RUMANIA: THE MAVERICK SATELLITE

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP78-03061A000400030017-8
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: S
• Document Page Count: 11
• Document Creation Date: December 19, 2016
• Document Release Date: August 14, 2000
• Sequence Number: 17
• Publication Date: October 1, 1968
• Content Type: REPORT

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October 1968
RUMANIA: THE MAVERICK SATELLITE
Rumania has received increasing publicity as the Soviet Satellite
that is not quite a Satellite. How it has succeeded in asserting many
independent foreign policy positions, even in opposition to emphatic So-
viet desires, has puzzled many observers and evoked the admiration of
some for its daring. In the present fateful period when the Soviets have
once again wielded the mailed fist by invading Czechoslovakia, Rumania
has again displayed her independence by immediately condemning the inva-
sion in very strong terms. However, as the fear grew that the Soviets
would extend their military occupation beyond Czechoslovakia to include
Rumania, the Rumanians modified their public position to less obstreper-
ous opposition to the Soviet action. But, thus far, there is no compel-
ling evidence that Rumania will relinquish her cherished role as the
maverick Satellite.
Flirting with the West
The catalogue of Rumania's independent foreign policy positions is
truly impressive.
West Germany
Bucharest recognized West Germany (the USSR's bete noire) in
January 1967, becoming the first Warsaw Pact nation (other than the So-
viet Union) to violate Soviet Bloc policy of not entering into full dip-
lomatic relations with West Germany until such time as East Germany was
recognized formally.by Bonn. Rumania argued that since Moscow has been
exchanging ambassadors with Bonn since 1955, she should be free to do the
same in her own self-interest. The logic of the argument may indeed be
unassailable, but the fact is that no other Satellite has ventured to act
on the same kind of logic. Czechoslovakia's attempt to establish slight-
ly closer relations with Bonn was among the factors contributing to the
Soviet decision to invade that unfortunate land.
Israel
Rumania is the only member of the Soviet bloc that refused to con-
demn Israel or to break relations with her after the June 1967 Arab-
Israeli war. By following a self-serving neutralist policy in this mat-
ter, Rumania is consequently the only communist country now having dip-
lomatic relations with both the United Arab Republic and Israel. More-
over, Bucharest reportedly gave El Al (the Israeli airline) tentative
approval in May 1968 to set up a direct air link between Rumania and the
United States sometime in 1969. Among its lesser acts of unorthodox
diplomacy, Rumania became the first country in Eastern Europe to recog-
nize the Greek military junta that seized power 21 April 1967 and the
first to establish consular relations with Spain.
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The World Bank
In May 1968, Rumania was reported once again exploring the possi-
bilities of joining the World Bank, which requires, as a precondition,
membership in the International Monetary Fund (IMF). The significance
of this initiative is that IMF membership requires certain commitments,
among othets revelation of the true status of the national economy. The
Soviet Bloc countries have been unwilling to make such a commitment.
And their position is understandable: there is much too much dirty linen
to hide. (The Communist mania for secrecy undoubtedly also plays its
role.) Members must make full disclosure of nearly all economic facts,
ranging from the size of gold reserves through foreign trade to domestic
budget and monetary developments. Membership in the fund provides ac-
cess to rapid help when a nation is in difficulty with its balance of
payments, a problem plaguing some of the Eastern European countries.
Fund membership also involves an eventual commitment to a fixed exchange
rate for the nation's currency. This could mean abandonment of the Com-
munist countries' system of settlements with one another through the
Eastern bloc's Council for. Economic Assistance (Comecon), a condition
the Soviets would hardly be likely to condone. At present, Yugoslavia
is the only Communist country belonging to the IMF -- but Yugoslavia is
not a member of Comecon.
The initiative may, however, have been merely a Rumanian ploy to
gain leverage in economic negotiations with the Soviet Union or-Comecon,-
particularly since Rumania has been vocal about the need for various
reforms of Comecon. Moreover,, Rumania's initial inquiry about possible
World Bank membership occurred in 1964 and was apparently successfully
exploited thereafter as a theoretically alternative course of action if
Rumania's economic needs were not met by the Soviet bloc.
