Biohazard

Description

Ken Alibek's straightforward story of massive, state-sponsored bio weapons research by the Soviet Union and Modern Russia was too far ahead of its' time. Looking back with post-9/11 vision, "too far" was a mere two years ahead of its' time. *Biohazard* is an eyeopening autobiography of Ken Alibek, AKA Kanatzhan (Kanat) Alibekov, a leading bio weapons developer and Soviet officer of Kazakh ancestry who was determined to expose the former Soviet Union's extensive covert biological weapons program in the 1990's. It was first published by Hutchinson in the United Kingdom in 1999, then re-released by Arrow Books in 2000. Filled with equal parts terrifying details about the gigantic military bio weapons research operation in Russia and of mundane life in the oppressive former Soviet Union, Biohazard was widely dismissed by so-called "experts" upon its' release as sensationalist baloney, nothing more than a mass of outright lies. The facts and allegations Alibek was putting forth about the magnitude of the illegal weapons research the Soviet Union was doing at that time could have led directly into World War III, but for the most part it was never recognized for what it was until long after he had been published in England. Most of the book's assertions have since been investigated and confirmed by U.S. and other Western microbiological and bio weapons authorities. Visits to the laboratory and weapons production sites have confirmed the majority of the pathogens and the level of research performed there. The vast Soviet Union biological weapons infrastructure dwarfed any known bio weapons program anywhere else, and makes for a truly disturbing read.

Description

For fifty years, while the world stood in terror of a nuclear war, Russian scientists hidden in heavily guarded secret cities refined and stockpiled a new kind of weapon of mass destruction - an invisible weapon that would strike in silence and could not be traced. It would leave hundreds of thousands dead in its wake and would continue to spread devastation long after its release. The scientists were bioweaponeers, working to perfect the tools of a biological Armageddon. Ken Alibek began his career as a doctor wanting to save lives and ended up running the Soviet biological weapons program - a secret military empire masquerading as a pharmaceutical company. At its peak, the program employed sixty thousand people at over one hundred facilities. Biohazard is a terrifying, fast-paced account of tests and leaks, accidents and disasters in the labs, KGB threats and assassinations. The book is full of revelations - evidence of biowarfare programs in Cuba and India, actual deployments at Stalingrad and in Afghanistan, experiments with mood-altering agents, a contingency plan to attack major American cities, and the true story behind the mysterious anthrax outbreak in Sverdlovsk. But beyond these is a twisted world of lies and mirrors, and the riveting parable of the greatest perversion of science in history.

Subjects

Other Editions

• Biohazard: the chilling true story of the largest covert biological weapons program in the world, told from the inside by the man who ran itRandom House1999-01-01
• BiohazardDelta2000-04-11
• BiohazardPenguin Random House2008-01-01
• BiohazardPenguin Random House2008-01-01
• BiohazardPenguin Random House2008-01-01
• BiohazardPenguin Random House2008-01-01