On The Eve Of The Romanian Revolution (VI) The July 1989 Warsaw Pact Summit Larry L. Watts

Warsaw Pact Leaders, June 1989 (MTI photo: Lajos Soos)

The extent to which Gorbachev and the “closely cooperating” partners borrowed from Romanian foreign and security policy initiatives, poorly understood in the West prior to the mid-1980s and increasingly negated thereafter, had been set into stark relief at the July 1989 Political Consultative Committee meeting in Bucharest.[i] The communiqué of that meeting reflected Romania’s success in all the major domains of its independent security policy advocacy within the Warsaw Pact over the previous three decades. For example, all of the Pact members now denounced continuing instances “of interference in the internal affairs of other states, and attempts to destabilize them,” and supported the strengthening of European security through disarmament and through “substantial reduction in armed forces, armaments, and military expenditure.”[ii] All formally acknowledged that “no universal socialist models exist” and that socialism was to be “implemented in each country in accordance with its conditions, traditions, and requirements.”[iii] And Romania’s previously singular insistence on sovereignty and non-interference was now reiterated in the call for respecting “the territorial and political realities which have taken shape, the inviolable nature of existing borders, the sovereignty, and the right of every people to freely determine their own destiny.”[iv]

            Instead of pressing for greater confrontation with NATO as had all Soviet leaders (including Gorbachev) prior to 1987, the 1989 communiqué called for the same sort of direct discussions between NATO and the Warsaw Pact with which Romania had threatened to block any renewal of the alliance during 1980-1985. At Bucharest all the Pact members expressed their unanimous support for “transferring relations between the Warsaw Pact and the North Atlantic alliance to an avenue of non-confrontation, setting up a constructive dialogue between them through political and military channels, and turning it into a factor of security and cooperation on the continent.”[v]

Although nearer the end of the communiqué, and despite the fact that Moscow and the other “closely cooperating” partners avoided mention of Romanian reform proposals for real power-sharing within the alliance (consistently pursued since the beginning of the 1960s), Bucharest was able to insert the admonition to “strengthen the Warsaw Pact's political – rather than military – nature and to further improve the cooperation mechanism within it on a democratic basis.”[vi] And, while Moscow sought to prevent any discussion of the Romanian proposal, the leadership in Bucharest managed to express the need for fundamental Pact reform and the desirability of establishing full equality through the rotation of all command posts.

A similar sea change was evident regarding the adoption of Romanian policy approaches to international relations more generally, with the other Pact members now echoing Bucharest’s April 1964 “declaration of independence” and expressing unanimous support for “settling, by peaceful means, regional conflicts in the Middle East, Africa, Asia, and Central America,” while setting negotiation and mediation as the standard of inter-state conflict resolution:

Life has confirmed that the path of negotiations is fruitful and that there is no sensible alternative to it. They will continue to actively promote the political resolution of crisis situations in the world and to further enhance the UN's role in this.[vii]

The Romanian imprint was particularly clear regarding policy in the Middle East, where the communiqué expressed the Warsaw Pact’s support for holding:

… an international conference as soon as possible on the Middle East under the UN aegis, with the participation of all the interested parties, including the PLO, [and] an all-embracing Middle East settlement on the basis of the recognition of the right of the Palestinian people to self determination, to the existence of an independent Palestinian state, just the same as the right to independence, sovereignty, and integrity of all the states of the region, including Israel.[viii]

The Pact members likewise rallied around a “just settlement of the situation” in Afghanistan that would leave it independent and free to determine its “fate without any sort of interference from outside” – again echoing Romanian calls.[ix]

One of the leitmotivs of the communiqué was the greatest possible use of the UN for making and maintaining peace, long-championed by Romania and in line with its calls for an increased independent role of small and medium sized states in international affairs by involving “all countries, irrespective of their size or social structure, in solving world problems.”[x]  Likewise, the Romanian call for a united effort with the “active participation of the United Nations” in addressing the “deepening rift between the developed and developing countries” and “establishing a new international economic order,” also appeared in the communiqué.[xi]

Romanian influence was especially profound in the sphere of defense policy where its long-held positions were now reflected in Moscow’s support for unilateral reductions, withdrawals, and confidence-building measures, and its recognition of a general parity of NATO and the Warsaw Pact strengths. Even more significantly, Soviet and Pact leaders now echoed Romanian calls for jettisoning their offensive strategic posture in favor of defensive structures and strategies as a means of avoiding international tensions, a shift strikingly illustrated at the Pact’s Defense Ministers meetings since 1987.[xii] Bucharest was equally unequivocal on weapons of mass destruction:

The fundamental issue in international relations is, above all else, after the issue of repudiating the modernization of nuclear weapons, the conclusion of a treaty as soon as possible between the Soviet Union and the United States of America to cut strategic nuclear missiles by half, and then a universal treaty by the year 2000 on the complete elimination of all nuclear weapons, to which all the nuclear powers and also the other states of the world interested in disarmament, peace and life on earth should become party. …

I would like to stress once again that nuclear disarmament and disarmament in general concern not only the Soviet Union and the United States of America, and not only the states possessing nuclear weapons, but all the states of the world. For the consequences from the use of nuclear weapons would be felt by all of humanity. All states in all continents have an interest in the complete elimination of nuclear weapons and must work actively to achieve this.[xiii]

Ceausescu likewise exhorted the participants to “work toward the signing of a treaty on the elimination of chemical weapons in close conjunction with the elimination of all nuclear weapons,” and to use “the Geneva disarmament conference as well as other meetings to eliminate chemical weapons and reduce conventional weapons to the minimal levels necessary for defense.”[xiv] Reiterating the policy his country had pursed for twenty-five years, he underscored that: “Romania resolutely insists that conflicts in the various parts of the world should be settled and problems resolved solely through negotiation, without exception.”[xv]

The unequivocal support for disengagement and disarmament, particularly for more radical reduction and destruction of all nuclear and chemical weapons, and for negotiation as the only legitimate form of conflict resolution, which authorities in Bucharest expressed during the July 7-8 Warsaw Pact summit was most problematic and potentially devastating for the “aggressive encampment” characterizations of Romania now disseminated through Pact-wide active measures. Measures had to be taken.

