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Britain's ‘Political Romance’ with Romania in the 1970s

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 September 2008

Mark Percival
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Extract

‘King takes Queen’. This is how John Sweeney summed up his view of the state visit by Romanian President Nicolae Ceausescu to Britain in June 1978, an event which marked the high point of what the Times referred to as ‘Britain's political romance with Romania’ in the 1970s. Sweeney's book, in common with other post-revolutionary writing on Romania, roundly condemns Britain's foreign policy-makers for supporting a repressive regime.1 However, in the 1970s the situation was not viewed in such clear-cut terms. In the early part of the decade, books by British writers praised Ceausescu, and Romania often received favourable coverage in the British press.2 It was almost universally seen as a country which, although internally rigidly communist, pursued an independent foreign policy and was consequently a thorn in the flesh of the Soviet Union. It was keen to industrialise and to expand its economic ties with the West in order to do so. Apologists for British policy would argue that it was therefore both politically and economically beneficial to support Ceausescu. Politically it would weaken Moscow's control over the Eastern Bloc, and economically it would benefit British industry. Indeed, the two were related – the more economic ties Ceausescu had with the West, the stronger his political independence from Moscow would become.

Type
Articles
Information
Contemporary European History , Volume 4 , Issue 1 , March 1995 , pp. 67 - 87
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1995

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References

1 Sweeney, J., The Life and Evil Times of Nicolae Ceausescu (thereafter Sweeney, Life and Times) (London: Hutchinson, 1991), 110–20Google Scholar; The Times, 28 Aug. 1975. See also Almond, M., The Rise and Fall of Nicolae and Elena Ceausescu (London: Chapmans, 1992), 110–16Google Scholar, and Almond, M., Decline without Fall (London: Alliance Publishers, 1988), 7, 24–8.Google Scholar

2 For examples of pro-Ceausescu writing from the 1970s, see Catchlove, D., Romania's Ceausescu (thereafter Catchlove, Ceausescu) (Tunbridge Wells: Abacus Press, 1972)Google Scholar, and Newens, S., Nicolae Ceausescu, the Man, his Ideas and his Socialist Achievements (thereafter Newens, Ceausescu) (Nottingham: Spokesman Books, 1972).Google Scholar Newens is currently an MEP. Similar books also appeared in the 1980s, for example, Govender, R., Detente and Disarmament: the Romanian View (London: Unified Printers and Publishers, 1982)Google Scholar, and, most notoriously, Maxwell, R., ed., Ceausescu, Builder of Modern Romania, International Statesman (thereafter Maxwell, Ceausescu) (Oxford: Pergamon, 1983).Google Scholar In a telephone conversation in August 1993, John Sweeney told me that he had heard well-founded suspicions from a number of serious Romania-watchers that Maxwell printed propaganda books for East European dictators as a sweetener in order to help him to buy the copyrights on scientific publications. Sweeney was unable to include these suspicions in his book, which was published prior to Maxwell's death, for fear of being sued by Maxwell.

3 Funderburk, D. B., Pinstripes and Reds (Washington DC. Selars Foundation Press, 1987), 39–54.Google Scholar Funderburk was US Ambassador to Romania 1981–5. He was highly critical of the State Department's policy, which he believed was too soft on the Ceausescu regime, a view which led him to resign his office.

4 Background Brief – Ceausescu: Major Foreign Policy Speech, issued by FCO, London, Aug. 1978; Governmental, Parliamentary and other Significant Visits between the UK and Eastern Europe 1 June 1977–30 June 1981, Foreign Policy Document no. 66 (London: HMSO, 1981); The Warsaw Pact, Meetings and Exercises, Foreign Policy Document no. 46 (London: HMSO, 1980).

5 One suggested contact who could have provided valuable information was Michael Shea (former Head of Chancery at the British Embassy in Bucharest; Press Spokesman at Buckingham Palace at the time of Ceausescu's visit, now with Hanson Trust). However, Shea did not respond to my request for an interview.

6 Sked, A. and Cook, C., Post War Britain, a Political History (thereafter Sked and Cook, Post War Britain) (London: Penguin, 1990), 227–8, 257–61, 280, 293–5.Google Scholar In at least one case, however, British government promotion of trade with the Eastern Bloc led to a damaging debacle. In 1977, the government subsidised British shipbuilders by £21m to build twenty-four ships to sell to Poland and in 1978 had to provide a further £17m. This contract was widely criticised by MPs on both sides of the House. See Holmes, M., The Labour Government 1974–79 (London: Macmillan, 1985), 57–9.Google Scholar

7 Floyd, D., Rumania, Russia's Dissident Ally (thereafter Floyd, Rumania) (London: Pall Mall Press, 1965), 56–82.Google Scholar Floyd provides a useful analysis of the dispute between Gheorghiu Dej and Moscow over industrialisation.

