RED HORIZON. BY LIEUTENANT GENERAL ION MIHAI PACEPA. REGNERY GATEWAY, WASHINGTON; 1987; 446PP.

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90M00005R001300010017-4
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 3
• Document Creation Date: December 23, 2016
• Document Release Date: August 15, 2013
• Sequence Number: 17
• Content Type: MISC

Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/08/16: CIA-RDP90M00005R001300010017-4
OCA 3599-88
TO:
27 Oct 88
CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY
Office of Congressional Affairs
Washingto
Telephone
Mr. Tom Smeeton
Permanent Select Conuilittee on Intelligence
House of Representatives
wash in gtrui C 71141
Dear Tom,
This is an unclassified copy of the book
.review for MY. Shuster.
House Affairs,
Office of Congressional Affairs
FORM, 533 OBSOLETE
2-86 I PREVIOUS
EDITIONS.
?
Dist
Orig 7_ Addressee
RR Chrono
- OCA
, - -
(40)
STAT':
STAT
narinccifipri in Part - Sanitized Coov Approved for Release 2013/08/16: CIA-RDP90M00005R001300010017-4
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/08/16: CIA-RDP90M00005R001300010017-4
Red Horizons. By Lieutenant General Ion Mihai Pampa Regnery Gateway,
Washington; 1987; 446 pp.
Prior to his defection to the US via West Germany in 1978, Lieutenant
General Ion Pacepa had been chief of Romania's Department of Foreign
Information (DIE in Romanian). This sensitive position gave Pacepa frequent
contact with Romanian leader Nicolae Ceausescu and members of Ceausescu's
immediate family and provided the basis for the book's numerous vignettes.
Pacepa's purpose in writing this book becomes clear within the first eight
pages. The author claims that on 22 February 1972 Ceausescu launched -his
most highly classified secret, codenamed - Horizon, operation that was
intended to gain Western political support, money and technology." Pacepa
was and apparently remains frustrated with the -incomprehensible Western
mentality which fails to understand the nature and purpose of such devious
Communist influence operations." This reviewer was surprised by Pacepa's
citation of a February 1972 starting date for -Horizon" because in fact
Ceausescu began playing upon the sympathy of the West shortly after coming
to power in April 1965 and increased his appeals to the West in the wake of the
Soviet-led invasion of Czechoslovakia in August 1968. Moreover, Pacepa's
perception of the -incomprehensible Western mentality" regarding -Com-
munist influence operations" seriously underestimates what CIA and most
other Western intelligence and diplomatic analysis consistently understood
about Ceausescu's predominantly self-serving mixed bag of tactics and aims,
including his blatant interest in the acquisition of high technology. In short, the
record will show that neither CIA analysts nor US policymakers were -taken
in" by Ceausescu. The canard of Romania being a Soviet Trojan horse was as
much canard in Brezhnev's time as in Gorbachev's.
Pacepa supplies much detail on the Ceausescu -royal family." He
expounds on the often gross excesses of Ceausescu himself and Ceausescu's wife
Elena or the problems posed by the Ceausescu offspring. Valentin, who
apparently is disowned; Zoia, the daughter whose lovers Elena disparages; and
Nicu, the younger son and a bonafide spoiled brat and sybarite. The reader
must be prepared for feverish and tasteless descriptions rivaling those printed
in the National Enquirer. Thus, we learn that Ceausescu often said that -oil,
Jews and Germans are Romania's most important export commodities." We
learn that Ceausescu has a mercurial temper, and his hero is Napoleon. In
addition, Ceausescu likes American police thrillers, especially -Kojak", because
-they shoot first and ask questions later." Pacepa resorts to pejoratives in
describing Elena as yellow-toothed, slovenly, extremely quick tempered, very
jealous and obsessed with pornographic films, particularly those taken clandes-
tinely of wives of leadership members.
The general sets forth plausible details on Ceausescu's role in arranging the
kidnapping by Yugoslav authorities on Romanian soil in August 1975 of Vlado
Dapcevic, who was a prominent Yugoslav emigre opponent of President Tito.
In addition, Pacepa describes Ceausescu's duplicitous role in luring the
Hungarian Imre Nagy onto Romanian territory and later turning him over to
the Soviets for eventual execution. According to Pacepa, Romanian party
leader Gheorghiu-Dej had accepted Khrushchev's confidential demand to lure
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/08/16: CIA-RDP90M00005R001300010017-4
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2013/08/16 : CIA-RDP90M00005R001300010017-4
Nagy out of the Yugoslav Embassy in Budapest and secretly keep Nagy under
arrest in Romania until a new Hungarian government was formed. Gheorghiu-
DO placed Ceausescu in charge of this operation. At that time (1956) the
Moscow-trained Ceausescu was the youngest member of the Romanian party's
Politburo.
Pacepa's official duties gave him a comprehensive overview of intelligence
operations, both at home and abroad, and how these activities meshed with
those of other members of the Warsaw Pact as well as with Yugoslavia. In this
context, Pacepa's defection to the US provided the CIA and presumably allied
intelligence services with an extraordinarily detailed understanding of Pact and
Romanian tradecraft and operations.
Notwithstanding the above, a general's remembrances do not necessarily
translate into a well done book. This reader would advise against accepting
many of Pacepa's statements at face value, including his references to
Romanian -agents- in certain old-line departments of the US Government.
Moreover, the reader must endure a text that is repetitive and disorganized.
Indeed, if trees could weep, they would have cause?for being made into paper
for this book. With this caveat in mind, I would recommend Red Horizons only
to those intelligence analysts and case officers who already have a reasonable
understanding of the Ceausescu ruling style. For such officers, the book
provides a good -feel- for the pervasive corruption and siege mentality which
have become endemic within Romanian officialdom in what appears to be the
closing chapter of the Ceausescu era.
FRANCIS E. STURWOLD
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Co Approved for Release 2013/08/16: