Ion Mihai Pacepa | |
|---|---|
 Pacepa in 1975 | |
| Born | (1928-10-28)28 October 1928 |
| Died | 14 February 2021(2021-02-14) (aged 92) United States |
| Citizenship | Romanian American |
| Alma mater | Politehnica University of Bucharest |
| Espionage activity | |
| Allegiance |  Romania (defected) United States |
| Service branch | Securitate |
| Service years | 1951–1978 |
| Rank | Lieutenant General[1][2] |
Ion Mihai Pacepa (Romanian pronunciation:[iˈonmiˈhajpaˈt͡ʃepa]; 28 October 1928 – 14 February 2021) was a Romanianlieutenant general in theSecuritate, the secret police of theSocialist Republic of Romania, whodefected to theUnited States in July 1978 followingPresidentJimmy Carter's approval of his request forpolitical asylum. He was the highest-ranking defector from the formerEastern Bloc, and wrote books and articles on the inner workings of communist intelligence services. His best-known works are the booksDisinformation andRed Horizons.
At the time of hisdefection, Pacepa simultaneously had the rank of advisor toPresidentNicolae Ceaușescu, acting chief of hisforeign intelligence service, and a parliamentary undersecretary at Romania'sMinistry of Interior.
Subsequently, he worked with the AmericanCentral Intelligence Agency (CIA) to bring down communism for more than 10 years. The CIA described his cooperation as "an important and unique contribution to the United States".[3]
Ion Mihai Pacepa's father (born in 1893) was raised inAlba Iulia, in theTransylvania region in the north west ofRomania, where he worked in his father's small kitchenware factory. On 1 December 1918, Transylvaniaunited with Romania, and in 1920, Pacepa's father moved toBucharest and worked for the local branch of the American car companyGeneral Motors.
Born in Bucharest in 1928, Ion Mihai Pacepa studied industrialchemistry at thePolitehnica University of Bucharest between 1947 and 1951, but just months before graduation, he was drafted by the Securitate and gained hisengineering degree only four years later. He was assigned to the Directorate of Counter-sabotage of the Securitate. In 1955, he was transferred to the Directorate of Foreign Intelligence.[4]
In 1957, Pacepa was appointed head of the Romanian intelligence station inFrankfurt,West Germany, where he served for two years. In October 1959, Minister of the InteriorAlexandru Drăghici appointed him as head of Romania's new industrial espionage department, the S&T (short forȘtiință și Tehnologie, meaning "science and technology" in Romanian) of Directorate I. He was the head of Romanianindustrial espionage, which he managed until he defected in 1978.[4] Pacepa claimed he was involved with the establishment of Romania's automobile industry,[5] and with the development of itsmicroelectronic,polymer, andantibiotic industries.
From 1972 to 1978, Pacepa was also PresidentNicolae Ceaușescu's adviser for industrial and technological development and the deputy chief of the Romanian foreign intelligence service.
Pacepa defected in July 1978 by walking into theUS Embassy inBonn,West Germany, where he had been sent by Ceaușescu with a message toChancellorHelmut Schmidt.[6] He was flown secretly toAndrews Air Force Base nearWashington, D.C., in a United Statesmilitary aircraft.[7]
In a letter to his daughter, Dana, published in the French newspaperLe Monde in 1980 and broadcast over and over byRadio Free Europe, Pacepa explained the reason for defecting: "In 1978 I got the order to organize the killing ofNoël Bernard, the director of Radio Free Europe's Romanian program who had infuriated Ceaușescu with his commentaries. It was late July when I got this order, and when I ultimately had to decide between being a good father and being a political criminal. Knowing you, Dana, I was firmly convinced that you would prefer no father to one who was an assassin."[8]
Noël Bernard died in 1981 ofcancer; his wife,Ioana Măgură Bernard [ro], suggested he had been irradiated by the Securitate.[9][10] She also linked Bernard's death to those of RFE journalists such asCornel Chiriac (stabbed to death), as well asEmil Georgescu andVlad Georgescu, both of whom also died of cancer.[9][10] According to Bernard's wife, Noël'sSecuritate file had attached an article from a magazine which talks about Noël undergoing surgery, with a note which argues that the article confirms "the measures undertaken by us are starting to have an effect".[10] Pacepa later claimed a supposedradiological weapon namedRadu was used againstdissenters and critics by theSecuritate.[11] According to Pacepa, "Radu" was a Romanian name used as a reference to "radiation", with the intention to lead the target tocancer which would result in death within months after theexposure.[11]
Pacepa's defection destroyed the intelligence network of communist Romania, and through the revelations of Ceaușescu's activity, it affected Ceaușescu's international credibility and respectability. An article published byThe American Spectator in 1988 summed up the devastation caused by Pacepa's "spectacular" defection: "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 Ceaușescu's secret service, that within three years the entire organization had been eliminated. Not a single top official was left, not a single major operation was still running. Ceaușescu had a nervous breakdown, and gave orders for Pacepa's assassination. 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 performed minor miracles in stealing Western technology in Europe at Romanian behest — spent several months on the East Coast, trying to track him down. They didn't succeed."[12]
Conservative writerAlfred S. Regnery claimed that, after his defection, Pacepa received two death sentences from communist Romania, and Ceaușescu decreed a bounty of US$2 million for his death, withYasser Arafat andMuammar Gaddafi allegedly setting a further $1 million each.[13][14] In the 1980s, there were rumors that Romania's Securitate enlistedCarlos the Jackal to assassinate Pacepa in the United States in exchange for $1 million.[15][16]
On 7 July 1999,Romania's Supreme Court Decision No. 41/1999 cancelled Pacepa's death sentences and ordered for his properties, confiscated by Ceaușescu's orders, to be returned to him.[17][18] Romania's government refused to comply. In December 2004, the new government of Romania restored Pacepa's rank of general.[19]
According toMichael Ledeen in 2016, the two death sentences remained in effect, and Pacepa "has lived in secret" since his defection.[20] Pacepa died in 2021.
