An ethnic Bulgarian, he was born in Vasilieva village in Southern Dobruja, several years before it became part of Romania.

He left for the Soviet Union in 1940,[1] spending the World War II years in Moscow with other Romanian communists,[2] and was a devoted collaborator of Ana Pauker's.

[1] He was elected a candidate member of the Politburo in 1952, alongside Alexandru Drăghici and Nicolae Ceaușescu,[5] holding that post until 1969.

He sat in the Great National Assembly from 1948 to 1980, heading its foreign affairs committee from 1953 to 1955.

[2][6][1] The party's professional interrogator as part of repressive actions initiated by the Securitate secret police,[2] he took over the latter post in 1960 as Constantin Pîrvulescu was purged for his silence several years earlier in a plot to unseat Gheorghiu-Dej.