Defection: A Road Already Traveled

In a steakhouse at a Tustin mini-mall near her home Friday, Dorina Maxwell ordered Coke and coffee, unwrapped her Salems and calmly told an exotic story of acrobats, intrigue, secrets and freedom.

On Thursday Maxwell, 23, had supervised the defection of four Romanian friends--three women and one of their daughters--who were performing as acrobats in Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus in Los Angeles. She agreed to help not only because she understood their determination to live in an open society, she said, but also because she herself had defected four years ago and hoped she could make it easier for them.

“It’s tough,” Maxwell said Friday. “I knew the road. I knew what to say, what officials to go to. I knew they needed moral support.”

Trained by her acrobat stepfather, Maxwell began working for a Romanian acrobatic troupe when she was 14. At that time, she said, it had been two years since an incident she declined to reveal made her realize “in that country I would never have a choice to be free.”

Still Fears for Her Mother

Maxwell contained her criticism of the Communist system Friday, saying that she fears officials might retaliate against her mother, who still lives in Romania.

She said, she had been impressed by the works of Ernest Hemingway and Edgar Allen Poe. “And America always stood up for human rights. You hear about that,” Maxwell said.

Although some Romanians may dream of coming to the United States, Maxwell said, many do not apply through official channels for passports and visas because the process may take up to nine years, and the outcome is never certain.

It was on Friday, July, 13, 1984, that Maxwell said found herself alone with her passport in Skopje, Yugoslavia, where the troupe had been performing. Sensing opportunity, she went straight to the railway station. With neither money nor companions, the acrobat, then 19 and known as Dorina Dumitrescu, took the first train out. It was going to Greece.

Serious and slight, Maxwell has long, fire-engine-red fingernails and sparkling jewelry. She speaks a fluent, cultivated English. But back then, she spoke only Romanian, Yugoslavian and Russian.

He Was Already Married

Maxwell stayed in Salonika over the weekend with a Brazilian couple that had befriended her, until the U.S. consulate opened Monday. A U.S. official there told her the best way to get to America was to marry an American, she said.

“I asked him if he’d marry me,” she said. “He said he was already married.”

Again helped by the Brazilians, she found her way to a World Council of Churches refugee camp in Athens. After the U.S. Embassy accepted her as a refugee, she said, the church group helped her connect with sponsors--Chet and Carol Maxwell of Dallas.

On March 20, 1985, she flew to New York City, where Chet Maxwell met her. They flew to Dallas, where she lived with the family for two years while she adjusted to the relatively isolated, automobile-and-TV-oriented, checking-account-and-credit card American way of life.

She said Americans surprised her by being less violent than she had imagined from the movies--and less cultivated than Romanians. Once, she offered to take a 14-year-old to hear Vivaldi. After a performance of “The Four Seasons” by the Dallas Symphony Orchestra, the girl asked which of the musicians was Vivaldi, Maxwell recalled, shaking her head.

In Dallas, she enrolled in cosmetic and travel agent courses. She took the Maxwells’ name.

Although she was earning $1,150 a month as a travel agent and working weekends as a department store cosmetic consultant, Maxwell said she despaired she was “not living up to my possibilities.” Seeking more opportunity, she moved last month to Tustin, where she lives with her boyfriend, a Romanian she met in Dallas.

In December, she traveled to Florida to renew friendships with fellow troupe members who were just starting a yearlong tour of the United States under contract with the Ringling Bros. show. Her friends included Juliana Dumitrescu, 33, the current wife of Maxwell’s stepfather (he had divorced Maxwell’s mother when Maxwell was just 6); Brigitta, 13, daughter of Dumitrescu’s wife; Georgeta Serban, 27, and Aurelia Petrescu, 32.

Strained Relationships

At first relationships were strained, she said: “They were scared. They didn’t know if they could trust me.”

Building trusting friendships within circus troupes is difficult, Maxwell said. Among the 30 Romanian performers, there are those who cooperate with Romanian security to prevent defections. But no one knows who or how many.

“All the time you feel watched,” she said with a shrug. “You grow up like that. You grow older like that. You die like that.”

The first contact about a possible defection came, Maxwell said, when Juliana Dumitrescu called her from Phoenix asking for help. She said she had serious domestic trouble.

On July 1, Maxwell said, she drove all night to Phoenix and brought the Dumitrescus home with her. She then called circus officials, telling them about the trouble and asking for the Dumitrescus’ passports. She threatened to call police.

Maxwell’s stepfather returned to Romania, and Maxwell took Juliana Dumitrescu and her daughter back to Phoenix. A few days later, the circus arrived in Anaheim.

Visited Regularly

Maxwell said she visited the circus regularly and invited the women to her home every night. Sometimes they stayed overnight and Maxwell would drive them to work the next day.

She said she knew Juliana Dumitrescu wanted to defect and was already trying to create an innocent-looking routine. Several days later Serban and Petrescu confided to her separately that they wanted to defect. Maxwell promised to find a way.

The final planning session came in the dressing room at the Los Angeles Sports Arena, Maxwell said. While clowns cavorted and elephants and tigers performed, the five women debated their plan in whispers.

“We made 10 plans,” Maxwell said. “The main problem we had was that the people in the circus were used to seeing me with (Juliana Dumitrescu and Serban) alone, but they were not used to seeing (Petrescu) without her husband. For her, we had to change plans and find a better way to get out.”

According to the plan, Juliana and Brigitta Dumitrescu would stay over and Maxwell would drive them into work as usual. But this time, they would stop first at the train wagon where the performers lived near Union Station, Maxwell said.

Petrescu was to hide her belongings in her locked cabin and give the key to Serban before leaving for the arena as usual. Serban was to lock herself in her cabin, thus giving the impression that each had left with the other.

Maxwell and the Dumitrescus would pull up to the train wagon just after noon when the last shift left, pick up Serban, head over to the arena and pick up Petrescu, who would be outside the arena “getting air.”

At the last minute, Maxwell said, she decided to involve the office of Rep. Robert K. Dornan (R-Garden Grove) because she had seen him on TV and liked his anti-Communist stance.

She said she believed the congressman could offer protection and speed up the process of political asylum. As a result, Pat Fanelli, a Dornan field representative, accompanied them in the car.

Arrived Too Early

It worked better than planned, Maxwell recalled with a slight smile. The only hitch came when they arrived at the Sports Arena too early. “Everybody saw us staying in the car. . . . I thought this is it, somebody will jump on the car and stop me. Luckily, nobody did.”

At the very end, another performer, a teen-age acrobat who realized without being told what was happening, clung to the window wanting to come along, Maxwell said. “I had to scream, ‘Please go!’

“Then we drove straight to Congressman Dornan’s office,” she said jerking her chin up and blowing out smoke. “We never looked back.”

After a press conference at Dornan’s office, the acrobats were taken away by FBI and Immigration and Naturalization Service agents, according to Fanelli, who said, “We have no idea where they are.”

Maxwell said Friday morning she received six threatening phone calls, which she believed were from Romanians. One caller threatened to “cut her throat.”

Maxwell said she is worried that the acrobats’ request for political asylum may be jeopardized because they did not have their passports when they defected. In any case, she said, she plans to meet with them again Sunday.

“I’m sure in a way they’re scared,” she said. “One thing is certain. They’re happy.”