Ion Iliescu

I first heard of Ion Iliescu toward the end of the 1960s, when he simultaneously held the positions of First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Union of Communist Youth and minister for youth affairs. He was described as an intelligent and intellectual young man, regarded by some as a possible successor to Ceaușescu. An engineer by training, he had specialized in fluid mechanics at the Bucharest Polytechnic and graduated from the Moscow Power Engineering Institute. Iliescu had entered politics while still young, continuing the convictions of his father, an underground communist activist. To me, his was the typical career of a member of the nomenklatura, enjoying exceptional privileges within the Soviet-style regime established after the war, an environment from which I instinctively preferred to keep my distance. I did not hate them, despise them, or envy them; I simply ignored them as much as television news allowed.

After Ceaușescu’s visits to China, Vietnam, Korea, and Mongolia, and with the appearance of the “July Theses,” the Party’s cultural policy took a different turn: censorship was reintroduced, the cultural opening characteristic of the late 1960s was blocked, and control over travel abroad became stricter. In this context of the so-called “cultural revolution,” Iliescu was accused of excessive intellectualism. From his position as a protégé of Nicolae Ceaușescu, he was gradually marginalized and sent, in a kind of Chinese-style “re-education,” to serve as Party First Secretary in Timișoara and then in Iași. For Ceaușescu he had become a latent threat and, in an almost Maoist manner, was moved first into the leadership of the county organizations in Timișoara and Iași. In 1984, Iliescu was removed from the Central Committee of the Romanian Communist Party and from the leadership of the National Water Council and appointed director of the Technical Publishing House, which he led until 1989. Although this move looked like a gilded exile, it nevertheless preserved his privileged status within the regime’s hierarchy. Throughout those years he was kept under close surveillance by the Securitate, which strengthened his status as a marginalized leader and, above all, as a figure relevant to the revolutionary stage that was to follow.

A book on Artificial Intelligence

In 1984, together with my departmental colleague Cristian Giumale, I wrote what I now regard as one of the first Romanian books devoted to popularizing artificial intelligence (AI). The work aimed to offer an accessible synthesis of the emergence and development of AI as a scientific and technological discipline, organized into five chapters:

• What artificial intelligence is
• Problem-solving methods used in AI
• Problem-solving through learning
• Knowledge representation
• The study of natural languages

Although some of the information was already being taught at university, most of it came from our own study, driven by enthusiasm for this young and promising field. At that time, AI was still a subfield of computer science. After I had published Systematic Programming in Pascal and Fortran, written with colleagues from the Bucharest Polytechnic, the editor asked me, with some urgency, to write a booklet about AI for the series Science and Technology for Everyone. I accepted—the subject greatly interested me—and invited my colleague Giumale, an expert in several AI subfields, to join me. The manuscript was written “in one breath,” during the holiday, as the dedication to my wife also records.

In the autumn we submitted the manuscript to the publishing house. Toward the end of the year, after the necessary reviews and approvals had been obtained, we expected the booklet to appear from one day to the next. Shortly afterward I received a telephone call from the editor:

“The comrade director of the publishing house wants to see you about the book on artificial intelligence. Could you come by tomorrow morning?”

I replied that I would arrive around noon, after finishing my classes at the Polytechnic. It had never happened to me before, in connection with a book written for a publishing house, that I had to speak directly with the director; normally, discussions took place only with the editor.

The next day, at the appointed hour, I entered Casa Scânteii—the fortress of the Romanian press—and went up to editor Zamfirescu’s office. He greeted me, visibly worried:
“I do not know why the comrade director wants to see you. He did not tell me. But let us go; he is waiting for you.”

On the way, Zamfirescu explained that the recently appointed director was Ion Iliescu, an important person in the Party.
“Who knows what sort of man he is and what his mission at the Technical Publishing House may be? Someone in the upper hierarchy has probably noticed our activity and wants us to be controlled. That is why all our colleagues are frightened,” Zamfirescu whispered conspiratorially.

When we reached the office door, Zamfirescu knocked before introducing me. In a room dominated by a rich bookcase and a carved wooden desk, I met the director: a man of about fifty, with an olive complexion, dressed in a navy-blue suit and wearing a sober tie. When he saw me, he stood up and greeted me with a jovial smile that eased the anxiety created by Zamfirescu’s words. We shook hands and sat facing one another in two comfortable armchairs.

Iliescu began by congratulating me on the book, saying that it was time for artificial intelligence to be discussed in Romania as well. Then he asked me directly:
“Have you heard of the Japanese project?”

Surprised, I replied:
“Of course I have. It is the Fifth Generation project.”

“But you have written nothing about this project in the book,” he observed.

I explained that, in a context such as Romania’s at that time, I had considered it inappropriate to discuss a project promoting the idea that “knowledge is a nation’s most important wealth,” a slogan derived from Francis Bacon’s statement that “knowledge itself is power.”

Iliescu smiled, understanding the allusion.
“Do not be afraid. You may write whatever you consider appropriate about the Japanese project and the AI perspectives arising from it. I guarantee it,” he said.

Surprised, I thanked him for the opportunity and promised that he would receive the manuscript within a few days. We agreed to meet on the same day the following week and said goodbye.

I immediately began gathering the available documentation on the Japanese project. I had to extract from that ambitious programme the elements concerned with artificial intelligence and synthesize the possible consequences that its success might have for society.

