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Mihai-Răzvan Ungureanu, a historian and Romania’s former minister of foreign affairs, is currently the head of the SIE. Mihai-Răzvan Ungureanu is the first chief of the Romanian espionage to accept a television interview. He claims that he is only a civilian manager at the SIE. Mihai-Răzvan Ungureanu admits that the deficit in the Romanian espionage has multiple root causes.

Mihai-Răzvan Ungureanu: The espionage services need genuine human quality and I can tell you that this need is felt by all such institutions. If we need speakers of rare languages, they are anyway just a few in comparison with, say, English speakers.

Producer: […] How does the SIE assess a candidate’s IQ?

Mihai-Răzvan Ungureanu: Intelligence entails, for instance, the possibility, the skill to act tactically in completely different environments from those you are used to at home; to be, as I was saying before, to be able to adjust to environments for which you do not have the necessary physical features, such as in the middle of the desert or on the icecaps or in environments where the security options, the security norms are extremely tough, thus implying a very special psychological behaviour and strength.

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Mihai-Răzvan Ungureanu: The professional background does not matter. We may be tempted to think that some backgrounds are more suitable to meet our recruitment criteria. We are tempted to believe that. (…) A mathematician, as well as a sociologist, historian, teacher of foreign languages, physical education teacher, can be spies, because, apart from the thorough knowledge of their area of expertise, they are requested something else: the ability to turn themselves into something that they have not been before.

There are people – and this is why it’s only you and me talking now – there are people with several identities, faceless people, who should be able to fade in the environment they are working in, but who do have a basic job, that of a spy, and who can be absolutely anything outside their espionage activity. They can be beggars, physicians, teachers or mechanics.

Producer: If a spy works covertly as a beggar, physician or teacher anywhere in the world, it is obvious that he will not be tempted to betray his mission. But what if his cover is the business environment? Such circles can push him both in corporations hostile to Romania, and in positions with access to power and money, to a lot of power and a lot of money, much more than the Romanian state can pay him for his undercover job, that of a patriotic spy.

Mihai-Răzvan Ungureanu: It is not an issue of what one gains, how much that person gains or where from. He/she is a businessperson because he/she is, first of all, a spy. In other words, the cover stories, the professions one uses, by virtue of what that person is and what he/she can be, represent only, as I was saying before, a means to an end. The spy is a businessperson because he/she can collect intelligence from the circles where he/she works and transfer it, through the specific means he/she masters, to the centre. The spy is like an astronaut.

Producer: How well does the SIE pay?

Mihai-Răzvan Ungureanu: In comparison with…?

Producer: In comparison with the average wage in Romania?

Mihai-Răzvan Ungureanu: It is a salary that we would call “motivating”. However, at the same time, such a salary can never cover the absolute value of the risks taken by a spy.

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Mihai-Răzvan Ungureanu: From one thousand candidates, in other words from a thousand possible club members, eight succeed in passing all tests. From these eight, there may be five or none left at the end of the training.

Producer: All these phases may even take two years. On the other hand, experts say that a professional spy is honed in minimum ten years.  

Mihai-Răzvan Ungureanu: There has to be a number of years, at least five. Yet, the real spies are not those now graduating from university, but those who, in a real maturity, know what to expect and conform to the context.

Producer: […] What happens when an agent, an officer dies in mission? Does his/her family know, do they find out?

Mihai-Răzvan Ungureanu: It depends on the mission. Sometimes it is possible, sometimes it is not. But at a certain point things can be disclosed.

Producer: Are you saying that they are brought in the country?

Mihai-Răzvan Ungureanu: It depends on the nature of the mission. Sometimes we can do this, but there are times when it is impossible. The Service has many heroes, and I am chiefly talking about everything in the history of this Service from the 1990s, and especially nowadays, when the Service is completely renewed. If a sensitive mission ends with demise, what happens next to the respective person is what usually happens with the anonymous heroes.

Producer: OK. Tell us something about this! You had cases. How many SIE employees died after the 1990s?   

Mihai-Răzvan Ungureanu: I can tell you that there were people who died serving their country at least up to two or three years ago.

Producer: Tens?

