Lucrarea monumentala de istorie secreta a expertului militar american Larry Watts, cel mai bun cunoscator al adevarurilor Romaniei contemporane dintre istoricii straini preocupati de batalia dintre cele doua blocuri militare ale Razboiului Rece, intitulata in engleza With Friends Like These … The Soviet Bloc´s Clandestine War Against Romania (volumul I) cu varianta de titlu Fereşte-mă, Doamne, de prieteni!…, va fi lansata in premiera in limba romana, exact peste o saptamana, joi, 12 Mai, la Biblioteca Centrala Universitara, orele 1600, urmand sa mai aiba loc o lansare la Targul de Carte, pe 28 Mai. Pana atunci, portalul Ziaristi Online va ofera, in exclusivitate, o prelegere tinuta de dr Larry Watts la o recenta conferinta organizata de Woodrow Wilson Center in colaborare cu CIA, in urma desecretizarii unui nou set de documente din arhivele principalului serviciu de intelligence al Statelor Unite, revelant pentru blocul comunist. Desfasurarea de diapozitive de mai sus a fost derulata pe ecranul conferintei din Washington DC in timpul prelegerii privind pozitia Romaniei si a lui Ceausescu fata de URSS si Pactul de la Varsovia, pe care o publicam, in original, mai jos. Despre prezentarea istoricului american, specialistii Woodrow Wilson Center afirma:
"Romania, more than any other Warsaw Pact member state, chafed at these Soviet efforts to control its armed forces, and consistently opposed Soviet influence from the 1960s onward, according to former Romanian defense ministry advisor Larry Watts. Upon receiving the first draft of the 1980 wartime statute from the Soviets, Watts explained how the Romanians responded by returning it with line-by-line edits inserted into the text. In its propaganda, the USSR attempted to portray Romanian opposition to Soviet influence in the Warsaw Pact as mindless and reflexive. Instead, Watts posited that this resistance was part of a long-term Romanian strategy to make the Pact as democratic and consultative in its governance as its 1955 founding treaty stated it should be."
In baza textului gasiti un link catre inregistrarea video a conferintei WWC-CIA. [1. Title Page]
Romania and the Wartime Statute
[2.The Received Image of Ceausescu in the West]
This document collection sheds new light on why the rest of the Warsaw Pact viewed Romania as an “enemy fraternal country.”[1] The image of purposeful insistence that emerges from this collection is decidedly different from that circulating during the 1980s, when Soviet disinformation depicted Romanian defiance as mindless and ridiculous, casting Ceausescu especially as a buffoonish contrarian, engaged in opposition for opposition’s sake.
[2a. Sound: “I’m Against It!”] I`m against it - Whatever it is, I'm against it!
The purpose of Soviet disinformation was to distract attention from the precise nature of that defiance, and to discourage sympathy and support for it. In fact, ending Soviet military control was a central goal of Romanian policy in the post-Stalin era, motivating calls for the withdrawal of Soviet troops and advisers since the early 1950s. During the Berlin and Cuban crises, when Moscow by-passed national authorities and placed the Romanian army on alert, Bucharest reacted by ending the training of its officers in Soviet academies; shutting down Soviet influence and agent networks; and pledging to President Kennedy that Romania would not join a Soviet offensive against US forces.
Henceforth, Romania sought to block new assertions of Soviet control whenever they appeared, and to roll back that control whenever possible, explaining to Chinese leaders in 1965, for example, that although “the armies of the other socialist countries” were indeed “subordinated” to Soviet military command, their goal was to end that state of affairs – to ensure that “no supranational control existed” within the Warsaw Pact.[2]
Peace-Making as Offensive Strategy
As part of this effort Bucharest maintained that neither the US nor NATO represented an offensive military threat in Europe that would justify the Kremlin’s “chain-ganging” methods. In this lonely struggle Romania appeared the eternal optimist regarding international developments, bearing the brunt of coordinated attacks from the other Pact members for its trouble. Virtually every attempt to “strengthen integration” because of what Moscow claimed to be an increasingly dangerous international environment was met by Romanian counterargument that unilateral reductions and troop withdrawals, and the dissolution of the two military blocs would reduce and remove those dangers.
Even their mediation of third-party conflicts was motivated by this desire to rid Eastern Europe of Soviet control, allowing each state to be “master in its own house.” In the presence of crisis and tension, their prime minister explained to President Johnson in 1967, Moscow invariably tried to force them “to get together, to renounce some of their sovereignty and some of their independence and to obey the command of another state,” endangering that which “Romania has won, and which they wish to preserve at all costs.”[3]
The documents leave one with the impression of Soviet flight from the Romanians: secret talks to coordinate against Romanian positions, cancelling meetings when Bucharest threatened to stymie Soviet purposes, suddenly dropping principal items from meeting agendas in the face of Romanian counterproposals, embargoing discussion of Romanian initiatives, and frequently stipulating that news of these differences be kept from a broader public. As Gomulka pronounced during one heated debate, “it was not the six parties that were trying to put pressure” on the Romanians, “it was they who were putting pressure on the six parties.”[4]
The 1966 PCC Meeting in Bucharest
Prior to the 1966 summit Romania made clear that the “main flaw” of the Pact arose from regular “violations” of its basic principles – “among others, the principle of consultation” – as demonstrated by the missile deployments to Cuba, Soviet arms proposals submitted to the UN, and the decision of the Unified Armed Forces Commander-in-Chief to move member armies to alert status on his own authority.[5]
Any Wartime Statute, Bucharest insisted, must provide for collective decision-making and the eligibility of non-Soviet officers for the posts of Commander-in-Chief (CCUAF) and Chief of Staff – two posts that “should not belong to the same armies.”[6] The Pact position that wartime command should rest with Soviet officers and institutions was rejected as “irreconcilable with the sovereignty of the member states.”[7]
An internal discussion by the Hungarian Politburo laid out Moscow’s dilemma. On the one hand, Romania refused to renounce positions that “subverted and impeded” efforts “to strengthen the Warsaw Pact.”[8] On the other hand, its departure from the Pact was completely out of the question “because of the larger context.”[9]
Intra-Bloc Coalition-Building Efforts
Part of Bucharest’s strategy entailed the more or less constant search for likeminded leaders in Eastern Europe. Its active efforts to build coalitions within the Pact were an abiding concern of the Kremlin, and occasionally threatened catastrophe for Soviet strategy.[10] As Gromyko noted during the Prague Spring, Czechoslovakia was rapidly becoming a “second Romania,” which, at “best,” would mean “the complete collapse of the Warsaw Pact.”[11]
[3. 1969 Stasi Assessment]
According to the East German Stasi, Romania hoped and expected the developments in Czechoslovakia “would radiate outward” to Hungary and Poland, where “similar forces” were also believed to be elaborating “more independent national policies.”[12] Active measures, such as Hungarian efforts to persuade Prague that Romanian aid was treacherously given – in order to “find allies against the Soviet Union, against CMEA, and against the Warsaw Pact” – became the order of the day.[13]
Clearly, Moscow had cause to worry about Romanian-Polish collusion. The documents show that, although unable to shift policy, the Polish General Staff shared Romania’s perspective on the irreconcilable nature of Soviet control and national sovereignty.[14] These documents go a fair distance in explaining Moscow’s drive to stigmatize the Romanians in such a manner as to discourage serious consideration of their policies – the image of Romanian inconsequence projected by the Kremlin concealing genuine fears of contagion.
