CEAUSESCU: AMERICA'S MOST FAVORED TYRANT

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00552R000100890014-0
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: July 20, 2010
• Sequence Number: 14
• Publication Date: January 13, 1986
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/07/20: CIA-RDP90-00552R000100890014-0
ARTICLE APPEARED
ON PAG A es-
WALL STREET JOURNAL
13 January 1986
Ceausescu: America's Most Favoreu yrant
By ION MiHAI PACEPA understand was that his position toward priest. The DIE later organized assassina-
For many Americans, Romania's Nico- Moscow was never influenced by the U.S. tion attempts and savage beatings of emi
lae Ceausescu is the leader of the plucky Rather, it was primarily determined by gres who had publicly criticized the cult of
little country that defied the Soviet boycott the nature of his personal relationship with personality in Romania, using PLO terror-
of the 1984 Olympic Games in Los Angeles. the Kremlin's top man. Yuri Andropov, ists in France in 1976 and criminal merce-
For the U.S. government, he presides over whom I met, seemed to show less rigidity naries in both West Germany in 1976 and
the communist country whose "most fa- toward Mr. Ceausescu than Leonid Brezh- France in 1977. In July 1978 I personally
vored nation," or MFN, trade status nev had; Mikhail Gorbachev is apparently received the order to arrange unattribut-
should be renewed when it comes up for its following the same policy. able assassinations of emigres working for
annual review. In Washington's misguided According to recent reports, relations the U.S. government in Radio Free Eu-
view, MFN status can help improve human with Moscow are getting closer again, with rope, and to bomb the radio's Munich
rights in Romania and encourage a degree a large Soviet presence once more in Ro- headquarters (an action that finally took
of political independence from Moscow. mania. In addition, secret bilateral a ee- place in February 1981).
But for Mr. Ceausescu, the 1975 grant- inents wt Moscow suc i as those between On July 28, 1981, Emil Georgescu, a Be-
ing of MFN status crowned 10 years of in- the two intelligence services for the pro- nior editor at Radio Free Europe in Mun-
tense propaganda and influence operations curement of Western technology, are sa- ich, was stabbed 22 times by criminals
aimed at realizing his grand plan of cred obligations for Mr. Ceausescu. hired by Bucharest and barely escaped
strengthening Romanian communism by Human rights in manta have been with his life. (He was one of the people I
getting financial and technological help strangled since the granting of MFN status had been ordered to have killed.)
from capitalism. in 1975. The proportion of security person- Nevertheless, Bucharest has always
Devotion to Stalinist Marxism nel in the population has steadily increased considered itself able to outwit Washington
In October, Rep. Chris Smith (R., N.J.) over the years, reaching a ratio of 1:15- in obtaining the annual renewal of MFN.
and Sen. Paul Trible (R., Va.) introduced the world's highest-by the time of my The only significant step I saw Mr. Ceause-
legislation that would deny Romania MFN break with Bucharest in 1978. Selective scu take to ensure the renewal was his Au-
status for six months. However, even this mail censorship was replaced in 1976 with gust 1975 appointment of a permanent
modest step is opposed by the State De- total censorship, with every single letter MFN task force, consisting of the minister
partment. In fact, during his visit last and package from abroad being opened. In of foreign affairs, the minister of interior,
month to Romania, Secretary of State February 1977 a secret Communist Party and the deputy chief of the DIE (at that
George Shultz said that "IThe U.S. I would decision approved the complete monitoring time myself). Because the U.S. indicated
like to see trade (with Romanial flourish of all international telephone calls. At the that Romania's emigration policy was the
to the extent that it can. I believe that same time, Mr. Ceausescu personally or- key to MFN renewal, Mr. Ceausescu de-
it can increase more in the future-and I dered that the only legally permissible cided to maintain emigration from Roma-
hope it does." telephone device to be used was one devel- nia (mostly Jews and ethnic Germans) at
Meanwhile, average Romanians-who oped by the security police that can be in. the minimum level but no higher. "We
stantly converted into a microphone to should make as much money as possible
receive few, if any, of
the benefits of MFN monitor people's private conversations. on our vanishing national resources-oil.
status-face another During the mid-1970s electronic moni- Jews and Germans," he told the task
bitter winter without toring devices were secretly installed in force. adequate heat or every Roman Catholic church and Jewish As part of the task force, the DIE was
light. The near-col synagogue. In March 1978 a top-secret de- also responsible for selling the West on the lapse of the Roma- vision by Mr. Ceausescu required that all myth of Mr. Ceausescu's domestic popular-
but a few token Jews be quietly removed ity and persuading the U.S. government to
the So- led from the military and security forces as like Romania. The DIE paid for the West-
to rumors that ors that has
to rumors well as from sensitive posts in the party ern publication of hundreds of articles and
mints would not at all books about Mr. Ceausescu's accomplish-
Mr. the Ceausescu army and Bucharest's government. terrorism against the West ments. It mounted successful operations to
pled mind if
re
and installed a mill. has also increased substantially. In the develop sources of influence at the U.S.
tary government sim- mid-1970s there was a surge in the secret Embassy in Bucharest and to exert pres-
ilar to the one that training given in Romania to Western com- sure through agents and contacts in the
has run Poland since munists, especially Spaniards and Greeks, U.S. It created and financed Romanian
1981. However, any such move is unlikely. in sabotage and other forms of guerrilla emigre organizations in the U.S., which
For all of his economic bungling, Mr. warfare. In 1975 the DIE the Romanian paid for thousands of emigres to come pe-
Ceausescu still delivers valuable exports to foreign intelligence service made secret riodically to Washington from all over the
the Soviet Union and serves as a conduit agreements wit Palestine rAberation Or- U.S. and Canada to demonstrate and lobby
for the transmission of embargoed Western ganization terrorists. providing them with on Capitol Hill for MFN renewal.
technology to Moscow. significant logistical support and using Nor will the most recent renewal of
Continuing to renew Romania's MFN them in operations against Romania's own MFN status improve U.S.-Romanian rela-
status will not make that nation more inde- political opponents in the West. tions. Bucharest is now apparently press-
pendent of the Kremlin. Mr. Ceausescu's In 1975, only days after receiving MFN ing for a new official visit by Mr. Ceause-
devotion to Stalinist Marxism is clear even status, Romania had its DIE secretly kill scu to Washington, but its Oriental-rug-
to naive observers. I worked with him for three militant anti-communists in the merchant approach to bilateral relations is
many years, and the one thing I came to West, one of whom, Vasile Zapartan, was a entirely different from the American one. I
Continued
STAT
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/07/20: CIA-RDP90-00552R000100890014-0