United States
In mid-June 1968, a 13-man Rumanian delegation -- including special-
ists in aerodynamics, chemistry, and nuclear physics -- made a three-
week tour of major scientific institutions throughout the U.S. and became
the first delegation from a Communist country to tour the space launch -_
facilities at Cape Kennedy. The delegation was led by Dr. Alexandru
Birladeanu, a vice premier of Rumania and the highest ranking East Euro-
pean communist official to accept an invitation from the U.S. Government
since Yugoslav President Tito paid a state visit to the U.S.A. in 1963.
He is also a member of the ruling presidium of the Rumanian Communist
Party and Chairman of the National. Council for Scientific Research.
Dr. Birladeanu announced thata major purpose of the tour was to help
"relax the international situationt" and "strengthen U.S.-Rumanian friend-
ship and understanding." The visit was capped by a Rumanian-U.S. agree-
ment on a broad new program of scientific, technical and commercial co-
operation.
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France
President de Gaulle of France paid an official state visit to
Rumania in mid-May 1968 -- the first chief of state of a western power
to visit Communist Rumania. Agreement was reached not only on a joint
economic and industrial commission, similar to the one created between
France and the Soviet Union, but also on the reciprocal opening of
libraries and scientific information centers in Paris and Bucharest.
The French library will be the first Western reading room in Bucharest.
United Kingdom
British Minister of Technology Wedgwood Benn was in Bucharest in
mid-June 1968 for talks with Dr. Birladeanu before his departure for
the U.S. Probably as a result of these talks, which were concerned
with Rumania's drive for higher scientific standards, Rumania became the
first Communist nation to buy a nuclear research facility from the Brit-
ish firm, Fairey Engineering, Ltd. The firm announced its unique sale
on 31 July 1968.
In May 1968, Rumania reportedly rejected Soviet offers of TU-134
jetliners and instead purchased six British jet airliners worth $24 mil-
lion and signed a contract for British spare parts, technical assistance
and maintenance. Negotiations with the British are also said to be under-
way for a commercial aircraft assembly plant in Bucharest. Thus, Ru-
mania, having previously bought only Russian commercial aircraft, has
taken several more steps toward economic independence from the Soviet
Union.
Declaration of Independence
These extraordinary manifestations of independence found their be-
ginnings in Rumania's balking at the economic role prescribed for her
by the Soviet Union in Comecon. Soviet designs for maintaining dominance
of her satellites included plans for keeping them economically dependent
on the USSR by various means, among them assigning specialized roles
for each national economy which would tie them to the Soviet Union as
the overall coordinator (controller) of the roles each should play.
(These roles are described in Soviet parlance as "principles of the so-
cialist international division of labor.") Rumania had been assigned
the role of supplier of industrial raw materials and agricultural food-
stuffs. However, the long-time Communist boss Gheorghiu Dej, who died
in March 1965, unaccountably had other ideas and succeeded in maneuver-
ing Khrushchev into a position wherein the latter had no choice but to
accede to Dej's ambition to attain economic sovereignty by developing a
variegated industrial economy with a prominent role given to domestic
heavy industry (with the potential, since partially realized, of asso-
ciating with the Western economic community).
Essentially, the Rumanians utilized the Sino-Soviet conflict of the
late 1950's to gain a considerable degree of autonomy. Khrushchev,
faced with the recalcitrance of the Chinese Communists, found that after
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his loosening of the rigid, terroristic control of the Satellites he
had to solicit their support rather than simply command it. Dej wisely
chose to play the part of a mediator in the Sino-Soviet dispute and,
being wooed by both parties to the dispute, was able to insist on the
sovereignty of each communist state to decide on its own course, econom-
ically and otherwise. He rejected the economic role for Rumania pro-
jected in the grand Soviet scheme of economic subjection of its satel-
lites. After a brief period of pressure, via propaganda and polemics
(since the Soviets at the time, embroiled as they were with the Chinese,
could hardly undertake more open methods of subjugation), the So-;iets
bowed to Rumanian desires in the hope of gaining the Rumanians' support
in the Sino-Soviet dispute.