[4. 1971 Crimea Meeting]
The intra-Pact relationships created by this dynamic were well-reflected in the ‘post-meeting’ meetings of the Ceausescu ‘fan club,’ as for example, in 1971.
Likewise, Romanian challenges to Soviet military preferences were underscored in meetings of the six held during the Helsinki process:
[5. 1974 Helsinki Positions]
The 1978 PCC Meeting in Moscow
At the 1978 summit Romania rejected Soviet claims of a world hurtling towards war, and of an arms race entirely provoked by the US and NATO. The world, according to Ceausescu, was actually becoming less dangerous. The West had not increased its military spending (and certainly not at the rate the Warsaw Pact had). The Soviet military grossly misrepresented the situation. And his country would not accept a subordination that contravened the provisions of the 1955 Treaty.[15]
Back home in Bucharest, the Romanians described the Statute “as an emanation of Soviet militarist circles” designed to draw “the member countries into a dangerous arms race,” “transfer the command of their troops to the Soviet General Staff,” undermine national sovereignty, and clear the path “for Soviet interference in the domestic affairs of our states”.[16] Ceausescu now went public with Romanian objections, pointedly referring to NATO as the model of intra-alliance democratic procedure, and underscoring his country’s “traditionally friendly relations” with many NATO states, “which have always aided us in our struggle against foreign domination,” thus giving Romanians “no reason” to regard them as a threat.[17]
While the CIA captured the dynamics of Soviet behavior rather well, US intelligence was less accurate in discerning the intent of non-Soviet Pact members. US reliability assessments, although repeatedly footnoting Bucharest’s rejections of Soviet command authority and offensive strategy, typically concluded that Romania would participate in a Soviet-led offensive nonetheless, even when acknowledging the difficulty in identifying such a role given that Romania “balked at any participation” in offensive operations whatsoever.[18][6. Jaruzelski vs. Ceausescu]
Assessments that General Jaruzelski was resisting Soviet demands appear similarly questionable. According to Colonel Kuklinski, Jaruzelski dismissed Romanian offers of support for any independent Polish stance within the Pact as “counter-revolutionary plot.” Instead, he joined anti-Romanian countermeasures, and even went so far as to willfully misrepresent Romanian positions to higher political authority. [19]
Romania’s Post-Statute Strategy
In 1980 Romania circulated a line-by-line revision of the Statute that would have transformed the Pact into a genuinely coalitional alliance, while redoubling efforts to render the Statute superfluous. To Soviet military claims of “reinforced aggressive preparations by NATO, and especially by the USA and the FRG,” Ceausescu responded that the “other NATO states had not fulfilled their projected increases,” that economic priorities superseded military ones, and that “if we do not raise living standards…then even missiles will do us no good.”[20]
Unlike the other members, Bucharest had not portrayed the US, NATO or West Germany as enemies in its domestic propaganda since the 1960s. Now, it actively combated the enemy-imaging of the West within Warsaw Pact councils as well, using its leverage to exclude demonizing references to the US in particular, while insisting that the blame for global tensions be equally shared.[21] This stance denied the justifying threat behind Soviet efforts to enforce tighter integration and subordination. By stressing the shared responsibility of the Warsaw Pact members for creating tensions, it also established the logical basis for unilateral freezes, reductions, and withdrawals as effective means for easing tensions, transitioning to disarmament, and ending the Cold War. In effect, Romania hijacked the tactics and messages directed against the West by Soviet-controlled peace fronts and turned them inward.[22]
[7. 1983 Ceausescu call for nuclear balance at lower level]
Andropov’s War Hysteria vs. Ceausescu’s De-escalation
The contrast in Romanian and Soviet aim was often explicit – with Bucharest seeking to dissolve the Pact and transcend East-West confrontation while Moscow sought to “man-up” the alliance in order to ‘win’ the Cold War. This contrast was perhaps most evident during Andropov’s attempts to play up fears of a US nuclear first-strike. The Soviet leader insisted upon the unequivocal necessity of military countermeasures, dismissing any possibility of even discussing the “unilateral disbandment of the Warsaw Pact,” only to have Ceausescu riposte that the balance of nuclear forces had to be reduced to a lower level; that unilateral reductions and withdrawals were the key to removing the threat; and that concrete actions were immediately necessary to reduce the military character of the alliances and limit their activity as prelude to their dissolution.[23]
[8. 1983 Stasi on Romanian INF position]
Behind the scenes Bucharest was being even more troublesome, advocating Reagan’s “zero option,” and actually encouraging the Czechoslovaks and East Germans to resist the deployment of Soviet weapons. During the first quarter of 1985, Romania refused to even discuss an extension of the Warsaw Pact unless the members considered its proposals for meeting with NATO on arms reductions; jointly preparing Soviet-US disarmament negotiations; adopting a unilateral budget freeze; and reorganizing the PCC.[24]
1988: The Statute’s Last Gasp
