Leontin Sălăjan

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Leontin Sălăjan
Minister of the Armed Forces
In office
3 October 1955 – 28 August 1966
Preceded byEmil Bodnăraș
Succeeded byIoan Ioniță
Personal details
Born
Szilágyi Ignác

(1913-06-19)19 June 1913
Tasnádszántó,
General of the Army

Leontin Sălăjan (Hungarian: Szilágyi Ignác; 19 June 1913 – 28 August 1966) was a Romanian communist military and political leader.

Born in

Armed Forces Minister in 1955, holding the position until his death.[1] While in this office, he was a close ally of Nicolae Ceaușescu, alongside whom he sat on a high command during the Hungarian Revolution of 1956, charged with suppressing unrest by any means necessary, including ordering security forces to open fire.[2][4]

Within the party, he was a member of the central committee from 1945, and with Ceaușescu's rise to general secretary in 1965, he first became alternate member of the politburo and then member of the executive committee.[1][3] He died after a failed ulcer operation that resulted in much speculation.[2][3] In May 1966, he had participated in a rancorous meeting in Moscow with Soviet Marshal Andrei Grechko, with the latter demanding increased Romanian military participation in the Warsaw Pact and the Romanian side, increasingly assertive of independence, hesitating to embrace the idea. As with the controversial death of Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej a year earlier, Sălăjan's end came after being operated upon by doctors at Elias Hospital. According to an anesthesiologist who was present, Ceaușescu appeared after a first operation, encouraging the doctors: "Comrades, do something heroic!"[5]

Sălăjan was elected to the

Order of the Star of the Romanian People's Republic, first class.[6]

Notes

  1. ^ a b c d e f (in Romanian) Galeria Şefilor SMG, at the Romanian Defense Ministry site; accessed April 2, 2012
  2. ^ a b c d (in Romanian) Biografiile nomenklaturii Archived 2012-03-05 at the Wayback Machine, at the Institute for the Investigation of Communist Crimes and the Memory of the Romanian Exile site; accessed April 2, 2012
  3. ^ a b c d (in Romanian) Florin Mihai, "Generalul Ceaușescu, pe 'frontul' politic al Armatei" Archived 2011-11-28 at the Wayback Machine, Adevărul, 27 September 2011; accessed April 2, 2012
  4. ISBN 0-52-023747-1
  5. ^ (in Romanian) Christian Levant, "Vizita la Moscova, ucigătoare și pentru Leontin Sălăjan", Adevărul, 13 October 2007; accessed April 2, 2012
  6. ISBN 973-45-0486-X
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