During World War II, he collaborated with the Tribune de Genève and other newspapers across Europe. In 1944, his book Préliminaires de la guerre à l'Est (Preliminaries of the War in the East) was published under the author name of Grégoire Gafenco by the Egloff publishing house in Fribourg.[2] The book is still considered one of the best analyzes of Soviet-German relations in the run-up to the war.[3]
Postal stamp from 1992 honoring Grigore Gafencu
After the war, Gafencu moved to Paris. He then published in 1946 his second book, Last Days of Europe (Derniers jours de l'Europe), in which he described his voyages across Europe in 1939 and 1940. In the preface he claimed that "the world made a war to kill zone's of influence and we must make a peace to kill them for a second time".
In 1947, he was invited by Yale University Press to the United States for a series of conferences; he then lectured at New York University. He began to form groups that would militate for a European Movement, a federation of European states in which Romania would be included. He participated at the founding of the Free Europe Committee and organized each Tuesday evening in his apartment on Park Avenue, New York City, a series of meetings called Tuesday Panels in which current events were discussed.
He was a member of the Romanian National Committee (1949–1952) and was one of the founders of the Free Romanian League. Gafencu was awarded Order of the White Eagle and other decorations.[4] He died in 1957 of a heart attack at his home in Paris.[5]
A street in Sector 1 of Bucharest is named after him.[6]
Patrick Leigh Fermor described him as "one of the best-looking men I've ever seen, a person of enormous charm and courage".[7]
Writings
Gafenco, Grégoire (1944). Préliminaires de la guerre à l'Est: de l'accord de Moscou (21 août 1939) aux hostilités en Russie (22 juin 1941) (in French). Fribourg: Egloff.
