to settle in Bucharest later in that year, he remained under supervision until May 1944. 1944 negotiations and fall of Foriș According to Ioan Mocsony Stârcea, marshal of King Michael I's court between 1942 and 1944, he met Pătrășcanu in April 1944 in order to mediate an agreement between the monarch and the Communists regarding a pro-Allied move to overthrow Antonescu and withdraw Romania, which was fighting the Soviets on the Eastern Front, from the Axis. Pătrășcanu (together with Emil Bodnăraș) represented the Communist Party during the clandestine talks with the National Liberal and National Peasants' parties, aimed at overthrowing the Antonescu dictatorship. Corneliu Coposu, who later claimed had friendly contacts with Pătrășcanu at the time, also claimed that the latter had been selected by the Soviets as representative of the Communists (during negotiations in Cairo, Nikolai Novikov, the Soviet ambassador to Egypt, had reportedly first mentioned Pătrășcanu's name to Barbu Știrbey for further contacts). It was also at this time that Gheorghiu-Dej and Bodnăraș, together with Constantin Pîrvulescu and Iosif Rangheț, toppled the general secretary Ștefan Foriș, and assumed leadership of the party (Gheorghiu-Dej had probably attracted Pătrășcanu's support for the planned move as early as 1943). According to Mocsony Stârcea, Pătrășcanu was responsible for a compromise between the Communist Party and institutions of the Romanian monarchy (allegedly assuring the king that it was not his party's intent to proclaim a republic without a previous referendum on the matter). Coposu also claimed that, through Pătrășcanu, the Communist Party had entered negotiations with the other opposition groups and informed them of abandoning its previous theses of the future Romanian state. August 23 and government position The collaboration led to the arrest of Ion Antonescu and Mihai Antonescu at the Royal Palace in Bucharest, during the August 23 Coup (1944). Pătrășcanu (together with Belu Zilber) authored the proclamation to the country which the king read on National Radio immediately after the coup, and, confronting the new Premier Constantin Sănătescu, imposed himself as a PCR representative on the delegation that signed Romania's armistice with the Soviets, on September 12, 1944. Present in Moscow, he contacted Ana Pauker and Vasile Luca through their overseer Andrey Vyshinsky, reestablishing communication between the two major sections of the PCR. Pătrășcanu joined the Central Committee in 1945—after having returned to Romania with the Red Army late in 1944—and was largely responsible for the success his party had