26
that they were part of a scientific and political experiment which
could lay the foundation for cooperation. There mist be a political
result as well as a scientific result.

Sverdlov recalled that Marks the previous day said that
management of the program should be by a joint committee which should
provide a broader context such as information sharing through
seminars, workshops, etc. Sverdlov said one possible program could
be in research on the human genome and diagnosis and treatment of
hereditary diseases. He said this was an important problem on which
there was already scientific cooperation, as in Huntington's disease,
muscular dystrophy, etc. These involved methods of pre-natal
diagnoses, but could involve later gene therapy. He suggested they
formulate a specific program on structure of the human genome. He
said this was a costly program which perhaps could be done on the
international level. Sverdlov said a second area was development and
cell differentiation in cancer, with the long term goal being to cure
cancer. He suggested looking at the role of the individual gene in
carcinogenisis.

Petrov said it appeared they had reached some agreement already,
with everyone agreeing there should be uniform guidelines. He said
the main idea was to oppose BW and the intervention of BW into human
organisms. He said there were certain scientific fields that were
very hazardous for the production of BW, and that they should keep
promising scholars in those fields in mind and set exclusively
peaceful objectives before them and not let them get into the hands
of the military. Continuing the ideas expressed by Drozhdov the
previous day, Petrov said they should discuss new approaches to
designing new vaccines. This was important because it involved some
of the same fields and scientists as could be involved in BW
activities. He said Pasteur's principles for designing vaccines were
not working for new infections, and no other types of vaccines were
capable of killing some types of infections. He said they mst try
. to create artificial vaccines, recombinated vaccines, on the basis of
27

genetic engineering synthesis. He said work in this direction was
taking place, they were trying to integrate and camplex natural and
artificial material, and they were on the threshold of success in
this field. He said working on this were Professor Lerner in the
U.S., a large group of scientists in Israel, Professor Ladnor in
France, Svenson in Sweden, and a large group of Soviet scientists
doing work on this in the Institute of Virology and Inmmology.
Petrov said he was putting forward another program idea dealing with
genetic vaccines, involving the fields and scientists discussed here.

Lederberg expressed interest in Petrov's proposal. He said in
the U.S. they had reached a tragic impasse in technical and legal
developments regarding vaccine development. He said every vaccine
would have side effects, even though it would save many lives. He
spoke of the so-called "swine flu fiasco." That was a good vaccine,
but it became enmeshed in politics. Lederberg said legal liability
for vaccine side-effects had become a big problem. Juries tended to
focus on individual distress, not the larger humanitarian and medical
context. Lawyers, eager to earn large fees from large damages, were
pushing this in a vigorous way. He said the net result was that it
was almost impossible for pharmaceutical firms to stay in the vaccine
business, and the ones that stayed in charged a great amount for
vaccines, with 95% of the cost to cover insurance. He said it would
be natural for this to be succeeded by a nationalization of the
process, removing the profit motive. Lederberg said this area should
be socialized, but it was taking a long time in the U.S. Technical
possibilities were far ahead of the legal possibilities. He said
AIDS represented serious technical problems with the possibility of
vaccines, but the technical problems were small compared with the
operational problems of getting into testing and development of
vaccines. Lederberg asked what was happening in the Soviet Union in
this regard. He asked whether they had analogous problems, or
whether they were able to test and develop vaccines as easily as
twenty years ago. Lederberg said it had been said that the polio
28
vaccine could never have been tested in the U.S. today. He said it
would be ten to fifteen years before this situation changed in the
U.S., and asked what was the situation in the U.S.S.R.

Sverdlov said Petrov and Drozhdov could provide exhaustive
answers to this question. Petrov said he had only a small remark,
which was that it seemed the U.S. now faced a situation where there
were fewer legal barriers to the creation of BW than to new vaccines.