8 The Times, 24 March 1970.

9 United Kingdom Treaty Series: 105 (1970), Cmd 4536 (Treaty on Driving Licences); 107 (1972), Cmd 5106 (Treaty on Trade and Co-operation); 103 (1972), Cmd 5087 (Treaty on Air Transport); 21 (1973), Cmd 5895 (Treaty on Health); 5 (1976), Cmd 6374 (Treaty on Economic collaboration); 14 (1977), Cmd 6724 (Treaty on Taxation); 30 (1976), Cmd 6462 (Treaty on Atomic Energy); 9 (1976), Cmd 6376 (Treaty on Financial Matters); 15 (1977), Cmd 6722 (Treaty on Capital Investments); 63 (1980), Cmd 7981 (Treaty on Legal Proceedings); 32 (1979), Cmd 5106 (Treaty on Culture).

10 Financial Times, 13 Jan. 1976; Free Romanian Press, 18 Jan. 1976.

11 Free Romanian Press, 2 July 1972; The Times, 22 June 1972.

12 The Times, 14 May 1973, 19 Sept. 1975, 6 March 1978; Free Romanian Press, 1 Dec. 1973.

13 The Times, 19 Nov. 1970, 14 June 1972; Pacepa, I., Red Horizons (thereafter Pacepa, Horizons), 2nd ed. (Sevenoaks: Hodder and Stoughton, 1989), 336–7Google Scholar; Ion Ratiu, correspondence, July 1993.

14 The Times, 25 Sept. 1972; Free Romanian Press, 23 March 1975, 7 March 1976; Sweeney, Life and Times, 126; Behr, E., Kiss the Hand You Cannot Bite (London: Hamish Hamilton, 1991), 197–9.Google Scholar

15 The Times, 31 July 1970, 17 Nov. 1970; Chris Irving-Childs, Project Engineer on Site in Romania for Taylor Woodrow in the early 1970s, telephone conversation, Aug. 1993.

16 Free Romanian Press, 23 March 1975; The Times, 9 Oct. 1974; Publicity Department, British Rail, telephone conversation, July 1993.

17 Free Romanian Press, 18 May 1975; British Aerospace Brief on Rombac BAC 1–11 Airliner, July 1993.

18 The Times, 16 Feb. 1976, 1 Feb. 1977, 16 June 1978; The Guardian, 16 June 1978; Stan Chodzynski, currently Rolls Royce's Sales Manager for Central and Eastern Europe, correspondence, 24 Aug. 1993.

19 Interview with Sergiu Celac, 16 July 1993 (Celac was sacked by Ceausescu in late 1978); Daily Telegraph, 26 Oct. 1977; Julian Amery, correspondence, 3 Sept. 1993.

20 Ratiu, I., correspondence, July 1993Google Scholar; Sweeney, , Life and Times, 113Google Scholar; Chodzynski, , correspondence, 24 Aug. 1993Google Scholar; G. D. Bishop, currently General Project Manager for Rombac at British Aerospace, telephone conversation, Sept. 1993.

21 Sweeney, , Life and Times, 114Google Scholar; Howe, Lord, correspondence, 11 Aug. 1993Google Scholar; Chodzynski, , correspondence, 24 Aug. 1993Google Scholar; Pacepa, , Horizons, 414.Google Scholar

22 Gilberg, T., ‘Ceausescu's Romania’, Problems of Communism, (1974), 29–43;Google ScholarFischer, M. E., Nicolae Ceausescu, a Study in Political Leadership (thereafter Fischer, Ceausescu) (Boulder/London: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 1989), 111–13.Google Scholar Fischer's detailed work is the best analysis of Romanian politics in the Ceausescu period.

23 The Times, 16 June 1972, 7 Jan. 1974, 9 Jan. 1974; Free Romanian Press, 1 Dec. 1973.

24 Irving-Childs, conversation, Aug. 1993; The Times, 20 Nov. 1970; The Daily Telegraph, 17 June 1978; Sweeney, , Life and Times, 113.Google Scholar

25 Hansard (Commons), 23 June 1978, 7 July 1978; Chodzynski, correspondence, 24 Aug. 1993.

26 The Times, 20 Nov. 1970; Hansard (Commons), 22 Jan. 1971, 4 March 1971.

27 Hansard (Commons), 2, 17 Dec. 1970, 1, 3, 8 Feb. 1971, 12 July 1971.

28 The Times, 29 Jan. 1975, 16 Feb., 9 Sept., 8 Oct. 1976; Hansard (Lords), 22 Dec. 1976, 20 Dec. 1979; Hansard (Commons), 25 Mar. 1980.

29 Hansard (Commons), 16 Dec. 1974.

30 Overseas Trade Accounts of the United Kingdom (thereafter OTA) (London: HMSO); Sked, and Cook, , Post War Britain, 258.Google Scholar

31 OTA.

32 See Newens, Ceausescu; Catchlove, Ceausescu.

33 The Times, 19 Oct. 1978. For further details of Steel's dealings with Ceausescu, see Sweeney, Life and Times, 126–7. Approached and asked whether he would agree to be interviewed, Steel declined and wrote (in July 1993), ‘I actually do not have any special interest in Romania.’

