Oana Lungescu (born 29 June 1958) is a Romanian journalist with philological education (English and Spanish). Between 2010 and September 2023 she has been the principal NATO spokesperson.[1] In 2024 she joined the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI), a UK defence and security think tank.[2]
Born in Bucharest, she graduated in 1981 from the Faculty of Philology of the University of Bucharest, the English-Spanish section. Between 1981 and 1983 she worked as an English teacher in the town of Bușteni.[3] In 1983 she refused to cooperate with the Communist secret police, the Securitate.[4] The Securitate prepared an informational tracking file of Lungescu giving her the code name Lorena.[5]
Her mother, originally from Cluj, had settled in 1981 as a physician in West Germany. Oana Lungescu requested in 1983 the granting of a passport for visiting her mother, only to be refused by the authorities. The Securitate tried to force her collaboration through blackmail with a passport and medication for her father, a lawyer, who was seriously ill. After her father died in 1985, she was allowed to live in West Germany, where she obtained German citizenship.[6]
Between 1985 (before the 1989 fall of Communism in Eastern Europe) and 1992, she worked as a reporter for the Romanian section of the BBC, by 1996 becoming editor and auxiliary[clarification needed] of BBC's Romanian section, under the editorial name of "Ana Maria Bota".[7] In 1997, she moved to the BBC World Service, where she worked as a correspondent in Brussels and Berlin until 2010, when NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen named her as the new spokesperson, succeeding James Appathurai.[8] She was the first woman, first journalist, first person born in the former Soviet block, and became the longest-serving person in this position.[1][2] As of 2024, Lungescu is distinguished fellow at a UK defence and security think tank, RUSI - the Royal United Services Institute.[2]
External links
@NATOpress Twitter account of the NATO Spokesperson, formerly Lungescu's, as of Jan. 2024 belonging to Dylan White.
The Romanian Intelligence Service is Romania's main domestic intelligence service. Its role is to gather information relevant to national security and hand it over to relevant institutions, such as Romanian Government, presidency and law enforcement departments and agencies. The service is gathering intelligence by ways such as signals intelligence (SIGINT), open-source intelligence (OSINT) and human intelligence (HUMINT).
The Securitate was the popular term for the Departamentul Securității Statului, the secret police agency of the Socialist Republic of Romania. Previously, before the communist regime, Romanian secret police was called Siguranța Statului. It was founded on 30 August 1948, with help and direction from the Soviet MGB. Following the Romanian Revolution in 1989, the new authorities assigned the various intelligence tasks of the DSS to new institutions.
Eugen Barbu was a Romanian modern novelist, short story writer, journalist, and correspondent member of the Romanian Academy. The latter position was vehemently criticized by those who contended that he plagiarized in his novel Incognito and for the anti-Semitic campaigns he initiated in the newspapers Săptămâna and România Mare which he founded and led. He also founded, alongside his disciple Corneliu Vadim Tudor, the nationalist Greater Romania Party (PRM).
The Romanian revolution was a period of violent civil unrest in Romania during December 1989 as a part of the revolutions of 1989 that occurred in several countries around the world, primarily within the Eastern Bloc. The Romanian revolution started in the city of Timișoara and soon spread throughout the country, ultimately culminating in the drumhead trial and execution of longtime Romanian Communist Party (PCR) General Secretary Nicolae Ceaușescu and his wife Elena, and the end of 42 years of Communist rule in Romania. It was also the last removal of a Marxist–Leninist government in a Warsaw Pact country during the events of 1989, and the only one that violently overthrew a country's leadership and executed its leader; according to estimates, over one thousand people died and thousands more were injured.
România liberă is a Romanian daily newspaper founded in 1943 and currently based in Bucharest. A newspaper of the same name also existed between 1877 and 1888.
Prince Radu of Romania is the husband of Margareta of Romania, who is the head of the House of Romania and a disputed pretender to the former Romanian throne. On 1 January 1999, he was given the name, not title, of "Prince of Hohenzollern-Veringen" by Friedrich Wilhelm, Prince of Hohenzollern, the head of the Sigmaringen branch of the Hohenzollern family. He has also called himself "Radu Hohenzollern-Veringen-Duda". Since 2007, when he had his legal name changed from "Radu Duda" to "Radu al României Duda", Radu no longer uses the name of Hohenzollern. The Fundamental Rules of the Romanian Royal Family, proclaimed by former King Michael I on 30 December 2007, gave Radu the title of "Prince of Romania", with the style of "Royal Highness", which King Michael had given him earlier on 5 January 2005.
