874.00/1–1546: Telegram
The Representative in Bulgaria ( Barnes ) to the Secretary of State
us urgent
[Received January 18—1:17 a.m.]
55. Receipt of Department’s telegram 10, January 12 providing me with background information on Moscow discussions prompts me immediately [Page 54] to elaborate somewhat further on subject matter mytel 49, January 14.
It is only natural that we should expect Opposition to do its part to assist in good faith in implementation of Moscow agreement with respect to Bulgaria. It is quite as natural that Moscow should expect to exploit this honesty on our part to the fullest. I therefore anticipate that in London (or by other Moscow efforts) Vyshinski will do his best to convince US and Brit that Bulgarian opposition bears full responsibility for the failure and therefore is no longer worthy of consideration by the three Allies.
I believe any such contention to be without solid foundation; in fact that just the contrary is the case—that developments here as they have been currently reported by this Mission since November 1944 conclusively prove that responsibility unsatisfactory situation that now exists rests solely on Russia and Russian abetted Bulgarian Communists. And I am quite as fully convinced that further compromise on our part with respect to present day Balkan problem will prove as futile as efforts once made by Lord Runciman to solve a problem that similarly had been created by an outside influence, an outside influence as determined and amoral as that foreign influence that has given the century old Balkan or Near Eastern problem its present day shape. What is this shape? I am of opinion that there is not an alert observer in the whole of the Balkan peninsula who would disagree with following statement of the problem and I assume this holds for Department as well. Russia is determined to fashion a South Slav Union dominated by it and to be used by it to emasculate Turkey and Greece and to place Russia squarely on eastern Mediterranean and Adriatic. This can be the only meaning of the presence of Georgi Dimitrov in Sofia. No such precious instrument of Russian and Communist policy would have been sent to Sofia merely to chink up Bulgarian wall.
If these are the facts they cannot be made to disappear by Russia’s refusal to agree to any proposal which would not accept the results of Bulgarian elections of November 18. Consideration of the larger issues and of overall relationships might of course reduce importance of the nature of these elections to a minor factor but I submit that Balkan problem as it presents itself today is part and parcel of larger issues and of overall relationships. I also submit that there is nothing in proposed formula of non-recognition until new elections for an Ordinary Assembly are held that would render impossible elaboration in London of a peace treaty for Bulgaria while awaiting developments in Bulgaria that would permit the US Government to recognize Bulgarian Government
[Page 55]Sent Department as 55; repeated to London as 19; Moscow as 27 and Ankara as 4.