To Russia with Love

By James Kelly

From vegetables to dirty tricks, Bulgaria gives its all

Of all the deeds ascribed to the KGB, perhaps none has drawn more outrage than the allegation that the Soviet Union, acting through Bulgaria, was behind the attempted assassination of Pope John Paul II. Over the decades, the U.S.S.R. has forged a special relationship with Bulgaria, relying on the tiny Balkan nation to perform myriad tasks, some nefarious, some merely fraternal. A report from that littlenoticed, little-understood country:

On a square just off Sofia's Ruski Boulevard facing the National Assembly stands a statue of Tsar Alexander II, ruler of Russia from 1855 to 1881. A prerevolutionary Tsar being honored in a Communist country? History provides the explanation: Alexander II freed the Bulgarians from five centuries of Turkish rule in 1878, at a cost of 200,000 Russian lives. Unlike most of Eastern Europe, Bulgaria regards the U.S.S.R. as its liberator, not its conqueror. The two countries share the Cyrillic alphabet and speak similar languages. Though it is difficult to measure the affection felt by the Bulgarian people toward the Soviet government, there is no doubt about the official devotion of Sofia toward Moscow. As Todor Zhivkov, 71, leader of the Balkan country for the past 39 years, once characterized the relationship, "We will act as a common organism that has common lungs and a common circulatory system." Moscow, in turn, is so confident of the fealty of the country's 8.9 million people that no Soviet troops are stationed on its soil. Says an official in the West German Foreign Ministry: "The relationship is Pavlovian. The Soviets flinch, and the Bulgarians snap to."

That reputation leads Westerners to think of Bulgaria, if they think of it at all, as a sort of 16th republic of the Soviet Union. The country's roots, in fact, lie elsewhere. Its name comes from the Bulgars, a people of Turkic origin that moved south of the Danube and into present-day Bulgaria in the 7th century. Conquered by the Ottoman Turks in 1396, the Bulgarians spent the next 500 years under the yoke of Constantinople before being set free by the Tsar's forces. During both world wars the country sided with Germany, but it could never bring itself to declare war against the Soviet Union. In 1944, the regency of seven-year-old King Simeon II scrambled to forge a separate peace with the Allies, but to no avail. Stalin's troops marched through the country unopposed and a coalition government was installed, with the Communists gaining complete control by 1946.

With help from Moscow, postwar Bulgaria was transformed from a peasant nation of primitive farms into the Socialist version of agribusiness. At the end of World War II fewer than 2% of agricultural plots were larger than 50 acres; by 1970 the average collective or state farm covered more than 10,000 acres. Bulgaria is more than just a vegetable patch: it is the world's second largest exporter of cigarettes, with most of its Shipkas and Stewardesses going to the Soviet Union, and it provides nearly half the world's rose attar, an ingredient in perfumes.

During the 1950s, Bulgaria shifted into industrial gear. Today its industries account for nearly half of the gross national product, while agricultural output makes up only 18%. A Bulgarian firm called Balkancar is one of the world's largest producers of forklifts. Economic growth in 1982 was about 2.5%, one of the highest among the Soviet satellites. Moscow is both a customer and a supplier: it buys about half of Bulgaria's exports and provides 90% of its oil. Consumer prices are relatively high for a Soviet-bloc country ($2 per Ib. for pork, $200 for a small TV set), but goods are widely available.

Given its reputation for Balkan intrigue, the country itself strikes visitors as remarkably serene. In Sofia, a charming if somewhat dowdy city of more than 1 million, main boulevards are lined with massive public edifices, and cobbled side streets are crammed with quaint but tumble-down houses of stucco and red tile. Although policemen can be seen directing traffic, the uniformed squadrons that patrol some other Soviet-bloc capitals are absent; if the police are out of sight, they can nonetheless appear on the scene when necessary. The coast along the Black Sea is dotted with hotels built to attract Western tourists (and their currency), but the mountains and high plains are sprinkled with villages that appear to have changed little since the days of Alexander II.

Zhivkov, who has been in power longer than any other Soviet-bloc leader, is a sprightly, plain-spoken man given to proferring glasses of yogurt to his guests. Though obedient to Moscow, he has cautiously attempted to create a Socialist state more attuned to Bulgarian needs. His economic program, while not as ambitious or as innovative as Hungary's, allows managers more flexibility than in the U.S.S.R. and encourages industrial workers to till plots of an acre or so.

With the appointment of his Oxford-educated daughter Lyudmila Zhivkova as head of the committee for culture in 1975, Zhivkov sought to bolster national identity and pride, reportedly to the displeasure of the Kremlin. It was Lyudmila, for instance, who was the guiding force behind the 1981 celebrations of the 1,300th anniversary of the founding of the Bulgarian state. Halfway through the anniversary year, however, Lyudmila died at age 38 of a brain hemorrhage. Since her death, no one else has emerged as a staunch crusader for Bulgarian nationalism.

