PRIVILEGED

Meeting of the Delegations of the U.S. National Academy
of Sciences and the Academy of Sciences of the U.S.S.R.

on Biological Weapons

Moscow, October 8-9, 1986
SUMMARY

Delegations from the U.S. National Academy of Sciences (Committee
on International Security and Arms Control subgroup on Biological
Weapons) and the Academy of Sciences of the U.S.S.R. met on October
8-9, 1986, at the Shemyakin Institute of Bioorganic Chemistry in
Moscow. Dr. Joshua Lederberg, President of Rockefeller University,
chaired the American delegation. Dr. Evgeniy Sverdlov, of the
Institute of Bioorganic Chemistry, chaired the Soviet delegation.

The agenda for the meeting was a synthesis of items suggested by
both sides and included discussion of a) the problem of biological
weapons and control of their proliferation; b) problems in U.S.-
U.S.S.R. confidence in areas related to biological warfare and
measures to build confidence in these areas; and c) possible areas of
scientific cooperation to increase contacts and enhance confidence
between American and Soviet biomedical scientists.

Problems of Biological Weapons and Their Control

Both delegations came to rapid agreement that biological weapons
were extremely dangerous, had no rational military utility for a
superpower, and that their development should be prevented in
accordance with the 1972 Biological Weapons Convention. They agreed
that neither the U.S. nor the U.S.S.R. had used BW in recent history,
and that both countries shared an interest in preventing the
proliferation and use of BW by third parties.
ii

They agreed that the primary task now was one of trying to
prevent BW development at an early stage. The American side
emphasized the difficulties involved in drawing the line between
permitted and umpermitted research under the Biological Weapons
Convention, and addressed the problem of the dual nature of
fundamental research whereby it is applicable to both the civilian
and military spheres. Inherent in this situation is the unavoidable
possibility and danger of rapid breakout frem the Convention. The
American side emphasized that the control of the development of BW,
unlike nuclear arms control, would depend not on the limitation of
technical developments but on limitations on the transfer of
technology emanating from the medical cammmity to military
organizations. The American side emphasized that this clearly posed
monumental challenges in definition and verification which would be
mach more difficult to solve than analogous challenges in the nuclear
realm.

The Soviet side was eager to report the results of the recently
concluded Biological Weapons Convention Review Conference in Geneva.
Ustinov, a Ministry of Foreign Affairs representative who had been on
the Soviet delegation at the Review Conference, offered an upbeat
report of the Conference and emphasized Soviet initiatives made in
the area of measures to strengthen verification. He expressed Soviet
surprise at the negative response of the U.S. at the Conference to
Soviet proposals for legally binding measures to strengthen the
verification of the Convention. Ustinov catalogued Soviet offers to
declare hazardous facilities and the basic thrust of their research,
as well as to expand publication of research from those facilities.
He was optimistic that these measures could be elaborated at the
April 1987 experts meeting. Ina similar spirit, several members of
the Soviet delegation made efforts to describe the research being
iii

undertaken in their own labs amd extended open invitations to the
Americans to visit their labs and talk directly with researchers in
them.

Problems in U.S. - U.S.S.R. a to BW

Because of the inherent possibility for dual application of
fundamental biological research to the civilian and military spheres,
both sides recognized that full exchange of information about their
scientific research was the best way to promote confidence. However,
they acknowledged and discussed the existence of barriers to this
openness including national security considerations, industrial
proprietary secrecy, and differences in the scientific cultures of
each country.

In one of the few polemical statements made at the meeting,
Schvedkov called attention to recent American press reports about
increased Department of Defense spending on BW development and
possible testing. The American side took advantage of this remark to
stress that open information on and debate about the U.S. program was”
a positive development, and that the lack of information from the
Soviet side was a source of tension and anxiety in the U.S. about
Soviet activities in this area. The American side was responsive to
Soviet concerns about reports of increased U.S. activity, and took
the opportunity to clarify what the U.S. was and was not doing. The
American side emphasized that the asymmetry in available information
contributed to an atmosphere of distrust and even a technology race
within the limits of the BW Convention.

. In prior discussions, the American side had (as has the U.S.
government over many years) raised Sverdlovsk as an issue corrosive
of confidence because of Soviet reticence in supplying comprehensive
iv

information on the epidemic as called for under the BW Convention.
Dr. Nikiforov, the physician from the Ministry of Health called in to
treat the victims of the 1979 Sverdlovsk anthrax epidemic, gave both
delegations a two-hour lecture on the epidemic, showed autopsy slides
of the victims, and responded to questions. The Soviet delegation as
well as the Americans were quite interested in the presentation.
Some Soviets indicated they had been familiarized with the Sverdlovsk
incident only in preparation for this meeting. The American side
explained why this has been such a serious issue in the U.S.,
commended the recent Soviet efforts to be more forthcoming with
information about this event and in general, and encouraged the
publication of the details of this epidemic for a broader audience.
“The Americans requested and were given an additional two hour
question and answer session with Nikiforov and his assistant
Yampolskaya to probe further into the matter (see attached
appendix). The Soviet doctors were forthcoming in the session,
providing essentially the same information they had provided to
another American scientist in August 1986. Two new pieces of
information they provided were that 1) they had lectured extensively
over the last five years on the Sverdlovsk epidemic to many Soviet
doctors, particularly in the Sverdlovsk region; and 2) there were
incidences of more than one anthrax case in some families.

Possible Areas of Scientific Cooperation to Increase Contacts and
Enhance Confidence Between Scientists

Both sides agreed that scientific cooperation in the bicmedical
area could contribute over the long term to enhanced confidence
through personal contacts and the opening up of a window on the
activities of the other side. The Soviets, not surprisingly, were
eager for scientific cooperation and contacts. Mirzabekov noted that
the current U.S. policy seemed to be one of limiting Soviet access to
biotechnology and genetic engineering, and said that a first step
toward enhancing confidence would be to gain a relaxation of the
current restrictions.