The Japanese project

Fifth Generation Computer Systems (FGCS) was a ten-year initiative launched in 1982 by Japan’s Ministry of International Trade and Industry (MITI). Its purpose was to assimilate advances in large-scale computer integration, new database systems, artificial intelligence, and human-computer interfaces into a new generation of computers based on massively parallel computation and logic programming, systems closer to people in their capacity for communication and knowledge processing. Considering that only three generations had been identified during the forty years of computer evolution, the project of a fifth generation—leaping over a possible fourth—conveyed the idea of a spectacular advance, almost into the realm of science fiction. The proposal initially shocked the scientific world, but Western research was rapidly redirected in an attempt to align itself with the Japanese programme. Iliescu’s intention was that we should also try to orient research in our country in that direction.

To avoid direct competition with the American AI industry, dominant at the time, the project did not aim to improve existing computer systems but proposed the development of completely new systems, both hardware and software. Its main objective was therefore to create an “epoch-making computer,” with performance comparable to that of a supercomputer, that would serve as a platform for further advances in artificial intelligence. Other objectives included:

• Creating “intelligent” systems capable of reasoning, learning, and understanding human language.
• Advancing parallel computing by dividing complex problems into subproblems that several processors could solve simultaneously.
• Concentrating on logic programming through languages such as Prolog, rooted in first-order formal logic.
• Advancing natural-language processing (NLP) to facilitate fluid communication between people and machines.

FGCS also sought to demonstrate that the deliberate planning of large-scale technological projects—similar to Stalinist five-year plans—was not only possible but could generate considerable human capital and institutional expertise. The project’s launch in 1982 inspired numerous countries to initiate their own AI programmes, thus triggering the “first AI arms race.”

In this way, the Japanese project emphasized for the first time that artificial intelligence could become a political instrument, capable of shaping society and symbolizing national modernization—a key to opening the way toward a digital age. My hesitation to include FGCS in the book was based precisely on the idea that the use of AI thus becomes political and that a government’s neglect of it could be regarded as sabotage of progress. Although subversive in the political context of Romania at the time, that was exactly the perspective I had in mind.

We were only two years from the beginning of the project and could not foresee that, after ten years, FGCS would be regarded by many specialists as a failure. Criticized for unfulfilled promises, it became a disappointment to us as specialists. Theoretically, however, FGCS made a significant contribution to the development of concurrent logic programming and demonstrated that scientific research could be planned.

The revival, after the year 2000, of a “second AI arms race” once again brought the political importance of AI to the foreground, although unprecedented levels of funding risked encouraging exaggerated promises and generating dubious proposals or false threats that confused public opinion. The Japanese project remains a reminder of such possible excesses.

A co-author for the book

Iliescu’s enthusiasm for the Japanese project infected me, and I tried to set aside the tense political context of Romania in the 1980s. I therefore added a sixth chapter, “The Perspectives of Artificial Intelligence,” as a postscript to the material already written, setting out over twenty pages my view of the future of AI.

Those pages were typed by my mother—my secretary—and on the following Wednesday I went to the publishing house as agreed. Iliescu received me with his broad smile, which made one feel at ease—a smile that, even when I sometimes had doubts, I always chose to believe was genuine. I handed him the manuscript, expecting feedback with interest. Instead, Iliescu told me:

“I am leaving for Timișoara for a few days to see my family. I shall take the manuscript with me and read it carefully. We shall meet next week.”

A week of intense waiting passed. I wondered whether what I had written could be interpreted as the manifesto for AI that he wanted.

On Wednesday I returned to the office of the director of the Technical Publishing House. Iliescu was waiting and, handing me the manuscript, said:
“The material is very good. I have allowed myself to annotate it in order to emphasize certain aspects I consider important. My annotations are in pencil; if you do not like them, you may erase them.”

Looking at the first page, I saw that nothing had been cut from the original text and that valuable insertions had been added. I then said:

“I shall take the material home and retype it. What I see seems correct to me—observations and emphases on relevant concepts. Please agree to be listed as a co-author.”

He replied firmly:
“Under no circumstances. You and Comrade Giumale are the only authors.”

When I left, I accepted Iliescu’s invitation to drive me to the bus or tram stop. I explained that I would take tram 41 from its terminus near Piața Scânteii, visible from the office window, and we walked toward the place reserved for his car. As soon as we emerged from Casa Scânteii, Iliescu drew close and whispered discreetly:
“Forgive me for not driving you home, but I would be doing you a disservice.” Only later did I understand the meaning of his words.

Watching carefully, I noticed that after Iliescu started his car—a black Dacia parked some distance away—the other car also began to move. At the terminus of tram 41 I got out, thanked him, and promised that within a few days Zamfirescu would receive the complete manuscript.

Once home, I immediately began integrating the observations Iliescu had made.

At the very beginning of the chapter I stated:

“The quantitative growth of the potential of human intellect brought about by intelligent machines will have profound effects on people’s lives. In such a perspective, knowledge will become a new raw material, processed through logical reasoning, with knowledge processors as the principal tools.”

The chapter began with a concise presentation of the premises of AI’s future, taking into account the progress achieved until then. Was that future attainable? Certainly—but only by clearly understanding the obstacles. Once identified, overcoming them would make possible spectacular intelligent systems specialized in different fields. At this point I introduced two paragraphs summarizing my view of artificial intelligence becoming state policy:

“We can readily imagine that the advances described require an immense material and human effort that must involve the whole of society in achieving the proposed objectives. The stakes are high: for the first time, it is being demonstrated that a nation’s greatest wealth lies in knowledge and intelligence.”

“Thanks to intelligent machines, the intelligence fund of the nation—and even of humanity—can be captured, multiplied, and used to increase human well-being. In such a perspective, knowledge will feed a knowledge industry, in which knowledge will become a marketable product, just as oil or food is today...”

