U.S. Plans to Influence Bulgarian Political Changes

On November 10, 1989, the day after the fall of the Berlin Wall, leading figures in the Bulgarian Communist Party (BCP) forced Todor Zhivkov, Bulgaria’s leader for more than 35 years, to resign. A coalition of opposition groups formed the Union of Democratic Forces (UDF) on December 7, to coordinate efforts to “speed up the processes of democratization,” the group asserted in a statement calling for a multiparty system, market economy, independent unions, and a democratic constitution. Three days later, an estimated 50,000 protestors demonstrated in the streets of Sofia to pressure the new communist leadership, headed by Zhivkov’s former foreign minister, Petur Mladenov, for swifter reforms. The next day, Mladenov announced in a televised speech that the constitution would be amended to allow a multiparty system and that free parliamentary elections would be held in the spring. Following another mass protest a few days later, the Bulgarian leadership agreed to initiate roundtable talks with the opposition. In light of these developments, William Dale Montgomery, the US Deputy Chief of Mission in Sofia, sent the following message to the State Department in Washington with suggestions for US organizations to aid in the democratization effort, once again showing the strong interest and role the U.S. took in the break-up of communist Eastern Europe.