At a meeting on January 17, 1972, the members of the Permanent Presidium of the Central Committee of the NKR decided that “Sherb Ion will be brought to court for illegal possession of documents and disclosure of state secrets (emphasis added)”. The explanation for this decision is simple: in 1971, the Romanian general was pursued by officers of the 4th Directorate (military counter-intelligence) of the State Security Council, and on October 5, 1971, he was arrested by representatives of the 13th Directorate of Criminal Investigations. (UM 0651 Bucharest).

Petro OprisPhoto: Hotnews

The former deputy commander of the infantry and tank troops (he served from July 1969 to September 1971) was accused of illegally storing documents at home (in particular, two maps with markings) and disclosing state secrets for the benefit of the Soviet Union.

On the basis of the evidence revealed in the indictment materials (completed on March 7, 1972) and on the basis of Article 169 of the Criminal Code of the time, Ion Scherb was sentenced on April 10, 1972 to six years of imprisonment (the oral source of the erroneously mentioned seven years) and demoted by Decision no. . 25/1972 of the Supreme Court – Bucharest Military Court. As a result, on April 15, 1972, Ion Sherb arrived at Ayud Penitentiary Colony to serve his sentence.

We have not yet been able to identify the Romanian source on the basis of which the rumor about the execution of a Romanian general in January 1972 was published in the West in February 1972.

Rumors about the fate of Ion Sherba were continued by Ion Mihai Pachepa. The former security general stated in his first book of so-called memoirs that after the meeting in Crimea between Leonid Brezhnev and Nicolae Ceausescu (August 3, 1976), the supreme leader of the NKR returned to Bucharest and allegedly issued an order to release Ion Sherba.

For his part, in 1997, the writer Mihai Pelin stated that Ion Sherb was detained for a short time, after which he was released, but did not indicate any source to confirm his information.

Fortunately, the Institute for the Investigation of the Crimes of Communism and the Memory of the Romanian Exile provided historians with a photocopy of the criminal record card compiled in the name of Ion Sherba. At the bottom of the document under the heading “Final exits” it is clearly written: “12/28/1972 released – pardoned by decree. 522/72 (emphasis added)”.

In summary, there was no intervention by Leonid Brezhnev in favor of Ion Sherb during the meeting in Crimea between the leader of the USSR and Nicolae Ceausescu (August 3, 1976). At that time, Ion Scherb was free and held the position of head of the sales department of the Bucharest heavy engineering enterprise. Ion Mihai Pachepa’s contempt for his former boss at any cost (including plain lies) is not new.

Some years ago we suggested that Marshal Ivan Jakubowski intervened to calm the situation after the arrest of General Ion Sherb, and during a meeting in Bucharest with Nicolae Ceausescu (January 19, 1972) he proposed and was accepted by the Romanian political leader to remove General Colonel Georgy Petrovich Romanov. The representative of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief of the United Armed Forces of the Warsaw Pact Organization member states in the Romanian army was directly involved in the espionage case of General Ion Sherba, and the authorities in Bucharest demanded the immediate withdrawal of the Soviet general from their troops. post without causing a public diplomatic scandal.

Today we also have written proof of the intervention in this very serious problem of Marshal Ivan Yakubovsky and we publish it further. Let us draw attention to the fact that the successors of General Georgiy Pavlovich Romanov as the representative in the Romanian army of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief of the United Armed Forces of the Warsaw Pact Organization were the following generals: Dementiev A.A. (March 1972 – August 1976), Vasyl Karpovych Dyatlenko, V. A. Makarov, H. G. Borisov and Alfred Hryhorovych Gaponenko (since April 1989).

The authorities in Moscow have never appointed to this position, as well as to the positions of supreme commander or chief of staff of the United Armed Forces, persons who did not have Soviet citizenship, which can be interpreted as distrust on the part of the political and military leaders of Russia in Moscow in the generals and, in principle, in the ranks of the armies of other member states of the Warsaw Treaty Organization. Adolf Hitler’s ideas of “Herrenvolk” and “Untermensch” were also applied by the authorities in Moscow in the form of Russian exceptionalism, particularly in the field of military leadership.

Transcript of the discussions that took place in Bucharest on January 19, 1972 on the occasion of the reception by Nicolae Ceaușescu and Ion Gheorghe Maurer of Marshal Ivan Yakubowski (Supreme Commander of the United Armed Forces of the Warsaw Pact Organization) and Army General Serhiy Mykhailovych Shtemenko (Chief of the General Staff of of the United Armed Forces of Ukraine). excerpts

transcripts

discussions that took place on the occasion of the reception by comrades Nicolae Ceaușescu and Ion Gheorghe Maurer of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief of the United Armed Forces of the Warsaw Pact states Marshal of the Soviet Union I.I. Yakubovskyi.

Marshal I. I. Yakubovskyi was accompanied by the Chief of Staff of the United Armed Forces of the Warsaw Pact states, General of the Army S. M. Shtemenko and the Ambassador of the Soviet Union in Bucharest V. I. Drozdenko.

The reception was attended by General of the Army Ion Ionica, Minister of the Armed Forces of the Socialist Republic of Romania, and Colonel General Ion Gheorghe, First Deputy Minister of the Armed Forces, Chief of the General Staff.

Co. Nicolae Ceausescu: How are things going?

I. I. Yakubovskyi: Thank you, everything is going well.

I can tell you that all the problems we had to solve – not only today, but in general – we solved them by agreement.

Co. Nicolae Ceausescu: This is very good. I think the team is doing well because we are moving towards safety. Read the whole article and comment on Contributors.ro