Romania Lifts Ban on Foreign Contacts, Money : East Bloc: New government finds support at home and in Moscow. Communists apologize to the nation.

This nation’s new leadership, pressing ahead with its program of democratic reforms, Saturday lifted a ban on contacts with foreigners and on the holding of foreign currency.

The latest break with the nation’s isolationist and totalitarian past came amid new evidence of widespread support for the provisional government. A survey published Saturday in a leading Bucharest newspaper said 97% of Romanians believe their lives will improve under the new leadership.

In a strong signal of Moscow’s support for the provisional government, Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard A. Shevardnadze accepted an invitation to visit Bucharest next month, the official Romanian news agency Agerpres reported.

Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev and the Soviet Parliament already have voiced support for the pro-democracy movement that toppled hard-line Communist ruler Nicolae Ceausescu less than two weeks ago.

The lifting of the ban on contact with foreigners was decreed by the ruling council of the National Salvation Front and announced on Free Romania Television.

Under Ceausescu, no one but authorized business and government officials were allowed to speak with foreigners. Ordinary citizens were required to report any inadvertent contact to police.

The law was one of several means used by the ousted dictator to maintain tight control over the nation of 23 million. Ceausescu was swept out of office a week ago Friday by pro-democracy forces after 25 years of iron-fisted rule. He and his wife, Elena, his second-in-command, were executed by firing squad Monday.

Romanian television also announced that Romanians could now legally possess foreign currency. Ordinary citizens can even open foreign currency bank accounts and use the money to shop at government-run “Comtourist” stores that accept only hard currency and sell consumer goods normally unavailable in regular shops, the broadcast said.

Ceausescu was able to enforce the repressive measures with the help of the dreaded security police and the Communist Party, the only legal party in Romania. Saturday, a group of Communist Party members apologized to the nation for failing to stand up to the dictator.

“We openly admit that in the dark dictatorship period, the RCP (Romanian Communist Party) compromised itself before the people and before history,” the group said in a statement carried by Agerpres. “We declare that we dissociate ourselves from everything that abhorrent and abusive dictatorship stood for, and we condemn it with indignation.

“We will always reproach ourselves for the fact that we did not take action in time to stop the escalation of dictatorship and arbitrariness,” the statement said.

Meanwhile, the provisional government’s newly appointed Council of Ministers met for the first time Saturday. Government spokesman Constantin Girbea described it as a get-acquainted session with no official business conducted.

The National Salvation Front, made up of military leaders, Communist dissidents, intellectuals and others who led the fight against Ceausescu, also completed the process of electing its 11-member Executive Bureau and appointed the nation’s provisional President Ion Iliescu as the bureau’s president, Girbea said at a news conference.

The bureau is charged with formulating policy, while the Council of Ministers will be responsible for carrying out their decisions, he said.

The front is now made up of “more than 150” members, up from a reported 145 on Friday, Girbea said. He explained that new members had been chosen from some outlying provinces.

Avowedly a temporary government that will lead the country through promised democratic elections in April, the Front is a “collection of personalities of the people who led the popular revolution,” Girbea said.

In now-peaceful Bucharest, people lined up in heavy snow Saturday to buy food and liquor for a special three-day New Year’s holiday. It will be the first time Romanians have been allowed a three-day holiday since Ceausescu took power.

It was weather, rather than last week’s street fighting, that brought traffic to a standstill in the capital Saturday. More than a foot of snow covered the ground by late afternoon, snarling transportation.

At another news conference Saturday, Girbea said the provisional government had found no evidence to support previous claims that Arab mercenaries had fought alongside Ceausescu’s secret police in trying to quell the popular rebellion.