Grigore N. Filipescu

Grigore N. Filipescu (also known as Griguță Filipescu, Francized as Grégoire Filipesco; October 1, 1886 – August 25, 1938) was a Romanian politician, journalist and engineer, the chief editor of Epoca daily between 1918 and 1938. He was the scion of an aristocratic conservative family, son of the statesman Nicolae Filipescu and a collateral descendant of Alexandru II Ghica. During the early stages of World War I, he and his father led a pro-Allied dissident wing of the Conservative Party. After serving on the front, and behind the lines to 1918, as aide to General Alexandru Averescu, Filipescu Jr. became his political adviser. He had a stint in the Labor Party, merged into Averescu's own People's Party. Filipescu served as the latter group's tactician and campaigner, but had irreconcilable differences with Averescu. Known as an antagonist who fought duels with his political rivals, Filipescu switched parties frequently, hoping to coalesce the conservative groups around himself. He served terms in Parliament and held several other public commissions as an affiliate of the Romanian National Party, the Conservative-Democratic Party, and the National Peasants' Party. In 1929, he founded his own Vlad Țepeș League (later branded "Conservative Party"), which was instrumental in ensuring the ascendancy to the throne of King Carol II, the banished heir. The League participated in the coalition backing Prime Minister Nicolae Iorga, but spoke out against Iorga's debt relief legislation. Withdrawing from government, Filipescu remained one of the few politicians who still supported economic liberalism during the Great Depression. Although suspected of harboring authoritarian tendencies, Filipescu was a public critic of fascism, who supported a continental alliance against Nazi Germany and a pragmatic rapprochement with the Soviet Union. This cause brought him an international reputation, but failed to win him popularity at home. In his final years, before his death from unsuccessful blood transfusion in Geneva, Filipescu stood out as a critic of King Carol, joining efforts with Iuliu Maniu and Nicolae Titulescu. His parallel career as a civil servant and businessman had culminated in his appointment as Romanian Telephone Company president, in which capacity he served from 1930 to the time of his death. This assignment was also marked by scandals involving his confirmed wiretapping of political targets, and also his alleged mismanagement. Biography