Early life

He was the son of two Transylvania

Transylvania

Transylvania is a historical region in the central part of Romania. Bounded on the east and south by the Carpathian mountain range, historical Transylvania extended in the west to the Apuseni Mountains; however, the term sometimes encompasses not only Transylvania proper, but also the historical...

n members of the underground Romanian Communist Party

Romanian Communist Party

The Romanian Communist Party was a communist political party in Romania. Successor to the Bolshevik wing of the Socialist Party of Romania, it gave ideological endorsement to communist revolution and the disestablishment of Greater Romania. The PCR was a minor and illegal grouping for much of the...

 (PCR) in the 1930s: a Romanian worker named Ileana Pop and a Jewish carpenter named Andrei Bernat, who was killed by Fascists

Fascism

Fascism is a radical authoritarian nationalist political ideology. Fascists seek to rejuvenate their nation based on commitment to the national community as an organic entity, in which individuals are bound together in national identity by suprapersonal connections of ancestry, culture, and blood...

 during World War II

World War II

World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

. Mircea was born in Văcăreşti prison, where his mother was sentenced for Communist

Communism

Communism is a social, political and economic ideology that aims at the establishment of a classless, moneyless, revolutionary and stateless socialist society structured upon common ownership of the means of production...

 activities. After the war, his mother married another old-time Communist, Grigore Răceanu

Grigore Raceanu

Grigore Ion Răceanu was a Romanian communist politician and opponent of Nicolae Ceauşescu.Born in Cojocna, Cluj County, he became a train driver for Căile Ferate Române. He was also a trade union leader, being one of the organizers of the strikes of Cluj in 1929-1933. He became a member of the...

.

Mircea Răceanu grew up in Bucharest, studying at the "Ion Luca Caragiale" high school and later in Moscow

Moscow

Moscow is the capital, the most populous city, and the most populous federal subject of Russia. The city is a major political, economic, cultural, scientific, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the continent...

 at the State Institute of International Relations.

Diplomatic career

Răceanu started work at a department which dealt with the Romanian-American

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 relations and with time he was named the chief of this department. In 1969, he started working at the Embassy of Romania in Washington, DC and, between 1974-1979, he was the first secretary in the same embassy. After returning to Romania, he was the chief of the North America

North America

North America is a continent wholly within the Northern Hemisphere and almost wholly within the Western Hemisphere. It is also considered a northern subcontinent of the Americas...

 department, which dealt with the United States and Canada

Canada

Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...

. Between 1982 and January 1989, he was the chief of diplomacy department which dealt with the relations with all the countries of the Americas.

While in the United States, Răceanu became an American secret agent

Secret Agent

Secret Agent is a British film directed by Alfred Hitchcock, loosely based on two stories in Ashenden: Or the British Agent by W. Somerset Maugham. The film starred John Gielgud, Peter Lorre, Madeleine Carroll, and Robert Young...

, giving information from an insider's point-of-view on the politics of Romania and information on human rights

Human rights

Human rights are "commonly understood as inalienable fundamental rights to which a person is inherently entitled simply because she or he is a human being." Human rights are thus conceived as universal and egalitarian . These rights may exist as natural rights or as legal rights, in both national...

 and religious freedom. He claimed that he sent no national security or military information and that he betrayed his ruler, but not his country. In fact, Ceauşescu claimed during a talk with Rabbi Arthur Schneier

Arthur Schneier

Rabbi Arthur Schneier, Founder and President of the Appeal of Conscience Foundation since 1965, and Senior Rabbi, Park East Synagogue, New York since 1962, is internationally known for his ecumenical work on behalf of religious freedom, human rights, peace and inter-religious dialogue...

 that Răceanu did not actually leak any real secrets, but "betrayed me personally".

In 1989, a group of six former Romanian Communist officials, including his stepfather, Grigore Răceanu, signed an open letter which was a critique of Nicolae Ceauşescu

Nicolae Ceausescu

Nicolae Ceaușescu was a Romanian Communist politician. He was General Secretary of the Romanian Communist Party from 1965 to 1989, and as such was the country's second and last Communist leader...

