MYSTERY OF VANISHED SOVIET SAVANT DEEPENS

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000100060007-1
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: March 20, 2012
• Sequence Number: 7
• Publication Date: July 17, 1985
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

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Declassified in Part -Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/03/20 :CIA-RDP90-009658000100060007-1
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Mystery of vanished
Soviet savant deepens
By Ted Agres
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
What happened to renowned
Soviet scientist Vladimir Alexan-
drov?
Did he defect to the West while
attending a conference in Spain?
ryas he killed or kidnapped by the
Soviet intellieence aeencv t e B
because he was about to defect? Did
right-wing terrorists in Europe do
him in?
No one seems to know -not his
wife in Moscow, nor his colleagues in
Russia, California, London or'
Stockholm.
The Soviet authorities, if they
know, aren't saying. They refer all
questions to the International Red
Cross, which doesn't have a clue.
What is known is that Dr. Vladimir
Alexandrov is an expert in computer
modeling and climate studies. He is
director of the Climate Modeling
Center of the Computational Sci-
ences Center of the Soviet Academy
of Sciences in Moscow.
As a prominent, trusted scientist,
Dr. Alexandrov had been granted the
unusual privilege of traveling
abroad with his wife, Alya, and step-
child. He did so extensively,
spending more than six months at a
time as a visiting scientist at Law-
rence Livermore Laboratories in
California and at various U.S. and
European centers, for climate
research.
He participated in scientific
meetings around the world on the
"nuclear winter" theme. This is the
theory that any major nuclear
exchange would so disrupt the
atmosphere that the earth's climate
would be drastically altered. The
result would be a permanent "win-
ter" inwhich life as we know it would
suffer catastrophic consequences.
Although there is no consensus,
many scientists in the United States
and Europe agree with this hypoth-
esis. Among themselves, some
Soviet scientists dispute the theory,
but the "official" party line,
expressed by Boris Ponomarev in
September's World Marxist Review,
is that a 100-megaton exchange
would virtually destroy the world.
Yet Soviet leaders believe nuclear
war is survivable, as evidenced by
their massive, nationwide civil
defense program. Their casualties
would be great, the Soviets say, but
probably no more than the losses
they incurred during World War II.
Some analysts have come to
believe that the Soviets are using the
nuclear winter hypothesis as part of
a larger "peace campaign;' or
"active measures" drive, to push the
West further into unilateral disar-
mament or at least to drive a wedge
between the Western allies over mis-
sile deployments.
Dr. Alexandrov had been privvy
to the debates over whether nuclear
war was indeed survivable. But
some of his colleagues in the West
say he privately showed signs of dis-
illusionment. While he had pub-
lishedmany scientific articles on the
dangers of nuclear winter, as far
back as April 1983 he had criticized
some of the approaches taken by Dr.
Carl Sagan and others involved in
the issue.
Last March, Dr. Alexandrov was
in Madrid to attend a meeting of the
Scientific Committee on the Protec-
tion of the Environment. He arrived
about 10 days before the conference
was to start. He checked into his
hotel and is reported to have shown
signs of acute gastric distress.
He left his bags, passport and
some airline tickets in his room and
reportedly decided to take a walk.
That was the last time he was seen.
U.S. and British int ilia nc
sources say he dtd not seek asylum.
Reports from Moscow and from for-
mer associates at Lawrence
Livermore indicate that his wife
called California from Moscow in
mid-April in an effort to locate him.
WASHINGTON TIMES
17 July 1985
Declassified in Part -Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/03/20 :CIA-RDP90-009658000100060007-1