BELIEVED DISMISSED

Otago Daily Times, Issue 27058, 18 April 1949, Page 5

BELIEVED DISMISSED

BULGARIAN PRIME MINISTER “LEAVE OF ABSENCE THROUGH ILLNESS ” NZPA—Copyright Rec. 9 p.m. LONDON, Apl. 17. V The official Bulgarian announcement, that the country’s Communist Prime Minister, Mr Georgi Dimitrov, has been “granted leave of absence through illness ” and is having medical treatment in Russia, is believed to mean that he has left Bulgarian politics for good, says the Vienna correspondent of tjie Daily Mail. The announcement caused a sensation in middle Europe, where some quarters deduced that Mr Dimitrov has been sacked. Mr Dimitrov originally won fame as a defendant in the Reichstag trial and later became secretary-general of the Cominform. The correspondent says he was for years a favourite at the Kremlin. The bare communique of the illness and leave of absence of Mr Dimitrov was published in Sofia to-day without comment, but informed circles derided any reports abroad that he had retired either as Premier or as head of the party. The communique said Mr Dimitrov was ill and had been granted leave of absence and that he was taking medical treatment in Russia. In Washington a State Department spokesman expressed the belief to-day that Mr Dimitrov, who has officially gone to' Russia on “leave,” actually has given up control over the Soviet satellite nation.

A press officer, Mr Michael McDermott, said that Mr Dimitrov’s “leave" seemed to provide a background to the recent dismissal of Mr Rostov, the Deputy Premier, and the reported purges of other Communists in Bulgaria: Apparently these moves were related to the question of the official succession of Mr Dimitrov. Mr Rostov was No. 2 Bulgarian Communist.