Word: ceaucescu
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...only major Communist or Socialist leader to lose his life (no females here) in the 1989-90 "Velvet Revolution" was Nicolau Ceaucescu, ex-autocrat of Romania. By 'major', the longtime existence of a self-created cult of personality is implied. Construction teams never finished the huge residential complex that Ceaucescu had commissioned towards his own greater glory. His and his wife's brutal totalitarianism ended with a hail of bullets and mutilation of their corpses...
...Gbadolite, Mobutu lives in a series of garish palaces guarded by soldiers drawn from his own Bangala tribe. An early riser, he often tunes in newscasts via satellites. It was after watching the televised execution of his old friend President Nicolae Ceaucescu of Romania, for example, that he decided to embark Zaire on its now stalled "transition to democracy." After breakfast he accords audiences that can stretch into the afternoon; then he relaxes with % his family or studies biographies of men he admires, including Napoleon and De Gaulle. Mobutu is fascinated by Machiavelli, whose treatise The Prince he used...
Perhaps I'm overestimating our intelligence capacity, but in those Cold War days, I wouldn't be surprised if the CIA had kept a thick file on me. I can see my Supreme Court nomination now. "Correspondence with the operatives of Nicolai Ceaucescu. Called Castro's propaganda 'fascinating.' Took gifts from Yuri Andropov. In possesion of Bulgarian tassles." Guilty, Guilty, Guilty...
...Popular Front's supporters part of a "defiant and sullen populace," and likens the Popular Front itself to a "religious cult" (New York Times, January 25, 1990). On the other hand, when there was violent protest in Romania, the American media applauded it. The execution of the "tyrant" Ceaucescu was cause for celebration. There is an amazing absence of outrage in the media against our own use of violence to "liberate" the Panamanians...
Maybe you think I'm noticing things that aren't there. Maybe you think I also saw Nicolae Ceaucescu and Samuel Beckett dancing a polka in the stacks of Widener last night. You're wrong. I know what I noticed. People were not very enthusiastic about their vacations this year. That's a fact...