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The Soviet Unions Agricultural Biowarfare Programme Ploughshares To Swords 1St Ed 2021 Edition Anthony Rimmington Full Chapter PDF
The Soviet Unions Agricultural Biowarfare Programme Ploughshares To Swords 1St Ed 2021 Edition Anthony Rimmington Full Chapter PDF
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The Soviet Union’s
Agricultural Biowarfare
Programme
Ploughshares to Swords
Anthony Rimmington
The Soviet Union’s Agricultural Biowarfare
Programme
Anthony Rimmington
© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer
Nature Switzerland AG 2021
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Acknowledgements
A great debt of gratitude is owed by the author to the men and women
employed within the USSR Ministry of Agriculture’s secret biological
warfare network. In the transformed reality which resulted from the col-
lapse of the Soviet Union, many came to realise that they were no longer
bound by their bonds of loyalty and allegiance to a system which had
imploded and disappeared, never to return. Chief among those who wres-
tled with their conscience, and the highest-level and most important
source for the present work, is the now-deceased Tsyren Tsybekzhapovich
Khanduev. This impressive individual was representative of some of the
more positive aspects of the Soviet system, especially that associated with
social mobility. Khanduev was born on 17 August 1918 in Buryatia, the
son of a cattle breeder. From these humble origins his career followed an
astonishing trajectory, with him eventually serving as a colonel in the
USSR Ministry of Defence’s Scientific-Research Sanitary Institute (67-i
km settlement, Sergiev Posad)—the Soviet Union’s lead virology BW cen-
tre—then being transferred to a major anti-livestock institute in Gvardeiskii,
Kazakhstan, before finishing his career as an Academician within the
National Academy of Sciences of Kyrgyzstan. Khanduev spent many long,
highly emotional hours, considering whether, in the wake of the collapse
of the Soviet Union, his oath of loyalty prevented him from telling the
extraordinary story of the agricultural biowarfare programme pursued by
the USSR Ministry of Agriculture. It is thanks to his courageous decision
to write his memoirs that we are provided with a fascinating insight and
knowledge of this highly secretive Soviet endeavour.
v
vi ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
1 Introduction 1
vii
viii Contents
8 Conclusion199
Characteristics of the Ekologiya BW Programme 199
Soviet Rationale for the Launch of the Ekologiya Programme 201
The Achievements of the Soviet Agricultural BW Programme 204
Ekologiya’s Legacy 205
Appendix B: Composition of the Scientific and Technical
Council (NTS) and Interbranch Scientific and Technical
Council for Molecular Biology and Genetics (MNTS)215
Index225
About the Author
The Lord will strike your grazing herds, your horses and asses, your camels,
cattle and sheep with a terrible pestilence (Exodus, 9:3). I destroyed your crops
with blight and disease (Amos, 4:9)
xi
xii ABOUT THE AUTHOR
xiii
xiv List of Figures
Fig. 3.3 View of water tower erected in 1959, Central Asian Scientific-
Research Institute of Phytopathology, Yuqori-Yuz, Tashkent,
Uzbekistan, 11 December 2002. Photographer: Anthony
Rimmington48
Fig. 3.4 View of hazard sign “Radioactivity” at entrance to SANIIF site
for testing uptake of radionucleotides in crops, Yuqori-Yuz,
Tashkent, Uzbekistan, 19 May 2003. Photographer: Anthony
Rimmington50
Fig. 3.5 View of All‑Union Scientific‑Research Foot‑and‑Mouth Disease
Institute (VNIYaI), Yur’evets, Vladimir oblast’. Photographer:
Anthony Rimmington 53
Fig. 3.6 View of Soviet-era placards on display at the Scientific-Research
Agricultural Institute—one depicting NISKhI, with stylized
images of a horse and a leaf symbolizing the twin activities of
animal and plant science, another placard celebrating the
Achievements of Science for Field and Farm, a slogan popularized
by Academician Pavel Pavlovich Lobanov, President of the
V.I. Lenin All-Union Academy of Sciences (1956–1961 and
1965–1978), Gvardeiskii, near Otar, Zhambul’ oblast’,
Kazakhstan, 8 April 2003. Photographer: Anthony Rimmington 57
Fig. 3.7 View of greenhouse facility on site at Scientific-Research
Agricultural Institute, Gvardeiskii, near Otar, Zhambul’ oblast’,
Kazakhstan, 9 April 2003. Photographer: Anthony Rimmington 58
Fig. 3.8 View of a centrifugal freeze dryer manufactured by Edwards
High Vacuum Ltd. (Crawley, UK)—part of the historical
large-scale installation of the latest Western equipment at
NISKhI, Gvardeiskii, near Otar, Kazakhstan, 13 September
1999. Photographer: Anthony Rimmington 59
Fig. 4.1 View of dedicated storage area housing 15,000 wheat varieties,
Laboratory of Plant Immunity, Scientific-Research Institute of
Agriculture, Gvardeiskii, Kazakhstan, 13 September 1999.
