The Dead Hand (92 page)

39
James A. Baker III,
The Politics of Diplomacy: Revolution, War and Peace, 1989–1992
(New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1995), pp. 572, 575. Also, “JAB notes from 1-on-1 mtg. w/B. Yeltsin during which command & control of nuclear weapons was discussed, 12/16/1993,” courtesy Baker. Under the Soviet system, there were three
Cheget
suitcases, with the president, defense minister and chief of the general staff each having one. But according to Baker’s notes, it seems that at this moment, the three were distributed among Yeltsin, Shaposhnikov and Gorbachev.

40
Gorbachev,
Memoirs
, p. 670.

41
Andrei S. Grachev,
Final Days: The Inside Story of the Collapse of the Soviet Union
(Boulder: Westview Press, 1995), pp. 189–190.

42
Katayev, a chart, March 1991.

1
Yeltsin’s Address to the Nation, Central Television, Dec. 29, 1991, BBC Summary of World Broadcasts.

2
Leon Aron,
Yeltsin: A Revolutionary Life
(New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2000), p. 483.

3
Vladimir Gubarev,
Chelyabinsk-70
(Moscow: Izdat, 1993); and
Lev
i
Atom: Akademik L. P. Feoktistov: Aftoportpet ha fone vospominaniye
[Academician Lev P. Feoktistov: A Self-Portrait and Reminiscences] (Moscow: Voskresenye Press, 2003).

4
Avrorin, the Chelyabinsk director, sent his first e-mail in April. Cochran correspondence files, 1991–1992.

5
James A. Baker III,
The Politics of Diplomacy: Revolution, War and Peace, 1989–1992
(New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1995), pp. 614–616. This account is based on my notes and account in the
Washington Post
, “Atom Scientists at Ex-Soviet Lab Seek Help; Baker Hears Appeals on Tour of Arms Complex,” Feb. 15, 1992, p. A1;
Thomas L. Friedman, “Ex-Soviet Atom Scientists Ask Baker for West’s Help,”
New York Times
, Feb. 15, 1992, p. 1.

6
“Moscow Science Counselors Meeting,” State Department cable, Jan. 31, 1992.

7
“Comprehensive Report of the Special Advisor to the DCI on Iraq’s WMD,” CIA, Sept. 30, 2004.

8
Glenn E. Schweitzer, who became the first executive director of the science center, said these were his best estimates.
Moscow DMZ
(Armonk, N.Y.: M. E. Sharpe, 1996), pp. 103–104.

9
This was a tiny amount compared to the $295 billion annual American defense budget that year.

10
The institute developed diagnostic and measuring equipment for underground nuclear tests.

11
Anne M. Harrington, interviews, July 30 and August 11, 2004.

12
In 1996, after about two and a half years of operation, the ISTC estimated that nuclear weapons scientists and engineers received 63 percent of its grants and missile specialists 16 percent. ISTC brochure.

13
Victor Vyshinsky, interview, Oct. 13, 1998.

14
See “Statement of the Director of Central Intelligence Before the Senate Armed Services Committee,” Jan. 22, 1992.

15
Andrei Kolesnikov, “Russian Scientists Accused of Wanting to Help North Korea Become a Nuclear Power,”
Moscow News
, April 2, 1993. Evegni Tkachenko, TASS, Feb. 10, 1993, cited the local newspaper
Chelyabinski Rabochi
, which quoted local officials as saying the recruitment was engineered by North Korea to modernize their missile forces. On February 24, Tkachenko quoted Bessarabov as saying there was no work at the institute, where his ruble salary was equivalent to $6 a month. Interview with retired federal security official, Sept. 1, 2004.

16
Michael Dobbs, “Collapse of Soviet Union Proved Boon to Iranian Missile Program,” TWP, Jan. 13, 2002, p. A19; notes, Dobbs interview with Vadim Vorobei, Moscow 2001. A fascinating account of a second Russian missile expert’s sojourn in Tehran is in Yevgenia Albats, “Our Man in Tehran,”
Novaya Gazeta
, No. 10, pp. 4–5, March 1998. The missile expert was identified only by a pseudonym, but the experience he described is parallel to Vorobei’s.