“Knowledge or, as economists say, the stock of knowledge, intelligence, and creativity will thus become a new and principal source of national wealth.”

In the final part of the chapter I detailed the provisions of the Japanese project and analyzed the consequences that its success might have for sectors of industry and society. At the end of the chapter, the text proposed by Ion Iliescu—and left unchanged by me—was significant, though somewhat bombastic, with expressions typical of the wooden language of that period. Yet, reading it today, when the role of AI in our lives is at the center of discussion, I believe the essence of its message remains current:

“Our generation has the great historical opportunity to witness one of the greatest adventures of the human mind, which will radically change the conditions of human existence. Of course, like every human creation, intelligent machines may serve the progress of civilization, the general interests of society and international coexistence, or they may lead to inequalities, to ‘ideological imperialism,’ and to the domination of the strong over the weak. Now more than ever, technological progress must go hand in hand with social progress, with the reorganization of human relations at national and international levels—on new principles of fairness and equality—replacing the blind struggle for supremacy with solidarity, cooperation, and mutual assistance, and promoting internationally the principles of a new world economic and political order.”

The publication of Artificial Intelligence did not have the impact among the general public that I had expected. The format of the booklets in the Science and Technology for Everyone series had become outdated. It was the last booklet in the old format, because beginning with the next issue the publishing house adopted a more modern and more generous page design. I nevertheless retained the personal satisfaction of having systematized valuable material on AI and of having been able to express my sincere thoughts about the field.

An exceptional lecturer

In the following years I tried, as far as possible, to learn what was happening to Iliescu. My principal source of information was M.P., the head of my department and my doctoral supervisor, a friend of Iliescu from their student years in Moscow. The information I gathered, together with other sources, confirmed that Iliescu remained permanently under the surveillance of the security organs, which tried to isolate him, remove him from public life, and restrict his communications.

Meanwhile, my research shifted from Artificial Intelligence to Software Engineering (SE), a field that offered me new horizons of study. A paper submitted to the 1987 International Conference on Software Engineering in Monterey aroused remarkable interest among the reviewers. Although I could not attend the conference because of visa problems, E. W. Yourdon, a “guru” of Software Engineering, invited me to write a book on the subject of that paper. The invitation initiated the writing of a book that appeared at Prentice Hall in 1992. The knowledge accumulated while writing Artificial Intelligence helped me extend Software Engineering toward automatic program generation, an area in which Artificial Intelligence could offer me a real advantage. Indeed, the intersection of AI with other technical and scientific disciplines contributed to profound transformations in those fields.

In those years I collaborated on Software Engineering topics with ICI, the Institute for Computer Science Research in Bucharest, which was the methodological center of the network of county computing centers, an essential resource in the computerization of Romanian society. Standardizing computing equipment and software-system design methodologies were major objectives in the modernization of the economy and society, pursued through standards and guides for software analysts and designers throughout the country.

In 1988, at the Bucharest Polytechnic, I organized a symposium devoted to Software Engineering, bringing together through ICI representatives of the county computing centers. During the preparations, M.P. suggested: “What do you think about inviting Ilici to open the symposium?” Ilici was the nickname, referring to Lenin, that Romanian students in Moscow had given Iliescu when he became their representative within the Soviet academic environment. I agreed, knowing his competence in emerging areas of computing, and the invitation became a reality after Iliescu accepted.

My reunion with Iliescu was cordial, and we both recalled our earlier collaboration on the book about Artificial Intelligence. At the symposium, Iliescu delivered a memorable speech in which, although acknowledging that he was not an expert in computer programming, he emphasized the importance of computing for the economy and society. In that intervention he criticized government policy, which under the pretext of saving money was cutting essential investment in computerization and digitization.

I did not see Iliescu again before leaving the country.

Far from the Revolution

The dramatic events in Romania at the end of December 1989 found me in Rome, trying to make a new path in life far from my country. My departure had resulted from a personal history of oppression, lack of freedom, and the impossibility of fulfilling my ideals. I had only just managed to establish a precarious balance when, watching Italian television channels, I saw the first reports of what was happening back home.

First came the news from Timișoara, with rumors of dead and wounded in clashes between demonstrators and the army. Then came images from Bucharest, the protests of 21 December, the flight of the Ceaușescus and, finally, their execution on Christmas Day after a summary trial.

I was alone. My Italian acquaintances, although well disposed, could not fully understand the scale of the events. The only truly relevant discussions took place at the Caritas canteen in Via delle Sette Sale, where I ate lunch beside other Romanians awaiting interviews for emigration visas. We were all trying to understand what would happen next. The end of Ceaușism seemed clear, but the essential question remained: who would lead Romania toward democracy? The consensus was that Ion Iliescu was the only person capable of managing that transition. Hidden within that near-unanimity outside the Caritas premises in Rome was the belief that communism would continue in Romania: in our momentary enthusiasm we were certain that under Iliescu it would be communism with a human face. None of us imagined that the regime would change radically, and I believe that no one in the country expected communism to be overturned overnight. The first signals that matters might take a different direction appeared only toward the end of January 1990.

When I saw Iliescu on television, flanked by Dinescu and Caramitru, announcing the creation of the Council of the National Salvation Front, I told myself that we were on the right road. But optimism quickly faded: rumors about unknown individuals labeled “terrorists” who were firing in the streets fed panic, while the population and the army were called upon to defend the fragile gains of the revolution. There was talk of former Securitate members trying to create chaos, but nobody seemed to know exactly what was happening.

