Bill
There is another factor at play. You were a young woman representing the United States. Was that difficult for them to handle, either your youth or your gender?
Agnes
I’m sure that’s why Peter made sure three professional colleagues and I formed a balanced group with differing strengths and backgrounds. They would fill in the gravitas of the delegation. And they had all the right answers to sports-related things and to legal matters. Chuck Cale, who was actually the head of our team, is a highly experienced attorney.
So, Peter was very careful not to leave me unsupported in taking this personal risk. But from a political standpoint, you are vulnerable once you’ve been held in a country. At the time, Romanians didn’t have the right to own a passport or to travel.
The same restriction was placed on the citizens of the GDR and the other Warsaw Pact countries. So, once you’ve been in that position, your whole body knows that borders are really tricky to cross. So, I wouldn’t really exhale till I was out of the country.
However, what overrode all of these fears was being able to call Peter after three days and being able to tell him: “They have signed and they’re coming. And they’ve actually tripled the size of their delegation. So that you can count on them. And Nadia Comaneci will be accompanying them as a guest of honor.”