Sverdlov firmly pushed for the establishment of an Academy to
Academy institutional mechanism for scientific cooperation directly
related to confidence-building in the BW area. The American side
said the essential criteria for cooperative programs were that they
be: 1) of humanitarian significance and great medical benefit; and
2) that they lend themselves to true scientific reciprocity and
symmetry of input. The Soviets stressed the criteria of 1)
humanitarian significance and 2) prestige and ability to attract
first-rate scientists on both sides. Both sides agreed the chosen
topics should hold great promise for scientific success. The
American side stressed that human rights issues remain a possible
barrier to cooperation because many American scientists oppose
cooperation with Soviets until certain human rights cases are
resolved.

The specific areas for possible collaboration raised in this
meeting were: 1) structure of the human genome; 2) development and
cell differentiation in cancer; 3) vaccine development; 4) genetic
engineering of plants (a Soviet proposal aimed at helping and
including the Third World); 5) mutational genetic load of man in the
biosphere.

General Observations

The atmosphere of this meeting, coming after the BWC Review
Conference and before Reykjavik, was very good. There was rapid
agreement on the necessity of discouraging BW development, and
interesting discussions on possible areas for scientific
collaboration and on tangential scientific topics. The Soviet .
delegation indicated privately that they had been brought together as
vi

a delegation for the first time for this meeting, amd had been
briefed both on the Sverdlovsk incident and on the BWC Review
Conference also for the first time in preparation for this meeting.
The discussion of the Sverdlovsk incident was extremely interesting.

There were only two or three interjections that could be
characterized as polemical. Schvedkov's lengthy statement endorsing
every Soviet nuclear arms control proposal and calling attention to
American press reports about U.S. BW activities was one of then.
Most members of the Soviet delegation were serious and prominent
scientists, rather than political types.

Sagdeev came in at the end, primarily to give strong Academy
endorsement to the continuation of this dialogue amd the initiation
of a cooperative scientific program. He did make a rambling
statement discussing the differences between the BW problem and the
muclear arms problem, including an uncharacteristically caustic
remark, two days before the Reykjavik meeting, about those who would
defer substantial reductions in muclear arms now for a perhaps
unebtainable hope of protecting entire populations from the nuclear
threat sometime in the future. |

The meeting concluded with an understanding that each side would
take the resulting ideas back to their respective Academies for
further discussion, and that perhaps there would be another meeting
of this group in Washington in May or June 1987.
PRIVILEGED

Meeting of the Delegations of the U.S. National Academy
of Sciences and the Academy of Sciences of the U.S.S.R.

on Biological Weapons

Moscow, October 8-9, 1986

The first session of a two-day meeting of delegations of the U.S.
National Academy of Sciences (a subgroup of the Committee on
International Security and Ams Control) and the Academy of Sciences
of the U.S.S.R convened at 11:30 a.m. on October 8, 1986, at the
Shemyakin Institute of Bioorganic Chemistry in Moscow.

The members of the U.S. delegation were: Joshua Lederberg,
chairman; Ivan Bennett; Paul Marks; Alexander Rich; John Steinbruner;
Theodore Woodward, and Lynn Rusten (See attachment #1).

The members of the Soviet delegation were: Academicians R.Z.
Sagdeev, N.P. Dubinin, and R.V. Petrov; Corresponding Members V.T.
Ivanov, A.D. Mirzabekov, and E.D. Sverdlov; Academician S.G. Drozdov;
Dr. Y.A. Schvedkov; Dr. V.I. Ustinov; Dr. O.M. Lisov; and Dr. Y.K.
Shiyan (See attachment #2). N. Belousov and Mr. Chesnokev from the
Foreign Relations Department of the Academy of Sciences of the
U.S.S.R. also sat in on portions of the meeting, as did two
unidentified individuals said to be experts on the subject sitting in
on behalf of Academician Sagdeev who was absent most of the meeting.

Ivanov opened the meeting by welcoming everyone to the Shemyakin
Institute. He expressed Academician Ovchinnikov's regret that he was
unable to attend this meeting because he was out of the country.
Ivanov noted the propitious timing of this meeting, coming just a few
days before the Reagan-Gorbachev Reykjavik meeting.

 
Sverdlov said he had been asked by Ovchinnikov to co-chair the
meeting with Lederberg. He suggested they begin with introductions.
He said the Soviet delegation consisted largely of people from the
Academy of Sciences of the USSR and the Academy of Medical Sciences
and that they were well-known people in the Soviet Union involved in
biology and medicine. He introduced each person and gave their
affiliations, as indicated on the attached delegation list. He added
that Petrov was chairman of the Inmmologist Society and a member of
both the Academy of Sciences and the Academy of Medical Sciences.

Lederberg thanked Sverdlov. He recalled his last visit to Moscow
in June 1985, when there had been a good opening discussion on these
issues in the regular CISAC meeting. He expressed regret that
Ovchinnikov could not attend, but thanked his institute for its
hospitality and noted the symbolic importance of holding the meeting
at an institution where exciting advances were taking place.
Lederberg introduced his delegation as follows: Ivan Bennett, a
Professor of Medicine and former Dean of the New York University
School of Medicine, and long a student of the problems of BW; Paul
Marks, President of the Memorial-Sloan Cancer Center and known for
his leadership in scientific research in cell biology amd cancer;
Alexander Rich, professor of biology at MIT who has done important
work, including discovering new forms of DNA, and who had worked
closely with Mirzabekov; Theodore Woodward, a professor of infectious
diseases at the University of Maryland and chairman of the Armed
Forces Epidemiology Board, which provides scientific guidance to U.S.
Army Programs; John Steinbruner, a political scientist, Director of
the Foreign Policy Studies Program at Brookings, and a member of the
regular CISAC committee; and Lynn Rusten, staff to the CISAC
3
committee of the National Academy of Sciences. Lederberg said he was
President of Rockefeller University, and had spent many years at
Stanford teaching molecular biology.