's policies. Mircea Răceanu was arrested for treason on January 31, 1989, but this fact was disclosed only six weeks later (after the letter was published), when it was announced by the Government press agency Agerpres. He was accused of being involved in espionage for the United States since 1974, when he was a secretary in the Embassy of Romania in Washington, but also of links with the Perestroika

Perestroika

Perestroika was a political movement within the Communist Party of the Soviet Union during 1980s, widely associated with the Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev...

-led Soviet Union

Soviet Union

The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....

. He was sentenced to death in July 1989, but in September, Ceauşescu commuted the sentence to 20 years of prison.

After the Revolution

He was freed from the Rahova prison, Bucharest

Bucharest

Bucharest is the capital municipality, cultural, industrial, and financial centre of Romania. It is the largest city in Romania, located in the southeast of the country, at , and lies on the banks of the Dâmbovița River....

, on December 23, 1989, during the Romanian Revolution. After the Revolution, he criticized the policies of the National Salvation Front, declaring to the New York Times that: "It is not over. There is still censorship

Censorship

thumb|[[Book burning]] following the [[1973 Chilean coup d'état|1973 coup]] that installed the [[Military government of Chile |Pinochet regime]] in Chile...

 of the press, and also of radio and television." He also spoke at several political rallies, including one in Bucharest and another at the border with Soviet Moldavia

Moldavian SSR

The Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic , commonly abbreviated to Moldavian SSR or MSSR, was one of the 15 republics of the Soviet Union...

, claiming that the aides of Ceauşescu still held the key positions in the new government.

Silviu Brucan

Silviu Brucan

Silviu Brucan was a Romanian communist politician. Though he disagreed with Nicolae Ceauşescu's policies, he never gave up his communist beliefs and did not oppose communist ideology...

, a member of the National Salvation Front, said he went to the American Embassy in Romania and told a political officer that it would be best if Răceanu would leave for the United States. In the following days, according to Răceanu's declarations, there were two attempts to kill him, after which he decided to move to the United States.

Mircea Răceanu settled in a Washington, DC suburb and became an American citizen

United States nationality law

Article I, section 8, clause 4 of the United States Constitution expressly gives the United States Congress the power to establish a uniform rule of naturalization. The Immigration and Naturalization Act sets forth the legal requirements for the acquisition of, and divestiture from, citizenship of...

 in 1992. In 1993, the Romanian court announced that his sentence is still valid, as he was illegally released in 1989. Six years later, on June 11, 1999, a group of Romanian intellectuals asked that his sentence be overturned because Răceanu was an "anti-Communist

Anti-communism

Anti-communism is opposition to communism. Organized anti-communism developed in reaction to the rise of communism, especially after the 1917 October Revolution in Russia and the beginning of the Cold War in 1947.-Objections to communist theory:...

 fighter", however, the sentence was reaffirmed, while the deputy attorney general declared that it was "impossible to rehabilitate Mircea Răceanu". A year later, Romania's supreme court of Justice, the High Court of Cassation and Justice

High Court of Cassation and Justice

The High Court of Cassation and Justice is Romania's supreme court, and the court of last resort. It is the equivalent of France's Cour de cassation and serves a similar function to other courts of cassation around the world...

, annulled the sentence and cleared Răceanu of all the accusations. He was awarded the Ordinul Naţional "Pentru Merit" in 2002 by Ion Iliescu for "helping Romania become a democracy".

Publications

In 2000, a book of his named Infern '89 had a list of the Securitate

Securitate

The Securitate was the secret police agency of Communist Romania. Previously, the Romanian secret police was called Siguranţa Statului. Founded on August 30, 1948, with help from the Soviet NKVD, the Securitate was abolished in December 1989, shortly after President Nicolae Ceaușescu was...

members among the Romanian diplomats. In 2005, he published in Romania a book named Cronologie comentată a relaţiilor româno-americane, which is a history of relations between Romania and the United States.

• Romania Versus the United States: Diplomacy of the Absurd, 1985-1989, with Roger Kirk; Palgrave Macmillan (1994) ISBN 0-312-12059-1
  • România împotriva Statelor Unite: Diplomaţia absurdului, 1895-1989, Silex, Bucharest (1995) ISBN 973-97037-0-4 (Translation)
• Infern '89 : povestea unui condamnat la moarte Silex, Bucharest (2000) ISBN 973-9356-14-1
• Silex, Bucharest, (2005) ISBN 973-9356-27-3