On July 9, immediately after the concluding ceremonies of the summit and before leaving the Romanian capital, Hungarian authorities were quick to describe the event as displaying something entirely different. According to Hungarian officials, the meeting was dominated by Budapest’s clash with Romania over the latter’s alleged abuse of minorities and Bucharest’s demands for a Warsaw Pact invasion against Hungary, thus supposedly marking “the lowest point for relations between the two Warsaw Pact allies and neighbors since both fell under Soviet domination at the end of World War II.”[xvi]

Welcoming Gyula Horn, Rezső Nyers and Miklós Németh, July 7, 1989

(MTI photo: Attila Kovacs)    

Horn was careful to underscore this “crisis” as the breaking news of the conference to Hungarian journalists before he left Bucharest. “In the political sphere,” he insisted, “we have reached a bottom point,” terminology that analysts described as the “most negative official assessment of relations between Warsaw Pact allies” ever employed.[xvii] In fact, as Hungarian authorities had anticipated several months before, all of the other Pact members had rejected Budapest’s extreme demands and the clash, while noisy, was short.[xviii]

A day later, on July 10, at his first news conference in Budapest following the Warsaw Pact summit, Horn misrepresented Bucharest as fostering nuclear proliferation and confrontation – one hundred and eighty degrees opposite the positions that the Romanian regime had just advocated in Bucharest. The Hungarian Foreign Minister’s timing was propitious for successful propagation of that disinformation line since President George Bush, Sr. was scheduled to visit Budapest shortly thereafter. According to Horn, during the summit unidentified “high-level” Romanian officials “announced that their country was now capable of producing nuclear weapons and would soon make medium-range missiles.”[xix]

Horn pressed this point in a series of interviews with the international media, in which he described the “aggressive military threats” allegedly emanating from Romania. In the version he related to an Italian journalist several days later, he claimed that the Hungarian delegation had “warned Ceauşescu at the recent Warsaw Pact summit in Bucharest that the threat of such missiles to European security ‘must not be underestimated,’ but that the Romanian leader gave them no reply.”[xx] 

Prime Minister Miklos Németh told an American journalist that Ceaușescu led the call for a Warsaw Pact military intervention against his country:

Miklós Németh    

As Ceausescu ranted on, calling for armed intervention in Hungary, Németh glanced across at the Soviet leader. Their eyes met, and Gorbachev winked. … It was as if Gorbachev were saying, “Don’t worry. These people are idiots. Pay no attention,” as Nemeth put it to me.[xxi]

           

Németh later stated to a Canadian journalist “that he had sent in dozens of agents to Romania” because of “Ceaușescu’s aggressive attitude to Hungary.”[xxii] According to Németh, “Ceaușescu had asked Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev several times to invade Hungary and Poland because they were not properly following the Communist line.”[xxiii]

At the time, this campaign, whose proponents included Foreign Minister (and future Prime Minister) Horn, Parliamentary Speaker (and future President) Szűrös, Prime Minister Németh, and International Department deputy Tabajdi (soon to be made responsible for minorities abroad), only partly achieved the goal of projecting Romania as an aggressive threat because its main elements were very quickly debunked after Western verification.[xxiv] Since then, East German, Czech, Bulgarian and Romanian documents on the July 1989 Pact meeting have become publicly available, likewise debunking those allegations.[xxv] Paradoxically, within a decade of the December 1989 Revolution the same theme of Romanian military aggressiveness and nuclear irresponsibility was not only resuscitated, it even achieved the status of mainstream interpretation.[xxvi]

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[i] There were solid policy reasons for the United States not to emphasize this in 1989; the primary one being that irritating Moscow (which support for Romanian invariably managed to do) would have been counterproductive to the overriding goal of ending the Cold War. Unfortunately, policy considerations rational at the time distorted political and historical analyses long afterwards. For example, at the start of the new millennium one analyst overlooked Gorbachev’s adoption of Romania’s long-held positions on arms and spending reductions, troop withdrawals, Middle East policy, and the approach to international relations more generally to claim that the disappearance of the Warsaw Pact was the “only Romanian postulate to be partly realized,” that “Romania always fell short of defying the most important Soviet policies,” admitting only that its positions “sometimes foreshadowed” – rather than inspired – “that of the other Warsaw Pact members.” Anna Locher, “Shaping the Policies of the Alliance: The Committee of Ministers of Foreign Affairs of the Warsaw Pact, 1976-1990” May 2002, p. 18, in “Records of the Committee of the Ministers of Foreign Affairs,” pp. 14-15, in Parallel History Project on Cooperative Security (PHP), www.php.isn.ethz.ch, by permission of the
Center for Security Studies at ETH Zurich on behalf of the PHP network (hereafter: PHP). In contrast, the Israeli Ambassador to Romania in 1985-1989 noted that Gorbachev adopted “the political principles of Romania’s foreign policy, some of which were not acceptable to his predecessors.” See e.g. Yosef Govrin, Israeli-Romanian Relations at the End of the Ceausescu Era, New York, Routledge, 2002, p. 133, footnote 3.

[ii] Communique of the Warsaw Pact Political Consultative Committee Conference, 9 July 1989, pp. 2-3, PHP; Foreign Broadcast Information Service (FBIS), Daily Report, Soviet Union, 10 July 1989, “Communist Relations,” pp. 12-15; Pravda, 9 July 1989.

[iii] Communique (1989), pp. 4-5. PHP.

[iv] Ibid, p. 3.

[v] Ibid.

[vi] Ibid, p. 5.

[vii] Ibid, p. 3.

[viii] Ibid.

[ix] Ibid, pp. 3-4.

[x] Ibid.

[xi] Ibid, p. 4. As per established practice, very little of the positive elements that could be directly attributed Romania were reflected in “closely cooperating” reporting. See, e.g., the excerpted Information from the Bulgarian Foreign Minister (Mladenov) to the Politburo of the CC of the BCP regarding the Political Consultative Committee Meeting in Bucharest, 12 July 1989, pp. 1-5 in Jordan Baev and Anna Locher, “Belated Attempts at a Warsaw Pact Perestroika, 1987-1989,” 2000, PHP.

[xii] See, e.g., Possible Structural Reorientation of WP National Armed Forces Towards More Defensive Stance in the next Two to Three Years (Presentation), 17 December 1988, and Principles for Improving the UAF by the Year 2000 while Maintaining Basic Defense Capabilities (Summary), 27 November 1989 in Christian Nuenlist, “The End of the Cold War, 1985-1990,” 2001, PHP.

