Georgy Markov

Seeking to stand tall under the glaring light of glasnost , Bulgaria has ordered its spies in from the cold and furled its poison-tipped umbrellas. The Balkan nation that once directed one of the world's most sinister secret services has declared a formal end to all hostile intelligence activity and opened its archives to foreign scrutiny.

Seeking to stand tall under the glaring light of glasnost , Bulgaria has ordered its spies in from the cold and furled its poison-tipped umbrellas. The Balkan nation that once directed one of the world's most sinister secret services has declared a formal end to all hostile intelligence activity and opened its archives to foreign scrutiny.

It was pure Cold War intrigue--the mysterious execution on London's Waterloo Bridge of a Bulgarian defector and one-time close friend of the country's Communist leader. It was as dramatic as anything from the pages of a John le Carre novel. Writer and playwright Georgy Markov died from a massive dose of poison--contained either in a bullet or the tip of an umbrella that jabbed into his thigh as the assassin passed him on the bridge crowded with pedestrians.

It was pure Cold War intrigue--the mysterious execution on London's Waterloo Bridge of a Bulgarian defector and one-time close friend of the country's Communist leader. It was as dramatic as anything from the pages of a John le Carre novel. Writer and playwright Georgy Markov died from a massive dose of poison--contained either in a bullet or the tip of an umbrella that jabbed into his thigh as the assassin passed him on the bridge crowded with pedestrians.

Georgy M. Markov, 75, an ideological hard-liner, was reelected leader of the Soviet Writers Union, the official Soviet news agency Tass reported Saturday. Markov, who had led the union since 1971 in the post of first secretary, was elected chairman, a post that has been vacant for years. Vladimir G. Karpov, 64, editor of the literary journal Novy Mir, was elected first secretary, Tass reported. Neither Markov nor Karpov is known outside the Soviet Union as a literary figure.

In their most comprehensive disclosures about biological weaponry, Iraqi scientists have admitted to conducting groundbreaking research on viruses that make eyes bleed and cause lethal diarrhea in infants and on toxins that can eliminate entire crops, U.N. investigators and U.S. officials said Tuesday.

It is a time-tested way to dispose of enemies. Now a prominent Chechen Web site and some newspapers here are suggesting that a fast-acting poison hidden in a letter was the instrument used in March to kill one of Russia's chief enemies: an Arab guerrilla named Khattab. If so, it would resurrect a method of assassination often used in czarist times and by the former Soviet Union.