as a national and independent communist leader. One year before the invasion of Czechoslovakia, Ceaușescu opened up diplomatic ties with West Germany, and refused to break links with Israel following the Six-Day War. Starting with the much-publicized visit by France's Charles de Gaulle (May 1968), Romania was the recipient of Western world support going well into the 1970s (significant visits were paid by United States Presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford, in 1969 and 1975 respectively, while Ceaușescu was frequently received in Western capitals). Ceaușescu's supremacy Ceaușescu developed a cult of personality around himself and his wife Elena (herself promoted to high offices) after visiting North Korea and noting the parallel developed by Kim Il-sung, while incorporating in it several aspects of past authoritarian regimes in Romania (see Conducător). During the early 1970s, while curbing liberalization, he launched his own version of China's Cultural Revolution, announced by the July Theses. In effect, measures to concentrate power in Ceaușescu's hands were taken as early as 1967, when the general secretary became the ultimate authority on foreign policy. At the time, a new organization was instituted under the name of Front of Socialist Unity (eventually renamed the Front of Socialist Unity and Democracy). Ostensibly a popular front affiliating virtually all non-party members, it was actually tightly controlled by party activists. It was intended to consolidate the impression that the entire population was backing Ceaușescu's policies. As a result of these new policies, the Central Committee, which acted as the main PCR body between Congresses, had increased to 265 full members and 181 candidate members (supposed to meet at least four times a year). By then, the general secretary also called for women to be enrolled in greater numbers in all party structures. In parallel, the political doctrine in respect to minorities claimed interest in obtaining allegiance from both Hungarians and Germans, and set up separate workers' councils for both communities. Members of the upper echelons of the party who objected to Ceaușescu's stance were accused of supporting Soviet policies; they included Alexandru Bârlădeanu, who criticized the heavy loans contracted in support of industrialization policies. In time, the new leader distanced himself from Maurer and Corneliu Mănescu, while his career profited from the deaths of Stoica (who committed suicide) and Sălăjan (who died while undergoing surgery). Instead, he came to rely on a new generation of activists, among them Manea Mănescu. At the