Photographer: Anthony Rimmington 85
Fig. 4.2 View of road sign for Kamara, location of former Experimental
Station, Estonia, 3 July 2002. Photographer: Anthony
Rimmington86
Fig. 4.3 View of block of flats constructed for Experimental Station,
Kamara, Estonia, 3 July 2002. Photographer: Anthony
Rimmington87
Fig. 4.4 Elaborate security system preventing unauthorised access to
offices and laboratories at Georgian Branch of VNIIF, Kobuleti,
Georgia, 4 May 2001. Photographer: Anthony Rimmington 98
List of Figures xv
Introduction
With regard to sources other than the interviews, the author has also
drawn on the memoirs of leading individuals concerned with the manage-
ment of the Soviet BW programme, such as Igor’ Valerianovich
Domaradskii, who included some information in his account on the agri-
cultural programme. He has also consulted the work of Lev Aleksandrovich
Fedorov, who was one of a handful of researchers to have been granted
some limited access to historical archives relating to the Soviet BW pro-
gramme. In addition, some useful historical information has been gleaned
from the websites of the various institutes linked to the Ekologiya network.
Two unpublished memoirs focused on Ekologiya were also consulted. As
detailed in the acknowledgements, the most detailed of these was pre-
pared by Colonel Tsyren Tsybekzhapovich Khanduev, now deceased, who
spearheaded Ekologiya’s focus on viral pathogens.
This book is in the main organised on a chronological basis. Chapter 1
traces early Soviet programmes focused on agricultural BW which were
pursued by the People’s Commissariat of Agriculture, the forerunner of
the USSR Ministry of Agriculture. The major activities and accomplish-
ments are described in the period through to, during and shortly after the
end of the Second World War. The acquisition of both German and
Japanese expertise in anti-livestock BW and anti-crop BW is pointed to as
pivotal in the development of Soviet post-war programmes in this area. It
is argued that the creation of anti-crop and anti-livestock biological weap-
ons by the US during the immediate post-war period may have acted as
one of the key triggers for the launch of Ekologiya.
The first phase of the Ekologiya BW programme focused on the use of
classical microbiology methods for the selection of unmodified, highly
virulent pathogens for potential wartime use against an enemy’s crops and
livestock. Chapter 2 describes the launch of Ekologiya under the auspices
of the USSR Ministry of Agriculture and its control by the Soviet military.
Initially, there was an emphasis on virology and Mendelian genetics, two
key areas where the USSR lagged behind the West. The BW facilities and
proving grounds within this closed network were kept hidden from suc-
cessive teams of veterinarians and plant pathologists visiting from the US
and other Western countries. The secret programme appears to have been
primarily directed against agriculture in both the US and its allies, and
China. In the second phase of the Ekologiya programme, initiated in the
early 1970s, there was a new focus on the employment of molecular biol-
ogy at its research facilities. Chapter 3 describes the creation of a new
Interdepartmental Scientific-Technical Council for Molecular Biology and
8 A. RIMMINGTON
of the programme and its legacy. The work concludes with three appendi-
ces: Soviet/Russian Abbreviations and Acronyms; Composition of the
Scientific and Technical Council (NTS) and Interbranch Scientific and
Technical Council for Molecular Biology and Genetics (MNTS); and Lead
Scientists in the Ekologiya Programme.
Some might look upon this present work with extreme scepticism and
view it as just another attempt to promote a condemnatory narrative of
Soviet history. However, prior to rushing to such a hasty conclusion, it
should be noted that this account does not seek to castigate those who
were employed within the Ekologiya programme, and full acknowledge-
ment is made that it was, at least in part, a response to offensive agricul-
tural capabilities which had been previously developed in the West. It is
the author’s contention that only with a true understanding of the Soviet
scientific legacy, including its inordinately wasteful pursuit of a grandiose
military agricultural BW programme, can Russia and the post-Soviet states
seek to successfully pursue new, civil-oriented commercial projects and
avoid the mistakes of the past. It is also clear and apparent that the vast
bulk of the men and women who served in the secret network had no real
knowledge of its aims and objectives and simply believed they were patri-
otically serving their Soviet motherland and defending their compatriots
from oblivion. These individuals cannot be simply airbrushed from history
and their fascinating story deserves to be told.