[xiii] Records of the PCC Meeting in Bucharest: Speech by the General Secretary of the PCR (Nicolae Ceauşescu), July 7, 1989, PHP, pp. 2-5. This is from an East German transcript.

[xiv] Ibid, pp. 3-4, 8.

[xv] Ibid, p. 9.

[xvi] Interview of Hungarian Foreign Minister and forrner senior HWSP CC International Department official, Gyula Horn, by Henry Kamm, “Hungarian Accuses Rumania of Military Threats,” New York Times, 11 July 1989; Magyar Hirlap, 10 July 1989; MTI (Hungarian Telegraph Agency) in English, 10 July 1989.

[xvii] Ibid. The fact that so many observers were persuaded as to the unprecedented nature of “such a negative assessment of relations between Warsaw Pact allies” indicated the degree to which Soviet active measures managed to obscure the often bitter clash between Romania and both the USSR and Hungary up to that point.

[xviii] Joint Memorandum of the [Hungarian] Foreign Ministry and the Ministry of National Defense on the Future of the Warsaw Treaty, 6 March 1989, p. 10; Minutes of Meeting of the HSWP Political Committee on 16 May 1989-Excerpt on WP issues, 16 May 1989, in Csaba Békés and Anna Locher, “Hungary and the Warsaw Pact, 1954-1989: Documents on the Impact of a Small State within the Eastern Block,” October 2003, pp. 1-2, 4, 10, PHP.

[xix] Kamm (1989).

[xx] Andrea Tarquini, “Ceauşescu is Buying Missiles to Aim at Hungary,” La Repubblica, 16/17 July 1989; MTI (Rome), 17 July 1989, p. 15; Douglas Clarke, “The Romanian Military Threat to Hungary,” RAD Background Report/130, Radio Free Europe Radio (RFER), 27 July 1989, Open Society Archives (OSA), Box 143, Folder 4, Report 53, p. 8.

[xxi] Michael Meyer, The Year That Changed The World: The Untold Story Behind The Fall Of The Berlin Wall, New York, Scribner, 2009, pp. 92-93. Meyer, Newsweeks bureau chief for Germany and Eastern Europe, also “airlifted into Bucharest with the German Luftwaffe during the fighting that deposed [Ceaușescu] and watched his execution in the company of the secret police that did him in.” Ibid, p. x.

[xxii] Arpad Szoczi, “Former Hungarian PM Reveals Role Of Hungarian Secret Service In Toppling Ceaușescu,” January 30, 2015, https://arpadoliverszoczi.wordpress.com/2015/01/30/december-16-2014-former-hungarian-pm-reveals-role-of-hungarian-secret-service-in-toppling-ceausescu/.

[xxiii] Ibid. See also Arpad Szoczi, Timisoara: The Real Story Behind The Romanian Revolution, Bloomington, iUniverse, 2013, pp. 315-316.

[xxiv] Interview of Csaba Tabajdi and Imre Poszgay by Guido Rampoldi, “Amici di Mosca, ma padroni del nostro esercito” [Friends of Moscow, but in Command of our Army], La Stampa, 14 June 1989; Interview of Hungarian Parliamentary spokesman and former HSWP CC International Department chief Szűrös by Nestor Ratesh in Michael Shafir, “Matyas Szűrös’s Interview with RFE’s Romanian Service,” RAD Background Report/127, RFER, 20 July 1989,  p. 5.

[xxv] See “XXIII. Bucharest, 7-8 July 1989,” in “Records of the Warsaw Pact Political Consultative Committee, 1955-1990,” edited by Vojtech Mastny, Christian Nuenlist, Anna Locher, and Douglas Selvage, May 2001, PHP. The well over one thousand pages of Romanian documents regarding the 1989 Warsaw Pact Political Consultative Committee meeting in Bucharest were first made available in March 2015. See e.g. Romanian National Archives (Arhivele Naţionale ale României: ANR), Fond Tratatul de la Varsovia. Ministerul Afacerilor Externe, dosar 179/1989, 7 volumes; and dosar 185/1989, pp. 1-160.

[xxvi] See for example, Mark Kramer, Neo-Realism, Nuclear Proliferation and East-Central European Strategies, PONARS Working Paper 005, Washington, D.C., Center for Strategic and International Studies, May 15, 1998, pp. 16, 25. 

On The Eve Of The Romanian Revolution (IV) The Romanian Nuclear Threat

Larry L. Watts

In May 1989, when the Hungarian Ambassador in Bucharest first accused the Romanian Armed Forces of preparing to attack his country, Budapest began claiming that Bucharest was developing nuclear warheads and acquiring missile systems in order to use against Hungary.[i] Although treated lightly by Western analysts, these allegations had deadly serious implications under international law. After denying Romania co-belligerent status in spite of its contribution of over 540,000 troops (incurring more than 169,000 casualties) during the last eight months of World War II, Soviet authorities had imposed a number of restrictions upon their new partner as former “ally of Hitlerite Germany” in the 1947 Peace Treaty. Article 14 of that Treaty specifically states that Romania “shall not possess, construct or experiment with any atomic weapon, any self-propelled or guided missiles or apparatus connected with their discharge.”[ii] Thus, independent acquisition of a nuclear weapon or a medium-range missile to carry one, by whatever means, unilaterally abrogated the Treaty, including its second article returning northern Transylvania, which had been under Hungarian occupation during 1940-1944, to Romania.[iii]

Almost simultaneously a sensational report was published in a popular West German journal alleging that the Munich-based firm Messerschmidt-Bölkow-Blohm (MBB) was constructing a “huge” intermediate-range nuclear missile factory in Romania.[iv]Appearing several weeks after Ceauşescu’s latest public declaration that “from a technical standpoint, we have the capacity to manufacture nuclear arms,” the story exploited that comment as proof of an alleged nuclear weapons development program, while conveniently eliding over the immediately following restatement of his country’s policy for nuclear disarmament and the destruction of nuclear weapons.[v]

Harriman and Gaston Marin, 1964

The American Intelligence Community had, in fact, been aware that “Romania had the capacity to go nuclear” if it chose to do so since at least 1964.[vi] However, Washington was not unduly concerned because Bucharest had already informed President Kennedy in October 1963 that Romania did not and would not permit nuclear weapons on its territory, and had even invited the United States to send its own teams to verify that fact.[vii] The same insistence on Romania’s option to pursue the peaceful use of nuclear power was expressed clearly to Averell Harriman by the president of Romania’s State Committee for Nuclear Energy, Gheorghe Gaston Marin in May 1964.  As Gaston Marin explained, his country had significant uranium deposits, “which it prefers to put into electric power rather than in fissionable material.”[viii] On this point Romanian declaratory policy and actual behavior showed remarkable consistency.

