On December 22, 1989, Communist President of Romania Nicolae Ceaușescu was overthrown by Ion Iliescu after days of bloody confrontations. The deposed dictator and his wife fled Bucharest with a helicopter as protesters erupted in cheers.
The couple was quickly caught and, on Christmas day, tried by a military tribunal and executed by firing squad.
1 reply on “Dictator Overthrown”
By simple chance coïncidence, just yester-day I talked with friends about some of the specific circumstances of the executions of the Ceaușescus, but I’d quite forgot that they’d been executed on Christmas Day.
The wives of heads of state or of government are an interesting case. Sometimes, they have little actual power. Sometimes they are officials de jure or de facto in their own regard. Often, they have been instrumental in their husbands’ rises to power.
In America, some people would grant our First Ladies both the prerogatives of state officials and the pardon given to pawns. I’d say that no First Lady who exercised discretion over the powers of her position should be excused for any behavior by the President that she cannot be shown to have challenged, preferably in public.