874.00/6–445: Telegram
The United States Representative in Bulgaria (Barnes) to the Secretary of State
[Received June 4—4:40 p.m.]
298. MinFonAff Petko Stainov and I had a love feast today. It was our first meeting since I had first charged him with dishonesty in the Dimitrov case. He said he hoped that I now understood that circumstances had forced him to support a purely legalistic point of view while all along his sympathies had been with me.
We then dealt with the publicity angle of the case. He is fully aware that the Russians were the first to give out the story. He is in [Page 248] no way disposed to resist the Dept’s revelations of the facts.83 He told me that his second note to the Russians (see my 291, June 2) was drafted before he personally had any knowledge of the Racheva case. He said that this case was too much for anyone to condone and that had he known of it in time, the note would never have been sent. The conversation did not advance a solution of the Dimitrov case, but it did serve to emphasize once again that in this matter, we have only the Communists in the Govt and the Russians outside the Govt against a satisfactory solution.
The Min and I agreed that present US-Bulgarian relations should not be allowed to appear to be conditioned solely by Dimitrov case and the two of us should seek ways and means to emphasize publicly that this affair is merely an incident in the mutual affairs of the two countries and that in other matters we continue to have such normal relations as are consistent with the type of representation now maintained in Bulgaria by the US Govt.
We discussed for a second time the designation of a Bulgarian unofficial rep to the US. We agreed this was a matter which should not be dealt with until the existing precarious situation of the present Govt had been overcome or the Govt replaced. I told him of the view I had expressed to Ganev the other day (re my 293, June 384); he said he thought the advice was good but he was by no means sure the tension now existing within the Govt could be lessened in which jevent a crisis could not be held off much longer. He told me the Communist-favored Socialist Min Neikov85 had taken over the Socialist newspaper and the Socialist Party headquarters with the physical aid of the militia. Govt by “Schmeiser” is how we both characterized the situation.
Rptd to Moscow as 15.
- See Acting Secretary Grew’s statement of June 2, Department of State Bulletin, June 3, 1945, p. 1023.↩
- Not printed; Mr. Barnes had suggested trying to avoid a government crisis pending results of the projected conference at Berlin between President Truman, Prime Minister Churchill, and Marshal Stalin in July (874.00/6–345).↩
- Dimiter Neikov, Minister of Trade (Commerce).↩