A decade later, in the mid-1970s, Ceauşescu made his first public declaration regarding Romania’s ability to develop a nuclear weapon if it so desired.[ix] In 1976 American analysts again concluded without any particular concern that if Romania so desired it could acquire the necessary expertise and equipment within a few years from either Western suppliers like West Germany, Great Britain or France, or from the People’s Republic of China.[x] Indeed, West Germany, Great Britain and other NATO allies provided Romania with components for its nuclear program under U.S. authorization; with Henry Kissinger personally signing off on some of the transfers.[xi]

U.S. authorities proceeded from three basic assumptions regarding Romanian nuclear aims. Two of them, “to acquire technology necessary to ensure internal manufacturing capability for all nuclear power requirements” and “to develop export capability in field of nuclear power generation systems,” reflected accurately Bucharest’s position as stated to Washington.[xii] The third possible aim, never expressed as an intention by Bucharest, “to preserve and strengthen option of producing nuclear weapons at some unforeseen point in the future,” was an unverifiable but logical U.S. postulate – and specifically noted as such in U.S. assessment, which also noted the pledge of some Romanian authorities that their country would “never go this route.”[xiii]

            Ceauşescu himself very consistently underscored that he could guarantee Romanian policy only for the foreseeable future, and that radical changes in the international environment could always prompt corresponding modifications the policy of his country under future leaders. Even with that hypothetical possibility, however, the United States still considered support of Romania’s nuclear program worth the risk. Driving that calculation in the late 1970s was more than 15 years of responsible Romanian international behavior. According to the U.S. assessment in 1976:

Considering these Romanian objectives, including the possibility that GOR [Government of Romania] may later elect to develop nuclear weapons, we still believe that our assistance to GOR’s nuclear power program will on balance strongly promote our bilateral and regional interests. … We judge from our assessment of Romanian capabilities that, if Romania were to opt to produce nuclear weapon, it can acquire necessary know-how and materiel over reasonably short span of years from Western suppliers such as Germans, British, or French, or even Chinese. …[And] we would argue that we should provide equipment and technology to Romania under conditions no more rigorous nor restrictive than we apply to other non-nuclear weapon states, in other words that we do not discriminate against Romania.[xiv]

The American gamble paid off. Throughout the rest of the Cold War Romania never faltered in its militancy for the reduction and destruction of all nuclear weapons, and it never acquired the bomb. Moreover, Romanian archives confirm that the anti-nuclear militancy of the regime was not only pursued “for show,” in international forums like the United Nations. Bucharest’s campaign for the halting, reduction and elimination of nuclear arms was consistently evident in senior leadership discussions with Europeans on both sides of the curtain, with China, with the Soviet Union, with the North Americans, and with the leaders of the developing world.[xv] Thus, Ceauşescu’s very clear statement in July 1984 that "if we wanted to manufacture a nuclear weapon today, we could do so,” provoked very little concern in Washington.[xvi] As usual, the Romanian leader immediately followed up that statement with a reaffirmation of his country’s policy against the acquisition and stockpiling of nuclear weapons, for their reduction globally and for their complete withdrawal from Europe.

Romanian declarations on this point remained highly credible because Bucharest had shown no interest in acquiring Soviet nuclear missiles after the Cuban Missile Crisis, nor had it hosted any Soviet nuclear devices ever since it first called for de-escalation and disarmament at the January 1965 summit of the Warsaw Pact. The veracity of its public positions is attested in Communist-era archives of the other alliance members, which demonstrate Bucharest’s persistent and singular campaign for nuclear de-escalation and disarmament within Warsaw Pact councils from the 1960s through the 1980s.[xvii]

Likewise, there was no claim of intent in Ceauşescu’s August 1988 declaration to Karoly Grosz, Hungary’s communist party leader and Prime Minister, that Romania had the know-how “to produce and manufacture anything, even nuclear devices.” [xviii] Nor was such intent expressed in his April 1989 statement to the Plenum of the Democracy and Socialist Unity Front that: “From the technical perspective, we have the capacity to build nuclear arms.”[xix] Only through the most egregious “cherry-picking” and deliberate misrepresentation could Ceauşescu’s speech be interpreted as indicating an intent to pursue or acquire a nuclear weapon. A fuller citation from that speech makes this clear. According to the Romanian leader:

We can produce any kind of equipment. There is, however, a single domain in which we do not want to produce anything: the domain of nuclear armament. Yes, we have the technological capacity; but we will not set out upon this path because we are firmly opposed to nuclear weapons whose use would mean the destruction of life on our planet; and we seek the elimination of nuclear weapons from all states of the world and we want a world without weapons and war.[xx]

In fact, every one of Ceauşescu assertions regarding Romanian ability to produce a nuclear weapon also stipulated that his country would not do so because it opposed their very existence. Privately with other world leaders, and with the Canadian firm that was building the CANDU reactor in Romania, Ceauşescu was even more frank. The policy of his country, like that of any other state, was conditioned by international circumstances and leadership preferences. Consequently, one could not swear the same policy would hold from one millennium to the next. As Ceausescu phrased it: “We do not have that intention now. But what will happen in the year 2000 is hard to say. No one can give guarantees regarding what will be in the year 2000.”[xxi]

At the same time, the Romanian leader very clearly pledged to the Canadians that they would never have to worry that their nuclear technology was used to produce a Romanian nuclear weapon:

I can guarantee that you will never face the accusation that due to this reactor, Romania has obtained a nuclear bomb. … Nuclear energy is not used by Romania for other than peaceful purposes.[xxii]

In 1992, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) issued a finding of “non-compliance” against Romania, essentially placing it among the ranks of the rogue states (consisting at the time of Iraq, and later of North Korea, Iran, Libya and Syria as well). It appears, however, that the finding of non-compliance was issued only at the insistence of Romanian officials for evidently political purposes. [xxiii] This plutonium, one-tenth the amount (1 gram) that required mandatory reporting to the IAEA, had been separated from spent fuel in December 1985 and then apparently forgotten until it was discovered by the new nuclear program authorities in April 1992.