Notes
1. The secret decree No. 909-426 was issued on 7 August 1958. The text of
the decree has never been released but it is referred to in the official scien-
tific archive of the Russian Academy of Agricultural Sciences. Lev
Aleksandrovich Fedorov, a leading Russian expert on the Soviet BW pro-
gramme, cites the decree and it is also referenced in the official histories of
several institutes which formerly formed part of the Soviet agricultural BW
programme. See Nauchnyi arkhiv Rossiiskoi akademii sel’skokhozyaist
vennykh nauk, http://isaran.ru/?=ru/fund&guid=C16E22C1-CB84-
4BE5-AEB0-FBBB8DBF3A9A&ida=42, Accessed on the 17 November
2020; Fedorov, L., Khronika pamyatnykh dat “khimicheskoi” zhizni TsK
KPSS, Posev, No. 1, 1999; Zakharov, V.M., Perevozchikova, N.A., Na kur-
tom perelome, Veterinariya segodnya, No. 2(5), May 2013, p. 6, http://
rsn-msk.ru/files/veterinary-5-2013.pdf, Accessed on the 17 November
2020; and Otchet o rabote, prodelannoi v FGBU “federal’nyi tsentr
10 A. RIMMINGTON
14. Thompson, D., Muriel, P., Russell, D., Osborne, P., Bromley, A., Rowland,
M., Creigh-Tyte, S., Brown, C., Economic costs of the foot and mouth
disease outbreak in the United Kingdom in 2001, Revue Scientifique et
Technique Off. Int. Epiz., Vol. 21, No. 3, 2002, p. 675, https://doc.oie.
int/dyn/portal/index.seam?page=alo&aloId=30156, Accessed on the 11
March 2020.
15. Leitenberg, M., Zilinskas, R.A., with Kuhn, J.H., The Soviet Biological
Weapons Programme: A History, Harvard University Press, London,
2012, p. 9.
CHAPTER 2
There is evidence that in the period leading up to the Second World War,
the People’s Commissariat of Agriculture (Narodnyi kommissariat zemle-
deliya—Narkomzem)—the forerunner of the Ministry of Agriculture—
was closely linked to the Soviet offensive biological weapons programme
(see Fig. 2.1). The lead agricultural BW facility at this time was the State
Experimental Veterinary Institute (GIEV). It had its origins in 1898 in
Imperial Russia with the creation in St. Petersburg of the Veterinary-
Bacteriological Laboratory under the Veterinary Administration of the
Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs. On 10 October 1917, Russia’s
Provisional Government issued a decree on the formation, based on the
laboratory, of the Experimental Veterinary Institute in Petrograd. In 1918
the institute was evacuated to an estate in Kuz’minki in the Moscow sub-
urbs.1 Prior to the October Revolution, the site had belonged to the
Golitsyn family. In 1915 the main palace on the estate, built by the Swiss-
born architect, Domenico Gilardi, had been devastated by a fire. On 14
March 1921 the new communist authorities renamed the facility as GIEV
and placed it under the control of Narkomzem’s Central Veterinary
Administration.2 In his description of the Soviet biological warfare pro-
gramme, Fedorov suggests that some of the Soviet Union’s very first
experiments focused on Bacillus anthracis (the causal agent of anthrax)
were conducted in Kuz’minki in 1918.3
The Insel Riems State Research Institute was also linked to the
Blitzableiter Committee. This committee was created in 1943 on order of
the Chief of the High Command of the Wehrmacht (OKW) with the aim
of coordinating German biological warfare activities. The committee was
composed of experts drawn from relevant Army departments. The head of
the committee’s Veterinary Section was Riem’s researcher Dr Hanns-
Christoph Nagel who presumably kept his director, Professor Waldmann,
informed of his activities. At the initial meeting of the Blitzableiter
Committee, Nagel envisioned the use of FMD against the United
Kingdom arguing that “this virus would be especially devastating since
British cattle were poorly immunized. … Mass use may perhaps infect
6–12 per cent of the cattle.”27 Meanwhile, a declassified CIA report sug-
gests that the US was also considered as a target. Nagel and his colleagues
considered that an “enemy country could be attacked with FMD virus;
the virus could be dried, flown over enemy country, and dropped”.28 This
scheme was never practically applied because it required German air supe-
riority. Geissler reports that the Riems facility supplied the FMD virus that
during 1942 and/or 1943 was used in aerial spraying experiments that
were conducted by Nagel and his associate, Dr Kurt Stantien (Army
Ordnance Office), over an island in Lake Peipus. The latter is the fifth
largest lake in Europe and is situated on the border between Russia and
Estonia. There is conflicting testimony as to whether cattle or reindeer
were the subject of the German experiments.29 Geissler also points to the
use of a Testing Ground East (Versuchsfeld Ost) or Bacteria Field East
(B-Feld Ost) at an unknown location, where it was also planned to conduct
experiments with FMD virus.30 The CIA report that in Spring 1944 an SS
officer travelled to Riems and requested large supplies of dried FMD virus
which were to be disseminated in the Soviet Union in the wake of retreat-
ing German forces. However, the institute refused this request which was
then taken to higher authorities in Berlin. The project was finally aban-
doned after the Riems institute successfully argued that the use of the
agent would have the “boomerang” effect of spreading the disease from
Soviet territory to Germany.31
On 2 May 1945, Soviet forces under the command of Marshal
Konstantin Konstantinovich Rokossovsky occupied Riems Island and
immediately began to pilfer the institute. According to a top-secret CIA
intelligence report, within a few days the Soviet authorities had restored
order at the site which was placed under the personal protection of Stalin.