Sverdlov said he and Lederberg had discussed the agenda (see
attachment #3) and that they had agreed to discuss today the problem
of biological weapons and the recent Biological Weapons Convention
Review Conference. He said they would work in an atmosphere of
candor and openness, with everyone free to make comments at any time.
He said they could spend the entire day on the first point, and then
go on to discussions of possible areas of cooperation the second day.
He said Lederberg would start on the first point with a position
paper he had prepared.

Lederberg said he appreciated this opportunity for discussion.
He said he had been involved for 16 years in efforts to control
biological weapons, that he had played an active role in the U.S. in
efforts resulting in President Nixon's unilateral moratorium on BW.
He said he advised the U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency
during the negotiation of the Biological Weapons Convention, and that
long prior to that, he had a deep concern that the fruits of
biological research be used for the benefit of mankind, net for
military purposes.

Lederberg said this group did not need to be reminded of the
urgent reasons for strengthening controls on biological weapons,
however he brought a copy of a prior statement reviewing the issue
for the benefit of those present who had not participated in the
previous meetings. Lederberg said the recently concluded five-year
review conference on the BW Convention demonstrated the importance of
review conferences and of efforts to strengthen the treaty. He said
this concurrence was an important step forward, and that their
discussion here would be very mich in the spirit of implementing the
strengthening measures advocated at Geneva.
4

Lederberg said that even with the best of good will and mutual
confidence, the control of BW posed serious difficulties, and it
might not be possible to solve all of them as long as there remained
unresolved sources of interstate conflict. He said that even while
we sought progress toward broader aims of harmony, prevalent
suspicions, fears and doubts about BW remained a serious obstacle to
those goals. Confidence-building measures therefore remained the
most important step we could take, both for BW arms control and for
broader aims.

Lederberg said certain progress had also been made at the
Conference on Disarmament and in bilateral discussions towards
advancing non-proliferation and disarmament in the chemical weapons
field. He said his own discussion would center entirely on BW with
infectious agents to the exclusion of toxins amd of CW, while
acknowledging that progress in each arena contributed to the others.
He said he was therefore more optimistic than had been possible for
several years.

Lederberg said he would be compact in his outline, but even so,
his talk would take an hour. He welcomed questions at any time. He
identified the central difficulties in BW arms-control as a)
definition; b) verification; c) the rapid advance of biotechnology;
and d) the potential for rapid breakout.

Lederberg said research and development related to BW was
difficult to define, so much so that definition might be a graver
problem than verification. He said the scale of facilities needed
for production forbidden under the BWC was fairly small and difficult
to separate from the scale for research and development which was
allowed umder the BWC. He said defensive work, such as the
production of vaccines or the testing of potential threat agents in
order to refine countermeasures, was difficult to separate from work
with offensive goals. Lederberg said the BWC was somewhat vague
about the level of production that would clearly mark an effort as
offensive and illegal. At the same time, biomedical research, their
5
common war against nature's enemies, required almost identical tools,
training, and knowledge as those which would have potential military
application. He added that, conversely, work in military
laboratories had played an important part in the history of the
conquest of communicable diseases.

Lederberg said the limitations of BWC verification by National
Technical Means (NIM) have been well understood; several states were
reluctant to sign a treaty that seemed to depend entirely on
cooperative verification. He said cooperative verification was
tightly intertwined with mutual confidence: each depended on the
other. He said it should be in the interest of each state to do
everything possible to reassure the others. He said he was pleased
that a reaffirmation of this principle, and hopefully a fresh start
in its practice, were signalled at Geneva. Lederberg said CW arms
control may also show how mutually satisfactory regimes of inspection
may be crafted that could later be applicable to BW as well. He said
he would say more about confidence-building measures later.

Lederberg said the growth of bictechnology posed other problems.
It would eventually enable the production of BW agents of greater
precision of targetability and control, attributes that were far more
important than lethality to make them more usable for military
purposes. He said the future prospects of such military uses
heightened the anxiety about the intentions of work that was kept
secret. At the same time, industrial biotechnology had already
greatly expanded overall investment in large scale microbiological
facilities which might have dual potential (i.e. to produce BW
agents). He said there was also a certain international competition
for economic purposes, and industrial proprietary secrecy also may
complicate the effort to build confidence by the freer exchange of
information.

Lederberg said there was, and should be, grave concern about
breakout because however effective an arms-control and
6
confiderce-building regime we might build tomorrow, either side's
accumulated knowledge, technical knowhow and industrial facilities
could be rapidly converted from civilian to military purposes.

Lederberg said that medical scientists in any country therefore
had a complicated burden of conscience: on the one hand, to sustain
their own country's security with realistic advice about
vulnerability to attack with BW; on the other to do all possible to
assure that biological weapons were never used, never produced, and
insofar as possible never developed by anyone. Lederberg said his
advice to his govermment had always been, unequivocally, to avoid BW
as a military weapon; and he believed any informed medical scientist
would speak with the same voice to his goverrment. He said openness
may therefore have a twofold benefit: to provide reassurance
building confidence as between countries; and to give medical
scientists everywhere the best: opportunity to advise their own
govermments about the wisest policies for their own national as well
as global interests. He said he feared development of BW by
govermments who lacked good advice from scientists who knew its
danger and uncontrollability.

Lederberg said medical scientists, besides their unique ethical
situation, also were uniquely qualified to work out the most feasible
framework of cooperative verification, to understand its
possibilities and its limits, and to take an active role in its
implementation. He said they had a difficult task in thinking of
measures that could meet the constraints of verification, definition,
rapid technology and breakout well enough to promote confidence and
enhance mutual security. He said they could not expect perfect
solutions overnight, and pragmatic advances would need the most
thoughtful participation of scientists from all sides. Lederberg
said it was therefore especially gratifying that they had succeeded
in arranging for this meeting, and its particular membership.
7

Turning to same remarks about confidence=building, Lederberg said
the Geneva BWC Review Conference suggested a mmber of measures,
above all mutual consultation in a variety of forums and with the
participation of experts. He said the U.S. government had
acknowledged the value of informal exchanges, and encouraged them; it
also insisted that formal consultation within the temms of the treaty
not be evaded. A meeting was agreed to be held in Geneva in April
1987 to work out the modalities of exchange. He said teday's
discussion could be useful in outlining certain measures. Other
steps included the registration of high-hazard facilities, and the
publication of research related to BW. He said the overall framework
of scientific cooperation in biotechnology and other biomedical
research should be bolstered, and they should discuss all of these,
and other possibilities, at this meeting.

