In November 1988, when I was in Geneva and was getting ready to return to Moscow with the team of experts, I received the news that I had been appointed Deputy Minister in charge of the nuclear-arms complex of the USSR Ministry of Atomic Power and Industry. After I had been released from duties at the Research Institute of Pulse Engineering, I finally sat down gingerly in the chair of the Deputy Minister in the grey building on Bolshaya Ordynka in early January. That is how I first became a member of the administrative team in the headquarters of the industry.

    I want to say that most of the members of our Ministry staff are specialists who came to us from the enterprises and have a considerable experience in specific fields of activity within the industry. All of them knew and respected many of the Ministry's personnel before they came here. Nevertheless, newcomers are shocked by the exclusivity of the group at first, and then they feel uncomfortable, as if they are caught somewhere in between the familiar world of production and science and the world of public officials, and when a person comes here with the rank of a Deputy Minister, the problems of adapting to the new environment are compounded.

    Even today I have trouble getting used to my new job. I am guided by a specific set of principles in my work. A superior earns respect with his knowledge and experience, not with imperious voice. In turn, the relationship between a subordinate and a superior should be based, in my opinion, on dignity without any arrogance and on acquiescence without any obsequiousness.

    The difficulty of my first steps in the new office were magnified by the unstable and tense atmosphere. It was the time of the start of restructuring in industry and in the Union ministries. It was the time of staff reshuffle in the public administration of the country. After all, we actually began working on the conversion of the defence sectors in 1989.

    By that time the nuclear-arms complex was rather outdated, and we began drawing up a programme for its modernisation, with due consideration for the conversion of our enterprises and combines and rehabilitation of the contaminated territories around them. It was not until I was doing this work that I realised how huge the complex was and how many problems we had to solve in the area of personnel health protection and environmental protection. In short, there was so much work to do, but I did not have a team of single-minded and kindred spirits. I gradually began putting one together, choosing each member with care and precision. That took time, and I found that it was passing too quickly, in contrast to the passage of time in childhood, when it seems so painfully slow because we want to grow as quickly as possible. It is only with age that one begins to realise the value of time and to understand that time is life itself. Sometimes there was not enough time for a friendly talk. I did not often have an opportunity to spend time with my comrades after work.

    I remember how much I wanted to celebrate solemnly my fiftieth birthday by spending some time with my colleagues and friends and discussing our life up to that point, our successes and failures, and the people who were no longer with us. I had so much trouble persuading my family to celebrate my birthday in a restaurant, and then everything fell through ... It was just bad luck! The date of 12 February 1984 was declared an official day of mourning because of the death of the General Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee Yu. V.Andropov. We had to change our reservation because the restaurants were closed that day. When I came home with my closest friends, the whole room was full of flowers - a sign of affection from my comrades and colleagues. We sat down at the table quietly and had a modest birthday celebration.

    Before I had time to form a team of kindred spirits, our country reached a turning point in its history - in August 1991. At that time I was on assignment in Geneva, where we were discussing technical means of monitoring underground nuclear tests with the Americans. I was worried about the future of Russia's nuclear-arms complex. When I returned to Moscow, I had trouble recognising my colleagues and comrades. I encountered an atmosphere of confusion, attempts to stay out of current events, and the inevitable question in such situations: 'Whose side are you on?' It was necessary, however, to make a vigorous effort to preserve the unique scientific and production complex of the nuclear industry. I began fighting for the maintenance of the Russian Ministry. No, I did not use the wrong word. That was a fight, in which I encountered intrigue, forgery and intimidation. I also had to endure humiliating anonymous letters and insults from my superiors. Some of my closest friends could not cope with those critical situations in life.

    Before I moved into the Minister's chair, I had to go through a serious struggle, and sometimes I feel as it I have spent my whole life in the trenches. I do not regret this, however, because they were character-building experiences. My tempering on the test sites frequently helped me in other areas of my life.

