Sofia conference and exhibition - updating previous post

[Ross]

The 60th anniversary of the inauguration of RFE Bulgarian broadcasts
from Munich was celebrated in Sofia on November 11-12. The Bulgarian
State Archives opened an exhibition, “War on the Airwaves,” that
included documents from the Bulgarian Communist secret police files as
well as copies of documents from RFE/RL archives.
The exhibition will remain open through December in the museum of the
Interior Ministry in Sofia. A roundtable at Sofia University
organized by its European Dialogue Center reviewed RFE Bulgarian
broadcasting over sixty years. A first panel included presentations
by Martin Ivanov, chairman of the Bulgarian State Archives, and former
RFE directors A. Ross Johnson and Robert Gillette, followed by
comments by former RFE Bulgarian broadcasters Alex Alexiev, Vladimir
Kostov, Dimitar Bochev, and Diana Ivanova. Zhelya Zhelev, a dissident
who became the first president of post-Communist Bulgaria, recounted
how the late Bulgarian Service broadcaster Romyana Uzunova had
interviewed him by telephone from Munich in mid-1989. A second panel
was devoted to countermeasures of the Bulgarian regime and included
presentations by former RFE/RL security director Richard Cummings,
Jordan Baev (coordinator of the Bulgarian Cold War Research Group),
Maria Deenichina (deputy dean of the Sofia University faculty of
journalism), and journalist Hristo Hristov.

Bulgarian television, radio, and print media covered the events
extensively. Several of the participants were also interviewed for a
forthcoming Bulgarian documentary by Diana Ivanova highlighting the
lives of three members of the Bulgarian Service.