In 1995, the Aum Shinrikyo cult released the deadly nerve agent sarin on three Tokyo subway trains, killing twelve people, injuring over one thousand and causing mass panic. Technical problems, leaks and accidents plagued the cult. But the Tokyo subway attack showed what only a small amount of dangerous material could do. The Tokyo calamity resulted from 159 ounces of sarin. By contrast, in Russia, in a remote compound near the town of Shchuchye in western Siberia, there are still 1.9 million projectiles filled with 5,447 metric tons of nerve agents.13
Osama bin Laden was reportedly impressed with the Tokyo subway disaster and the chaos it generated. In 1998, Al Qaeda leaders began to launch a serious chemical and biological weapons effort, code-named Zabadi, or “curdled milk” in Arabic. Details of the effort were later revealed in documents found on a computer used by the Al Qaeda leadership in Kabul. Ayman Zawahiri, the former Cairo surgeon who that year merged his radical group, Islamic Jihad in Egypt, with Al Qaeda, noted that “the destructive power of these weapons is not less than that of nuclear weapons.”14 In 1999, Zawahiri recruited a Pakistani scientist to set up a small biological weapons laboratory in Kandahar. Later, the work was turned over to a Malaysian who knew the 9/11 hijackers and had helped them, Yazid Sufaat. He had been educated in biology and chemistry in California, and spent months at the Kandahar laboratory attempting to cultivate anthrax. George Tenet, the former CIA director, said the anthrax effort was carried out in parallel with the plot to hijack airplanes and crash them into buildings.15 He believed, he said, that bin Laden’s strongest desire was to go nuclear. At one point, the CIA frantically chased down reports that bin Laden was negotiating for the purchase of three Russian nuclear devices, although details were never found. “They understand that bombings by cars, trucks, trains, and planes will get them some headlines, to be sure,” Tenet wrote. “But if they manage to set off a mushroom cloud, they will make history… Even in the darkest days of the Cold War, we could count on the fact that the Soviets, just like us, wanted to live. Not so with terrorists.”16
It is difficult to build a working nuclear bomb, but less difficult to cultivate pathogens in a laboratory. A congressional commission concluded in 2008 that it would be hard for terrorists to weaponize and disseminate significant quantities of a biological agent in aerosol form, but it might not be so difficult to find someone to do it for them. “In other words,” the panel said, “given the high-level of know-how needed to use disease as a weapon to cause mass casualties, the United States should be less concerned that terrorists will become biologists and far more concerned that biologists will become terrorists.”17
The tools of mass casualty are more diffuse and more uncertain than ever before. Even as securing the weapons of the former Soviet Union remains unfinished business, the world we live in confronts new risks that go far beyond Biopreparat. Today one can threaten a whole society with a flask carrying pathogens created in a fermenter in a hidden garage—and without a detectable signature.
The Dead Hand of the arms race is still alive.
————— ILLUSTRATIONS —————
Lev Grinberg (left) and Faina Abramova, the pathologists who autopsied victims of the 1979 Sverdlovsk anthrax outbreak. [David E. Hoffman]
The Chkalovsky district, where the outbreak occurred. [David E. Hoffman]
Sergei Popov, the bright young researcher who worked on genetic engineering of pathogens, and his wife, Taissia, at Koltsovo in 1982. [Sergei Popov]
Lev Sandakhchiev, the director of Vector, who pushed to create artificial viruses for weapons. [Andy Weber]
Igor Domaradsky, the “troublemaker” at Obolensk who attempted to alter the genetic makeup of pathogens. [David E. Hoffman]
Vitaly Katayev (in eyeglasses at left), an aviation and rocket designer by profession, began in 1974 to work for the Central Committee in Moscow. In the years leading up to the Soviet collapse, he kept detailed notebooks, filled with technical information about weapons systems and key decisions. Here, he attends a May Day celebration, date unknown. [Ksenia Kostrova]
Katayev in the 1990s. [Ksenia Kostrova]
A Katayev drawing on modular missiles. [Hoover Institution Archives]
President Ronald Reagan and the Joint Chiefs of Staff discussed the concept of missile defense on February 11, 1983. The president wrote in his diary that night, “What if we tell the world, we want to protect our people, not avenge them…?” [Ronald Reagan Library]
Reagan unveiled his vision for the Strategic Defense Initiative in a televised speech on March 23, 1983. [Ray Lustig/Washington Post]
The nuclear accident at Chernobyl in April 1986 was a turning point for Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev. [Reuters]