Between July and October 1945, two Soviet commissions, one military
20 A. RIMMINGTON
and one civilian, began to totally dismantle the institute as part of war
reparations. The military commission seized 10,000 guinea pigs, 3 ultra-
centrifuges, a range of chemical-physical apparatus, low-temperature
refrigerators, special apparatus for the production of vaccines and sera,
thermostats and water baths. All of this dismantled equipment was shipped
to Riga and then transferred to the Soviet Military Veterinary Academy.
Major Ratner (see p. 16), a leading Soviet FMD specialist, is reported to
have played a major role in the military’s interaction with the German
facility. Other Soviet military personnel visiting the facility included
Professor Svizov, who was at the site in 1948. The Soviet civilian commis-
sion is then reported to have taken possession of anything not seized by
the military, primarily equipment used for the production of vaccines and
sera, and to have shipped this back to Riga.32
The Soviets are subsequently reported to have relocated the FMD facil-
ity to a site on the mainland opposite Riems Island. It was rebuilt and
renamed as the Land Office II for Animal Epidemic Diseases and supplied
with coal and technical equipment from the USSR. By June 1948, the
institute is estimated to have regained around half of its former capacity
and was engaged in both R&D and production of vaccines. A number of
scientists were restored to their employment at the facility including
Professor Heinz Röhrer, the former head of its pathology department,
and Dr Hubert Möhlmann, a former specialist in the production of FMD
vaccines.33
During the immediate post-war period, Soviet specialists are reported
to have become increasingly interested in the BW potential of the Riems
facility. They are reported to have determined that the institute could pro-
duce sufficient dried FMD virus harvested from cattle tongue epithelial
tissue to attack an enemy country using aerial dispersal. A Soviet Colonel,
Lyssov, is reported to have visited the site and queried as to why the
Germans had not employed the FMD virus as a weapon in retaliation for
the indiscriminate bombing of German cities by US planes. Sometime
around October 1945, the Soviets are also reported to have invited
Professor Waldmann, who had fled to Argentina, and other specialists to
work on FMD in the USSR.34 It is not known how many of the Riem
scientists took up this offer.
One key BW scientist who did fall into the hands of the Soviet Union
was the virologist Dr Erich Traub, a Doctor of Veterinary Medicine, who
since 1942 had been second in command at Riems. He was an expert in
foot-and-mouth disease, rinderpest and Newcastle disease. During the
2 ORIGINS: THE INTERNATIONAL RACE TO DEVELOP ANTI-CROP… 21
employed within the Soviet biological weapons system, but someone who
might be expected to have fairly limited knowledge of agricultural BW
programmes. The latter reports that “although the Soviet Union had been
developing anti-personnel biological weapons since the late 1920s, it
began to develop anti-agricultural biological weapons only in the late
1940s or early 1950s”. Alibek postulates that the Soviet Union may only
have subsequently embarked upon its massive agricultural BW programme
as a direct response to US efforts at this time aimed at the development of
biological weapons against plants and animals.43
Western intelligence on Soviet capabilities at this time was extremely
limited. An authoritative CIA report, compiled some years later in April
1961, identified VNIIZR as the Soviet Union’s most important plant pro-
tection institute, “having primary responsibility for the investigation of
crop diseases, herbicides, and aerosols for agricultural employment”. It
was, the report emphasised, the USSR’s main facility for the study of cereal
rusts. The CIA also noted that research on environmental aspects of plant
infection and disease spread was significant with regard to possible selec-
tion and evaluation of anti-crop agents.44 However, the CIA could provide
no definitive evidence of any offensive anti-crop BW programmes having
been undertaken by VNIIZR in the preceding decade.
24 A. RIMMINGTON
Notes
1. Vserossiiskii nauchno-issledovatel’skii institut eksperimental’noi veterinarnii
im. Ya.P. Kovalenko (Moskva), Federal’noe gosudarstvennoe byudzhetnoe
nauchnoe uchrezhdenie Tsentral’naya nauchnaya sel’skokhozyaistvennaya
biblioteka, http://www.cnshb.ru/bul2.asp?s=af&p=katalog/af/ &a=ru_
csal_auth_249407612.htm, Accessed on the 10 July 2019.
