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BIOHAZARD _i_!i¸_i:i¸ • •!:i_i• BI T_e Chillini St_ of the _argest Covert Biological Wea in,_theWorldmToId from the Inside in Who Ran It KEN ALIBEK WITH STEPHEN HANDELMAN RANDOM HOUSE NEW YORK Copyright © 1999 by Ken Alibek All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. Published in the United States by Random House, Inc., New York, and simultaneously in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto. Random House and colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Alibek, Ken. Biohazard: the chilling true story of the largest covert biological weapons program in the world, told from the inside by the man who ran it/Ken Alibek with Stephen Handelman. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-375-50231-9 (alk. paper) 1. Biological weapons--Soviet Union. I. Handelman, Stephen. II.Title. UG447.8.A45 1998 358".3882"0947--dc21 98-56454 Random House website address: www.atrandom.com Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper 24689753 Book design by Caroline Cunningham [We are] determined for the sake of all mankind, to exclude completely the possibility of bacteriological agents and toxins being used as weapons; [We are] convinced that such use would be repugnant to the conscience of mankind and that no effort should be spared to minimize this risk .... --Preamble to the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention, 1972 i. CONTENTS Prologue ix Map: Soviet Biological Warfare Installations xii MILITARY MEDICINE 1 Army Headquarters 3 2 Rebirth Island 15 3 Military Medicine 29 4 The Enzyme Project 39 BInHAZARD 5 Lab Work 51 6 Building 107 62 7 Accident at Sverdlovsk 70 8 Progress 87 9 Smallpox 107 10 Vector 123 SECRETS AND LIES 11 The Institute of Ultra-Pure Biopreparations 137 12 Bonfire 153 13 The First Main Directorate 168 VIII CONTENTS 14 Insidethe Kremlin 180 15 Visitors 193 16 Three Days 207 FrlRTRESS AMERICA 17 Fort Detrick 225 18 Communist Prospekt 241 19 Debriefing 257 20 Buyers and Sellers 270 21 Biodefense 280 Appendix 1: Chart of Soviet Biological Warfare System 293 Appendix 2: Soviet Biological Warfare System 295 Acknowledgments 305 Index 307 PROLOGUE n a bleak island in the Aral Sea, one hundred monkeys are tethered to posts set in parallel rows stretching out toward the horizon. A muffled thud breaks the stillness. Far in the dis- tance, a small metal sphere lifts into the sky then hurtles down- ward, rotating, until it shatters in a second explosion. Some seventy-five feet above the ground, a cloud the color of dark mustard begins to unfurl, gently dissolving as it glides down toward the monkeys. They pull at their chains and begin to cry. Some bury their heads between their legs. A few cover their mouths or noses, but it is too late: they have already begun to die. At the other end of the island, a handful of men in biological protective suits observe the scene through binoculars, taking notes. In a few hours, they will retrieve the still-breathing monkeys and return them to cages where the animals will be under continuous examination for the next several days until, one by one, they die of anthrax or tularemia, Q fever, brucellosis, glanders, or plague. X PROLOGUE These are the tests I supervised throughout the 1980s and early 1990s. They formed the foundation of the Soviet Union's spectac- ular breakthroughs in biological warfare. Between 1988 and 1992, I was first deputy chief of Bio- preparat, the Soviet state pharmaceutical agency whose primary function was to develop and produce weapons made from the most dangerous viruses, toxins, and bacteria known to man. Bio- preparat was the hub of a clandestine empire of research, testing, and manufacturing facilities spread out over more than forty sites in Russia and Kazakhstan. Nearly every important government in- stitution played a role in the Soviet biological weapons program: the Ministry of Defense, the Ministries of Agriculture and Health, the Soviet Academy of Sciences, the Communist Party Central Committee, and, of course, the KGB. The System, as Biopreparat was often called, was more successful than the Kremlin had ever dared to hope. Over a twenty-year period that began, ironically, with Moscow's endorsement of the Biological Weapons Convention in 1972, the Soviet Union built the largest and most advanced biological warfare establishment in the world. We were among the 140 signatories of the convention, pledging "not to develop, produce, stockpile or otherwise acquire or retain" biological agents for offensive military purposes. At the same time, through our covert program, we stockpiled hundreds of tons of anthrax and dozens of tons of plague and smallpox near