Pacepa Speaks. Starting Monday.

Starting Monday Jurnalul National will serialize an exceptional document: an exclusive interview with Gen. Ion Mihai Pacepa, the former deputy-head of the Romanian intelligence agency.

He is the highest ranking officer of the former Soviet bloc to defect to the West and ask for political asylum in the United States. Pacepa accepted to talk about himself, to shed light on the man standing behind the legend.

Do not miss the interview with the man who got two death sentences on his name. Starting Monday Pacepa will disclose facts about his life, his family, his being recruited by the former Securitate, his spying deeds or treason and covert communism. The series of interviews will be accompanied by photographs. An overview of the main topics touched by Pacepa looks like this:

The allegation made by the Securitate that I would have been of Jewish origin was its way of legitimizing my execution it planned to take place on the territory of the United States and to by conducted by terrorist Ilici Ramirez Sanchez, know as Carlos the Jackal. As so often happens with children in well-to-do families, I wanted to prove myself that I had a distinct personality and was able to live on my own, away from the support of my parents. I was part of the first group of engineers and economists to be recruited by the communist regime, in 1951.

Of course I was engaged in political policing [name for the activity conducted by the former Securitate against Romanian citizens, who were spied upon in order to ascertain their commitment or not to communist values or their likelihood to defect to the West.] All former Securitate members, no matter their rank, did that. Anyone who claims otherwise is a liar.

In hindsight, my work then was despicable. The fact that I was part of the depraved and corrupt nomenclature [group of top decisions makers and their inner circles in the communist state] is another reason for my present embarrassment. The code name for the operation ordering my assassination in the United States was _Operation 363._ It was drafted in report number 0012578 of 21 October 1980, and was approved by the then head of the Securitate, Tudor Postelnicu.

Red Horizons [a book authored by Pacepa and published in the US] is not a book on me, but on the communist tyranny, epitomized by [former Romanian dictator Nicolae] Ceausescu. On 28 July 1978, when I arrived in the United States, I had as my only possessions the clothes on my back, a photo of my daughter, a profound understanding of the communist system and an irrepressive desire to tell the whole world what was going on at the top in Ceausescu_s Romania. But it was a long while till I was able to get a balanced view in order to achieve that aim... My work in the past 27 years, since the US Government granted my political asylum, never targeted Romania.