[ RadSafe ] United States Rolls Out Red Carpet for Former Soviet Weapons Scientists

[Gerry Blackwood]

CQ HOMELAND SECURITY – WEAPONS
April 25, 2005 – 7:58 p.m.
United States Rolls Out Red Carpet for Former Soviet Weapons Scientists
By Sean Madigan, CQ Staff

The United States is extending and expanding a visa program aimed at encouraging about 500 former Soviet weapons scientists to move to the United States.

The Homeland Security Department’s bureau of Citizenship and Immigration Services (CIS) issued a rule published in the Federal Register on Monday that would allow as many as 950 scientists to enter the country under the Soviet Scientists Immigration Act (
PL 102-509
), which took effect in 1992.

“The point is to keep these folks off the market,” said Chris Bentley, a spokesman for CIS.

After the fall of the Soviet Union, the United States and other Western countries worried that thousands of scientists who had worked to develop chemical, biological and nuclear weapons might offer their skills to enemy nations or terrorist groups. 

The visa program was created to give scientists access to the U.S. job market and steer them toward peaceful research. 

The original law called for 750 visa slots. But by the time the original program lapsed in 1996, only about 450 visas had been granted. The program was reauthorized in the Foreign Relations Authorization Act of 2003 (
PL 107-228
) but does not go into effect until May 25.

By adding 200 new visa slots to the 300 from the original program, immigration officials said there will be openings for about 500 scientists, not including their families.

The visa program does not require former scientists to have jobs lined up in the United States. Under the new rule, State Department officials will be responsible for verifying applicants’ backgrounds.

Many of the eligible scientists are already known to the State Department, which spends about $30 million a year to engage former weapons scientists in Russia and the former Soviet republics in research programs. 

Fears that underemployed former Soviet scientists might work for U.S. adversaries are beginning to diminish, said Raymond Zilinskas, a bioweapons expert at the Monterey Institute’s Center for Nonproliferation Studies.

“The Russians don’t want to work for terrorists,” said Zilinskas. “They want to win Nobel prizes. You don’t win Nobel prizes working in secrecy for terrorists.”

Zilinskas is involved with a State Department program called the BioIndustry Initiative that helps former Soviet citizens learn English and otherwise acclimate to the United States. As part of the program, scientists are taught about nonproliferation. 

The goal is for the scientists to collaborate with colleagues in U.S. industry who are developing drugs and vaccines. 

Zilinskas said it is advantageous for U.S. researchers to work with their Russian counterparts, especially because research is so much less expensive in Russia. Animal studies there can be conducted for one-tenth the cost of U.S. studies.

Last week, Rep. 
Curt Weldon
, R-Pa., challenged academics and executives in the biodefense industry to form partnerships with Russian scientists.

“If we would have listened to Ken Alibek . . . [w]e would have a much better understanding of where we need to be today,” Weldon said during a speech at a Virginia conference, referring to a Russian scientist who published an insider’s account of the Soviet bioweapons program after he defected to the United States in 1992.

Sean Madigan can be reached at smadigan at cq.com.



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