V.C. Georgescu; Romanian Aided U.S. Fliers Captured in WW II

Former American oil executive Valeriu C. Georgescu, who passed on news to captured U.S. pilots while a political prisoner in his native Romania during World War II, and whose children later came to symbolize the heartlessness of communism, has died. He was 89.

His wife of 62 years, Lygia Bocou, reached at her home in Geneva, said he died of cancer last Saturday.

The Georgescus were at the center of a 1950s U.S. diplomatic standoff with the Communist government of Romania. Georgescu and his wife were stripped of their Romanian citizenship while on a business trip to New York, but the Romanian government refused to allow their two sons to join them.

In 1953, the U.S. government expelled a Romanian diplomat who Georgescu said had tried to enlist him as a spy in exchange for the release of the boys. After President Dwight D. Eisenhower intervened, the sons were reunited with their parents in 1954.

Georgescu was the manager of Standard Oil of New Jersey’s operations in the Ploesti oil fields of Romania at the outbreak of World War II, but in 1941, he was imprisoned for three years for opposition to the pro-Nazi Romanian government.

Lygia Bocou said that his contacts in the prison enabled him to listen to foreign radio broadcasts, and that he relayed the news to captured American fliers.

After the war, he opposed the Communist government that took over, but the couple left for the United States when they heard that the Soviets wanted to arrest him and take him to Russia.

Georgescu continued to work for Standard Oil in the United States until he retired as a vice president in 1961 and returned to Europe as an oil industry consultant.