





Ceausescu opponent Gheorghe Apostol has died
Apostol joined the communist party in 1934. He served twice as first deputy president of the Council of Ministers. He also served as first secretary of the Romanian Communist Party Central Committee, a member of the Political Bureau and in other top positions.
By mid seventies, he was dismissed under "moral" grounds and later sent as ambassador to South America countries.
In 1989, the year of the anti-Communist revolution, he along other former top Communist officials - Alexandru Barladeanu, Corneliu Manescu, Grigore Raceanu, Constantin Parvulescu and Silviu Brucan - signed a letter in which he criticized the policies of the Ceausescu regime. "The letter of the six" was read on March 11, 1989 on BBC and Free Europe radio stations. The signatories were later arrested and placed under home arrest.