Word: bulgarians
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...Third World, and at the U.N., the KGB cooperates with intelligence services of the Soviet-bloc countries. Closest to the Soviets are the Bulgarians, Cubans and East Germans. Bulgarian intelligence was the most obedient Soviet servant in terrorist operations and had widely penetrated Southern Europe and the Middle East. The Bulgarians worked on the Arabs and Turks. I saw an example of this when KGB recruitment of a Turkish diplomat in New York was accomplished with Bulgarian help...
...also heard from KGB officers in New York that they were outraged when Ludmila, the Oxford-educated daughter of Bulgarian Party Chief and President Todor Zhivkov, tried to reawaken Bulgarian cultural identity in the late 1970s. They considered her activity an "undue liberty." Ludmila became a political figure and a member of the Bulgarian Politburo. She died suddenly at the age of 38. I always wondered whether this was another "wet affair" carried out by the KGB's Bulgarian agents...
...they reported, last week had already delivered more than half a dozen Hind assault helicopters with night-flying capability and firepower equal to that of the most powerful American gunships. If so, it would mark the first time the Soviets have shipped weapons directly to Nicaragua instead of using Bulgarian and Cuban intermediaries. Such a move would be a direct challenge to clear U.S. warnings that the delivery of sophisticated aircraft would constitute an unacceptable destabilization of the regional balance of power...
...Martella document adds another layer of complexity to the Bulgarian connection. In the report's summary, the judge ordered three Bulgarians and five Turks to be tried for the conspiracy...
Among them is Zhelio Vassilev, a former official of the Bulgarian embassy in Rome, who is currently in Sofia and thus beyond the reach of Italian law. Martella relates that according to Agca, Vassilev urged at a May 10, 1981, meeting of the conspirators that the shooting be carried out as soon as possible. According to Agca, Vassilev emphasized urgency be cause "French and Rumanian secret services . . . had come to know about the possibility of [the assassination], and that the news had probably been given to them by some Bulgarian who played a double-cross." Martella reports that "many confirmations...