Mohammed ElBaradei

   

According to Mohammed ElBaradei, then legal advisor to the IAEA Secretariat and future IAEA director general, "following Ceauşescu’s ouster, the new government requested a special inspection to show that, under Ceauşescu’s rule, Romania had reprocessed one hundred milligrams of plutonium without informing the IAEA." 

Some Romanian officials and media then extrapolated an entire “secret” nuclear weapons program from this incident, insisting that the former regime – in fact, Romania – be condemned for it.[xxiv] In another uncharacteristic demonstration of voluntary transparency, Russian intelligence declassified its report of a vast Romanian covert weapons acquisition program that allegedly began in 1985 and would have achieved a bomb by 2000.[xxv] Russian intelligence (and a part of the Romanian media) then insisted that the alleged “secret program” was possible only because of the reactor and highly enriched uranium fuel (HEU) supplied by the United States at the end of the 1970s.[xxvi]

U.S.-supplied Triga Reactor at Institute for Nuclear Research - Pitesti

However, subsequent research at the IAEA has revealed that Bucharest’s experimentation was not nearly so covert as claimed by authorities in 1992. In fact, the Romanians had gone about it in exactly the right way, formally requesting a safeguards exemption for experimentation on a specific quantity of spent fuel.[xxvii] And the IAEA had granted that exemption.[xxviii] In addition, the spent fuel used in the experiment had no connection whatsoever to the HEU provided by the United States, as Russian intelligence insisted. It was provided by the Soviet Union, and its transfer to Romania had been officiated by the IAEA itself.[xxix] Romania had not, in fact, misused any of the HEU provided by the United States.

Moreover, the extraction of 100 milligrams of plutonium occurred only once.[xxx] It was not repeated. Nor was there any continued acquisition of plutonium by other means that would have signaled the existence of a nuclear military program. The December 1985 extraction of a miniscule amount of plutonium was not the “beginning of a covert program” to acquire the bomb; it was the end of an experimental cycle whose results were left to be forgotten on a shelf for the next seven years.[xxxi]

In addition, it appears that the IAEA was made aware of the experiment that resulted in the separation of the plutonium at the time.[xxxii] There are only two reasons why that information would not have caused the IAEA to react more forcefully, at least to the extent of implementing continued monitoring. Either the Romanians satisfied the IAEA by heeding an informal caution to cease and desist or the incident was considered merely a “technical” transgression, given that the quantities produced were so inconsequential as to belong to the gray zone of reporting requirements.[xxxiii]

General Stănculescu

According to General Victor Stănculescu, a senior officer responsible for military technology at the time (and later defense minister), his department prepared feasibility studies on nuclear, biological and chemical deterrent options during the late 1970s.[xxxiv]  However, on completion of his study on “developing nuclear capacities for the defense of the country,” the army was ordered not to pursue the nuclear option further and it remained “the least advanced” of all three potential deterrent options under study.[xxxv]

What “least advanced” meant can be gleaned from the fact that Romania did not produce either of the two other deterrent options. After cultivating possible viral components in the Army's research laboratories, the biological option was dropped from consideration, although studies did continue of the best responses to feared biological attacks on Romanian water supplies and population centers.[xxxvi] And once the technical challenges of producing sufficient material for a chemical weapon were resolved that program was also halted, with no chemical agents stockpiled or chemical warheads produced; their absence confirmed by post-1989 international monitors.[xxxvii]

It would appear that Romanian consideration of a nuclear weapon never left the initial stages of exploration, qualifying it neither as military nor even as “program.”[xxxviii] Indeed, the closer one looks at Romania’s alleged nuclear weapons program, the less there is to see. Hans Blix, the IAEA director general in 1992, chose the most informal of methods to argue for the finding of non-compliance some authorities in Bucharest seemed to desire so ardently. He delivered a “single, oral report” to the IAEA Board of Governors, and explicitly acknowledged that the safeguards agreement with Romania was not designed to deal with such “very small quantities of nuclear material.”[xxxix] 

Hans Blix

Although not formally described as such, the IAEA considers Romania one of the less serious of the non-compliance cases, along with that of Egypt and South Korea. Only Egypt and South Korea were not found to be non-compliant. And of all eight cases brought before the IAEA's Board of Governors as of 2016, only Romania has the distinction of having had no written report submitted to the IAEA. Even Egypt and South Korea did. 

The process by which the discovery of the Romanian transgression and the finding of noncompliance came about, and the manner in which it has been recorded by the IAEA, suggests that something was not quite right. It appears as though the Agency may have been leveraged by Romanian officials into doing something it might otherwise not have done. As one researcher observed:

Little publicity was given to the case at the time or subsequently. Unlike other non-compliance cases, Romania does not have a special section on the IAEA website explaining the case. The Safeguards Statements for 1992 and 1993, incorporated in the Agency’s annual reports for those years, make no mention of it. Nor does the comprehensive verification chronology for 1992 compiled by the London-based non-governmental organization (NGO), the Verification Research, Training and Information Centre (VERTIC). The Secretariat was pre-occupied with the Iraq, North Korea, and South Africa verification cases at the time, but it is still puzzling that little publicity was given to the Agency’s use of a special inspection, even if only for demonstration purposes.

     One senses a certain reluctance to draw attention to the case. Mohamed ElBaradei says bluntly the aim of the new Romanian government in seeking the special inspection was “to further discredit the former Communist president.”[xl]

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[i] See e.g. Nepszabadsag, 17 May 1989; János Juhani Nagy, “Bonn-Bucharest Missile Business,” Budapester Rundschau, 29 May 1989; MTI in English, 5 June 1989.

[ii] The Treaty of Peace with Romania was signed on 10 February 1947 and entered into force on 15 September 1947. Treaties and Other International Agreements of the United States of America 1776-1949, Volume 4, Compiled under the direction of Charles I. Bevans LL.B., Washington, DC : Government Printing Office, 1969.

[iii] Article 2 of Treaty of Peace with Romania in Bevans (1969). Presumably, Moscow turned a blind eye to the SCUD-B and FROG-7 missiles it had supplied Romania with earlier. Romanian SCUDs were part of its contribution to the Warsaw Pact and were deployed according to Pact strategy, for possible future use against an invading, presumably NATO force coming northward through Bulgaria and or Yugoslavia. They were not deployed as part of Romania’s national territorial defense strategy.

