Shortly before President Boris Yeltsin of Russia journeyed to Washington to reach a historic nuclear arms control treaty with President Bush, he made a brave and disturbing admission.
He told a Russian newspaper that in 1979, when he was Communist Party boss in Sverdlovsk, a secret military laboratory in that Siberian city accidentally released deadly anthrax spores in the air, killing scores of nearby residents.The next year, the Carter administration said the Soviets had been experimenting with a "lethal biological agent," in violation of the 1972 convention against producing germ weapons, which Moscow had signed.
Then the habitual liars in the Kremlin replied that the anthrax epidemic had been caused by tainted meat, not their efforts to build weapons banned worldwide. Their usual academic and media apologists in this country supported their explanation.
Now comes Yeltsin confirming what American intelligence had said: The Sverdlovsk facility was illegally working on military toxins. Yeltsin's epilogue is even more alarming.
After the Sverdlovsk outbreak, he says, the military laboratory "had simply been moved to another region and the developement of this weapon continued."
Bush has anointed Yeltsin as a true friend of America. Thus, he should ask and the Russian should answer two questions. Where was the anthrax lab sent? And what is it turning out these days?
Yeltsin's Sverdlovsk story warns us to be prudently skeptical of the sweeping pact he and Bush made to reduce each side's arsenal of strategic warheads by two-thirds over the next decade. From 22,500 now, the U.S. and Russia are to have a total of 7,000.
"With this agreement," Bush exhulted, "the nuclear nightmare recedes more and more . . ."
The president is correct - if the Russians carry out their obligations. And based on the record, it is uncertain that they will.
On April 9, Bush sent to Congress (but probably did not read) a document titled "Report on Soviet Non-compliance With Arms Control Agreements." In polite State Department language, it implies that the Soviets violated almost every disarmament treaty they signed.
Now, one can argue that all the chiseling was done by bad old Communists, while Yeltsin is a dependable democrat and partisan of the free market. Even granting his bona fides, does anyone expect him to still be in the Kremlin in the year 2003, when Russia's most threatening missiles, the SS-18 and SS-24, are supposed to be gone?
Yeltsin, the crucial figure in Russia's fragile democracy, is 61 years old, overworked, overweight and overly fond of vodka. And in charge of virtually every ministry, legislature, police and military unit, city hall, factory and collective farm is a patient "former" Communist.
What are the odds that Russia is firmly headed for democracy and international trustworthiness?