Lederberg said he would not be candid if he overlooked what has
been a major impediment in mitual confidence from a U.S. perspective,
and that his delegation was also here to learn what the U.S.S.R.'s
concerns might be. He said he was glad to acknowledge a major
positive step on the U.S.S.R.'s part in opening up discussion about
the anthrax outbreak in Sverdlovsk in 1979. He said this was a great.
step. He wanted to explain what a serious issue this had been in the
U.S. He said there had been some propaganda surrounding the issue,
but that also there had been at the highest levels of government a
sincere adoption of a malignant interpretation of that event.
Lederberg said he was glad there had been a chance to ventilate it,
and that he had been delighted to learn from Dr. Matthew Meselson
about his visit in August this year with Moscow public health
officials who were directly involved in managing that outbreak.
Lederberg said Meselson had briefed this delegation about what he
learned. Lederberg also received notes of Dr. Antonov's report to
the BWC Review Conference on the same subject. He said these reports
provided detail that was not hitherto available and opened up clear
channels for further discussion with the relevant public health
8
authorities, all a very large and positive step that he commended.
Lederberg said he was glad that Dr. Nikiforov would participate in
this meeting so they could discuss the issue again more fully. He
said he hoped this could erase a needless point of controversy
between their two countries. He said the epidemic was a subject of
considerable scientific interest, and hoped they would have time for
some informal discussion with the principals to learn more from that
perspective, as well as to advance the publication of detail in a way
that might overcome the accumulated speculation of the past six or
seven years.

Lederberg said a more difficult problem, because it must touch on
the policies of controlled disclosure that were the privilege of each
country, was wider exchange of information about facilities that work
on BW-related matters. The U.S. already published some information
on these subjects. Lederberg said he was not authorized to speak on
behalf of the U.S. goverrment, but was confident that many still
larger steps could be agreed to on a reciprocal basis. He said
without broader disclosure, many biotechnology-related facilities in
the U.S.S.R. rumored to be BW-related caused anxiety, and motivated
initiatives to match them in the U.S., resulting in a tacit BW
technology race within the latitude of the treaty. Lederberg said if
these anxieties were groundless, it was not in the U.S.S.R.'s
interest that they be sustained by a refusal to discuss them; and
needless to say, vice versa.

Lederberg said third party and terrorist use of BW should be a
matter of equal concern to the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. Similar
concerns about CW have been discussed bilaterally at Berne. He said
if they could achieve higher mutual confidence about BW, they would
be better able to advance their mitual stance about BW proliferation
and terrorism.

Lederberg said an important objective, as well as
instrumentality, of confidence-building measures was enhanced
scientific cooperation. It was unrealistic to expect striking
9
progress in cooperation so long as fear about the other side's
technology was the dominant emotion in the relationship. He said the
U.S. could benefit from Soviet experience and skills in many aspects
of epidemic disease; and the converse was true for industrial and
pharmaceutical biotechnology. He said that most important, perhaps,
was that the third world was legitimately demanding that both
superpowers mitigate the bilateral problems, and devote attention and
resources to its needs.

Lederberg said he had as an appendix excerpts from Articles V and
X of the agreed conference report from the 1986 Geneva BWC Review
Conference, but in the interest of time he would just table them
rather than read them aloud. He concluded his statement, which was
met with applause.

Sverdlov said Lederberg's remarks were of overriding importance,
and that he would add a few words of his own. He quoted a Soviet
scientist who said: "Science lies in the palm of the state and warms
itself on the heat of that palm." Sverdlov said science was becoming
increasingly hot, that the role of science was increasing with the
greater development of society. He said the scientific community was
a presence in today's arena that could not be ignored, and that its
role should be positive. He said science had been used both to harm
and to benefit mankind. Madam Curie did not realize her discoveries
would result in the bomb. Sverdlov said he was a specialist in the
chemistry of radioactive isotopes produced by neutron absorption. He
said he was struck by some of the things written in a book by Ralph
Lapp called The New Force: Atoms and Men. Lapp participated in The
Manhattan Project. In this book he wrote about the myth of
radioactivity, saying that Hiroshima proved that a city could be
lived in after bombing, that radioactivity was not as dangerous as it
was ‘once thought to be. Sverdlov said that Lapp did not foresee the
long-term consequences. Sverdlov said today presented a situation
like that of the 1940's and 1950's, when lots of gaps in our
10
knowledge existed. He said today we did not foresee the long-term
consequences of developments in our labs. However, he said the
biological sciences were in a better stage than nuclear research
because there was a ban on biological weapons calling for the
destruction of all stockpiles. Sverdlov said this was a first step
toward the elimination of all weapons of mass destruction. He said
at the recent Review Conference they declared that all biological
weapons were disposed of and the signatories could contime building
on confidence-building measures.

Sverdlovy said he was preoccupied also with the differences
between biological research and atomic bomb research. He said
nuclear research was controlled by the state, because it required so
much capital, etc. But biological research was undertaken privately
in some countries, so it was more difficult to control by the
governments. He said they had to think about the dangers of this
research and possibility of circumvention of the rules and
regulations governing it. He said some of the issues were being
oversimplified. He said the Nobelist Wilbur had said that any
recombination was less dangerous than natural occurrences. Another
Nobelist believed that in the labs there was nothing new or worse
than occurred in nature, like recombination, mutants, etc., and that
what had not been created in nature would be in the future.
Sverdlov, however, said that what happened in nature happened on an
individual scale, but in the lab they created populations and
favorable conditions for their survival, and they did not know what
would happen if they escaped from the lab.

