70,
forced the Ceausescu regime to again rely on its economic ties with the
COMECON states. Despite these difficulties, the country has continued to
develop its trade relations with noncommunist nations and has continued
to resist COMECON integration pressures.

In 1970 a prominent Romanian economist proposed that COMECON become an
open-ended organization in which all countries, socialist and
nonsocialist, could participate on a voluntary basis. In mid-1971 an
official PCR party spokesman declared that economic cooperation with
COMECON must "in no way affect the national economic plans or the
independence of the economic units in each country."

CHAPTER 11

PUBLIC INFORMATION

In the early 1970s the media of public information, under complete party
and government control and supervision, were utilized primarily to
propagandize and indoctrinate the population in support of the regime's
domestic and foreign policy objectives. The system of control was highly
centralized and involved an interlocking group of party and state
organizations, supervising bodies, and operating agencies whose
authority extended to all radio and television facilities, film studios,
printing establishments, newspapers, book publishers, and the single
news agency. In addition, this control apparatus also regulated the
access of the public to foreign publications, films, newscasts, books,
and radio and television programs.

Freedom of information, although never fully recognized in precommunist
Romania, completely disappeared under the Communists after 1948. In late
1971, as a result of an ideological campaign launched by the regime, the
communications media experienced measures that served further to
reemphasize their assigned role as political tools in the indoctrination
of the people. The effects of this campaign had not become fully evident
in early 1972, but changes and modifications had begun to appear that
tended to inhibit liberalizing trends, which had been incorporated
gradually into the system during the 1960s.

GOVERNMENT AND FREEDOM OF INFORMATION

Although freedom of information was theoretically guaranteed by the
early constitutions of precommunist Romania, censorship of the press was
not unusual and commonly took the form of banning or confiscating
newspapers and periodicals considered hostile to the ruling group.
Newspapers had traditionally been published by political parties and
special interest groups, only a f