Bulgaria's head of state President Georgi Purvanov publicly announced on June 23 that indeed he had a file in the archives of the present National Intelligence Service, under the name Agent Gotse.

This was Purvanov's response to the accusations coming from the right wing and, most of all, from Ivan Kostov, leader of Democrats for a Strong Bulgaria (DSB), that Purvanov was an agent of the former communist secret police State Security before 1989.

On July 23, speaking in National Palace of Culture in front of many foreign diplomats including John Beyrle, US ambassador to Bulgaria, Purvanov decided to bring to light his truth about Agent Gotse. Purvanov said that indeed such a file existed and apparently he has seen it because he described the folder as very rumpled.

"There is not even a line written by me in the Gotse file," Purvanov said. It contained information about Purvanov's work as researcher and editor of the memoirs of a prominent Bulgarian emigrant, whose name Purvanov did not say. The memoirs referred to events from the end of 19th and the beginning of the 20th centuries and had no relation to the Bulgaria's communist times. Purvanov had had to help the author with his memoirs, editing and researching.

The President said that back then he did not know that the person who had contacted him was from State Security, but Purvanov made it clear that this would not have changed his decision.

"Even if I knew that the intelligence services were behind this book, I still would have done my work on it because the author of the memoirs is a real Bulgarian patriot."

Purvanov said that the State Security officer had submitted "an incomprehensible" suggestion to recruit Purvanov as an agent.

"However, nothing like this has happened and my file obviously has been closed," Purvanov said.

This meant that the file contained no proof that Purvanov had co-operated with the communist secret services.

Another thing Purvanov admitted was that he had received a one-time standard fee for his work on the memoirs, although the file did not contain such information. At the end of his statement, Purvanov called on the public to ask not only for the opening of the archives of the former State Security, something Purvanov fully supports, but also to open the "files of the family foundations" from the past 16 years.

This last sentence was a direct reference to Ivan Kostov and the Budeshte za Bulgaria (Future for Bulgaria) charity foundation led by his wife Elena Kostova. The foundation was established in the years of Kostov's time as prime minister (1997-2001) and over that period enjoyed strong financial support from many state-owned companies. After Kostov failed to be re-elected, the foundation's activity declined and Kostova and her accountant were the subject of several accusations by then-prosecutor-general Nikola Filchev of financial irregularities. However, nothing has been proven so far.

The DSB was quick to react to Purvanov's statement and immediately after it, demanded his resignation.

"It is absurd for a country claiming to have parted with its communist past to have a former State Security agent as its President," Kostov said in Parliament. Kostov said that he had found out about the Gotse file in 1997 while prime minister. However, he did not disclose it then because, at that time, to do so would have been unconstitutional.

This raises the obvious question as to why Kostov waited nine years if he knew about Purvanov's file. Another question is why the two former committees, specially set up with the purpose of dealing with the State Security archives, did not say anything about Purvanov.
More interesting is the fact that the committees formally known as the Bogomil Bonev committee and the Metodi Andreev committee were set up in Kostov's time as prime minister. Bonev was interior minister in Kostov's cabinet and Andreev, an MP from Kostov's party. They had to deal directly with the past of Bulgaria's public officials, among which, beyond doubt, Purvanov ranked high. He has been an MP in the past five national assemblies and leader of Bulgarian Socialist Party for four years.

What is even more interesting is that Purvanov must have been checked for connections with State Security as a presidential candidate in 2001. A sign that these questions could be answered in a different way was given during a discussion held on June 27 on private nation-wide channel bTV.

Metodi Andreev said that since Purvanov was filed under the name Agent Gotse, he had to be an agent for the communist police because only the State Security agents had been given aliases. Andreev hinted that Purvanov had agreed to co-operate with State Security, although there was no signed declaration by him as procedure required. Andreev said that a State Security officer had written a report that Gotse had agreed to co-operate because motivated by patriotic and idealogical reasons.

"In such cases, there was no need for Purvanov to sign anything, but this report is now missing, although in 2001 it was there," Andreev said.

However Bonev said that when the committee led by him read the Gotse file in 1997, they did not find enough reasons to conclude that Purvanov had actually agreed to co-operate with the State Security.

"Obviously the two committees had read different files," Bonev said.

Tsvyatko Tsvetkov, former Interior Ministry secretary general and State Security top officer, said that most probably a State Security officer had just "imitated activity" by signing for Purvanov's consent without the signed declaration.

"Such was the time at the end of the 80s; we had tasks to fulfil and some officers might have cheated," Tsvetkov said on bTV.

Obviously, there was something wrong with Kostov's quest for State Security agents because his actions did not receive vast public support, even from other right-wing parties, which are among Purvanov's harshest critics. What Kostov got from his fellow right-wing partners against Purvanov was nothing more than declarations that all files of the State Security archives should be opened, something Purvanov personally supports.

Four days after his first statement about the Gotse file, Purvanov gave another one, while opening the International Conference on the topic of Bulgarian-US Military Facilities: Possibilities for Trade and Business Partnerships. He referred to Kostov's words that Purvanov was not only an agent, but also an informer and had written reports about his colleagues at the Institute of History of the Bulgarian Communist Party.

"The Gotse file does not mention anywhere the institute in which I worked. Mr Kostov was either deceived, in which case he must apologise, or he is lying," Purvanov said. Kostov's DSB reacted by demanding the set up of a special parliamentary committee to read the complete Gotse file, as the National Intelligence Service had denied public disclosure of the file. This, according to DSB, would stop the mutual allegations from the past week.

(Gotse Delchev was a 19th-century Bulgarian revolutionary. He was the leader of the Bulgarian Macedonian-Adrianople Revolutionary Committees from 1902 to 1920, active in Ottoman Macedonia and Thrace at the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century.)