2. Istoricheskaya spravka, Federal’nyi nauchnyi tsentr—vserossiiskii nauchno-
issledovatel’skii institut eksperimental’noi veterinarii imeni K.I. Skryabina i
Ya.P. Kovalenko rossiiskoi akademii nauk, http://viev.ru/o-viev/
istoricheskaya-spravka/, Accessed on the 10 July 2019.
3. Fedorov, L.A., Soviet Biological Weapons: History. Ecology. Politics, Krasand,
Moscow, 2013, p. 37. The Western experts, Kuhn and Leitenberg, refer to
work initiated in 1918 at Kuz’minki on anti-livestock agents Kuhn, J.H.,
Leitenberg, M., The Soviet Biological Warfare Programme, in Lentzos,
F. (Ed.), Biological Threats in the 21st Century: The Politics, People, Science
and Historical Roots, Imperial College Press, London, 2016, pp. 81, 95.
4. Problemy infektsionnoi patologii sel’skokhozyaistvennykh zhivotnykh: Tezisy
dokladov konferentsii, posvyashchennoi 100-letiyu otkrytiya virusa yashchura,
27–31 October 1997, Vladimir, 1997, p. 55.
5. Rimmington, A., Stalin’s Secret Weapon: The Origins of Soviet Biological
Warfare, Hurst & Company, London, 2018, p. 40.
6. Fedorov, L.A., Soviet Biological Weapons, p. 49.
7. Problemy infektsionnoi patologii sel’skokhozyaistvennykh zhivotnykh, p. 55.
8. USSR: Biological Warfare and Related Research, Secret Information
Report, 30 November 1948, Approved for Release 25 May 2011, https://
www.cia.gov/library/readingroom/document/cia-r dp82-00457r002
000320002-6, Accessed on the 13 June 2019.
9. Ratner, L., Yashchurnyi institut, Front nauki i tekhniki, Nos. 10–11,
November 1931, p. 104.
10. Pis’mo iz proshlogo: k 90-letiyu so dnya osnovaniya pervogo v SSSR yash-
churnogo instituta, Veterinariya i zhizn’, Information Portal and
Newspaper, 13 May 2020, https://www.vetandlife.ru/vizh/sobytiya/
pismo-iz-proshlogo-k-90-letiyu-so-dnya-o, 14 December 2020.
11. A Review of Selected Soviet Articles on Foot and Mouth Disease 1929–1957, 1
January 1957, General CIA Records, https://www.cia.gov/library/readin-
groom/docs/CIA-RDP80R01426R009800010002-5.pdf, Accessed on
the 10 June 2019.
2 ORIGINS: THE INTERNATIONAL RACE TO DEVELOP ANTI-CROP… 29
29. Geissler, E., Biological Warfare in Germany, 1923–45, pp. 109-110, 120.
30. Geissler, E., Conversion of BTW Facilities: Lessons from German History,
p.60 in Geissler, E., Gazsό, Buder, E. (Eds.), Conversion of BTW Facilities,
NATO Science Series, 1. Disarmament Technologies—Vol. 21, Kluwer
Academic Publishers, Dordrecht, 1998.
31. The Bacteriological Research Institute on the Island of Riems.
32. Ibid.
33. Ibid.
34. Ibid.
35. Yeadon, G., with Hawkins, J., The Nazi Hydra in America: Suppressed
History of a Century, Wall Street and the Rise of the Fourth Reich, Progressive
Press, Joshua Tree, California, 2008.
36. Jacobsen, A., Operation Paperclip: The Secret Intelligence Programme that
Brought Nazi Scientists to America, Little, Brown, New York, 2014.
37. Maddrell, P., Operation Matchbox and the Scientific Containment of the
USSR, p. 173 in Jackson, P., Siegel, J. (Eds.), Intelligence and Statecraft:
The Use and Limits of Intelligence in International Society, Praeger,
Westport, CT, 2005.
38. Ibid., p. 187.
39. Ibid., pp. 186–187.
40. A Review of Selected Soviet Articles on Foot and Mouth Disease 1929–1957.
41. Fedorov, L.A., Soviet Biological Weapons, p. 71.
42. Rimmington, A., Ex-USSR Biotechnology Industry: Contact Directory,
Technology Detail, York, August 1993, p. 99.
43. Alibek, K., The Soviet Union’s Anti-Agricultural Biological Weapons,
pp. 18–19 in Frazier, T.W., Richardson, D.C., Food and Agricultural
Security: Guarding Against Natural Threats and Terrorist Attacks Affecting
Health, National Food Supplies, and Agricultural Economics, Annals of
the New York Academy of Sciences, Vol. 894, 1999.
44. The Soviet BW Programme, pp. 76-77.
45. Harris, R., Paxman, J., A Higher Form of Killing: The Secret Story of Gas
and Germ Warfare, Chatto & Windus, London, 1982, p. 99.