Drozhdov said Lederberg's question about operational differences
with vaccines was interesting and complicated because it illuminated
a range of problems. He said doctors were concerned about improving
human health, but the final testing mst be dome on people. He said
that according to Soviet medical tradition, at a certain stage they
begin "field tests," which were required before introducing
medicines. He said they were familiar with the problems in the U.S.
of legal actions taken against vaccine producers and improvers. The
World Health Organization tried to work out an international position
on that problem. He said he attended this meeting, which resulted in
a document outlining new principles to be used in the development and
production of vaccines. Drozhdov said this document could be a good
basis for a solution, to control the relationships between the
designer, producer, state and recipients of the products. He said he
was not familiar with the legal basis in the Soviet Union, but
offered to explain their guarantee system that guaranteed safety to
the participants. He said vaccines went through testing before they
were adopted for distribution, and this was approved by the Ministry
of Health. The test results were discussed by the Committee on
Vaccines of the Ministry of Health, which was authorized to carry out
independent recommendations which were binding on the Ministry of
Health. Drozhdov said they were aware of possible side-effects, so
they considered public opinion and the opinion of all relevant
organizations. He said they had a different system, and also a ~
different system for compensation for health damages. He said |
29
international cooperation could help to solve this problem on the
basis of recommendations made by Petrov. He said in the U.S. there
were tests of vaccines which were the basis of the polio vaccine, and
wide testing in the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. speeded up its
development. He said widespread testing could yield information on
epidemiology and side-effects, and they could use cooperation in some
way to develop new vaccines.

Sverdlov called for a coffee break and said Nikiforov's slides
would arrive shortly. After the break, Drozhdov reiterated that
these cooperative programs must have a high measure of publicity so
that everyone's reputation would gain and good researchers would be
attracted.

Rich endorsed the comments made by Petrov and Drozhdov concerning
the field of vaccine development. He said it was an area of
increasing importance for a variety of reasons. He said the
important point about doing joint research in this area was that it
was at the heart of mutual confidence because it would involve the
same people as those involved in BW research. Rich said it would be
effective in letting people feel they had a window on the activities
of both sides. He said it was a very useful area deserving a lot of
attention for confidence building in the BW area.

lederberg said he was glad to have been reminded of the history
of cooperation in this field. He recalled a moving article by Sabin
about the development of the polio vaccine. He said that prior
example lent credibility to this as an area for cooperation. He said
what should happen next was that each side should refer this and the
other proposals raised back to their respective Academies. He said
he would also bring back these ideas to the NIH Director, who would
be coming to the U.S.S.R. in the next month primarily to discuss
cancér research. lederberg noted that Marks and Rich were both on
the advisory committee to the NAS on international activities, so
they would have a strong voice in Academy deliberations.
30

Lederberg asked whether they should talk more about specifics.

He said whooping cough represented a problematic situation in the
U.S. There was a vaccine, but it caused side-effects because it was
toxic. He said there had been a public reaction against it,
particularly in Great Britain. The quality of the vaccine may be
among the worst that is produced. He said this was a complicated
problem that deserved attention, and the appropriate route for
vaccination was uncertain. He said there was lively interest in this
in the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. Lederberg said diarrheal disease was
underestimated as a cause of morbidity in the world, and it would be
desirable to have more effective approaches to deal with it. He said
the World Health Organization sponsored efforts in other areas such
as leprosy and TB. He said the BOG vaccine for TB was now believed
to have limited value and this would be another important area of
inquiry. He said it would be interesting to have some discussion on
this.

Sverdlov observed that this problem of vaccines had stirred a lot
of resonance. Woodward expressed his agreement with Lederberg on the
importance of diarrheal disease. He said another possible vaccine
candidate was encephalitis. He said this was an important area of
bilateral pursuit that would help the world at large.

Bennett said it was useful to discuss candidates, but the final
choice should be to work on vaccines for specific diseases. He said
this should be looked at from the point of view of scientific
opportunities. He suggested a mechanism modeled after the program
with Japan, which also bore on rewards to the scientists involved.

In the program with Japan, they had a panel on viral diseases which
would work on two or three diseases at a time. But, they held annual
symposia which would be addressed by the most prominent virologists
speaking about their work. Their techniques could be applied mre
broadly. Bennett said the choice of topics should be made by experts
who could evaluate the scientific opportunities to succeed.
31

Lederberg said he was reminded of an Institute of Medicine report
on priorities for vaccine development, which he said he would be sure
to share with his Soviet colleagues. Bennett said that report was
based on both priorities of public health and scientific
opportunities.