Pacepa was a columnist for the Internet conservative blog sitePJ Media. He also wrote articles forThe Wall Street Journal andAmerican conservative publications, such asNational Review Online,The Washington Times, the online newspaperFrontPage Magazine, andWorld Net Daily.
In 1987, Pacepa wrote a book published in the United States byRegnery Gateway,Red Horizons: Chronicles of a Communist Spy Chief. A Romanian translation ofRed Horizons printed in the U.S. was infiltrated into Communist Romania, and a Mao-style pocketbook ofRed Horizons was illegally printed in Communist Hungary (now a valuable collector’s item). In 1988,Red Horizons was serialized onRadio Free Europe, arousing "huge interest among Romanians". According to Radio Romania, "the streets of Romania's towns were empty" during the RFE serialization ofRed Horizons. On 25 December 1989, during the last part of theRomanian Revolution, Ceaușescu and his wife,Elena, were sentenced to death. Pacepa claimed that at the trial most of the accusations came almost word-for-word out ofRed Horizons (a second edition, published in March 1990, contained the transcript of Ceauşescu's trial, which was based on facts presented inRed Horizons).[21] PresidentRonald Reagan reportedly called “Red Horizons” his “Bible” for dealing with dictators.[22]
On 1 January 1990, the book began being serialized in the new official Romanian newspaperAdevărul (The Truth), which on that day replaced the CommunistScînteia (The Spark). In its lead,Adevărul explained that the book's serialization by Radio Free Europe had "played an incontestable role" in overthrowing Ceaușescu, according to the text on the back cover of the book's second edition, published during 1990.Red Horizons was subsequently republished in 29 countries, and it was made into a documentary movie by theHungarian TV.
During 1993, Pacepa publishedTheKremlin's Legacy. During 1999, he authored the trilogyThe Black Book of the Securitate, which has become a bestseller in Romania.[23]
The bookLooming Disaster was written by Pacepa together with Ronald Rychlak. Far-right propaganda website WND introduced it in August 2016, as follows: "This November's election spells 'LOOMING DISASTER,' warns former communist spymaster and disinformation expert, Gen. Ion Mihai Pacepa."
In a 2006 article, Pacepa describes a conversation he had with Ceaușescu, who told him about "ten international leaders the Kremlin killed or tried to kill":László Rajk andImre Nagy from Hungary;Lucrețiu Pătrășcanu andGheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej from Romania;Rudolf Slánský andJan Masaryk from Czechoslovakia;Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, the Shah of Iran;Palmiro Togliatti from Italy;US PresidentJohn F. Kennedy; andCCP ChairmanMao Zedong. Pacepa provides some additional details, such as an alleged plot to kill Mao Zedong with the help ofLin Biao organized by theKGB.[21]
In 2007,Ivan R. Dee published Pacepa's bookProgrammed to Kill: Lee Harvey Oswald, the Soviet KGB, and the Kennedy Assassination that arguesLee Harvey Oswald was recruited as a KGB agent.[24] According to Pacepa,Soviet PremierNikita Khrushchev ordered theassassination of John F. Kennedy, then changed his mind but was unable to stop Oswald.[25] Pacepa wrote thatJack Ruby was subsequently instructed to kill Oswald in order to silence him.[24] The work was said to rely heavily on the work of theWarren Commission, theHouse Select Committee on Assassinations, andEdward Jay Epstein.[25]
In a review of Pacepa's book published inHuman Events,Michael Ledeen, former adviser for terrorism to PresidentRonald Reagan, writes: "A new book from General Ion Mihai Pacepa is cause for celebration, because he is among a tiny handful of people who know a lot about the intelligence services of the Soviet Empire, and because he writes about it with rare lucidity, always with an eye to helping us understand our world. His first book, 'Red Horizons,' is indubitably the most brilliant portrait of a Communist regime I've ever read. 'Programmed to Kill' is equally fascinating. Pacepa painstakingly takes us through the documentary evidence, including invaluable material on Soviet bloc cyphers that throws new light on Oswald's letters to KGB officers in Washington andMexico City. … No novelist could have written a more exciting story, made all the more compelling because of Pacepa's first-hand involvement in the Russians' efforts to hide their Oswald connection."[26] InH-Net Reviews, Stan Weeber calledProgrammed to Kill "a superb new paradigmatic work on the death of President Kennedy" and "a 'must read' for everyone interested in the assassination of President Kennedy."[27]