Marshal Sergei Akhromeyev, chief of the Soviet General Staff, played a key role in Gorbachev’s drive to slow the arms race. [RIA Novosti]
A poster outlining Gorbachev’s proposal in 1986 to eliminate all nuclear weapons by the year 2000. Akhromeyev is identified on the reverse as the main author. [Hoover Institution Archives]
At the Reykjavik summit, October 11–12, 1986, Gorbachev and Reagan came closer than any other leaders of the Cold War Period to agreements that would slash nuclear arsenals. [Ronald Reagan Library]
They parted without a deal after Reagan insisted that his cherished dream of missile defense could not be limited to research in the laboratory. [Ronald Reagan Library]
Yevgeny Velikhov (right), an open-minded physicist, helped break through the walls of Soviet military secrecy. With Thomas B. Cochran of the Natural Resources Defense Council, near the Semipalatinsk nuclear test site, July 1986. [RIA Novosti]
Velikhov and Cochran arranged an unprecedented joint experiment to verify the presence of a nuclear warhead on a missile aboard the Slava, a Soviet cruiser off the coast of Yalta, July 1989. [Thomas B. Cochran]
Anatoly Chernyaev, who harbored hopes for liberal reform in the Soviet Union, became Gorbachev’s top foreign policy adviser in 1986 and remained at his side until 1991. [Photograph courtesy of Dr. Svetlana Savranskaya, National Security Archive, Washington, D.C.]
Valery Yarynich, who spent thirty years in the Soviet Strategic Rocket Forces and General Staff, helped bring to fruition the semiautomatic missile launch system known as Perimeter, a modified “Dead Hand.” [Valery Yarynich]
Gorbachev returns to Moscow on August 21, 1991, after the failed coup attempt during which he lost control of the nuclear command system. [TASS via Agence France-Presse]
Gorbachev concludes his resignation speech on December 25, 1991. [AP Photo/Liu Heung Shing]
Secretary of State James A. Baker III closely questioned Russian President Boris Yeltsin about who controlled the nuclear weapons as the Soviet Union neared collapse. [AP Photo/Liu Heung Shing]
Vladimir Pasechnik, the director of the Institute of Ultra-Pure Biological Preparations in Leningrad, defected to Britain in 1989 and revealed the true size and scope of the Soviet biological weapons program. [Photograph courtesy of Raymond Zilinskas at the Monterey Institute]
Pasechnik’s business card.
In this memo to Gorbachev about biological weapons on May 15, 1990, Politburo member Lev Zaikov wrote the word biological by hand, due to its sensitive nature. [Hoover Institution Archives]
Senators Sam Nunn, Democrat of Georgia (right), and Richard Lugar, Republican of Indiana, saw the dangers of loose nuclear materials and weapons in the former Soviet Union. [Ray Lustig/Washington Post]
Andy Weber, a U.S. diplomat, located 1,322 pounds of highly-enriched uranium in Kazakhstan. Here, an image of the uranium, which was airlifted out in Project Sapphire. [Andy Weber]
Loading the uranium onto cargo planes to be flown to the United States. [Andy Weber]
President George H. W. Bush raised questions about biological weapons in a private talk with Gorbachev at Camp David, June 2, 1990. [George Bush Presidential Library and Museum]
Christopher Davis, the senior biological warfare specialist on the British Defense Intelligence Staff, m
akes a video recording during a second visit to Pasechnik’s institute in November 1992. Yeltsin promised to end the biological weapons program, but it continued nonetheless. [Christopher Davis]
Ken Alibek was chief of the anthrax factory built at Stepnogorsk, and later served as deputy director of Biopreparat, the Soviet biological weapons system. [James A. Parcell/Washington Post]
The Stepnogorsk anthrax facility, with underground bunkers in the foreground. [Andy Weber]
Inside the Stepnogorsk complex, machines were ready to create tons of anthrax for weapons if the Kremlin had given the order. [Andy Weber]
Dry, deserted Vozrozhdeniye Island as seen by Weber and his team as their helicopter approached for the first time in 1995. The island held clues to years of biological weapons testing. [Andy Weber]
Searching for buried anthrax on Vozrozhdeniye Island. [Andy Weber]
Weber, who helped uncover the secrets of the Soviet biological weapons program, found rusting cages once used to hold primates for germ warfare testing on the island. [Andy Weber]
In a tin can of peas at a lightly guarded institute, Weber once found samples of plague agent. [Andy Weber]
The graves of the Sverdlovsk anthrax victims. [David E. Hoffman]
————— ACKNOWLEDGMENTS —————
I had the good fortune to be a White House correspondent for the Washington Post during the presidency of Ronald Reagan, and then bureau chief in Moscow in the 1990s. This book had its origins in those experiences, and I am grateful to many friends, colleagues, sources and participants who provided insights, recollections and materials.
