The Dead Hand

21 MacEachin, interview, July 25, 2005.

22 Ross, interview, June 2, 2008.

23 Anatoly Chernyaev, My Six Years with Gorbachev (University Park, Pa.: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2000), p. 244.

24 James A. Baker III, The Politics of Diplomacy: Revolution, War and Peace, 1989– 1992 (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1995), p. 240. Akhromeyev said Shevardnadze’s February concession was “just his mistake.” Sergei Akhromeyev and Georgi M. Kornienko, Glazami Marshala i Diplomata (Moscow: International Relations, 1992), p. 273.

25 A similar thought was expressed by Akhromeyev at a meeting in Zaikov’s office to discuss biological weapons. Katayev took notes, although the date is not clear. The subject was preparing the biological weapons facilities for possible inspection. Katayev noted that Akhromeyev said, “from 6 to 12 months is required to resume the production.” Katayev, Hoover.

26 Alibek, pp. 177–178.

27 The instructions sidestepped past violations. “Additional directives for the USSR delegation to the Soviet American consultations on question of prohibition of bacteriological and toxin weapons,” Central Committee, no date. A cover sheet indicates Politburo approval April 25, 1990, and that they were an expansion of April 2 directives along similar lines. Courtesy Svetlana Savranskaya.

28 Alibek, pp. 189–191.

29 Matlock, communication with author, May 27, 2008.

30 “Memorandum of conversation between the U.S. ambassador to the USSR, J. Matlock, and the British ambassador, R. Braithwaite,” May 14, 1990, Katayev, Hoover. Braithwaite provided a diary extract for the May 14 meeting.

31 “To the President of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, Comrade M. S. Gorbachev,” May 15, 1990, Katayev, Hoover. This document is strong evidence that, by this point, Gorbachev and Shevardnadze did know of the offensive biological weapons program, as Pasechnik had said.

32 The term recipe in this context generally meant a biological weapons preparation.

33 It is not known how much of this was true. Some of it is confirmed by the fragmentary Katayev handwritten notes from the meetings in 1989, in which dismantlement was discussed, but at the time, they were still debating whether to preserve the equipment. Other evidence, including Pasechnik’s debriefings, indicated that pathogens were still being tested, manufactured and weaponized in 1989.

34 The two earlier decisions were taken Dec. 6, 1989, and March 16, 1990, after the Pasechnik defection.

35 Two of the sites he identified had been used in the pre-1969 biological weapons program: the Dugway Proving Ground in Utah and the Pine Bluff, Arkansas, storage facility. A third site he mentioned was described as a private company, Cetus Corporation, of Amityville, California, which has never been found.

36 Interviews with Baker on Sept. 4, 2008; MacEachin, July 25, 2005; Ross, June 2, 2008. Shevardnadze’s formal instructions for the ministerial meeting with Baker were to repeat that the Soviet side wanted to strengthen trust and broaden openness on the topic. See Fond 89, perechen 10, Delo 61, Hoover. Baker described the visit to Zagorsk in his memoir, The Politics of Diplomacy, p. 248, but did not mention the BW paper. Baker also described the ride to Zagorsk in an interview for the PBS Frontline documentary Plague War, aired Oct. 13, 1998. See www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages /frontline/shows/plague/interviews/baker.html.

37 Rodric Braithwaite, Across the Moscow River (New Haven: Yale, 2002), pp. 141–143.

38 Baker, p. 247.

39 See Raymond L. Garthoff, The Great Transition (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution, 1994), pp. 425–428; Beschloss and Talbott, pp. 219–228; Don Oberdorfer, From the Cold War to a New Era (Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998), pp. 410–430; Baker, p. 253; Bush and Scowcroft, p. 283.

40 Matlock said that at first “the bureaucracy in Washington was not happy with the idea of reciprocal visits. They said, in effect, they are violating, we are not. Why should we show them what we are doing? I argued that we should accept reciprocal visits: What did we have to lose?” Matlock, communication with author May 27, 2008.

41 Gorbachev, interview, June 10, 2004.

42 Braithwaite says Thatcher “tackled Gorbachev much more directly” than had her defense minister on biological weapons. “Gorbachev claimed to know nothing but promised to investigate. Intelligence analysts in London and Washington, many of whom still thought there was little to choose between Gorbachev and his predecessors, believed that he knew perfectly well what was going on, and was party to his generals’ deliberate deception,” pp. 141–143. By another account, Thatcher threatened to put Pasechnik on television around the world if Gorbachev didn’t cooperate. Tom Mangold and Jeff Goldberg, Plague Wars (New York: St. Martin’s Griffin, 1999), p. 111.

43 Baker and Shevardnadze met in Paris, July 16–18. The document, prepared jointly by the United States and Britain, painted a picture of a large-scale Soviet germ warfare program that violated the Biological Weapons Convention. Katayev.

44 “Biological weapons,” the Shevardnadze talking points, in draft and final form; also, agendas for the meetings of July 27 and 30, 1990. Katayev.

45 Eduard Shevardnadze, The Future Belongs to Freedom (New York: Free Press, 1991), p. 72. Nikita Smidovich, his aide for chemical and biological weapons policy, said this refers to what he told Baker about biological weapons.

46 MacEachin, interviews, Feb. 7 and 13, 2006.

47 The negotiations resulted in an agreement the first visits would be January 7–20, 1991.

48 Baker, p. 312.

49 Chernyaev, p. 291.

50 Shevardnadze, pp. 197, 212.

51 Michael Dobbs, Down with Big Brother: The Fall of the Soviet Empire (New York: Knopf, 1997), p. 325.

52 Confidential source.

53 This account of the visits is based in part on confidential sources. Also, Davis interview, Aug. 11, 2005; Alibek interview, June 18, 2007; Alibek’s Biohazard, pp. 193–206; Davis interview by Frontline, “Plague War;” and David C. Kelly, “The Trilateral Agreement: Lessons for Biological Weapons Verification,” Chapter 6 in Verification Yearbook, 2002 (London: The Verification Research, Training and Information Center, 2002), pp. 75–92.

54 Davis said they could see enough, and did not want to risk ruining the whole mission on this point. Davis, communication with author, Nov. 4, 2008.

55 Popov said the man who tried to stop Davis later received a monetary bonus for his effort.

CHAPTER 16: THE YEAR OF LIVING DANGEROUSLY

1 See Yegor Gaidar, Collapse of an Empire, pp. 201–219.

2 Anatoly Chernyaev, My Six Years with Gorbachev (University Park, Pa.: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2000), p. 343.

3 Chernyaev, 1991 g.: Dnyevnik Pomoshchnika Prezidenta SSSR [1991: Diary of an Assistant to the President of the USSR] (Moscow: Terra, 1997), p. 126.

4 Valentin Stepankov and Yevgeny Lisov, Kremlyovskii Zagovor (Perm: Ural-Press, Ltd., 1993), p. 271. Also see Michael Dobbs, Down with Big Brother: The Fall of the Soviet Empire (New York: Knopf, 1997), pp. 336–344; and Anatol Lieven, The Baltic