Moscow’s new push for formalizing the Wartime Statute in 1988 was interpreted by Ceausescu as a reassertion of Soviet control “until we do away with nuclear weapons and the military blocs.”[25] In response, Romania proposed that the PCC be broken out of the Warsaw Pact and transformed into an organization dealing with socio-economic issues – to include Yugoslavia and Albania. It further proposed that the Pact shift into a secondary role and be made more democratic, with more frequent rotation of its leadership among all – rather than just the Soviet – members.[26] In contrast to Kremlin aims of reinforcing the alliance and Soviet control over it, Bucharest’s proposals were made on the basis of new opportunities for disarmament, “the easing of tensions and cooperation in Europe,” and “the dissolution of NATO and the Warsaw Pact as quickly as possible.”[27]
[9. Countering Soviet Control of the Warsaw Pact]
According to Moscow, Romania’s “obvious” intention was to dismantle the Pact – separating political from military functions, imposing collective decision-making in both peace and war, and rotating the leadership to non-Soviet members – all with the aim of “weakening the now existing system of the alliance’s military organization.”[28] Hungarian authorities concurred, noting that in their push to dismantle the Pact and block supranational Soviet control, the Romanians “clearly” placed “the Soviet leadership under great pressure,” forcing it to concede over the issue of Warsaw Pact modernization.[29]
Romania’s Role Obscured
The Declaration of the July 1989 Summit in Bucharest reflected in almost every detail Romanian positions persistently advocated since the founding of the Warsaw Pact. Ironically, Romania was pulling off its “Van Helsing” – finally driving a stake through the heart of this instrument of Soviet control – in the midst of a massive disinformation campaign depicting it as seeking to obtain nuclear weapons, as advocating military interventions against its own allies, as engaging in genocide, and as being a Soviet Trojan horse.[30]
Much of this disinformation was plausible because the regime in Bucharest held two mutually-exclusive sets of norms and values for foreign and domestic policies. The former sought to transcend the status of object in international politics, and owed its inspiration to classically liberal international legal theory. The latter, based on a socialism that countenanced no sharing of power by the dictatorship and no form of property ownership outside the Party-state, blocked any hope of liberalizing democratic or economic reform.
[10. Received Image of Ceausescu in West]
Indeed, Ceausescu’s irrational domestic regime lent credibility to even the most extravagant anti-Romanian disinformation, as if he were following the dictums of that other Marx:
[10a. Sound: “The principles of my administration”] Fredonia - The Principles of My Administration
In conclusion, this collection allows one of the clearest perspectives yet on the tenaciousness of Romania’s battle against Soviet hegemony within the Warsaw Pact. Debunking assessments that the country and its leadership had somehow been brought – or bought – back into line during the 1980s, these documents suggest that closer examination of Romanian defiance during the last decade of the Cold War will yield further revelations still.
[1] The term was coined by George Herbstritt. See his, “Ein feindliches Bruderland: Rumänien im Blick der DDR-Staatssicherheit” [An Enemy Fraternal Country: Romania As Perceived By GDR-State Security], Halbjahresschrift für südosteuropäische Geschichte, Literatur und Politik (Berlin), no. 1 (May 2004)
[2]Transcript of Discussions Held with Chinese Communist Party Delegation to the 9th Congress of the Romanian Communist Party, 26 July 1965, “Romania in the Cold War,” Cold War International History Project (CWIHP), www.CWIHP.org, by permission of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars.
[3]Memorandum of Conversation, Washington, 26 June 1967, Document 157, Foreign Relations of the United States, 1964-1968, Volume XVII, Eastern Europe.
[4]Hungarian Minutes of Poliburo Meeting on Summit [Political Consultative Committee] in Bucharest, 12 July 1966, Courtesy of PHP, ww.php.isn.ethz.ch, by permission of the Center for Security Studies at ETH Zurich on behalf of the PHP network.
[5]Hungarian report on meetings of deputy Foreign Ministers in Berlin and deputy Defense Ministers in Moscow, 12 February 1966 in “Records of the Meetings of the Warsaw Pact Deputy Foreign Ministers,” ed. by Csaba Békés, Anna Locher, Christian Nuenlist. PHP, www.isn.ethz.ch/php, by permission of the Center for Security Studies at ETH Zurich and the National Security Archive at the George Washington.
[10] In 1964, for example the Poles expressed their admiration for Romania’s independent stance not only to Bucharest but also to Chinese interlocutors. Transcript of a Third Conversation Between the Chinese Premier (Zhou Enlai) and the Romanian Prime Minister (Ion Gheorghe Maurer), 10 October 1964, “India-Soviet Bloc Relations,” “Global Cold War,” Courtesy of PHP, ww.php.isn.ethz.ch, by permission of the Center for Security Studies at ETH Zurich on behalf of the PHP network.
[11] Carole Fink, Phillip Gassert and Detlef Junker, eds, 1968: The World Transformed, New York and Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1998. pp. 136-137. See also Matthew J. Ouimet, The Rise and Fall of the Brezhnev Doctrine in Soviet Foreign Policy, Chapel Hill, University of Northern California, 2003, p. 17. Budapest likewise believed that Czechoslovak movement towards the Romanian model “would lead to the appearance of a ‘Little Socialist Entente,’ based on nationalism and a closer collaboration between Yugoslavia, Romania and Czechoslovakia.” Report of Hungarian HSWP delegations to the Political Committee, 22 May 1968; Magyar Orszagos Leveltar, MKS, 288, fund 5, folder 456, p. 52; Retegan (2000), pp. 127-128.
[12]The Situation of the Socialist Republic of Romania and the Imperialist Influence on This Country¸7 February 1969, BStU, MfS, ZAIG 5481, pp. 1-38; Georg Herbstritt and Stejarel Olaru, Stasi si Securitatea, Bucharest, Humanitas, 2005, Annex 5, pp. 259-287.
[13] MOL, MKS, 288, fund 4, folder no. 92, ff. 13-33; Retegan, pp. 139-140. This theme had already appeared in Western media. See e.g. “Czechs On Their Own,” The Economist, 4 May 1968.