This victory for Rumanian independence was declared and codified
in the Rumanian Party Central Committee resolution of April 1964, which
declared "the principles of national independence and sovereignty, equal
rights, mutual advantage, comradely assistance, non-interference: in in-
ternal affairs, observance of territorial integrity and socialist inter-
nationalism ... form the immutable law ... of the entire world socialist
system" and "the only basis for unity." While this may appear a pious
repetition of an international Communist platitude, the Rumanians have
invoked it pragmatically in explanation of their divergencies from the
policies of the Soviet bloc and insisted successfully on its literal and
practical implications. The'fesolution has become known as the Rumanian
declaration of independence.
The Warsaw Pact's Reluctant Dragon
Consistent with the declaration of independence engineered by Dej,
Rumania's current supreme Party and government boss Nicolae Ceausescu
has made no secret of his opposition to the Warsaw Pact as well as to
NATO. Both military alliances, he believes, should be dissolved, He
opposes the existence of "military bases and military troops on the ter-
ritory of other states," characterizing them as "anachronisms incompatible
with the independence and national sovereignty of peoples or normal
relations among states." He first made this statement on 7 May 1966 in
an address at a Party meeting celebrating the 45th anniversary of the
Party. Since then, he or his spokesmen have continued to voice similar
sentiments on suitable occasions, simultaneously, however, expressing
the communistically blameless sentiment that the Warsaw Pact is necessary
as long as the aggressive NATO organization continues to exist. His
position would seem to be: "denounce, yes; renounce, no." On the num-
erous occasions during recent months when the Soviet Union consulted
with her Communist partners-in-crime -- Poland, East Germany, Hungary,
and Bulgaria, but not Rumania -- to consider measures to be undertaken
against Czechoslovakia, using Warsaw Pact matters as the official pre-
text for calling a meeting, Rumania did not hesitate to point to the
incongruity, or illegality, of discussing PaFt matters without her
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participation. Rumania is also reliably reported as having objected to
Soviet domination of the Warsaw Pact structure and as favoring rotation
of command among member states. More prudent than Czechoslovak spokes-
men, the Rumanians have not brought such views to public attention.
Rumania's strongest difference of opinion with her Warsaw Pact
partners was aired on the occasion of the Soviet invasion of Czechoslo-
vakia, 20-21 August. On 22 August, at an extraordinary session of the
Grand National Assembly (parliament), Ceausescu unequivocally denounced
the invasion:
"Our entire party and all Rumanian people regard the
military intervention in socialist Czechoslovakia with deep
anxiety. We deem it a flagrant violation of the independ-
ence and national sovereignty of the Czechoslovak Republic,
interference by force in the fraternal Czechoslovak people's
affairs, and an action which is in total contradiction with
the basic norms of relations which must exist between the
socialist countries and between the Communist parties, and
with the very generally recognized principles of interna-
tional law.
"The forces of the five socialist countries have
entered Czechoslovakia without being called to do so by
the country's elected legal and constitutional bodies,
under the pretext of an appeal made by a certain group.
It is a unanimously known fact, which is accepted in all
international life, that relations between parties and
states develop exclusively between their legal leaderships
and not between groups or persons who do not represent
anybody...."
Later the same day, the National Assembly passed a resolution con-
taining the following!
"In accordance with these aims and as a result of the
establishment of the aggressive NATO bloc, the Warsaw Pact
organization was created, of which Rumania has been a mem-
ber since its establishment. Our country has unwaveringly
fulfilled and is fulfilling its obligations as a member of
the pact, tirelessly attending to the strengthening of its
defensive capacity and of its armed forces, guarding the
fatherlands of the other socialist countries participating
in the Pact. We deem that as long as NATO exists it is
also necessary to maintain the Warsaw Pact organization.