17
Gharbiyeh set out to obtain advanced missile guidance systems. In November 1994, he appeared at Energomash, a giant Soviet-era rocket engine manufacturer, with a delegation of Iraqis who were disguised as “Jordanian” businessmen. Energomash had built about sixty types of engines over a half century, but in the years after the Soviet collapse, work was scarce, and Energomash was desperate for orders from abroad. Gharbiyeh presented a business card from the “Gharbiyeh Company.” No one at Energomash checked the passports or identity of the businessmen. The visitors outlined technical specifications of the rocket engines they wanted to buy, and on November 18, signed a letter of intent with three Energomash officials to procure them. Victor Sigaev, deputy general director for external economic affairs, and Felix Evmenenko, chief of security for the department for information and international cooperation, NPO Energomash interview, December 1998. They said the deals never went through, the engines were not built and they only learned later that the visitors were from Iraq. Evmenenko said they were given approval in
advance from the Russian government to have the initial meeting. The visitors were told that any deal would have to be formally approved by the government, and they never returned, he added.

18
Gharbiyeh purchased the gyroscopes from the Scientific Research Institute of Chemical and Building Machinery in Sergiev Posad, north of Moscow. Using a front company he created, Gharbiyeh negotiated to buy the gyros and other equipment with three deputy directors and the chief accountant at the institute. He had the gyros tested at a Moscow-based company, Mars Rotor. Vladimir Orlov and William C. Potter, “The Mystery of the Sunken Gyros,”
Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists
, November/December 1998, vol. 54, no. 6. Also, “Ob ugolovnom dele nomer 43” [Re: Criminal Case No. 43], a summary from the Federal Security Service of Russia, 1997, in Russian, author’s possession.

19
“To the Chairman of the Government of the Russian Federation, V. S. Chernomyrdin,” letter from Nechai as well as union and city leaders, Sept. 6, 1996. This account is also drawn from Boris Murashkin, interview, Dec. 3, 1996, Chelyabinsk; “Pominki v Snezhinske” [Wake in Snezhinsk], Grigory Yavlinsky,
Obshchaya Gazeta
, Nov. 6–13, 1996; “Minatom Poobeshali Prioritetnoye Finansirovaniye” [Minatom Promised Priority Financing], Atompressa, no. 35, vol. 227, October 1996, p. 3; “Proshu Pokhronit Menya V Pyatnitzu” [Please Bury Me on Friday], Vladislav Pisanov,
Trud
, Nov. 6–14, 1996; and “Russian Turmoil Reaches Nuclear Sanctum; Suicide of Lab Director in ‘Closed City’ Underscores Angst,” David Hoffman,
Washington Post
, Dec. 22, 1996, p. A29.

1
Hecker’s father, an Austrian who had been drafted into the German army, was lost at the Russian front four months after he was born. He never saw him again. As a young boy in Austria, Hecker had grown up with only dark impressions of Russia, reinforced by his teachers, who returned from the front with grim war stories. At thirteen years old, he emigrated to the United States, and later earned a doctorate in metallurgy and materials from the Case Institute of Technology before going to work at Los Alamos. He rose to become director of the laboratory in 1986. Almost immediately, he was drawn into the arms control debates. In 1988, Hecker and other U.S. scientists carried out a joint nuclear weapons verification experiment with Soviet scientists. The experiments brought the Americans into contact for the first time with Victor Mikhailov, the leading Soviet expert on nuclear testing diagnostics. Hecker, interview, Dec. 9, 2008.

2
See “Russian-American Collaborations to Reduce the Nuclear Danger,”
Los Alamos Science
, Los Alamos National Laboratory, no. 24, 1996, pp. 1–93; and Steve Coll and David B. Ottaway, “Secret Visits Helped Define 3 Powers’ Ties,”
Washington Post
, April 11, 1995, p. A1.

3
The International Convention on the Prevention of Marine Pollution by Dumping of Wastes and Other Matter, Dec. 29, 1972, entered into force for the Soviet Union in 1976.

4
At first, he disclosed waste dumping, and later the reactors were revealed in February 1992 in the newspaper
Sobesednkik
, by Alexander Yemelyanenkov, who represented Arkhangelsk in parliament. Josh Handler, interview, Dec. 19, 2003.
Andrei Zolotkov, “On the Dumping of Radioactive Waste at Sea Near Novaya Zemlya,” Greenpeace Nuclear Seas Campaign and Russian Information Agency, Monday, Sept. 23, 1991, Moscow. The author also received recollections from Zolotkov, Oct. 13, 2008; Floriana Fossato, Aug. 6, 2008; John Sprange, Aug. 10, 2008; and Dima Litvinov, Aug. 6, 2008.

5
See “Facts and Problems Related to Radioactive Waste Disposal in Seas Adjacent to the Territory of the Russian Federation,” Office of the President of the Russian Federation, Moscow, 1993.

