Editorial Note

On August 30, on instructions from the Acting Secretary of State, Ambassador Walter Bedell Smith delivered to Soviet Foreign Minister Vyshinsky a note of protest against the sentence of death passed on Nikola Petkov and the Bulgarian National Assembly’s action of August 26, abolishing the Agrarian Union, the political party of which Petkov was the leader. The note reviewed the obligations of the United States, the United Kingdom, and the Soviet Union under the Yalta Agreement, rejected the position taken in the Soviet note of August 25 (see the editorial note, p. 173), and once again requested that the three governments consult regarding the Petkov case and related developments. For the text of Ambassador Smith’s note, released to the press on September 3, see Department of State Bulletin, September 14, 1947, pages 531–533. The British Chargé in the Soviet Union also addressed a note to the Soviet Foreign Minister on August 30 stating that the British Government agreed fully with the argumentation contained in the American note.