During the Cold War, with the totalitarian dictator Todor Zhivkov in control of the country since 1956, the
Bulgarian Darzhavna Sigurmost (DS) was a feared security apparatus; RUMNO was its military counterpart. The DS, implicated in the assassination of Georgi Markov in September 1978 and an attempt on the life of Vladimir Kostov 10 days earlier in Paris, was dismantled in 1990 and replaced by a National Security Service, now headed by Gen. Atanas Atanasov, and a National Intelligence Service led by Gen. Dimo Gyanov