34 The Guardian, 14 June 1978; The Economist, 19 Feb. 1972, 2 Dec. 1978.

35 Free Romanian Press, 23 Oct. 1978; State Visit of President Nicolae Ceausescu to the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland (thereafter State Visit) (Bucharest: Meridiane Publishing House, 1978), 44; The Times, 3 Aug. 1976. Callaghan declined to be interviewed about his opinions on British–Romanian relations, claiming he knew ‘very little about the subject’.

36 Harrington, J. F. and Courtney, B., Tweaking the Nose of the Russians (thereafter Harrington and Courtney, Tweaking the Nose) (Boulder: East European Monographs, 1991), 289, 299–303, 381–407, 433–5Google Scholar; correspondence from I. Ratiu, July 1993. Harrington and Courtney's comprehensive study of US Romanian relations from 1940 to 1990 is a mine of valuable information.

37 Georgescu, V., The Romanians (Columbus, OH: Ohio State University Press, 1991), 193, 240–2Google Scholar; Ionescu, G., Communism in Romania (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1974), 123–5, 131–6, 141–3Google Scholar; Ionitoiu, C., Morminte fara cruce (Munich: Jan Dumitru Verlag, 1982), 80–126;Google ScholarBaciu, N., Agonia Romaniei (Cluj: Editura Dacia, 1990), 249–55.Google Scholar For an account of conditions in Romania's communist prisons see Wurmbrand, R., In God's Underground (London: W. H. Allen, 1968).Google Scholar Georgescu's work is the best general history of the Romanians, free from the ideological bias of accounts printed in Bucharest during the communist period. Ionescu gives the most detailed analysis of the communist takeover and of politics under the Gheorghiu Dej regime.

38 See Fischer, , Ceausescu, 141–6Google Scholar for details of how Ceausescu profited from his denunciation of the invasion of Czechoslovakia; Floyd, , Rumania, 56–82Google Scholar, for details of the industrialisation dispute with Moscow; Braun, A., Romanian Foreign Policy since 1965 (thereafter Braun, Foreign Policy) (New York: Praeger, 1978), 105–11Google Scholar, on Soviet military strategy.

39 Ratiu, I., Contemporary Romania (Richmond: Foreign Affairs Publishing Company, 1975),98–9Google Scholar; The Times, 4 March 1971; Presa Libera Romana (in Romanian), 13 Feb. 1972; Free Romanian Press, 27 Jan. 1973, 11 Jan. 1976.

40 The Warsaw Pact, Meetings and Exercises, Foreign Policy Document no. 46 (London: HMSO, 1980). See also Braun, , Foreign Policy, 105–11.Google Scholar

41 Amnesty International Annual Reports, G. Schopflin and H. Poulton, The Hungarians of Rumania, Minority Rights Group Report, 1978.

42 State Visit 166; Maxwell, , Ceausescu, 154;Google ScholarRatiu, , correspondence, July 1993;Google ScholarBethell, Lord, correspondence, Aug. 1993Google Scholar; Hansard (Lords), 28 June 1978.

43 Sunday Express, 15 June 1975; letter from the British-Romanian Association to Harold Wilson, 15 Sept. 1975, Archives of the British-Romanian Association.

44 Ratiu, I., correspondence, July 1993Google Scholar; The Times, 24 Nov. 1971; Free Romanian Press, 5 Dec. 1971; Jill Parkinson, Foreign Office, Central European Department, correspondence, 24 Aug. 1993.

45 Interview with Nicolae Ratiu, 13 July 1993; letter from Michael Sullivan, Foreign and Commonwealth Office, East European and Soviet Department, to Ion Ratiu, 12 April 1977, Archives of the British-Romanian Association. Quoted with the permission of Nicolae Ratiu.

46 Free Romanian Press, 2 July 1978; The Times, 20 Sept. 1978; N. Ratiu, interview, 13 July 1993; I. Ratiu, correspondence, July 1993. On 14 June 1978, the Guardian reported a similar incident on 13 June in which a London bus was driven in front of a group of Hungarian demonstrators.

47 Ratiu, I., correspondence, July 1993.Google Scholar According to Rady, Martyn, Romania in Turmoil (London/New York: Tauris, 1992), 78Google Scholar, the notorious Copsa Mica carbon black processing plant was expanded in the 1970s with British assistance. This information was supplied to Rady by a former manager at the site, who could not, however, remember which British company was involved.

48 Harrington, and Courtney, , Tweaking the Nose, 527Google Scholar; Nelson, D. N., Romanian Politics in the Ceausescu Era (New York/London: Gordon and Breach, 1988), 205.Google Scholar

49 Ratiu, I., correspondence, July 1993Google Scholar; Sweeney, , Life and Times, 119;Google ScholarRatiu, N., interview, 13 July 1993Google Scholar; Celac, interview.

50 Brucan, S., The Wasted Generation (Boulder/San Francisco/Oxford: Westview Press, 1993), 131–4.Google Scholar Also talk given by S. Brucan at London University, School of Slavonic and East European Studies, 12 Nov. 1990.