Review

For anyone with a passing interest in biological weapons research (including, perhaps, a significant percentage of potential victims), Ken Alibek's account of his career in bioweapons development, and of how he led others engaged in the same twisted scientific pursuit, will provide unexpected insights into this subdiscipline of military science. While reading the memoir, it is not difficult to imagine the surprise that academic experts in the field must have felt when they first learned the details of the Russian effort to win what they considered to be a biological weapons race.

The extraordinary extent of the Soviet government's commitment to research, produce, and deliver new and deadlier germs for use against its enemies might leave many readers wondering about the evidently complete disconnection between scientific insight and wisdom, between technical skill and humanity, that characterizes the field. Scientists such as Alibek (his Ph.D. is in microbiology) and his former colleagues were drawn into the death production labs because they were told - and they believed - that the United States was doing the same thing. As the Soviet Union broke down, Alibek's doubts about his work increased. He defected to the United States in 1992.

The line between biodefense and bio-offense becomes a convenient blur in the world that promotes pathogenicity and antibiotic resistance, rather than striving to overcome them. How can you prepare a defense against a deadly new strain of microbe if you don't have the deadly new strain to study? If you don't have firsthand knowledge of what it can do and how it could be used, how can you counter it? The only symbol of a difference between defense and offense in this field might be the large culture or fermentation vats that turn out tons of deadly microscopic weapons, ready to be processed and loaded into missiles, artillery shells, and airplanes.

Much of Alibek's career in the Soviet military was devoted to overseeing the large scale production of deadly germs, so they would be available when his government said they were needed. He earned a doctorate of science in biotechnology for developing a means to manufacture anthrax on an industrial scale. He was also involved in the development of new weapons; for his doctoral research, he investigated plague and tularemia as bacterial weapons. The symptoms of these two diseases can be similar. Both may involve fever, along with frequent swelling and suppuration of the lymph nodes that drain infection sites. And inhalation of infectious material produces pneumonic forms of both diseases.

Alibek's introduction to the science that turns the Hippocratic oath inside out came when he was a student at the Tomsk Medical Institute in 1973. Alibek's epidemiology instructor asked him to describe how the Soviets handled an unusual outbreak of tularemia, first among German troops and later Soviet civilians and soldiers, a short time before the Battle of Stalingrad in 1942. Alibek concluded that the outbreak was not natural. It was the only widespread outbreak of tularemia ever to occur in the Soviet Union. The number of cases jumped tenfold in one year, and then dropped to the usual 10,000 figure the next year. Seventy percent of the affected German invaders had the pneumonic form of the disease, a strong indication that the bacteria were purposefully disseminated.

Alibek was warned for his own good not to mention his conclusion ever again. In 1975, he was recruited into Biopreparat, the Soviet nationwide biotech/pharmaceutical/research program devoted to the clandestine discovery, development, and delivery of weapons of biological warfare. He served as Biopreparat's first deputy chief from 1988 until his defection.

What he did and learned during his time at Biopreparat often seems hard to believe, not because it is outlandish (although some scientists, he suggests, would say parts of it are unlikely), but because it is so scary to consider. The chapter entitled "Vector," for example, ends: "Our scientists had found it more difficult to cultivate Ebola than Marburg - they were not able to reach the necessary concentration - but by the end of 1990, the long-term problem of cultivation had been solved and we were close to developing a new Ebola weapon. Meanwhile, at Zagorsk (Sergiyev Posad) military scientists were putting the finishing touches on new Lassa fever and monkey pox biological weapons."

Had the book appeared during the cold war, skeptical (or savvy) readers might dismiss much of it as disinformation, intended by some right-wing group or intelligence agency to increase the Red Scare factor in order to serve their agenda. But the cold war is over. And Time columnist Stephen Handelman, former Moscow bureau chief of the Toronto Star, coauthored the book with Alibek. Alibek was interviewed on the BBC and Western biowarfare watchers have reacted publicly to his revelations.

Still, it may be difficult for those outside the world of bioweaponeers to fully absorb the scale of the Soviet effort. In 1990, Biopreparat controlled 40 facilities in 15 Soviet cities. Twelve or so were devoted exclusively to offensive work. The others combined military and civilian functions. In addition, other government departments, separate from Biopreparat, ranging from the Ministry of Defense to the Ministries of Health, Agriculture, and External Trade, devoted resources to the goal of developing usable bioweapons.

One particularly alarming section of Biohazard concerns smallpox. In 1958, the USSR delegation proposed at the World Health Organization Assembly that the international organization formally commit itself to eradicating the viral disease from the planet. The following year, mass vaccinations began. By 1976, smallpox was gone. Or at least many thought it was no longer a threat. The last two samples of smallpox were kept in the U.S. and in the USSR, the public was told. Scientists debated whether to destroy these remaining stocks, or to keep them for the genetic information they contained. Of course, the truth was that Biopreparat had plenty of smallpox virus. It was being developed as a potential weapon. After the virus was "conquered," the public was no longer vaccinated against it. Soldiers were no longer vaccinated against it. What competent biowarrior could resist including this germ in a state of the art arsenal?

Alibek tells of careers made by the successful genetic engineering of antibiotic-resistant bacteria, and of supervisors warning that such advances should not make Biopreparat scientists complacent. New antibiotics are being developed and new resistant strains will have to be produced to counter them. Aggressive biological warfare does not provide much chance to coast.