[iv] “‘Dieselbe Fabrik entsteht’ in Rumänien” [The Same [Missile] Plant is Under Construction in Romania], Der Spiegel, No. 19, 8 May 1989, pp. 166-168, translated in JPRS Arms Control, May 17, 1989, pp. 54-55. Intermediate-range ballistic missiles have an operating range of 1,000 to 3,000 km. The reach of short-range missiles is between 300 and 1,000 km. Missiles with operating ranges 300 km and below are considered tactical.

[v] Vladimir Socor, “Ceauşescu Claims That Romania Could Make Nuclear Weapons,” Romanian Situation Report/4, RFER, 4 May 1989, item 4; Mihail E. Ionescu and Carmen Rîjnoveanu, “Percepţia României asupra descurajării nucleare” [Romania’s Perception On Nuclear Discouragement], Revista de Istorie Militară, vol. 5, no. 6 (2007), p. 6.

[vi] Francis J. Gavin, “Same As It Ever Was. Nuclear Alarmism, Proliferation, and the Cold War,” International Security, vol. 34, no. 3 (Winter 2009/2010), p. 17; R. Eliza Gheorghe, “Romania’s Nuclear Negotiations Postures in the 1960s: Client, Maverick, and International Peace Mediator,” Romania Energy Center, 2012, pp. 21-22. Gheorghe’s basic premise is that Romania was a Soviet Trojan horse and its independence a sham (e.g. “if there was a maverick leader in Europe, it was de Gaulle and not Ceauşescu.” (p. 24)). Caution is advised in that Gheorghe’s claims of a Romanian nuclear weapons program, and of Ceausescu’s desire to acquire a bomb, are not supported by the archival documents she cites.

[vii] Raymond L. Garthoff, “When and Why Romania Distanced itself from the Warsaw Pact,” Cold War International History Project Bulletin, no. 5 (Spring 1995), p. 35; “Convorbiri neterminate cu Corneliu Mănescu” [Unfinished Conversations with Corneliu Mănescu] in Lavinia Betea, Partea lor de adevar [Their Side of the Truth], Bucharest, Compania, 2008, pp. 499-501. The United States found Romania’s repeatedly stated policy and consistent behavior against nuclear weapons persuasive. Consequently, it was “seldom” concerned that “Romania would divert its civilian program to military purposes.” Gheorghe (2012), pp. 21-22. Given the lack of evidence for any military nuclear program after the collapse of Communism in Romania, American faith seems to have been well-placed.

[viii] Memorandum of Conversation between Gheorghe Gaston-Marin and Averell Harriman, Washington, May 18, 1964, Document 142 in Foreign Relations of the United States, 1964-1968, Vol. XVII, Eastern Europe, p. 392; Gheorghe (2012), p. 19. After noting, in 1964, that Romania, along with Czechoslovakia, East Germany and Yugoslavia, was either building or “considering the construction of nuclear power reactors which could be used to produce plutonium,” and that therefore “might reach a stage where they could initiate a weapons program in the next decade,” the U.S. intelligence community declared its belief that “none of them will do so.” National Intelligence Estimate: Prospects for a Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons Over the Next Decade (NIE 4-2-64), 21 October 1964, p. 14, History and Public Policy Program Digital Archive, CIA Mandatory Review Appeal. Obtained and contributed by William Burr.http://digitalarchive.wilsoncenter.org/document/115994.

[ix] U.S.-Romanian Nuclear Cooperation, SecState Washington D.C. to AmEmbassy Ottowa, 3 February 1976, Margaret P. Grafeld, Declassified/Released U.S. Department of State EO Systematic Review, 4 May 2006, pp. 2-3, NARA, Access to Archives Database,http://aad.archives.gov/aad/createpdf?rid=106853&dt=2476&dl=1345.

[x] Ibid; Gheorghe (2012), p. 35.

[xi] E.g., German Reactor Components to Romania, SecState Washington D.C. to USMission OECD Paris, 8 March 1976, and German Uranium to Romania, SecState Washington D.C. to USMission OECD Paris,  10 April 1976,  Margaret P. Grafeld, Declassified/Released U.S. Department of State EO Systematic Review, 4 May 2006, pp. 2-3, NARA,http://aad.archives.gov/aad/createpdf?rid=106853&dt=2476&dl=1345.

[xii] U.S.-Romanian Nuclear Cooperation (1976), http://aad.archives.gov/aad/createpdf?rid=106853&dt=2476&dl=1345.

[xiii] Ibid. According to the assessment, “We postulate but cannot verify a third goal of GOR policy,” namely that of keeping the nuclear weapon option open. This U.S. postulate, along with Romania’s support of Chinese nuclear weapon acquisition in order to counterbalance the Soviet nuclear monopoly within the communist bloc, has been misinterpreted as representing an aim Romania actually sought for itself. For example, absent the “trigger” indicators of a weapons program (actual plans, budgeting, weaponizing of fissile materials, military involvement, etc.), one author simply asserts “that Romania had a nuclear weapons program in the late 1970s and 1980s.” Not surprisingly, the claim is unsourced. See Gheorghe (2012), pp. 3, 13-14, 21-22, 35. See also Eliza Gheorghe, “How to Become a Customer: Lessons from the Nuclear Negotiations between the U.S., Canada and Romania in the 1960s,” Nuclear Proliferation International History Project, Issue Brief #2, 24 April 2013, p. 2. Gheorghe also claims Ceausescu expressed the desire and intention to procure a nuclear weapon in conversation with John S. Foster, the President of Atomic Energy of Canada, Ltd, and Vice-President A. M. Aiken, in June 1976. However, the transcript of that meeting (at the Romanian National Archives: ANR, Fond CC al PCR, Sectia Relatii Externe, dosar 79/1976, f. 10) indicates the very opposite, reaffirming Romanian commitment to the peaceful use of nuclear power while warning that nonproliferation was bound to fail unless the nuclear powers stopped accumulating more weapons and moved to their reduction and elimination. Eliza Gheorghe, “Frenemies, Nuclear Sharing, and Proliferation: The Eastern Bloc, 1965– 1969,” paper prepared for the Nuclear Studies Research Initiative workshop, Warrenton, Virginia, April 30 to May 2, 2015 available atwww.academia.edu/14848234/Frenemies_Nuclear_Sharing_and_Proliferation_The_Eastern_Bloc_1965-1969. 

