Moscow DMZ: The Story of the International Effort to Convert Russian Weapons Science to Peaceful Purposes

We have detailed files of hundreds of former Soviet Union experts in the fields of rocket, missile, and nuclear weapons. These weapon experts are willing to work in a country which needs their skills and can offer reasonable pay. Advertising leaflet of the Hong Kong-based Sun Shine Industrial Company, August 1993 (circulating in the Middle East)

The falling snow quickly erased the tracks of our cross-country skis as Carole and I traversed the spacious grounds of Moscow State University in mid-January 1993.

Earlier in the week at the Pulse Institute, the Prepcorn staff had frantically prepared the documents for the initial meeting of the fiftymember Prepcom. The diplomatic missions in Moscow had just dispatched to Brussels, Tokyo, and Washington, through their own channels, our latest bundles of hastily prepared manuscripts with the hope that the packets would arrive at their destinations in one week. That would be ten days before the scheduled session in Moscow.

All of us should have been hard at work at the institute on this Saturday also, preparing additional papers for distribution at the meeting. But the Institute simply would not unlatch its doors on weekends. We offered to huddle in hooded jackets and bring our own Finnish heaters so that lack of heat could not be the excuse. But the management of the institute could not afford the costs of the security guards to let us in and to ensure our safety.

The alternative of a brief outing in the snow would help Carole and me forget the paper chase for a few hours and offer escape from

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