Paul Goma was a Romanian writer, known for his activities as a dissident and leading opponent of the communist regime before 1989. Forced into exile by the communist authorities, he became a political refugee and resided in France as a stateless person. After 2000, Goma expressed opinions on World War II, the Holocaust in Romania and the Jews, claims which have led to widespread allegations of antisemitism.
Nina Cassian was a Romanian poet, children's book writer, translator, journalist, accomplished pianist and composer, and film critic. She spent the first sixty years of her life in Romania until she moved to the United States in 1985 for a teaching job. A few years later Cassian was granted permanent asylum and New York City became her home for the rest of her life. Much of her work was published both in Romanian and in English.
Herta Müller is a Romanian-German novelist, poet, essayist and recipient of the 2009 Nobel Prize in Literature. She was born in Nițchidorf, Timiș County in Romania; her native language is German. Since the early 1990s, she has been internationally established, and her works have been translated into more than twenty languages.
Zoia Ceaușescu was a Romanian mathematician, the daughter of Communist leader Nicolae Ceaușescu and his wife, Elena. She was also known as Tovarășa Zoia.
The 2008 Bucharest Summit or the 21st NATO Summit was a NATO summit organized in the Palace of the Parliament, Bucharest, Romania on 2 – 4 April 2008.
Dorin Tudoran is a Romanian poet, essayist, journalist, and dissident. A resident of the United States since 1985, he has authored more than fifteen books of poetry, essays, and interviews.
Noël Bernard was a Romanian journalist, known for being the head of the Romanian-language department of Radio Free Europe (RFE). His mysterious death is believed by some to have been caused by Communist Romania's secret police, the Securitate, which is known to have previously sought to "neutralise" him.
Vin americanii! was a slogan used in Romania in the 1940s and 1950s, encapsulating the hope that an American-led invasion of Eastern Europe would topple the Soviet-backed, Communist-dominated government installed in early 1945. This notion helped sustain an anti-communist resistance movement and emboldened the civilians who aided it.
Elena Băsescu, sometimes referred to as EBA, is a Romanian politician, the former secretary general of the youth wing of Romania's Democratic Liberal Party, and a Member of the European Parliament between 2009 and 2014. She is the youngest daughter of Traian Băsescu, the former President of Romania. She was formerly a model, and entered politics in 2007. She has a degree in economics.
The Romanian Armed Forces are the military forces of Romania. It comprises the Land Forces, the Naval Forces and the Air Force. The current Commander-in-chief is Lieutenant General Gheorghiță Vlad who is managed by the Minister of National Defence while the president is the Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces during wartime.
Nicolae Pleșiță was a Romanian intelligence official and secret police investigator. From 1980 to 1984, he led the Foreign Intelligence Service of the Securitate, the secret service of Communist Romania. He was described by the New York Times and Associated Press at the time of his death as "a die-hard Communist and ruthless chief of the Securitate secret police."
Rodica Mihaela Stănoiu is a Romanian jurist and politician. A member of the Social Democratic Party (PSD) and later the Conservative Party (PC), she was a member of the Romanian Senate for Olt County from 1996 to 2008, with a hiatus in March–December 2004. In the Adrian Năstase cabinet, she was Minister of Justice from 2000 to 2004.
The Joint Support Enabling Command (JSEC) is a joint operational level command under the NATO Military Command Structure. The command is designed to facilitate the rapid movement of forces across national borders in Europe. According to NATO spokesperson Oana Lungescu, "The new command in Ulm will help our forces become more mobile and enable rapid reinforcement within the Alliance, ensuring we have the right forces in the right place at the right time". It is under the operational command of Supreme Allied Commander Europe (SACEUR).
Events from the year 1958 in Romania. The year saw the end of the Soviet occupation of Romania with the last Soviet troops leaving the country.
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