Ion Mihai Pacepa, Key Cold War Defector, Dies at 92
A general in the Romanian intelligence service, he later revealed the corruption and cruelty behind his country’s Communist regime. He died of Covid-19.
Lt. Gen. Ion Mihai Pacepa, a top Romanian intelligence official, detailed the corruption and cruelty of his country’s leadership after he defected.Credit.Agerpres
March 16, 2021
This obituary is part of a series about people who have died in the coronavirus pandemic. Read about others
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Lt. Gen. Ion Mihai Pacepa, a senior Romanian intelligence official and an adviser to his country’s president, Nicolae Ceaucescu, arrived in Bonn, West Germany, one day in June 1978 on a diplomatic mission. Mr. Ceaucescu had given him a message for the German chancellor and orders to devise a plan to assassinate an American journalist who covered Romania.
Ion Mihai Pacepa: 1928–2021
Highest-ranking Soviet-bloc officer ever to defect to the West has died
Commentary
In 2017, Christopher Monckton, Third Viscount Monckton of Brenchley and a former adviser to British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, called Lt. Gen. Ion Mihai Pacepa the “most influential man of the 20th century and, arguably, the beginning of the 21st.”
He was the man who pulled back the curtain to reveal the disinformation that was being churned out from the Soviet bloc. Unfortunately, most people remained unfamiliar with Pacepa and his work.
In the early morning hours of Feb. 14, COVID-19 accomplished what a $2 million bounty and two separate teams of Romanian-sponsored assassins could not. Ion Mihai Pacepa, “Mike” to those who knew him, was called home to his eternal reward.