Introduction to the special issue in honor of Raymond A. Zilinskas

Abstract

I first met Ray Zilinskas in 1998, when I was fresh out of graduate school, a young and impressionable postdoc in the Chemical and Biological Weapons Nonproliferation Program at the Center for Nonproliferation Studies, Monterey Institute of International Studies, as it was then known. When we were first introduced, I was a bit intimidated, as he was a well-known former bioweapons weapons inspector in Iraq, but Ray was always gracious and kind. He had a heart for students and young scholars, always welcoming newcomers into the “Monterey Mafia.” Ray also had an adventurous spirit—whether as an UN Special Commission (UNSCOM) inspector or visiting former Soviet bioweapons facilities and interviewing former bioweaponeers, Ray always liked being in the middle of the action on bioweapons policy issues. He held many important policyrelated posts during his career, working at the U.S. Office of Technology Assessment and the UN Industrial Development Organization, and also serving as a consultant to the U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency and the U.S. Department of State on matters pertaining to biological and toxin arms control, nonproliferation, and bioterrorism. Ray joined the Center for Nonproliferation Studies in 1998, and subsequently became the director of its Chemical and Biological Weapons Program. In addition to his many publications and policy engagements, Ray also took a turn in Hollywood, serving as an advisor to the FX television show The Americans, helping the writers to draft plotlines involving dangerous biological agents. I followed all of Ray’s work, particularly his writings on the Soviet biological weapons (BW) program, including the hefty tome The Soviet Biological Weapons Program: A History, co-authored with Milton Leitenberg and Jens Kuhn. Ray and I both attended an international conference at the former bioweapons facility at Stepnogorsk, Kazakhstan in 1999, when the facility was first opened to the public. I remember Ray mentioning that part of his interest in the Soviet BW program related to his own personal history; his parents were Lithuanians who had gone into exile after the Soviets invaded the country in 1940. Zilinskas was born in Estonia, raised in Sweden, and then immigrated to the United States as a teenager (never quite losing his Swedish accent). Ray worked as a clinical microbiologist for several years before going on to the University of Southern California to obtain his Ph.D. in international relations. His dissertation focused on security policy issues raised by genetic engineering. From the start, his work was engaged with the security and ethical issues raised by advances in the life sciences.