Constantin Vi?oianu
Vi?oianu in 1945
Minister of Foreign Affairs of Romania
In office 4 November 1944 ? 5 December 1944
Prime Minister	Constantin S?n?tescu
Preceded by	Grigore Niculescu-Buze?ti
In office 6 December 1944 ? 28 February 1945
Prime Minister	Nicolae R?descu
Succeeded by	Gheorghe T?t?rescu
Romania Ambassador to the Netherlands
In office 1 July 1933 ? 1 October 1935
Monarch	Carol II
Romania Ambassador to Poland
In office 1 October 1935 ? 25 October 1936
Monarch	Carol II
Personal details
Born	( 1897-02-04 ) 4 February 1897 Urla?i , Prahova County , Kingdom of Romania
Died	3 January 1994 (1994-01-03) (aged 96) Chevy Chase , Maryland , United States
Alma mater	University of Bucharest University of Paris
Profession	Lawyer, diplomat
Known for	President of the Romanian National Committee

Constantin Vi?oianu (4 February 1897 ? 3 January 1994) was a Romanian jurist , diplomat , and politician , who served as Minister of Foreign Affairs at the end of World War II . He later emigrated to the United States , where he served as President of the Romanian National Committee .

Biography [ edit ]

Early years [ edit ]

Born in Urla?i , Prahova County , he studied at the University of Bucharest and got a doctor's degree in Law at the Sorbonne in Paris . Upon returning to Romania, Vi?oianu practiced as a lawyer at the Olt County Bar (starting in 1926), then at the Bucharest Bar (from 1937). ^[1]

Vi?oianu was technical advisor at the League of Nations . From 1931 to 1933 he was member of the Romanian permanent delegation to the Conference on Disarmament . He was thereafter appointed minister plenipotentiary to The Hague (1 July 1933?1 October 1935) and Warsaw (1 October 1935?25 October 1936). ^[1]

World War II [ edit ]

During World War II , Vi?oianu was an unofficial advisor to the opposition to the dictatorial regime of Ion Antonescu . In April 1944 he went on a secret mission to Cairo , where he helped negotiate the terms of Romania's armistice with the Allies and its subsequent participation in the war against Nazi Germany . ^{[2] [3]} On 25 May 1944, he presented an amended proposal for armistice terms, drawn by a committee consisting of Ghi?? Popp  [ ro ] and Ioan Hudi?? ( PN? ), Bebe Br?tianu and C. Zamfirescu ( PNL ), ?tefan Voitec and Iosif Jumanca ( PSD ), Petre Constantinescu-Ia?i and Vasile Bagu ( PCR ). ^[3] The Romanians hoped to conclude terms only with the Anglo-Americans , and were reluctant to meet with the Soviets directly, whereas the Allies insisted on Russian priority. ^[4] As recounted by Vi?oianu in a 1990 interview, the proposal was turned down by the Allies on June 1. ^[3]

After the Romanian coup d'etat of 23 August 1944, when King Michael I of Romania removed the government of Antonescu and Romania switched sides from the Axis to the Allies, Vi?oianu was named Minister of Foreign Affairs of Romania , at the recommendation of Iuliu Maniu . ^[1] He served in that capacity from 4 November 1944 to 28 February 1945 in the S?n?tescu and R?descu governments. At the beginning of 1945, Vi?oianu transferred to his associate Alexandru Cretzianu  [ ro ] 6 million Swiss francs from an account previously constituted in Switzerland by the Antonescu government. ^[5] He was smuggled out of Romania in 1946 by United States agents when the Romanian Communist Party rose to power; he reportedly left on a plane, together with Grigore Niculescu-Buze?ti . ^[1] At the November 1947 trial of National Peasants' Party leading figures such as Maniu and Ion Mihalache , Vi?oianu was sentenced in absentia by the Military Tribunal of the Second Region of Bucharest to 15 years of forced labor . ^[6]

In the United States [ edit ]

Using the funds he and Cretzianu had appropriated in 1945, the two managed to wrest political control over the Romanian exiles from former prime-minister Nicolae R?descu . ^[5] According to a report later written by Vi?oianu, half the funds were collected by Cretzianu, and the rest were deposited in a secret fund with the Bank of Switzerland. Of this money, a small part was used to support the work of a group of Romanians at the Paris Peace Conference , and another part was used to support, for a while, the activities of Romanian exiles in the United States. ^[1]

In 1950 Vi?oianu was appointed by former King Michael I to be the president of the Romanian National Committee , which had been founded in 1948 in New York to express opposition to Communist rule in Romania. ^{[1] [2]} In that role (which he held until the committee was dissolved in 1975), Vi?oianu would send messages to the Romanians in the country, read on the BBC World Service , Voice of America , and Radio Free Europe . He also held meetings with U.S. officials, such as John Foster Dulles , Dean Acheson , and John C. Campbell, and wrote memoirs to the U.S. Presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford and the President of France , Charles de Gaulle , in which he called on senior Western officials to intervene for the respect of human rights and freedoms by the Communist government in Bucharest. ^[1]

In 1994 he died of cancer at his home in Chevy Chase, Maryland , at age 96. ^[2]

Writings [ edit ]

• Vi?oianu, Constantin (1926), "Cronica Extern?. (Pactul Franco-Romin.—Pactul Italo-Romin)" [Foreign Column. (The Franco-Romanian Pact.?The Italo-Romanian Pact)], Via?a Romaneasc? (in Romanian), vol. 18, no. 10, pp. 103?110
• Vi?oianu, Constantin (1927), "Diploma?ie fascist? sau jocurile de noroc" [Fascist diplomacy or gambling], Via?a Romaneasc? (in Romanian), vol. 19, no. 8?9, pp. 189?195
• Vi?oianu, Constantin (1997). Misiunile mele: culegere de documente [ My missions: collected documents ]. Adrian Severin , George G. Potra, Nicolae Dinu, C. I. Turcu, Ion Calafeteanu, Nicolae C. Nicolescu. Bucure?ti: Editura Enciclopedia. ISBN   973-45-0225-5 . OCLC   39812335 .

References [ edit ]

• Stan Stoica ? Dic?ionar biografic de istorie a Romaniei (Ed. Meronia, Bucure?ti, 2008)