
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SATURDAY, June 12, 1993                   TAG: 9306120027
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A-5   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE: MOSCOW                                LENGTH: Short

YELTSIN ADVISER: SOVIETS PLOTTED DEATH OF TITO

Soviet agents planned to assassinate former Yugoslav leader Josip Broz Tito in the 1950s using lethal bacteria or a poisoned jewel box, a senior adviser to President Boris Yeltsin says.

The murder of Tito, who was a thorn in the Soviet Union's side, was never actually attempted.

But the forerunner of the KGB devised elaborate plans for the killing and even chose the assassin, a Soviet spy who had become Costa Rica's ambassador to Yugoslavia, Dmitry Volkogonov wrote in Thursday's Izvestia.

Volkogonov is a prominent historian and retired general who serves as Yeltsin's military adviser. He has been an active researcher in formerly secret Soviet archives.

Tito was a Soviet ally during World War II, when he led the Yugoslav resistance to Nazi Germany. He established a Communist government in Yugoslavia in 1945 but stopped obeying Moscow's orders three years later, enraging Stalin. - Associated Press

by CNB