Marks endorsed what Bennett had said about the importance of
opportunities for progress. Marks said research on cell
differentiation and the human genome were both areas that provided
opportunities for broad collaboration in areas of basic science. He
strongly endorsed these areas and said they would be well-advised to
focus mich more specifically within these areas. For cell
differentiation, Marks said an important concept was that of the
reversibility of malignancy. He said this was opening an important
conceptual approach to treatment, and some labs in the Soviet Union
were also involved in this. He said it was so complex and broad that
it would require a significant commitment at the clinical level.
Sverdlov agreed this was an interesting field from the scientific
point of view.

Merzabekov said they had been participating today in a seminar
organized as a consequence of expanded cooperation of scientists. He
said they should think about cooperation in basic research. In
researching the human genome, Merzabekov said there were
opportunities to make physical maps of the human genome, to make
sequences of the original genome structure, and to understand the
operational process of chromosomes and genomes. He said they could
begin long-term research in this field; they were at the initial
stages of this research, and it was important to begin collaboration
at the beginning.

Merzabekov said they had started new research in DNA operation in
terms of the human genome in certain tissues. He said it was
recently reported that this could be useful in treating AIDS. The
inhibition of replication of certain viruses could be of fundamental
. importance. He observed that one danger of these bilateral meetings
32
was that some countries might suspect a "superpower comdominium," so
it would be good if they could do something about hunger by
engineering the development of plants and vegetation. He suggested
they could include Third World people in these discussions.

Sverdlov said the slides had arrived and they could now hear the
presentation by Nikiforov.

Nikiforov said he would like to present material on a special
form of Siberian anthrax. He said he was a general practitioner who
had devoted almost all of his career to its study. He said it wasa
source of great trouble in Russia and its danger was still
significant today. He said it was endemic in Sverdlovsk, which
happened to be the interest of certain researchers, as well as of
political interest. Nikiforov said that since 1938, there had been
over one hundred fifty recorded cases of animal diseases, and anthrax
had been reported in 30 administrative areas in the Sverdlovsk
region. He said that against this background, an outbreak in this
region could have passed unnoticed, except for the fact that in the
Soviet Union, 98% of anthrax in man occurs in a dermal form.
However, in Sverdlovsk in 1979, they were faced with a large outbreak
of intestinal anthrax. He said they had been unable to totally
explain the pathogenesis of this. He said in a previous outbreak in
Smolensk [sic] the cause of the outbreak was contaminated sausages,
and twenty seven out of thirty seven cases died. Nikiforov said one
or two anthrax cases annually was usual for the Soviet Union.

Nikiforov said what was extraordinary about Sverdlovsk was the
intestinal form. The outbreak had been preceded by morbidity among
domestic animals. He explained that people with private livestock
circulated meat and bone flour that proved to be infected with the
agent that caused anthrax. It took four to five days to market the
flour, followed closely by disease outbreaks among animals. He said
some of the sick animals were killed and their meat was sold on the
black market, bypassing proper inspection. He said this occurred
33
mostly in the southwest portion of Sverdlovsk. The first human case
was on April 5. It was very serious, with incredibly fast lethal
outcomes. He said the disease set on violently, acutely, with
unbearable cutting pains in the abdomen which they were unable to
control. He said the victims had swollen bellies, bloody diarrhea
and vomit, and clinical symptoms of toxic infectious shock including
labored breathing (47 breaths per minute), cyanosis, tachycardia, and
an unstoppable fall of arterial pressure. He said there were major
disturbances in coagulation, fibronolysis, increased urea, and the
body temperature rose to 41° centigrade and then fell to 35-33°
centigrade. Nikiforov said many patients developed subjective
improvement with the fall of fever, but then died within five to
seven hours. He said this summed up the general clinical picture of
the symptoms of the patients.

