Cristian Tudor Popescu harshly criticizes the position of businessman Ion Țiriac towards NATO and Romania’s military spending. Thus, the journalist recalls how the former athlete was recruited by the Securitate, but was not very successful, suggesting that perhaps Țiriac turned the Securitate into the KGB.
Ion Țiriac was allegedly recruited by the Securitate. PHOTO: Profimedia
“Titi Țiriac does not need NATO” – is the title of the post in which the journalist Cristian Tudor Popescu (CTP) makes revelations about the businessman Ion Țiriac.
Popescu’s harsh reaction came after the former great sportsman’s statement about NATO in the “Friends of Ovidiu” show:
“I don’t want war, I don’t need NATO, a military budget, I don’t need a military base, I don’t need anything. I need a healthy people”.
The journalist claims that he does not know what Ovidiu Ioanițoaia answered him, but he would tell him that he is right: “when they send you to the camp or shoot you in the back of the head, the Kremlin doctors recommend that you be in good health. So, really, why do we need NATO and military bases in Romania? Let’s cut the Defense budget and invest in sports, as urged by Mr. Titi Țiriac. It is known that the Russians don’t attack you with tanks and missiles, possibly nuclear, they ask you if you want war or not, and if you don’t, they organize a multi-sport competition and whoever wins, that’s it.”
CTP then claimed that “Securitate recruited Ion Țiriac under the code name Titi Ionescu in 1963 to “informatively frame suspected foreign athletes and delegates coming to Romania”. It did not prove effective in this activity, according to the findings of the Bodies. Now, however, I think that Titi would have been more efficient in transferring the Security to the KGB.”
CNSAS: Ţiriac cannot be imputed as a collaborator of the Security
Former tennis player Ion Ţiriac signed, according to CNSAS, a commitment with the former Securitate on July 11, 1963. After three years, the collaboration ended due to the “ill-will” of the “source”.
He was 24 years old and had already made his way in life with the help of a tennis racket. “Tennis Guru”, as the international press called him, would become an agent in the most oppressive institution of the communist state – the Securitate.
Contacted by phone by Adevărul to document an article about his recruitment by the Securitate, published a few years ago, Ion Ţiriac was nowhere to be found. “He’s on leave until after February 20”the businessman’s personal assistant, Geta Uglai, answered us.
Ţiriac’s role in the Security network was to provide information about “foreign sportsmen and delegates who come to the People’s Republic of Romania, on sports lines, and who are suspects”. According to CNSAS, Ion Ţiriac made several reports to the Security, but only two were written.
The tennis players, the trinket and the coat
In the “stories” written for Securitate, Ion Ţiriac gave details of the discussions he had with his South African colleagues, the tennis players Abe Segal and Gordon Forbes, who came to Romania in the summer of 1963 for the Davis Cup.
Ţiriac was on the team with Alexandru Bardan – currently vice-president of the Romanian Tennis Federation. They beat the South Africans, 3-2, in doubles.
At that time, the newspaper “Scânteia” reported on the match won by the Romanians in a news story of only a few lines, while Ţiriac gave, on July 11, 1963, a one-page note written to the Securitate, in which he informed every move of South Africans on Romanian soil.
“They asked me to lead them to Agricultori street, to comrade MO to whom they were going to hand a package from her uncle (as I found out), the tennis player C, who is settled abroad. Since those people could not understand each other, I had to act as a translator”.
The story follows its thread: “The words that were exchanged were simple well wishes, both from those who came, and from the mother of the aforementioned MO, apparently C’s sister. Before moving to England, I was sought by companion MO to take a trinket, as she told me, to her uncle. I didn’t take this trinket with me.”
The movements of the South African players Segal and Forbes remained history written in the Security registers. This is how it happens that on a sheet yellowed by the almost 50 years that have passed since the day when Ion Ţiriac shared what he knew with the Security officers, it is written how Segal and Forbes gave him, during a tour in England, a coat: “Let me take it to Comrade O“. He didn’t take it: “I brought this coat and I have it at home”.
Other dates from the tour in England follow: “Also during my stay in England, I met my former sports colleagues – BN and his wife, MN. During the discussions, I learned that BN is a construction engineer at the Marks Spencer company, and his wife is a tennis teacher at a French high school in London”.
The road from “Titi” to “Tănase”
The former glory of tennis did not confirm much in the conspiratorial activities, being removed from the network on December 6, 1966. “Each time he provided unimportant materials, although he had possibilities (…). Given the fact that agent “Titi Ionescu” in his collaboration with our bodies showed ill-will (…) we propose abandoning agent “Titi Ionescu” and handing over the personal file to Service C“, noted the officer who had recruited Șiriac.
In 1966, the source “Titi Ionescu” became the wanted “Tănase”: Ţiriac was transformed from a Security agent into a wanted one, in order to “know the nature of the connections abroad and with relatives on the part of his wife in the FRG”.
CNSAS verdict: He did not cooperate
CNSAS decided that Ţiriac cannot be imputed as a collaborator of the Security, as he did not denounce activities against the communist state and, in this way, no one suffered as a result of the informative notes given by the former tennis player.
