SOVIETS PUSH BILOGICAL-WEAPONS WORK

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000100130009-1
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: December 21, 2011
• Sequence Number: 9
• Publication Date: December 4, 1984
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Declassified and Approved For Release 2011/12/21 : CIA-RDP90-00965R000100130009-1
P,-Tv^i ;'~ ? REQ WASHINGTON POST
4 December 1984
JACK ANDERSON
Soviets Push Biological-Weapons Work
igh on the agenda of any future disarmament
negotiations should be a subject that the
Soviets probably won't discuss: their
continuing development of biological weapons.
These include the. germs and gases that you
might expect to find in their forbidden arsenal. But
something much more menacing has been added:
The Soviets are developing biogenetically
engineered poisons.
I first alerted you to this grisly threat last
February, when I quoted from one of the grimmest
reports to come out of the National Security
Council. It warned the president that the Soviets
have mastered "gene-splicing techniques as
ominous as the atom-splitting discoveries that led
to the nuclear bomb."
Now I have more information: The Soviets have
hidden their offensive biological warfare program in
the Defense Ministry's seventh main directorate,
headed by Gen. V.I. Ogarkov. The CIA has
determined that the program operates research.
and production facilities at eight different sites.
Classified CIA reports, obtained by my associate
Dale Van Atta, give these chilling assessments:
^ The Soviets maintain active research projects on
natural poisons far more extensive than would be
needed to guard against agricultural infestations or
human epidemics. A secret'C re states, "The
research is well-supported, involves both military
and civilian investigators, and in many cases has
been linked with facilities associated with BW
[biological warfare] research and development."
^ The CIA has learned that the Soviets are
investig tia ng a number of specific compounds
"which appear to have considerable potential as BW
agents." These include "silicon-containing and
organofluorine compounds ... marine neurotoxins
and blue-green algal neurotoxins."
^ The CIA has figured out some of the features the
Soviet scientists are looking for in their biological
agents. These include persistence, stability,
adaptability to special carrier solutions and the
ability to be disseminated in such tiny particles that
the poison will penetrate gas masks.
s "Extremely rapid-acting incapacitants are also of
growing concern," the CIA reQncts. Already these
knockout gases have been used in Afghanistan,
where they are known as "the silent killer" because
victims appear to have been flash-frozen without
even knowing what hit them.
^ The CIA has gotten a wealth of information on
Soviet -biological-weapons operations straight from
the horse's mouth--a key Soviet source who
defected. He reported that in the 1970s a proposal
was made to the Central Committee and the
Ministry of Defense for research on
psychochemicals as chemical warfare agents. The
program was given the go-ahead and funding.
The Soviet told the CIA that "yellow rain"- the
toxic weapon believed to have killed thousands in
Laos and elsewhere-was "a simple agent"
compared with those currently being developed.
To say the U.S. intelligence community is
concerned about all this would be an
understatement. The CIA reports make clear that,'
far from having any ideae o`f antidotes, our experts
can't even identify many of the biological poisons
the Soviets have been developing.
Declassified and Approved For Release 2011/12/21 : CIA-RDP90-00965R000100130009-1