No Hard Feelings, Sir

Though Rumania has fashioned a surprisingly independent foreign policy, internally there is no Dubcek-style nonsense about freedom of the press or of personal behavior, no rock music, no long-haired youth.

Thus when a Bucharest police patrol stopped several teen-agers last week and informed them that their long hair offended public morality, the youngsters sheepishly went along to a police barber who summarily sheared them. Later, when the police got around to examining the boys' documents, they found that one of them happened to be named Nicolae Ceausescu, 18, student. "Father's profession?" asked the cop. "Oh, he's the secretary of a political party," the boy replied nonchalantly. After profuse apologies from the police, young Ceausescu assured them that there were no hard feelings. It may be that he has a good sense of humor--or that his father, who is also named Nicolae and is the boss of Rumania's Communist Party, has long been hounding him to get a haircut.

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