In Rome we tried to organize ourselves in order somehow to help our compatriots in the country. On 23 December, about thirty Romanians gathered in a church in Via delle Coppelle, where services were held in the Greek-Catholic rite. We were all determined to return home, but opinions differed: with weapons or without? On our own or with the support of the Italian authorities? The very next day or after Christmas? We separated without a clear conclusion, but prepared to meet again if the situation in Romania did not calm down. Fortunately, after Christmas the violence decreased, although the loss of life could not be avoided.

My thoughts, which had been flying toward what was happening in Bucharest, then moved from revolution to transition. After telephoning my family and learning that everyone was safe, I began to think about what should be done so that the change would be definitive and without chaos. The free days between Christmas and New Year gave me time to put my ideas on paper in a letter addressed to Ion Iliescu. As I wrote, I realized that this was not merely an exercise in reflection but a kind of programme for a Romania in transition. Words, sentences, and phrases flowed from my pen as never before and never since. In less than a week, I had a twelve-page document organized around several essential themes.

The letter had to reach Iliescu typed. But how? I needed a typewriter or, ideally, a computer. Then I remembered the American Anglican church of St. Paul Within the Walls, on Via Nazionale, where there was an unused PC because nobody knew how to operate it. I had discovered the place through Caritas while looking for possible work, with the help of the church pastor, an influential figure among Rome’s Anglo-American entrepreneurs. On that occasion I met the pastor, a generous man roughly my age, who had transformed the church into a refuge for immigrants from Africa and Asia. The buildings adjoining the church contained a music auditorium, a small library, and a conference room, crowded especially in the afternoons with men and women of different ethnic backgrounds seeking information about applications for political asylum overseas. In one corner of the library I found a computer equipped with the MS-DOS operating system and the MS Word text editor.

After spending New Year’s Eve with my host’s family, where there had been much discussion of the events in Romania, I went to the Anglican church on 2 January. I asked the pastor to help me by allowing me to work on the PC. He agreed and, for three days, I returned to the church each day to enter the text of my letter. When it was finished, I saved it on a floppy disk and printed it at a copy shop. I placed the twelve sheets in an envelope and mailed them to my wife in Bucharest, asking her to deliver them to Iliescu.

From that period I have also kept the membership card from The Joel Nafuma Refugee Center, the refugee center that operated alongside St. Paul’s Episcopal Church. It is a modest piece of cardboard, with my name typed on it and the director’s signature, but for me it fixes an important moment: the place where I found not only moral shelter, but also the technical means that allowed me to turn the anxieties of those days into a letter addressed to Ion Iliescu.

Looking back, I believe that such charitable organizations deserve a special gratitude. They did not solve the destiny of refugees and could not guarantee them a future, but they made the waiting more bearable: they offered an address, a meal, a piece of information, a telephone, sometimes a room, and at other times only a desk and a person willing to listen. For those who arrived in Rome without support, without money, and without sufficient command of the language, such places were fragile but real bridges between disorientation and the possibility of moving forward.

In those days, in Bucharest, it was by no means simple to reach Iliescu. My wife contacted A. N., a childhood neighbor of hers who was then in Iliescu’s entourage. They met in front of the government headquarters in Piața Victoriei, and she handed him the envelope, asking him to give it to Iliescu.

A letter, unfortunately lost

Today, after so many years, I do not know what happened to the letter. Did it reach its recipient? If so, was it read? Or was it lost among the endless papers of that troubled period? These questions remain unanswered. Over the years I asked Iliescu several times whether he had read my letter. His answer was sometimes evasive and sometimes frankly negative. At one point I handed him another copy, but it produced no response. Outside the context of the Revolution, the letter had probably lost its interest for its intended recipient. I also asked A.N. what had happened to it. He no longer remembered it.

On the following page I reproduce the letter dated 4 January 1990 and addressed to Ion Iliescu, documenting my concerns, hopes, and proposals at a critical moment in Romania’s history. I wrote it under the immediate impression of the events of the Revolution, as an ordinary person without the political preparation or resources needed to navigate successfully through the challenges of a transforming system, but with the desire to contribute—even through a simple personal document—to Romania’s reconstruction. The letter reflects both my anxieties at the time, suspended between enthusiasm and concern, and my conviction that political change had to be accompanied by a genuine humanist-democratic revolution capable of restoring civic values and freedoms. Reproduced in full, it captures both the emotions and the reasoning that marked the post-revolutionary period and that were not difficult to anticipate. By preserving the wording and spelling of the time unchanged, I hope that the atmosphere of hopes and fears surrounding those days can be felt more clearly.

The letter is a faithful mirror of my vision of a future era of radical transformations, in which ideals and hopes would become intertwined with the harsh realities of a country in transition. It offers my personal perspective on post-revolutionary events at a time when political and social transition was opening a new chapter for the country. As a witness to forty years of communist dictatorship, I not only criticized old practices and mechanisms of power but also proposed concrete solutions for the humanist-democratic reconstruction of society. Restoring democracy not only in form but also in substance, by rehabilitating humanist values in Romanian society and rebuilding the foundations of education, culture, and politics, was the principal objective I pursued in the letter. Although time showed that decisions taken in that period generated adverse effects and problems that persist to this day, my words were written from an authentic desire to see a better Romania.

Read the full text of the letter of 4 January 1990

Reflections on the “age of transition”

Over the years, looking back at the letter I sent in 1990, I have often wondered what effect it might have had on the course of events. I do not know whether Mr. Iliescu received it or read those lines, but I feel obliged to note that many of the troubles Romania faces today were foreseen in the letter. They resulted from the mistakes with which the country was governed during that period of transition.

