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 Europe's cafes were once more abuzz with such speculation. The Central Committee of the Bulgarian Communist Party had announced that Premier Georgi Dimitrov, 66, was "on leave," receiving medical treatment in the U.S.S.R. In his absence, hippo-jawed Foreign Minister and Deputy Premier Vassil Kolarov would look after the business of running Bulgaria.

So far, Dimitrov has been the leader of the Cominform campaign against Stalin's Bad Boy Tito. Bulgaria's boss might have fallen into disfavor because the campaign had not yet got very far. Only last year,

Dimitrov had a short run-in with Stalin which was settled only after the Bulgarian Central Committee abjectly confessed that its leadership had been guilty of "boastfulness, lack of modesty, megalomania and a tendency towards luxurious living."

On the other hand, Georgi Dimitrov might really be ill. He has had heart trouble and skin ailments for years. And he went on leave just as the "season" opened in the Communist elite health resorts along Russia's Black Sea coast.

Meanwhile, the outside world got further news of Bulgaria's ex-Deputy Premier

Traicho Kostov, arrested last fortnight for "spying" and Titoist deviations (TIME, April 18). He had been subjected to a fate possibly worse than liquidation. Stripped of all his power, he was appointed director of Bulgaria's National Library.

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