The Dead Hand: The Untold Story of the Cold War Arms Race and its Dangerous Legacy 1848312997, 9781848312999

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Praisefor David E. Hoffman's

DEAD HAND

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"':'-- stunning feat of research and narrative. Terrifying." -John le Carre "The Dead Hand is a brilliant work of history, a richly detailed, gripping tale that takes us inside the Cold War arms race as no other bo�k has. Drawing upon extensive interviews and secret documents, David Hoff­ man reveals never-before-reported aspects of the Soviet biological and nuclear programs. It's a story so riveting and scary that you feel like you are reading a fictional thriller." -Rajiv Chandrasekaran, author of Imperial Life in the Emerald City: Inside Iraq's G reen Zone "The Dead Hand is deadly serious, but this story can verge on pitch-black comedy-Dr. Strangelove as updated by the Coen Brothers." -The New York Times "In The Dead Hand, David Hoffman has uncovered some of the Cold War's most persistent and consequential secrets-plans and systems designed to wage war with weapons of mass destruction, and even to place the prospective end of civilization on a kind of automatic pilot. T he book's revelations are sh (?cking; its narrative is intelligent and grip­ ping. This is a tour de force of investigative history." -Steve Coll, author of Ghost Wars and The Bin Ladens "[A] taut, crisply written book.... The Dead Hand puts human faces on the bureaucracy of mutual assured destruction, even as it underscores the institutional inertia that drove this monster forward....A fine book -T. J. Stiles,Minneapolis Star Tribune indeed."

"An extraordinary and compelling story, beautifully researched, ele­ gantly told, and full of revelations about the superpower arms race in the dying days of the Cold War. The Dead Hand is riveting." -Rick Atkinson, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of An Army At Dawn "No one is better qualified than David Hoffman to tell the definitive story of the ruinous Cold War arms race. He has interviewed the principal pro­ tagonists, unearthed previously undiscovered archives, and tramped across the military-industrial wasteland of the former Soviet Union. He brings his characters to life in a thrilling narrative that contains many les­ sons for modern-day policy makers struggling to stop the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. An extraordinary achievement." -Michael Dobbs, author of One Minute to Midnight: Kennedy, Khrushchev, and Castro on the Brink ofNuclear War

DAVIDE. HOFFMAN

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David E. Hoffman served for 27 years as a reporter and editor at the Washington Post. He covered the W hite House during the presidencies of Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush, and was subsequently diplomatic correspondent and Jerusalem correspondent. From 1995 to 2001, he was Moscow bureau chief, and later foreign editor and assistant managing editor for foreign news. www.thedeadhandbook.com

Also by David E. Hoffman The Oligarchs: Wealth and Power in the New Russia

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REAGAN,GORBACHEV

ANDTHEUNTOLDSTORYOF THE COLDWAR ARMS RACE

DAVIDE. HOFFMAN ICON BOOKS

To My Parents Howard and Beverly Hoffman

Previously published in the USA in 2009 by Doubleday, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, and in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto

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This edition published in the UK in 2011 by Icon Books Ltd, Omnibus Business Centre, 39-41 North Road, London N7 9DP email: [email protected]. uk www.iconbooks.co.uk

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Sold in the UK, Europe, South Africa and Asia by Faber & Faber Ltd, Bloomsbury House, 74-77 Great Russell Street, London WClB 3DA or their agents

Distributed in the UK, Europe, South Africa and Asia by TBS Ltd, TBS Distribution Centre, Colchester Road, Prating Green, Colchester C07 7DW This edition published in Australia in 2011 by Allen & Unwin Pty Ltd, PO Box 8500, 83 Alexander Street, Crows Nest, NSW 2065 ISBN: 978-184831-230-2 (hardback) ISBN: 978-184831-253-l (paperback) Text copyright© 2010 David E. Hoffman The author has asserted his moral rights. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, or by any means, without prior permission in writing from the publisher. Book design by Michael Collica Map designed by Gene Thorp Printed and bound in the UK by CPI Mackays, Chatham, Kent MES STD

CONTENTS

MAP

x

PROLOGUE

1

INTRODUCTION

13

PART ONE 1

AT THE PRECIPICE

2 WAR GAMES 3

WAR SCARE

27 60 72

4 THE GERM NIGHTMARE

101

5

THE ANTHRAX FACTORY

6

THE DEAD HAND

127 143

7

MORNING AGAIN IN AMERICA

155

PART TWO 8

"WE CAN'T GO ON LIVING LIKE THIS"

167

Contents

Vlll

9

VEAR OF THE SPY

10 OF SWORDS AND SHIELDS

189 204

11

THE ROAD TO REYKJAVIK

235

12

FAREWELL TO ARMS

269

13

GERMS, GAS AND SECRETS

296

14

THE LOST VEAR

312

15

THE GREATEST BREAKTHROUGH

327

16

THE VEAR OF LIVING DANGEROUSLY

358

PART THREE 17

A GREAT UNRAVELING

379

18

THE SCIENTISTS

401

19

REVELATIONS

20

VELTSIN'S PROMISE

412

21

PROJECT SAPPHIRE

22

FACE TO FACE WITH EVIL

EPILOGUE ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ABBREVIATIONS IN NOTES ENDNOTES INDEX TEXT AND ILLUSTRATION PERMISSIONS

424 439 459 475 485 489 491 555 576

"Science has brought us to a point at which we might look forward with confidence to the conquest of disease and even to a true understanding of the life that animates us. And now we have cracked the atom and released such energies as hitherto only the sun and the stars could generate. But we have used the atom's energies to kill, and now we are fashioning weapons out of our knowledge of disease." -Theodor Rosebury, Peace or Pestilence: Biological Warfare and How to Avoid It, 1949

Key Sites in The Dead Hand ATLANTIC OC/M.Y.

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