46. The Probability of Soviet Employment of BW and CW in the Event of
Attacks Upon the US, National Intelligence Estimate (NIE-18), Central
Intelligence Agency, 10 January 1951, https://fas.org/irp/threat/
cbw/niecbw1951.pdf, Accessed on the 19 June 2019.
47. Ibid.
48. Ibid.
49. Ibid.
50. The Soviet Biological Weapons Programme, p. 352.
51. McVety, A.K., The Rinderpest Campaigns: A Virus, Its Vaccines, and Global
Development in the Twentieth Century, Cambridge University Press, 2018,
pp. 187–188.
2 ORIGINS: THE INTERNATIONAL RACE TO DEVELOP ANTI-CROP… 31
52. Ibid.
53. Ibid.
54. Covert, N.M., Cutting Edge: A History of Fort Detrick, Maryland
1943–1993, Public Affairs Office, Headquarters US Army Garrison, Fort
Detrick, Maryland, 1994, p. 28.
55. 145. Memorandum From Morton Halperin of the National Security
Council Staff to the President’s Assistant for National Security Affairs
(Kissinger), Washington, 28 August 1969, Foreign Relations of the United
States, 1969–1976, Vol. E–2, Documents on Arms Control and
Nonproliferation, 1969–1972, Document 145, US Department of State,
Office of the Historian, https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/
frus1969-76ve02/d145, Accessed on the 26 January 2021.
56. Barnaby, W., What Should the G8 do About the Biological Warfare Threat
to International Food Safety, in Frazier, T.W., Richardson, D.C., Food and
Agricultural Security: Guarding Against Natural Threats and Terrorist
Attacks Affecting Health, National Food Supplies, and Agricultural
Economics, Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, Vol. 894,
1999, p. 223.
57. Covert, N.M., Cutting Edge, p. 31.
58. Memorandum from Morton Halperin of the National Security Council
Staff to the President’s Assistant for National Security Affairs (Kissinger).
59. Casagrande, R., Biological Terrorism Targeted at Agriculture: The Threat
to US National Security, The Nonproliferation Review, Fall-Winter,
2000, p. 96.
60. Harris, R., Paxman, J., A Higher Form of Killing, p. 99.
61. Millet, P.D., Whitby, S.M., State Agro-BW Programmes, in Pate, J.,
Cameron, G., Agro-Terrorism: What Is the Threat? Proceedings of a
Workshop Held at Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y. November 12–13, 2000,
United States Department of Energy, 2001, p. 20, https://www.hsdl.
org/?view&did=3513, Accessed on the 29 March 2019.
62. Whitby, S.M., Biological Warfare Against Crops, Palgrave, Basingstoke,
2002, p. 149.
63. This is an excerpt from the Explanatory Note to the 1964–1965 Research
Plan for Protecting Agricultural Crops from Biological, Chemical and
Nuclear Weapons, reproduced in Soviet Biological Weapons, p. 72.
64. Information provided by Georgette Naskidashvili (then Director), Main
Building, Institute of Plant Immunity, Kobuleti, Achara Republic, Georgia,
4 May 2001.
65. Mudahar, Mohinder S., Jolly, Robert W., Srivastava, J.P., Transforming the
Agricultural Research Systems in Transition Economies: the Case of Russia,
The World Bank, Washington, D.C., May 1998, pp. 20–27.
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The words were still on her lips when a door opened behind them
somewhere in the dark, cool hall, and Mabin started guiltily. She and
Langford were standing just within the front doorway, out of hearing
of any one in the house. But she forgot that she could not be heard,
and felt confused and shy when a man’s voice, very low, very gentle,
said:
“Langford, is that Miss Rose?”
“Yes, sir,” said Langford, as Mabin’s eyes at last saw which door it
as that was open, and the servant passed her toward the drawing-
room.
“I will see her if she wants to speak to me,” were his next, most
unexpected words.
Mabin entered the drawing-room, and found herself face to face
with the mysterious Mr. Banks.
He was standing in the middle of the long room, and as the young
lady came in he held out his hand to her and offered her a seat. His
hand was cold, his face looked more worn, more gray than ever, and
as he moved he tottered, like a man recovering from an illness, or on
the verge of one. But Mabin thought, as she looked at him, that her
fancy that he must be insane was a mistaken one. It seemed to her
now that there was the imprint of a great grief, an ever-present
burden of melancholy, upon the grave stranger, but that his
straightforward, clear eyes were the sanest she had ever seen.
“You wish to speak to me? To ask me some questions, I
suppose?” he said courteously, as he leaned against the
mantelpiece and bent his head to listen.
“Yes.”
Then there was a pause. It was rather a delicate matter to accuse
this grave, courteous gentleman of a burglarious entry into another
person’s house. Mabin had not felt the full force of this difficulty until
now when she sat, breathing quickly, and wondering how to begin,
while Mr. Banks still politely waited.
