Dan Deșliu de pe aer", 1974). Starting in 1962 and particularly from 1970, he began to criticize the policies of the Romanian Communist Party, and as a result was placed under thorough surveillance by the Securitate secret police. In the 1980s, he turned toward open dissidence, repudiating his "revolutionary" past, quitting the party in 1980 and directly criticizing dictator Nicolae Ceaușescu, whom he accused of behaving as if he were "the owner of Romania". In March 1989, he sent an open letter to Radio Free Europe decrying the domestic situation in his country, prompting his placement under house arrest. An excellent swimmer,
Alexandru Drăghici As historian Marius Oprea notes, this initiative of his was the culmination of periodic antisemitic purges inside and outside the party structures. When Gheorghiu-Dej died in March 1965, Ion Gheorghe Maurer, Chivu Stoica, and Emil Bodnăraș, fearful of seeing Drăghici come to power, all backed Ceaușescu as the new leader. Maurer also considered that Ceaușescu had stood up to Khrushchev, while Drăghici was seen as a loyal follower of the Soviet Union. Bacon writes: "So powerful was the apparatus of terror that its chief, Alexandru Dr[ă]ghici, challenged Ceau[ș]escu for political power following Gheorghiu-Dej's death. It is a tribute to Ceau[ș]escu's