Headquarters

Espionage Links

Ceausescu's Communiqués

Securitate Watch

Party Bookstore

L'Internationale Anthem

Fearless Leader's
Pottsylvania Page

Nicu Ceausescu Lives

The Ceausescus' Trial Transcripts

Party Store

Most comprehensive English-language study on Ceausescu's Securitate. British journalist and professor Dennis Deletant has written several academic works about Rumania, and is married to a Rumanian woman. His book also relates his difficulties getting her emigration approved by the Communist government.
 

Although published in 1974, it's still the best book on humtel (i.e., human intelligence). Covers everything: recruitment, training, case officers, desk officers, security officers, cutouts, analysts, the difference between intelligence officers and spies, dummy corporations, front organizations, the use of journalists and academics, difference between intelligence and espionage (and counter-intelligence and counter-espionage), the difference between intelligence gathering and law enforcement (and why their goals often conflict), organizational structures of intelligence agencies, career path of a typical CIA employee, brief history of the OSS and CIA. If you want to know what spying IS, and HOW it works, this book is a great start.
 

Ion Mihai Pacepa was head of Rumanian intelligence. He defected in 1978 -- the highest-ranking defector during the Cold War. He provides a high-level insider's look at the Ceausescu regime.  Covers Ceausescu's (and his own) relations with organized crime, terrorists, drug runners, Arafat, Tito, spies, and high-tech smuggling.
 

A satirical novel of Ceausescu's Romania. A young American visits Bucharest in 1986 and discovers that Communism is vampirism. Part spy thriller, political satire, black comedy, and horror novel.  Nominated for the Libertarian Futurist Society's Prometheus Award.
 

If you want to learn about Ceausescu, but don't have time for heavy reading, this A&E Biography DVD is a painless introduction. 50 minutes long, and not expensive.
 

Published by Harvard University Press. Documents the 20th century's Communist body count at 85-100 million killed worldwide. Covers Communist atrocities in Asia, Eastern Europe, Africa, Latin America. Demonstrates that (1) Communism was a unified worldwide movement, and not disparate national liberation movements, and (2) that totalitarianism, repression, and mass murder are rooted in Communist ideology, and not aberrations from "true Communism."
 

Explains "why we won" the Cold War. It was President Reagan's strategy to outspend and outmaneuver the East Bloc nations (e.g., he induced Saudi Arabia to increase oil production, thus driving down the price of Soviet and Rumanian crude, further aggravating their economic woes). Had Bush or Carter won the Presidency in 1980, Communists would likely still rule Eastern Europe. Yes, their economies would be shaky today, but their economies had always been shaky. It was the West that propped them up for over six decades. Reagan stopped that, which is why many streets in Eastern Europe are today named after him. Extensively researched, and confirmed by declassified Soviet Politburo documents.
 

Red China's "one child" policy mandates abortions; Ceausescu enforced an abortion ban by stationing Securitate officers in delivery rooms -- not from concern for the unborn, but because he wanted an expanding population of ethnic Rumanians. The result was a surfeit of sick abandoned orphans. A popular rumor (unconfirmed by Kligman) was that these orphans, embittered and without family ties, made excellent Securitate recruits.
 

Reagan appointed the author to serve as US Ambassador to Ceausescu's Rumania. His book provides insight into the Senate confirmation process. As a "political appointee" rather than a State Dept. careerist, he received pressure from both ends -- hence his subtitle.
 

Part prison diary, this is the autobiography of a young man imprisoned in Rumania in the 1950s for trying to escape the country. Provides a vivid portrait of life in a Communist prison (both literal and the nation itself). He eventually did escape Rumania, then returned (with a Western passport) during the Ceausescu era, and reports his observations.
 

Released in 1991. Much information on Ceausescu's early years (how he became what he was) and the best accounting I've read yet of his last days & hours before his capture and execution.
 

British paperback published in 1991. Original research, crisp writing, balanced reporting. Includes post '89 revolution interviews and photos with Ceausescu children Nicu, Valentin, and Zoia. Nicu, speaking from prison, says Pacepa's Red Horizons is "Lies, lies, and not even good lies!"
 

Romania, a country study, edited by Ronald D. Bachman

First released in 1989 by the Federal Research Division of the Library of Congress under their Country Studies: Area Handbook Program. A dry read. Rumanian military ranks & insignias are illustrated on pages 284 & 285. The Second Edition, 1991, still has the 1989 ranks & insignias (i.e., from the Ceausescu regime).

Author is descended from Leo Tolstoy (of War And Peace fame).  Contains shocking accounts of Stalin's brutality. Published in 1981, now out of print. Recently released Soviet archives prove the truth was even more shocking that detailed in this book.