[xiv] U.S.-Romanian Nuclear Cooperation (1976), http://aad.archives.gov/aad/createpdf?rid=106853&dt=2476&dl=1345.

[xv] The Romanians repeatedly expressed to the Chinese that non-proliferation would work only “if it is tied to a general process that encompasses non-proliferation, nuclear disarmament, the interdiction of the use of nuclear weapons, and the destruction of nuclear weapons.” But if it was “not tied to an entire process of halting and destroying nuclear arms” then it would create a monopoly, allowing those possessing them to keep them, “increase their number and develop them further” without restriction, and granting a “political preponderance” to “whoever has such a powerful club in hand” that could be imposed on non-nuclear states. In consequence “every country that can build a nuclear weapon and that considers it necessary to possess one will do so.” See e.g. the discussion between Romanian Vice-President Emil Bodnaras and the Chinese Ambassador, January 28, 1965, ANR, Fond CC al PCR, Sectia Relatii Externe, dosar 4/1965, f. 43-58. Ceausescu explained this in even greater detail to former Vice-President Richard Nixon on March 22, 1967, ANR, Fond CC al PCR, Sectia Relatii Externe, dosar 15/1967, f. 4, 16-20. For the USSR see Ceausescu’s conversation with the President of the Soviet State Committee for Nuclear Energy, Andronik Petrosiants, May 16, 1981, ANR, Fond CC al PCR, Sectia Relatii Externe, dosar 53/1981, f.3, 7-12. For India see Ceausescu’s discussion with Indira Gandhi, October 19, 1967, ANR, Fond CC al PCR, Sectia Relatii Externe, dosar 88/1967, f. 4-6. For North Korea see the official Romanian-North Korean talks, May 20, 1978, ANR, Fond CC al PCR, Sectia Relatii Externe, dosar 66/1978, f. 2, 51-52 and Ceausescu’s discussion with Kim Il Sung, May 10-11, 1980, ANR, Fond CC al PCR, Sectia Relatii Externe, dosar 62/1980, f. 1, 26-27, 29-32. For Libya see Ceausescu’s conversation with the Libyan Secretary for Nuclear Energy, Abdel Magid Al-Kaud, December 2, 1981, ANR, Fond CC al PCR, Sectia Relatii Externe, dosar 91/1981, f. 3-5.

[xvi] Nicolae Ceauşescu in Hearst Interview and British Broadcasting Company (BBC), 9 July 1984. Interestingly, the analyst did not report the rest of Ceauşescu’s comment stipulating that Romania would not do so because it was against nuclear weapons. Vladimir Socor, “Soviet-Romanian Programs in Nuclear Energy Development,” RAD Background Report/129, RFER, 18 November 1985, pp. 1-2. Socor specified that all of his information came from Soviet sources.

[xvii] See e.g. Ceausescu’s statements in Minutes of Discussion of Report by the Supreme UAF Commander at the PCC Meeting, December 1978; Speech by the General Secretary of the PCR (Nicolae Ceausescu), 4 January 1983; and Records of the PCC Meeting in Bucharest: Speech by the General Secretary of the PCR (Nicolae Ceauşescu), 7 July 1989, all Courtesy of PHP, www.php.isn.ethz.ch, by permission of the Center for Security Studies at ETH Zurich on behalf of the PHP network.

[xviii] Reuters (Budapest), 15 November 1988.

[xix] Ceauşescu’s May 1989 declaration was made before a Plenum of the Democracy and Socialist Unity Front in Bucharest. Ionescu and Rîjnoveanu (2007), p. 6. On the other hand, as former Romanian Foreign Minister Stefan Andrei observed, Ceausescu’s statements on this point proved to be a major diplomatic “gaffe” since they were easily be spun as affirmations of dangerous intent and used against Romania by Moscow and Budapest. Lavinia Betea, I Se Spunea Machiavelli: Stefan Andrei in Dialog cu Lavina Betea [The Call Me Machiavelli: Stefan Andrei in Dialogue with Lavina Betea], Bucharest, Adevarul 2011, p. 254.

[xx] Radio Bucharest, 14 April 1989, 2100 hrs. See also Romania Situation Report/4, RFER, 4 May 1989, item 4.

[xxi] Transcript of Reception by Comrade Nicolae Ceausescu, President of the Socialist Republic of Romania, of the President of Atomic Energy Canada, Ltd (AECL), John S. Foster and of the Vice-President of the Agency, A. M. Aiken, June 16, 1976, ANR, Fond CC al PCR, Sectia Relatii Externe, dosar 79/1976, f. 1-15. Presumably, the already ailing 82 year-old Ceauşescu was referring to the fact that he would no longer be determining policy.

[xxii] Ibid.

[xxiii] Mohamed ElBaradei, The Age of Deception: Nuclear Diplomacy in Treacherous Times, New York: Metropolitan Books, 2011, p. 42.

[xxiv] See e.g. Petre T. Frangopol, Mediocritate Si Excelenta: O Radiografie a Stiintei si Invatamantului din Romania [Mediocrity and Excellence: An X-Ray of Science and Education in Romania], volume II, Cluj-Napoca, Casa Cartii de Stiinta, 2005, pp. 125-126. See also “Baietul’ lui Ceausescu, Mort in Fasa” [Ceausescu’s ‘Little Boy,’ Dead in the Womb,” Evenimentul Zilei, Dec. 10, 2002, http://www.evz.ro/articole/detalii-articol/513785/Baietelul-lui-Ceausescu-mort-in-fasa/.

[xxv] Russian Federation Foreign Intelligence Service, The Nuclear Potential of Individual Countries, 6 April 1995, at http://www.fas.org/irp/threat/svr_nuke.htm. The “disclosure” was made in 1995, when Romania suddenly appeared as a viable candidate for first-round NATO admission.

[xxvi] Ibid. See also “Officer Died at Explosion of Nuclear Object in Romania,” Omkpытaя Элekтproнная Газeтa [Open Electronic Newspaper], February 25, 2009, http://forum-msk.org/english/material/eng_news/769077.html and “Ceausescu Effort to Build Nuclear Bomb Reported,” Bucharest, Evenimentul Zilei, May 19, 1992, in FBIS-EEU-93-092, May 14, 1993, p. 14. (“Romania Planned Atom Bomb”, Rompres, 26 May 1993 is a synopsis of this article). See also “Baietul’ lui Ceausescu, Mort in Fasa,” Evenimentul Zilei, Dec. 10, 2002.

