State Secrets: An Insider's Chronicle of the Russian Chemical Weapons Program

The Decision of the Attorney General

Although I was released from custody, not everything was clear about my case. Aleksei Kazannik, the Attorney General of Russia, retired immediately after my release.

According to a special resolution of the Duma, he was obliged to sanction the release of the participants of the October 1993 coup. Many people in the Kremlin hoped Kazannik would not submit to this decision and would show “revolutionary consciousness.” Kazannik couldn’t do that, since he was an exceptionally honest man, even though I am certain that he didn’t have any sympathy at all for the mutineers.

The President appointed Aleksei Ilyushenko in his place, a man who had worked in the Russian Presidential Legal Department before that. My lawyer Asnis was preparing for the additional investigation, and at the same time he was doing everything that he could to get my case dismissed altogether. Frankly, I had no idea how he was doing all this. Still, I think my lawyer was justified in being cautious and not hurrying to describe his efforts to me in detail.

First of all, he knew that my telephone conversations could be tapped, and they could also listen in to my private conversations at home. Journalists were often able to fish out information ahead of time, which complicated his work. Neither then, nor later after the case was finished, did I ask Aleksander Asnis about the details of his activities.

That is why when Petr Mukshin, a reporter from the Interfax wire services, called me at 11:35 A.M. on March 11, 1994 and said that he had just received a fax from the Attorney General’s Office stating that my case had been dismissed, it was an enormous and very pleasant surprise for me.

Soon Asnis called and asked me to come to the Attorney General’s Office on Pushkin Street to receive an official copy of the resolution about the termination of my case for “lack of corpus delicti.”[360]

I was incredibly excited by this call. It took me a few minutes to get ready. Then I rushed off to the trolley-bus stop. An hour later I was in the Attorney General’s Office. A crowd of television reporters and photo journalists has gathered, waiting for us there with their questions. Mostly my lawyer answered them. Indeed, he was now the main character in focus, and the journalists received thorough and detailed explanations from him.

We got our passes and went to see Lev Baranov, the head of the department. He was extremely polite to me and said that he highly esteemed my convictions, which prevented me from acting outside of the framework of the law and from disclosing any secrets. I signed a receipt for the resolution[361] and we said good-bye to Baranov.

Although the termination of my case was expected, it was a sensation, and not just for me. The wire services and newspapers widely reported it.[362]^, [363]^, [364]^, [365]^, [366] I was and am still proud of the conclusion of the editorial in Moscow News, which said that my “case had united scientists from many countries, human rights activists.” ³⁶⁶

The termination of my case was also the cause of a pleasant episode at one of the sessions of U.S. Senate on March 15^th.[367]

I did not have enough time to give journalists interviews or to answer the telephone calls. Not only famous people congratulated me, but also many that I hadn’t known of before.

Gale Colby called from Princeton to let me know that I was awarded the distinguished 1994 Heinz R. Pagels Rights of Scientists Award of the New York Academy of Sciences, “in recognition of his courage and his singular demonstration of the moral responsibility of individual scientists in upholding the integrity of scientific knowledge in an emerging democratic society”. Professor Joshua Lederberg, a Nobel Prize laureate (who Gale only half-jokingly dubbed as “one of the gods of science”), and the President of the NYAS, called to confirm this and congratulated me.

The famous philanthropist and billionaire George Soros and another renowned Nobel Prize laureate James Watson awarded me the distinguished prize at a reception in the Radisson-Slavyanskaya Hotel, located near the Kiev Railway Station in Moscow. Mostly it was Americans who accompanied George Soros on his trip across Russia, who were present at the ceremony.

Was I happy? I can say I definitely was. My head was full of sunshine. Despite that, almost none of the problems that I raised have yet been solved. Novichok was unmasked then, and there was no real chance for that yet. My personal problems were also mounting, no job, and no real opportunities. I was still a Russian secret-bearer, and because of that, I didn’t have any chance to go abroad and to try to start my new life. Simultaneously I was defiant and recalcitrant, yet full of energy to struggle for my future…