The toppling of Rădescu's cabinet in February 1945 was a new step toward the communization of Romania. Indicted as a crypto-fascist by the communist authorities, he escaped to New York City, where he helped form the Romanian National Committee (RNC). He was endorsed by PNȚ-ist diaspora cells, but favored a rapprochement with the Iron Guard as the basis for continued armed resistance. This issue created a rift between the RNC and the Union of Romanian Jews, represented in exile by Wilhelm Filderman. The surviving membership of the Crusade was also hunted down by the Romanian communist republic. According to aviator Ion Coșoveanu, who was for long a political prisoner, Stelists were a distinct faction among the anticommunist underground. Coșoveanu (quoted by writer Niculae Gheran) recalled that, once in prison, Crusade members used to bicker with Iron Guard rivals. Coșoveanu also notes that the Stelist faction accepted into its ranks the poet Radu Gyr, until discovering that he was informing on them for the Guardists.