Constantin “Costel” Rauţa – A Eulogy
Bună ziua. My name is Wayne Barnes, and I am proud to be here.
But who am I, and why am I here?
Cine sînt, eu, şi de ce sînt pe aici? O întrebare bună.
A good question.
I was raised a poor boy in Philadelphia. I had Spanish in high school and French in college. I went into the Federal Bureau of Investigation as a Special Agent in 1971. In training they gave us a test to see if we had an aptitude for languages. It was based on Romance grammar, and I already had two of them in my head, so I scored high.
A year and a half later, I was asked to go to Monterey, CA, to the Defense Language Institute to learn Romanian, (Institutul de Limbii Străine Apărare Naţional). I admit that, back then, I was not sure exactly where Romania was on the map, but that would change quickly. I talked to my colleagues in New York who spoke the language and loved their work. So, I was off to Monterey for nine months.
Acuma, eu vorbesc limba Română—and now I speak Romanian.
In language school in the fall of 1973, there was big news. There had been a Romanian defection. We knew little about it, but in the next few months I would learn a great deal because, after language school, I was assigned to Washington. The man who had defected was none other than Constantin Rauţa, “Costel” to his friends. A devenit prietenul meu—he became my friend for the next 46 years.
He had come to the U.S. with the advance party for the visit of President Nicolae Ceauşescu. He would do an electronic sweep of the embassy. I can tell you now that the FBI did not have any bugs for Costel to find. Their phones—maybe…
When the delegation arrived in New York and at Grand Central Station, in transit to Washington, Costel found himself in a stall in the bathroom.
He had pondered what he was going to do for weeks and months, and now was the moment.
As thousands in Romania in the 1970s, Costel wanted to escape, to get away from communism to be in a land of freedom. That was the blood that ran through his veins until the day he died.
In the bathroom stall beside him was the man who carried the diplomatic pouch, which held sensitive papers that the Government of Romania would not want to fall into the hands of U.S. Intelligence—that would be me.
Costel reached under the stall, grabbed the diplomatic pouch, and ran from the bathroom. The man left behind, truly was caught with his pants down. He shouted at Costel, but he was gone.
In Romania, anyone who wears a uniform is considered part of the “government,” that is the Securitate. It is different in the U.S. Costel saw a man in uniform and marched over to him. He announced who he was and that he wanted to defect. Plus, he was bringing with him a present of the Romanian diplomatic pouch.
That was great, but the man he was talking to was a police officer in the NYPD who had no idea what Costel was saying. Surprise, surprise, he did not speak Romanian!
But he called his precinct, and they got in touch with the FBI. A couple of those agents, who I had spoken with just a few months before, responded.
They learned Costel’s plan was to get his family, his wife, Cathy, and son, Mihai, out of Romania by giving the U.S. the Romanian diplomatic pouch. He wanted them to use it as ransom in exchange for his family. A great idea, maybe, but it wouldn’t work.
President Nixon was trying to make friends with at least one communist leader from the Warsaw Pact, and on that day, it was Draculescu Ceauşescu, (the Son of the Devil), and Costel became a fly in the diplomatic ointment.
Someone from the American delegation to the United Nations finally told Costel that, for the State visit to go well, they had to return the pouch, unopened.
He begged them to open it and read the papers inside, then close it up again, which was actually not a bad idea. But the technical people were sure there was some sort of hidden string inside that would break when it was opened—sounding like a James Bond novel—so they decided to leave it alone.
I have dealt with many defectors, a total of twenty-five. They have been a wonderful group of honorable men, all freedom loving, who were just born in the wrong country: Russians, Czechs, Hungarians, Poles, and many Romanians. I am proud that General Ion Mihai Pacepa is one of my most honored friends, and he was Costel’s also, not before their defections, but afterwards, they forged a strong bond.
Almost all defectors are resettled away from Washington, for their safety. But Costel would not go quietly into the night. He wanted to make as much noise as he could about the horrors of communism, the tragedy of the Ceauşescu regime, and his divided family in Romania.
This went on for years, but he had personally angered the president of a nation, granted, a small nation, but still a sovereign one where Ceauşescu was like a king, if not more.
Costel would hold a sign and walk outside of the embassy on Massachusetts Avenue. He met senators and congressmen, many who made overtures on his behalf, to no avail. Costel was absolutely the most visible Romanian defector of all time, which was his intention. But much of this was counterproductive to getting his family out.
