Bucharest Diary: New Memoir by UN Watch Chair Alfred Moses

An Evening With Alfred Moses
UN Watch Chair Interviewed on His New Book — “Bucharest Diary: Romania’s Journey from Darkness to Light”

Kol Habirah
August 2, 2018
By C.M. Ransome

The story of former U.S. Ambassador to Romania Alfred H. Moses is a unique one: It’s a tale of a young lawyer with the American Jewish Committee who was thrust into a life he didn’t expect. On July 12, guests packed the sanctuary of Sixth & I Historic Synagogue in Washington, D.C., to listen to an exchange between Moses, who is also chairman of UN Watch, and U.S. Sen. Chris Van Hollen of Maryland.

The event marked the release of Moses’s new book, “Bucharest Diary: An American Ambassador’s Journey,” which includes first-hand accounts of the diplomacy, both public and private, that helped Romania recover from four decades of Communist rule. A book signing and reception followed the discussion.

With his family and friends seated in the front rows, Moses recounted going to a country he knew very little about — on a plane “held together with chewing gum” — and meeting young Romanian Jews who were desperate to escape the communist regime of Nicolae Ceausescu.

It was this encounter that changed his life forever.

Much like another Moses, the ambassador met with Ceausescu multiple times and helped Romanian Jews emigrate to Israel throughout the 1970s and 1980s, which was made a bit easier as diplomatic relations were maintained between the United States and Romania, the only country in the communist orbit to do so. In Moses’ words, “Diplomacy is not about dealing with your friends. It’s about dealing with people like Ceausescu.”

Moses’ activism and the connections made from it led directly to his nomination and subsequent unanimous confirmation to the ambassadorship for Romania in 1994 under the Clinton administration. As ambassador, he worked with the new Romanian President Ion Iliescu to repair the image of Romania in the American psyche. He also facilitated negotiations between Romania and neighboring Hungary and Ukraine that resulted in treaties resolving border and other disputes. For his efforts, Moses was awarded the Marc Cruce medal by the Romanian government, the only American to receive this distinction.

Moses was tough in his negotiations and interactions with the new leader. Iliescu once said, according to Moses, that “not even [Soviet politician Leonid Ilyich] Brezhnev talked to us like you’re talking to us.” To which Moses replied: “Well, I hope we’re a better friend than Brezhnev.”

These interactions proved fruitful, and the current Romanian Ambassador to the United States George Maior told the crowd during the question and answer portion of the event that Iliescu saw Moses as “the best ambassador to Romania that the United States has had.” Moses served as ambassador until 1997.

Although the country still struggles today, Romania has the fastest growing gross domestic product (GDP) in Europe in 2018 according to the European Commission. Romania has also been a member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) since 2004, providing more active personnel to the organization than Canada in 2015. Moses’s work directly impacted Romania’s ability to create and sustain a viable and more respected democratic Eastern European nation.

Moses’s memoir chronicles all of this in more detail, as well as happy memories of Shabbat dinners, family anecdotes, and stories of people he has encountered. The book will appeal to anyone interested in Eastern European history, the history of Jewish life under communist regimes, or United States public affairs and diplomacy.

CLICK FOR AUDIO: DISCUSSION WITH ALFRED MOSES

About the Book: From Brookings Institution Press

Bucharest Diary
Romania’s Journey from Darkness to Light
By Alfred H. Moses

In the 1970s American attorney Alfred H. Moses was approached on the streets of Bucharest by young Jews seeking help to emigrate to Israel. This became the author’s mission until the communist regime fell in 1989. Before that Moses had met periodically with Romania’s communist dictator, Nicolae Ceausescu, to persuade him to allow increased Jewish emigration. This experience deepened Moses’s interest in Romania—an interest that culminated in his serving as U.S. ambassador to the country from 1994 to 1997 during the Clinton administration.

The ambassador’s time of service in Romania came just a few years after the fall of the Berlin Wall and the subsequent collapse of communism in Eastern Europe. During this period Romania faced economic paralysis and was still buried in the rubble of communism. Over the next three years Moses helped nurture Romania’s nascent democratic institutions, promoted privatization of Romania’s economy, and shepherded Romania on the path toward full integration with Western institutions. Through frequent press conferences, speeches, and writings in the Romanian and Western press and in his meetings with Romanian officials at the highest level, he stated in plain language the steps Romania needed to take before it could be accepted in the West as a free and democratic country.

Bucharest Diary: An American Ambassador’s Journey is filled with firsthand stories, including colorful anecdotes, of the diplomacy, both public and private, that helped Romania recover from four decades of communist rule and, eventually, become a member of both NATO and the European Union. Romania still struggles today with the consequences of its history, but it has reached many of its post-communist goals, which Ambassador Moses championed at a crucial time.

This book will be of special interest to readers of history and public affairs—in particular those interested in Jewish life under communist rule in Eastern Europe and how the United States and its Western partners helped rebuild an important country devastated by communism.

Buy the Book: Click Here

About the Author

Alfred H. Moses is a Washington attorney, author, and former partner in a major Washington law firm. He was special counsel to President Carter (1980-81), U.S. ambassador to Romania (1994-97), and special presidential envoy for the Cyprus conflict (1999-2001). He was national president of the American Jewish Committee immediately before becoming ambassador. Presently chairman of UN Watch (Geneva), he has written several books and numerous articles appearing in the New York Times, the Washington Post, and other periodicals in the United States, Europe, and Israel. In 2002 he was awarded Romania’s Marc Cruce Medal (Order For Merit) by President Ion Iliescu of Romania, the only American to have been so honored.

Praise for Bucharest Diary