of Telecommunications (March 29, 1951 – January 24, 1953). At the time, he declared himself in favor of recruiting a new military force "from the ranks of the working class, of the toiling peasantry and of the progressive intelligentsia". Close to the Ana Pauker "Muscovite wing" of the PCR, he came into conflict with the party leadership around Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej. Initially removed from his Army position in 1950, at the same time as all cadres who had fought in the International Brigades or the French Resistance, Roman was deposed from government office, purged from the PCR and Army on charges of "Titoism" and "espionage", and singled out for a possible show trial (1952). He became subject to daily interrogations by the Party Control Commission. Pressures on him were relaxed after the death of Joseph Stalin in 1953, and Roman became head of Editura Politică (1954–1983). He remained a suspect at a time when Gheorghiu-Dej felt increasingly threatened, was subject to a "vote of censure" in 1954, and was completely rehabilitated only in 1956. Party leadership In 1956 and 1957, as a high-ranking member of the Communist Party, Valter Roman was involved in deciding Romanian policies in regard to the Hungarian Revolution of 1956, which threatened to spark similar actions in Romania. He spent late October in Budapest, sending back reports which inflamed sentiments by presenting alleged revolutionary violence. After the Red Army invaded Hungary, he accompanied Gheorghiu-Dej, the writer Mihai Beniuc, and other local Communists to Budapest, where the three of them reviewed the situation and expressed approval of Soviet policies. Later on, he was involved in interrogating Imre Nagy during his detainment in Snagov, while also ensuring contacts between Nagy and Soviet officials. Nagy was returned to Hungary, secretly tried and executed. According to Fedor Burlatsky, Nikita Khrushchev had Nagy executed, "as a lesson to all other leaders in socialist countries." An associate of Leonte Răutu, Roman seconded Emil Bodnăraş in the 1959 process of writing and compiling Party history, with a mission to highlight both Gheorghiu-Dej's role in the 1944 toppling of Ion Antonescu's regime and the insurrectional character of the coup. In 1961, he was among the Party leaders who spoke out against Iosif Chişinevschi and other former leaders who had been since marginalized, such as Pauker (whom he accused of having maintained contacts with Soviet police chief Lavrentiy Beria), Boris Stefanov, and Lucreţiu Pătrăşcanu. He also