Amerikai Magyar Értesítő, 1985 (21. évfolyam, 1-12. szám)
1985-01-01 / 1. szám
8.oldal Amerikai Magyar Értesítő 1985. január Word From Behind the Iron Curtain By William Kucewicz At great personal risk, a few concerned scientists in the Soviet Union clandestinely warned a visiting Western colleague this year of a top-secret Soviet program to use genetic engineering to create new biological weapons. This account from behind the Iron Curtain further supports reports by Soviet emigres now living in the West of an illicit-weapons program of huge and dangerous potential. The emigre reports were detailed in an eight-part Wall Street Journal series last April and May. In violation of the Biological Weapons Convention of 1972, the Soviets have launched a program to splice toxin genes into common microorganisms, creating deadly new diseases unknown to medical science. Further evidence has been discovered since publication of the series. Besides the traveler’s account of meetings with Soviet scientists, additional Soviet emigres and defectors have told similar stories. By now this newspaper has interviewed more than a dozen former members of the Soviet scientific community who agree the program is under way, though few of them will allow their names to be publicized for fear of danger to friends or relatives still in the Soviet Union. The President’s General Advisory Committee on Arms Control and Disarmament has reported on the Soviet program in the classified version of its report on arms- control violations, though this section was not included in the unclassified version released to Congress and the public. And a group of microbiologists has called for a boycott of cooperation with the Soviets over their refusal to allow the emigration of David Goldfarb, whose case was described in the original articles. Soviet Scientist ‘Embarrassed’ The head of the Soviet program is Yuri Ovchinnikov, a vice president of the Soviet Academy of Sciences. Publication of his involvement last spring came at an inopportune time for him, since he was host in Moscow on June 25-30 of a meeting of the Federation of European Biochemical Societies, with more than 1,000 biochemists from Western and Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union. Several participants report that Mr. Ovchinnikov was "embarrassed” by the reports, though no official protest was forthcoming from Western scientists One Western European scientist attending the meeting, though, tells of being approached by Soviet colleagues to confirm the reports. In an exclusive Journal inter view. He asked that his identity and nationality be kept secret so as to protect his Soviet informers, whose lives, he said, "wouldn’t be worth living" if they were ever tracked down by the KGB. The Western scientist explained that he had been taken aside on two different occasions by several Soviet scientists for private talks in “the open air or crowded gatherings" to avoid KGB detection. “I was just asked if I had read The Wall Street Journal articles." summaries of which had been broadcast in Rüssian by the Voice of America. At that time, the Western scientist said that he hadn’t read or known of the articles. The Soviet scientists, he adds, “told me that the basic facts were correct-that there is a laboratory in Novosibirsk under the control of Sandakh- chiyev which does biological warfare and that Ovchinnikov is in overall control of this.” Lev Sandakhchiyev, a biochemist who was made a “corresponding member" of the Soviet Academy of Sciences in 1981, is deputy director of the Institute of Molecular Biology in Novosibirsk. The director is 1 a military general. The visiting scientist’s Soviet informers had not actually worked on the secret project, which requires the highest level of security clearance, but were qualified and" knowledgeable biochemists. The informers couldn’t provide precise details of the exact nature of the genetic-engineering research, but did say that it involved "engineering toxin genes into influenza virus.” Asked if he thought the Soviet threat was very grave, Fife said: “I really don’t know. . . . It’s not actually clear what they can do.” But he said that genetically altered biological pathogens that could attack man or crops would be extremely dangerous to Western security. About the motivation of the Soviet scientists, the visitor says, “I think they were very worried about the situation and that they thought the West ought to know about it.” A tale buttressing earlier emigre reports is also told by a Soviet scientist who defected within the last two years, is now living in the West and who agreed to be interviewed on this subject even though he has generally avoided the press. “Yes I know about this program," he said. “It’s quite well known in the Academy of Sciences.” He said that his information came from scientists who worked with Mr. Ovchinnikov on the project. He noted, for instance, that a physics laboratory in Moscow had worked on X-ray analysis of molecular proteins in order fo assist Mr. Ovchinnikov’s biochemists in creating a new biological weapon. The defector said of Mr. Ovchinnikov: "He’s playing for power and he’s enthusiastic about a genetic weapon.... He certainly can create it." On the other hand, the defector said that "I got the impression” that the project had run into trouble. He cited a shortage of facilities and difficulties in biochemistry. He said that in the more than 10 years since the program was formed in 1974, Soviet scientists had yet to actually produce a new germ weapon. Nonetheless, he said, the project continues and Mr. Ovchinnikov still hopes to create such a weapon. In the Goldfarb case, British and American scientists are now calling for an international moratorium on the sending of bacterial strains to the U.S.S.R. The moratorium effort is being led in Britain by Michael Yudkin of Oxford University, Simon Baumberg of Leeds University and the London-based International Committee of Scientists for Soviet Refusniks; in the U.S., the moratorium is being urged by Max Gottesman of the National Cancer Institute, Charles Yanofsky of Stanford University and the Committee of Concerned Scientists in New York. "There are ramifications to the Goldfarb case which raise a new and imporfantTssue." say Drs. Goues- man and Yanofsky in a letter of appeal to their American colleagues. They note that one reason the Soviets gave for reneging on a promise of an exit visa is that Mr. Goldfarb intended to leave the country with a collection of common bacterial strains. They ask, "But if these strains are vital to the security of the Soviet Union and form the justification for denying visas to the Goldfarbs-in violation of the Helsinki accords—why should we American scientists continue to supply the Soviets with such strains?” At the request of Congress, the White House recently released a declassified version of what is known as the GAC report, “A Quarter Century of Soviet Compliance Practices under Arms Control Commitments: 1958-1983.” The President’s Committee charged a "recurring pattern of Soviet violations since 1972." In declassifying the document, however, the section on the Soviet genetic-engineering research was completely censored, apparently due to pressure from the State Department. The classified version, obtained by the Journal, says that the Soviet biological- and chemical-warfare program “now seems to be pursuing genetic engineering for new agents.” It cites the possibility of “new. Unique agents,” warns that the “West may remain ignorant of their properties,” and concludes that such a development could have "potential serious consequences." Warning of ‘Dire Implications’ Two American experts on the Soviet efforts, Joseph D. Douglass Jr. and H. Richard Lukens, are even more explicit in an analysis of the Soviet Union’s chemical- and biological-warfare activities in “Strategic Review," published by the U.S. Strategic Institute. "The evidence seems conclusive that the Soviet Union not only has already violated the conventions banning the use of these weapons.” They warn of “dire implications not merely for ’formal’ conflict but also the shadowy arenas of terrorism and covert action,” and add: "The vulnerability of the United States across the full spectrum of this burgeoning threat calls urgently for even those elementary measures of national defense that have thus far been ignored or neglected.” The European scientist who was leaked word of the Soviet program at the June biochemistry meeting in Moscow worries
