The Boys from Bucharest

A delegation from Communist Rumania led by Premier Ion Maurer showed up in Peking last week, and the West's Kremlinologists were wondering why. Not since Nikita Khrushchev him self traveled to Red China in 1959 had such a high-level European Communist mission made the trip.

One group of Western experts, pointing out that Rumania had carefully steered a neutral course in the SinoSoviet feud, argued that the trip was made on behalf of the Soviets in order to show the Red bloc that Moscow was more reasonable than Peking. As evidence, the experts pointed out that the Soviet Ambassador to Bucharest had seen the Rumanians off at the airport, and that the delegation had wired fraternal greetings to Khrushchev as their plane entered Soviet airspace.

Peering into the opposite side of the crystal ball, other Kremlinologists interpreted the mission as a thinly veiled slap at Nikita by Rumanian Party Boss Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej, an old Stalinist who ostentatiously laid a wreath on Joe's tomb a few years ago. Rumania had already defied Soviet economic planners by building up its own industry rather than humbly serving as raw-material supplier for the rest of Eastern Europe. According to the latest theory, the boys from Bucharest were now parading their ideological independence from the Russians.

In fact, however, ideology may be less significant than economics in explaining the motive behind the Rumanian visit. Rumania is eager to find markets for exports; Bucharest's booming oil industry can easily fill Red China's desperate need for refining equipment. One solid indicator pointed to economics as a key factor: Peking's new Ambassador to Rumania, Liu Fang, is unknown as a diplomat but well known as the former vice-minister of Red China's faltering petroleum industry.

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