Ion Mihai Pacepa
| Ion Mihai Pacepa | |
|---|---|
Pacepa in 1975
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| Allegiance |
 Romania (defected) United States
|
| Service | Securitate |
| Active | 1951–78 (defected) |
| Rank |
 Lieutenant General
|
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| Born |
28 October 1928 Bucharest, Romania |
| Nationality | Romanian |
Ion Mihai Pacepa (Romanian pronunciation: [iˈon miˈhaj paˈt͡ʃepa]; born 28 October 1928) is a former three-star general in the Securitate, the secret police of Communist Romania, who defected to the United States in July 1978 following President Jimmy Carter's approval of his request for political asylum. He is the highest-ranking defector from the former Eastern Bloc, and has written several books and news articles on the inner workings of the communist intelligence services. At the time of his defection, General Pacepa simultaneously had the rank of advisor to President Nicolae Ceauşescu, acting chief of his foreign intelligence service and a state secretary of Romania's Ministry of Interior.
Subsequently, he worked with the American Central Intelligence Agency in various operations against the former Eastern Bloc. The CIA described his cooperation as "an important and unique contribution to the United States".
Ion Mihai Pacepa's father (born in 1893) grew up in Alba Iulia, the capital of the principality of Transylvania, which at that time was part of the Austrian-Hungarian Empire, where he worked in his own father's small factory producing pots and cutlery for the kitchen. On 1 December 1918, Transylvania was united with Romania, and in 1920 Pacepa's father moved to Bucharest, where he spent all his working life at the Romanian representative of the American car company General Motors.
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