Rumunsko a Smlouva o nešíření jaderných zbraní (1968)
Romania and the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons

Summary/Abstract: The study analyzes the development of the attitude of the Romanian Socialist Republic to negotiations concerning the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons in the 1960s. The topic is examined against the backdrop of the course of Romania’s foreign policy at that time and long-term efforts to reduce (nuclear) weapons. Since early 1960s, Romania’s Communist leaders, including Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej (1901–1965), and in particular Nicolae Ceauşescu (1918–1989), had been striving for a greater economicself-sufficiency and a political independence within the Eastern Bloc, which meant, insofar as the country’s international policy was concerned, an outweighing of Soviet dominance by an alliance with the People’s Republic of China and closer contacts with Western states. Plans for international control and regulated use of nuclear had beendating back to the dropping of first nuclear bombs in 1945, but the author claims theSoviet Union had not had any interest in them until it reached a nuclear parity. Since the late 1950s, on the other hand, efforts to reach a nuclear détente had been promoted in the international agenda mainly by Moscow, and the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons signed in 1968 was a result of bilateral Soviet-US negotiations. The author examines Bucharest’s reservations about drafts of the treaty, as formulated byRomanian diplomats and party leaders and presented during negotiations with Soviets and Chinese and on the forums of the Warsaw Treaty and the UN General Assembly. Their common denominator were efforts to secure an equal position for non-nuclear states, which were to be provided safety guarantees against an aggression of nuclear superpowers and access to civilian uses of nuclear energy. Although such comments, which were also voiced by other countries, were reflected only cosmetically in the finalwording of the treaty, and Romania was even considering its rejection, it ultimately attached its signature to it, but it continued to postpone the ratification in an ostensive manner until 1970.

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