“I saw you just now in the garden,” she burst out at last, feeling
conscious that her voice sounded coarse and harsh after his quiet
tones, “and I recognized you. And I thought it was better to tell you
so, to tell you that I knew it was you who—who——”
How could she go on? She didn’t. She broke down altogether, and
sat looking at the gently stirring branches of the trees outside,
wishing that she were under the shelter of their cool freshness,
instead of going through this fiery ordeal indoors.
Then it suddenly became clear to her that Mr. Banks had been
seized with a new idea.
“I suppose then,” he said, and she was delighted to see that he
was at last beginning to feel some of the embarrassment which she
was suffering, “that you are the lady who followed me through the
drawing-room of ‘The Towers’ a fortnight ago?”
“Yes, yes.”
“Then I don’t know how to apologize to you. I don’t know what to
say to excuse myself. In fact, there is nothing for it but to confess
that ill health had made me a sleepwalker, and that this is not the
first time I have been put into very embarrassing situations by this
terribly unfortunate habit.”
Mabin frowned frankly. She was an honest, truthful girl, and this
man lost her respect the moment he began to tell her what she knew
to be falsehoods. Her indignation gave her courage. It was in a much
more assured tone that she went on:
“I know it is not the first time, because it happened the very night
before. But I know also that you were not asleep, because when you
saw that the person in the room was not the person you expected to
find there, you went away. Besides, I saw you when you had got out
into the garden,” added she quickly, “and you were quite wide-
awake. At first I thought you must be a burglar, and I was dreadfully
frightened; but when I saw you were not, I was more frightened still.
And do you think it is right to come into people’s houses like that at
night and frighten them into fainting fits?”
And Mabin, who had sprung off her chair in her excitement,
confronted him with quite an Amazonian air of defiance and
reproach.
She felt remorseful, however, almost before she came to the end
of her harangue. For he took her onslaught so meekly, so humbly,
that she was disarmed. When she had finished, he began to pace
quickly up and down the room.
“I know it’s wrong, I know it, I know it,” he repeated, as if to
himself. “I know I ought not to be here at all. I know I am exposing
myself and—and others” (his tone dropped into an indescribable
softness on the word) “to dangers, to misery, by my presence. And
yet I have not the strength of mind to go.”
He did not once turn his head to look at his visitor as he uttered
these words; indeed she thought, by the monotonous, almost
inaudible tones in which he spoke, walking hurriedly up and down,
with his eyes on the ground, that he did not even remember that he
was not alone. And when he had finished speaking, he still continued
his walk up and down, without so much as a glance in her direction,
until suddenly, when he had reached the end of the room where she
was sitting, he drew himself up and fixing his eyes upon her, asked
abruptly:
“Did she know? Did she guess? Did you tell her?”
Mabin had an impulse of amazing astuteness. She had come here
to find out why Mr. Banks made burglarious entry into “The Towers!”
Here was an opportunity of finding out the relations between him and
her friend.
“Tell whom?” said she, pretending not to understand.
“Lady Ma——”
He checked himself at once, and was silent.
“Do you mean Mrs. Dale?” said Mabin.
“Yes, I mean Mrs. Dale,” replied he impatiently.
“I didn’t tell her anything,” said Mabin. “I didn’t dare. And she
thought she dreamt she saw you the night before; but I know it must
have been you she saw.”
“She saw me!” cried Mr. Banks, with a sudden eagerness in his
voice, a yearning in his eyes, which kept Mabin dumb. Noticing at
once the effect his change of manner had on his listener, he checked
himself again, and turned his head away.
Still Mabin remained silent. In truth she was beginning to feel
alarmed by those glimpses into a story of passion and of sorrow
which were being flashed before her innocent young eyes. A blush
rose in her cheeks; she got up from her chair, and made a step
toward the door, feeling for the first time what a daring thing she had
done in making this visit.
“I—I think so. I must suppose so,” said she quickly. “And that was
why she changed her room.”
A look of deepest pain crossed the face of Mr. Banks. His brows
contracted, his lips quivered. Mabin, with the righteous indignation of
the very young against sins they cannot understand, felt that every
blow she struck, cruel though it might be, helped to remove a peril
from the path of her friend. With glowing cheeks and downcast eyes
she added:
“Why do you try to see her? If you cannot see her openly, why do
you try to see her at all? And when only to think she saw you in a
dream made her tremble and faint and lock the door.”
If she had looked up as she spoke, the words would have died
upon her lips. For the agony in his face had become pitiful to see.
For a few moments there was dead silence in the room. Although
she wanted to go, she felt that she could not leave him like this, and
she wanted to know whether her injunctions had had any effect. She
was startled by a hollow laugh, and looking up, she met the eyes of
Mr. Banks fixed upon her with an expression which seemed to make
her suddenly conscious how young and ignorant she was, and how
mad to suppose that she could have any influence upon the conduct
of older men and women.
