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

General Baranaev was wonderfully modest and accessible. He could explain practically all difficulties, which arose in the course of physical chemical research. A legend grew up around him in the 1930s, when the slightest suspicions of political unreliability from anywhere caused senior scientists to be exiled. Baranaev did not hide the fact that he believed in God and continued to attend church. Probably, Baranaev’s brilliant talent and his idealistic “head in the clouds” character, forced his boss to protect him in every possible way, since he really was indispensable.

Unfortunately Kulikov was not always so lucky in his selection of employees. One example was the case of Victor Promonenkov, who was appointed chief of the Laboratory for Field Testing. Promonenkov had no understanding whatsoever of the sector of work he was in charge of, having worked on CW synthesis his entire working career, and he compromised GOSNIIOKhT considerably with his incompetence. Perhaps his only positive contribution, from my point of view, was his research work on the synthesis of the cyan ethers of methylphosphonic acid, which was accomplished in the laboratory of Sergei Ivin.

Ivin patronized Promonenkov, since he had married his niece. Later, Promonenkov was transferred to the All-Union Science Research for the Chemical Defense of Plants (VNIISKhZR), as a deputy to the “talented” director Kondratiev, who was mentioned before. There he organized a new secret department on the problem of “FT”, which was connected with research on the chemical defoliation of trees, along the lines of the American defoliant “agent orange”, which was used to destroy the forest in Vietnam. [43] There is every reason to believe that the dioxin which was used for poisoning in 2004 Viktor Yushchenko, that time presidential candidate of Ukraine, was produced in this institute.

I remember Promonenkov as someone who could easily promise unattainable results for his projects, and he was someone who could easily pass himself off as a specialist in any area of chemistry.

When Promonenkov left GOSNIIOKhT, his post was filled by Gennady Kostenko, a retired colonel and World War II veteran, who was once the chief of a department in Military Unit 61469. Kostenko (who had a M.S. in Technical Science) was a sober realist who kept a healthy supply of self-criticism and some skepticism toward all the branches of military chemistry. He did not hide his nihilism or his cynical outlook towards his own prospects. Honestly, Gennady Ivanovich was the man who compelled me for the first time to take a fresh look at the whole problem of research and testing of chemical agents in the U.S.S.R. and in our complex.

During the course of numerous business trips to the Shikhany test site, we spent a lot of time traveling together on the train to Saratov, and on the steamboat on the Volga River that went to the town of Volsk. Sometimes we traveled on a cutter-launch that had underwater wings. During these trips, Kostenko gradually told me the “secrets” of chemical weapons in the U.S.S.R.

Once, during the summer of 1978 we were traveling on an old steamboat named “Azin” after one of the Civil war heroes. We stood on the top deck, and under the protection of the noise of the paddlewheel and the puffing engine of the steamboat, Gennady Ivanovich patiently explained to me that chemical arms were an absolute anachronism in the military business. He corroborated the “news” I had heard from Drozd, that these arms were not tested in maneuvers by scientists or even by a single military corps. Not a single concrete question of their practical application had been worked out, and you could not even speak about their medical aspects, since there were no specialized doctors or hospitals for curing potential poisoning by chemical agents.

I was shaken up by what I heard, and I asked why all this was being done and why were we wasting vast resources on CW research, testing and production. I was curious to know if the highest ranking military people in the U.S.S.R. knew about this. “Of course they know, and they hold the military chemists in contempt,” was the answer.

Then he told me how Colonel General Vladimir Pikalov, head of the Chemical Troops, was pestering the Defense Minister asking to award him with the title Marshal of the Chemical Troops. The highest officer answered them with a smile and said that he could do that, but “Where are all these chemical troops?” Indeed this prominent military formation actually consists of some numbers of independent chemical battalions and regiments.

“Chemical agents and their problems in the U.S.S.R…. this is a gigantic feeding trough for the military and civilian generals,” concluded Kostenko. Be that as it may, he continued to do his job well. Since Kostenko had a wide network of connections with his former colleagues, he easily settled organizational matters, connected with the typical ordeals that resulted from the regular research at GOSNIIOKhT. Even during the start-up time at Shikhany, he continued to travel there. This was not such a bad place. You could gather mushrooms in nearby fields, or try your luck at fishing on the Volga River.

On one of these furloughs, Gennady Ivanovich injured his hand and the cut became inflamed. He turned to a military hospital known to him from a job in the past at Shikhany, but his appeal was too late and the cure was too unprofessional. The inflammation turned to gangrene and in several days he died.

I worked for a long period of time with Kostenko’s laboratory, developing chromatographic methods of analysis of the samples from the test site. Since the preliminary testing of chemical agents was conducted in the laboratory, my methods were also used in those experiments. I was working closely with Oleg Plyushch, who was one of his deputies and his assistant.

Oleg Pavlovich (who had a M.S. in Chemical Science) was an exceptionally polite and highly cultured man. He was a strong specialist at his job, even though he had been studying issues of radioactive chemistry and the burial of radioactive waste for a long time.

Unfortunately, Oleg, like many talented people, was too principled for his own good at times. He sometimes brought down the fire of envious people on himself, people who were simply untalented and not professional scientists. Once, during a departmental party meeting, he came out against accepting Adolph Zaozerov into the party. Zaozerov was someone who was being promoted intensively by Professor Evgenia Volkova, the head of another laboratory in the department.

Evgenia, being a great lover of art, was charmed by Zaozerov, who was really a wonderful baritone, practically on a professional level. Apparently, the senior scientist’s vocal talent was unequaled, but it was absolutely useless for the leadership of scientists and for the area of work that needed to be developed.

Although Plyushch and several other people were warned in advance about the possible unfavorable consequences of such a hasty step, Zaozerov was accepted into the party and soon became a departmental head. When he finished the energetic reconstruction of his office, the new chief strangely began to force Plyushch out. At the time, I watched more with horror than anything else, how GOSNIIOKhT could drive problematic people out of their positions. There was not one conference, departmental meeting, or meeting in Shchekotikhin’s office, where Plyushch’s name was not mentioned without mocking comments.

Oleg Pavlovich was forced to leave GOSNIIOKhT, because he did not hold up well under such psychological assault. I met him again twelve years later, in 1995, at a conference on ecological problems in the Moscow City Duma. I was very happy to learn that Oleg Pavlovich had successfully defended his doctoral dissertation and had become the director of an important scientific research institute for biological problems of interest to the Ministry of Health. Right away he invited me to come to work for him, promising to give me good terms of employment. Unfortunately, at this time I understood completely that it was unsafe for my children and me to remain in Russia any longer.