[14]1956-11-02-Gen. Jan Drzewiecki’s Critique of the Statute of the Unified Command, and Intelligence Information Special Report: 1979 Wartime Statute of the Combined Armed Forces, 28 November 1979, CWIHP, www.CWIHP.org, by permission of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. In contrast, Jaruzelski praised the Statute and condemned Romanian rejection before his Soviet superiors. Twelfth Session of the Committee of Defense Ministers of the Warsaw Pact Member States, 20 February 1980; Background Information on the Development of the Unified Wartime Command System for the Combined Armed Forces of the Warsaw Pact, 10 June 1983, pp. 8, 12, 15, CWIHP, www.CWIHP.org, by permission of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars..
[15]Minutes of Discussion of Report by the Supreme UAF Commander at the PCC Meeting, December 1978m Courtesy of PHP, ww.php.isn.ethz.ch, by permission of the Center for Security Studies at ETH Zurich on behalf of the PHP network.
[16]Minutes of the Romanian Politburo Meeting, 24 November 1978, Courtesy of PHP, ww.php.isn.ethz.ch, by permission of the Center for Security Studies at ETH Zurich on behalf of the PHP network.
[17]Ceausescu’s Address to the Central Committee, 29 November 1978; Ceausescu’s Address on the 60th Anniversary of the Unification of Romania, 1 December 1978; Patrick Moore, “The Ceausescu Saga,” RAD Background Report/275, Radio Free Europe Report, 20 December 1978, pp. 8, 12-13.
[18]Warsaw Pact Forces Opposite NATO (NIE 11-14-79): Volume I – Summary Estimate, 31 January 1979, pp. 63-68; Warsaw Pact Forces Opposite NATO (NIE 11-14-81), 7 July 1981, pp. 27-28, 30; Military Reliability of the Soviet Union’s Warsaw Pact Allies (NIE 12/11-83), 28 June 1983, pp. 3-5, 7, 14; Employment of Warsaw Pact Forces Against NATO (NI IIM 83-10002), 1 July 1983, p. 9 (See also pp. 3-4, 8), www.foia.cia.gov.
[19] See Col. Kuklinski’s Q & A briefing to the CIA, “Jaruzelski’s Attitude, Behavior and Style,” (Released in Part, Exemption: HR70-14, 19 August 2008), p. 47, in “Preparing for Martial Law: Through the Eyes of Colonel Ryszard Kuklinki,” CIA at www.foia.cia.gov.
[20]Report on the 13th CDM Session, December 1980, Courtesy of PHP, ww.php.isn.ethz.ch, by permission of the Center for Security Studies at ETH Zurich on behalf of the PHP network.
[21] Ibid; Speech by the General Secretary of the PCR (Nicolae Ceausescu), 4 January1983; Telex from Viktor Kulikov (Supreme Commander of the United Armed Forces) to Heinz Hoffman (East German Minister of Defense) of 14 October 1983, Courtesy of PHP, ww.php.isn.ethz.ch, by permission of the Center for Security Studies at ETH Zurich on behalf of the PHP network.
[22]Report by the Minister of Foreign Affairs (Petur Toshev Mladenov) to the Politburo of the CC of the BCP, 27 May 1980, Courtesy of PHP, ww.php.isn.ethz.ch, by permission of the Center for Security Studies at ETH Zurich on behalf of the PHP network.
[23]Statement by the General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, Comrade Yu. V. Andropov, 4 January 1983; Note Regarding the Documents Prepared for the PCC Meeting in Prague, 3 January 1983; East German Report on and Conclusions from the Meeting, January 1983, Courtesy of PHP, ww.php.isn.ethz.ch, by permission of the Center for Security Studies at ETH Zurich on behalf of the PHP network.
[24]Reports (3) by Hungarian Deputy Foreign Minister István Roska on the Meeting of the Warsaw Pact Deputy Foreign Ministers, 9 January 1985, Courtesy of PHP, ww.php.isn.ethz.ch, by permission of the Center for Security Studies at ETH Zurich on behalf of the PHP network.
[25]Memorandum of Meeting of the Bulgarian and Romanian Deputy Foreign Ministers regarding the CMFA Meeting in Sofia, 27 March 1988; Stenographic transcript of the meeting of the Political Consultative Committee of the CC of the Romanian Communist Party, 17 June 1988, “Romania in the Cold War,” CWIHP, www.CWIHP.org, by permission of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars; ANIC, Political Executive Committee of the Central Committee of the Romanian Communist Party, no.1012, .1.7.1988.
[26]Romanian Proposal for Warsaw Pact Reform: Letter of the CC of the Romanian Communist Party, 4 July 1988, Courtesy of PHP, ww.php.isn.ethz.ch, by permission of the Center for Security Studies at ETH Zurich on behalf of the PHP network.
[28]Romanian Proposal for Warsaw Pact Reform: Information Regarding the Romanian Proposal, 8 July 1988,; Memorandum on the Hungarian Position re: the Reform of the Warsaw Pact’s Mechanisms, 6 December 1988; Joint Memorandum of the Foreign Ministry and the Ministry of National Defense on the Future of the Warsaw Pact, 6 March 1989; Minutes of Meeting of the HSWP Political Committee on 16 May 1989-Excerpt on WP Issues, 16 May 1989; Bulgarian Proposal for the Improvement of Warsaw Treaty Structures Prepared for the Bucharest Political Consultative Committee Meeting, 14 June 1989, Courtesy of PHP, ww.php.isn.ethz.ch, by permission of the Center for Security Studies at ETH Zurich on behalf of the PHP network.
[29]Minutes of Meeting of the HSWP Political Committee on 16 May 1989-Excerpt on WP Issues, 16 May 1989, Courtesy of PHP, ww.php.isn.ethz.ch, by permission of the Center for Security Studies at ETH Zurich on behalf of the PHP network.
