Word: haiducu
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1982-1982
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...Brittany, a key player in a French counterespionage scheme that reportedly involved the Elysée Palace. It all began last April when a Rumanian intelligence colonel, who had spent eight years in France gathering sensitive industrial data, turned himself in to French authorities. The agent, Matei Haiducu, 45, told officials of the Direction de la Surveillance du Territoire (the French secret service) that he had been ordered by Ceauşescu to kill Tanase and a second dissident writer, Paul Goma, 45. If the DST would protect his cover long enough for him to bring family members...
With the help of his intended victims, the Rumanian double agent set out to deceive Bucharest with a bit of cloak, if not dagger. For the benefit of secret-police comrades who had been sent to watch him, Haiducu followed through on an elaborate plan to kill Goma. During a cocktail party he used a specially made fountain pen to squirt a toxic chemical into the writer's drink. But a French agent " accidentally" jostled Goma's arm, spilling the poison. Since Haiducu could not fail on his second mission, the attack on Tanase had to be even...
...charade worked brilliantly. Haiducu was able to return to Rumania and arrange for the departure of all but one of his family. Indeed, days before the spy-sting story broke in the Parisian press, newspapers in Bucharest reported that he had officially been commended for "out standing public service...
| 1 |