My insights into Reagan were drawn from several interviews as well as his eventful eight years in office, and my understanding further enriched by publication of his memoir and private diary. Mikhail Gorbachev granted two interviews for this book, and I benefited from his memoir and extensive writing and public speaking. Anatoly Chernyaev gave me his personal recollections, and his diary is one of the single most valuable accounts of the years of perestroika and glasnost.
Pavel Podvig shared his knowledge of Russian weapons systems and helped decipher the Katayev papers. Svetlana Savranskaya guided me with precision and patience through Cold War memoirs and documents. For additional insights and comments on the manuscript I am grateful to Bruce Blair, Christopher J. Davis, Milton Leitenberg, Thomas C. Reed, Mikhail Tsypkin, Andy Weber, Valery Yarynich and Ray Zilinskas.
I am very much in debt to Ksenia Kostrova, who assisted with the papers of her grandfather, Vitaly Katayev. After the Soviet collapse, Katayev tried to adapt, establishing a private company. He was not very successful, but he continued to dream. One of his more spectacular ideas was to use surplus intercontinental ballistic missles to assist stranded sailors, fishermen or mountain climbers. The missiles would release a rescue package tethered to a parachute. Katayev drew charts and trajectories for his ambitious plan, which he called “Project Vita.” His dream was never realized. Katayev passed away in 2001. His papers are deposited at the Hoover Institution Library and Archives, Stanford University.
Masha Lipman has long been my guiding light on Russia and offered valuable comments on the manuscript. My thanks also go to Irina Makarova, Vladimir Alexandrov and Sergei Belyakov.
At the Washington Post, I am deeply indebted to Katharine Graham and Donald Graham for their trust. They built a newsroom of creativity and dynamism under the leadership of Benjamin C. Bradlee and Leonard Downie Jr. Four gifted colleagues at the Post provided years of inspiration as well as valuable comments on the book: Rick Atkinson, Steve Coll, Michael Dobbs and Glenn Frankel. In addition, Robert G. Kaiser and Philip Bennett were unceasing in their friendship and encouragement, for this project and many others, over all the years we worked together.
Lou Cannon was my partner and tutor in Reagan’s time. My thanks also go to Post colleagues Laura Blumenfeld, Jackson Diehl, David Finkel, Peter Finn, Mary Lou Foy, Michael Getler, Jim Hoagland, Don Oberdorfer, Keith Richburg, Julie Tate, Gene Thorp, Joby Warrick and Scott Wilson. For support in a thousand ways, I am indebted to Rebekah Davis. My thanks also to Katja Hom, Kate Agnew and Terissa Schor.
Robert Monroe shared far more about chemical demilitarization than I could ever absorb, and I am deeply grateful for our long conversations. For research, my thanks to Alex Remington, Josh Zumbrun, Robert Thomason and Anna Masterova. Maryanne Warrick and Abigail Crim transcribed interviews.
An important contribution came from Thomas S. Blanton and the National Security Archive in Washington, which provided key historical documents and analysis. I am also grateful to Anne Hessing Cahn for access to her collection of papers at the archive.
I have been enriched by years of guidance and teaching by Archie Brown at St. Antony’s College, Oxford University.