[30] The campaign alleging such hostile nuclear and conventional military intentions and activities towards Hungary was especially evident during March-July 1989, and resurfaced briefly during Romania’s December 1989 Revolution. See e.g. Kevin Devlin, “Hungary’s New Defense Doctrine: ‘Enemy Not The West But Romania,’” RAD Background Report/101, Radio Free Europe Research, 16 June 1989; Henry Kamm, “Hungary Cites Military Threat From Romania,” New York Times, 11 July 1989; Andrea Tarquini, “Ceausescu is Buying Missiles to Aim at Hungary,” La Repubblica, 16/17 July 1989; Douglas Clarke, “The Romanian Military Threat to Hungary,” RAD Background Report/130, Radio Free Europe Research, 27 July 1989, pp. 1-6. For the campaign alleging Romanian advocacy of military intervention against Poland see e.g. “Dokumenty Polska-Rumunia,” Gazeta Wyborcza, 29 September-1 October 1989; “Romania has called for military intervention in Poland,” Polityka Weekly News Roundup, Warsaw, Polityka in Polish, no. 38, 23 September 1989 (excerpts), p. 2, Joint Publications Research Service, East Europe (JPRS-EER-89-130), 27 November 1989, p. 19. In contrast to the debunking analyses of Devlin and Clarke regarding the intentions against Hungary, Western analysts seeking evidence interventionist intention towards Poland have relied upon the same persons and institutions involved (both wittingly and unwittingly) in the disinformation campaign.
This document collection sheds new light on why the rest of the Warsaw Pact viewed Romania as an “enemy fraternal country.”[1] The image of purposeful insistence that emerges from this collection is decidedly different from that circulating during the 1980s, when Soviet disinformation depicted Romanian defiance as mindless and ridiculous, casting Ceausescu especially as a buffoonish contrarian, engaged in opposition for opposition’s sake.
[2a. Sound: “I’m Against It!”]
The purpose of Soviet disinformation was to distract attention from the precise nature of that defiance, and to discourage sympathy and support for it. In fact, ending Soviet military control was a central goal of Romanian policy in the post-Stalin era, motivating calls for the withdrawal of Soviet troops and advisers since the early 1950s. During the Berlin and Cuban crises, when Moscow by-passed national authorities and placed the Romanian army on alert, Bucharest reacted by ending the training of its officers in Soviet academies; shutting down Soviet influence and agent networks; and pledging to President Kennedy that Romania would not join a Soviet offensive against US forces.
Henceforth, Romania sought to block new assertions of Soviet control whenever they appeared, and to roll back that control whenever possible, explaining to Chinese leaders in 1965, for example, that although “the armies of the other socialist countries” were indeed “subordinated” to Soviet military command, their goal was to end that state of affairs – to ensure that “no supranational control existed” within the Warsaw Pact.[2]
Peace-Making as Offensive Strategy
As part of this effort Bucharest maintained that neither the US nor NATO represented an offensive military threat in Europe that would justify the Kremlin’s “chain-ganging” methods. In this lonely struggle Romania appeared the eternal optimist regarding international developments, bearing the brunt of coordinated attacks from the other Pact members for its trouble. Virtually every attempt to “strengthen integration” because of what Moscow claimed to be an increasingly dangerous international environment was met by Romanian counterargument that unilateral reductions and troop withdrawals, and the dissolution of the two military blocs would reduce and remove those dangers.
Even their mediation of third-party conflicts was motivated by this desire to rid Eastern Europe of Soviet control, allowing each state to be “master in its own house.” In the presence of crisis and tension, their prime minister explained to President Johnson in 1967, Moscow invariably tried to force them “to get together, to renounce some of their sovereignty and some of their independence and to obey the command of another state,” endangering that which “Romania has won, and which they wish to preserve at all costs.”[3]
The documents leave one with the impression of Soviet flight from the Romanians: secret talks to coordinate against Romanian positions, cancelling meetings when Bucharest threatened to stymie Soviet purposes, suddenly dropping principal items from meeting agendas in the face of Romanian counterproposals, embargoing discussion of Romanian initiatives, and frequently stipulating that news of these differences be kept from a broader public. As Gomulka pronounced during one heated debate, “it was not the six parties that were trying to put pressure” on the Romanians, “it was they who were putting pressure on the six parties.”[4]
The 1966 PCC Meeting in Bucharest
Prior to the 1966 summit Romania made clear that the “main flaw” of the Pact arose from regular “violations” of its basic principles – “among others, the principle of consultation” – as demonstrated by the missile deployments to Cuba, Soviet arms proposals submitted to the UN, and the decision of the Unified Armed Forces Commander-in-Chief to move member armies to alert status on his own authority.[5]
Any Wartime Statute, Bucharest insisted, must provide for collective decision-making and the eligibility of non-Soviet officers for the posts of Commander-in-Chief (CCUAF) and Chief of Staff – two posts that “should not belong to the same armies.”[6] The Pact position that wartime command should rest with Soviet officers and institutions was rejected as “irreconcilable with the sovereignty of the member states.”[7]
An internal discussion by the Hungarian Politburo laid out Moscow’s dilemma. On the one hand, Romania refused to renounce positions that “subverted and impeded” efforts “to strengthen the Warsaw Pact.”[8] On the other hand, its departure from the Pact was completely out of the question “because of the larger context.”[9]
Intra-Bloc Coalition-Building Efforts
Part of Bucharest’s strategy entailed the more or less constant search for likeminded leaders in Eastern Europe. Its active efforts to build coalitions within the Pact were an abiding concern of the Kremlin, and occasionally threatened catastrophe for Soviet strategy.[10] As Gromyko noted during the Prague Spring, Czechoslovakia was rapidly becoming a “second Romania,” which, at “best,” would mean “the complete collapse of the Warsaw Pact.”[11]
[3. 1969 Stasi Assessment]
According to the East German Stasi, Romania hoped and expected the developments in Czechoslovakia “would radiate outward” to Hungary and Poland, where “similar forces” were also believed to be elaborating “more independent national policies.”[12] Active measures, such as Hungarian efforts to persuade Prague that Romanian aid was treacherously given – in order to “find allies against the Soviet Union, against CMEA, and against the Warsaw Pact” – became the order of the day.[13]
Clearly, Moscow had cause to worry about Romanian-Polish collusion. The documents show that, although unable to shift policy, the Polish General Staff shared Romania’s perspective on the irreconcilable nature of Soviet control and national sovereignty.[14] These documents go a fair distance in explaining Moscow’s drive to stigmatize the Romanians in such a manner as to discourage serious consideration of their policies – the image of Romanian inconsequence projected by the Kremlin concealing genuine fears of contagion.
