level but no higher. "We
should make as much money as possible
on our vanishing national resources-oil,
Jews and Germans," he told the task
force.
As part of the task force, the DIE was
also responsible for selling the West on the
myth of Mr. Ceausescu's domestic popular-
ity and persuading the U.S. government to
like Romania. The DIE paid for the West-
ern publication of hundreds of articles and
books about Mr. Ceausescu's accomplish-
ments. It mounted successful operations to
develop sources of influence at the U.S.
Embassy in Bucharest and to exert pres-
sure through agents and contacts in the
U.S. It created and financed Romanian
emigre organizations in the U.S., which
paid for thousands of emigres to come pe-
riodically to Washington from all over the
U.S. and Canada to demonstrate and lobby
on Capitol Hill for MFN renewal.
Nor will the most recent renewal of
MFN status improve U.S.-Romanian rela-
tions. Bucharest is now apparently press-
ing for a new official visit by Mr. Ceause-
scu to Washington, but its Oriental-rug-
merchant approach to bilateral relations is
entirely different from the American one. I
Continued
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personally was responsible for preparing
Mr. Ceausescu's last visit to the U.S., in
April 1978, and I also then accompanied
him as a member of his official delegation.
Mr. Ceausescu assigned the visit a more
pragmatic mission besides its political sig-
nificance: setting the stage for the secret
development and eventual recruitment of
President Carter's brother, Billy. Because
I broke with Bucharest shortly thereafter,
the only tangible result of this planned op-
eration was the Romanian commercial of-
fice opened in Atlanta as a first step.
Bucharest Outfoxes Washington
The tactic of recruiting close relatives
of foreign heads of state is one in which
Mr. Ceausescu excels. On one official visit
to Iran, he himself spotted the corrupt
brother of the late shah as a likely pros-
pect, and in Syria he saw potential in the
then-powerful brother of President Hafez
Assad. Both were later recruited, royally
rewarded by fat payments into Swiss bank
accounts, and used for promoting Roma-
nian political and economic interests. Per-
haps someday another Romanian defector
will tell us what Mr. Ceausescu's ulterior
motive is for his next visit to Washington.
In any case, we may be sure that he has
more than, the exchange of mutual compli-
ments in mind.
Bucharest is successfully outfoxing
Washington day after day. The U.S. now
has 10 years' worth of proof that MFN does
not produce the desired effect in Romania,
and enough is enough. America must stop
supporting a communist regime that is
scornful of American democratic princi-
ples and hostile to U.S. interests.
Mr. Pace pa was the personal adviser
to Romanian President Nicolae Ceausescu
and deputy director of Me Romanian or-
eign inte tgence service una u u 7.
when he was granted political asylum in
the U.S. He is the highest-ranking intelli-
gence officer ever to defect to the West.
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