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2 Rockefeller THE ROCKEFELLER UNIVERSITY
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oy oO November 20, 1986

JOSHUA LEDERBERG

PRESIDENT

Major General Philip Russell
Commander, U.S. Army Medical

Research and Development Command
Fort Detrick, Maryland 21701

Dear General Russell:

I am very glad you called, and look forward to finding a
time that we can sit down together in Washington or Fort De-
trick.

Enclosed is some material outlining what I learned in
Moscow last month: their account of the 1979 anthrax epidemic
at Sverdlovsk. Ted Woodward was in our group and I am sure
you would find it useful to get his own views on what we heard
together.

The material gives my own personal impressions and recom-
mendations about suitable courses of action. While I believe
that we should put less emphasis on the 1979 epidemic as evi-
dence, there are ample other reasons to believe that the Soviets
continue to sustain a substantial BW development effort. De-
spite the 1972 convention, the verification and enforcement of
BW arms control remains a vexing problem. Even absent flagrant
violations of the convention, a residue of overhanging problems
are not so easy to address. I have attempted to outline some
of these in the enclosed material.

Also included are materials that I have received from Dr.
Matthew Meselson of Harvard University. In late August he was
briefed even more extensively than we were; and he has been an
efficient conduit for other documents that the Soviets appear
to be willing to release at this time. Dr. Meselson has autho-
rized me to distribute the segment that is identified as his
own notes only on the understanding that it will not be pub-
lished in the open press without his consent.

I hope this will be helpful to you and that some of it
at least will be important background for our own discussion
when we can schedule that.

Yours sincerely,

Joshua Lederberg
Encls.