Based on government sources and numerous ambassadorial interviews, this work details relations between the United States and Romania from 1989 to 2004. The book describes Bucharest's strategies to secure its foreign policy goals during that period: restoration of most-favored-nation product treatment with the United States, membership in NATO, and entry into the European Union.

In the postD9/11 era of heightened security awareness, conflicting strategies for containing and combating security risks have strained relations between the United States and the European Union despite common goals. Atlantic Bridges argues that the U.S. must resist the temptation to focus its diplomatic efforts on bilateral agreements with those European countries in closest alignment to it, and instead use its dependable and durable partners among the central and eastern European states to develop more predictable and productive relations with the EU for the sake of long-term stability.

Article abstracts and citations of reviews and dissertations covering the United States and Canada.

Discusses the birth pangs of democracy in post-communist Romania, and its difficult transition from a state of non-law to a rule-of-law state.

An insider's account of Romania's emergence from communism control In the 1970s American attorney Alfred H. Moses was approached on the streets of Bucharest by young Jews seeking help to emigrate to Israel. This became the author's mission until the communist regime fell in 1989. Before that Moses had met periodically with Romania's communist dictator, Nicolae Ceausescu, to persuade him to allow increased Jewish emigration. This experience deepened Moses's interest in Romania—an interest that culminated in his serving as U.S. ambassador to the country from 1994 to 1997 during the Clinton administration. The ambassador's time of service in Romania came just a few years after the fall of the Berlin Wall and the subsequent collapse of communism in Eastern Europe. During this period Romania faced economic paralysis and was still buried in the rubble of communism. Over the next three years Moses helped nurture Romania's nascent democratic institutions, promoted privatization of Romania's economy, and shepherded Romania on the path toward full integration with Western institutions. Through frequent press conferences, speeches, and writings in the Romanian and Western press and in his meetings with Romanian officials at the highest level, he stated in plain language the steps Romania needed to take before it could be accepted in the West as a free and democratic country. Bucharest Diary: An American Ambassador's Journey is filled with firsthand stories, including colorful anecdotes, of the diplomacy, both public and private, that helped Romania recover from four decades of communist rule and, eventually, become a member of both NATO and the European Union. Romania still struggles today with the consequences of its history, but it has reached many of its post-communist goals, which Ambassador Moses championed at a crucial time. This book will be of special interest to readers of history and public affairs—in particular those interested in Jewish life under communist rule in Eastern Europe and how the United States and its Western partners helped rebuild an important country devastated by communism.

"In 1930, about 750,000 Jews called Romania home. At the end of World War II, approximately half of them survived. Only recently, after the fall of Communism, have details of the history of the Holocaust in Romania come to light. Ion Popa explores this history by scrutinizing the role of the Romanian Orthodox Church from 1938 to the present day. Popa unveils and questions whitewashing myths that concealed the Church's role in supporting official antisemitic policies of the Romanian government. He analyzes the Church's relationship with the Jewish community in Romania and Judaism in general, as well as with the state of Israel, and discusses the extent to which the Church recognizes its part in the persecution and destruction of Romanian Jews. Popa's highly original analysis illuminates how the Church responded to accusations regarding its involvement in the Holocaust, the part it played in buttressing the wall of Holocaust denial, and how Holocaust memory has been shaped in Romania today"--back cover.