Вил Мирзаянов - State Secrets - An Insider's Chronicle of the Russian Chemical Weapons Program

We talked about returning to this topic and publishing a new article, describing the negative consequences of chemical weapons production for Russia. I don’t remember who came up with this suggestion. We agreed that Mirzayanov would write a rough draft and I would review it. In the middle of August of 1992 we arranged a meeting by phone and met at one of the Moscow subway stations where Mirzayanov handed me his manuscripts. From August 23 until 28 of this year I was in Finland at the international congress “Dioxin-92.” At the beginning of September, I returned and started writing with notes received from Mirzayanov. I read the text through and elaborated it in such a way that it could be given to journalists for subsequent publication. I thought through and worked out the structure of the article and Mirzayanov produced the facts for me. Probably he knew this information from his work at GOSNIIOKhT. While working on the article I was certain that information it contained didn’t constitute state secrets. I didn’t show Mirzayanov the article after I had prepared it for publication. Then in September of this year, I gave it to Leonard Nikishin, an acquaintance of mine, a correspondent of “Moscow News”, after which it was published in this newspaper issue 38 on September 20. The newspaper “Moscow News” is a weekly and it came out on Wednesday, September 16. I don’t know if Nikishin changed it in any way because I didn’t keep a copy of my article. If some changes were introduced, they were few and not significant. Despite the fact that I didn’t familiarize Mirzayanov with the article, it had both our signatures because we had an agreement that his signature would come first.

Neither Mirzayanov, nor I have received any royalties for the article up to the present time. Literally, the day before the newspaper “Moscow News” came out, that is, on Tuesday, September 15 of this year, I visited the press center of the “Baltimore Sun” together with Mirzayanov. Knowing that the newspaper with our article would come out on September 16, we gave an interview to a correspondent of the “Baltimore Sun” on the same topic as in the article “Poisoned Policies.” In particular, Mirzayanov said in the interview that a new chemical agent had been developed that surpassed in its attributed characteristics all chemical agents known up until then and that more of this substance had been produced than stipulated by the convention. I don’t know what convention he was talking about. I don’t remember if he said anything else about it. I want to stress that I don’t have access to any state secrets in my job, and I know no secrets, so I couldn’t possibly disclose any such information. [underlined by me—V.M.] If I remember correctly, the name of the correspondent from the “Baltimore Sun” was Will Englund. I had never met him before. We decided to visit the press center of the “Baltimore Sun” a week before the meeting, at which we had planned to discuss the dioxin problem, and then we spontaneously refocused on the article “Poisoned Policies.” I called Mirzayanov and said that I was meeting with a correspondent from the “Baltimore Sun” and suggested he go with me. He agreed. Since the next day the aforementioned article was supposed to come out, we touched upon issues discussed there during the conversation. Mirzayanov and I received no fee for that interview.

Two weeks ago a stranger called and introduced himself as Oleg Voldemarovich Vishnyakov, a correspondent from the magazine “Novoe Vremya.” He expressed interest in the published article “Poisoned Policies” and suggested we meet and talk about this issue. I met with him in the editor’s office, and I found out that he wanted to work on the topic of chemical weapons and publish an article in the magazine. I understand from him, that in the past he had worked with the issue of nuclear weapons and then had developed a parallel interest in chemical weapons. He was busy with the idea of destroying chemical weapons by nuclear explosions. I agreed to help him with an article about chemical weapons. Sometime around October 18 of this year, he called me for the second time and said that he had decided to write an article in the form of an interview. We agreed that I would come to his editor’s office together with Mirzayanov and we would discuss this problem. On or around October 20, Mirzayanov and I went to his editor’s office and gave an interview on the same questions that were discussed in the article “Poisoned Policies.” Vishnyakov recorded the interview and kept the recording [underlined by me—V.M.] Recently some of my acquaintances said that the editor’s office of “Argumenti i Fakty” got interested in the article “Poisoned Policies.” On Friday, October 16 of this year, I called the editor’s office to talk with Starkov. He wasn’t there and I called him at home on October 18. I introduced myself and explained who I was. He became interested in the topic and recommended that I write an article. I started working on a new article using the information presented to me from Mirzayanov’s manuscripts. By Tuesday it was ready. On October 20, after visiting Vishnyakov, I showed this article to Mirzayanov. It was called “Myths and Legends of Chemical Disarmament.” He read it, corrected something, and signed it. After this I brought it to the editor’s office of the newspaper “Argumenti i Fakty” where I handed it to the secretary of the Editor in Chief, Tamara Vasilievna, if I am not mistaken. In this article I used Mirzayanov’s information that a new chemical agent had been developed in our country. All the remaining text is my reflections about the negative consequences of our participation in the development of chemical weapons. On the evening of October 20 this year, an employee of this newspaper called me and suggested we meet to discuss how we could agree to shorten the article. On October 21 I went to the editor’s office and agreed on a new, shorter version of the article “Myths and Legends of Chemical Disarmament” with correspondent Boris Stanishnev. I signed this text. The paragraph about the development of the new chemical agent remained there. Thus, currently there are two versions of the mentioned article in the editor’s office of “Argumenti i Fakty” [Don’t forget this, dear Chekists!—V.M.]

Question: Today during the search in your apartment we confiscated a manuscript starting with the words “chemical sharashka…” and ending with the words “Doctors of Chemical Science Vil Mirzayanov and Lev Fedorov;” a manuscript starting with the words “on finishing the second…” and ending with the words “…survival of mankind;” a manuscript starting with the words “Dear editor…” and ending with the words “…all Russians.” Whose manuscripts are these, and under what circumstances did they appear at your apartment?

Answer: All these manuscripts belong to Vil Mirzayanov. He gave them to me so that I could write articles for the press. The notes starting with the words “Chemical sharashka…” were used for the article “Poisoned Policies.” Later Mirzayanov handed me the remaining manuscripts, which we planned to use for writing articles. However, up to this time, it hasn’t been done.

Question: What objective did you and Mirzayanov pursue by publishing the article “Poisoned Policies” and did you take steps towards publishing similar articles?

Answer: My objective was the following. I think that the very fact that chemical weapons are being developed in our country can have grave consequences for the country. Additionally, the system of measures aimed at liberating Russia from chemical weapons adopted by official authorities doesn’t, in my opinion, reflect the potential danger. Thus, I proposed publishing several articles, in which I wanted to express my attitude toward solving problems connected with the destruction of chemical weapons.