Ovidiu Enculescu si Victor Roncea despre cartea lui Larry Watts de ZiaristiOnlineTV
Cum asteptam ca Editura RAO sa-si tina promisiunea si sa lanseze cat de curand – poate chiar de 1 Decembrie, Ziua Nationala a Romaniei -, volumul al II-lea al lucrarii profesorului Larry Watts “Fereste-ma, Doamne, de prieteni. Razboiul clandestin al blocului sovietic cu Romania“, ne-am gandit sa-l stimulam pe Ovidiu Enculescu, directorul Grupului Rao, cu cateva extrase din recenziile facute primului volum, de la cei care au citit cartea, ca Prof. Keith Hitchens si Amb. George Maior, pana la cei care doar au comentat-o, ca Vladimir I Tismaneanu si Alina Pavelescu.
“Larry Watts looks beneath the surface of events in the period up to 1978 by investigating, in particular, the activities of Romanian, Soviet, and bloc secret services. He has drawn on extensive archive materials, many unused until now, to show how, beginning in the late 1950s, the Soviet Union and its allies in the Warsaw Pact treated Romania essentially as an enemy. … In examining these stratagems in detail, Watts puts his archive sources to good use. He notes how American analysts were misled by Soviet-inspired deceptions into discounting Romania’s striving for autonomy merely as a ruse on a number of occasions, a device to secure Western benefits at little cost. On the basis of abundant evidence Watts argues just the contrary. His account of Gheorghiu-Dej’s and Ceauşescu’s opposition to the economic integration of the bloc through Comecon, and military integration within the framework of the Warsaw Pact, leaves no doubt about their determination to achieve distance from the Soviet embrace. … Besides the strains in Soviet-Romanian relations, Watts adds much to our understanding of the tense situation created by Ceauşescu’s denunciation of the intervention in Czechoslovakia in 1968, Romania’s mediation between the United States, China, and Vietnam, and growing United States-Romanian military coordination in the mid-1970s. His book in many ways, then, is an invitation to historians of Communist Romania to revisit crucial issues.”
Prof. Keith Hitchens, History of Russia, East Europe and Eurasia, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign
”Watts has certainly drawn upon an impressive array of Warsaw Pact papers and secondary sources, and his annotations to his footnotes often show an intimate knowledge of personal relationships within the Romanian body-politic, both before and after Ceausescu. His study, in fact, provides an invaluable mine of information about Romanian foreign policy from the late 1950s until Ceausescu’s downfall and Warsaw Pact, US and Chinese reactions to it.”
Prof. Dennis Deletent, Ion Ratiu Chair for Romanian Studies, Georgetown University, Slavic and East European Review, January 2012
“Larry L. Watts provides the historical “coda” to the question of Romania’s geostrategic orientation during the communist era. Using evidence gleaned from recently opened intelligence and defense archives of the Warsaw Pact, Watts examines Romania’s strategic behavior during the Cold War and explains why this country earned a reputation from scholars and diplomats of the era as a so-called “maverick” and why some believed Romania’s seemingly autonomous behavior was really a sham. … This work is more than just an exposé of Cold War intelligence secrets. With Friends Like These represents a monumental effort by Watts to come to terms with Romania’s Warsaw Past legacy. … Watts’s understanding of Romanian strategic culture and his access to communist-era archives combine to make this volume a must read for those interested in Cold War history and the Warsaw Pact.”
Colonel Charles W. Van Bebber, Parameters (US Army War College), Autumn 2011
“I thank Larry Watts for having dug, and digging still, deep into our national history to set this tragic period in its proper historic, sociologic and strategic context. … My job has required that I spend some time in the SRI archives and, regarding archival documents that have not yet been studied, neither here nor abroad, and certain situations that even now cannot be fully clarified for the general public, I assure you that the passage of time and further declassifications will confirm many of Larry Watts’ findings exactly.”
George Maior, Director Romanian Intelligence Service (SRI), former Chair of Senate Defense and Security Oversight Committee, former Deputy Minister for Euro-Atlantic Integration and Defense Policy, Romanian Defense Ministry
“Here is a new account of Romania’s rift with the Soviet Union and its satellites, and the East-West reverberations, seen through the parts played by the intelligence services involved. It significantly revises parts of Cold War history and what followed. A “must” for understanding the period. Historians now have no excuse for ignoring its intelligence dimension and the national and international effects.”
Michael Herman, Founder Oxford Intelligence Group, Oxford University, Former British intelligence officer, Former Secretary of Joint Intelligence Committee
“Breathtaking. Presenting a fascinating array of data and information from sources previously unexplored, Watts offers an opportunity for understanding the sinuous and contradictory path trod by the Romanians from the beginning of the modern epoch up until 1978, not through the perspective of official public declarations or otherwise interested publications but by unveiling the projects, plans and deeds concocted in the shadows, through the words of those who concocted them.”
Ioan Talpeş, Former Director Romanian Foreign Intelligence (SIE), Former Presidential Advisor for National Security, Former Deputy Prime Mnister for European Integration, Justice and Defense, Former Chair Senate Defense and Security Oversight Committee
“Reading WITH FRIENDS LIKE THESE is like participating in an important archaeological dig. Larry Watts demonstrates his mastery of Cold War security issues and, in particular, the Russian/Soviet push-pull with Romania. His analysis of the triangular dance among Moscow, Bucharest, and Belgrade over independence, “fraternal friendship,” and international pride of place is fascinating.”
