The Dead Hand (29 page)

While at the university, Gorbachev met and married Raisa Titorenko, a bright philosophy student. In the two years after Stalin’s death, Moscow began to open up to new ideas, often expressed in literature. Ilya Ehrenburg’s novel
The Thaw
, a title that came to define the era, was published in 1954. Gorbachev met a young Czech student at the university, Zdeněk Mlynáář, who became Gorbachev’s best friend in those years, and they enjoyed stormy debates late into the night in their dormitory room. The university experience began to open Gorbachev’s eyes, but at the same time, “for me and others of my generation the question of changing the system in which we lived did not arise.”

Upon graduation in the summer of 1955, Gorbachev returned to Stavropol, where he found new evidence of the gap between rhetoric and reality. Many saw this but did nothing; what was different about Gorbachev was his capacity to be shocked by it. During his university days he held a summer job in a local procuracy in Stavropol, but was appalled by the arrogant behavior of the apparatchiks.
²⁰
In a letter to Raisa written
then, he described them as “disgusting.” He added, “Especially the manner of life of the local bosses. The acceptance of convention, subordination, with everything predetermined, the open impudence of officials and the arrogance. When you look at one of the local leaders you see nothing outstanding apart from his belly.”

Lev Grinberg (left) and Faina Abramova, the pathologists who autopsied victims of the 1979 Sverdlovsk anthrax outbreak. [David E. Hoffman]

The Chkalovsky district, where the outbreak occurred. [David E. Hoffman]

Sergei Popov, the bright young researcher who worked on genetic engineering of pathogens, and his wife, Taissia, at Koltsovo in 1982. [Sergei Popov]

Lev Sandakhchiev, the director of Vector, who pushed to create artificial viruses for weapons. [Andy Weber]

Igor Domaradsky, the “troublemaker” at Obolensk who attempted to alter the genetic makeup of pathogens. [David E. Hoffman]

Vitaly Katayev (in eyeglasses at left), an aviation and rocket designer by profession, began in 1974 to work for the Central Committee in Moscow. In the years leading up to the Soviet collapse, he kept detailed notebooks, filled with technical information about weapons systems and key decisions. Here, he attends a May Day celebration, date unknown. [Ksenia Kostrova]

Katayev in the 1990s. [Ksenia Kostrova]

A Katayev drawing on modular missiles. [Hoover Institution Archives]

President Ronald Reagan and the Joint Chiefs of Staff discussed the concept of missile defense on February 11, 1983. The president wrote in his diary that night, “What if we tell the world, we want to protect our people, not avenge them…?” [Ronald Reagan Library]

Reagan unveiled his vision for the Strategic Defense Initiative in a televised speech on March 23, 1983. [Ray
Lustig/Washington Post]

The nuclear accident at Chernobyl in April 1986 was a turning point for Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev. [Reuters]