December 23, 2003
The Helicopter
December 22 was the day that Nicolae Ceausescu and his wife got into a helicopter. When they left the ground, he was still in some sense President of Romania. When they landed, he was a fugitive with three days left to live.
On the morning of December 22, Ceausescu tried to make another speech from the balcony of the Central Committee building. This time, however, he wasn't able to finish. Too many people in the crowd knew about -- or had been part of -- the beatings and killings of the previous day. He was shouted down, and eventually had to retreat inside the building. A bit later, he and Elena entered the helicopter and it took off from the roof.
Interestingly, a few people in the crowd had camcorders. It can't have been too easy to get a camcorder in Romania in 1989, but there they were. So there is some footage available of this episode. Some of it has been collected in a German documentary film, which unfortunately doesn't seem to be easily available. (Maybe we'll try to find it in Germany next week.)
So there is footage of the helicopter lifting off from the roof; and then, a bit later, of the crowd pushing into the building. As deafening cheers rock the square, we see people joyously throwing books and papers off of the balcony where Ceausescu had been standing a few minutes before.
It must have been a great moment.
Meanwhile, the Ceausescus were flying around in the helicopter. (I've read claims that one of Ceausescu's aides was holding a gun to the pilot's head; but I've also read that the pilot was an Army officer, Lt. Col. Vasile Malucan.) Demonstrations were breaking out all over the country: Arad, Brasov, Cluj. The execution of the Minister of Defense had backfired. Now the Army was refusing to fire any more on the demonstrators.
Protestors had taken over Bucharest's TV station. Just a few hours later, a group calling itself the National Salvation Front suddenly appeared on the television. It declared that Ceausescu was overthrown.
Ceausescu landed once, twice, and then the pilot announced that the helicopter was running out of fuel: they would have to land at the military base at Tirgoviste, less than 100 km from Bucharest.
At Tirgoviste they seem to have gotten a car, and driven around for a bit. And then they were taken into custody by the Army.
So, by the evening of December 22, both the Ceausescus were prisoners. Their Army captors put them inside an armored personnel carrier, and they seem to have slept there that night. And the National Salvation Front was declaring itself the new and legitimate authority in the country.
But in the streets of Bucharest -- and Timisoara, and Brasov, and Cluj -- the killing was just starting. More than 1000 people would die in Romania's revolution, and the majority of those deaths would take place after the Ceausescus had already been taken into custody.