[2] Born in Craiova as the son of Army general Ioan Argetoianu [ro], he trained in Law, Medicine, and Letters at the University of Paris, and later entered the diplomatic service (1897).

[3] He was an exceptionally prosperous man (a noted Stock Exchange player and landowner in Breasta, Dolj County), and his frequent change in political allegiances was attributed by some of his contemporaries to his financial independence.

[7] Throughout 1918, during the final stages of the Romanian Campaign, Argetoianu was Justice Minister, sitting on the first Averescu cabinet (at the time when authorities had retreated to Iași, once the southern half of the country was occupied by Imperial German, Austro-Hungarian and Bulgarian troops).

[11] In March 1921, it was uncovered that an associate of his named Aron Schuller had attempted to contract a 20 million lire loan with a bank in Italy, using as collateral Romanian war bonds that he had illegally obtained from the Finance Ministry reserve.

[14] Argetoianu later stated that the arrest lacked legal grounds, and indicated that he purposely gave the Socialist Gheorghe Cristescu approval to hold the congress as a means to incriminate the faction.

[19] As the monarch's relations with the traditional political class were souring, Argetoianu allegedly engaged in a campaign to draw new allegiances from other environments, aiding to establish a Romanian camarilla — it was even reported that, using the official commitment to neutral technocracy as a means to appoint his choice of people to positions of influence, he had recruited his fellow Bucharest Jockey Club members.

[20] He was again in charge of Internal Affairs and Finance from 1931 to 1932, during the Iorga government,[21] when he took a harsh stance against the fascist Iron Guard, outlawing it and arresting some of its members (which led to a string of violent confrontations).

[22] Argetoianu was hotly contested as Finance Minister: faced with the widespread insolvency of small agricultural holdings in front of the Great Depression, he proposed a form of liquidation that was considered in breach of the 1923 Constitution.

[24] The government was voted out of office in the elections of 1932, when Iorga was replaced by Alexandru Vaida-Voevod, a member of the National Peasants' Party (PNŢ) who was himself challenged with solving the agrarian issue;[25] Argetoianu subsequently founded the minor Agrarian Union Party, which, after the National Liberals returned to power with Ion G. Duca, remained a close associate of the king in his competition with traditional forces; when Duca was assassinated by the Iron Guard in the final days of 1933, Argetoianu, together with his former adversary, PNŢ dissident Grigore Iunian, and the National Agrarian Party's Octavian Goga, was probably one of the king's main options in his attempt to create an altogether new political establishment around the camarilla, relying on a compromise with Corneliu Zelea Codreanu (leader of the Iron Guard).

[31] Carol's regime crumbled after the Second Vienna Award, when Romania had to cede Northern Transylvania to Hungary; it was replaced by the Iron Guard's National Legionary State, which, itself repressed during the previous years, began a campaign of retaliation — like Tătărescu and several others, Argetoianu was kidnapped on November 27, 1940 in the wake of the Jilava Massacre, and faced assassination until being rescued by the intervention of Romanian Army officials.

[31] Romania's withdrawal from the Axis in August and the start of Soviet occupation caused him to return in November, seeing an opportunity in the apparent decrease in the appeal of traditional parties and expanding on his vision of Romanian-Soviet cooperation.

[31] The UNMR disbanded over worries that Argetoianu was losing credibility with Soviet authorities—the group around Cornățeanu joined Premier Groza's Ploughmen's Front, while others entered the Union of Patriots.