Nikiforov said he was flown to Sverdlovsk on April 6. The mmber
of cases kept increasing and so did their lethal outcomes. He said
on some days they had to autopsy five or six corpses. In one month,
96 people got the disease, representing the largest single outbreak
of this disease in Soviet and Russian history. He said 17 were
identified as having the pure form of dermal anthrax, of which six
cases had this form complicated by generalization of the process. He
said 79 had the pure intestinal form, and out of those, 64 died.
Fifteen patients with the intestinal form survived. Nikiforov said
that, apparently, this was an extraordinary thing to achieve, since
they knew of no other survivors in the world of this form of
intestinal anthrax.

Nikiforov explained what they did. First, they took strict
hygienic steps to withdraw the infected meat, broadly commimicated
the danger and warned people not to eat it. Second, they installed
promptly a treatment clinic next to a hospital, converted it into an
anthrax treatment center and took there all people with fast rising
temperature, bad feelings and changes on their skin. He said they
34

intentionally erred toward hospitalizing more people than probably
had anthrax. He said they used the latest available antibiotics in
1979, and used them in maximm allowable doses. They diagnosed a
total of 96 anthrax cases, even though they hospitalized and examined
five times as many to detect all anthrax cases. He said they were
very fast in diagnosing anthrax. On April 10, they obtained
bacterial evidence to confirm the diagnosis of anthrax, and the
strains proved identical from animals and people. He said the strain
was virulent, with sharply defined capsula. It was sensitive to all
the antibiotics they had at their disposal, including penicillin. He
said they paid maximm attention to bringing patients out of toxic
shock, but the most active treatment failed to produce much result.
Nikiforov said it was impossible to stop the clinical development of
toxic shock and the patients died within twenty-four hours after the
shock developed. He said the life of the infected persons was only
24-48 hours, and it took intense efforts to extend that period even a
few hours.

Nikiforov said there was edema of the brain and of different
tissues. There was acidosis indicated by an extremely low pH of
6.8. Early introduction of active treatment allowed them to save 15
patients. He said they were unable to bring patients out of toxic
and infectious shock. Nikiforov said he would show same slides, and
he apologized for the poor quality of some of them, explaining that
sometimes he had a shortage of color film, and that the situation was
such that taking pictures was not the most important thing. He then
showed a series of slides showing skin lesions and autopsy slides
showing severe damage including extensive hemmorhage to the
intestines, spleen, lungs and brain of several anthrax victims.

Sverdlov thanked Nikiforov and said it was time for the lunch
break. After the break, Sverdlov said Nikiforov was available for
questions now, amd that the Americans would meet with him further the
following day.
35

Lederberg said he would have more detailed questions for him the
following day, but did have one question now. He said the epidemic
must have been very difficult to treat, because it had many unique
qualities. Lederberg asked whether lab studies had been done on the
strains they isolated in the epidemic to ascertain whether they were
extraordinarily virulent.

Nikiforov said they conducted research to determine if it was
anthrax or same other infection, and to learn its sensitivity to
antibiotics and discover regular features of the strain.

Woodward said he and Nikiforov had a good discussion during the
lunch break and summarized for the group the results of that
discussion. He said each patient that had the cutaneous form had
contact with animals. The man with the swollen arms shown in the
slides had been given steroids which had no effect. He said there
was a relationship between earlier treatment and earlier recovery.
Woodward noted parallel features with hemorrhagic fever, where once
shock appeared, steroids also had no effect.

Nikiforov said that all cases of skin form of anthrax in the
uncomplicated form survived, and that penicillin was quite
successful. He said the treatment of toxic shock included treatment
with intravenous medication and large doses (up to 10 grams) of
steroids. He emphasized the necessity of administering large doses
because the sensitivity of tissues to these steroids had changed. He
said they used colloids and blocking "ferments." They administered
large quantities of intravenous fluids plus calcium chloride and
insulin when they recorded Dvc (diffuse vascular coagulation)
syndrome. Nikiforov said they administered antibiotics, using a wide
range in the case of toxic shock. However, they could not find any
that were clinically effective in diagnosed cases, including
tetracycline and penicillin. They also used cardiac stimulants.
Nikiforov said finally the toxic shock was complicated by kidney
failure and insufficiency. He said the difference between
36
hemorrhagic fever and ant*rax was that with anthrax, the kidneys were
the first to be damaged. He said that with hemorrhagic fever in
Korea, the kidney problem was secondary, occurring after toxic
shock. He noted that kidney insufficiency was now a common problem
in the Soviet Union, characterized by strong hemorrhaging around the
kidneys.