[xxvii] As one authority reported, the Romania’s Safeguards Agreement with the IAEAprovided “for material up to certain quantities to be exempted from safeguards” and the “Romanians had asked the IAEA to exempt a small quantity of spent fuel and had then conducted plutonium separation experiments in a hot cell.” Trevor Findlay, “Proliferation Alert! The IAEA And Non-Compliance Reporting,” Project On Managing the Atom, Report #2015-04, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard Kennedy School, October 2015, p. 5, footnote 87. Under the Safeguards Agreement (INFCIRC/180) reporting the presence of one or more grams of plutonium was mandatory (at the time 8 kg were thought necessary for a bomb). In its “definitions” section of the agreement on transferring spent fuel to Romania for experimentation, the IAEA identified the “units of account” as “grams of contained plutonium” and “kilograms of contained thorium, natural uranium or depleted uranium.” See the agreement concerning the IAEA's “Assistance to Romania for the Transfer of Enriched Uranium for Irradiation Studies in a Research Reactor,” INFCIRC/307, December 1, 1983, article 98, point d., pp. 10,https://www.iaea.org/publications/documents/infcircs/text-agreement-1-july-1983-concerning-agencys-assistance-romania. The December 1985 experiment produced only one-tenth that amount (100 milligrams), granting more room for interpretation then the finding of non-compliance suggested. Moreover, INFCIRC/307 allowed that Romania could remedy any determinations of non-compliance – “take fully corrective action within a reasonable time” – before the IAEA Board would “take other measures.” See article VI “Safeguards,” point 4., in Ibid, pages 3-4. Hans Blix signed INFCIRC/307.

[xxviii] Ibid; Findlay (2015), p. 5.

[xxix] According to the preamble, “arrangements have been made between the Agency and the Government of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (hereinafter called the “Soviet Union”) for the provision of uranium dioxide powder containing enriched uranium for use in the project.” See also Article II, 1. & 2., INFCIRC (1983), p. 2.

[xxx] Findlay (2015), p. 53; Ann MacLachlan, “Romania Separated Tiny Amount of Plutonium in Secret in 1985,” Nucleonics Week, Vol. 33, No. 26, June 25, 1992, p. 16.

[xxxi] MacLachlan, “Romania Separated Tiny Amount of Plutonium in Secret in 1985” (1992), p. 16

[xxxii] Suzanna Van Moyland, Sustaining a Verification Regime in a Nuclear Weapon-Free World, Research Report No 4, London, Verification Research, Training and Information Centre, June 1999, pp. 14-15,http://www.vertic.org/media/Archived_Publications/Research_Reports/Research_Report_4_Van_Moyland.pdf; Leonard S. Spector, Mark G. McDonough with Evan S. Medeiros,Tracking Nuclear Proliferation, New York, Carnegie Endowment, 1995, pp. 83, 86.

[xxxiii] Van Moyland (1999), pp. 14-15. Van Moyland’s third hypothesis, that the IAEA remained silent in order to protect a source, is improbable given that the IAEA would still have monitored the country more closely or at least recorded its suspicions and would not have ignored the transgression.

[xxxiv] Alex Mihai Stoenescu, In sfirsit, adevarul … General Victor Atanasie Stanculescu in dialog cu Alex Mihai Stoenscu [Finally, The Truth … General Victor Atanasie Stanculescu in Dialogue with Alex Mihai Stoenescu, Bucharest, RAO, 2009, pp. 210-214.

[xxxv] Ibid.

[xxxvi] Stoenescu (2009), pp. 210-211. According to Stanculescu, “the Unit in Bacau, the 404^th Reconnaissance, was designated and instructed to handle a bacteriologic attack against our major cities and in case the large water reservoirs were hit.”

[xxxvii] Author’s interview with General Ioan Talpes, former Director of Romanian Foreign Intelligence (SIE) during 1992-1997, June 16, 1995.

[xxxviii] Proliferation specialists are divided on how to classify Romania given, on the one hand, the insistence of Russian intelligence sources and Romanian media that Ceausescu was pursuing and on the verge of acquiring a bomb and, on the other, the lack of concrete evidence to that effect. Some place Romania in the same category as Sweden, Switzerland, West Germany, Italy, Norway, Australia, Japan, Argentina, Algeria, Egypt, Indonesia and Taiwan, all states that seriously studied the possibility and desirability of acquiring a nuclear weapon and then renounced the project as not worth the cost. See for example, Matthew Kroenig, “U.S. Nuclear Weapons and Nonproliferation: Is There A Link?” Georgetown University, October 30, 2014, p. 22, footnote 14, p. 38,http://www.matthewkroenig.com/Kroenig_U.S.%20Nuclear%20Weapons%20and%20Nonproliferation.pdf.  See also Sonail Singh and Christopher Way, “The Correlates of Nuclear Proliferation,” Journal of Conflict Resolution, vol. 48, no. 6 (2004): 859-885. Others, relying on the Romanian media and/or Russian intelligence and/or the defector Ion Mihai Pacepa (who admits that he was a Soviet agent working for the KGB while deputy head of Romanian foreign intelligence), classify it along with those pursing a nuclear bomb, even while acknowledging that details of the program are woefully “incomplete.” See e.g. Jacques E. C. Hymans, “Estimating the DPRK’s Nuclear Intentions and Capacities: A Comparative Foreign Policy Approach,” EAI Working Paper Series #8, East Asia Institute, April 2007, p. 23. Still others start out citing Romania as a case study of non-compliance only to consign it to a mere footnote because of the lack of evidence or identifiable logic behind such an alleged program. See e.g. Nuno P. Monteiro and Alexandre Debs, “The Strategic Logic of Nuclear Proliferation,” International Security, Vol. 39, No. 2 (Fall 2004), pp. 21, 23 and footnote 28.  See also Jacques Hymans, Achieving Nuclear Ambitions: Scientists, Politicians, and Proliferation, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2012, pp. 67, 241.

[xxxix] Findlay (2015), pp. 24, 37-38; IAEA, Record of GOV/OR Meeting 780, Tuesday, June 16, 1992, 10:05 a.m.

[xl] Findlay (2015), p. 38. See also J.B. Poole and R. Guthrie, editors, Verification 1993: Peacekeeping, Arms Control and the Environment, London, Brassey’s/VERTIC, 1993, pp. 11-22.