Behind the scenes, and for years, the U.S. Government was making overtures to help the Rauţa family secure exit visas. At one point, the American diplomats in Bucharest had not raised the Rauţa issue with any of their counterparts for several months. Of course, that did not mean they didn’t care about him, they were just giving it a rest. But not Costel, who never stopped in his efforts to have his family join him.
The Romanian Foreign Intelligence Service, Direcţia de Informaţii Externe, abbreviated to the ominous letters, “DIE,” die, had a plan in motion to assassinate Costel. Through a contact with the American Mafia, they actually hired a hit man to shoot him from a distance with a rifle. There was, fortunately, a requirement that before he pulled the trigger, the assassin was to check in with the Romanians, one last time, to make sure the “hit” was still on.
Just at that moment, there was a diplomatic reception in Bucharest which some Americans were attending. One happened to ask, in passing, if there was any movement in their longstanding request to release the Rauţa family.
Well, this was extraordinary, as the man he was speaking to was a senior DIE official, who was aware of the plot to kill Costel—and that very night.
He put down his drink and dashed through the crowd of finely-dressed diplomats. He ran out to a car, and sped down the boulevard to DIE Headquarters. He rushed inside and told them to, “Stop the assassination!”
Amazingly, they did as he said. So Costel, way over in America, was standing on a street corner and the would-be assassin actually had him in the crosshairs of his rifle scope. But then he got the emergency order to, “Stop the assassination!”
He put down his rifle, and Costel got to live another day, and many more.
There is something interesting in languages. In English we have the verb “to defect,” but that doesn’t exist in Romanian. There is no, a defecta. When they saw of a man defect, they would say, “a fugit,” he ran away. That was their take. But those who had the courage to leave and face certain dangers of their own, like Costel, would say, “Am plecat,” I left! Because none of them think they ran away. Rather it was in their hearts for them to leave.
After Costel was debriefed, he got a most extraordinary job. He worked with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, NASA, in Greenbelt, Maryland, just outside the Washington Beltway. Much of what they do is classified.
One day a new security officer, a young woman, was assigned to Greenbelt. She went through all the personnel files. When she came to Costel’s—she was certain she had found a spy! Wow!
Costel called me right away, with frustration and some fear, saying what had happened. She saw he was from a communist country and, therefore, he must be spying for them!
I got her name and arranged to meet with her. I told her about what Costel had done, his divided family and his unequivocal sincerity, even having given up, literally, everything, to live in the freedoms of America. And, no, he had no loyalty to Preşidente Ceauşescu. She was finally convinced, and Costel kept his clearances, working there for many years.
Let me relate just one vignette about Costel’s work. A couple of decades ago the U.S. had a satellite with a degrading orbit. It had outlived its usefulness and was slowly falling back to earth. The question was exactly where it was, and how to figure where it would land. It had some radioactive material inside and the whole satellite was about the size of a school bus.
It is difficult to explain the calculations and what had to be considered: the gravity of the earth, of the moon, the Doppler effect, the weather patterns all around the globe, and the satellite’s history of so many thousand orbits. If you were not a truly gifted mathematician, it would be an impossible nightmare to figure.
Costel was the man who created the equation and made the calculations to figure where it was, and even where it would land, which, happily, was not over a major city in the U.S. but somewhere deep in the outback in Australia. He may be the only man who could have made such a calculation. He was a genius, a rocket scientist, who did so much for his adopted country that he loved so very much.
When his family was finally reunited, I think he had a very inward feeling of deep satisfaction that few of us could match in our own lives.
He was so proud of his son, Mike and daughter, Andreia, both productive members of American society.
I am sad my friend is no longer with us. It is hoped he used the digital device I bought for him to record all of his sometimes seemingly wild ideas, but mostly, scientific and wonderful ideas about his experiments and inventions to come, so that part of him may live on.
It is an honor to speak here today, and my sincerest condolences to the entire Rauţa family.
Pentru lucru meu, asta-i tot.
For my part, that is all.
Mulţumesc, foarte mult, onora este a mea.
Thank you very much, the honor has been mine.
Wayne A. Barnes
Holy Cross Romanian Orthodox Church
Hollywood, FL
June 28, 2020
Costel Rauta, Netuţa Matasa (who arranged for the memorial service), and Wayne Barnes. Below, retired FBI Agent Wayne Barnes delivering the memorial address for Constantin Rauţa at the Holy Cross Romanian Orthodox Church, Hollywood, FL, June 28, 2020. Costel defected from the Romanian Intelligence Service in 1973.