Nicu Ceaușescu

Nicu Ceaușescu (; 1 September 1951 – 26 September 1996) was a Romanian physicist and communist politician who was the youngest child of Romanian leaders Nicolae and Elena Ceaușescu. He was a close associate of his father's political regime and considered the President's heir presumptive.

Life during communism

According to Ion Mihai Pacepa (who defected to the United States in 1978), Ceaușescu wanted Nicu to become his Foreign Minister and for that, he instructed two high-ranked Party members, Ștefan Andrei and Cornel Pacoste (whom he considered brilliant communist intellectuals) to take care of Nicu's education; Pacepa further claimed that, unlike his older siblings, he disliked school and was allegedly derided by them for never being seen reading a book.

He graduated from Liceul no. 24 (now named Jean Monnet High School) and then studied physics at the University of Bucharest. He was involved in Uniunea Tineretului Comunist while a student, becoming its First Secretary and then Minister of Youth Issues, being elected to the Central Committee of the Romanian Communist Party in 1982.

As an apprentice in politics, he was mentored by Ștefan Andrei, Ion Traian Ștefănescu and Cornel Pacoste. Toward the end of the 1980s, he was made a member of the Executive Committee of the Romanian Communist Party and in 1987 the leader for Sibiu County, being prepared by his parents to be his father's successor. former body double of Uday Hussein, son of Iraqi President claimed that Nicu was good friends with Uday, and the two would visit each other in Switzerland and Monaco.

The documentary Videograms of a Revolution shows him exhibited as a prisoner on state television on 22 December 1989 after being arrested on accusations of holding children as hostages and other crimes. Three days later, his parents were tried and then executed by the military. He was also arrested in 1990 for misuse of government funds under his father's regime, and was sentenced to 20 years in prison.

Released in November 1992 because of cirrhosis, he died from the disease four years later in a Vienna hospital on 26 September 1996 aged 45.