[4. 1971 Crimea Meeting]
The intra-Pact relationships created by this dynamic were well-reflected in the ‘post-meeting’ meetings of the Ceausescu ‘fan club,’ as for example, in 1971.
Likewise, Romanian challenges to Soviet military preferences were underscored in meetings of the six held during the Helsinki process:
[5. 1974 Helsinki Positions]
The 1978 PCC Meeting in Moscow
At the 1978 summit Romania rejected Soviet claims of a world hurtling towards war, and of an arms race entirely provoked by the US and NATO. The world, according to Ceausescu, was actually becoming less dangerous. The West had not increased its military spending (and certainly not at the rate the Warsaw Pact had). The Soviet military grossly misrepresented the situation. And his country would not accept a subordination that contravened the provisions of the 1955 Treaty.[15]
Back home in Bucharest, the Romanians described the Statute “as an emanation of Soviet militarist circles” designed to draw “the member countries into a dangerous arms race,” “transfer the command of their troops to the Soviet General Staff,” undermine national sovereignty, and clear the path “for Soviet interference in the domestic affairs of our states”.[16] Ceausescu now went public with Romanian objections, pointedly referring to NATO as the model of intra-alliance democratic procedure, and underscoring his country’s “traditionally friendly relations” with many NATO states, “which have always aided us in our struggle against foreign domination,” thus giving Romanians “no reason” to regard them as a threat.[17]
While the CIA captured the dynamics of Soviet behavior rather well, US intelligence was less accurate in discerning the intent of non-Soviet Pact members. US reliability assessments, although repeatedly footnoting Bucharest’s rejections of Soviet command authority and offensive strategy, typically concluded that Romania would participate in a Soviet-led offensive nonetheless, even when acknowledging the difficulty in identifying such a role given that Romania “balked at any participation” in offensive operations whatsoever.[18][6. Jaruzelski vs. Ceausescu]
Assessments that General Jaruzelski was resisting Soviet demands appear similarly questionable. According to Colonel Kuklinski, Jaruzelski dismissed Romanian offers of support for any independent Polish stance within the Pact as “counter-revolutionary plot.” Instead, he joined anti-Romanian countermeasures, and even went so far as to willfully misrepresent Romanian positions to higher political authority.[19]
Romania’s Post-Statute Strategy
In 1980 Romania circulated a line-by-line revision of the Statute that would have transformed the Pact into a genuinely coalitional alliance, while redoubling efforts to render the Statute superfluous. To Soviet military claims of “reinforced aggressive preparations by NATO, and especially by the USA and the FRG,” Ceausescu responded that the “other NATO states had not fulfilled their projected increases,” that economic priorities superseded military ones, and that “if we do not raise living standards…then even missiles will do us no good.”[20]
Unlike the other members, Bucharest had not portrayed the US, NATO or West Germany as enemies in its domestic propaganda since the 1960s. Now, it actively combated the enemy-imaging of the West within Warsaw Pact councils as well, using its leverage to exclude demonizing references to the US in particular, while insisting that the blame for global tensions be equally shared.[21] This stance denied the justifying threat behind Soviet efforts to enforce tighter integration and subordination. By stressing the shared responsibility of the Warsaw Pact members for creating tensions, it also established the logical basis for unilateral freezes, reductions, and withdrawals as effective means for easing tensions, transitioning to disarmament, and ending the Cold War. In effect, Romania hijacked the tactics and messages directed against the West by Soviet-controlled peace fronts and turned them inward.[22]
[7. 1983 Ceausescu call for nuclear balance at lower level]
Andropov’s War Hysteria vs. Ceausescu’s De-escalation
The contrast in Romanian and Soviet aim was often explicit – with Bucharest seeking to dissolve the Pact and transcend East-West confrontation while Moscow sought to “man-up” the alliance in order to ‘win’ the Cold War. This contrast was perhaps most evident during Andropov’s attempts to play up fears of a US nuclear first-strike. The Soviet leader insisted upon the unequivocal necessity of military countermeasures, dismissing any possibility of even discussing the “unilateral disbandment of the Warsaw Pact,” only to have Ceausescu riposte that the balance of nuclear forces had to be reduced to a lower level; that unilateral reductions and withdrawals were the key to removing the threat; and that concrete actions were immediately necessary to reduce the military character of the alliances and limit their activity as prelude to their dissolution.[23]
[8. 1983 Stasi on Romanian INF position]
Behind the scenes Bucharest was being even more troublesome, advocating Reagan’s “zero option,” and actually encouraging the Czechoslovaks and East Germans to resist the deployment of Soviet weapons. During the first quarter of 1985, Romania refused to even discuss an extension of the Warsaw Pact unless the members considered its proposals for meeting with NATO on arms reductions; jointly preparing Soviet-US disarmament negotiations; adopting a unilateral budget freeze; and reorganizing the PCC.[24]
1988: The Statute’s Last Gasp
Moscow’s new push for formalizing the Wartime Statute in 1988 was interpreted by Ceausescu as a reassertion of Soviet control “until we do away with nuclear weapons and the military blocs.”[25] In response, Romania proposed that the PCC be broken out of the Warsaw Pact and transformed into an organization dealing with socio-economic issues – to include Yugoslavia and Albania. It further proposed that the Pact shift into a secondary role and be made more democratic, with more frequent rotation of its leadership among all – rather than just the Soviet – members.[26] In contrast to Kremlin aims of reinforcing the alliance and Soviet control over it, Bucharest’s proposals were made on the basis of new opportunities for disarmament, “the easing of tensions and cooperation in Europe,” and “the dissolution of NATO and the Warsaw Pact as quickly as possible.”[27]
[9. Countering Soviet Control of the Warsaw Pact]
According to Moscow, Romania’s “obvious” intention was to dismantle the Pact – separating political from military functions, imposing collective decision-making in both peace and war, and rotating the leadership to non-Soviet members – all with the aim of “weakening the now existing system of the alliance’s military organization.”[28] Hungarian authorities concurred, noting that in their push to dismantle the Pact and block supranational Soviet control, the Romanians “clearly” placed “the Soviet leadership under great pressure,” forcing it to concede over the issue of Warsaw Pact modernization.[29]
Romania’s Role Obscured
The Declaration of the July 1989 Summit in Bucharest reflected in almost every detail Romanian positions persistently advocated since the founding of the Warsaw Pact. Ironically, Romania was pulling off its “Van Helsing” – finally driving a stake through the heart of this instrument of Soviet control – in the midst of a massive disinformation campaign depicting it as seeking to obtain nuclear weapons, as advocating military interventions against its own allies, as engaging in genocide, and as being a Soviet Trojan horse.[30]
Much of this disinformation was plausible because the regime in Bucharest held two mutually-exclusive sets of norms and values for foreign and domestic policies. The former sought to transcend the status of object in international politics, and owed its inspiration to classically liberal international legal theory. The latter, based on a socialism that countenanced no sharing of power by the dictatorship and no form of property ownership outside the Party-state, blocked any hope of liberalizing democratic or economic reform.
