CIA · President's Daily Brief · declassified 2015–2016
Romania in the President's Daily Brief: 1967
22 days in 1967 on which the CIA's brief for the US president names Romania: 22 paragraphs, scanned and transcribed, with the withheld passages marked.
named in passing
4. East-West Europe
Bonn's drive for better relations with Eastern Europe is becoming a divisive issue among Moscow's former satellites. On the one side is Rumania, the first to break solidarity on this issue. On the other is East Germany, angrily lobbying--without much effect--among its allies for a continued policy of treating Bonn as an outcast.
Even the Poles, among the wariest recipients of initiatives from Bonn, are beginning to feel isolated on the issue. There are some signs that Warsaw has made its own tentative soundings in Bonn.
Moscow is reacting cautiously to this confusion. There is not much the Soviets could do now, assuming they want to head off further moves toward East European - West German rapprochement. A Warsaw Pact foreign ministers meeting is apparently to convene in Berlin next week. It will surely discuss Bonn's initiatives, but any agreement on a common response is highly unlikely.
The Warsaw Pact foreign ministers are meeting in Warsaw, but only after strong Rumanian objections forced a change in site and agenda.
The Rumanians agreed to go to Warsaw only on condition that there be no criticism of their recognizing West Germany. Only a deputy foreign minister from Bucharest is attending and he will stage a walkout if this proviso is violated.
Thus the Rumanians have bottled up discussion of the issue uppermost in the minds of most of the other East Europeans.
By all accounts the meeting of Warsaw Pact foreign ministers, just concluded, failed to reach agreement on the implications of Rumania's establishing diplomatic relations with the West Germans. This can only mean that each of the other East European countries will continue to deal with Bonn essentially as it sees fit.
Brezhnev personally put the screws on Hungarian party boss Kadar last month in an apparently futile effort to bring him into line on the question of West Germany. Rumania had already broken ranks by unconditionally recognizing Bonn, and now Hungary seemed inclined to follow suit.
This, of course, is only one facet in Moscow's effort to strengthen East European resistance to Bonn's recent diplomatic initiatives and to forestall East Germany's isolation. Kadar's apparent resistance to Brezhnev's arm-twisting reinforces our belief that Moscow's effort can only be a delaying operation.
The most significant thing to emerge so far from last week's rather feeble conference of European Communist parties in Czechoslovakia has been the extent of Rumania's isolation from its erstwhile allies. Rumania has moved perceptibly closer to the position long held by Yugoslavia.
typically Yugoslav themes played by the Rumanian press during the conference, strongly suggests that the joint absence of the two parties was no coincidence.
Preliminary reaction to President Johnson's speech yesterday has been generally favorable among UN representatives--other than the obvious exceptions. The speech is regarded by many delegates as conciliatory and moderate in tone, and a concise summary of US views. There has been considerable comment that Kosygin's speech made the President's sound even better.
The Latin Americans were pleased that the speech gave first place to their area. The Rumanian representative said the President's position was not really very far from that of his own country.
Several Arab delegates asked why the US had become involved in the dispute, believing the Israelis should speak for themselves. Israel's representative, however, characterized the speech as good and helpful.
Indian and Saudi Arabian officials at the UN complained that the speech offered nothing new.
The Rumanians seem to be doing some independent snooping regarding the Soviet armed forces. how many ships the Soviets keep in the Mediterranean.
Rumania did not attend the last two Warsaw Pact military intelligence conferences. It may be that it has been cut off from normal pact sources on Soviet military deployment.
Rumanian party boss Ceausescu has been getting a lot of advance billing for a speech he will give the Rumanian National Assembly today. He may not live up to some of the wilder rumors about what Rumania will do next to show its independence, but Moscow is clearly worried. Yesterday Pravda made it clear that in the Soviet view, the Rumanians have strayed too far already.
Party boss Ceausescu's speech to the National Assembly yesterday was not the blockbuster rumor had predicted. He did, however, strongly reaffirm aspects of Rumania's foreign policy which run counter to Moscow's line, particularly on such issues as the Middle East and the Warsaw Pact.
The most interesting aspect of the performance was the presence, by invitation, of a correspondent from Radio Free Europe--an unprecedented event in Eastern Europe. Bucharest probably hopes this reporter will be able to get some objective publicity on the Assembly session through to Eastern Europe, where Bloc propagandists normally describe Rumanian policies as disruptive.
After a lot of foot-dragging, the Rumanians have apparently approved tabling the draft nonproliferation treaty in Geneva. This, however, is only the beginning. Rumanian leaders have not abandoned their reservations about the draft, which are very similar to those expressed by the Italians, West Germans, Swedes, and Japanese.
Premier Maurer is apparently en route to Hanoi again. This will make four trips there in four years. Bucharest probably considers this a good time for an exchange of views--a Rumanian has just been elected president of the UN General Assembly and Maurer himself has had talks recently with President Johnson and General De Gaulle.
East Germany has joined other Communist countries in outlining its support for North Vietnam. An aid agreement signed on 5 October provides for credits to cover East German goods and services to be delivered during 1968-1970. A trade agreement for next year calling for a substantial increase over 1967 also was signed. Under it East Germany will supply light industrial goods, trucks, medical and various consumer goods.
