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He is the highest-ranking representative of the communist secret services, who defected and sided with the West. General Ion Mihai Pacepa is among the leaders of the Securitate, the sinister political police force of communist Romania. In 1978 he decided to flee. Live in the United States until age 92. Last Sunday, the highest-ranking traitor of the communist bloc died after complications from COVID-19.
His death was announced by Ronald Richlak, his co-author of the 2013 book Disinformation: A Former Spy Reveals Secret Tactics to Undermine Freedom, Pressure Against Religion and Promote Terrorism. He told Radio Free Europe that Pachepa died in a hospital on February 14, without specifying exactly where in the United States.
There is no official announcement of Pachepa’s death. Richlak says he found out from his longtime wife. He had spoken to the former general the day before. At that time he was in worse shape.
Pachepa joined the Securitate in 1951 and quickly grew in the hierarchy. He rose to the rank of general and became an advisor to the dictator Nicolae Ceausescu.
Start a new life in America with a false identity and government security.
After fleeing to the United States, President Jimmy Carter granted him political asylum. A new life begins with a false identity and government security. You have to change your identity twice when your new name is revealed. There have been reports that Ceausescu has offered a reward of $ 1 million for information that may lead to the capture or murder of the traitor.
In 1987, Pachepa published a memoir entitled “Red Horizons: The Chronicles of a Communist Spy”, which was translated into Romanian and smuggled copies began to be distributed in Romania.
A year later, the book became a radio series broadcast by the Romanian service Radio Free Europe. In December 1989, Romania was embroiled in massive protests, and Ceausescu was arrested and shot following a hasty court verdict. During the trial, extracts from Pachepa’s memoirs were read.
“No matter how we look at it, his book Red Horizons helped unmask the big lie. After turning his back on the dictatorship he served, he became an uncompromising opponent of communism,” said Vladimir Tishmaneanu, a political scientist at the University of Maryland. .in a comment on the Romanian Radio Free Europe service.
In 2009, Pachepa published a memoir titled “Face to Face.” It includes a series of interviews with the Romanian journalist Lucia Longin. In 2013, Pachepa and Richlak published the book Disinformation, which described how the KGB and secret services in other communist countries worked to spread misinformation and how they “pushed” fake news to the Western media.
In the book, Pachepa describes how the Soviet Union carried out anti-Israeli and anti-American propaganda in the Middle East for decades. According to him, part of the result is current Islamist terrorism.
“Before finally leaving Romania in 1978, the Securitate had sent some 500 undercover agents to various Muslim countries. Most were clerics, engineers, doctors, teachers,” Pacepa said in one of his few interviews with Radio Free Europe in 2013. г.
Pachepa remembers receiving instructions from the Soviet Union. They described the first disinformation campaigns since the time of Tsarist Russia.
“Tsarist anti-Semitism in Russia led to pogroms against Jews. Nazi anti-Semitism led to the Holocaust. Soviet anti-Semitism created modern international terrorism,” he told RFE / RL.
Pachepa is a devout Catholic. Years after fleeing to the West, he explained that among the main reasons for his decision was an order from Ceausescu to assassinate the heads of the Romanian service of Radio Free Europe.
Pachepa’s first marriage in Romania ended before her elopement. In the United States, he has a second wife and an adult daughter.
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