Lederberg thanked Nikiforov for his comments and said he looked
foward to discussing more of the details the following day. (See
attached appendix.)

Sverdlov said they could now further discuss the proposals on the
table.

Lederberg said they had discussed earlier in the morning work on
the human genome. He said one subset of that issue was the
suggestion for a crash program to sequence the entire human genane.
He said the idea of achieving total understanding of the entire
genome was an important metaphor, but he had problems with doing this
to the exclusion of other scientific research. He said captivating
the image of this one highly mechanized program could replace thought
with brute force. He said there was a place for some investigation,
for instance to decide to map one X and one Y chromosome. Still,
there was the problem of deciding whose X and whose Y chromosome to
map. There is no average genome, but perhaps a consensus genome. He
said it could be as interesting to focus on the differences as well
as to get the totality of it. He said this was an oversimplified
statement of the objectives - the problem of focus on certain loci of
genetic disease, half a dozen loci with genetic polymorphic
diversification. He said the concept "the human gename" became
faulted when you looked more closely. For example, the mechanism of
antibody formation was based on somatic genetic diversification.
Differentiation in other systems may be comparable, i.e. in the
neurosystem. There are also examples in the development of
invertebrates - gene amplification. Lederberg said it would be |
37
better therefore to state proximate objectives and landmarks; he said
he thought this inevitably would happen. He said he did not know if
there was widespread agreement with this idea.

Lederberg asked what were the high priority problems. He said
fixed costs were paid in medical care, so we already got information
about sickle-cell anemia, for instance. He said they were encouraged
to do those investigations because there was a medical reason. He
said the structure of a protein could be altered by the change of one
amino acid. DNA changes could be correlated with the protein
outcome. He said there were many polymorphisms. He said we came
back to the fact that polymorphism had a relation to medically
significant syndromes.

Lederberg said they had more findings in new methodology for
tagging chromosomes, allowing mapping from parental to the Fl and F2
generations. He called for further study of genes that have to do
with mental traits like schizophrenia. He said they have had
positive experience in learning about chromosomes relating to
cholesterol. Receptor defects are involved with
hypercholesterolemia. He said people were looking for polymorphisms
at these loci. These contributed to most basic issues. Lederberg
asked what were the priorities? He said he thought there was a
unique opportunity in psychiatric disorders, that they have had no
good way to trace genetic factors. He said this was a favorite topic
of his, but required populations willing to disclose information
about psychological disorders.

Rich said he would make a few comments, since he had been
involved in the U.S. in discussions of the human genome. He said the
issue had a technical and a political dimension. The political
dimension related to the larger issue of the funding of science in
the U.S. He said there were a mumber of groups within the government
and outside who were interested in this project. He said a meeting
at the NAS brought these groups together to discuss how to proceed.
He said there was also a scientific problem. We could now sequence
38
small segments of DNA. ‘The process was labor intensive, moderately
expensive and slow. Some people would like to do the whole job - not
a crash program, but a long-term, expensive one. Rich said the
decision was made that sequencing would require machinery that would
automate sequencing, which would not be available for five to six
years. In the interim, the plan was to use large pieces of DNA, to
isolate individual chromosomes and break them up further into an
ordered set of overlapping cosmid clones. He said that with 50,000
base pairs, it would take 60,000 cosmid clones to organize three
billion nucleotides of the human genome. Rich said this ordering of
the human genome could be accomplished with modest cost using well
developed technologies. In the end, one would have fragments of DNA
in an ordered array on filtered paper equaling one chromosame in a
series of 1000 dots. He said the point was that you could take a
chromosome and identify where in that chromosome a gene is found with
resolution 10° times better than what we now have. Rich said this
was important for mapping. It was not yet sequencing, but it was
making ordered large groups. He said this would facilitate
investigations of genetic diseases. He said the advanced machines
were likely to be available in five to six years. Japan has been
developing a machine since 1981 which was being made by three
companies in association with people from the University of Tokyo.
The plan was to automate the existing technology with robots, which
would allow a computer printout of the sequence. Rich said it would
be erroneous to automate sequencing now with the primitive
technology. He said he was not keen to divert research money into a
project of this type. A consortium of U.S. government agencies was
in the process of forming to act as a clearing house for
international information. He said this was a collective activity.
It was not a crash program, but a program with some planning. He
said it would transform their ability to understand some diseases.
He said they had the methodology and would have the information and
39
would have to learn the meaning of this sequence. Rich said it
should be an international effort.

