Communication channels of SOE residents in Istanbul with its collaborators in Romania during the per...

In February 1941, the British legation left Romania as a result of the breaking of diplomatic ties between Romania and Great Britain. The English, when they left Romania, underlined the fact that the country will become an operational base. I. Maniu did the same in a letter dated February 27, 1941. The links with the SOE encouraged Iuliu Maniu to ask permission from Antonescu to act freely to organize a political alternative for the moment in which the Axis will be defeated, and the English will have supremacy. The English promises where far from the expected coverage, a permanent arrangement not possible to be established, from the communications received from abroad resulting that Romania’s situation was ‘miserable in London and Washington’. Before the departure of the British legation, Chastelain made a final trip to Bucharest to settle an agreement with Maniu on the procedures that were to be followed after the British legation had left Romania. At a meeting, S.O.E. - Foreign Office on February 1941, the representatives of S.O.E. informed that after the members of the commission had left for Bucharest, their program in Romania depended on the cooperation with Maniu. Iuliu Maniu and PNT played an important role in gathering information. SOE opened a special file bearing the title Resistance Movements Maniu and PNT. In fact during the war Maniu was the main SOE agent in Romania.