Sverdlov said there were two camps: the prophets of doom and the
optimists. He said they should be more attentive to the prophets of
doom, learning a lesson from the negative results of atomic
research. He said this was the viewpoint of the staff of his
institute, and that they had discussed it with their director,
Ovchinnikov. He said they designed their lab as a P-III level
11
containment lab and it was becoming almost a P-IV level containment
lab. He said he was offering this information about his lab as had
been suggested at the Review Conference. Sverdlov said they were
developing a vaccine against leukosis of cattle. He said they spent
$5 million for the lab on top of ruble expeditures, and that they
were willing to do this to protect personnel and the environment. He
said the lab would be completely open and he invited everyone present
to visit it when it came on line and said they would be free to ask
questions of the workers, etc. Sverdlov said this should be an
important discussion point of this seminar.

Sverdlov said his second point was that the problem of
confidence-building measures was a most crucial issue. He said if
there were mutual confidence, then issues such as propaganda about
certain events became less important. He said for instance that if
he and Rich were in frequent contact, and if there were allegations
that Rich was involved in developing BW, that Sverdlov would be able
to discount those allegations. But if he did not know Rich ard his
work, he would not be able to evaluate those charges.

Sverdlov said it was important to collaborate on the most humane
biological problems. He said in this meeting they could formate
areas of collaboration to present to their Academy leaderships. He
noted the existing record of scientific collaboration, recalling a
time when they tried to organize a permanent seminar on mlecular
biology. He said the first meeting, attended by David Baltimore,
occurred in 1975 in Kiev, but that regrettably was the first and last
meeting. Sverdlov said they had bilateral symposiums with other
Western countries, but regrettably they did not know as much about
scientists in the U.S. He said this went to the level of friendship
as well as to professional relationships. Sverdlov asked that these
points he raised be added to Lederbery's list of issues to discuss.

Petroy said Lederberg had mentioned the ethical responsibility of
scientists. Petrov said this was well understood and that it was his
. understanding that this responsibility rested heavily on scientists
12
who had made major breakthroughs. He said they were familiar with
Lederberg's accomplishments. He said these techniques were now
available to "the man in the street," and that maintaining the
responsibility of scientists was easier to achieve than resolving the
responsibility of "the man in the street." Petrov said this ethical
dimension became very important because who knew what were the ethics
of the man in the street. He said it was difficult to predict the
areas in which a major breakthrough would be disseminated to lesser
minds.

Petrov said he was an immmnologist, trying to remove immmity by
creating tissue compatibility. He said if this occurred by a new
method, then BW would not be needed. Any germ in the envirorment
would become a danger, the body would be open to assault by hostile
germs. Petrov said he said this to make the point that someone
needed to make a list of the most potent hazardous lines of
biological research and determine whether the research was
necessary. He said it was necessary to monitor and verify these
research facilities, and asked where the dividing line was to be
drawn. Petrov said genetic engineering was on the hands-off list.

He asked whether suppression of immmity for transplants needed to be
closely monitored. He reiterated the necessity to list these
potentially dangerous areas and to make humankind aware and alerted
to the dangers.

Sverdlov agreed Petrov's point should also be discussed. The
meeting broke for lunch.

After lunch, Rich said he wanted to make some statements
reinforcing same of the comments made earlier. He said that BW were
weapons of mass destruction, and that both the U.S. and the U.S.S.R.
already had weapons of mass destruction. He said the fact that other
nations might develop BW posed a great risk, and it was in both
countries ' self-interest to set up a system of adherence to the BWC
and to make it impossible for others to develop BW. Rich said their
13
countries' interests were congruent in this area, amd they had the
opportunity here to exercise ingemity. He asked whether they could
invent political and social mechanisms which would build confidence
and strengthen the treaty. He asked whether they could do things to
ensure that BW development was not being considered. Rich said he
could think of many approaches, and the most obvious had to do with
openness. He said they in the U.S. were interested in and encouraged
by the Soviet policy of "glasnost." He said this principle could be
applied in the field of BW. Rich said he wanted this kind of
activity to be discouraged in the world, that he did not want BW
falling into the hands of terrorists, and so they were left with the
challenge of inventing mechanisms that build confidence.

Schvedkov said it was his privilege to address this meeting in a
broader framework. He said this reflected not only how he felt about
it, but also what his profession as a political scientist motivated
him to do. Referring to the hazards and dangers of BW proliferation,
Schvedkov said he had been asked at lunch whether the Soviets were
worried about the development of BW in the U.S. He said the U.S.
press had given them reason to worry. He said it was one thing when
they wrote about developments in Southeast Asia, but another when
they wrote about Department of Defense activities. He said the
Washington Post and Wall Street Journal reported on U.S. programs to
test BW. Schvedkov said they were concerned about these
developments. However, despite this, he said he wanted to make clear
they regarded the BWC Review Conference as a first step toward
eliminating weapons of mass destruction and changing the way of
thinking in this century. He said in the late 1960's, some people
thought BW could serve a rational purpose as weapons of mass
destruction or for terrorists, but this realization did not come that
easily to the U.S. Schvedkov referred to a book by Graham Allison on
U.S. foreign policy which demonstrated that the rational argument to
give up BW was resisted by DoD. Schvedkov said proof of this existed
14
in recent reports in the U.S. press. He said from a broad political
perspective, it was not possible to examine compliance with the BWC
outside of confidence-building between the U.S. and the U.S.S.R.

Schvedkov said the Soviets did want to progress in advancing new
innovative concepts. He referred to the Soviet proposal to eliminate
muclear weapons and the Warsaw Pact proposal to make deep cuts in
weapons from the Atlantic to the Urals, both butressed by their
moratorium on miclear testing. He said these proposals signified
progress in the thought of the Soviet people and leadership, and the
desire of the leadership to deal with those concerns. He said they
did not believe the American Generals anymore then American Generals
believed them, so they too wanted far-reaching verification. He
quoted a Gorbachev interview of September 9, 1986, in which he said
there could be a supranational network of CIB verification.
Schvedkov said that to him personally, this was a serious phrase with
far-reaching implications. He said the Soviet govermment recognized
the feasibility of international and supra-national forms of
verification. He said the Warsaw Pact in its proposals was calling
for verification and on-site inspection, and that in the Chemical
Weapons talks they were discussing far-reaching methods of
verification. The Stockholm accord represented early steps toward
confidence-building measures.