It is an instrument for the defense of the socialist countries
against aggression from the outside, against an imperialist
attack. This was, is, and will be the only reason for its
existence.
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"For no reason, in no case, and in no form can the
Warsaw Pact organization be used or called in for military
actions against any socialist country. The Warsaw Pact may
be conceived of only as an organization of socialist states
which are equal in rights, and therefore any action carried
out in the name of the Pact and any military action carried
out under its aegis must be the result of consultations and
of unanimous common decisions of all the member states as-
stipulated by the treaty itself. The measures which vio-
late these norms can in no way involve the Warsaw Pact as
an organization or its member states."
Though Ceausescu, as a master politician, used this occasion, like
many others, as a device for gaining popular support otherwise hard for
any Communist leader to gather (baiting the Russians is bound to be pop-
ular with the Rumanian populace), it still is a very strong statement.
Disruption of International Communist Unity
As if cultivating the West, defying Comecon supra-national planning,
and denouncing the Warsaw Pact were not enough, Rumania has disrupted
large convocations of Communist dignitaries.
Rumania has strongly opposed what she frankly labels Soviet attempts
to impose Moscow policies on other Communist nations, parties or even
organizations by the "majority rule" system of adopting a general party
or policy line. Rumania has, instead, contended that participants in
any international Communist meeting should agree beforehand to accept
as binding only those decisions reached "unanimously" and to regard any
other matters on which no unanimity was reached merely as "an exchange
of views."
Thus, Rumania boycotted the All-European Communist Conference on
European security in Karlovy Vary in April 1967, primarily because she
felt it was being used by Soviets as a vehicle for asserting their domi-
nance of the world Communist movement. Rumania has consistently prefer-
red bilateral party meetings, finding these far more useful, and is
generally opposed to multiparty meetings.
In. late February 1968, the Rumanian delegation walked out of the
Budapest Consultative Conference of Communist and Workers' Parties on
the fourth day of its sessions, stating that the Rumanians had agreed
to attend only on condition that there would be no criticism of fraternal
parties. They also claimed that although they had come hoping to be
able to have a free exchange of views with other CP leaders, they had
found. this to be impossible because the Soviets were only interested
in having the meeting ratify Soviet plans to hold a World Communist Con-
ference in Moscow in November 1968.
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They then boycotted the first preparatory committee meeting, held
in Budapest in late April, which was concerned with more detailed plan-
ning of this November Communist Conference, but sent an observer to the
second preparatory committee meeting in June 1968, also in Budapest.
The party attributed its change of heart to a "desire to contribute to
the cause of the unity of the world Communist movement," but noted that
it would "continue to insist on the position it had adopted earlier --
i.e. that attacks and criticism of any party ... present or absent,
should be prevented."
Thus, the Rumanian role in the World Communist Conference, which is
scheduled for 25 November in Moscow, and which the Soviets, incredibly,
still apparently plan to hold, is problematical. If they are consistent
with their basic positions of the recent past, they will not only boy-
cott it but denounce it. If they somehow acquiesce in the convocation
of the conference, even without participating in it as formal members
or observers, the question will inevitably arise whether Rumania has
voluntarily or involuntarily given up her 'role as the conscience of the
Communist-dominated world to practice what it preaches concerning sov-
ereignty of countries and pledges of non-interference in internal affairs.
Criticizing the Soviet Past
Of all the sins committed by the Rumanian Communist leadership,
from its flirtation with the West, its revolt against Soviet economic
subjugation, its harassment of the Warsaw Pact, to its disruption of
Moscow's designs for world Communist unity under the Soviet aegis, the
most galling may have been its criticism of the Soviets' historical dom-
ination of the Communist movement by the ostensibly innocuous device of
criticizing practices followed by Stalin in the Comintern and the Com-
inform. Since the Soviets themselves have denounced various Stalinist
deformities, it is not easy for them to condemn any other Communist
Party's denunciation of Stalin's more obvious blunders.
