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German scientists are now trying to develop a bacterium to devour the cardboard-and-plastic body.Automobile manufacturing and government do not mix in capitalist countries either. What rolled off the assembly line was a kind of horseless carriage that roared like a lawn mower and polluted the air worse than a whole city block full of big Western cars.After German reunification, the plucky little "Trabi" that East Germans used to wait 10 years to buy became an embarrassment, and its production was stopped. The old empire quickly passed into history. Immediately, the radio, right side mirror and backseat heating were dropped. Oltcit was the name of the new car -- an amalgam made from the words Oltenia, Ceausescu's native province, and the French car maker Citroen, which owned 49% of the shares.
Ceausescu tasked me to mediate the purchase of a minimum, basic license for a small car from a major Western manufacturer, and then to steal everything else needed to produce the car.Three Western companies competed for the honor. I hope that the U.S. Germany's junkyards are now piled high with Trabants, which cannot be recycled because burning their plastic-covered cardboard bodies would release poisonous dioxins. He tasked me to buy another Western license, this time to produce a car tailored for export. Coordinating 166 plants to have them deliver all the parts on time would be a monumental job even for an experienced car producer. He baptized the car Dacia, to commemorate Romania's 2,000-year history going back to Dacia Felix, as the ancient Romans called that part of the world. If you are like me and have lived two lives, you have a good chance of seeing the re-enactment with your own eyes.
Ceausescu decided on Renault, because it was owned by the French government (all Soviet bloc rulers distrusted private companies). In the spring of 1978 Ceausescu appointed me chief of his Presidential House, a new position supposed to be similar to that of the White House chief of staff. government and United Auto Workers makes me think back to Romania's catastrophic mismanagement of the car factories it built jointly with the French companies Renault and Citroen. The current takeover of General Motors by the U.S. In that government-run economy, symbolism was the most important consideration, especially when it came to things in short supply (such as food)."Too luxurious for the idiots," Ceausescu decreed when he saw the first Dacia car made in Romania. "Good enough for the idiots," Ceausescu decided, showing what he thought of the Romanian people.
How did the famous Jaguar, one of the most prestigious cars in the world, become a joke.In 1945, the British voters, tired of four years of war, kicked out Winston Churchill and elected a leftist parliament led by Labour's Clement Attlee. The car that finally hit the market was a stripped-down version of the old, stripped-down Renault 12. The bureaucrats and the union that ran the Trabant factory made the car smaller and boxier, to give it a more proletarian look. We ended up with a license for an antiquated and about-to-be-discontinued Renault-12 car, because it was the cheapest. administration, Congress and the American voters will take a closer look at history and prevent our automotive industry from following down the Dacia, Oltcit or Jaguar path.Lt.
Its chief, Markus Wolf, rewarded me with a Trabant car -- the pride of East Germany -- when I left to return to Romania.That ugly little car became famous in 1989 when thousands of East Germans used it to cross to the West. In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king. I bought the book because of an opinion article by the author in the Wall Street Journal. However, my father had spent most of his life running the service department of the General Motors affiliate in Bucharest.My job at the time was as head of the Romanian industrial espionage program. Now it was sapped of economic vigor. To reduce production costs, they cut down on the size of the original, already small DKW engine, and they replaced the metal body with one made of plastic- covered cardboard. Indeed, the Romanian people, who had never before had any car, came to cherish the Dacia.For the Western market, however, the Dacia was a nightmare.
The Trabant originally derived from a well regarded West German car (the DKW) made by Audi, which today produces some of the most prestigious cars in the world. Oltcit was projected to produce between 90,000 and 150,000 compact cars designed by Citroen.Ceausescu micromanaged Oltcit, but he didn't even know how to drive a car, much less run a car industry. Other "unnecessary luxuries" were soon eliminated by the bureaucrats and their workers' union that were running the factory. I was Romania's car czar.When the Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceausescu decided in the mid-1960s that he wanted to have a car industry, he chose me to start the project rolling. In the hands of the East German government, the unfortunate DKW became a farce of a car. Beware.What I Learned as a Car CzarHistory shows government and automobile manufacturing don't mix.By ION MIHAI PACEPAThey say history repeats itself. In the late 1950s, when I headed Romania's foreign intelligence station in West Germany, I worked closely with the foreign branch of the East German Stasi. "Perfect for the idiots," Ceausescu approved.
