Biohazard

He divided the managers into two groups. The first group was asked to pretend it was a visiting Soviet delegation; the second would answer their questions. "As Soviets, you will be skeptical of everything you hear," Bailey told the first group. "You're convinced that we are hiding a biological warfare program."

Turning to the second group, he said, "You've got to come up with plausible answers."

Within two weeks, a team from the Soviet Union would arrive at Fort Detrick on the first leg of a tour of biological research facilities in the United States. Everything connected with the tour was secret. Only a small group of USAMRIID employees — the senior officers designated as official escorts — were told of the impending arrival of the Soviet mission. There would he no press.

The Office of the Secretary of Defense, which was organizing the event, imposed a total news blackout.

When the names of the members of the Soviet delegation were first sent to the Foreign Ministry, mine wasn't on the list. Kalinin didn't want me to go. I knew my actions during the coup had made me unpopular at Samokatnaya Street, but I was irritated nevertheless. Few people at Biopreparat were more qualified to detect signs of an offensive biological weapons program. I knew all the possible ways such a program could be hidden, having directed our concealment efforts since 1988.

"I thought you weren't interested in these things anymore," Kalinin had said archly.

But when I reminded him of my service as unwilling host to the Western visitors, he reluctantly agreed to put me down as an alternate delegate. When Oleg Ignatiev of the Military-Industrial Commission bowed out because of obligations in Moscow, I found myself in the delegation as the senior-ranking representative of Biopreparat.

There were thirteen people in our mission — about the same number the Americans and British had sent in January. We were an awkwardly mixed group of scientists, army officers, diplomats, and spies.

Colonel Nikifor Vasiliev of the Fifteenth Directorate led the seven-man military contingent, which included an officer from the Defense Ministry's Arms Control Department and an interpreter. At least one member of the military group worked, by his own admission, for the Soviet intelligence agencies. He was a GRU colonel who warned us to tell anyone who asked that he was a representative of the Ministry of Health.

The Biopreparat group was smaller. Joining me were Grigory Shcherbakov, chief of our scientific directorate, Lev Sandakchiev from Vector, and General Nikolai Urakov from Obolensk. Urakov's participation in the trip was uncomfortable for both of us. He had studiously ignored me ever since I had suggested that he commit suicide. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs sent just two people.

It was not only curiosity about what our rivals were up to that drew me into the mission. I was no longer as dismissive of America's biological warfare efforts as I had been.

A few weeks before our departure, all members of our delegation were summoned to a special briefing at Soviet army headquarters. Maps and satellite surveillance photos of the United States were spread on a large table in the middle of the room. A tall GRU officer holding a wooden pointer lectured us about the four U.S. sites we were scheduled to visit: USAMRIID headquarters at Fort Derrick; Dugway Proving Ground near Salt Lake City in Utah; Pine Bluff Arsenal in Arkansas; and the Salk Center in Swiftwater, Pennsylvania.

As we stared at the maps, he pointed out suspicious structures. At USAMRIID, there was a large circular building that looked like a test chamber. At Pine Bluff, surveillance photos picked up evidence of the movement of "weapons containers."

I was stunned. Why hadn't I heard about this before? I could only conclude that someone had finally decided to mount an aggressive intelligence operation.

I didn't regret having lobbied so hard to close down our program, but I wondered whether Kalinin's efforts to preserve our capacity for weapons research and production had been justified after all.