I was not a professional politician, only a witness to the communist years. My letter, perhaps too emotional, tried to signal the traps of an unknown road in which, unfortunately, the country’s leadership— headed by Mr. Iliescu—would become bogged down. In those feverish first days nobody seemed truly prepared for the complexity of the passage from an authoritarian regime to a market economy. The right road had to be discovered while traveling it, and in such circumstances principles are what guide us. This uncertainty left deep marks not only on the structures of the state but also on collective consciousness, turning the transition into a difficult and unpredictable process.

The first years after the Revolution were marked by popular movements such as University Square and by protests organized by the new parties against the government. They generated harsh government reactions, including the “mineriads,” which brought violence and the repression of critical voices. Although such tensions may be considered natural in a transitional period, visionary and intelligent leadership might have prevented the escalation of conflict. Instead of fostering genuine dialogue and finding solutions for reconciliation, the authorities managed the crisis through methods that deepened social divisions and delayed the country’s political modernization.

Another factor that influenced post-revolutionary Romania’s direction was the composition of the new ruling elite. Although many of those who took power after 1989 presented themselves as reformers, the reality was that most came from the structures of the former regime. Even if some of them, including Iliescu, had been dissidents, their mentality and political reflexes had been profoundly shaped by decades of communism. On the other hand, the intellectual class of the time offered no solid alternatives either. In Romania, unlike other Eastern European countries, almost all people of value had in one way or another been co-opted into the Communist Party, whether out of opportunism or simply in order to survive and practice their profession. Consequently, after the Revolution there was no generation of new leaders with a completely different political outlook capable of leading a profound transformation of the country.

The experience of that period also showed me that when a new chapter opens in a nation’s history, not only its leaders but every citizen is put to the test. Differences among Eastern European countries in the way they approached the transition resulted not only from political decisions but also from levels of culture and education and from the inheritance of democratic traditions that had shaped perceptions, mentalities, and public behavior. The mass emigration of Romanians after the Revolution was not only a consequence of decisions made at the top of power, but also a symptom of the difficulty of rebuilding a social fabric weakened by more than forty years of communism. I have friends who, after the events of University Square, decided to leave Romania for the United States or Canada, considering Iliescu—rightly or wrongly—the “main culprit.” I find it difficult to defend him before them, especially because I was not an eyewitness to those events.

The testimony of these thoughts belongs in these pages, inviting us to an honest and profound analysis of the past so that we may better understand the present and avoid repeating the same mistakes in the future. My reflections are a reminder that, in the face of profound change, good intentions are not always enough to avoid the traps of transformation. Likewise, clinging to power at any price when the reality around it contradicts it only hinders evolution—and sometimes the only way to remove that obstacle is the courage to step aside. Iliescu understood these things late.

A presidential visit to Rome

In January 1991 I had been in Rome for almost a year and a half. In the meantime, I had found a stable job, brought my family over from Romania, and my son had begun school in Rome without losing a single school year. After several moves, we had found a small but decent two-room apartment in a quiet neighborhood not far from the center of Rome.

I remember that before the Revolution I had wanted to visit the Accademia di Romania, the splendid Romanian cultural institution in Valle Giulia, designed by Petre Antonescu at the initiative of Nicolae Iorga and Vasile Pârvan. Subordinated to the Romanian Academy, the Accademia was intended for the advanced training of young Romanians in the humanities, fine arts, and architecture.

At that time the institution was directed by Academician Alexandru Balaci, but it remained permanently closed to the public. It was rumored to operate as a hotel, accommodating special envoys sent by Bucharest to Italy. When I tried to visit it, the porter answered through the half-open gate:

“You cannot come in. The comrade director is not in Rome.”

“Do you mean that the Accademia operates only when the director is present?” I insisted.

The gate closed abruptly, without any further reply.

The same was true of Romania’s two embassies.

After the Revolution, my relations with the Romanian embassy and consulate changed radically: from closed gates to open arms.

The Romanian Embassy to the Quirinal and the embassy to the Vatican could scarcely keep up with their invitations. I was invited to every event: National Day, Christmas, Easter, concerts, official visits. After years of closed gates, Romanian diplomats had discovered the importance of the Romanian community in Italy. We had become friends with the ambassadors and their advisers, so at receptions I felt almost at home. Only the Accademia di Romania remained inaccessible, because no new director had yet been appointed.

It was therefore no surprise to receive an invitation to the Romanian Embassy to the Quirinal for President Ion Iliescu’s meeting with the Romanian diaspora in Italy. Between 31 January and 3 February 1991, Iliescu was making his first official visit to Italy and the Vatican. I was curious to see him again after three years, during which the December 1989 Revolution had transformed him from a publishing-house director into the country’s president, and to discover whether he still remembered me or had read my letter.

At the appointed time I was already at the embassy headquarters in Via Niccolò Tartaglia, a place I knew well. Unlike other receptions, on this occasion all three rooms used for events were wide open. The guests crowded into the main salon, leaving the other rooms almost empty.

We were waiting for the president, who was at Palazzo Montecitorio as the guest of Italian prime minister Giulio Andreotti. We talked in groups about the situation in Romania and about our lives in Italy. At one point the president’s arrival was announced, and we all lined up along the walls, leaving the center of the room free. I happened to be standing beside a window, directly opposite the entrance.

When Iliescu entered with his delegation, he noticed me immediately and, smiling, came straight toward me. He shook my hand and embraced me like an old friend.
“How are you?” he asked simply.
“Fine, thank you,” I replied, moved.