Pacepa, the highest ranking Soviet bloc official granted political asylum in the U.S., is the author of the memoir "Red Horizons" (Regnery, 1987). Attlee nationalized the automobile, trucking and coal industries, as well as communication facilities, civil aviation, electricity and steel. This is history repeating itself right now with GM and Chrysler. To go with it he gave me a big Jaguar car. That Jaguar, which at the time had been produced in a government-run British factory, was so bad that it spent more time in the garage being repaired than it did on the road."Apart from some Russian factories in Gorky, Jaguars were the worst," Ford executive Bill Hayden stated when Ford bought the nationalized British car maker in 1988.
The Oltcit project lost billions.Ceausescu was an extreme case, but automobile manufacturing and government were never a good mix in any socialist/communist country. It proved impossible for the Romanian bureaucracy, which pretended to work and was paid accordingly. The Oltcit factory could produce only 1% to 1.5% of its intended capacity owing to the lack of the parts that those 166 companies were supposed to furnish simultaneously. I knew nothing about manufacturing cars, but neither did anyone else among Ceausescu's top men. It would take decades until Margaret Thatcher's privatization reforms restored Britain's place among the world's top-tier economies.The United States is far more powerful than Great Britain was then, and no American Attlee should be capable of destroying its solid economic and political base.
To the best of my knowledge, no Dacia car was ever sold in the U.S.Ceausescu, undaunted, was determined to see Romanian cars running around in every country in the world. To save the foreign currency he coveted, he decreed that the components for the Oltcit were to be manufactured at 166 existing Romanian factories. Britain was already saddled by crushing war debts. Gen.
Any nation that tramples on the rights of its own citizens can only lead to moral and physical destruction. The detailed account of the Communist regime in Romania is almost unbelievable. Every dictatorship past, present and future follows the same patterns. But I highly doubt they will even make the effort.
This shows how totalitarism can only endure on the back of Western Civilization(free societies that respect individual rights and its technological advances). We now have appeasement of theocratic regimes as the "new" foreign policy. There is pure evil in the world and when left unchecked, we have the slimy Ceausescus'. Because this book is true. I think I have whiplash.
His policy of appeasement blew up in his face with the Soviet Union's invasion of Afghanistan. Hence his weak move of boycotting the Olympics. With their entrenched racism and xenophobia; Jimmy Carter was as inept as they come. But it doesn't rest with Communism. Good riddance they no longer on this earth.
The main themes I got out of this book are: 1) The United States complicity in placing the Ceausescus' on a pedestal. I was shaking my head in disgust so much from reading this book. 2) The willingness of Americans and other Western citizens to sell out their country for tyranny. In the name of watches and cash; these individuals, who were too dumb to understand the type of system they were working for gave Top Secret materials to Romania.
3) Substitute Communism with Islamic terrorism, the United States still has not learned the lessons. We are in a new faze of the War on Terrorism( I mean "overseas contingency operations"). So I implore all Americans to read this book as well.
I have to check myself though. Place yourself in the shoes of Papeca or an ordinary Romanian trying to make a life in an inhuman enviroment. Justice has been served.The title of this review serves a purpose.
This includes all Communist nations in general. I wish everyone in Washington would read this book.
It is not really written for the lay person who is not familiar with the inner workings of Romanian Communism, and so I found myself floundering throughout much of the text.There is some interesting information in the book about how weird Elena Ceausescu was -- she was basically an illiterate peasant who passed herself off as a scientist/intellectual, with the full knowledge and cooperation of her husband. I love Bucharest, and I am very impressed with post-Communist Romania and its delightful people. I purchased this book because I have visited Romania several times on business since 1995. But the book is poorly organized, and is hard to follow. One cannot be in Romania very long without hearing varying accounts of the Ceausecsus and their horrible treatment of the Romanian people, their repressive government, and their awful excesses and posh lifestyle when their country was essentially starving. So I wanted to learn more about them.Unfortunately this book, written by a government insider who served under Nicolae Ceausescu and who defected, is very difficult to understand. I still would like to know more about these people, but this is not the book to start with if you want a basic primer into the rise and fall of the Ceausecus. I hope someone writes a more reader-friendly, informative text on this fascinating subject.
What eventually happened to the Ceausescu's should happen to all of those who support communism and the enslavement of the individual to the "Greater Good".This book shows the inner workings of the Ceausescu's and their ilk. What sound good in theory is exposed for the true evil it is. The crimes perpetuated by the Communists knows no end. This book exposes the true face of communism/socialism. Never forget and never again let this happen.
To much credit on this monster and his wife, some (creatures) better let them be forgotten
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