Romania, which had the worst dictator in Eastern Europe, Ceausescu, he was a darling of the West. The United States and Britain loved him. He was supported until the last minute.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
The saddest country I went to was Romania, years ago, during Ceausescu's rule.
After the fall of dictator Nicolae Ceausescu, Romanians were crazed with happiness. People who never met each other before hugged each other in the streets - convinced that tomorrow things would look different. Then came the many disappointments.
No leader did more for his country than Winston Churchill. Brave, magnanimous, traditional, he was like a king-general from Britain's heroic past. His gigantic qualities set him apart from ordinary humanity; there seemed no danger he feared, no effort too great for his limitless energies.
More than ever, Romania now needs to see that a force exists that puts an end to Ponta and Antonescu's abuses and coup d'etat. This force is none other than the Romanian people.
Romania and Bulgaria were particularly irresponsible. If they wanted to diminish their chances of joining Europe they could not have found a better way.
I was born near Bucharest, but my parents came to France a year later. We moved back to Romania when I was thirteen, and my world was shattered. I hated Bucharest, its society, and its mores - its anti-Semitism for example.
The post-totalitarian malady has taken its most acute form in Romania. And it has taken place for very specific reasons. The repression here has been more cruel, more brutal, than in other states caught in the inferno of a 'socialist paradise.'
Italy in the 1920s, Germany in the '30s, East Germany in the '50s, Czechoslovakia in the '60s, the Latin American dictatorships in the '70s, China in the '80s and '90s - all dictatorships and would-be dictators target newspapers and journalists.
Reagan never cottoned to dictators. He was pure in this notion in a true belief that democracy was the best solution in the world because it spoke to people's hopes and dreams and aspirations, freedom of religion, freedom of speech, freedom of speech.
Ronald Reagan came in - he was a leader. Some of my Democratic friends don't like it when I say that. He had a vision where he wanted to take the country, and things started moving again.
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