6
Yablokov, interview, June 25, 1998. Yeltsin formed the commission Oct. 24, 1992.

7
After the Bush-Gorbachev unilateral withdrawals in September and October 1991, talks with Moscow made little progress, Undersecretary of State Reginald Bartholomew told Congress. “Trip Report: A Visit to the Commonwealth of Independent States,” Senate Armed Services Committee, 102nd Congress, 2
^nd
Session, S Prt. 102-85, March 10, 1985.

8
“Next Steps on Safety, Security, and Dismantlement,” Jan. 24, 1992, cable to the State Department and the White House from Moscow. Declassified in part to author Sept. 22, 2006, under FOIA.

9
Burns, interview, Aug. 12, 2004.

10
“Delegation on Nuclear Safety, Security and Dismantlement (SSD): Summary Report of Technical Exchanges in Albuquerque, April 28—May 1, 1992,” State Department cable.

11
Note made by a participant who asked to remain anonymous, undated.

12
Keith Almquist, communications with author, Dec. 14, 2008, and Jan. 24, 2009. Later, Sandia procured materials for another ninety-nine upgrades and sent these in standard shipping containers to a Russian rail car factory in Tver, Russia, and then contracted with the factory to do the conversions. The upgrades involved changing the insulation and locking down the movable platform. Sandi also provided alarm-monitoring equipment. Some older Russian rail cars were made of wood. The United States also provided armored blankets and “supercontainers” to protect warheads from gunfire.

13
“President Boris Yeltsin’s Statement on Arms Control,” TASS, Jan. 29, 1992.

14
This account is based on Mirzayanov interview, July 26, 2008; Mirzayanov,
Vyzov
(Kazan: Dom Pechati, 2002), published in English as
State Secrets: An Insider’s Chronicle of the Russian Chemical Weapons Program
(Denver: Outskirts Press, 2009); and Mirzayanov, “Dismantling the Soviet/Russian Chemical Weapons Complex: An Insiders View,” in Amy Smithson, ed.,
Chemical Weapons Disarmament in Russia: Problems and Prospects
(Washington, D.C.: Stimson Center, October 1995), pp. 21–34.

15
On the Lenin Prizes, Mirzayanov originally believed they were for the binary
novichok
agents, but later learned that they had received the prize for creating another binary.

16
The article was signed by Mirzayanov and Lev Fedorov, a chemist who, in the 1990s, founded and headed the Association for Chemical Security, a group concerned about storage and destruction of chemical weapons arsenals.

17
His coauthor, Fedorov, was interrogated, as were some journalists, but not charged.

18
The Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production, Stockpiling
and Use of Chemical Weapons and on Their Destruction was adopted in Geneva on Sept. 3, 1992, by the Conference on Disarmament. It was opened for signature in Paris from Jan. 13 to 15, 1993, and entered into force on April 29, 1997. Both Russia and the United States ratified the treaty.

19
Mirzayanov drew support from around the world. Scientists, politicians and human rights activists wrote letters on his behalf to the authorities in Moscow. Mirzayanov and Colby later married. Mirzayanov now lives in the United States.

20
On March 11, 1994, the attorney general closed the case. During the proceedings, another disenchanted veteran of the chemical weapons program, Vladimir Uglev, had corroborated what Mirzayanov said. Uglev later threatened to release the formulas of the
novichok
agents unless the case was dropped. Oleg Vishnyakov, “Interview with a Noose Around the Neck,”
Novoye Vremya
, Moscow, no. 6, Feb. 1993, pp. 40–41, as translated in JPRS-UMA-92-022, June 29, 1993. Vladimir Uglev, interview, June 10, 1998. Uglev said his threat to reveal the formulas was a bluff. “I don’t know if I could have done that,” he said.

21
This account is based on interviews with Blair, Feb. 20 and March 9, 2004;
The Logic of Accidental Nuclear War
(Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution Press, 1993); “The Russian C
³
I,” a paper by Valery E. Yarynich, Feb. 24, 1993, and a copy of Yarynich’s review, May 31, 1993, both courtesy of Blair; and interviews with Yarynich.

22
Yarynich had already made two authorized presentations overseas on nuclear command and control. On April 23–25, 1992, Yarynich was delegated by the General Staff to participate in a conference in Estonia, and he made another presentation Nov. 19–21, 1992, in Stockholm.

23
After Blair’s op-ed appeared, Yarynich wrote his own article, emphasizing the role of Perimeter as a “safety catch” against a mistaken launch. He also called for more openness about nuclear command and control systems. “The Doomsday Machine’s Safety Catch,”
New York Times
, Feb. 1, 1994, p. A17. Other articles began to appear by Russian experts on Perimeter, and Yarynich published a more detailed description in his book,
C
³
: Nuclear Command, Control, Cooperation
(Washington, D.C.: Center for Defense Information, 2003), pp. 156–159.