On 6 May 1968, Nicolae Ceausescu criticized some of Moscow's past
policies as having been opposed to the national interests of Rumania
and implied that the USSR had annexed territories rightfully belonging
to Rumania -- thereby launching an "international bombshell" at the
Rumanian Communist Party's (RCP) 45th anniversary meeting.
In criticizing the Comintern's errors, he noted that in the fall
of 1920 Rumanian socialists sent a delegation to Moscow to discuss af-
filiation with the Comintern. They objected to the Comintern's views
of the situation in Rumania as a result of its "ignorance of the reali-
ties" in Rumania and "at the same time objected to the Comintern's inter-
ference in the establishment of the components of the leading organs of
the RCP, deeming that this was the inalienable prerogative of the party
:itself." Ceausescu went on to note "the negative consequences of the
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Comintern's practice of appointing the leadership cadres of the party,
including the secretaries general, from among people abroad who did not
know the Rumanian people's life and preoccupations.... If we remember
that other leaders of our party were appointed in those days from the
ranks of people who were not living in Rumania and did not know the
country's social and political conditions ... we can realize what damage
this practice did to the revolutionary struggle in our country during
that. period."
Deliberately offending Soviet sensitivity about the Nazi-Soviet
pact, Ceausescu then went on to criticize the 1940 Comintern directives
addressed to the RCP which, "instead of appreciating the justice of the
fight against the Hitlerite war," called for "intensification of that
fight, criticized the Rumanian Communists for activity directed against
German aggression and for their stand on defense of the national inde-
pendence of the fatherland.... By arbitrarily putting fascist Germany
on the side of the Soviet Union, the Comintern directive points out
that the Rumanian people and working class are faced with the task of
not allowing Rumania to be transformed into a bridgehead of England and
France in a war against Germany and against the USSR." Ceausescu went
on to say, "These directives, which were contrary to the political line
of the party and to the needs of the fight against fascism and Hitlerite
aggression, provoked a deep confusion and disorientation in the party
and for a time checked its activity, creating the danger of estranging
from the party broad social categories and various political groups...."
Ceausescu went on to say that "as far back as 1942, on the occasion
on. which the decision was taken to dissolve the Comintern -- at which
our party was also present -- the Presidium of the Executive Committee
of the Communist International pointed out: 'The solving of the prob-
lems of the workers movements of each country, considered separately,
will., if directed from an international center no matter of what kind,
meet with impassable obstacles.'" He criticized the creation of the
Cominform as "having harmed the activity of the working class of various
countries" and that "therefore, the cessation of the activity of the
Information Bureau was a necessity imposed by life and by the economic
and social-political requirements of the activity of the Communist part-
ies." He strongly spoke against any "international center," stating that
"life shows that no one can know better the economic reality, balance
and distribution of power in one country or another, all the domestic
and international political situations and the evolution of the latter,
than. the Communist party ... of that particular country. This is why
they exclusively have the right to draw up the revolutionary strategy
and tactics of the working class and the methods of struggle.... This
right cannot be a disputed right; each Communist party is responsible
to the workers' class to which it belongs...."
This "safe" method of criticizing the Soviet Union is quite trans-
parently another way in which the Rumanian leadership puts its views on
the importance of national sovereignty on record.
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On more current relations, Rumania and the Soviet Union finally
agreed in late May 1968 on a draft for a new treaty of friendship and
mutual assistance, but reportedly not until after months of hard bar-
gaining in order to eliminate some of the provisions which Rumania had
not liked about the prior treaty. No details have yet become known
about this new draft treaty, and it has not yet been signed, though it
was to have been consummated during the past summer. It is to replace
the 20-year treaty which expired in February 1968. How Rumanian disap-
proval of the invasion of Czechoslovakia will affect the fate of the
treaty will be interesting to observe.
