The Securitate files remain a complicated and dark part of recent Romanian history. In 2002, Le Monde published an article about the selective opening of the files. In this article, they profiled Doina Cornea's experience with her own files:
"I’ve always liked a cigarette with my coffee,” Doina Cornea continues. “At one point, I was contacted by a young African who was studying in Romania. He told me how much he admired me, and offered to carry my protest letters to the West. Each time he came to visit me, he would bring a packet of coffee, something you didn’t often see at that time. I suspected this young man was up to something, and my husband told me to stop accepting his gifts. But I always took his coffee. For a year, I drank coffee which I imagined was paid for by the Securitate, and had a lot of fun sending their informer off on wild goose chases. It turns out I was right. When I was able to read my file, I found reports the student had written about me. Sometimes he would exaggerate so as to look good. This is typical of informers. They make certain things out to be bigger than they are, so as to seem invaluable to their bosses.”
It was in April 2001 that Doina Cornea made her first request to see her secret police file. She had to jump a series of bureaucratic hurdles, but eventually, 28 voluminous files were opened to her on condition she go consult them in Bucharest, more than 400 kilometers (250 miles) from where she lives. “It’s been tough,” she admits. “My pension isn’t big enough to pay for frequent trips to Bucharest, or to pay for all the photocopying I’d have to do. I don’t think I’ll live long enough to read all they wrote about me.”
In spite of the revelations of human deception occasioned by her files, Cornea is glad she made the decision to see them.
In an interview with Ziua last year, Cornea noted that Romanians have gotten used to being ordered around. The post-communist period has been more difficult because everyone is a little "lost" or disoriented, searching for a leader or a scapegoat. Cornea also shares her perspectives on Romanian politicians, monarchy, and civil society in this interview. She does not appear to have suffered for seeing her Securitate file.
Perhaps the emigre situation is different. Every year, as we purchase our tickets to visit Romania, my mother struggles with the decision of whether to request her files. She is sure that the files will be damning, for a defector in 1979 was nothing if not an enemy of the communist state. Selfishly, I hope that this year, she will make the appeal. My interests are impure-- I am fascinated by history, seduced by the prospect of first-hand accounts of the communist bureaucracy, haunted by dreams of bygone totalitarianisms.
