A cherished aim of Rumania's in dependent Communist boss Nicolae Ceauşescu is to see his country out grow its role as the melon-and- cucumber patch of Eastern Europe. Nothing will change, he realizes, if the Russians have their way. So Ceauşescu stubbornly resists the integration of Rumania's economy with the Soviet bloc's Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (Comecon). Instead, he relies largely on Western technology to turn his country toward industrialization.
Bucharest these days is aswarm with West German, British, French and Jap anese visitors peddling such industrial tools as airplanes, chemical...