Comandorul Mircea Pătru: Viaţa şi faptele de arme ale unui agent secret din exil
Commander Mircea Pătru – The life and acts of a secret agent of the Romanian exile

Summary/Abstract: After 1945, the Romanian Army suffered several waves of purges seeking to eliminate any officers with explicit anti-communist opinions or were „unreliable” for the new regime. One of those expelled from the military staff was Mircea Pătru, a former pilot that was constrained to work in offices due to an unfortunate accident. Knowing that he may face arrest, Pătru fled the country in 1948 and reached Paris, where, together with other former officers, formed the Intelligence Service of the Romanian Officers in Exile (SIMRE). This structure was founded with French support, but worked independently, having the goals to fight the communist regime in Romania, support internal resistance, and create spies networks. Pătru was engaged in many projects varying from contacting new agents to preparing the groups that were to be sent in the mountains to help the armed resistance. While some of them had notable success, others ended in tragedies, some claiming that Pătru was at least partially responsible for it. The article seeks to examine Mircea Pătru`s biography by putting his life events in the larger context of the secret confrontation between East and West conducted in the first decade of the Cold War.

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