Resuming Relations

Of all the East European satellites, Bulgaria turns most slavishly around the big Red Moscow star. When Stalin ordered a purge of Titoists in the '40s, Bulgaria's Communists obediently hanged one of their number, Deputy Premier Traicho Kostov, after a show trial at which witnesses asserted he was a traitor who served not only Tito but U.S. Minister Donald Heath. In outrage, Washington broke off relations with Bulgaria.

After Khrushchev denounced Stalin, and one day's official version became the next day's lies, the sycophants of Sofia confessed that the charges against Kostov had been "invented and contrary to the truth"--and wasn't it too bad he was already dead? Bulgaria also proclaimed itself as keen as Khrushchev in its desire to coexist peaceably with the U.S. The U.S. replied coldly that, before patching up relations, Bulgaria would also have to take back its lies about Minister Heath (now U.S. Ambassador to Saudi Arabia).

Shortly before Khrushchev's visit to the U.S. last year, Bulgaria's Ambassador to the U.N. signed a vaguely worded communique in Washington that the U.S. accepted as sufficient apology. A new Bulgarian minister took up his post in Washington praising "the spirit of Camp David," and last week, after a ten-year lapse, U.S. Minister Edward Page Jr., 54, arrived in Sofia to reopen the U.S. mission.

With the resumption of diplomatic ties with Bulgaria, Hungary becomes the only Eastern European country for which U.S. tourist passports are still marked "not valid" for travel. Bulgaria's capital of Sofia (pop. 700,000) is a pleasant city of broad avenues and parks, and has an Intourist-style hotel as garishly new, as poorly heated as Moscow's latest. Bulgaria itself remains Europe's second most backward nation (after Albania). Its farms are 95% collectivized, and outside observers concede that it is perhaps the one satellite nation where many peasants feel, if not happy, at least better off than before the Reds took over.

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