Scandal Without Carol

To its and his surprise, Rumania last week had a scandal in which King Carol had no part. In 1930 Rumania had a war scare over Soviet Russian machinations in Bessarabia (TIME, March 3, 1930), rushed to buy guns and ammunition. A French firm offered to supply them for $45,000,000. Instead Rumania bought the supplies from Czechoslovakia's great munitions firm, Skoda,* for $90,000,000. France, big sister of both Rumania and Czechoslovakia, was surprised and hurt.

Last month Peasant Party Leader Nicholas Lupu charged that Skoda's agent, one Bruno Seltzski, had gotten the contract by lathering Rumanian Army officers and politicians with bribes. He charged too that Skoda had stirred up the whole war scare. As bribees he named Premier Alexander Vaida-Voevod's son and a nephew of the Finance Minister. This was still just Rumanian talk. Police had already searched Bruno Seltzski's house on the grounds he had not paid his taxes. When he refused to open his safe, they had closed it with official seals. When they returned, they found that Seltzski had blandly broken the seals, emptied his safe. Though he was arrested, Army men pooh-poohed the talk, reluctant to embarrass one another, friendly Czechoslovakia and potent Skoda.

But buck-toothed Carol was feeling virtuous--having lately become interested in two new mistresses, nobly banished red-haired Jewess Magda Lupescu with a settlement of $120,000, and placated his former wife Princess Helen by agreeing to let their son Prince Mihai, 11, go to an English school. Carol sternly ordered thorough investigation of the Skoda scandal. Last week a goat had been found in handsome, white-haired General Zika Popescu, Secretary-General of the Ministry of War and Commandant of the First Rumanian Army Corps. When Popescu got the summons to appear for questioning, he wrote out farewell letters saying the accusations were intolerable, that he had taken no bribes, was dying poor. Then he put a bullet through his head.

Rumanians expect scandal, sometimes murder, never suicide. Popescu's act shocked the country and Premier Vaida-Voevod's Cabinet was suddenly very rocky. Rattled Army men began "exposing" one another.

*The world's five great exporting munitions firms: Bethlehem Steel Corp., Britain's Vickers-Armstrona, France's Schneider & Co., Japan's Mitsui, Czechoslovakia's Skoda.

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