Word: charging
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...quietest streets in the quietest capital in Europe, walked four masked men. The time was 10 p.m. Coming to No. 5, which is the Rumanian legation, they climbed quietly over a high iron-grille fence. Looming above them in the snowy darkness was the big building presided over by Chargé d'Affaires Emeric Stoffel. To their left, in a chalet-type house near the street, was the chancellery, where lived Aurel Setu, nominally the chauffeur, but actually the secret police boss of the Communist legation. The leader of the masked men rang the bell at the chancellery. "Step...
Four hours later in the big house, Chargé d'Affaires Stoffel was awakened by a burst of shots. A few minutes later some masked men with Tommy guns broke into his room. Stoffel dashed for the next room, followed by a burst of gunfire. Leaping through a window, he landed in the garden, and fled to the neighbors. Said he later, explaining why he left his wife and children behind: "I put myself into safety . . . This is not the kind of thing that happens in everyday diplomatic life...
...companions were armed with automatic weapons and grenades, he warned, and would resist "until death" because they knew that there was no escape for them. Searching him, cops found papers he had scooped up in the legation. After a prudent interval, the Swiss diplomatically returned the papers to Chargé d'Affaires Stoffel...
...Chargé d'Affaires Stoffel, in an official diplomatic note to the Swiss Foreign Office, demanded immediate arrest and extradition of the attackers, accused the Swiss police of "inexcusable tardiness." He said that the attack was an "act of banditry without precedent" by "a gang of Rumanian fascists and other criminal elements, armed with automatic weapons, axes and knives," who had "pillaged" the legation. The Swiss simply replied that they did not like the tone of the Rumanians' protest...
While Radio Bucharest filled the air with Chargés that the four were paid U.S. agents, the Swiss were more inclined to accept the judgment of Father Seckinger: "They are all ardent Rumanian patriots and idealists. They hoped by their action to draw attention to the awful state of "affairs in Rumania under the Communist regime." Booking the four men for manslaughter (not murder), Swiss police did not make their names public, and categorically refused to hand them over to the Communists for extradition to Rumania. Whether the audacious young masked men had found anything incriminating, Swiss police would...