Alibek, Ken with Handelman, Stephen. Biohazard: The Chilling True Story of the Largest Covert Biological Weapons Program in the World -- Told from the Inside by the Man Who Ran It. New York: Delta (Random House), 2000. 319 pages.

In 1992, Kanatjan Alibekov defected to the U.S. and changed his name to Ken Alibek. He had been a biowarfare scientist in the Soviet Union for seventeen years. Between 1988 and 1992, he was first deputy chief of Biopreparat, the state agency whose primary function was to "develop and produce weapons made from the most dangerous viruses, toxins, and bacteria known to man." U.S. intelligence basically had no idea that this was going on until the Cold War was over. The first revelations came from Vladimir Pasechnik's defection to Britain in 1989 -- but as a civilian scientist, Pasechnik had no direct access to military secrets. Alibek, on the other hand, was an army colonel. He said the Soviets had 52 different biological agents that could be used as weapons. They even had new germs unknown in the West, all tested and battle-hardened, with delivery systems ready to go.

Soviet stockpiles have reportedly been mostly destroyed, but detailed recipes for making these weapons still exist. During the early 1990s there were secret agreements between Russia and the U.S. that allowed inspections of facilities. A few years later the truth about the Soviet program started leaking out in books and articles.
ISBN 0-385-33496-6

Extract the names from this source

Back to search page