ly and to increase the
responsibilities of the assembly commissions in order to give that body
a greater role in the government. Ministers and other high government
officials were to be more aware of their responsibilities to keep the
assembly informed of the activities of their departments. Ceausescu also
declared the need to strengthen the role and organization of the Council
of Ministers to enable it to provide for long-term economic planning. In
addition, he suggested that the heads of three of the more important
mass organizations--the General Union of Trade Unions, the Union of
Communist Youth, and the National Union of Agricultural Production
Cooperatives--be included in the government and be given ministerial
ranking.

The party conference represented a major success for Ceausescu in his
drive to gain undisputed political control. All of his proposals were
unanimously adopted, and the party statutes were changed to enable him
to become the head of state, as president of the Council of State, as
well as head of the party, a reversal of the 1965 proscription against
one individual simultaneously holding prominent posts in both the party
and state. The nomination of Ceausescu was made by Stoica, the incumbent
president of the Council of State, on the grounds that uniting the
highest offices of the party and the state would eliminate the
duplication of functions and increase efficiency. Stoica was given a
position in the party Secretariat and later, in 1969, was named chairman
of the Central Auditing Commission, a post he continued to hold in early
1972.

As a result of the approval of Ceausescu's recommendations, a number of
changes were effected in local government and party organizations.
Certain positions in the party and state organizations were fused, the
county or city party first secretary also becoming chairman of the local
people's council (see ch. 8). The secretaries of local party units and
labor union representatives were included on the councils of the
industrial enterprises.

Following the recommendations of the party conference, the day after the
conference adjourned the Grand National Assembly convened to elect
Ceausescu as president of the Council of State, and it approved
legislation to implement most of the other conference decisions. At the
same time, the assembly elected a new Council of State consisting of (in
addition to Ceausescu) three vice presidents and fifteen other members.
A new Co