North Vietnam also signed a 1968 trade agreement with Communist China on 5 October. Although details are not available, the trade pact undoubtedly recognizes North Vietnam's inability to sustain exports, but assures Hanoi that necessary goods will be supplied under the traditional trade protocol. These agreements further round out the efforts of the recent aid-seeking mission led by Deputy Premier Le Thanh Nghi, which also produced agreements with the Soviet Union, Communist China, North Korea, Mongolia, Rumania, Bulgaria, and Cuba.
Chinese Anti-Soviet Tirade Embarrasses Hanoi Leaders:
Top North Vietnamese leaders were visibly embarrassed by a blatantly anti-Soviet speech delivered by the Chinese charge d'affaires during the Chinese National Day reception on 29 September. Premier Pham Van Dong was even seen to sink his head in his hands during the tirade. Ho Chi Minh, Le Duan, and General Giap were also present. The Soviet representative and his East European friends walked out early in the speech, but not the Rumanian, who remained "smiling narrowly."
Embassy Rome learns that Polish and Rumanian diplomats in the Italian capital have been saying recently that a suspension of the bombing of North Vietnam would serve no purpose. They also say they are unable to account for Hanoi's rigidity.
The US embassies in Djakarta and Vientiane both have passed along accounts of Hanoi's position on negotiations from the Indonesian ambassador in North Vietnam. Both reports confirm earlier indications that the Indonesian ambassador is often imprecise in his analysis of Hanoi's actual stand on important matters. In one cable to his home office which was shown our ambassador to Djakarta by the Indonesian foreign minister, the Indonesian ambassador reported that Rumanian Premier Maurer on his recent trip to Hanoi received no reply when he inquired as to whether a cessation of US bombing would result in a reciprocal gesture from Hanoi. Yet the Indonesian told Ambassador Sullivan that Maurer received "positive" assurances that talks would take place soon if the bombing stopped.
In his 23 October conversation with US Ambassador Sullivan in Vientiane, the Indonesian ambassador to Hanoi claimed that North Vietnamese Premier Pham Van Dong and Foreign Minister Nguyen Duy Trinh had taken a hard line against negotiations with him in late September, but he veered back toward the standard Indonesian line that talks may yet be in the offing by telling Ambassador Sullivan that he saw some "nuances" in the Burchett article from Hanoi which he felt constituted "forward movement" on North Vietnam's part. The "nuances" he mentioned, however, turn out to be either misreadings of Burchett or insignificant semantic problems.
Rumanian Prime Minister Maurer in a 25 October conversation with the American ambassador in Bucharest gave a detailed account of the impressions he formed during his recent, secret trip to North Vietnam. Maurer's basic conclusion from his four days in Hanoi was that the North Vietnamese are now more flexible in their attitude toward negotiations and that there definitely would be talks if the US unilaterally and unconditionally stopped the bombings without demanding any form of reciprocity or prior guarantee of such talks.
The Rumanian offered no evidence for his assertions that talks will follow a bombing cessation, and he does not appear to have been given any assurances in this regard by the North Vietnamese. Rather, his report, taken together with other recent information on his trip, suggests that Hanoi's current position on the war is the same now as it was when first outlined last January by Foreign Minister Nguyen Duy Trinh--there could be talks with the US if the bombing is stopped unconditionally.
Maurer's account of his visit was almost deliberately optimistic but showed in the last analysis that the North Vietnamese are taking their usual inflexible stand even in conversations with their allies. Maurer's testimony makes it clear that not only will there be no reciprocity on Hanoi's part for a bombing halt, but that the North Vietnamese intend to continue fighting in the south and to maintain their supply operations to their forces in South Vietnam during any talks.
Maurer also spelled out in terms unusually frank for a Communist leader the fact that the Communists believe once talks begin, the pressures on the US for compromises leading to an end of the war will be irresistible. This, of course, is what Hanoi has in mind by insisting that the fighting in the south will continue while talks are being conducted.
The facts are not all in yet, but it is clear that the US Army attaché and his British colleague were given some pretty rough treatment on Friday by Soviet goons in Kishinev, a town near the Rumanian border. They were forcibly detained in a hotel room and their notes and film seized--though nothing the attaché considers unusually incriminating. Both officers were roughed up, especially the Britisher. Our attaché thinks they may have been drugged.
The Department of State knows of no incident here that might have triggered the action.
Governor Harriman arrived in Bucharest yesterday in the midst of considerable ferment over the regime's domestic policies. Party boss Ceausescu intends to impose a series of economic and administrative changes at a special party conference next week. He has set aside the intervening time for "public debate" on the issues.
There are definite nationalistic ramifications in the proposed reforms; they will take Rumania further from the Soviet model. Ceausescu, who has already irritated the traditionalists by "de-Sovietizing" the constitution and other institutions, is obviously not afraid of continuing the process.
The Soviet bloc foreign ministers, winding up their meeting on the Middle East, have issued a communiqué based on the lowest common denominator. The statement claims complete unity of views among the participants, including the Rumanians. In order to achieve this consensus, however, the foreign ministers balanced a renewed call for the withdrawal of Israeli forces from Arab territory with the reaffirmation of Israel's right to exist. The absence of any pledge of military and economic aid to the Arabs also seems to represent a concession by Moscow to some of the East Europeans.
Moscow is said to have "broken" a contract to purchase oil drilling equipment from Bucharest, and to be pressuring Prague to cancel a large order for Rumanian-made railroad cars. This probably stems from Soviet irritation over Rumania's "independent" stand on important international issues, and more such economic reprisals may be in the offing.