“I ought not to have come,” she said with a hot blush in her
cheeks, “I am too ignorant and too stupid to do anything but harm
when I want to do some good to my friends. But please do not laugh
at me; I only spoke to you to try to save Mrs. Dale, whom I love, from
any more trouble.”
“Whom you love! Do you love her too?” said Mr. Banks, with the
same change to tenderness which she had noticed in his tone once
before. “Well, little one, then you have done your friend some good
after all; for I promise you I will not try to see her again.”
Mabin was filled with compunction. Mr. Banks did not talk like a
wicked man. She longed to put down his unconventional behavior to
eccentricity merely; but this was hard, very hard to do. At any rate
she had obtained from him a definite promise, and she tried to get
another.
“And—please don’t think me impertinent—but wouldn’t it be better
if you went away from here? You know there is always the risk of her
seeing you, while you live so near, or of finding out something about
you. Please don’t think me impertinent; but really, I think, after what I
have seen, that if she were to meet you suddenly, and know that she
was not dreaming, it would kill her.”
Again his face contracted with pain. Mabin, looking down, went on:
“Remember all she has to suffer. When that old woman—an old
lady with a hard face—came to see her, and scolded her——”
Mabin stopped. An exclamation on the part of Mr. Banks had
made her glance at him; and she was astonished to see, in the hard
look of anger which his features had assumed, a likeness, an
unmistakable likeness, to the “cat.”
“Oh!” cried the girl involuntarily.
“Go on with what you were saying,” said Mr. Banks sharply. “An
old lady came here, scolded her——”
“And poor Mrs. Dale was miserable. She did not want me to stay
with her; she said she was too wicked; she was more miserable than
I have ever seen any one before. I am so sorry for her; so sorry.”
She stopped. A strange expression, in which there was a gleam of
wistful hope, had come into Mr. Banks’ face. Mabin put out her hand
quickly:
“Good-by,” she said. “I think I am glad I came. I’m sure you are not
hard-hearted enough to make her any more unhappy than she is.”
But Mr. Banks, taking her hand, would not let it go, but walked with
her to the door.
“You will let me come with you—as far as the gate of the garden,”
he said quite humbly. “You are right to trust me. I love your ‘Mrs.
Dale,’ and would not do her any harm. But—it is difficult, very
difficult, to know what would be best, happiest, for her.”
They were in the hall by this time; and Mr. Banks, still holding the
girl’s hand very gently in his, had pushed open the door which led
into the garden. Instead of going out at once, he turned to look
earnestly in Mabin’s young fair face.
“I wish you were a little older,” he said at last; “then I could tell you
the whole story, and you could help me to find out the right thing to
do.”
“I am nineteen,” expostulated Mabin; “and, though he doesn’t
know it, papa often takes my advice.”
Mr. Banks smiled kindly.
“I have no doubt of it,” said he. “Nineteen is a great age. But not
quite great enough to bear the burden of such a pitiful story. Come.”
Reluctantly letting her hand drop, he followed her down the steps
into the garden, and Mabin, with all the interest of the visit in her
mind, could not repress her delight at finding herself once more in
the garden she loved so well. Mr. Banks watched her bright face, as
her eyes wandered from the smooth lawn to the borders full of
geraniums and pansies, rose-bushes and tall white lilies.
And when she found herself once more in the grass walk, she
could not repress an exclamation of pleasure.
“You are fond of your garden,” said he. “You must have found it
hard to give it up to a stranger!”
Mabin acknowledged the fact with a blush, and, encouraged by his
questions, told him some details about her own gardening, and her
own pet flowers. Chatting upon such matters as these, they soon
reached the side gate in the wall, and passing into the lane, came to
the plantation behind “The Towers.”
And suddenly to the consternation of Mabin, she heard two voices,
within the wood, which she recognized as those of Rudolph and Mrs.
Dale.
She turned quickly to Mr. Banks.
He stopped and held out his hand.
“I have not forgotten my promise,” said he; “I will leave you now
and—and I promise that I will not try to see her again.”
The next moment he had disappeared—only just in time. For as
the garden gate shut behind him, Mrs. Dale, with a white face and
wild eyes, broke through the trees and confronted Mabin.
“Who was that? Whose voice was that?” she asked in almost a
shriek.
Mabin sprang forward and put a caressing arm round her.
“He will never come near you again,” she whispered, feeling that
concealment of the identity of their neighbor with the supposed
phantom was no longer possible.
But, to her distress and amazement, Mrs. Dale’s face instantly
grew rigid with grief and despair, and she sank, trembling and
moaning, to the ground.
“I knew it! I was sure of it! Oh, my punishment is too great for me
to bear!” she whispered hoarsely.
CHAPTER XII.
A HORRIBLE SECRET.