    It also helped me when the very existence of the Russian Ministry for Atomic Energy was being debated. In fact, all of the arguments were settled unequivocally by Boris Nikolaevich Yeltsin at a conference with the scientists and administrators of the nuclear industry in the Kremlin in January 1992. That was the first time in all the years of perestroyka that the leader of the country had conferred with the principals of the nuclear industry. The preceding five years of cost-accounting perestroyka according to various models of directive-bureaucratic conversion had hurt the industry considerably. That meeting assured us that the country's nuclear industry would live.

    I feel that Gorbachev has to take the blame for the attempt to demolish the military-industrial complex. He almost ordered that the directors of our enterprises be squashed, treating the talented scientists and organisers like bedbugs.

    It was not the military-industrial complex that had governed the country and led it into a blind alley. It had been 'governed' itself, but not that resolutely, thank God. It is a lucky strike for the country that the functionaries who had grown out of their Komsomol-activist diapers, with their degrees from agricultural or pedagogical correspondence schools, were afraid to thrust their hairy hands into big science because they lacked the necessary skill and knowledge.

    I remember how the secretary of a local party committee of the city visited our institute when I was already working in Moscow. Our party officials used to tell everyone how to live and what to do, but when this one saw our diagnostic system, all he could say was: 'Oh, you have so many different wires here! How do you keep them straight?'.

    In general, we theoretical physicists had no respect for party officials. Fear kept the party elite from trying to get into our sector and put down roots - fear of its own incompetence and fear of the very word 'atom'.

    I am certain that if the state and society finally take an interest in the needs of the military-industrial complex and make intelligent use of its unique scientific and technical potential, the rebirth of industry and, consequently, the economic revitalisation of Russia will begin in the military-industrial complex because it is the country's only complex working at the level of the best world. standards in machine building and instrument engineering. Our enterprises design and produce various detectors of ionizing radiation, radiation monitoring system, systems for recording high-rate processes, radio-electronic instruments, semiconductor laser beams and research equipment. Our basic and applied science in high energy physics, thermonuclear fusion, super high magnetic fields and superconductivity are the poverty and pride of our whole nation.

    The fundamental research institutes of the industry have several unique research complexes, including the world's largest accelerator, which is being built in Protvino in Moscow Region at the High Energy Physics Institute. This 3,000 GeV complex will be located in a circular underground tunnel 21 kilometres long and 3.5 metres in diameter (the first section will be completed in 1995).

    The Ministry for Atomic Energy mines the purest gold in the world. We have the least expensive zirconium production process, and the most efficient isotope separation technology, requiring only one-twentieth as much energy as the US technology. Our highly efficient resource processing technology has aroused the interest of foreign countries in cooperation with us in this area.

    We produce pure molybdenum, tungsten, and vanadium oxides by reprocessing low-grade ores and waste of military enterprises. The Ministry for Atomic Energy has several plants for the production of sulphuric, nitric, and hydrofluoric acid and elementary fluorine. Our enterprises produce tantalum, niobium, zirconium, hafnium, lithium, and beryllium, alkaline-earth metals and items made of them. The phosphate fertilizers the Ministry for Atomic Energy produces meet the world standards, and some of them exceed these standards in terms of total nutritive substances.

    And what a construction and installation sector we have! We produce one out of every fifteen bricks in Russia, but ours cost half as much. We built such cities as Navoi, Shevchenko, Obninsk, Dubna, Protvino and Podolsk. And we have such marvellous finishing materials! And what about our plots of land in the Urals and in Siberia, with a yield that is usually twice the average! And the cycle race track in Krylatskoye is ours! The Ministry for Atomic Energy can take the credit for all of this. No, our scientists, designers and workers did not eat the people's bread for free!

    Around 30% of the research and production facilities in the nuclear complex are already working for the needs of the country's economy, including those directly engaged in the production of consumer goods. We plan to double this indicator by the year 1995 and to produce more high-tech and scarce commodities, such as digital video and audio tape recorders, laser discs and players, microwave ovens, TV sets, and electronic security systems. We plan to build plants for the agricultural processing complex.