Schvedkov apologized for talking about things so remote from BW,
but said they were related. He said BW could be expected to be used
in a war of complete destruction. He said confidence-building
measures were related to measures to increase security between their
two countries. But the third-country problem was reflected by this
upsurge of terrorism, which was generated by countries feeling
insecure. He said they had to do more than limit BW, they mst
ensure confidence between their two countries, and then maybe the
entire international environment would be more stable. He said they
could provide an additional impetus toward better and more
15
international security, and scientists could do mich to promote
international negotiations. Returning to the subject of BW,
Schvedkov said they should go on record to say that the BC was a
working convention. He said he did not think it was being violated
anywhere, and biological scientists would have to do their utmost to
enhance the convention.

Lederberg said he was interested that Schvedkov raised questions
about publicly available information in the U.S. on BW. Referring to
a Wall Street Journal article of September 17, 1986, Lederberg said
he would stipulate that the mumbers were approximately correct and
showed an increase in research in this area, with spending at $40
million in 1986. Lederberg repeated that this was publicly available
information, and that the nature of the facilities at Dugway was
under intense debate, with close scrutiny by Congress. He said these
activities were legal and within the bounds of the Treaty, yet they
must make the Soviets very uneasy about the long-range intentions of
the U.S. Lederberg said maybe they thought this was just the tip of
the iceberg. Yet, he asked them to try to lock at the problem from
the American point of view, where there was not this kind of open
information about Soviet activities. He said in the absence of
public information, there was only speculation with a tendency toward
worst case scenarios, and this drove the process. Lederberg said he
was worried about a technology race within the bounds of the BWC. He
said an important step would be reciprocity with regard to providing
information. He said more, not less, discussion on both sides would
produce realistic appraisals of each others' activities. He said he
was alarmed because it was natural that these newspaper articles
would alarm the Soviet Union and spark Soviet activities, thereby
feeding into a cycle of technology race. He said openness must be
encouraged by an understanding of the possible disastrous final
consequences. He said there was agreement on this point, that it was
reflected in the Review Conference in Geneva. .
16

Lederberg said he had with him public information about U.S.
programs which was fairly comprehensive. He said questions must be
addressed not just through the press, but through proper channels.
He said he agreed generally on the relationship between BW and arms
control. The prospect of nuclear annihilation was the main source of
anxiety, but he worried that if nuclear weapons were controlled,
there would be easy recourse to BW as weapons of mass destruction,
and they would be technologically more readily available to other
countries. He said he hoped the Convention was working, but it was
not enough that each side knew it was complying; each mist know that
the other was complying. He said they had to discover more active
means of assuring each other, through what he termed "affirmative
cooperative verification." He said progress was being made in that
direction.

Bennett made some additional comments on what had appeared in the
press. He said the numbers were quite accurate and showed an
increase in spending. But, he pointed out that a lot of that money
was for vaccines, and full scale production of vaccines was costly,
so just looking at the mmbers could be misleading. He said concern
about research in the U.S. was also related to concern about the
environmental hazards of this research. He explained this had ended
up in the U.S. courts on that basis, and unfortunately not on the
basis of whether these activities were in compliance with the BWC.
Bennett said this discussion pointed out that the asymmetry in
available information was a source of tension. He said he favored
this idea of affirmative exchange of information so we could know
what each other was doing. He said they needed to talk about what
they as scientists could do to build confidence in the BWC, ard he
hoped they would come up with concrete suggestions at this meeting.

Turning to a new subject, Dubinin said that 50% of zygotes
persisted in the natural envirorment. He said this was a biological
point, that environmental muitagens were little else than a way to
affect human inheritance. He said envirormental mutagens were
17
related to nuclear weapons by a steady, gradual, slow process. He
said they could be incorporated into the envirorment and could be
large enough to affect mankind. He said in that area, one needed to
have methods of analysis into the mutation of man, but these methods
were not practical because they required high investments. He said
six methods were being developed for DNA mutagenesis; none were
realistic, but they were in progress and could become an area of
joint Soviet-American research. Should this research be achieved, he
said it would build confidence. Ten point five percent of newborns
were born with genetic defects. He said they could affect human
development in a common effort to make new peaceful developments.

Lederberg said he shared an interest in this problem of chemical
factors in the ervirorment, some natural and some from pollution, and
now the problem of toxins for military uses. He said this research
should be encouraged and would produce positive results. He said the
relationship of this to confidence-building was that openness should
operate internationally and intranationally. He reiterated that the
Wall Street Journal article was a matter of public debate, and they
could learn by talking to American scientists about these programs.
He agreed there was deep interest in this area in the U.S. and that
direct measures of mutational changes within the U.S. population
would be achievable at lower cost in ten years.

Steinbrumer called attention to the peculiar character of this
problem as an arms control problem as different from other arms
control problems. He said the good news was that the problem was
almost entirely in the future, if at all. The BWC was in place,
there had been no recent modern day use of BW, and there was only one
past incident that needed to be cleared up and that had begun. He
said they were preventing something, rather than having to roll
something back. He said BW arms control also had a different
character in that the research and technological dynamic was coming
not out of the military community, but out of the medical community,
18
which was conducting the research for good reasons. Technology to
help society could be used to hurt it. He said this was mixed up
with constructive work in a way that weapons were not. He said they
could not try to limit technology development as they did in the ABM
Treaty. Fundamental techniques would be created for medical
purposes. He said they had to get at intentions, instead of
capability, and this posed a very big challenge. He said openness
and cooperation were necessary, but very abstract. They faced the
problem of bringing definition to these principles that would give
them meaning. Steinbruner said that if the technology were developed
outside of military organizations, an important key to control would
be prevention of the transfer of technology to military
organizations. To do so in a credible, verifiable way, they would
have to depend on rules of how military organizations conduct
themselves, and that would put them into the different area of how
one observes military operations to be sure their character reflected
what they had agreed was limited. He said they would have to think
about how to control the transfer of technology from the civilian to
the military sector.

