U.S.-Bulgarian Exchange of Scientists and State Security: Cold War Case Study

Declassified archive documents from the Ministry of the Interior in Bulgaria were used to examine and analyze the subversive activity of U.S. intelligence against Bulgaria conducted via the scientific exchange of these two countries. These documents expose Bulgarian intelligence and counterintelligence's interest, methods, means, and approach with the United States during the Cold War. Although U.S. researchers and scholars represented only a small portion of the U.S. citizens temporarily residing in Bulgaria, they were considered the most dangerous because they had access to the Bulgarian cultural and scholarly elite, hence the opportunity to exert political influence on it.