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The Bulgarians are impressively versatile. About a hundred work for the Sandinista regime in Nicaragua. More than 1,000 Palestinian guerrillas have received military training in Bulgaria over the past decade, according to Israeli intelligence officials, while many of the heavy arms received by the P.L.O. in Lebanon were shipped from the Black Sea port of Varna. In 1971, Gaafar Nimeiri of pro-Western Sudan charged that the Bulgarians were behind a coup that nearly toppled his regime. In 1978, Bulgarian Exile Georgi Markov died in London after being injected in the thigh with a poisoned pellet from an umbrella wielded by a passerby. Markov's murder is widely believed to be the work of the DS.
The Bulgarian trail is clearest in Turkey, where the DS, undoubtedly working at the behest of the Soviet Union, tried to destabilize a string of governments in the late 1970s. Sofia sold millions of dollars' worth of arms to Turkish smugglers, who supplied both right-wing and left-wing terrorists in their native land. The bloody attacks were halted only by a military coup in 1980. At the time the generals took command, there were as many as 30 killings a day.
In return for running the guns, Bulgaria permitted the dealers to transport European-bound heroin across its borders, no questions asked. The country is perfectly situated for such trade, lying as it does on the northern border of Turkey (see map). According to Ugur Mumçu, a lawyer in Ankara who has written on the subject, many Turkish smugglers have bases in Bulgaria. The Vitosha Hotel on the outskirts of Sofia has been a favored hangout among smugglers and DS operatives, and its casino is packed nightly with shadowy characters in ill-fitting suits.
The Bulgarians have been found out many times. In June 1977, for example, the Cypriot-flag freighter Vasoula was discovered carrying boxes labeled "mechanical spare parts" and shipped by Kintex. The cargo, supposedly destined for Africa, was in fact headed for Turkey. Inside the boxes: 495 bazookas and 1,000 rockets. In 1980 a shipment of arms from Argentina was intercepted as it was being smuggled into Turkey. When the Turkish government complained, the Argentines shrugged. They had sold the batch to Kintex three weeks earlier.
Bulgaria's reputation as a clearinghouse for dirty tricks is, to be sure, at odds with its image as a country slowly opening up to the West. With its Black Sea resorts and growing export trade, Bulgaria is committed to reaping the economic benefits of stronger ties to countries outside Eastern Europe. On the other hand, the Balkan nation must do Moscow's bidding. It is likely that the case for Bulgaria's complicity in the papal shooting will never be fully proved or disproved. Even so, the circumstantial evidence already gathered surely will leave a stain nearly impossible for the Bulgarians to scrub away. By serving the Soviets so well, the Bulgarians may end up serving themselves poorly.
—By James Kelly. Reported by Richard Hornik/Sofia, with other bureaus