Former Securitate Officers Do Not Forever Hold Their Piece

The allegation that Varujan Vosganian, Romania’s candidate for Commissioner to the EU, was an informant of the former Securitate was made by Liviu Turcu, himself a former officer with the spy division in the communist intelligence services.

Turcu, now living in the United States, after defecting to the West one year before the fell of the communism, made his allegations on the very day Vosganian was traveling to Brussels to introduce himself as Romania’s choice for a commissioner.

This is why Turcu’s allegations should be taken into account and seriously scrutinized.

On the face of it, it seems that Romanian authorities completely ignored thoroughly checking out Vosganian’s past, intelligence wise. They did not know they were supposed to do it, or they already knew what was there to be found out?

We do not know for the moment, but we will definitely find out in the following days.

PM Calin Popescu Tariceanu addressed the issue and asked the intelligence services and the authority in charge with the Securitate files, or CNSAS, to double check-up Vosganian only after Turcu dropped the bomb.

It is obvious that the CNSAS’ files are not enough to get to the bottom of this issue, for the simple reason that the authority does not have access to the classified files, belonging to still active officers.

This brings to the fore the issue that many politicians might have worked with the Securitate, while we are still unable to get access to those files.

One of the basic characteristics of intelligence work is secrecy, meaning that people working for the same service might not know each other. Only a few people at the top know who the active agents are.

This is why it is clear many secrets of the communist times espionage will never be known to the public. Or will become known to the extent that the key figures will agree to talk.

To prove his words, Turcu might offer us the additional details regarding Vosganian’s alleged past with the Securitate, as the name of the military unit he was serving in, and the name of his recruiter.

Turcu could even come back to Romania to help. His former defection, though carrying a death penalty ruled by a communist court against him, cannot put him in danger now, when Romania is a NATO member country.

The past experience Romanian public opinion has with politicians accused of having collaborated with the Securitate showed us people swore on the Bible they did not work for the Securitate, to later be proven they were blatant liars.

One thing became clear to me in the past 15 years in the journalistic profession: that things are never what they seem.

Many former intelligence officers may cry in frustration when seeing that network colleagues they long thought vanished from this earth reappear and talk, while little damage control is at hand.