EheNew York Eimes htips://www.nytimes.com/1988/02/15/world/for-buchares backward.htm| a-great-leap- For Bucharest, a Great Leap Backward By Henry Kamm, Special To the New York Times Feb. 15, 1988 See the article in its original context from February 15, 1988, Section A, Page 8 Buy Reprints New York Times subseribers* enjay full access to TimesMachine—view over 150 years of New York Times journalism, as it originally appeared. suascriBe *Does not include Crassword-only or Cooking-only subscribers. About the Archive This is a digitized version of an article from The Times's print archive, before the start of online publication in 1996. To preserve these articles as they originally appeared, The Times does not alter, edit or update them. Oc continuing to work to improve these archived versions. ionally the digitization process introduces transcription errors or other problems; we are President Nicolae Ceausescu's bristly stand toward his allies in the East and friends in the West has led Rumania to what Western and Communist analysts here say is virtual isolation. Several Western diplomats spoke of Rumania's "Albanization," likening its developing attitude toward the world outside to the reclusiveness of Albania, long considered Europe's most isolated country.Soviet and other East European diplomats, speaking in a week of interviews, expressed similar views of increasing estrangement. They said Moscow felt powerless to change Mr. Ceausescu's course. Ruled for 23 Years The 70-year-old Rumanian Communist Party leader, who has ruled unchallenged for 23 years, was described by analysts from both camps as totally convinced of the correctness and ideological purity of his policies. They said only his wife, Elena, appeared to have any influence over him, and her views coincided with her husband's. She holds high Government and party positions and is the second most powerful person in the country. Mr. Ceausescu has offended the Soviet Union since the 1960's by refusing to follow Moscow's lead in some aspects of foreign, military and economic policy. Since Mikhail S. Gorbachev introduced economic transformation and greater openness in the Soviet Union, Mr. Ceausescu has widened the distance by rejecting such policies and reiterating his belief in central economic planning and opposition to free market principles. Halved the Foreign Debt Rumania's estrangement from the West, which rewarded its earlier distancing from the Soviet Union with closer ties, resulted from President Ceaucescu's decision in 1983 to liquidate a foreign debt of more than $10 billion. He has halved it by a drastic lowering of his citizens' standard of living. The resulting material deprivation of Rumanians, which recalls conditions in Europe just after World War II, is part of what the United States Deputy Secretary of State, John C. Whitehead, said was “the general repression of the population, the squeezing of every one." "There is a whole range of other things in the human-rights area that are repugnant to Americans," Mr. Whitehead, who met with Mr, Ceausescu on Feb. 5, said in an interview. Mr. Whitehead told an airport news conference that he left Rumania disappointed because Mr. Ceausescu had refused in a three-hour meeting even to listen to his explanation of Washington's concern over human rights and had resented the very mention of the subject. West German Offer Refused Last month, the West German Foreign Minister, Hans-Dietrich Genscher, had a similarly fruitless discussion with Mr. Ceausescu. The Rumanian President refused to increase the yearly total of 12,000 ethnic Germans allowed to emigrate and angrily rejected Mr. Genscher's proposal that private German organizations be allowed to send food and other necessities to deprived Rumanians. He said, contrary to all evidence, that Rumanians had enough of everything. Diplomats speak of Mr. Ceausescu's increasing tendency to persist in his views despite contrary evidence. When the visiting head of a Canadian company building Rumania's first nuclear power plant told Mr. Ceaucescu that its first unit would be operational in twoor three years, the President insisted that he expected it to operate this year. Mr. Ceausescu continues to repeat the assertion that nuclear power will be available this year. Russian analysts here call Mr. Ceausescu's self-willed leadership feudal, nepotistic and corrupt. The trend to reclusion is also reflected in Rumania's steady cutback of its academic and scientific contacts with both East and West. Soviet and Western diplomats said the Rumanian authorities increasingly refused to let students and scholars take advantage of academic opportunities abroad and had reduced the number of foreigners allowed to teach or study here. No Love for Reporters American lecturers under the Fulbright program have dropped from 10 to 5. Rumanian lecturers and researchers in the United States numbered 38 in 1979, declined to 7 in 1985- 86 and are down to 2 now. France spent only 30 percent of its allotted budget for travel by Rumanian scholars to France last year. Rumania has sharply reduced the number of foreign correspondents it sends abroad. None are in the United States. Since last year, about 10 Western journalists have been expelled or refused entry on arrival, and those allowed in are given virtually no access to officials. Visits to critically minded Rumanians are prevented by the police guarding their houses. In eight days, this correspondent was allowed to meet only two Foreign Ministry officials and, despite two months' notice, was granted none of the interviews requested on political and economic subjects. Since 1982, Mr. Ceausescu has reduced Rumania's foreign debt from more than $10 billion to about $5 billion. This is a singular achievement in a period in which many debtor countries find it hard even to meet interest payments. Population of 23 Million Yet Mr. Ceausescu has won no praise, either from his own people or the rest of the world. Not only has the financial achievement been bought at the price of depriving the 23 million Rumanians of many of the necessities and most of the pleasures of life, but it has also starved the economy of the investment capital and imports needed to keep it competitive. Foreigners said that in several export fields Rumania remained competitive. The petrochemical industry delivers large quantities of refined products to the West. Steel, bulk chemicals, cement, textiles, furniture and food products also sell well. ‘A Western official said Rumania, a member of the Warsaw Pact, has for years been selling gasoline and meat products to the American armed forces in West Germany.Rumania's indebtedness to the West derives from the machines and other manufacturing equipment that Mr. Ceausescu bought on credit in the first decade of his leadership, starting in 1965. They were to serve as the foundation for rapid industrial development. Unhappiness in Moscow But because of a lack of modernization and maintenance, a drastic cutback in imports and poor performance by a labor force to which little incentive is offered, production rarely attains world-market standards. The output is sold largely in the Communist bloc, which cannot pay in hard currency, and in the developing world, which does not always pay its debts. Moreover, since Mr, Gorbachev came to power, Moscow has made clear that it will not indefinitely accept inferior Rumanian equipment in return for commodities that can be sold for hard currency, The Soviet Union is Rumania's biggest trading partner and the source of much of its petroleum and natural gas. Western experts also reported that failure to import pesticides and weed-killers represented a serious hazard to Rumania's grain harvest. "It's all going backward by leaps and bounds," a Western official with extensive business contacts here said. "It will soon be an underdeveloped country with a pastoral economy. If you like the 19th century, this will be the place." ‘Aversion of this article appears in print on , Section A, Page 8 of the National edition with the headline: For Bucharest, a Great Leap Backward