The surprise continued. The entire delegation, imitating the president, wanted to shake my hand. The first was foreign minister Adrian Năstase, another acquaintance of mine from Romania. Surprised by the president’s gesture, he too felt obliged to embrace me, although in all the time we had known each other he had never done so before. Those who knew me from embassy events probably revised their opinion of me: “So he is a Securitate man too!” some of them must have thought, as I later learned.

The conversation with the president quickly turned into a question session on our part. Iliescu answered elegantly but, as usual, evasively, avoiding excessive commitment. At one point the ambassador, aware of the president’s schedule, invited us into the adjoining rooms, where wine, tea, coffee, and refreshments awaited us. Taking advantage of the moment, Adrian Năstase approached me and said with a smile:
“Give my compliments to your wife. How have you settled in Rome?”
“We are fine and satisfied,” I replied.

Then a thought occurred to me:
“Adrian, I would like to ask you something. The Accademia di Romania has remained closed because it has no director. Could you intervene with the Academy to speed up the appointment?”
Adrian thought for a moment, then said:
“I do not think that will be necessary. The Academy in Bucharest has no money for the Accademia in Rome or for the other cultural institutes. We shall probably take them over at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and I shall appoint a director. We have enough money.”
“I do not know the legal status of the cultural institutes, but I do know that the Accademia’s statute ties it exclusively to the Romanian Academy,” I reminded him.
“We shall see. I must speak with Professor Drăgănescu, the new president of the Academy.”
“Mihai Drăgănescu? I knew him as deputy prime minister. I did not know he was now president of the Academy,” I said thoughtfully.
“You know Drăgănescu? Speak to him directly. After all, you yourself could be the director,” Adrian suggested flatteringly.
“On my first trip to Bucharest I shall contact Drăgănescu. Thank you for the information,” I concluded, because I wanted to speak with Iliescu before he left.

It was not difficult to find the president available. When he saw me approaching, he detached himself from the group around him. I drew him into a corner of the room and said in one breath:
“Mr. President, I fled Romania before the Revolution and have found a place for myself here. Please tell me what would be better for me to do now that the situation in the country has changed and you know it better than I do. Do you think I should return or remain here?”
Iliescu thought for a few moments and, looking me in the eyes, said:
“It would be better for you to remain in Italy. You are better off here.”

I muttered a “thank you” and had nothing more to say. I had expected a completely different answer. Taken by surprise, I even forgot to ask whether he had read my letter. Adrian was there too, so I could have confronted them if necessary, but because my emotional intelligence is poor, the letter slipped from my mind.

That afternoon we were invited to hear Gheorghe Zamfir play the pan flute in the church of Santa Maria in Trastevere, without Iliescu, who was paying a protocol visit to the pope in the Vatican. In the church I was sitting beside Șerban Stati, the embassy’s cultural adviser, whose family had become friends with ours. At one point I leaned toward him and said:
“Do you know what I have been thinking, Șerban? What if I invited Iliescu to our home for a meal, so he could meet my wife and son? You could come too.”
Gentle Șerban was stunned. He stammered:
“You have gone mad. He is the president of the country, not your friend.”
“Excuse me. He is my friend who, by chance, is now also president. Knowing him, I do not think he would refuse me,” I replied.

Șerban explained the overloaded schedule of the Romanian delegation’s visit to Rome and said that Iliescu would not have the time to honor me with a visit. Indeed, I did not see Iliescu again during the remaining days before his departure.

For a long time I wondered, and still wonder, whether Iliescu would have accepted my invitation or whether it was madness, an offense to the president, as Șerban believed. From what I knew of Iliescu at the time, I felt that he might have accepted it. In 1991, perhaps. Later, certainly not.

Mihai Drăgănescu

In 1991, during my first visit to Bucharest after the Revolution, I had on my list a matter I considered urgent: opening the Accademia di Romania premises to scholarship holders and the general public. Following Adrian Năstase’s suggestion, I contacted the Romanian Academy and arranged a meeting with its president, Mihai Drăgănescu.

I had known of Drăgănescu for more than twenty years, although I am not sure that he knew me—perhaps only my name. He had not been my professor at the Bucharest Polytechnic because he taught in the Faculty of Electronics, while I was a student in Power Engineering. My electronics professor had been M.P., then a lecturer in Drăgănescu’s department, although the two did not have a particularly cordial relationship at that time.

Drăgănescu was a cold person, excessively polite, lacking charisma and, to many, positively unlikeable. He craved adulation, yet at the same time possessed a penetrating mind, an endless thirst for knowledge, and an enormous capacity for synthesis. He made significant contributions to electronics, computer science, and the philosophy of science. Beyond his technical achievements, he was an innovator in the methodology of science, developing the orthophysical theory of a unified, structural-phenomenological ontological model intended to explain physical, biological, informational, mental, and psychological processes coherently. In his final years he devoted himself to extending mathematical category and functor theory into phenomenological domains and worked on developing an integrative philosophy of science. Many Romanian philosophers, however, viewed these speculations skeptically, regarding them as the unwelcome intrusion of an engineer into philosophy.

Valued by Ceaușescu, as shown by the positions entrusted to him, Drăgănescu made an essential contribution to the computerization of the country in the 1960s and 1970s. As secretary general of the Government Commission for Computer Science, he successfully coordinated the provision of computing technology to the national economy. In the 1980s he directed the Central Institute for Computer Science (ICI), where he was respected by the researchers.

