ate relations with nonruling
communist and workers' parties, efforts that were reflected in visits of
top leaders from at least thirty of these parties to Romania during
1970. All of these visitors were received personally by Ceausescu.
Observers pointed out that the cultivation of relations with the
nonruling parties was an important means of gaining support for
Romania's independent policies.

Relations With Noncommunist States

Romania has continued to improve relations with Western nations and has
sought to cultivate ties with the developing countries of Africa and
Asia. The expansion of relations beyond the Soviet alignment system was
cautiously initiated in the mid-1950s by the Gheorghiu-Dej regime when
pressures were building for Romania's full economic integration into
COMECON. In addition to the desire to develop trade relations with
Western nations, the government was interested in utilizing Western
technology and in seeking an increased measure of detente in the cold
war.

West Germany

In the period that followed the initiation of limited relations with
noncommunist states, Romania's resistance to the Soviet Union
contributed to a receptive attitude on the part of several Western
states. Aside from the gradual development of trade relations, however,
significant political relations with Western Europe did not materialize
until January 1967, when the Ceausescu regime agreed to establish formal
diplomatic relations with West Germany, becoming the first of the Warsaw
Pact states, other than the Soviet Union, to do so.

Romanian leaders based the establishment of relations with West Germany
on the so-called Bucharest Declaration issued by the leaders of the
Warsaw Pact countries in 1966. The declaration affirmed that there were
in West Germany "circles that oppose revanchism and militarism" and that
seek the development of normal relations with countries of both the East
and the West as well as a normalization of relations "between the two
German states." Also included in the declaration was a statement
affirming that a basic condition for European security was the
establishment of normal relations between states "regardless of their
social systems." The Ceausescu regime interpreted this as implying that
bilateral relations could be developed between Eastern European states
and West Germany.

Although the West German government made overtures to other Eastern
European communist states, Romania was th