[10. Received Image of Ceausescu in West]
Indeed, Ceausescu’s irrational domestic regime lent credibility to even the most extravagant anti-Romanian disinformation, as if he were following the dictums of that other Marx:
[10a. Sound: “The principles of my administration”]
In conclusion, this collection allows one of the clearest perspectives yet on the tenaciousness of Romania’s battle against Soviet hegemony within the Warsaw Pact. Debunking assessments that the country and its leadership had somehow been brought – or bought – back into line during the 1980s, these documents suggest that closer examination of Romanian defiance during the last decade of the Cold War will yield further revelations still.
[1] The term was coined by George Herbstritt. See his, “Ein feindliches Bruderland: Rumänien im Blick der DDR-Staatssicherheit” [An Enemy Fraternal Country: Romania As Perceived By GDR-State Security], Halbjahresschrift für südosteuropäische Geschichte, Literatur und Politik (Berlin), no. 1 (May 2004)
[2]Transcript of Discussions Held with Chinese Communist Party Delegation to the 9th Congress of the Romanian Communist Party, 26 July 1965, “Romania in the Cold War,” Cold War International History Project (CWIHP), www.CWIHP.org, by permission of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars.
[3]Memorandum of Conversation, Washington, 26 June 1967, Document 157, Foreign Relations of the United States, 1964-1968, Volume XVII, Eastern Europe.
[4]Hungarian Minutes of Poliburo Meeting on Summit [Political Consultative Committee] in Bucharest, 12 July 1966, Courtesy of PHP, ww.php.isn.ethz.ch, by permission of the Center for Security Studies at ETH Zurich on behalf of the PHP network.
[5]Hungarian report on meetings of deputy Foreign Ministers in Berlin and deputy Defense Ministers in Moscow, 12 February 1966 in “Records of the Meetings of the Warsaw Pact Deputy Foreign Ministers,” ed. by Csaba Békés, Anna Locher, Christian Nuenlist. PHP, www.isn.ethz.ch/php, by permission of the Center for Security Studies at ETH Zurich and the National Security Archive at the George Washington.
[10] In 1964, for example the Poles expressed their admiration for Romania’s independent stance not only to Bucharest but also to Chinese interlocutors. Transcript of a Third Conversation Between the Chinese Premier (Zhou Enlai) and the Romanian Prime Minister (Ion Gheorghe Maurer), 10 October 1964, “India-Soviet Bloc Relations,” “Global Cold War,” Courtesy of PHP, ww.php.isn.ethz.ch, by permission of the Center for Security Studies at ETH Zurich on behalf of the PHP network.
[11]Carole Fink, Phillip Gassert and Detlef Junker, eds, 1968: The World Transformed, New York and Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1998. pp. 136-137. See also Matthew J. Ouimet, The Rise and Fall of the Brezhnev Doctrine in Soviet Foreign Policy, Chapel Hill, University of Northern California, 2003, p. 17. Budapest likewise believed that Czechoslovak movement towards the Romanian model “would lead to the appearance of a ‘Little Socialist Entente,’ based on nationalism and a closer collaboration between Yugoslavia, Romania and Czechoslovakia.” Report of Hungarian HSWP delegations to the Political Committee, 22 May 1968; Magyar Orszagos Leveltar, MKS, 288, fund 5, folder 456, p. 52; Retegan (2000), pp. 127-128.
[12]The Situation of the Socialist Republic of Romania and the Imperialist Influence on This Country¸7 February 1969, BStU, MfS, ZAIG 5481, pp. 1-38; Georg Herbstritt and Stejarel Olaru, Stasi si Securitatea, Bucharest, Humanitas, 2005, Annex 5, pp. 259-287.
[13] MOL, MKS, 288, fund 4, folder no. 92, ff. 13-33; Retegan, pp. 139-140. This theme had already appeared in Western media. See e.g. “Czechs On Their Own,” The Economist, 4 May 1968.
[14]1956-11-02-Gen. Jan Drzewiecki’s Critique of the Statute of the Unified Command, and Intelligence Information Special Report: 1979 Wartime Statute of the Combined Armed Forces, 28 November 1979, CWIHP, www.CWIHP.org, by permission of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. In contrast, Jaruzelski praised the Statute and condemned Romanian rejection before his Soviet superiors. Twelfth Session of the Committee of Defense Ministers of the Warsaw Pact Member States, 20 February 1980; Background Information on the Development of the Unified Wartime Command System for the Combined Armed Forces of the Warsaw Pact, 10 June 1983, pp. 8, 12, 15, CWIHP, www.CWIHP.org, by permission of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars..
[15]Minutes of Discussion of Report by the Supreme UAF Commander at the PCC Meeting, December 1978m Courtesy of PHP, ww.php.isn.ethz.ch, by permission of the Center for Security Studies at ETH Zurich on behalf of the PHP network.
[16]Minutes of the Romanian Politburo Meeting, 24 November 1978, Courtesy of PHP, ww.php.isn.ethz.ch, by permission of the Center for Security Studies at ETH Zurich on behalf of the PHP network.