After the Revolution his career continued upward: Iliescu wanted him first as deputy prime minister and then as president of the Romanian Academy. He accumulated a long series of titles and prestigious positions in commissions, committees, presidiums, associations, embassies, and academies. Toward the end of his life he withdrew as an ordinary researcher at the Academy’s Institute of Artificial Intelligence, offended by the ingratitude of former students and collaborators.

Until that audience at the Academy, I had never had the opportunity to interact directly with Professor Drăgănescu, although I followed his activity, especially while he directed ICI, an institute with which I had many collaborations. I was curious to understand the concept of “informatter” that he proposed—a conceptual combination of information and matter. I heard that he was giving an optional course on orthophysics and the phenomenological ontology of the material world at the Faculty of Electronics, in a room in the old Polytechnic building in Polizu, and I decided to attend.

I went to the first lecture and found the room full of students. I felt rather awkward, the only adult among so many young people. I discreetly took a seat in the last row and waited. Drăgănescu arrived punctually, sat at the lectern, and began reading from small slips of paper, methodically taken from a notebook. His voice was monotonous; the presentation was slow and abstract. Although the content was more philosophical than engineering-oriented, it offered no clear context, and some concepts were introduced without definitions. At the end of the lecture I asked myself what I had understood from those two hours. Not much, but I told myself that perhaps matters would become clearer in the following lectures.

The next week the number of students had been cut in half. The professor’s teaching style remained the same: the ideas did not follow one another logically, and the course became increasingly difficult to follow and understand. I remembered Professor Colojoară’s Real Functions course in our third year at the Faculty of Mathematics of the University of Bucharest. That year, the professor had decided to change the course and orient it toward “filters”—mathematical filters, of course. For weeks, we students looked helplessly at one another, trying to understand what was being explained. I thought desperately about the examination: what could I answer to the questions on the examination ticket if I could not understand what the professor presented in class? I decided to search the Central Library for a book on filters. Perhaps it would help. And I was right. I found a small Russian-language volume with thick covers, probably translated from English, entitled The Theory of Filters. With the Russian I still knew reasonably well in those years, I began to read it. I did not need to go beyond the first page, because in its first few paragraphs the book explained that filters were a method of convergence in topological spaces and, with two examples, enlightened me. It was a major lesson in teaching: begin every new chapter with a synthesis of what you are going to present.

In the case of Drăgănescu’s course, I had no supporting material, so from week to week matters became more obscure and attending the lectures increasingly seemed a waste of time. Meanwhile, the number of students in the classroom visibly diminished. After several weeks, I realized that I was alone in the room.

I had experienced something similar in Professor Sergiu Rudeanu’s “Set Theory” course at the Faculty of Mathematics. It was an optional course that I had chosen myself, and I was to take an examination in it. There too, after several weeks, I remained the only student in the room. This time Rudeanu’s teaching was understandable, but because there was a published course that he followed rigorously, we could learn just as well for the examination from the book—which my enrolled classmates actually did. But how could I abandon the lectures? Leave the professor alone? It would not have been polite. Out of respect for Rudeanu I remained the only student in the room for another two weeks, until I finally yielded and abandoned the course as well. I never knew whether the professor felt offended or relieved. In Drăgănescu’s case I applied the same cowardly strategy: I left without saying anything.

Years later I had my own experience from the opposite side. In the final week of the semester, at an Advanced Software Architecture course, I found the room empty except for two students—a young man and a young woman—probably in love, since they held hands throughout the class. Remembering my earlier experience, I could not resist asking them jokingly why they had not deserted the lecture like everyone else. Several answers were possible: they had nowhere to go before the next class, they were not satisfied with my notes available online, or they were embarrassed to leave me alone in the room. Their answer, however, was unexpected: they wanted to become teaching assistants in our department and were interested in what and how I taught. The episode was one of the factors that persuaded me to retire from teaching and enjoy my modest, well-earned pension.

Returning to the audience Professor Drăgănescu granted me at the Academy, I arrived at the agreed hour and found him waiting. He gave no sign that he recognized me and asked directly for the reason for the meeting. I explained my situation as a resident of Rome and my wish to see the Accademia di Romania—an important resource of our cultural heritage—opened to the public and to scholarship holders. He explained that Pârvan’s statute required the director to be an academician and that he had not yet found anyone willing to accept the position. He said he had in mind an academician very well suited to it, but it would take time to persuade that person to accept. I apologized for troubling him, thanked him, and left. Two months later, the new director of the “Romanian School” in Rome took up the post. It was Zoe Dumitrescu-Bușulenga.

The six years of Zozi’s directorship—Zozi was the name used by the friends of Zoe Dumitrescu-Bușulenga—were extremely pleasant and interesting for my wife and me. We became friends with her, met often, talked, and gossiped.

When Zozi retired because of increasingly poor health, the next director was a university professor from Cluj, Marian Papahagi—a Dante scholar, admittedly, but not an academician. After him came a historian, a publishing-house editor (?!), then an archaeologist who became a corresponding member of the Romanian Academy while serving as director in Rome, and so on. My point is that, after the Revolution, the activity of the Accademia di Romania gradually moved away from Pârvan’s statute and its prestige declined. One reason is that the Accademia’s scientific activity is now “coordinated” by the Romanian Academy and the Ministry of Education, its cultural activity by the Romanian Cultural Institute, while its administration and financing are provided by the Romanian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Of all these excessively numerous coordinators, naturally the Ministry of Foreign Affairs has the final word: by controlling the money, it holds the sword.