Lederberg said one criterion to define the dividing line was
secrecy. He said large scale conversion of civilian technology to
the military would be done in secrecy. It was not impossible to
imagine an agreement that the militaries would not conduct BW
prevention research, but that would require enforcement.

Sverdlov said he had a few words of commentary on the issue of
openness. He said the problem was vaster than one of openness, that
confidence was the criterion of confidence and that was a vicious
cycle. He said the people at this meeting were organizers of
research. He said an agreement required an organizational and
institutional mechanism to ensure confidence. He said they all
subscribed to the ideas expressed so far, but the big issue was to
take action.
19

Merzabekov said that governments sometimes made decisions without
consulting scientists. He said scientists thought that if anything
was interesting, it should be studied, regardless of possible
long-term hazards. Politics did have an impact on scientists. He
said President Reagan regarded biotechnology and genetic engineering
as areas where the Soviets should have limited access. Merzabekov
said the first confidence-building measure should be to increase the
sheer numbers of people in scientific exchanges. Governments sought
advice from scientists. He said if American scientists harmonized
with Soviet scientists, the U.S. government would listen. Merzabekov
said there was always the danger one side could duplicate what the
other was doing in its labs, ard this fact could lead to restraint.
He expressed his hope that at Reykjavik the politicians could make a
step forward in confidence-building measures as a step toward further
openness.

Marks offered some personal reflections on the comments made so
far. He agreed with Sverdlov that communication mst be freer and
said the challenge was how to accomplish that. He said they had to
understand the differences in the cultures in which they worked. He
said the Americans could provide the Soviets with more information
about Department of Defense support of microbiological research. He
expressed the view that the Soviets had nothing to worry about so
long as it was in the open realm and subject to public discussion.

He said the amount of communication between scientists in the U.S.
was more intimate and rapid than within the U.S.S.R. If this was not
true, he asked to be informed and educated. He said these steps
required commitment to a long-term process. Neither side had a
record of resorting to biological warfare. But, he said the
technology was evolving rapidly and they had a window in which to
move: expeditiously toward full public disclosure and a process of
science fully in the public eye. He said this group mst mve slowly
in the area of scientific seminars to explore advances. Marks said
20

that one could not understate the problems of differences of
perception due to differences in the scientific cultures of their two
countries. He recommended they take a long-term view of achieving
these goals through the establishment of coordinating committees in
the two Academies to oversee joint projects. He suggested certain
areas for collaboration including vaccines and cancer research.

Ustinov offered some remarks on the translation of confidence
building measures into specific steps. He said actions should be
taken at the junction of science and politics. Ustinov said the
Soviet side made some steps at the Review Conference, including a
proposal to have a group of scientific experts discuss breakthroughs
in technologies relevant to the BWC. Other suggestions they made
included exchange of data on research centers undertaking biological
research including location of facilities, and volume and basic
thrust of work; and on epidemic breakouts. He said the Geneva form
accepted many of these suggestions and they were translated into a
decision to convene in April a conference of scientific and technical
experts to work out these measures. Ustinov said the Soviets were
open to the ideas of other parties, including the U.S. proposal to
intensify the publication of research relevant to the BWC. He said
Sverdlov's call to complement the exchange of ideas with an exchange
of information would build confidence. Ustinov said the Soviets
preempted the U.S. side at the Review Conference by proposing to
formulate a protocol to the Convention to include legally binding
measures to improve compliance with the BWC. He said the Americans
were the first to oppose this proposal and it surprised them because
usually the Americans were vigorous in looking for stronger
verification measures. He said the Americans were not prepared to
accept this idea, even though it was supported by Ireland, Pakistan
and the socialist countries. He said if they were preoccupied with
the BWC, then they might think of it also in these terms: That
promoting it and ensuring its effectiveness was a matter of goodwill
21
and of what the U.S., the U.S.S.R. and the U.K. would do -- this
would determine world perception of the BWC. Ustinov said it now had
100 or 103 signatories, but now there were hesitations to join due to
internal reasons, such as some African countries not being ready to
address the BWC. He said there was some relation between the BWC and
the negotiations to ban chemical weapons. In 1969, they decided to
ban BW and chemical weapons in separate treaties. He said the
chemical ban may soon be ripe for signature, but there was an
attitude to wait until the end of the chemical weapons negotiations
so that some of those verification methods could be used to verify
the BWC.

Rich said there was strong sentiment that the BWC had been
effective, and it might be unwise to open it up and charge it. He
said the Americans may have felt that opening the treaty to add
verification measures might also open it up to measures. that could
weaken it. He said it would be possible to develop measures to
strengthen it without opening it up to discussion and risking
weakening it.

Drozhdov said the problems being discussed here had been
discussed from different angles. He said he was a virologist, and
this created for him the image of using viruses as weapons to cause
outbreaks of epidemics. He was glad to learn of the existence of the
Convention and its effectiveness. He asked how it could be made
workable, how the world public could be given guarantees against
possible violations. Drozhdov said that researchers were responsible
for the outcome of their research and its possible misuse. He said
research was two-sided. If something was ripe to be examined,
scientists examined it. He said gene-engineering could be both a
great benefit and a great detriment to mankind. He said BW was not
realistically applicable today, but it was self-reproductive and
self-propagating, and unless it was controlled, it could destroy
mankind. He referred to a Jack London story, "Scarlet Fever," which
22
was about the destruction of society except for two men. He said one
idea heard here for averting such a catastrophe was to develop
protection from BW through vaccines. He said products to counter BW
would contribute to confidence building, and if they could work for
defense, instead of attack, this would modify the mindset of the
people involved in it.

