Suave Technocrat Expected to Lead Romania; Communist Past a Cloud : East Europe: Petre Roman hopes to cushion the shock of reforms. He rules out a return to communism.

The man expected to guide Romania back to the fold of a united Europe is a 43-year-old technocrat whose office garb of running shoes and polo sweaters is part of the youthful and contemporary image the new leadership is trying hard to project.

Petre Roman, the National Salvation Front figure that President-elect Ion Iliescu has said he wants in the role of prime minister, is eager to appear sincere and as at ease with foreign dignitaries as among the Romanian proletariat he was elected to represent in Parliament.

His fluency in French, Spanish and English adds a cosmopolitan air to the upper ranks of a government long locked in isolation.

With Roman at the helm for what promises to be a turbulent period of transition, Romania would have a suave and articulate statesman to plead its case for reconciliation with the West.

But the charismatic politician who rocketed to prominence during the revolution stirs suspicion among those Romanians who see the National Salvation Front as a shelter for former Communists, stripped of privilege and power in December when dictator Nicolae Ceausescu was toppled and the ideology he espoused declared dead.

As the son of one of Romania’s most ardent pre-World War II Communists, Roman is described by political rivals as a product of socialism’s “golden youth”--the children of party luminaries afforded the best of education and lifestyle.

His father, Walter Roman, joined the Communist struggle between the world wars and fought in the Spanish Civil War, where he met and married Roman’s Spanish mother, Hortensia.

Political opponents like Sorin Botez, a deputy leader of the Liberal Party, accuse Roman of having been a friend of Ceausescu’s daughter, Zoia, and of attempting to hide his past links with the first family, now denounced for high living while the nation starved.

The dark-haired, broad-shouldered government leader dismisses such gossip as “political maneuvering.”

Asked during a recent interview about opposition assertions that he seeks to emulate Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev’s policy of perestroika , or political and economic restructuring, Roman flashed a smile and shook his head with amused tolerance.

“At the moment of the revolution, the standard of living of the Romanian population was very, very low, compared with other Eastern (European) countries. More sacrifice has to be avoided,” Roman said. “It is our ambition to cover the social costs of the transition.”

But he rules out any return to a Communist foundation for the country.

“In Romania, as in other Eastern (European) countries, this Communist system brought us bankruptcy--economic, social, even moral,” he explained, comfortably slouched in a satin-upholstered antique chair in the spacious office he has inherited from Communist predecessors. “The front is a young movement, and young people cannot be related to the Communist Party.”

Full membership in the party was usually reserved for those well over 40 who had come up through the ranks of Communist youth organizations. But Roman gained entrance in the 1970s while still in his 20s.

Little is known of Roman’s political activity before the revolution, when he was a professor of hydraulic engineering at Bucharest University. Since his appointment as interim prime minister, the careful media management exercised by government spokesman Christian Unteanu has shielded him from probing interviews while creating an aura of accessibility with hurried exchanges.

Roman, who is married to a professor of Arabic and has two daughters, publicly exudes patience and professionalism, speaking with carefully chosen words to persuade all listeners that the new government will be tolerant toward dissent. But those who have worked with him say the government chief is disposed to be hot-tempered and has threatened to crack down on anti-front demonstrators.

As an administrator, Roman gets high marks for keeping Romania afloat through the heady post-revolutionary period, in which many feel they won the right to get more for doing less.

Front theorist Silviu Brucan has criticized Iliescu for surrounding himself with adoring supporters but contends, “Roman is better equipped to resist such temptation.”

Having a young professional as head of government also should aid in changing the front’s image from the party of workers and peasants to that of the technical and intellectual community--a move needed to succeed in an increasingly competitive and sophisticated world market.

Roman is the only candidate for prime minister being discussed by the front leadership, Brucan said.

“He has a modern mind. I’ve attended Cabinet meetings and seen him at work,” said Brucan, the ruling party’s gray eminence. “I think his greatest merit is that he has encouraged the ministers to think, to display initiative.”

Revamping the stodgy, bureaucratic government structure will be one of the most immediate challenges facing the new prime minister, to be formally proposed for parliamentary approval at the newly elected body’s first session in mid-June.

Roman confidently predicts that the internal reorganization can be carried out in two to three years, including drafting of new laws to provide a social net for those displaced by layoffs from unprofitable factories that will be closed in the new, more competitive atmosphere.

“In six to eight years, we have good grounds to say, Romania should achieve the level of some well-developed countries in Europe--for instance, Austria or Spain,” Roman said.

In the post-revolutionary euphoria, productivity at Romanian factories has slipped to 70% of last year’s level. Yet Roman contends that the nation is expecting a good harvest and that food exports and tourism offer the best prospects for rejuvenating the economy.

Although the most radical reforms will be avoided, the nation is in for a difficult transition, he warned.

“Only the front had the sincerity and openness to say that we are at the start of a heavy and complex process,” he said, referring to the vitriolic election campaign that resulted in a monopoly on power by the National Salvation Front. “We didn’t make any promises of a bright future.”