Visiting the president

After the 1989 Revolution I returned periodically to Romania, usually twice a year, to visit my mother and settle various matters left unresolved after my departure. During the early years of Iliescu’s presidency, I tried to meet the president, now at Cotroceni Palace, where access was more difficult than in earlier times. Nevertheless, each time he received me warmly, gave me books he had written in the meantime and, more importantly, was always willing to listen.

For each visit I prepared a theme, a subject relevant to the country’s future. I remember that in 1991 I tried to convince him of the need to build a strong nationwide infrastructure for the Romanian internet, with powerful nodes in every region, allowing rapid integration into the global digital economy. Iliescu was receptive and directed me to his adviser for computer science and telecommunications, Marius Guran, a former colleague of mine at the Polytechnic. My meeting with Marius left a bitter taste: for the first time I encountered a wall:

“We know better than people abroad what we have to do.”

Or:

“Your project is already being implemented here; we do not need help.”

Romania did, it is true, develop its national internet network, but the delay was significant. We lost opportunities to be among the pioneers of digitization, although the competence existed; what was missing was organization and perhaps the desire to digitize the economy, thereby surrendering the control formerly exercised from the point of a pen. This was only one demonstration of the difficulty of introducing new ideas into a self-sufficient system—a reflex of the Ceaușist autarky of the 1980s. Although Iliescu seemed interested in modernization, many initiatives struck the passivity of the state apparatus; the president did not manage sufficiently to overcome it.

A significant episode occurred at the beginning of Iliescu’s second term. Between two trips to Constanța, I was received at Cotroceni and expressed my concern about the fate of ICI, the Institute for Computer Science Research, once a valuable institution in Romania’s computerization but one that had lost its place in the internet age. Iliescu, who knew the situation, reassured me: “We have a good woman there, D.B., who will know how to manage.”

I knew serious women researchers at ICI, but I did not know D.B., of whom I had heard only that she worked at the National Software Library. That “we have” sounded to me like a Party signal: the person had been supported through loyalty, not necessarily competence.

Her rapid ascent after the Revolution is evident. Her polished online CV—selectively completed—shows that D.B. graduated from an unspecified faculty, possibly Transport, in 1972 and received a doctorate in 1989 with a thesis in “Systems Engineering” at an unidentified faculty, probably Automation. She advanced rapidly, becoming director of ICI from 2001 to 2018, with a Russian-style intermezzo between 2004 and 2007, when she was only scientific director. Now retired, she is president of the Academy of Romanian Scientists—a club of careerists with minimal scientific competence. Her career illustrates the persistent favoritism of post-revolutionary institutions, an inheritance from Ceaușist nepotism.

An old defect of communists persisted in Iliescu’s orientation: promoting cadres on the basis of loyalty to the Party or to the chief personally. And, God forbid, that the new cadres should be more intelligent or better trained than the chief! This problem, fundamental within the Communist Party, continued even after the Revolution. Iliescu inherited it in full.

Ion Iliescu – between history and personal experience

After the end of his terms of office and his gradual withdrawal from active political life, Ion Iliescu continued to receive, at his office on Strada Sofia, friends, former collaborators, journalists, and people who wished to speak with him. I visited him there twice. They were not spectacular meetings, but rather ordinary conversations in which I found the same polite, attentive, and curious man. When these meetings moved to his home on Strada Molière, I no longer dared disturb him, although I sent him greetings through a mutual acquaintance. I later learned that his health had deteriorated significantly. After his death, as was to be expected, the confrontation of interpretations began: an effort to establish his place in Romania’s recent history.

I do not intend here to enter into a polemic about his historical role. History, if it is ever written without passion, will have to take into account both his responsibilities and the very difficult context in which he acted. For me, this page is not a political verdict, but a personal testimony about a man whom I met several times, in very different circumstances.

Ion Iliescu remains one of the central figures of post-communist Romania. He played a decisive role in the first years after 1989, at a time when institutions were fragile, society was disoriented, and the country’s direction was not yet clear. For some, he was the man who ensured the continuity of the state, avoided a violent disintegration, and led Romania through a difficult but relatively stable transition. In this interpretation, his merits lie in preserving the country’s unity, avoiding a Yugoslav-type scenario, and gradually orienting Romania toward the Euro-Atlantic structures.

For others, on the contrary, Iliescu is associated with the hijacking of the Revolution, with the survival of the old reflexes of the communist nomenklatura, with the repression of University Square, with the miners’ raids, with the delay of reforms, and with the moral ambiguities of the transition. He is reproached for not having broken more firmly with the past and for allowing networks of influence, interests, and privileges to re-form rapidly around the power established after 1989. The controversial privatizations and the wasting of an important part of the industrial inheritance of the Ceaușescu regime have remained, for many, the most painful signs of that period.

I do not believe that such judgments can be settled simply. Iliescu was not a political genius, nor was he a providential man, but neither can he be reduced to a caricature. He learned democracy as he went along, like almost all Romanians at the time, with hesitations, limitations, and mistakes, some of them serious. The question remains open whether, in the concrete conditions of Romania in the early 1990s, a radically different direction was truly possible. We can imagine alternatives, but we cannot know with certainty whether they would have led to a better outcome.

Beyond the controversies, my direct experience of Ion Iliescu remained that of an open, polite, cultivated man who was willing to listen. He had readings, cultural interests, an interest in literature, music, and ideas, and he knew how to sustain a conversation without ostentation. Even after becoming president, in our meetings he preserved a certain simplicity of personal contact, which surprised me each time. Ion Iliescu the politician will inevitably remain in the hands of history and of its disputes. Ion Iliescu the man, as I knew him, was a cordial and intelligent interlocutor, with virtues and weaknesses, but with a human warmth that I cannot deny.