Upheaval in Romania : U.S. Sending Medical Supplies to Romanians : Foreign aid: President Bush says he ‘just amazed’ at the change in Bucharest. He hopes the new government will ‘move quickly to implement democratic reforms.’

The Bush Administration is sending $750,000 in medical supplies and other assistance to Romania, the White House said Wednesday.

The announcement was made after President Bush arrived in this south Texas city on the Gulf of Mexico to start a six-day fishing and hunting vacation. Speaking with reporters at the Corpus Christi Naval Air Station, Bush said he is “just amazed and respectful of that change that has taken place” in Romania.

His remarks on the upheaval in the Eastern European nation were his first public comments since Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceausescu was overthrown last week. Ceausescu and his wife, Elena, were executed Monday after a secret trial, according to Romanian television.

“We were concerned that the trial of Ceausescu should have been more open, but that’s their matter,” Bush said. “They went forward, and I think now is (the time) to bring the Romanian holdout security forces to bay. The army seems to be doing that, and my concern is for tranquillity and freedom in Romania.”

Thousands of Romanians are thought to have been killed in the civil strife that has accompanied Ceausescu’s downfall, with agents of the former leader’s Securitate secret police engaged in an urban guerrilla conflict with citizens and army troops.

In a 12-minute question-and-answer session with reporters that focused mainly on the U.S. military operation in Panama, Bush said he was touched when he heard “this guy singing a Christmas carol” in Romania, a Communist state that has not permitted most public practice of religion for four decades.

“It was reported that it was the first time in public airwaves in some 40 years that a Christmas carol was allowed to be heard on TV. It made a dramatic statement to me,” the President said.

Meanwhile, White House Press Secretary Marlin Fitzwater said in a written statement that Bush had sent a message of congratulations to Ion Iliescu, the new Romanian head of state, who has been allied with Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev.

“The President expressed his sympathy over the tragic bloodshed over the past two weeks and his hope that Romania will now move along a peaceful path of democratic change,” Fitzwater said.

The spokesman said Bush expressed the hope that the new government would “move quickly to implement democratic reforms based on the rule of law.”

He said the U.S. government’s Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance had donated $500,000 to the International Committee of the Red Cross, to assist in humanitarian relief efforts.

In addition, he said, the United States will airlift $250,000 in emergency medical supplies and other forms of assistance to Romania today The spokesman said that a five-member team will be dispatched to Bucharest to help determine the emergency relief needs there and to coordinate U.S. assistance--a sharp departure from the years of often tense relations between the United States and Romania.

Bush spent Wednesday afternoon fishing in a lagoon off San Jose Island, on the Gulf of Mexico. He plans two days of hunting quail in Beeville, Tex., today and Friday and then will spend the weekend in Houston. On Sunday, he plans to visit military personnel wounded in the Panama invasion, who are being treated at military hospitals in San Antonio.

The President plans to return to Washington on Monday after a stop for more fishing in Alabama.