Publishers Weekly stated "those inclined to suspect a conspiracy was behind JFK's murder will likely remain unpersuaded by Pacepa's circumstantial, speculative case" and thatProgrammed to Kill offered "no convincing Soviet motive for the assassination."[25] According to author Joseph Goulden inThe Washington Times, Pacepa's belated account "rests rather flimsily on circumstantial evidence and supposition."[28] In a review forStudies in Intelligence, Hayden B. Peake called Pacepa's theory an "imaginative story" and "implausible".[24]
In a 2006 article written during theSecond Lebanon War, Pacepa wrote that the Soviet Union spreadanti-Semitic propaganda across theMiddle East to increase hatred for Jews, and by extensionIsrael and America. Pacepa writes that Soviet propagandists set up large party state organizations to infiltrate thousands of agents of change into the Arab and Muslim world to instill the idea of America as a "Jewish fiefdom" and spread the idea that Israel planned to make the Islamic Middle East into a "Jewish colony." Furthermore, he describes the Soviet Union's alleged role in propagating and funding terrorist groups in the Middle East. He published a book outlining these operations with its name taken from the program itself: Operation SIG.[29]
Pacepa alleged that the Soviet Union tried to discredit the Papacy. In a 2007 article, he stated: "In my other life, when I was at the center of Moscow's foreign-intelligence wars, I myself was caught up in a deliberate Kremlin effort to smear theVatican, by portrayingPope Pius XII as a coldheartedNazi sympathizer."[30]
In 2012, Pacepa revealed he was writing a book calledDisinformation that gives details of the Seat 12 plot and the Soviet "science" of framing. It is co-authored by Pius XII expert and professor of law at theUniversity of Mississippi,Ronald J. Rychlak. In an interview, Pacepa claimed that the original idea to blacken the Pontiff's reputation came fromJoseph Stalin in 1945, who wanted the Church out ofUkraine. On 3 June 1945, his Radio Moscow proclaimed that Pius XII had been "Hitler's Pope." But the insinuation fell flat as it came the day after Pius XII had condemned the "Satanic spectre of Nazism" on Vatican Radio. Moreover, Pius was being lauded for his wartime efforts to protect religious minorities by, among others, PresidentRoosevelt,Winston Churchill (who described him as "the greatest man of our time"), andAlbert Einstein. Stalin's disinformation efforts were rejected by that contemporary generation "that had lived through the real history and knew who Pope Pius XII really was," Pacepa explained. He said the KGB tried again, promotingRolf Hochhuth's 1963 playThe Deputy. As that generation "had not lived through that history and did not know better, [this] time it worked."[31][32]
In 2013, Pacepa publishedDisinformation: Former Spy Chief Reveals Secret Strategies for Undermining Freedom, Attacking Religion, and Promoting Terrorism co-authored with law professorRonald J. Rychlak, who studies the history of religion, and which would become his most recognizable work.
Pacepa supported the2003 invasion of Iraq. In opposition, largeanti-war demonstrations were held in cities across the world. Pacepa contends that these protests were contrived and anti-American, whichRussia assisted.[33] Pacepa wrote during October 2003 that it was "perfectly obvious to me" that the RussianGRU agency helpedSaddam Hussein to destroy, hide, or transfer his chemical weapons prior to the American invasion of Iraq during 2003.[34] He claimed that an operation for the removal of chemical weapons ("Operation Sarindar") had been prepared by the Soviet Union forLibya and that such a plan was being implemented inIraq.[34]
In May 2023HBO launched a TV series titledSpy/Master inspired by the story of Pacepa's defection in the late 1970s. The events are heavily dramatized and many character names have been changed, including Pacepa, who is represented by a character named Victor Godeanu. The series has a multi-national cast, with dialogue recorded in Romanian as well as English, German, Russian, andEgyptian Arabic, with subtitles. There is also a version completely overdubbed in English.
Pacepa died fromCOVID-19 on 14 February 2021, at age 92, during theCOVID-19 pandemic in the United States.[35] His life was discussed onBBC Radio 4's obituary programmeLast Word .[36]
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