Balkan Admirers

Rumanians have long had a sort of national crush on France. Though surrounded by Slavs, they claim direct descent from the Roman colonizers to whom they owe their Latin character.

Shunning Balkan influence, generations of Rumanian writers, including Eugene lonesco, looked toward Paris for inspiration. Bucharest itself was planned in arrondissements like Paris, with wide, tree-lined boulevards, street cafes and a replica of the Arc de Triomphe. The Rumanian language is peppered with French words.

Even though the two countries are separated by both ideology and considerable distance, they share some compelling political bonds. Thus, when Charles de Gaulle visited Rumania last week, he received a hero's welcome --even while he was being reviled back home by students in the streets of Paris. Everywhere he went, thousands of flag-waving Rumanians turned out to shout "Vive la France -- De Gaulle!", turning his five-day stay into an impressive demonstration of genuine pro-French feeling. Besides, President Nicolae Ceausescu 50, is an ardent admirer of De Gaulle and his independent ways, and has used De Gaulle's single-minded nationalism as a model and inspiration for his own efforts to ease out of the Soviet orbit.

With Ceausescu at his side and a white ambulance trailing discreetly behind in deference to his age, De Gaulle plunged repeatedly into the crowds, delighting them with carefully rehearsed greetings in Rumanian. He talked to housewives, questioned workers in greasy overalls about wages and working conditions, listened gravely to serenades by gypsy bands.

Side by Side. Visibly pleased by the acclamation, De Gaulle told the Rumanians just what they wanted to hear.

He encouraged Ceausescu -- who is as critical of the Warsaw Pact as De Gaulle is of NATO -- to join him in breaking up the system of blocs that divides Europe. Flamboyantly, he invited Rumania "to march side by side" with France toward a united Europe free from big-power domination. The two leaders agreed to form a commission to coordinate their efforts toward this goal, and De Gaulle declared in sonorous tones "the right of each people to speak in its own voice."

While full of praise for his ebullient host, Ceausescu carefully avoided making any provocative statements that might have incurred Moscow's wrath; he is in enough trouble with Russia already. A series of recent head-on clashes with the Kremlin has so fractured relations that Rumania is no longer welcome at high-level Communist conferences. The open display of support from De Gaulle was thus a welcome boost to Ceausescu, whose position in the Soviet-dominated camp is becoming increasingly isolated. While De Gaulle seeks to broaden his contacts in Eastern Europe, Ceausescu hopes for more tangible economic and political results from the visit, such as greater access to Western technology and the promise of closer ties with the West.

Independent Course. After three years in office, Ceausescu feels secure enough in his position to persist in his independent course while simultaneously moving toward more liberalization in Rumania's tightly controlled society. Defying Kremlin directives, Rumania has maintained cordial relations with both China and Israel, in Soviet eyes the Middle East aggressor. Recently, Rumania balked at joining fellow Warsaw Pact members in signing the Moscow-Washington nuclear-proliferation draft treaty, arguing that it failed to protect small nations from nuclear blackmail by larger powers.

Rumania has been snipping away at its commercial ties with Russia, which expects to get cut-rate prices on everything from oil to agricultural products. While 80% of Rumanian exports went to fellow Communists eight years ago, the West is expected to absorb 50% this year. Rumania recently took the unprecedented step of placing a $24 million aircraft contract with a British firm instead of with the Russians. Now the Rumanians are even negotiating to join the Washington-based World Bank--the 107-nation lending organization of which no Communist country except Yugoslavia is a member.

To the Rumanian man in the street, liberalization is still mostly a promise. The country's press remains the most controlled in Eastern Europe, and the police continue to keep a tight rein on the country's everyday life. Still, anticipating the effects of liberalization in nearby Czechoslovakia, Ceausescu has begun to ease up on his people. "The past, when people went to work never knowing whether they would return home," he says, "must never be allowed to be repeated." To ensure that it is not repeated, he has purged 20,000 Stalinists from the government, including the former police chief. He has also placed the blame for past terrors on his predecessor, the late Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej--seemingly unembarrassed that Gheorghiu-Dej was long his mentor and promoter.

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