TIMES MAGAZINE, AUGUST 3, 2003           Where Have All the Criminals Gone?                               In 1966, one year after Nicolae Ceau¸sescu became the Communist dictator of Romania, he made abortion illegal. "The fetus is the prop- erty of the entire society," he proclaimed. "Anyone who avoids having children is a deserter who abandons the laws of national continuity." Such grandiose declarations were commonplace during Ceau- ¸sescus reign, for his master plan-to create a nation worthy of the New Socialist Man-was an exercise in grandiosity. He built palaces for himself while alternately brutalizing and neglecting his citizens. Abandoning agriculture in favor of manufacturing, he forced many of the nations rural dwellers into unheated apartment buildings. He gave government positions to forty family members including his wife, Elena, who required forty homes and a commensurate supply of fur and jewels. Madame Ceau¸sescu, known officially as the Best Mother Romania Could Have, was not particularly maternal. "The