Lederberg acknowledged the arrival of Roald Saqdeev.

Bennett asked Rich whether there would be any international
members of the consortium. Rich said the problem right now was one
of too many voices in the U.S., which they were trying to meld into
one voice before inviting foreign participation.

Sverdlov noted that discussion of sequencing the human gename was
going on intensively, noting one West German who was doing this. He
said he agreed with Rich that the process was still a concept. He
said it must go on and that they should think about how to coordinate
the effort so that individual efforts did not overlap.

Mirzabekov said the use of equipment and machines for this was
not a scientific, but a technical problem. He recommended
concentrating their efforts on learning about differences between
different loci, and after that they could deal with sequencing of the
entire human genome.

Marks asked if sequencing the human genome was a high priority
for the Soviet Academy of Sciences. Sverdlov responded that they had
no program for this, that they were still discussing it. He said
they agreed with Rich that complete sequencing was most unrealistic
today, and that one runs into difficult technical problems. He said
they were working on selected points in his lab ard in
Ovchinnikov's. He said they had determined sequencing of one of the
human genes ~ the protein responsible for transportation of
potassium. Sverdlov said each researcher was engaged in the field
that interested him most, but there was no uniform plan to sequence
the entire human genome. He said Lederberg had talked about the
fascinating problem of the genetic/psychological disorder
relationship. He said they were working on programs to compare
different human genomes. In his institute, three researchers were
comparing a human with a chimpanzee genome to find the principal .
40
differences between humans and apes. He said they found same
sequences they believed to be typical of a mman. They had not done
it with the ape yet, but this was the work they were engaged in now.

Sverdlov suggested they now sum up their discussions. He noted
that Sagdeev had joined them, so they had a representative from the
Committee of Soviet Scientists for Peace, Against the Nuclear
Threat. Sverdlov said they had discussed candidly the possibility of
cooperation and ideas for topics. He asked Lederberg to sum up.

Lederberg said the atmosphere of their discussion reflected a
fresh start on this issue. He said this had been reflected also in
the BW Convention Review Conference and the report they had heard of
that. He said they were dealing here with the prevention at an early
stage of a problem that could become uncontrollable in the future.

He said they had propitious ground to strengthen the Biological
Weapons Convention. He said the atmosphere of openness was to be
commended. He said they had mich further to go, but this was start.
Lederberg said he would leave behind information including a listing
of all research programs funded by NIH and the Defense Department
Annual Report on the Chemical Warfare and Biological Defense Research
Program. He said the latter provided details on the U.S. research
program, and that even though some of the attributions were vague,
having this in the public record permitted questions for more details
and debate. He urged open publication of similar information in the
Soviet Union.

Lederberg expressed appreciation for the poignant talk by
Nikiforov on his experience dealing with the anthrax epidemic in
Sverdlovsk. He said in the last few months there had been more
information on this. He said things would not change overnight, but
the mood was right and this group's involvement in these issues
should have a positive effect.

lederberg said they had earlier discussed areas of scientific
cooperation. He said the most effective programs would be those that
had medical benefit for all and a symmetry of input from both sides.
41
He said there were still difficulties over human rights, explaining
that for many individuals in the U.S. this remained an important
issue that impeded willingness to undertake scientific
collaboration. However, he said that programs of great medical
benefit and potential for reciprocity in input could overcome same
resistance and that his delegation would support those.

Lederberg said he found this meeting personally, professionally
and technically informative. He suggested waiting until after the
BwC April meeting of experts to decide the next steps of this group.
He noted he could discuss this with Sagdeev when he is in Washington
for the April CISAC meeting. He said they would want to see the
formation of specialized expert groups on whichever programs proved
most appropriate. He thanked Sverdlov and the entire Soviet
delegation for their participation.

