Who was Nicolae Ceausescu?
The megalomaniac dictator was born in 1918, the son of peasants, and became active as a young man in the Romanian communist movement. In 1967, he became head of state of Romania. As supreme leader, Ceausescu promoted industrial and agricultural development as well as stronger ties with the People’s Republic of China. His rule was marked, however, by frequently disastrous economic schemes, and he became increasingly erratic, repressive and corrupt. Under Ceausescu, as many as one in three Romanians was an informant for the secret police, the Securitate. Writers suspected of dissident tendencies were summoned to Securitate offices and given lethal doses of radiation. Typewriters had to be registered with the police, and television was limited to two hours of propaganda a night. The authorities mandated how many light bulbs could be used in each house, how many children a woman should have and which conversations had to be reported to the Securitate. Rumors circulated that Ceausescu, who
