Office of the Historian

123 Heath, Donald R.

The Bulgarian Legation to the Department of State 1

No. 187

Note Verbale

The Legation of the People’s Re public of Bulgaria in Washington, D.C has been requested by the Bulgarian Government to notify the State Department of the following:

The evidence from the trial of the criminal group of flagrant spies and traitors led by Traicho Rostov, which was planning to overthrow the legally established Powers in Bulgaria, proved before the court that His Excellency, the Plenipotentiary Minister of the United States [Page 505] in Sofia, Mr. Donald Read Heath, had been in contact with Traicho Kostov and Tzonu Tzontchev,2 convicted by the Bulgarian Court for treason and espionage, and had allowed himself to take action not in line with his diplomatic functions. By this, he had shown abrupt interference in the interior affairs of the People’s Republic of Bulgaria concerning its sovereignty as well as its National Security.

In view of these circumstances, the Bulgarian Government announces to the Government of the United States that it considers its Plenipotentiary Minister in Sofia, Mr. Donald Re ad Heath, as persona non grata and requests the United States Government for his immediate recall from Bulgaria.

Washington, January 19, 1950.
  1. At his meeting with President Truman on the afternoon of January 19, Secretary of State Dean Acheson took up the matter of the request contained in this communication:

    “I reported this request to the President and told him that I assumed he would now wish us to carry out the procedure which he authorized at the time of our last communication to the Bulgarian Government. He thought we should do this.” (Memorandum by the Secretary of State, January 19, 1950: Secretary’s Memoranda, Lot 53 D 444, Secretary’s Memoranda—January 1950) Lot 53 D 444 is a comprehensive chronological collection of the Secretary of State’s memoranda and memoranda of conversation for the years 1947–1953, as maintained by the Executive Secretariat of the Department of State.

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  2. Tsonyu Tsonchev, the Governor of the Bulgarian National Bank until his arrest in 1949, was a principal codefendant in the Kostov trial of December 1949.↩