take but was merely there to find out about the miners' problems, which only Ceaușescu could decide to alleviate. At this point the crowd shouted, demanding Ceaușescu's personal presence, whereupon Verdeț claimed the President was occupied with "urgent party and state problems" and that if work resumed Verdeț would "guarantee" his return to the Valley within a month with a favourable reply from Ceaușescu. These promises were regarded with great suspicion by the crowd, which, emboldened, began booing again and warned that they would not go back to work until Ceaușescu personally came and publicly promised to resolve their grievances. Booed, insulted and pelted with food scraps, Verdeț and Pană hid behind Dobre and, backed up against the wall of the gatekeeper's booth, nervously begged him to assure their safety. Literally backed into a corner, Verdeț promised the miners that he would convince Ceaușescu to come. What happened next is a matter of dispute. Dobre insists that the two party functionaries were held hostage in the booth until Ceaușescu's arrival, given only water and monitored in their conversations with Bucharest; other sources confirm this account. Verdeț dismissed this version as being merely a legend. In order to avoid the possibility of violent clashes, the Jiu Valley authorities infiltrated the area with informers and Securitate members, but avoided the visible imposition of martial law, also to keep tensions down. Arms depots were guarded for fear the miners might raid them. On the day of Ceaușescu's arrival, Securitate troops as well as party functionaries were called in from Craiova, Târgu-Jiu and Deva to try to disperse the protesters. Ceaușescu speaks When the strike broke out, Ceaușescu and his wife Elena were on a Black Sea vacation. At Verdeț' insistence, he hastily came to Petroșani on 3 August. 35,000 (some sources say 40,000) came to see him – to be sure, not all had come to hold a dialogue with him, but went out of curiosity or carried away by events, but the audience was nonetheless impressive in size. At first, despite the charged atmosphere, some shouted "Ceaușescu and the miners!", but others yelled "Lupeni '29! Lupeni '29!" (in reference to the Lupeni Strike of 1929, enshrined in the mythology of the Romanian Communist Party), in an effort to add legitimacy to their cause. Dobre read the list of grievances to Ceaușescu, presenting 26 demands related to work hours, production targets, pensions, supplies,