Vin americanii!

''Vin americanii!'' ("The Americans are coming!") was a slogan used in Romania in the 1940s and 1950s, encapsulating the hope that an American-led invasion of Eastern Europe would topple the Soviet-backed, Communist-dominated government installed in early 1945. This notion helped sustain an anti-communist resistance movement and emboldened the civilians who aided it.

Resistance groups

The great expectation of the resistance groups that had withdrawn into the mountains was that World War III would break out between the British and the Americans on one side and the Soviets on the other. Under that scenario, the Soviet troops then occupying Romania would be driven out by the United States Army with help from the local resistance. Groups in Transylvania were prepared to eliminate communist officials as soon as war began, and take control of their particular region. They built supply lines with the local population, gathered armaments, munitions and money, and developed plans to attack institutions and communications networks. They were a prime target of the Securitate, which viewed them as agents of the American imperialists seeking to destabilize the regime.

There were smaller groups who fled to the mountains simply to avoid persecution without plans to topple the government, but they too hoped their efforts would be rewarded by America. For instance, the Arnota group hid in the mountains of northern Oltenia in winter 1949, planning to resist until a US invasion, which they expected that summer. After their capture in April, one of their members told Securitate investigators, "the goal of setting up in the mountains was to remain until around June, when we were told... an armed intervention by the Americans would take place, which would overthrow the regime, the only ones who would do it, because a domestic intervention has no chance of succeeding..."

Resistance groups uniformly saw American aid as vital to their success. One of the accusations put forth at the trial of the ''Sumanele Negre'' group was that its members had developed contacts with American intelligence officers, together studying the possibility of collaborating and coming up with a plan to overthrow the regime. This accusation was repeated for most groups captured later on.Barbu, p.49

American sources confirm the fact that the Central Intelligence Agency tried to develop links with Romanian partisans at the end of the 1940s. The Office of Policy Coordination recruited Romanian refugees in Western Europe starting in 1949. The latter were ready to establish contacts with resistance groups, whom they intended to supply with light arms, munitions, radio transmitters and medicines. To this end, the OPC created training camps in Italy, France, and Greece, where recruits learned how to use radio transmitters and make parachute jumps. The ''Graiul Sângelui'' organization, led by professor Ion Vulcănescu and retired General Nicolae Ciupercă sought to facilitate the actions of American airborne troops which they hoped were to land in Romania. In Fall 1948, the organization was disbanded by the Securitate and its leaders were arrested, tried, and condemned to long prison terms.

Exiled former Iron Guard members, working with American and French officers, developed a plan of their own, involving the parachuting of 50 men into Romania who would then contact mountain resistance groups. Preparations took place in the French Occupation Zone of Germany, around Paris, and in the south of France, with a focus on parachute jumping, night-time orientation, and shooting. Parachute jumps happened especially in Transylvania between 1950 and 1953, but many of those who dropped in were caught by the Securitate. 10 or 13 of them were executed in 1953, and recruitment ceased the following year.

The mountain groups placed great hope on the parachutes, awaiting money, arms, and munitions, but especially the signal that America was about to go to war. For instance, in the early 1950s, the Ion Gavrilă group in the Făgăraș Mountains tried contacting the Romanian National Committee in the United States, sending them a letter with the geographic coordinates where food and arms should be dropped. The group also tried sending a letter to the American legation in Bucharest in 1955, describing its harsh living conditions.Barbu, p.50 American planes were also eagerly awaited by peasants and shepherds who helped the partisans, not only for political reasons, but also because the latter took food from them, promising to pay using money found in parachuted parcels. In 1953, for instance, the Gavrilă and Gheorghe Arsenescu–Toma Arnăuțoiu groups promised local shepherds they would pay the considerable sum of 100 lei per kilogram of cheese if a package containing 250,000 lei were found. This shows that as late as 1953, resistance groups and those who helped them were still motivated by the hope that America had not forgotten them. The Securitate was aware of this: in 1953, a report on the Gavrilă group claimed it was aided by "enemy elements, with a philo-American mentality".Barbu, p.51

The activity of the resistance groups was directly linked to the hope that "the Americans are coming". Many Romanians believed these groups had close links to representatives from Washington and that an action leading to the regime's fall was only a matter of time. Western radio stations, first Voice of America and the BBC
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