Dr. Shavit Matias is Deputy Attorney General of Israel, in charge of international issues. In that capacity she is involved, among other things, in shaping Israel's policy on Middle East, Palestinian, and international issues, and works closely with the Israeli National Security Council and the Israeli Cabinet Ministers on those issues. Dr. Matias, and others in her department, participate in the negotiations and discussions with the Palestinians and the International Community, most currently with respect to issues relating to the Disengagement from Gaza process and its aftermath. Prior to being nominated Deputy Attorney General, Dr. Matias was a partner at the leading Israeli law firm of Yigal Arnon, where she was involved in international business transactions, had practiced with the law firm of Shearman and Sterling, and was an adjunct Professor at Georgetown University Law Center and at the Hebrew University Faculty of Law. Dr. Matias received her LL.B. from Tel-Aviv University, her LL.M. from Georgetown University and her Doctorate in international law from George Washington University. Dr. Matias represents the State of Israel in various international committees and international institutions, and has published on international law and policy issues. She is currently a Distinguished Visiting Fellow at the Hoover Institution.

The USSR's anti-plague system had four main responsibilities: monitor natural foci of endemic dread diseases such as plague, tularemia, anthrax, and Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever; protect the nation from imported exotic diseases (e.g., cholera and smallpox); protect the nation from biological warfare; and perform tasks for the Soviet offensive biological weapons program. Although the anti-plague system appears to have had successes in public health, its work undoubtedly was compromised by excessive secrecy, which led to anti-plague scientists having to overcome substantial barriers before being able to communicate with colleagues in other Soviet public health agencies, publish the results of their work, and undertake travel to non-socialist countries. This system disintegrated after December 1991, but was resurrected as elements of the newly independent states' health systems.

Reporting on the findings of a recently concluded project carried out by the Center for Nonproliferation Studies (CNS), I will discuss: (1) the threats that the anti-plague systems' human resources, pathogen culture collections, and equipment pose to international security; (2) the promises these systems hold, should they regain their former level of scientific/technical capability, for enhancing international public health; and (3) current activities by U.S. government agencies to lessen the security and safety threats of these systems and, simultaneously, increase their public health capabilities. As appropriate, I will illustrate the presentation with photos taken by CNS personnel in the course of having visited more than 40 anti-plague institutes and stations.

Dr. Raymond Zilinskas worked as a clinical microbiologist for 16 years, after graduating from California State University at Northridge with a BA in Biology, and from University of Stockholm with a Filosofie Kandidat in Organic Chemistry. He then commenced graduate studies at the University of Southern California. His dissertation addressed policy issues generated by recombinant DNA research, including the applicability of genetic engineering techniques for military and terrorist purposes. After earning a PhD, Dr. Zilinskas worked at the U.S. Office of Technology Assessment (1981-1982), United Nations Industrial Development Organization (1982-1986), and University of Maryland Biotechnology Institute (UMBI) (1987-1998). In addition, he was an Adjunct Associate Professor at the Department of International Health, School of Hygiene and Public Health, Johns Hopkins University, until 1999.

In 1993, Dr. Zilinskas was appointed William Foster Fellow at the U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency (ACDA), where he worked on biological and toxin warfare issues. In 1994, ACDA seconded Dr. Zilinskas to the United Nations Special Commission (UNSCOM), where he worked as a biological analyst for seven months. He participated in two biological warfare-related inspections in Iraq (June and October 1994) encompassing 61 biological research and production facilities. He set up a database containing data about key dual-use biological equipment in Iraq and developed a protocol for UNSCOM's on-going monitoring and verification program in the biological field.

After the fellowship, Dr. Zilinskas returned to the UMBI and Johns Hopkins University. In addition, he continued to serve as a long-term consultant to ACDA (now part of the U.S. Department of State), for which he carried out studies on Cuban allegations of U.S. biological attacks against its people, animals, and plants and investigations carried out by the United Nations of chemical warfare in Southeast Asia and the Arabian Gulf region. Dr. Zilinskas also is a consultant to the U.S. Department of Defense.

In September 1998, Dr. Zilinskas was appointed Senior Scientist at the Center for Nonproliferation Studies (CNS), Monterey Institute of International Studies. On September 1, 2002, he was promoted to the Director of the Chemical and Biological Weapons Nonproliferation Program at the CNS. His research focuses on achieving effective biological arms control, assessing the proliferation potential of the former Soviet Union's biological warfare program, and meeting the threat of bioterrorism. Dr. Zilinskas' book Biological Warfare: Modern Offense and Defense, a definitive account on how modern biotechnology has qualitatively changed developments related to biological weapons and defense, was published in 1999. In 2005, the important reference work Encyclopedia of Bioterrorism Defense, which is co-edited by Richard Pilch and Dr. Zilinskas, was published by Wiley. He currently is writing a book on the former Soviet Union's biological warfare program, including its history, organization, accomplishments, and proliferation potential, which will be published in 2006.

This talk is based on chapter 4 of the speaker's dissertation, "North Korea," provided in the link below.

Alexander H. Montgomery is a post-doctoral fellow at the Center for International Security and Cooperation, Stanford University. He has a BA in physics from the University of Chicago, an MA in energy and resources from the University of California, Berkeley, an MA in sociology from Stanford University, and will be receiving his PhD in political science from Stanford University in fall 2005. He has worked as a research associate in high energy physics on the BaBar experiment at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and as a graduate research assistant at the Center for International Security Affairs at Los Alamos National Laboratory. His research interests include political organizations, weapons of mass disruption and destruction, social studies of technology, and interstate social relations. His dissertation was on post-Cold War U.S. counterproliferation policy, evaluating the efficacy of policies towards North Korea, Iran, and proliferation networks.