Bessarabia and Breakfast

An air of gathering crisis hung stormily over Bucharest last week and Rumanians learned what it was to face a war of nerves. Abruptly called home for a diplomatic council of war were the Kingdom's envoys to Turkey, Greece, Yugoslavia, Bulgaria. Of these, astute Vasile Stoica, Ambassador to Turkey, had most to contribute to the question which last week preoccupied all Eastern European statesmen: Will the Soviet Union, fresh from sharing in the partition of Poland and successful in extending "spheres of influence" over the Baltic States, now attempt similar expansionist moves in the Balkans?

Ambassador Stoica had just conferred in Ankara with Turkish Foreign Minister Shokru Saracoglu, who in turn had just returned from nearly a month of desultory negotiations in Moscow with Foreign Commissar Viacheslav M. Molotov, negotiations which finally collapsed. When he went to Moscow, Mr. Saracoglu was believed to be acting not only for Turkey but also as "honest broker" for Rumania in the touchy question of Bessarabia, the rich province which Rumania seized from Russia in 1918. Last week, after King Carol had received full particulars of what Ambassador Stoica had been able to learn from the Turkish Foreign Minister, Bucharest bigwigs gloomed and the New York Times's correspondent observed that "the news Stoica brought from Ankara is not good."

Soviet Russia's first move, according to the best information correspondents could get, would not be to seize Bessarabia but to give Bulgaria strong support to demand from Rumania the return of Dobruja. Dobruja is a province that Bulgaria lost to Rumania in 1913. Bulgaria has undertaken to barter almost her whole exportable surplus of raw materials to Germany, thus is economically to a great extent under Adolf Hitler's thumb, and the Balkans feared that Russia and Germany would try a "pressure pincers" on Rumania. King Carol, alarmed, conferred with Rumanian political leaders of all parties in an effort to get "national union" support for the Cabinet of Premier Dr. Constantin Argetoianu, formed after the assassination last month of Premier Armand ("Little Hercules") Calinescu by Rumanian Nazis.

His Majesty, while busy with such grave matters of State, snatched time to give a birthday breakfast party at 8 a.m. to Crown Prince Mihai. Cake is sometimes eaten for breakfast in Rumania, and Mihai sat down to steaming coffee and a cake with 18 candles. He is thus of age and under the Rumanian Constitution automatically became a Senator, as do all crown princes of the Rumanian Royal Family on attaining their majority.

Senator Mihai's star birthday present was an $18,000 Mercedes-Benz sport car capable of 115 m.p.h. King Carol also gave Mihai's girl friend a decoration. The Order of Cultural Merit went to Helen Malxa, attractive and always well-chaperoned daughter of one of Rumania's richest industrialists. Anxious to damp scandal, Court functionaries maintained last week that the "platonic summer romance" of Mihai and Helen is now over. A few months ago they claimed that "His Royal Highness and Miss Malxa have never met."

The Crown Prince, now that he is of age. will have a separate palace of his own for the first time, may possibly step out, but most people who know him well say that Senator Mihai is serious-minded to the point of boredom.

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