“Now the Doors to Russia Are Open So Wide:” Matthew Meselson’s Investigative Expedition to Yekaterinburg

Abstract

Scientists of high standing can take on powerful agency to shape events and processes in world politics. Biologist Matthew Meselson, who played a key role in building U.S. government support for the 1972 Biological Weapons Convention (BWC), is widely praised for his achievements both as scientist and as activist. His investigative expedition to Russia in 1992–1993, to inquire about the origins of the 1979 anthrax outbreak in Sverdlovsk, is for many another one of his major successes operating at the interface of science and politics. In this interpretation, the productivity of Meselson’s efforts shows that persistent actors with symbolic capital and pure motives can prevail over staunch difficulties, and eventually no evil or inconvenient fact—in this case, the manmade origins of a deadly epidemic in the Soviet Union—can be hidden from the world public thanks to their efforts. The chapter reviews this perspective to point out that the success of the expedition was made possible to a great extent thanks to the opportune historical moment when it took place, converging revelations surfacing from other sources, and enablement by state actors. Further, the chapter addresses merits and weaknesses of a less flattering view of Meselson’s expedition as one that merely arrived at a delayed acceptance of what could be known beforehand. While it is concluded that this is not entirely true, some aspects of the investigation are found to have had negative implications for global health security.