In 1965, Romania
mourned the death of its leader and president,
Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej. The youngest of the eight
or nine members of the Committee of the Central
Communist Party was Nicolae Ceausescu and he was
elected to succeed the late president
Gheorghiu-Dej because it was reasoned that the
country should not have to go through a national
morning every few years. Another reason that
Nicolae Ceausescu was selected to succeed was
because he was by far the least educated (a high
school dropout) and thus it was reasoned that he
could easily be manipulated by the rest of the
Central Committee. 
Thus, the country had
to adjust itself and get used to having and
hearing a mumbling idiot as its president giving
political speeches that were so bad and so
grammatically incorrect that this at first
produced great bewilderment. To hear him was one
thing, but to see him in countless TV appearances
giving those speeches was another thing. His
off-mark gesticulation with his right hand, his
apparent speech impairment 
with struggling and
stuttering at almost every word was irresistibly
funny. In fact his speeches produced so much
laughter that they were competing with a popular
Romanian TV series entitled Celebrated Comics
of the Screen (in Romanian Comici
Vestiti ai Ecranului) which featured the
short movies of the legendary "Laurel and Hardy"
duo. Soon however, the country was not laughing
any more. Ceausescu's grip on power as the
undisputed ruler had become evident and terribly
frightening because of his uncontrollable power.
His Economic Plan for Romania to pay back all its
foreign debts within ten (10) years was extremely
hard on the country since the plan did not involve
policies that would stimulate the dormant, if not
moribund, economy but instead involved programs of
great austerity for the Romanian nation. Since the
absolute bare necessities of life became scarcer
and scarcer, bribery and corruption began to
flourish like never before. In his demented way,
President Ceausescu to "fuel" the economy passed,
among many insane laws, the law that every woman
in Romania must have four (4) children
because, as he reasoned, there were too many
retired people in Romania and thus to offset this
undesirable situation, the birth rate in Romania
needed to increase dramatically.
Parallel to these
ridiculous economic policies, brutal nationalistic
policies targeting everything that was not "pure"
Romanian were being implemented. Ethnic cleansing
was one of Ceausescu's most horrendous legacies,
destroying mercilessly entire ethnic villages
through methods not too different from those found
in the Hitler era. 
Outside the country,
in foreign affairs, this Romanian nationalistic
offensive was most visibly seen in Romania's
sought after independence from the "influence" of
the Soviet Union. This defiant attitude against
the Soviet Union was, of course, extremely
pleasing to the United States and to rest of the
West, and Romania, politically, was indeed
rewarded for its independence. Since Yugoslavia
from 1948, under Marshal Tito, pursued national
Communism with independence from the Soviet Union,
Yugoslavia was never accepted into the Eastern
Block as a "true" Communist country. However, in
his pursuit for political independence, President
Ceausescu developed close ties with Yugoslavia at
the expense of infuriating the Soviet Union even
more.
Notwithstanding
the close ties that Romania established with
Yugoslavia, one colossal difference existed
between the two neighboring countries: citizens
from Yugoslavia could travel anywhere in the world
with no restrictions; citizens from Romania,
however, were prohibited to travel anywhere
outside the country and when traveling within the
country they were required to notify, in advance,
the Romanian police of their whereabouts. Now, for
the purpose of this story, this is sufficient for
the political background of Romania, so let us
move on to Part-2 describing some of my
background. So, if you are ready, press on the
appropriate Continue button below.
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