[17]Ceausescu’s Address to the Central Committee, 29 November 1978; Ceausescu’s Address on the 60th Anniversary of the Unification of Romania, 1 December 1978; Patrick Moore, “The Ceausescu Saga,” RAD Background Report/275, Radio Free Europe Report, 20 December 1978, pp. 8, 12-13.
[18]Warsaw Pact Forces Opposite NATO (NIE 11-14-79): Volume I – Summary Estimate, 31 January 1979, pp. 63-68; Warsaw Pact Forces Opposite NATO (NIE 11-14-81), 7 July 1981, pp. 27-28, 30; Military Reliability of the Soviet Union’s Warsaw Pact Allies (NIE 12/11-83), 28 June 1983, pp. 3-5, 7, 14; Employment of Warsaw Pact Forces Against NATO (NI IIM 83-10002), 1 July 1983, p. 9 (See also pp. 3-4, 8), www.foia.cia.gov.
[19]See Col. Kuklinski’s Q & A briefing to the CIA, “Jaruzelski’s Attitude, Behavior and Style,” (Released in Part, Exemption: HR70-14, 19 August 2008), p. 47, in “Preparing for Martial Law: Through the Eyes of Colonel Ryszard Kuklinki,” CIA at www.foia.cia.gov.
[20]Report on the 13th CDM Session, December 1980, Courtesy of PHP, ww.php.isn.ethz.ch, by permission of the Center for Security Studies at ETH Zurich on behalf of the PHP network.
[21] Ibid; Speech by the General Secretary of the PCR (Nicolae Ceausescu), 4 January1983; Telex from Viktor Kulikov (Supreme Commander of the United Armed Forces) to Heinz Hoffman (East German Minister of Defense) of 14 October 1983, Courtesy of PHP, ww.php.isn.ethz.ch, by permission of the Center for Security Studies at ETH Zurich on behalf of the PHP network.
[22]Report by the Minister of Foreign Affairs (Petur Toshev Mladenov) to the Politburo of the CC of the BCP, 27 May 1980, Courtesy of PHP, ww.php.isn.ethz.ch, by permission of the Center for Security Studies at ETH Zurich on behalf of the PHP network.
[23]Statement by the General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, Comrade Yu. V. Andropov, 4 January 1983; Note Regarding the Documents Prepared for the PCC Meeting in Prague, 3 January 1983; East German Report on and Conclusions from the Meeting, January 1983, Courtesy of PHP, ww.php.isn.ethz.ch, by permission of the Center for Security Studies at ETH Zurich on behalf of the PHP network.
[24]Reports (3) by Hungarian Deputy Foreign Minister István Roska on the Meeting of the Warsaw Pact Deputy Foreign Ministers, 9 January 1985, Courtesy of PHP, ww.php.isn.ethz.ch, by permission of the Center for Security Studies at ETH Zurich on behalf of the PHP network.
[25]Memorandum of Meeting of the Bulgarian and Romanian Deputy Foreign Ministers regarding the CMFA Meeting in Sofia, 27 March 1988; Stenographic transcript of the meeting of the Political Consultative Committee of the CC of the Romanian Communist Party, 17 June 1988, “Romania in the Cold War,” CWIHP, www.CWIHP.org, by permission of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars; ANIC, Political Executive Committee of the Central Committee of the Romanian Communist Party, no.1012, .1.7.1988.
[26]Romanian Proposal for Warsaw Pact Reform: Letter of the CC of the Romanian Communist Party, 4 July 1988, Courtesy of PHP, ww.php.isn.ethz.ch, by permission of the Center for Security Studies at ETH Zurich on behalf of the PHP network.
[28]Romanian Proposal for Warsaw Pact Reform: Information Regarding the Romanian Proposal, 8 July 1988,; Memorandum on the Hungarian Position re: the Reform of the Warsaw Pact’s Mechanisms, 6 December 1988; Joint Memorandum of the Foreign Ministry and the Ministry of National Defense on the Future of the Warsaw Pact, 6 March 1989; Minutes of Meeting of the HSWP Political Committee on 16 May 1989-Excerpt on WP Issues, 16 May 1989; Bulgarian Proposal for the Improvement of Warsaw Treaty Structures Prepared for the Bucharest Political Consultative Committee Meeting, 14 June 1989, Courtesy of PHP, ww.php.isn.ethz.ch, by permission of the Center for Security Studies at ETH Zurich on behalf of the PHP network.
[29]Minutes of Meeting of the HSWP Political Committee on 16 May 1989-Excerpt on WP Issues, 16 May 1989, Courtesy of PHP, ww.php.isn.ethz.ch, by permission of the Center for Security Studies at ETH Zurich on behalf of the PHP network.
[30] The campaign alleging such hostile nuclear and conventional military intentions and activities towards Hungary was especially evident during March-July 1989, and resurfaced briefly during Romania’s December 1989 Revolution. See e.g. Kevin Devlin, “Hungary’s New Defense Doctrine: ‘Enemy Not The West But Romania,’” RAD Background Report/101, Radio Free Europe Research, 16 June 1989; Henry Kamm, “Hungary Cites Military Threat From Romania,” New York Times, 11 July 1989; Andrea Tarquini, “Ceausescu is Buying Missiles to Aim at Hungary,” La Repubblica, 16/17 July 1989; Douglas Clarke, “The Romanian Military Threat to Hungary,” RAD Background Report/130, Radio Free Europe Research, 27 July 1989, pp. 1-6. For the campaign alleging Romanian advocacy of military intervention against Poland see e.g. “Dokumenty Polska-Rumunia,” Gazeta Wyborcza, 29 September-1 October 1989; “Romania has called for military intervention in Poland,” Polityka Weekly News Roundup, Warsaw, Polityka in Polish, no. 38, 23 September 1989 (excerpts), p. 2, Joint Publications Research Service, East Europe (JPRS-EER-89-130), 27 November 1989, p. 19. In contrast to the debunking analyses of Devlin and Clarke regarding the intentions against Hungary, Western analysts seeking evidence interventionist intention towards Poland have relied upon the same persons and institutions involved (both wittingly and unwittingly) in the disinformation campaign.
