David Franz: The leadership at many of these places, unlike Gennadiy, I believe, was unwilling to admit that they were doing anything wrong: making biological weapons. On the other hand, we were trying to force them to admit, rather than work with them to solve a common problem. And I think if we had gone there with more scientists, more experts, and talked through these issues from a science base, it would have been better for both of us.
In... I think it was October of 1994, I was on a trilateral visit and we were negotiating in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Moscow. And we were talking about, oh, how many labs can I visit if you visit one of our labs, how many inspectors can come, what can you cover up and what do you have to show and so on. And at one point, the lead negotiator on our side turned to me with a sheet of paper, and said, "Colonel Franz, you and colonel... the Russian colonel on the other side of the table, go in the other room and work on this part of the bracketed text, this diplomatic text: it's only science." So they sent us away because it was only science, and the rest of the group continued to discuss the important things. We worked for about twenty minutes, and our brackets were gone, because it was only science, and because we had the same frame of reference, we both understood. He was an MD PhD, I was a DVM PhD, we understood what we were talking about, and it was easy. We came back, we were kind of proud of ourselves. The rest of the group was still talking about who sits with the sun in their eyes, what's the shape of the table, how many people can go to a given meeting, and so on. After that, I found that at the next break, we kind of wandered toward each other, and pretty soon, we were talking about our kids, we were talking about the science that we do, and so on. And that twenty minutes changed my life; it changed the way I think, and thought, about working across this difficult space in security and health. And then it was just a few months later that Anne Harrington came and make this offer, that we might have the Russian... our Russian colleagues visit USAMRIID. If I hadn't had that experience in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, I don't think I would have supported a visit, but it really changed the way I think.