Word: anthrax
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...April 1979 Soviet citizens on the outskirts of Sverdlovsk in the Ural Mountains developed fevers and respiratory problems. Hundreds died. The Soviet Union identified the epidemic as intestinal anthrax, a bacterial disease spread to human beings by infected livestock...
...symptoms strongly resembled those of pulmonary anthrax, which is far more deadly than intestinal anthrax. Also, Sverdlovsk is the site of a military facility that Western intelligence agencies have suspected of developing biological warfare weapons. Had something gone wrong during an experiment, accidentally releasing lethal spores into the atmosphere? The U.S. challenged the Soviet Union in March, seeking to determine whether the Sverdlovsk incident was a violation of the 119-nation Biological Weapons Convention. That treaty prohibits the production and stockpiling of killer bacteria, such as those that cause pulmonary anthrax, for military purposes. The Soviets stuck to their story...
...other means, the Biological Weapons Convention is almost impossible to police. Moreover, the treaty is vague about what constitutes stockpiling. But TIME has learned that a draft of the task force's report, classified top secret, diagnoses the Sverdlovsk syndrome as almost certainly pulmonary rather than intestinal anthrax. No matter how the incident is resolved, the Soviets seem to have been caught engaging in some kind of nefarious activity and then lying about it, a revelation that is sure to contaminate further the atmosphere of détente and arms control...
...requested additional information from Moscow and expressed its concern to the Soviets at an 87-nation conference in Geneva that was reviewing compliance with the treaty. The Soviets first responded by admitting an outbreak of anthrax in Sverdlovsk. Moscow's explanation: mishandling of infected animal carcasses. A State Department spokesman described the explanation as "plausible." But later, senior department officials declared they were still not satisfied with Moscow's response...
...Soviets did not let the matter rest. The news agency TASS charged that the U.S. had put forward these "brazen anti-Soviet forgeries" as an excuse for stockpiling biological weapons of its own. And at the Geneva conference, the Kremlin's delegate dismissed Western suspicions about the anthrax outbreak as "symptoms of another epidemic disease, namely anti-Soviet hysteria" inspired by the invasion of Afghanistan...