Some Reflections on My Experience of Romania
My first direct contact with Romania took place in July 1965. It was choreographed in such a manner that opportunities to meet members of the public were limited. An inescapable feature of life in Romania under the Communist regime was the ubiquity of the Securitate or the security police, known officially for much of the period as the Department of State Security of the Ministry of the Interior. I realised as much from this visit and that realisation was reinforced during my subsequent experience of the country. My professional and personal involvement with Romania encompassed the entire duration of Ceausescu’s rule, from 1965 until 1989, and it was inevitable that this familiarity and my friendship with historians and writers should attract the Securitate’s attention, as confirmed by my consultation in 2007 of my Securitate file. More
