National Affairs: Goodbye to All That

In 2½ years, relations between the U.S. and Bulgaria had gone from merely chilly to bitterly cold. In Sofia, U.S. Minister Donald Heath was harassed and insulted by Bulgarian officials. They demanded his recall. When Washington protested, it got only smiling evasions from Bulgarian Chargé d'Affaires Peter Voutov in Washington, sullen silence from Sofia. Last week, his patience exhausted, Secretary of State Dean Acheson broke off diplomatic relations with Russia's Balkan satellite (which was a Nazi satellite before that).

Voutov was sent packing. Heath was ordered home. For good measure, the U.S. froze the dollar assets not only of Bulgaria but of two other little Red hens in the Soviet front yard—Rumania and Hungary.

Moscow, at least, would probably welcome the break—and quite possibly had forced it. The ministry in Sofia had been a better-than-nothing listening post for the U.S. behind the Iron Curtain; more important, it had been a physical reminder to Bulgarian citizens—many of them restive under the Reds—that the U.S. was still in the world.