THE CASE OF THE MISSING EXILE

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00552R000606570001-8
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: August 27, 2010
• Sequence Number: 1
• Publication Date: September 13, 1982
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/08/27: CIA-RDP90-00552R000606570001-8
NEW SWEEK
ARTICLE APPEARED 13 SEF 2BER 1982
ON PACE
The Case of the Missing Exile .
L ast May Romanian exile Virgil Tanase
left his apartment in the Bastille neigh-
borhood of Paris and vanished. Passers-by
saw two toughs hustling him into a car. All
of France believed that the dissident writer
had been abducted by Romania's dreaded
Securitate service. President Francois Mit-
terrand deplored the kidnapping and can-
celed a Romanian visit with President
Nicolae Ceausescu. Then last week Tanase
showed up in Paris looking tanned and fit-
with a cloak-and-dagger story straight out
of James Bond.
Tanase said he had faked the abduction
in cooperation with members of France's
counterintelligence service, the DST. He
had spent three months holed up in Brittany
with his wife, his two children and a service
revolver. He had gone underground to pro-
tect a top Romanian spy, Motu Haiduc,
whose code name was Mr. Z. Haiduc said
Ceausescu had personally ordered him to
kill Tanase and Paul Goma, an even better-
known Romanian writer. Haiduc, who had
been an intelligence operative in France for
eight years, balked at his orders-"I'm an
intelligence officer, not a killer," he said
-and switched sides. The French prom-
ised Haiduc help and protection; in return
they wanted information on the Romanian
Securitate.
Mr. Z agreed to the deal, but he said he
had a problem: he was supposed to kill
Goma. The Securitate had supplied Haiduc
with a colorless, tasteless, fast-acting poison
concocted to induce a heart attack and leave
no traces. The French told Goma about the
plot and he agreed to cooperate. At a recep-
tion held by the National Independent Cen-
ter, a conservative political party, Haiduc
arrived with a fountain pen containing a
pump for squirting poison. While Goma
looked away, Haiduc shot the poison into
his drink. Then a French agent "accidental-
ly" jostled Goma's arm, spilling the drink.
Haiduc had established his credibilitywith
his Romanian colleagues, who presumably
reported to their superiors that he had done
his best to kill Goma but had been foiled by
bad luck.
Tanase, meantime, published a new at-
tack on the Romanian president-"King
Ceausescu the First, Communist King"-
and Bucharest renewed its orders to kill the
dissident. Haiduc's control suggested either
a shooting cr a mail bomb, but Mr. Z con-
vinced his boss that it would be wiser to hire
French thugs to kidnap Tanase and kill him
later. Instead, French agents carried out the
abduction with Tanase's help. Haiduc re-
turned to Bucharest as a secret hero. He was
decorated for his efforts and Ceausescu sent
his congratulations. All the time, Haiduc
was collecting information about Roma-.
nia's intelligence service-including a list of
agents around the world.
Happy Ending: In Paris, police went
through the motions of an investigation,
Mitterrand feigned outrage and Tanase hid
out. The secret was kept through June and
July, but last week the socialist daily Le
Matin broke the story under a huge head-
line: TANASE ALIVE. Haiduc and his broth-
er had already escaped Romania, but he
said his mother was trapped by the prema-
ture disclosure. The ending was happy for
the other Paris principals: for Mitterrand,
whose government had been accused of aid-
ing terrorism, and for Tanase, whose latest
book was released amid massive publicity.
"A writer can't remain anonymous," Ta-
nase said. "I will live a normal life and take
the risk of a real kidnapping."
SCOTT SULLIVAN in Paris
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/08/27: CIA-RDP90-00552R000606570001-8