Sverdlov expressed for his entire delegation gratitude for this
friendly and informative dialogue. He said they had found many
common points of understanding, that it was obvious that none of them
wanted biological weapons to exist and that they all wanted
confidence-building measures and collaboration that would further
these cbjectives. He said he would stress the basic points from
their discussions which they would each have to report to their
respective Academies: 1) Sverdlov and Marks suggested a committee in
each of the Academies be constituted to coordinate their activity; 2)
It was important to determine the most humanistic and important
subjects for collaboration, and they should be prestigious; 3)
Specific suggestions included; a) structure of the human gencme; b)
problems of the development of cell differentiation in cancer; c)
vaccines; d) genetic engineering of plants. Sverdlov said they
could select specific subjects within these topics. He said the
projects should be supported by the two Academies and be continued
until positive results were achieved so as to generate and expand
confidence. He said he hoped this summary could form a basis of .

. their research, and if so he would like to have it typed and
distributed.
42

Lederberg said he thought it would be wise not to have a joint
commnique or declaration, stressing that it is the policy of CISAC
not to do so.

Sagdeev thanked everyone for the constructive and fruitful
atmosphere of the meeting, and for making this first meeting a
success. He said the monopoly of those in physics, mathematics and
political science in meeting with CISAC was lost, but not regretted.
He said that nothing was as useful as prevention.

Sagdeev recalled that CISAC had been at work for five years, and
that their ninth meeting took place last week. He said those
meetings were always candid and businesslike, and that they always
began with a stocktaking of the current balance of forces and
examination of trends in the key technologies and their possible
effects on strategic stability. He said for many years these matters
had been confined to the balance of offensive forces - accuracy of
terminal guidance as a trend which could inhibit retaliation, cruise
missiles, etc. Saqdeev recalled that at Geneva, their two leaders
agreed that the nuclear threat had to be averted. He said that
unfortunately, there were two views. One side called for liquidation
of the nuclear threat, a course that was difficult but necessary.

The other side said it would be nice to stick with half measures
until we could find a way to make ourselves safe against nuclear
weapons in the future, meaning SDI. Sagqdeev said the comparison of
these two viewpoints was central to the international debate and the
upcoming Reykjavik meeting. He said the Soviet side believed in the
relationship between offense and defense, and that unless we
abandoned the idea of superiority, it would be difficult to accede to
liquidation. He said that so far the ABM Treaty had deterred both
sides from this race. He said they believed there were advances so
that today at the government level they could say that high levels of
verification had to be adopted. He said this had been done at
Semipalatinsk. Gorbachev made the open labs proposal to constrain
43
technological competition. Sacdeev said this group's
confidence-building measures were steps toward this.

Saqdeev said the Soviet Union was abiding by two unilateral
moratoriums: on anti-satellite testing and nuclear testing. He said
the CISAC discussion must have had a more technical/military/
strategic character than the BW discussion because the muclear
disease was more advanced. He said they had agreed that cooperation
was needed. He said he would repeat an analogy he made at the CISAC
meeting: The U.S. administration said the ABM Treaty allowed
development and testing. He said the Soviet outlook was that they
should not leave the limits of fundamental research, which he said
was analogous to "harmless flirtation" under a marriage contract,
while the U.S. position was a more serious indiscretion.

Saqdeev said the Soviet Academy would like to see the BW meeting
continued. He said their Academy would gladly accept the invitation
to continue this discussion next April.

Sverdlov clarified that his earlier statement was meant to be
typed up and distributed as an informal "memory jogger" for both
sides for discussion with their Academies, but that it was not meant
as a formal joint statement. He said he would add to the list
Dubinin's suggestion for joint research on the role of mutagens in
the environment. Sverdlov reiterated several times how useful this
summary memo would be. Lederberg said he thought it would be okay so
long as it was not an official commmique. Sverdlov said that was
good, and that he would be sure to get this informal paper, a memory
jogger for forthcoming discussions, to Lederberg before his departure
(see attachment #4).

Sverdlov distributed gift books to the group, and suggested they
have tea before touring the institute.

The meeting adjourned at 5:00 p.m.

Lynn Rusten