‘WHAT YOU HAVE to consider is who visited Bucharest. Bucharest was the point of contact for trade unionists and politicians who were wary of going to Moscow.’

This is Gough Whitlam speaking in response to questions at a Senate enquiry on 6 December 1999. ‘Everybody favoured relations with Bucharest,’ Whitlam continued: the British government, both sides, and the Americans, though his own government ‘never had any formal contact’ with the former president, Nicolae Ceausescu.[i]