BULGARIA: Political Illness?

In a democracy, statesmen go on vacation, break a leg, get the flu and even retire or die without creating more than a mild flurry of editorial comments or oratorical farewells. But Communist leaders in their world behind the Iron Curtain fare differently. Because so little information about their lives is allowed to leak out, Red bigwigs can scarcely go away for a country weekend without creating a storm of speculation—on either side of the Curtain—that they have been purged, exiled or demoted in disgrace.

Last week, both the West's chancelleries and Eastern...

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