701.7111/7–2346
Memorandum by the Acting Secretary of State to President Truman
Subject: Request for Agreement to Appointment of Mihail Ralea as Rumanian Minister to the United States
On June 8, 1946 our Political Representative in Bucharest received a letter from the Rumanian Foreign Minister stating that Dr. Dumitru Bagdasar, whose appointment as Rumanian Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary to the United States you approved in April of this year, is unable to proceed to his post and proposed in his stead, Dr. Mihail Ralea. We have learned informally that Dr. Bagdasar is critically ill.
Dr. Ralea was born in Bucharest in 1896, the son of a Rumanian judge. After studying at the Rumanian universities of Iasi and Bucharest, he received his LL.D. and Litt.D. degrees from the University of Paris. He has been Professor of Esthetics, Sociology and [Page 611] Psychology in the Universities of Iasi and Bucharest respectively from 1926 to the present. He is the author of a number of works and has been for some time editor of the oldest Rumanian scientific and literary review. He is reputedly a talented writer and speaker.
Dr. Ralea is Minister of Arts and Minister of Religion ad interim in the present Rumanian cabinet. Although officially a member the Communist-supported Plowmen’s Front Party of Premier Groza he is said to be secretly enrolled in the Communist Party itself. He is essentially opportunistic, having accommodated himself in Ministerial capacity to two regimes of opposite political tendencies, and is presently reported to be extremely pro-Russian.
Last year Dr. Ralea was proposed as Rumanian Minister to France, but was not accepted by the French Government because of his intimate association with the former King Carol and because he was unfavorably known to the French residents in Rumania. We have ascertained, however, that the French Government would not be embarrassed if we should see fit to accept him.
The Secretary, in a telegram of June 17, from Paris recommends that, unless the Department perceives some sound reasons for objecting to the appointment of Dr. Ralea, we should give our agreement. We do not perceive any sufficient reason in the circumstances to refuse Dr. Ralea.
Accordingly, if you approve, we will send appropriate instructions to the United States Representative in Rumania to inform the Rumanian Government to that effect.99
- Marginal notation on the original: “Approved Harry Truman”.↩