Mihai-Răzvan Ungureanu: It will be difficult to tell you such a thing. Sufficiently enough in some situations so as to understand how high the risks are, a few – in order to know that the Service can fulfil its duties, even in very difficult contexts. Every employee who loses his life or who is, for some reason, incapacitated professionally, represents a loss. But, at the same time, at the end of his/her mission, there are gains. Indeed, some of them completely risk their lives.

Producer: Are you saying that even if that person dies, there is a benefit?

Mihai-Răzvan Ungureanu: If our employee sent intelligence home, if he/she collected intelligence and then died, that piece of information is a gain for Romania. The great loss for the Service is that person. And that person, we have to admit, is a hero.

Producer: Can you confirm that in Iraq, when the three journalists were recovered, we had two losses, two officers died?

Mihai-Răzvan Ungureanu: What I can confirm is that there is no sensitive, difficult mission that does not imply extremely high risks.

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Mihai-Răzvan Ungureanu: That person applies the rigour of the mission which he is to accomplish to his private life as well, and this makes the difference between those who want to join the SIE willing to give up everything to become spies and those who negotiate their private life with the institution. Those who negotiate it, who intend to negotiate their private life or private freedoms with the institution…

Producer: Do they have a weakness?

Mihai-Răzvan Ungureanu: …. do not join the institution.

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Producer: The law on the functioning of the SIE stipulates that the institution deals with intelligence from anywhere abroad, which has to do or may have to do with Romania’s safety, its interests of any kind, and its citizens. To put it simply, a Romanian spy has to find out and inform his superiors in the country if a simple person, a foreign organization or another state plans to attack Romania and its interests.  

Mihai-Răzvan Ungureanu: Let’s not forget that every spy recruits people in his turn. If we are talking about the work of a spy or an employee of an espionage service, he/she obviously recruits people because he/she needs intelligence. In this case, recruitment means finding, through successive sifting, the necessary human assets, incarnated into a future member of the institution.

Producer: One can retire from a system like the SIE after only 20 years of work. Two decades of effort in a military espionage system can equal 40 years of work in any field. Some say that every spy who leaves the Service has a shock because he/she finds himself/herself in a social reality from which he/she was separated all his life and that readjustment is difficult. However, the SIE Director says that any former spy can find his/her way again pretty quickly.   

Mihai-Răzvan Ungureanu: In the end, there is no place in the world where he/she cannot manage. You learn to eat well in the desert, on icecaps, on top of the mountains or in the city, if need be.

Producer: Does the Service take care of its people after they retire as well?

Mihai-Răzvan Ungureanu: After so much experience on the brink of personal risk, you cannot leave, morally or psychologically, the institution. Thus, the connection, at least nostalgia, persists, exists, but it is that part of their CV that some of them cannot even tell. There are cases when the CV of some of those who retire with all honours actually covers a gap of 30, 40 years.

Producer: And what do they say they did during that time?

Mihai-Răzvan Ungureanu: They can say anything. They’ve got the education to say anything.

Producer: Why would someone want to work in such a special institution? The job is secure, some say. For the adrenalin, others say. Out of patriotism, the SIE director adds.

Mihai-Răzvan Ungureanu: Without understanding the meaning of the word “patriot”, obviously not rhetorically or as a label, not as theatrical performance, a person who cannot understand that the activity in such an institution implies an absolute degree of loyalty to his own country, place, cannot work here.

Producer: Still, what does patriotism imply for a spy? Among others, to strictly observe orders, regardless of their nature and what they imply, because a spy is first of all a military and orders are not questioned. The order is given by superiors who, in their turn, implement the strategies established by politicians.

Mihai-Răzvan Ungureanu: The political decision is the strategic decision and unfortunately there will always be situations - after all, we are talking about people, and because of this there are circumstantial interests- when intelligence or operational analysis will not be considered or will only partially grip attention and will not lead to decisions.

Producer: Have you experienced such a thing since you are in this position? What do you say to yourself in that moment?

Mihai-Răzvan Ungureanu: After all, this is an essential concern for the institutions, given that it is difficult to collect intelligence - it implies human resources, financial logistics, and risks. You are expecting it not only to be read, but also understood and to trigger a reaction.

Producer: And when the political decision makers do not react, do not take into consideration that intelligence and do not take action, what do you say to yourself?

Mihai-Răzvan Ungureanu: I continue to do my job. That’s the only thing I can say to you.