mpts to contact Sonia but received no response.Although Ilich seemed to embrace Marxist teachings, his classmates remember him as more of a romantic than an idealist. Regardless of his lack of enthusiasm toward his studies, Ilich was seen as a young man with potential, particularly with the Venezuelan Communist Party. Dr Eduardo Gallegos Mancera, a senior member of the party's politburo, offered him a post as the party representative in Bucharest. He turned the offer down, a move that was seen as a blatant insult to the one organization that had supported him. The final insult came when Ilich openly supported a rebel faction that the party was attempting to dissolve which led to his expulsion from the party in 1969.Without the support of the party that had sponsored his studies at Lumumba, his days in Moscow were numbered. Several attempts were made by the university authorities to convince Ilich to cease his extra-curricular activities and concentrate on his studies but their efforts fell on deaf ears. Ilich became even more brazen in his activities and verbally abused anyone who dared to criticize him. Finally in 1970, when Ilich took part in a demonstration organized by Arab students, he was officially accused of "anti-Soviet provocation and indiscipline" and expelled from the university. One theory suggests that the expulsion was a ruse organized by the KGB to cover up his recruitment into their service but no evidence can be found of such an arrangement.While studying at Lumumba, Ilich formed an alliance with several Palestinian students and listened attentively as they related stories of their homeland's struggle against its archenemy Israel. They spoke in glowing terms of a rebel leader who had organized a terrorist campaign to liberate Palestine. The man's name was Wadi Haddad. In partnership with George Habash, a fellow student at the American University in Beirut, Haddad had been instrumental in founding the Arab N...