Valuable contributions were also made by Ken Alibek, Martin Anderson, James A. Baker III, Rodric Braithwaite, Matthew Bunn, Joseph Cirincione, Thomas C. Cochran, Dick Combs, Igor Domaradsky, Sidney Drell, Erik Engling, Kenneth J. Fairfax, Andy Fisher, Chrystia Freeland, Oleg Gordievsky, Tatiana Gremyakova, Jeanne Guillemin, Cathy Gwin, Josh Handler, Anne M. Harrington, Laura Holgate, Richard Lugar, Matthew Meselson, Vil Mirzayanov, Kenneth A. Myers III, Sam Nunn, Vladimir Orlov, Sergei Popov, Theodore A. Postol, Amy Smithson, Margaret Tutwiler, Yevgeny Velikhov, Frank von Hippel and Lawrence Wright.
I am grateful for a media fellowship at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, in 2004, which allowed me time for research. At the Hoover Library and Archives, I was assisted with great professionalism by Carol Leadenham, Lara Soroka, Heather Wagner and Brad Bauer.
At the Liddell Hart Centre for Military Archives, Kings College, London, my thanks to Caroline Lam and Katharine Higgon, and at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library, my gratitude to Lisa Jones. I also profited from research at the British National Archives at Kew, and the U.S. National Archives at College Park, Maryland.
To Esther Newberg, my deepest appreciation for unflagging commitment and enthusiasm. At Doubleday, Bill Thomas gave the project a life. From our first conversations, Kristine Puopolo provided wise counsel and was a thoughtful, inspiring editor. And my thanks also to Stephanie Bowen.
To my wife, Carole, who read the entire manuscript many times over, to my sons, Daniel and Benjamin, and to my parents, to whom this book is dedicated, I express profound appreciation for loving support on the long and winding road.
——— ABBREVIATIONS IN NOTES ———
DNSA
Digital National Security Archive,
http://nsarchive.chadwyck.com
EBB
Electronic Briefing Book of the National Security Archive
FOIA
Freedom of Information Act
FBIS
Foreign Broadcast Information Service
Katayev
The papers of Vitaly Katayev at the Hoover Institution Library and Archives, Stanford University, and in author’s possession
NIE
National Intelligence Estimate
TNSA
The National Security Archive,
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/index.html
RRPL
Ronald Reagan Presidential Library
————— ENDNOTES —————
Prologue
1 Margarita Ivanovna Ilyenko, interview, Nov. 30, 1998. Roza Gaziyeva is quoted by Sergei Parfenov in Rodina, no. 5, Oct. 24, 1990.
2 Matthew Meselson, Jeanne Guillemin, Martin Hugh-Jones, Alexander Langmuir, Ilona Popova, Alexis Shelokov, Olga Yampolskaya, “The Sverdlovsk Anthrax Outbreak of 1979,” Science, 1994, vol. 266, pp. 1202-1208; Jeanne Guillemin, Anthrax: The Investigation of a Deadly Outbreak (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999); Ken Alibek, with Stephen Handelman, Biohazard: The Chilling True Story of the Largest Covert Biological Weapons Program in the World—Told from Inside by the Man Who Ran It (New York: Random House, 1999), Ch. 7.
3 Theodore J. Cieslak and Edward M. Eitzen Jr., “Clinical and Epidemiologic Pri
nciples of Anthrax,” in Emerging Infectious Diseases, vol. 5, no. 4, July–Aug. 1999, p. 552.
4 Alibek was told the accident resulted from failure to replace a filter, but this account has never been confirmed. Alibek, pp. 73–74. Alibek said the release occurred on Friday, March 30. Given wind patterns, Monday April 2 seems more likely. Alibek told the author Monday was possible.
5 The children may have been indoors, in schools, or had a different immune system reaction, or been less susceptible to airborne anthrax than adults.
6 Lev M. Grinberg and Faina A. Abramova, interviews, Nov. 30, 1998. Abramova’s account also appeared in Rodina.
7 Guillemin, p. 14.
8 Vladlen Krayev, interview, Nov. 1998. It was later realized the incubation period could be much longer.
9 Some months after the epidemic, the KGB searched Hospital No. 40 for materials. Abramova hid unlabeled samples on a high shelf. The KGB did not find them.
10 Petrov interviews, January 1999; Jan. 22, 2006, May 29, 2007.
11 Pavel Podvig, “History and the Current Status of the Russian Early Warning System,” Science and Global Security, October 2002, pp. 21–60.
12 Podvig, p. 31.
INTRODUCTION
The Dead Hand Page 57