Drozhdov said he was from the Institute of Polioviruses, which
was open to foreigners and was itself an outgrowth of U.S.-Soviet
cooperation in developing the vaccine against polio. He said his
institute was open to all guests and it was necessary that each side
go to the other side and question what it was doing, rather than
having to resort to press reports. He said each side should visit
the other side's labs and ask questions of the researchers. That
kind of cooperation would be useful. He said what was happening now
was that scientists were harnessing powerful forces that were hard to
control, and their task was to give humanity safeguards that these
forces would be used for good, peaceful developments, and not to the
detriment of mankind.

Lederberg suggested they look ahead. He said they were just
starting to look at problems at the boundary of science and
politics. He said they could take some encouragement from progress
at the BWC Review Conference, including the ad hoc meeting of experts
in Geneva in April which might cover some of the issues they have
been concerned about. He said looking ahead, there might be a
special role to be played by this group. He suggested an extension
of these discussions after the experts' meeting in April. Lederberg
invited the Soviet delegation to continue this discussion in
Washington at a mutually convenient time, perhaps in May or June.

Woodward said the most important product of this meeting had been
the openness of the discussion and confidence-building between these
two groups. He said if this process stopped here, it would stop on
shallow ground, so he hoped there would be a continuation of the
dialogue.
23

Woodward said he would follow up on some of the comments made
earlier. He said he was interested in infectious diseases, and noted
that $40 million was spent by the U.S. military on infectious
diseases research. He said the problem was that diseases like
malaria did not interest their civilian researchers, that their
purpose was to protect military people in areas where those diseases
persisted.

Woodward said this conference reminded him and Bennett of a
meeting twenty-five years ago where they evolved a joint U.S.-Japan
medical cooperative program. He said he could think of one area
where U.S. amd Soviet scientists could cooperate to build confidence:
in smallpox, which had been eradicated except from primates in
Africa. Woodward said the U.S. had stopped immunization against
smallpox. He said they could agree to do away entirely with the
smallpox vaccination, and this was an example of how to take a little
step toward progress. He said he did know that military research had
helped the civilian sector, so they were talking about a two-way
street as far as military research was concerned.

Sverdlov said he would offer some concluding remarks for the
first day. He said their discussion had been open, candid and
friendly. He said the plan was to talk about joint research programs
the following day, but they had started on that today. He suggested
that the next day they start thinking in institutional terms about
confidence building measures. He said Marks had made a suggestion
similar to one of his own, amd which he had discussed with
Ovchinnikov. Sverdlov said there was a very good starting point in
launching U.S.-Soviet joint committees to organize cooperative
projects, seminars, and committees. He said the discussions had been
useful and they had heard a series of interesting specific
suggestions. He thanked everyone for a useful day of discussions.

Lederberg agreed, saying it had been an exemplary discussion. He
said it was an historical event to get well-known scientists to.
discuss these issues at the border of science and politics. He said
this day alone was an outcome that justified the effort involved.
24
Sverdloy thanked the interpreters for their good work. The
meeting adjourned for the day and resumed at 10:30 a.m. on Thursday,
October 9.

Sverdlov opened the Thursday session, saying that Dr. Nikiforov
had been invited by Lederberg and Marks to address the group.
Nikiforov was the immediate physician at Sverdlovsk during the
anthrax outbreak. Sverdlov said Nikiforov did not bring his slides,
but they could be brought here. He asked Lederberg what he preferred
to do. Lederberg said it would be better if Nikiforov brought his
slides. Sverdlov said it was agreed then that Nikiforov's slides
would be brought here and while they waited, they would start on the
discussion of specific measures of confidence-building. He asked
Lederberg if he wished to make any remarks.

Lederberg thanked Sverdlov. He said confidence-building measures
fell into two categories. The first was steps specifically related
to BW programs. He said they also fully understood the importance of ©
more general measures of scientific cooperation to improve the
quality and effectiveness of medical research. Lederberg said they
probably wanted to spend most of their time today discussing the
second category. He said it was unfortunate that they lived in a
world where they had to discuss this, because science ideally should
have no national bounds. He said there was, of course, individual
competitiveness, but that was not a serious problem. He said the
intermingling of the pursuit of science with national competition and
rivalry was the source of the problem. In regard to military
applications of science, Lederberg said it would be desirable to
reverse the trends of the last 10-15 years. He said they mst do
this in a step-wise fashion and start with those things that would
have’ the least resistance and the widest appeal due to their
humanitarian significance. He recommended focusing on subjects with
these features: a) programs stressing medical problems of broad .
significance; b) programs with true reciprocity, where both sides
25
would bring samething of equal sigr’ *i:cance and magnitude. Lederberg
reiterated that if they proceeded in this manner, they would be least
likely to counter resistance in the U.S., and he said he thought
there were probably similar sentiments in the U.S.S.R. Lederberg
said they should of course work on things of interest and importance
in which there was eagerness to participate on both sides. He said
his statement was obvious, but served as a good guideline for their
discussion.

Sverdlov said he was struck by the degree of coincidence of
philosophy of himself and Lederberg. He said Lederberg's thoughts
were remarkably similar to the ideas he had written down in
preparation for today's discussions. He told a story of a Russian
general practitioner of the last century who always turned away from
a cemetery when he rode past it, explaining that he was ashamed
because many in that cemetery had been his patients. Sverdlov said
their shame as medics could be reduced by cooperating on medical
problems. He said Lederberg had ably expressed that concentrated
scientific programs could help achieve medical, biological and human
goals, as well as build confidence.

Sverdlov said he would read his prepared notes, which were
interesting in that they were so close to Lederberg's remarks.
Sverdlov said the first requirement of cooperation was that there be
just a small number of well thought-out programs. Second, they must
be relevant to the times and humanistic, the opposite of BW in
substance, operating under the slogan "biology for the benefit of
mankind."' Third, they must be prestigious, attracting serious
scientists, and they must be successful projects. He said the
programs must be well financed, and there should be bonuses and
incentives to attract the best scholars. Those involved mst realize
that they were to advance both science and politics, and it was hard
to say which was more important. He said scientists' personal
ambitions must be in harmony with the project and they mst realize