After nearly four decades of Communism in Bulgaria, Soviet influence is as pervasive as ever. Although Bulgarian emigres insist that their fellow countrymen chafe under Soviet domination, there is scant evidence to support their view. In Sofia, Soviet Ambassador Nikita Tolubeyev serves as a kind of proconsul, channeling Moscow's instructions to Bulgarian officials. "The Soviets run everything in the country, from the subway system to the secret service," says Stefan Sverdlev, a colonel in the Bulgarian security service until he defected in 1971. Bulgaria's Durzhavna Sigurnost, with its headquarters on General Gurko Street in downtown Sofia, is organized along the lines of the KGB. Each of the DS's five departments has its own KGB "adviser," along with 20 or so KGB officers in its ranks. Many of the 30,000 officers of the DS have been trained by the KGB in the Soviet Union. Interior Minister Dimiter Stoyanov, who oversees the DS, reportedly has studied at the KGB Higher Intelligence School outside Moscow and is considered a protege of Yuri Andropov, who was chief of the Soviet agency at the time. Says former CIA Director Richard Helms: "It is well known in intelligence circles that, point one, the Bulgarian service is closest to the KGB of any satellite, and point two, that it has the reputation of being the most obedient."

As in other East-bloc nations, the KGB runs training camps in Bulgaria. One such center, according to another former DS colonel, is located near Birimirtsi, seven miles north of Sofia. Disguised as a pig farm, the grounds include a four-story building in which agents are given instruction before their missions and debriefed afterward. The camp is reserved solely for foreigners, including Turks, Greeks, Palestinians and West Germans. Many recruits have police records and might welcome a new identity or might be blackmailed into performing odious tasks.

The two agencies are so well integrated that in the late 1960s the head of the DS felt the need to establish a separate branch for the protection of Bulgarian agents only. As a countermove, the KGB decreed that another branch could bug or trail any member of the DS, including its chief. Western intelligence officials believe that in foreign cities the head of Balkantourist, the Bulgarian tourist office, works for the DS, while officials of Balkan Air, the state airline, work directly for the KGB. Says Sverdlev: "Since the Bulgarian security service is completely under the thumb of the Soviets, the real question is how the Russians use them."

For just about anything, according to Western intelligence officials. In the past, the Bulgarians have admitted sending arms to leftist insurgents or liberation movements in Angola, Viet Nam, Algeria, Mozambique and South Africa. Bulgarian ships and planes have been caught smuggling weapons into Lebanon, Yemen, Chile and Tanzania. Many of the deals are handled by government-sanctioned foreign-trade companies, notably a Sofia-based firm called Kintex.

The Bulgarians are impressively versatile. About a hundred work for the Sandinista regime in Nicaragua. More than 1,000 Palestinian guerrillas have received military training in Bulgaria over the past decade, according to Israeli intelligence officials, while many of the heavy arms received by the P.L.O. in Lebanon were shipped from the Black Sea port of Varna. In 1971, Gaafar Nimeiri of pro-Western Sudan charged that the Bulgarians were behind a coup that nearly toppled his regime. In 1978, Bulgarian Exile Georgi Markov died in London after being injected in the thigh with a poisoned pellet from an umbrella wielded by a passerby. Markov's murder is widely believed to be the work of the DS.

The Bulgarian trail is clearest in Turkey, where the DS, undoubtedly working at the behest of the Soviet Union, tried to destabilize a string of governments in the late 1970s. Sofia sold millions of dollars' worth of arms to Turkish smugglers, who supplied both right-wing and left-wing terrorists in their native land. The bloody attacks were halted only by a military coup in 1980. At the time the generals took command, there were as many as 30 killings a day.

In return for running the guns, Bulgaria permitted the dealers to transport European-bound heroin across its borders, no questions asked. The country is perfectly situated for such trade, lying as it does on the northern border of Turkey (see map). According to Ugur Mumc,u, a lawyer in Ankara who has written on the subject, many Turkish smugglers have bases in Bulgaria. The Vitosha Hotel on the outskirts of Sofia has been a favored hangout among smugglers and DS operatives, and its casino is packed nightly with shadowy characters in ill-fitting suits.

The Bulgarians have been found out many times. In June 1977, for example, the Cypriot-flag freighter Vasoula was discovered carrying boxes labeled "mechanical spare parts" and shipped by Kintex. The cargo, supposedly destined for Africa, was in fact headed for Turkey. Inside the boxes: 495 bazookas and 1,000 rockets. In 1980 a shipment of arms from Argentina was intercepted as it was being smuggled into Turkey. When the Turkish government complained, the Argentines shrugged. They had sold the batch to Kintex three weeks earlier.

Bulgaria's reputation as a clearinghouse for dirty tricks is, to be sure, at odds with its image as a country slowly opening up to the West. With its Black Sea resorts and growing export trade, Bulgaria is committed to reaping the economic benefits of stronger ties to countries outside Eastern Europe. On the other hand, the Balkan nation must do Moscow's bidding. It is likely that the case for Bulgaria's complicity in the papal shooting will never be fully proved or disproved. Even so, the circumstantial evidence already gathered surely will leave a stain nearly impossible for the Bulgarians to scrub away. By serving the Soviets so well, the Bulgarians may end up serving themselves poorly.

--By James Kelly. Reported by Richard Hornik/Sofia, with other bureaus

With reporting by Richard Hornik, other bureaus This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.