These were a small number of officials from the National Romanian Olympic Committee. They were living and talking about things with us, as an equally small delegation, for three days.
So, just for context, Ceaușescu was one of these ambiguous figures, who would make overtures to the West to curry favor. He hoped to buy legitimacy and attention. Maybe he would then be able to repress his own people in an even more clever manner. So, we were hoping to appeal to the maverick part of Ceaușescu. Maybe we would be able to leverage this appeal of defying the Soviet dictates.
The other major leverage point of the negotiation was the strong desire of the Romanian athletes and the Romanian Olympic Committee to participate in the Olympics. They had signaled that to us. So, we weren’t there to convince them to come. We were there to figure out how to make it possible for them to participate without the risk of Soviet invasion.
Czechoslovakia had already been invaded by the Soviets. How does Romania participate in the Olympics without any incidents? How do we make it safe for them and make it affordable for them (because the Soviets wouldn’t subsidize their attendance as they would have in the past)?
The interesting part of my role was as a linguist. That’s where my degrees in philosophy and linguistics proved to be valuable. It was very powerful to observe in these negotiations the irresistible emotional connection that takes place when language is matched. When you speak the other person’s language without an accent.
Members of the Romanian delegation would literally say, in so many words: “We forget that you’re not part of us. We forget that you are actually representing the United States and the LA Olympic Organizing Committee.” This was very interesting to notice.
Both of my parents had originally been born in Transylvania. As a result, both had a little bit of a Hungarian accent. I didn’t have any sort of accent at the time in my use of the Romanian language. I’d grown up in Romania. I spoke a bunch of other languages, but Romania was home. And my pronunciation of “R” has remained very Romance.
