The major topic of the conference was the need for the technical re-equipment of the PD ITR service of the branch. It seemed to me that everybody present realized that. Besides, I agreed with the management of Workshop 34, which proposed that my suggestions should be implemented to discover trace quantities of soman and sarin in the emissions of the vented air and wastewater. Good prospects for purchasing more advanced laboratory equipment began to develop. The department already had three Varian chromatographs, and I could order a new Varian 3600 for capillary chromatography and a Finnigan chromatomass-spectrometer produced in the USA. When I was writing the applications, Krasheninnikov advised me, “Write so that the readers will shed tears of sympathy that we have lived without such necessary equipment for so long.” I did my best and soon we were informed that the chemistry section of the Military and Industrial Commission of the Central Committee of the C.P.S.U. had approved the application.
When I became head of the department, I simultaneously became a member of the Science Council and some of its sections. Additionally, I was made a member of numerous committees, including some which were in the same line of business as the Department for the Security Regime and the First Department.
Despite our strained relations, the Deputy Director in charge of the Department for the Security Regime had to put up with me and, if possible, cooperate. I remember he even invited more than ten people from the KGB to the institute, so that they could listen to my lecture devoted to basics of organizing the PD ITR Department.
I had to give in to the pressure from my colleagues and was elected secretary of the primary departmental party organization. Its members were Communists in my department, in the Department for the Security Regime, in the First Department, and in the Department for Special Communications.
This position took up a lot of my time because the endless meetings of the Party Committee and its subcommittees on different occasions, or without any occasion. This seriously complicated my work, but I found a good way out. I had Svyatoslav Sokolov elected my deputy. He was also appointed my deputy at the PD ITR Department. One of the responsibilities of the secretary was the monthly collection of membership dues. Party members, in turn, had to present information about their salaries, so I learned that the Deputy Director in charge of the Department for the Security Regime was a KGB major and received his salary at the Lubyanka Headquarters of the KGB. I also learned from the personnel files about two other members of my organization. One of them was Ivan Surinsky,[68] a retired lieutenant colonel who was previously the head of a prison camp in Siberia, and another had been the deputy chief in charge of political work at a prison camp in Altai.
All of this put me in a very negative frame of mind. I started to realize that my attempts to receive equipment, space, and people for research work gradually got me involved with a circle of shady, terrible people, whom I had never respected. I am quite an emotional person, and sometimes it is difficult for me to restrain my emotions. I can’t say that rudeness is in my nature, but over the course of time, I often found out that my antipathy became noticeable.
I gradually started thinking about what role I could play, surrounded by these people, the majority of whom could hardly be called decent, and about the role of GOSNIIOKhT and its policies, which were being developed in connection with the CWC negotiations in Geneva.
GOSNIIOKhT took part in this process, by sending its experts to Geneva, but they were selected by only two people – the Director and Martynov. It was a great mystery to me which criteria they used. So, Yuri Skripkin, head of the Analytical Laboratory, and Boris Kuznetsov, head of the Technological Laboratory, became experts.
In 1993 Kuznetsov also became a member of the expert commission that the KGB investigator appointed to consider my case and signed the indictment. Additionally, he spoke on the side of the prosecution in GOSNIIOKhT’s lawsuit against me in the period of January-February of 1994.
But in 1988 Kuznetsov, who was a very narrow-minded person, came running to my office after each trip to Geneva and breathlessly told me about his new work.
On a higher level, Igor Gabov was in charge of further confirmation of the position of the experts from GOSNIIOKhT and Ministry of Chemical Industry on technical aspects for the Geneva negotiations. At that time, Gabov was demoted to a senior engineering position at the Main Administration of “Soyuzorgsynthesis” (The Union of Organic Synthesis), but his friends kept him afloat. A few years later, he was also an expert on my case and argued with enthusiasm that I was guilty of disclosing state secrets.
At that time, the question of how the verification of the CWC would work in the future was a great problem in the negotiations. The majority of the delegations, including the U.S. and the U.S.S.R., supported conducting remote inspections, without visiting the actual plants. So the analysis of emissions of the ventilated air, sewage, and other waste became very important. That is why highly precise and sensitive methods of analysis of chemical compounds played a crucial role. Mainly the emphasis was on looking for organic phosphorus compounds that had a direct chemical bond between carbon and phosphorous atoms (C-P bond). But it wasn’t difficult to circumvent the inspection process. Chemical products with the same bond could be produced for civilian applications at the same facilities producing organophosphorus-based chemical agents. So, units producing phospoliols with the C-P-connection, which were used as metal-extracting agents, started operating at GOSNIIOKhT and its subsidiaries.
Later on, common sense prevailed in Geneva, and the CWC was signed in the beginning of 1993, stipulating on-site inspections as a normal control procedure.[69], [70]
However, the development of the more toxic chemical agent A-232, in which the carbon atom is bonded to the phosphorous atom through the oxygen atom (C-O-P bond), considerably complicated the control process. My point is that many agricultural chemicals, which are produced at ordinary chemical plants, have the same bonds.
Many people supposed that it would be a great way to get rid of the old junk, while the new developments would be kept secret and would become the basis for a new round of competition in the field of chemical weapons. Nobody doubted that the U.S. would do exactly the same thing.
I am almost certain that the entire policy and strategy of negotiations in Geneva were developed at UNKhV (Administration of the Commander of the Chemical Troops), and General Anatoly Kuntsevich monitored this process. No one should be misled by the fact that he didn’t take part in the negotiations personally.
The ruse was based on the “dual-use” compounds which were the precursors for ordinary agricultural and other civilian chemicals, but could also be used as precursors for producing chemical agents. When a new chemical agent is being developed, a corresponding civilian preparation is also being developed, for example a pesticide. That is the game.
The development of binary nerve agents will make it unnecessary to organize the dangerous production of chemical agents, as they do for example at the Novocheboksary plant. It makes the problems connected with producing, equipping, storing, and transporting the warheads much easier. The most important point is that any potential violator of the CWC can use some civilian facilities for production, and those factories could be completely unaware that they are producing precursors for lethal binary weapons.
68
In October 22 1992 he participated in a search of Lev Fedorov’s apartment by the KGB.
69
Ralph Trapp,
70