Perhaps I'm overestimating our intelligence capacity, but in those Cold War days, I wouldn't be surprised if the CIA had kept a thick file on me. I can see my Supreme Court nomination now. "Correspondence with the operatives of Nicolai Ceaucescu. Called Castro's propaganda 'fascinating.' Took gifts from Yuri Andropov. In possesion of Bulgarian tassles." Guilty, Guilty, Guilty!

The folks on the other end of the Iron Curtain must have had a field day with my correspondence too. "Look, we've got another idealistic American youth," the Bulgarian minister of information probably gloated. "We can count on him when the revolution comes around. In the meantime, give him the Tassle Treatment!" Then he cackles like Bulgarian assasins do in bad spy movies.

I stopped requesting QSL cards when I was about 13, and the stations from Western democracies promptly stopped responding. But the stations from Communist nations knew they had a good thing going, and wouldn't stop writing. Up until last year, I still received my annual Bulgarian tassles and Chinese wall calendar.

I'M HAPPY to say that the end of the Cold War has touched my life in a very real way. I no longer receive the mailboxes full of propaganda that I once did. My East German subscription to the Marxist Review has apparently been terminated, and I suppose I'll have to request a Radio Moscow program schedule if I want one.

I had assumed that all my "propaganda mail" would stop as the socialist world began to crumble. But while I was home last weekend, I heard a familiar call from my mother. "Brian you got mail," she said. "From where?" I asked. "Cuba."

Lest I assume the Cold War was completely over, I was happy to see that my quarterly letter from Radio Havana had arrived right on schedule. And, much to my delight, I still had the opportunity to win a trip to Havana.

And as usual, it was courtesy of Fidel Castro.