Moscow and other Russian cities for use against the United States and its Western al- lies. What went on in Biopreparat's labs was one of the most closely guarded secrets of the Cold War. Before I became an expert in biological warfare I was trained as a physician. The government I served perceived no contradiction between the oath every doctor takes to preserve life and our prepa- rations for mass murder. For a long time, neither did I. Less than a decade ago, I was a much-decorated army colonel, marked out for further promotion in one of the Soviet Union's most elite military programs. |f I had stayed in Russia, I would have been a major general by now, and you would never have PROLOGUE XI heard my name. But in 1992, after seventeen years inside Bio- preparat, I resigned from my position and fled with my family to the United States. In numerous debriefing sessions, I provided U.S. officials with their first comprehensive picture of our activities. Most of what I told them has never been revealed in public. With the collapse of the Soviet Union, the danger once posed by our weapons work has sharply diminished. Biopreparat claims that it no longer conducts offensive research, and Russia's stockpile of germs and viruses has been destroyed. But the threat of a biological attack has increased as the knowledge developed in our labs--of lethal formulations that took our scientists years to dis- cover--has spread to rogue regimes and terrorist groups. Bioweapons are no longer contained within the bipolar world of the Cold War. They are cheap, easy to make, and easy to use. In the coming years, they will become very much a part of our lives. Since leaving Moscow I have encountered an alarming level of ignorance about biological weapons. Some of the best scientists I've met in the West say it isn't possible to alter viruses genetically to make reliable weapons, or to store enough of a given pathogen for strategic purposes, or to deliver it in a way that assures maximum killing power. My knowledge and experience tell me that they are wrong. I have written this book to explain why. There are some who maintain that discussing the subject will cause needless alarm. But existing defenses against these weapons are dangerously inadequate, and when biological terror strikes, as I'm convinced it will, public ignorance will only heighten the dis- aster. The first step we must take to protect ourselves is to under- stand what biological weapons are and how they work. The alternative is to remain as helpless as the monkeys in the Aral Sea. SOVIET BIOLOGICAL WARFARE INSTALLATIONS | reserve mobilization facility _ biological weapon [] storage (to be activated in time of war) research biological weapon production [] testing grounds ® other facility 0 ....ii ARMY HEADQUARTERS Moscow, 1988 aratemyin hetheadquwinterartersof o19n 8Ki8, roIvwasStreecalt ledin Moto sacomeetw. inTgheatnotSoviete of urgency in the message was hard to ignore. "We've set aside a spe- cial room for you, Colonel," said the clipped voice on the phone. A black Volga was waiting at the curb, its motor running. The two armed bodyguards who accompanied me on top-secret busi- ness were slouched alongside, their fur hats pulled low against the cold. One held the door open as I climbed into the backseat, and followed me inside. The second slid in beside my driver, Slava. I told Slava to drive quickly. It was usually a thirty-minute drive across town from my office to Red Army headquarters, but a fresh snowfall that morning had turned the streets into an Arctic snarl of spinning tires and raging drivers. Once or twice the flashing blue light on our official vehicle aroused the attention of a traffic policeman, who thrust his gloved hand in the air to clear the way. Close to an hour had passed by the time we finally pulled up in front of the austere granite building that housed the Ministry of 4 MILITARY MEDICINE Defense. I entered through a side entrance and stamped the snow from my boots. A junior officer took me to a small adjoining room, where I was issued a pass, and then on to a guard booth, where a young soldier examined my pass and picture, stared hard, and waved me on. The first officer led me up a flight of stairs to a heavy armored door with a coded lock. He punched in a series of numbers and we walked into the sprawling suite of offices occupied by the Fifteenth Directorate of the Soviet army, the military wing of our biological weapons program. I unzipped my parka and tried to relax. Although I was a colonel, I never wore my uniform. Like all military personnel at Biopreparat, I was provided with a cover identity as an ordinary scientist.

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