THE DISMANTLING OF THE SECURITATE AND THE EMERGENCE OF ROMANIA'S NEW INTELLIGENCE AGENCIES

Amid the outbreak of diversionary-terrorist attacks across Romania on the evening of 22 December 1989, the way in which the newly established political authority—the Council of the National Salvation Front (CFSN) — handled relations among the country’s security structures (the Army/Ministry of National Defence, the Securitate/Department of State Security – DSS, and the Ministry of the Interior) constitutes another controversial episode in the history of the December 1989 Romanian Revolution. Examining these fraught, bloody relationships from December 1989 sheds light on how the CFSN and, later on, the National Salvation Front (FSN), together with various military figures, would engage in the political battles up until 20 May 1990, as well as their subsequent involvement in Romania’s post-December political stage.