A final irritant to the Soviets must be Rumania's continuing effort
to maintain a neutral position in the acrimonious Sino-Soviet dispute.
This neutrality was endangered when Premier Chou En-lai attempted to
use his visit to Rumania in June 1966 as a golden opportunity to attack
the USSR in its very backyard. Rumania survived the embarrassment and
since has tried to pay equal attention to both Peking and Moscow. And
Peking excepts Rumania from the vituperation it pours on the Soviets and
their other satellites.
What does it all add up to?
While one does not want to belabor the obvious, the reminder is in
order that Dej's and Ceausescu's Rumania is a strictly repressive society,
a Communist dictatorship in the modern style, i.e., one in which the more
brutal forms of repression of freedom can be dispensed with as long as
the populace, which is overwhelmingly non-Communist or anti-Communist,
does not threaten Communist Party's supremacy. (Some acute observers
have noted that as the population loses hope of progress toward demo-
cracy, it becomes passive, so that the more brutal forms of repression
are not needed.) Sovereignty and independence are desirable and virtu-
ous, and Communist Rumania thus far continues to enjoy them, but these
virtues are not to be confused with such concepts as democracy and
individual freedoms. In respect to these latter desiderata, Rumania.is
still a backward nation, and there should be no hesitation proclaming
this fact. One seeks long and fruitlessly to find evidence of any gen-
uine effort at democratization of domestic life. That there is an
easement of arbitrary police brutality may be accounted a liberalization
measure, but one that is common to many police states. In any case, it
can hardly be called democratization.
While the account given in earlier sections above explains in part
how the Rumanians managed to carve out their unorthodox position of
independence of the Soviet Union, it may be worthwhile to speculate on
the "why's" of the Soviet-Rumanian relationship in the interst of under-
standing the nature of the secretive and therefore often mysterious
relationships prevailing in the Communist world.
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In the first place it seems quite clear that the Dej-Ceausescu
strategy for assuring continued and relatively trouble-free Communist
dominance of the Rumanian nation and people is to appeal to their natural
Latin antipathy to Slavic/Russian dominance. That one concedes Ceausescu
and his cohorts are motivated by nationalism is merely to say that, like
any political leaders, they would prefer, and in fact do strive, to
rule their own roost (if they can) rather than lick the boots of a
foreign master.
When one raises the question of why the Soviets put up with Ruman-
ian but not with Czechoslovak obstreperousness there is no obvious or
simple answer. Aside from shrewd Rumanian diplomatic maneuvering, which
outwitted the Soviets and caught them in a situation where the usual
means of coercion were apparently judged to be inappropriate at the
time, the Soviets could not help but observe that, unlike Czechoslovakia,
the virus of freedom had not infected Rumanian society and thus could
not pass on to the USSR or the lesser Communist regimes. One can also
point out that Rumania's geographic position makes it much less import-
ant strategically to the Soviet Union. But when all is said and'done,
it is hard to escape the conclusion that Rumania is a thorn in the side
of the Soviet Union, balking its efforts to attain unity in the foreign
policy of the Communist world and cohesion within the world Communist
movement. One must be on the lookout for Soviet countermeasures, and
military action; though the danger seems to have receded, it cannot be
ruled out with any confidence. Now that the Soviets have invaded Czecho-
slovakia, also just as the tension seemed to have receded after the
Bratislava conference, and contradicting the best judgment of some of
the wisest outside observers of the Communist world, no one-can assert
with any confidence that the Soviets will not forcibly brig their
maverick Satellite to heel. The maverick itself cannot be sure of So-
viet intentions, and it will be instructive to watch in coming weeks and
months whether Rumania will persist in its Soviet-baiting ways, or seek
increasing accommodation in such matters as formalizing the new treaty
of friendship with the Soviet Union and, especially, supporting the So-
viet project of convoking a World Communist Conference in November of
this year.
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