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The risk of Russia's underpaid
scientists
By Jeremy Bransten
Part 1: Russia's
stockpile of deadly weapons
PRAGUE - In
March 1995, members of the Japanese Aum Shinrikyo sect
attempted the mass killing of commuters on the Tokyo
subway through the use of deadly sarin gas. Twelve
people died and more than 3,000 others had to be
hospitalized in the biggest attack to date by a
terrorist group using chemical weapons.
One of
the findings that quickly emerged from the subsequent
police investigation and trial of leading cult members
was the degree of interest in Russia by the wealthy
doomsday sect, specifically its repeated attempts to
obtain Russian arms and weapons of mass destruction.
According to a 1995 case study prepared by the
US Senate's Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations,
senior cult envoy Kiyohide Hayakawa visited Russia 21
times from 1992 to 1995. Hayakawa helped purchase a
Soviet-made MI-17 helicopter and invited Russian
engineers to Japan to help train sect members to
maintain the helicopter.
Documents later seized
from Hayakawa made specific references to the cult's
desire to purchase nuclear weapons. Aum Shinrikyo opened
offices in several Russian cities and actively solicited
scientists at provincial universities to join. Cult
leader Shoko Asahara and 300 fellow Aum Shinrikyo
members even managed to gain an audience with the head
of Russia's Security Council, Oleg Lobov, and other top
government officials. Several more meetings between cult
members and Lobov were recorded between 1993 and 1995.
What they discussed remains unknown.
Until the
collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, tens of thousands
of scientists across the country worked for Moscow's
chemical, nuclear and biological-weapons programs. They
were a privileged elite. Many of those scientists are
now struggling on salaries of $50 a month, left to fend
for themselves by a system that once catered to their
every need.
In that context, the fear that some
of those scientists could accept offers from cults like
Aum Shinrikyo or "rogue" states such as North Korea to
work on their weapons programs has prompted several
initiatives, principally run by the US, to ensure this
risk is minimized.
One of those initiatives is
the US Civilian Research and Development Foundation
(CRDF). Created by the US Congress in 1995, the
foundation has several aims, as Cathy Campbell, vice
president for programs, explained, "We have a number of
objectives as stipulated in our founding legislation. We
were created by Congress, and in the founding
legislation, Congress identified several objectives for
CRDF to pursue. They include providing productive
civilian research-and-development opportunities with
scientists in the former Soviet Union that basically
provide alternatives to emigration. Certainly,
nonproliferation objectives are a main priority and
objective of our organization, but we are also tasked
with assisting in the establishment of a market economy
in the former Soviet Union by promoting collaboration
with industry."
To date, the foundation has
provided cash grants to some 5,000 scientists across the
former Soviet Union to allow them to continue their
research. Cindi Mentz, the foundation's head of
nonproliferation programs, told RFE/RL that even more
important is to bring these once-secret scientists into
the international community and to show them ways to
channel their skills into civilian business
applications.
"What we do is we help these
people make the links with civilian scientists, both in
their country and with US scientists. We provide them
with an opportunity to establish their credibility in
the civilian science community. The Russian science
community didn't publish frequently outside of Russia.
There was not a critical peer review of the work that
was being conducted, and now we have opportunities to
present their work at international conferences and
seminars, to be published in international scientific
journals, and to really become part of the international
scientific community," Mentz said.
The
foundation has a program focused on helping promote
technologies that could have commercial applications,
providing money to scientists from the Commonwealth of
Independent States to meet industrial partners in the
US. They also provide training in how to write a
business plan and other key aspects of the marketplace.
While it is impossible to tally just how many
scientists from the CIS have been dissuaded from offers
to work on other states' weapons programs thanks to the
US initiative, staffers in Washington have little doubt
the program is worthwhile. And the commercial aspect has
already yielded some success stories. Mentz cited some
recent examples, "We have a group of former
biological-weapon scientists who are working with a
company in California on a drug for tuberculosis. We
have a group of scientists from Ukraine who are people
who once designed missiles who are now working on a
unique type of refrigeration unit that goes in the back
of trucks for grocery stores, based on their experience
with cryogenics."
All this and a degree of
"peace of mind" for an annual price tag of $22 million,
the foundation's yearly budget for funding thousands of
scientists across the former Soviet Union. By
comparison, the US military spends that amount every 30
minutes.
But as Campbell noted, even the
foundation's current modest budget could be under
threat, indicating a comparatively low degree of
priority given to the "people factor". "The president's
budget that was released [last week] projects declining
funds under the Freedom Support Act, so that would argue
that we may be facing a more difficult budget
environment coming up real soon," Campbell said.
In fairness, while Russia and the countries of
the former Soviet Union are the focus of much
nonproliferation attention, experts note that the US
itself and other Western countries also bear
responsibility for directly and indirectly contributing
to the spread of potential weapons of mass destruction -
and the knowledge of how to build them.
John
Eldridge is editor of "Jane's Nuclear, Biological and
Chemical Defense," an annual survey of global weapons of
mass destruction. In an interview with RFE/RL, he noted
that many of the scientists working for "rogue" regimes
or suspect organizations received their degrees at
Western universities. "A lot of the [people who receive]
legitimate science degrees given by British and American
and French and German universities - all over the world
really, Japanese, too - these people are going back and
are possibly involved in clandestine developments, so,
it's very, very difficult to track that," Eldridge said.
More controversially, Eldridge noted that
Western governments, including the US, have a record of
backing political regimes or opposition groups that end
up using the resources given to them in "boomerang"
fashion. "They have backed regimes without having the
vision to see which way the regime was liable to develop
20 years down the line. We've seen that both with Osama
bin Laden, who was strongly supported by the US in
Afghanistan, in earlier years. Now, look what's happened
there. Look at Iraq, which was strongly supported. It
was a favorite export destination for a lot of Western
nations before. It was seen as a bastion against Iran,
so propping up these regimes or backing the opposition,
particularly with chemical weapons and things like that,
is an absolute recipe for disaster," Eldridge said.
A recent examination of declassified US
government documents by The Washington Post shows that
the administrations of US presidents Ronald Reagan and
George Bush authorized the sale to Iraq of materials
with both civilian and military applications, including
poisonous chemicals and biological viruses.
As
the world prepares for possible war in Iraq and watches
the escalating nuclear crisis in North Korea with
anxiety, experts say far greater priority should be
given to programs that help prevent nonproliferation
before it is too late.
Part 1: Russia's
stockpile of deadly weapons
Copyright (c)
2002, RFE/RL Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio
Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave NW, Washington DC
20036
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