Intrepid
July 22nd, 2004, 10:53 AM
Here's an interesting article on the Romanian megalomaniac and his penchant for saving the Romania's entire bear population for himself. A good book on the cretin is Lt. Gen Ion Mihai Pacepa's, Red Horizons. Pacepa was the former head of Romanian intelligence under Ceausescu.
http://av.rds.yahoo.com/_ylt=A0Je5W4p3f9A4VABvTVrCqMX;_ylu=X3oDMTBvdmM3bGlxBHBndANhdl93ZWJfcmVzdWx0BHNlYwNzcg--/SIG=11q0qa2fi/**http%3a//www.theatlantic.com/issues/2003/07/quammen.htm
A few snippets:
It begins like a fulsome biographical documentary: clips of Ceausescu in his public role, kissing babies, attending banquets, making state visits abroad. Ceausescu the family man. Ceausescu the sportsman, on a hunting excursion. He arrives by helicopter. Later he admires his day's kill, dozens of dead chamois laid side by side. In the background of one shot, fleetingly, appears Viciu Buceloiu himself, looking a dozen years younger. Then the scene shifts, the mood shifts, and I see Ceausescu at a cluster of microphones on a balcony, addressing many thousands of Romanians in an urban square. Suddenly the camera captures something indecorous and unexpected—the crowd interrupting him. People start to jeer. Ceausescu waves, as though to hush them. They refuse to be hushed. He looks flustered. More jeers. On the balcony alarmed minions slide into motion. Again he waves, a gesture of befuddlement. This is the very moment—on the morning of December 21, 1989, in Bucharest, as Ceausescu stood before a populace so disgusted, weary, and angry that it would accept its own docility no longer—when he lost control. Recalcitrant hoots from the crowd. "Hallo," he says. "Hallo, hallo." Wake up, he seems to be trying to tell them. Remember your manners, remember your fear; this is me. But they are awake, now more than ever. Elena, in the background, starts hollering at someone. She seems to have sensed, more quickly than her husband, that this break in the national trance could be catastrophic for both of them.
An abrupt cut. The next scene shows Ceausescu stepping disconsolately from an armored truck. He wears a rumpled dress shirt, a tie, a dark topcoat. That coat, Buceloiu tells me—an idle aside, reflecting his own sense of intimate connection to the drama—was lined with bearskin.
Inside a drab room Ceausescu sits at a table, Elena beside him. The room seems to be cold; anyway, they don't remove their coats. Bundled around his neck is a brown scarf. He makes an argumentative response to a comment from a person unseen. The camera doesn't pan; it holds on the Ceausescus unremittingly, and by this time I've realized that we're watching the kangaroo trial.
You had a luxurious life, says the offscreen inquisitor. Meanwhile, he says, people starved. They received only a miserable ration, two hundred grams of sausage per day. You had the army to enforce your power. But now even the army has turned against you. Do you hear what we're saying? Stand up. Answer. You're a coward. With the army gone, you had your personal sharpshooters, opening fire on the citizenry. Who were they, those snipers? Children died, old folks. Who gave the order? You're guilty of genocide. Do you realize you're no longer President of Romania? What about the money in Swiss bank accounts?
Intermittently during this litany of accusations, Ceausescu stares at the ceiling. He reaches across and sets his hand comfortingly on the hand of Elena, who shows no response. She has withdrawn into a gloom so cold it appears almost like boredom. Sporadically she rouses to haggle. The people love us, the intellectuals love us, she says; they won't stand for it when they hear you've arrested us. The people will fight against this treason!, Ceausescu adds, shaking his finger. As though to refute that notion, to pre-empt that remote possibility, the video lurches ahead—as the National Salvation Front did—to a point of finality: a freeze-frame image of Ceausescu's fresh corpse, necktie still tied, a splash of blood beside his head. Silence. End of tape. Buceloiu turns off the machine.
http://av.rds.yahoo.com/_ylt=A0Je5W4p3f9A4VABvTVrCqMX;_ylu=X3oDMTBvdmM3bGlxBHBndANhdl93ZWJfcmVzdWx0BHNlYwNzcg--/SIG=11q0qa2fi/**http%3a//www.theatlantic.com/issues/2003/07/quammen.htm
A few snippets:
It begins like a fulsome biographical documentary: clips of Ceausescu in his public role, kissing babies, attending banquets, making state visits abroad. Ceausescu the family man. Ceausescu the sportsman, on a hunting excursion. He arrives by helicopter. Later he admires his day's kill, dozens of dead chamois laid side by side. In the background of one shot, fleetingly, appears Viciu Buceloiu himself, looking a dozen years younger. Then the scene shifts, the mood shifts, and I see Ceausescu at a cluster of microphones on a balcony, addressing many thousands of Romanians in an urban square. Suddenly the camera captures something indecorous and unexpected—the crowd interrupting him. People start to jeer. Ceausescu waves, as though to hush them. They refuse to be hushed. He looks flustered. More jeers. On the balcony alarmed minions slide into motion. Again he waves, a gesture of befuddlement. This is the very moment—on the morning of December 21, 1989, in Bucharest, as Ceausescu stood before a populace so disgusted, weary, and angry that it would accept its own docility no longer—when he lost control. Recalcitrant hoots from the crowd. "Hallo," he says. "Hallo, hallo." Wake up, he seems to be trying to tell them. Remember your manners, remember your fear; this is me. But they are awake, now more than ever. Elena, in the background, starts hollering at someone. She seems to have sensed, more quickly than her husband, that this break in the national trance could be catastrophic for both of them.
An abrupt cut. The next scene shows Ceausescu stepping disconsolately from an armored truck. He wears a rumpled dress shirt, a tie, a dark topcoat. That coat, Buceloiu tells me—an idle aside, reflecting his own sense of intimate connection to the drama—was lined with bearskin.
Inside a drab room Ceausescu sits at a table, Elena beside him. The room seems to be cold; anyway, they don't remove their coats. Bundled around his neck is a brown scarf. He makes an argumentative response to a comment from a person unseen. The camera doesn't pan; it holds on the Ceausescus unremittingly, and by this time I've realized that we're watching the kangaroo trial.
You had a luxurious life, says the offscreen inquisitor. Meanwhile, he says, people starved. They received only a miserable ration, two hundred grams of sausage per day. You had the army to enforce your power. But now even the army has turned against you. Do you hear what we're saying? Stand up. Answer. You're a coward. With the army gone, you had your personal sharpshooters, opening fire on the citizenry. Who were they, those snipers? Children died, old folks. Who gave the order? You're guilty of genocide. Do you realize you're no longer President of Romania? What about the money in Swiss bank accounts?
Intermittently during this litany of accusations, Ceausescu stares at the ceiling. He reaches across and sets his hand comfortingly on the hand of Elena, who shows no response. She has withdrawn into a gloom so cold it appears almost like boredom. Sporadically she rouses to haggle. The people love us, the intellectuals love us, she says; they won't stand for it when they hear you've arrested us. The people will fight against this treason!, Ceausescu adds, shaking his finger. As though to refute that notion, to pre-empt that remote possibility, the video lurches ahead—as the National Salvation Front did—to a point of finality: a freeze-frame image of Ceausescu's fresh corpse, necktie still tied, a splash of blood beside his head. Silence. End of tape. Buceloiu turns off the machine.