S. Popov: Other approaches were also considered, such as blending two infectious agents into one, and the simplest solution, technically speaking, was, let's say, to make a bacterial agent, let's say, a plague bacterium, which could produce a virus. The upshot was, this... it was not even a dual infection, it wasn't just simply an infection with two agents, because that would have been far more... Basically, a combined agent like that had very important characteristics, in the sense that it would have been, initially, a bacterial infection, and if the bacterial infection was... was treated using traditional antibiotics, then it would develop into a viral infection. And that would mean that such an infection could not be treated using antibiotics, because it would become viral. But such an infection... but if it was left untreated, then the patient, or, uh, an infected animal, would die of a bacterial infection. So, there really was no logical solution here, as to how to treat a person in that condition, no matter what you did. If you treated the person for the plague, he would die. If you didn't treat him for the plague, he would also die. And it was essentially impossible to treat for a viral disease, since such therapeutic medications were simply highly ineffective.
This was the objective that was set out in the early seventies. Then it came down as a direct order, to be worked on in the relevant institutes, although, as I've said, there were no scientific explanations as to how the desired outcome could be achieved. And, as time passed, people in the relevant institutes continued this research, each one from the standpoint of, you know, how a particular researcher thought it could be achieved. This is why some analysts looking at that biological program now have been puzzled, wondering, "Why was there no unified method for resolving this problem? Why wasn't it coordinated?... Why wasn't it... Why does it look so piecemeal? They did one thing in one place, something else in another place, a third..." Yeah, that was for the simple reason that no one knew what to do.