Vasile Milea (1 January 1927 - 22 December 1989) was a Romanian politician and general who was Nicolae Ceaușescu's Minister of Defence during the Romanian Revolution of 1989 and was involved in the reprisal phase of the Revolution that caused the deaths of 162 people.
Biography
Milea was appointed Minister of Defence, replacing Constantine Olteanu, in December 1984.
Death
The cause of Milea's death is uncertain - he may have been murdered on Ceaușescu's orders, or killed himself. Milea was already in severe disfavour for sending troops to quell the uprising in Timișoara without ammunition and for his refusal to order the army to shoot the protestors who had gathered around the Central Committee building.
His death is believed to have happened at about 10:40 a.m. and was announced as a suicide on television early on 22 December which described him as a traitor and may have been interpreted by other generals as a sign of growing distrust leading to their loyalty wavering. Whatever the case, Milea's death caused the rank-and-file soldiers to go over almost en masse to the revolution, effectively ending the Communist rule in Romania. He was succeeded as Minister of Defence by Victor Stanculesc who also disobeyed orders and returned the army to barracks.
A report in 1989 indicated that he had been shot by Ceausescu’s Securitate although this was contradicted by a report from 2005 after a full investigation including a post-mortem concluded that Milea killed himself using the weapon of one of his attendants. It was suggested that he only tried to incapacitate himself in order to be relieved from office, but the bullet hit an artery and he died soon afterwards.
Legacy
A boulevard in Sector 6 of Bucharest used to be named after him until 2021. A street in Ploiești is still named after him, as well as a central square in Pitești.
Works
- Vasile Milea, Victor Atanasiu, România în anii primului război mondial: caracterul drept, eliberator al participării României la război, vol. 2, Ed. Militară, Bucharest, 1987. OCLC 18616519
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