To order “Max” to arrange a private audience with Tito, during which a soundless mechanism concealed in his clothes would release a dose of pulmonary plague bacteria that would guarantee death to Tito and all present. “Max” himself would not be informed of the substance’s nature, but with the goal of saving “Max’s” life, he would be given an anti-plague serum in advance.
…The terrorist act could be accomplished [in London] by shooting with a silent mechanism concealed as a personal item while simultaneously releasing tear gas to create panic among the crowd, allowing “Max” to escape and cover up all traces.
…The terrorist act could be implemented in the same way [in Belgrade] as the second option, to be carried out by “Max” who as a diplomat, accredited by the Yugoslav government, would be invited to such a reception.
In addition, to assign “Max” to work out an option whereby one of the Costa Rican representatives will give Tito some jewelry box, which when opened would release an instantaneously effective poisonous substance…
It seems appropriate to use “Max” to implement a terrorist act against Tito. “Max’s” personal qualities and intelligence experience make him suitable for such an assignment. We ask for your approval.355
Probably, the idea to use plague was based on the data of the Nazi doctors. During the war, Nazi scientists worked on plague intensely, using inmates of concentration camps for experiments.356 The research papers from the Anatomical Institute in Posen may have fallen into Soviet army hands357 and subsequently ended up with MGB experts. Muromtsev, Mairanovsky’s former colleague and to some extent his rival, was one of these experts. It is probable that his secret MGB laboratory was in charge of the method prepared for Grigulevich. Muromtsev was discharged from the MGB “because of bad health” (Chapter 3) at the end of 1951, approximately at the time Mairanovsky was arrested. An alternative method of killing Tito mentioned in the MGB report to Stalin, a jewelry box with a poison, was definitely from Mairanovsky’s arsenal.
Sudoplatov wrote that the plan to murder Tito was prepared by MGB deputy minister Yevgenii Pitovranov.358 At first Sudoplatov discussed the plan with Stalin, Beria, and Ignatiev (the new MGB minister, see Chapter 3). It was then discussed with the MVD deputy minister Ivan Serov, with the head of the MGB First (Foreign) Directorate, Sergei Savchenko, and with the MGB deputy ministers Vassilii Ryasnoi, General Yepishev, Pitovranov, and Minister Ignatiev. On March 1, 1953, the MGB reported to Stalin that “Max’s” attempt to assassinate Tito had, unfortunately, not taken place yet.359 Possibly, this report was the last document Stalin read before he suffered the fatal stroke in the early hours of March 2.
According to Vitalii Pavlov, a former head of the KGB Foreign Intelligence Institute, Grigulevich refused to fulfill this assignment.360 He was called back to Moscow and was discharged from the MGB. He was afraid of being killed: He knew too much. Possibly, only Stalin’s death and the arrest of Beria saved his life.
3 COLLABORATORS
The diaries, letters, and publications of Nazi doctors of the time… contain few elements of idealism… Dominating these documents, instead, are small-minded greed for money and privileges, careerism, and a mixture of envy, inflated self-esteem, and contempt for the so-called inferior.
THIS CHAPTER CONCERNS THOSE scientists who accepted the Soviet regime and successfully used its opportunities to their personal advantage without any concern for morality and ethics. This group includes the Soviet secret service’s chief poison investigator, biochemist Grigory Mairanovsky, those who worked in Mairanovsky’s lab, those who wrote positive reviews of his dissertation, those who helped to organize slave labor for the Soviet economy, and those who used contacts with the secret services to enhance their professional careers. Also, I will discuss the phenomenon of academic institutions as a place for retirement of former MGB executioners.
MAIRANOVSKY’S CAREER
The Beginning and Success
Only incompetent doctors went to work at the MGB. They went to the MGB not because of ideological principles, but because the salary was much higher there than that of normal humane doctors and medical sisters. And after having been hired by the MGB system and having breathed its poisoned air, a person began to lose his or her conscience and turned into a non-human being.
I begin with a detailed biography of Grigory Mairanovsky. Only a few documents about Mairanovsky (in the Memorial Archive) are available; the main archival records are still secret. The existence of Mairanovsky’s laboratory in 1939–1951 became known during the investigation of Lavrentii Beria, one of the main organizers and administrators of the Soviet secret service and manager of the Soviet atomic project, who was arrested soon after Stalin’s death in 1953 and condemned to death during a secret trial. The archival materials concerning this 1953 trial are also still secret. Mairanovsky was arrested even before Beria, in 1951.
The limited materials from Memorial’s Archive1 allow me to reconstruct the scientific career of the head of Laboratory No. 1. Grigory Mairanovsky was born in 1899 in Batumi (Georgia), to a Jewish family and was later identified as a Jew in all official documents. Mairanovsky graduated from Tiflis (Tbilisi) University in 1919 and from the Moscow Second Medical Institute in 1923. In 1929, he became a researcher at the Moscow A. N. Bach Institute of Biochemistry, and from 1933 to 1935 served as head of the Toxicology Department there (Document 11, Appendix II, and Table 3.1). The director of the institute, Academician Aleksei Bach, was well known for his support of the Bolshevik Party. Dr. Zbarsky, who was a consultant of the OGPU/NKVD, was deputy director of the Bach Institute. Both Bach and Zbarsky played an important role in the Sovietization of the academy (Chapter I). Possibly, Mairanovsky’s contacts with the NKVD started when he headed the Toxicology Department, since in the USSR, toxicological studies were always secret and controlled by the secret services. The connection with the NKVD also explains why Mairanovsky, who had been working at the Bach Institute as a researcher for only four years, suddenly became deputy director (Document 12, Appendix II). Apparently, he replaced Zbarsky, who in 1933 was appointed chair of the Department of Biochemistry at the Moscow First Medical Institute.
From 1935 until 1937, Mairanovsky headed a special (i.e., secret) laboratory at the All-Union Institute of Experimental Medicine (VIEM). VIEM was created in 1932 in Leningrad on the personal initiative of the Soviet writer Maxim Gorky and the Soviet leaders Stalin and Molotov. It was based on the old Institute of Experimental Medicine, which was established in 1890. In 1934, the main part of VIEM was transferred to Moscow, and only a small branch of it continued to exist in Leningrad.2 Evidently, Mairanovsky moved to VIEM after the reorganization that followed its transfer from Leningrad to Moscow. He may have been invited to create and head a new secret laboratory. After two years of heading this laboratory, Mairanovsky was demoted to senior researcher and continued to work at this position until 1940 (Document 10, Appendix II). He evidently continued to work at VIEM, but the NKVD became his main affiliation. The name of his last department at VIEM, the Pathology Department of Poisoning Substances, leaves no doubt that this laboratory worked for the NKVD and, probably, also for the military. In September 1938, Mairanovsky officially joined the NKVD (Document 13, Appendix II), where his Laboratory No. 1 started to function in 1939. Mairanovsky worked in the NKVD/MKGB/MGB system until his arrest in December 1951.