David B. Kanin, Johns Hopkins University, Former CIA Senior Analyst
“Watts’ work packs more information than a dozen other books. This is a “must read” volume for any serious student of Romanian history under communism and the inner workings of intelligence services on both sides of the Iron Curtain.”
Kiki Skagen Harris, Former Senior US Diplomat
“With his new book, WITH FRIENDS LIKE THESE, Larry Watts has given his readers a magnificent work of scholarship. Tracing the history of Russian-Romanian relations from the War of 1877-78 to 1978, he has brought to light much new and unexpected material, some of which is certain to generate heated controversy, but Watts has meticulously and completely footnoted his text, and scholars who wish to take issue with him will find themselves hard pressed.”
Ernest H. Latham, Jr., Professor, US Foreign Services Institute, Former US Diplomat
“The monumental new book by Dr. Larry L. Watts, WITH FRIENDS LIKE THESE, is the missing link of Cold War history. Watts painstakingly roots out the true story of Communist Romania’s long, complex and combatively independent relationship with the Soviet Union and its important collateral effects on the larger East-West conflict. With unrelenting scholarship and a unique grasp of political and cultural subtleties, Watts presents the most accurate picture yet of what actually happened in this widely misunderstood corner of Europe and the fascinating cast of actors who pulled the levers.”
Jim Dorschner, Special Correspondent IHS Jane’s Information Group
“It is not only the quantity of information, but the manner in which the author masters that information that impresses the reader. He did not allow himself to be led astray by the abundance of sources which he uses. He dominated them and ordered them according to a research plan, a plan that emerges from the documentation and not one imposed a priori. Larry Watts is an historian of the first class. His book will serve as the point of reference for all research on the topic that will follow.”
Academician Prof. Dinu Giurescu, University of Bucharest
“Watts tells a fascinating and highly enjoyable story that sheds new light on Romania’s Cold War relations with its communist “comrades.” Based primarily on unknown or unconsidered sources, WITH FRIENDS LIKE THESE is dense with information yet structured in a very reader friendly way. This book explains and revises what has been taken for granted in Romanian history from WWII onwards, a must for anyone interested in modern Romanian and Balkan history. It not only contains new and more profound description and interpretation of what really happened in Romanian politics, it is also extremely readable and well-written.”
Prof. Ingmar Söhrman, Göteborgs Universitet, Sweden
“Reflecting a regional and country-specific knowledge both broad and profound, Larry Watts has produced a path-breaking study of the clandestine war within the Soviet Bloc set on a foundation of prodigious research. Watts not only knows where the bodies are buried, he explains who buried them and why. For those seeking to recover some of this recent history Watts provides a multitude of signposts indicating where they might start digging.”
Prof. Henry L. Carey, Atlanta State University, Georgia
“There are not many Romanian historians that would broach these very delicate issues with such courage, and with such an accomplished aplomb. Larry Watts treats things directly, calling them by their proper name, as they emerge from the enormous collection of documents he studied. As in the case of this extensive bibliography, his notes, his explanation of the notes, and the detail into which he goes with them are absolutely impressive for any historian.”
Prof. Ioan Scurtu, Romanian Academy of Scientists, Former Director of the National Archives
“Larry Watts brings clarity for the first time to the subject of Romania\’s relations with the Soviet Union. This much misunderstood subject is examined here in forensic and immaculately-sourced detail. Watts never loses sight of the big picture, and manages to pull off a rare feat: a work of ground-breaking academic research that is fluent and compelling.”
Neil Barnett, Special Correspondent
“I read the book of Larry Watts – or rather, I made a first reading of it because this volume requires many readings – while oscillating between wonder and ecstasy. Wonder at the manner in which this clandestine war was organized against Romania, how it was prepared to the smallest detail, and ecstasy before the quality of his analysis.”
Prof. Mihai Retegan, University of Bucharest
“The book of Larry Watts about how Romania was the victim of eternal and malicious foreign conspiracies (perpetuated by enemies infiltrated in the “besieged fortress” like a Trojan horse) has become a decisive cause, it seems, for those who wish to present the Ceausescu dictatorship as beging national and patriotic. I don’t know how much the American historian realizes which are the manipulations into which, volens nolens, he has entered and which he legitimizes through his public reputation in Romania. … I have seen [the book] praised in superlative fashion, from circles before which I have legitimate cause to be, if not suspicious, then at least suspicious. Not only because they have specialized in defaming me, but because they are experts in the “art” of disinformation.”
Prof. Vladimir I. Tismaneanu, Editor, Final Report of the Presidential Commission for the Analysis of the Communist Dictatorship in Romania, former President of Institute for the Investigations of Communist Crimes and the Memory of the Romanian Exile, Blogger – www.tismaneanu.wordpress.com, 2011 and 2012
“To make a long story short, the book of Larry L. Watts has no other merit than that of succeeding to restitute the nationalist-patriotard vulgate that, together with the legitimation of autarchy and bellicose xenophobia characterized late “Ceauşescuism” (see the ‘80s and the Struggle of the Entire People, patronized at that time by Ilie Ceauşescu himself) in a tabloid formula, adapted to the demands of the post-communist Romanianpublic. Of an uneducated public, I fear. Because I see no serious historian who would have the courage to import the assertions of Watts telles-quelles into a work with scientific pretentions.”
Alina Pravalescu, www.savonarolawho.wordpress.com, 2011
