Red Horizons
Pacepa, Ion Mihai
T am not normally a fan of "defector books," but this is an extraordinary volume. For all those interested in the actual functioning of a Communist state, and in particular those who marvel at the...
...I agreed, and the result was a lengthy account that was published in L'Express, in Paris...
...Pacepa said flatly that everything that the Rumanians obtained from the West was passed to the Kremlin, and this article was used by the opponents of the Landsat deal to try to block the transaction...
...intelligence officers operating under the cover of the robes of ambassadors and archbishops...
...As luck would have it, the article came out just as the U.S...
...Here is the basic account: Its purpose was to give the West the illusion that his Rumania was a new kind of Communist country, independent of everyone else, including Moscow, which deserved to be supported by the West, so as to create cracks in the walls around the Soviet bloc...
...RED HORIZONS: CHRONICLES OF A COMMUNIST SPY CHIEF Ion Mihai Pacepa/Regnery Gateway/$19.95 Michael Ledeen THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR APRIL 1988 47...
...After seven years trying to meet him, I finally arranged an introduction in 1984...
...G eneral Ion Mihai Pacepa was acting director of the Rumanian Intelligence Service at the time of his spectacular defection in 1978...
...They should listen to a speech that Ceausescu gave to his top leaders behind closed doors: "In his unmatched genius, Lenin phrased the future of his proletarian revolution in a simple mathematical formula: 'Communism equals political power plus electrification.' Today, sixty years later, I would add a new building block to Marxism-Leninism: Modern Communism equals national Communism plus technological intelligence and money from capitalism...
...That, comrades, is the Rumanian contribution to Marxism...
...Ronald Reagan is said to have read this book, and to have recommended it to all his friends...
...In many ways, the account of the Rumanian deception is strikingly similar to the themes of glasnost and perestroika now emanating from the Kremlin, and Ion Mihai Pacepa, the highest-ranking intelligence official ever to defect from the Soviet bloc, has found a dramatic way to tell this story: in the form of a diary, he takes us into the offices, corridors, and even the bedrooms of the Rumanian dictator and his family...
...Swept up in the enthusiasm of the "new era" in East-West relations, many of our leaders seem eager to offer new trade concessions to the Soviet bloc as a sign of our encouragement for their "new course...
...government was considering a Rumanian request for a Landsat system, and the debate in Washington revolved around a simple question: could we sell high technology to the Rumanians without it finding its way into Soviet hands...
...Not a single top official was left, not a single major operation was still running...
...Ceausescu ended...
...Swiss bank accounts rewarding high-ranking, corrupt Westerners who agreed to present Rumania as a "maverick...
...Mike" was frustrated by his inability to bring to the active attention of the American government the details of the vast network of technological espionage that he had created for Ceausescu, and asked me if I was willing to work with him on an article on the subject...
...Many American officials (mostly in State and Commerce, but also in CIA) believed Michael Ledeen is The American Spectator's regular Presswatch columnist...
...Ceausescu's "Horizon" had everything: overt and covert propaganda in the West...
...It is one of the most successful covert operations in history, producing a gain of tens of billions of dollars for a system unable to generate either wealth or competitive technology on its own...
...Yet it remains one of the great secrets of the modern age, rarely analyzed and even more rarely understood...
...I hope it's true...
...And never, to my knowledge, has such a story been told so well...
...His passage from East to West was a historic event, for so carefully had he prepared, and so thorough was his knowledge of the structure, the methods, the objectives, and the operations of Ceausescu's secret service, that within three years the entire organization had been eliminated...
...documents "signed" by heads of foreign governments, counterfeited in Bucharest and "accidentally lost" in luxury hotels or leaked to the West in other ways...
...intelligence officers disguised as lovers, recruiting Western officials as agents of influence .. . The combination of technological espionage and systematic deception enabled Ceausescu—along with the Soviets and their satellites—to gull the Western world into financing the Communist bloc, and to steal the technology the West would not sell (or finance at bargain rates...
...Such is the reputation of Pacepa, and it is important to keep it in mind as you read some of the amazing stories in Red Horizons...
...Since confession is the order of the day, I should warn you that Pacepa is a friend of mine, and that we have worked together in the past...
...At least two squads of murderers have come to the United States to try to find him, and just recently one of Pacepa's former agents—a man who had performedminor miracles in stealing Western technology in Europe at Rumanian behest—spent several months on the East Coast, trying to track down the general...
...His face had turned bright red, and his forehead was dripping with perspiration...
...For the picture of the ruling family that we find in Red Horizons is one of greed and opulent decadence that contrasts starkly with the medieval misery to which Ceausescu has reduced his country...
...To the great credit of our government, Pacepa was called in, questioned at length, and in the end the experts reversed their position, concluding that we could not sell advanced technology to Rumania without the expectation that it would end up in Soviet hands...
...Happily, they have not found him, but it is easy to imagine that the appearance of this book will stimulate Ceausescu—even in the increasingly delicate state in which he finds himself, and even with the mounting challenge to his murderous regime that is growing in the streets of the country—to redouble his efforts to eliminate Pacepa...
...hints dropped into concealed microphones discovered in Rumanian embassies in the West and kept in place for sending misleading messages...
...I t is a fabulous tale, containing some hitherto unknown stories about Ceausescu's involvement in the Middle East (teaching Arafat to mount his own influence operation against the West to convince us that the PLO was "moderate," and should be supported against "extremists" like Abu Nidal—all the while having Abu Nidal under strict control by Arafat's chief of intelligence), the uneasy relationship with the Kremlin (working jointly in some areas, but fearing Soviet efforts to penetrate the Rumanian regime), and the vast financial network that gave the Ceausescu family a great personal fortune, Rolls Royces and private yachts (wheedled from King Hussein), and one of the most dissolute children imaginable—Nicu, the heir to the dictatorship...
...Finally, Red Horizons is vitally important for understanding what promises to become the hottest issue of 1988: strategic trade...
...As usual, Ceausescu had it wrong: it wasn't his contribution at all, it was ours...
...The participants had stood and were clapping with a rhythmic beat...
...Ceausescu had a nervous breakdown, and gave orders for Pacepa's assassination...
...it was possible...
...And if we want to avoid saving Marxism in the next few years, we will have to learn the lessons that men like Pacepa have to teach us...
...For all those interested in the actual functioning of a Communist state, and in particular those who marvel at the ease with which the Soviet Union and its satellites have managed to convince the West that a new, independent, liberal society can emerge from behind the Iron Curtain, Red Horizons is required reading...
...For the bulk of this book is devoted to the systematic deception that Nicolae Ceausescu practiced on the Carter Administration...
...The centerpiece of the book is Pacepa's description of "Horizon," the deception operation that Ceausescu mounted against the West...
...if the President has absorbed the message of Red Horizons, we don't have to worry about the next summit...
...Never before have we had such a detailed, first-hand account of a Communist dictatorship...
Vol. 21 • April 1988 • No. 4