    In 1991 one out of every three people in the industry was working on conversion projects. By the year 2000 we plan to redirect up to 60% of the facilities of the nuclear military complex for the satisfaction of the needs of national economy. They will work on the development of the fuel and power base, the design of fibre-optical equipment for TV broadcasting and communications, the development of isotopic and nuclear medicine, the manufacture of highly durable instruments and high-speed lathes for machining intricate-shape structures, the production of new composite materials and mobile environmental monitoring laboratories, and the derivation of special-purity materials.

    In addition, we have much to do for a successful development of a nuclear power industry. Our opponents are insisting on the development of energy-saving technology and on energy conservation. I agree with them; however, this is an extremely lengthy process and Russia needs energy today. Many of its regions are on a starvation energy diet. No matter how much mankind longs for the clean environment of the past, it cannot get along without technical progress, including nuclear energy. The development of safe nuclear reactors is one of the main tasks of the industry.

    Gradually (after a storm of negative emotional outbursts) the, Russians are agreeing with this. We received a request from the Urals region, for example, for feasibility studies for the construction of a nuclear power plant. We also have requests from the Far East. We are installing new power units at the Balakovo nuclear power plant. There are designs for small nuclear power plants for remote mining regions and the Arctic zones.

    Successful development of the nuclear power industry, the backfitting of the operating nuclear power plants, and the construction of new ones will require large capital investment. I feel that the solution of our financial problems will necessitate concerted efforts by the leading countries of the world. What kind of cooperation should this entail? This is a sensitive issue, and our opinions differ. Several options have been suggested.

V. N. Mikhaylov. The first published photo, early 1992
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    The first (supported by some people in the Ministry for Atomic Energy and the Russian leadership) is to borrow tens of billions of dollars abroad, close all our nuclear power plants, and build Western ones. We will have to pay a high price for this, however, both in the literal and the figurative senses. First of all, we will have to pay out hundreds of millions of dollars each year in interest on the loans. Second, we will have to have a funeral service for the Russian nuclear industry. This would be inadmissible. Without scientific and technical progress, Russia has no future.

    Another opinion is to borrow US$700-800 million from the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development for the redesign and backfitting of our nuclear power plants. I feel that this option is feasible, although the best solution would be the attraction of the private investments of companies willing to work with the Ministry of the Russian Federation for Atomic Energy and to invest funds in the redesign of our nuclear power plants on a compensatory basis.

    Incidentally, we can also propose joint projects. One example is the Loviisa nuclear power plant in Finland, where the reactor (the heart of the plant) is ours, and the auxiliary electrical equipment and diagnostic systems are Finnish.

    We could compensate the Western companies for their expenditures in various ways, including transfer of technologies, because we are five or ten years ahead of the West in this area. We are already working with companies in the United States, Italy, Japan, France and Germany on personnel training programmes, development of simulators for training operators of nuclear power plants and so forth.

    The Ministry of the Russian Federation for Atomic Energy is now wide open to the international market. We supply it with natural and enriched uranium, equipment and fuel for nuclear power plants, and rare-earth elements, i.e. products for which the demand within the country is satisfied completely, and which have high added value assured by the best technology.

    I cannot say, however, that the West is greeting us with open arms in the world market. In fact, after assuring us of its unselfish wish to help us establish a market economy, it has been waging a fierce trade war with Russia, particularly in the uranium market.

Vatican. A meeting with Pope John Paul II, 1992
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    We will keep our place in the uranium market. It will be difficult, but persistence is our strong suit. We began the process in 1993 by signing a long-term agreement between the Russian Federation and the United States of America on the use of highly enriched uranium recovered from nuclear weapons. We hope to turn around one third of our supply of weapons-grade uranium into fuel for nuclear power plants and sell this fuel to the USA. This is a realistic way to create a nuclear-free world.

    Businessmen in the West know that they cannot ignore the Ministry of the Russian Federation for Atomic Energy. We have reason to view the future with optimism. I am certain that the rebirth of Russian industry is not that distant, and the high-tech enterprises of the defence complex are the pillars supporting the Russian economy today.

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