Ever since he came to power in 1965, Rumania's Communist Party Secretary-General Nicolae Ceausescu, 49, has been losing patience with his older, more doctrinaire and often incompetent party colleagues. Steadily, Ceausescu (TIME cover, March 18, 1966) strengthened his position in the government and gathered younger and more liberal men around him. Last week, at a national party conference in Bucharest, he finally threw off the mantle of Rumania's "collective leadership" and took over the presidency himself. He also did away with "parallel" party and government jobs at the local level, reshuffled the Rumanian hierarchy and put some of the...
To continue reading:
or
Log-In
