Gennadiy N. Lepeshkin: All of that biological weapons work began nearly at the same time in many countries. This is known historical fact. Initially Japan was working on highly detailed designs. Then, uh, France got into the act, and so did England. America was one of the latecomers in developing all of that stuff and the first to obtain really significant results.
Lepeshkin: I... had the opportunity to visit Fort Detrick and saw the attempts there... uh, the Americans were trying to manufacture large quantities... large quantities... of anthrax, they were working... and to filter those quantities
in order to obtain a concentrated suspension... And the way it was being done was so antiquated, that ... everything pointed to the fact that everyone really was producing the weapons. So it was necessary to be ready to rebuff an attack.
Lepeshkin: And in the Soviet Army weapons development labs, well, often... a lot of vaccines were produced that saved entire army divisions during epidemics. For example, in 1945 when we started fighting the Japanes, we knew that they had stocks of the plague at hand. And our whole army was vaccinated against the plague, using a vaccine that military specialists had designed. In the Balkans, when there was a massive attack, it was the same thing that was used... a large quantity of plague vaccine, which saved an entire contingent as well as the public and the offensive forces from that particular epidemic.