PEOPLE FOR NUCLEAR DISARMAMENT

 

PEOPLE FOR NUCLEAR DISARMAMENT  

HIROSHIMA DAY (AUG6) MEDIA ADVISORY

RUSSIAN NUCLEAR MISSILE MAN TO SPEAK IN SYDNEY

COLONEL VALERY YARYNICH MEDIA AVAILABILITIES 5AUG, 6AUG, 8AUG


Colonel Valery Yarynich, formerly of the Soviet nuclear forces, who played a
significant part in bringing into operation the 'Doomsday Machine'
known as 'Perimitr', or the 'Dead Hand', will be speaking in Sydney
and Canberra from 5th to 15th of August.

Colonel Valery was a nuclear command and control expert with the Soviet
Strategic Rocket Forces for 30 years, retiring in 1992, after working
in the Centre for Operational-Strategic  Research of the General
Staff in Moscow.  Since that time he has been at the Institute of
Canadian and US Studies in Moscow, the Moscow Institute of World
Economy and International Relations, and San Bernadino State
University in California USA.

Colonel Valery has for a number of years been involved in Global Zero, the
international organisation devoted to the elimination of nuclear
weapons, and in the international campaign to lower the operational
readiness of the over 1000 weapons that are kept on high alert by the
US and Russia, threatening human civilisation and most living things
with an accidental apocalypse. He has spoken and presented papers at
a number of United Nations panels on avoiding accidental nuclear war
organised by People for Nuclear Disarmaments international lobbyist
John Hallam and the Swiss, NZ, and Chilean governments at the UN.

He has published extensively on matters of nuclear stability and on
decreasing the risk posed to civilisation by nuclear weapons. As a
former 'insider' of the Soviet strategic forces, his is a uniquely
qualified voice.

Colonel Valery will be speaking at a number of events in Sydney and Canberra,
with media availabilities on 5th, 6th, and 8th August.
(Inquire John Hallam 9810-2598, 0416-500-793)

--5 Aug 12 noon, Hyde Park North, Hiroshima Day Rally (Media
Availability)

 

 

--6 August 6pm, Hiroshima Day Forum on Nuclear Weapons, New South Wales
Teachers Federation, Mary St Surry Hills,(Media Availability)

 

--8August, 4-6pm, Seminar Rm030 New Law School Building, Sydney
University,(Launch of the Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies Human
Survival Project) (Media Availability)

 

--9 August, 3-4.30pm, Lowy Institute, 31 Bligh St Sydney

 

--12 August,4pm, Humanist Society, 10 Sheperd St Chippendale
--14Aug, Canberra, Briefing to DFAT, public lecture ANU 5pm.

Inquiries:
John Hallam  
h9810-2598(leave
msg) ,  
m0416-500-793,  
PND
9319-4296 (do not leave message on this one).  










Was born at 2 June, 1937.

1) Education history
After leaving school he studied at the Military Engineering Academy of Communications in Leningrad (1954-1959). After completing its studies he was specialized as "military engineer for radio-communications". In 1987 he defended a thesis (dissertation) in the academic council of the Center for Operational-Strategic Research in the Russian General Staff. The theme and content of the thesis were based on the results of studies on stability of command and control systems in the conditions of a nuclear war. After defending this thesis he received the candidate of military sciences degree. In 1995 he became professor of the Russian Academy of Military Sciences.

2) Military service
After graduating from the Military Academy of Communications Yarynich served in the Strategic Rocket Forces near Jurja village of Kirov region (first Soviet ICBM division, military unit 44200, 1959-1960). Then he served in the headquarters of the rocket corps in Kirov (military unit 14043, 1960-1964, including during the Cuban Missile Crisis). After that, he was a teacher at the Military School of Communications in the city of Stavropol (1964-1966). In October 1966 he was transferred to the Department of Communications in the Main Staff of the Strategic Rocket Forces (Moscow region, village Vlasikha, military unit 08310, 1966-1984, rising from officer to chief of section). During 1985-1986 he was deputy head of a department of rocket arms (military unit 25453, village Vlasikha), while from 1986 to 1992  he was deputy head of section at the Center for Operational-Strategic Research in the General Staff of the Soviet (later Russian) Armed Forces, Moscow. During all his military service, Yarynich has followed a career in the command and control systems of the Strategic Rocket Forces and Russian Armed Forces. He was retired from military service in May 1992 with the rank of colonel.


3) After military service to the present
Yarynich was a scientific worker in the Moscow Institute of World Economy and International Relations (1992-1995). In 1996-2001 he worked as an assistant to Alexei Arbatov while Arbatov was Deputy Chair of the Russian State Duma's Committee on Defense. From 2001 to 2004 Yarynich was a visiting Associate Professor at the California State University San Bernardino while he wrote his book, Nuclear C3: Command, Control Cooperation, CDI, Washington D.C., 2003. He is now based at the Institute of U.S.A. and Canada Studies in Moscow.


During his Australian tour Colonel Valery will be speaking about nuclear command and control, nuclear posture, nuclear crises, and nuclear weapons as a threat to human survival.

Colonel Valery helped to design and bring into operation the 'Perimitr' or 'Dead Hand' 'doomsday machine', described in David Hoffman's book on the cold war and by Bruce Blair.  Col Valery also has his own book on Russian nuclear command and control.

 

For the last decade or so, Col Valery has been  a strong voice for de-alerting and abolition of nuclear weapon systems,
working closely with Steven Starr and myself [Hallam], as well as with far more exalted folks such as Bruce Blair, and
Global Zero.

Most recently, Colonel Valery and I presented at a very well attended panel on the last day of the May 2012 Vienna Non Proliferation Treaty Prepcom, with the good attendance all the more amazing because we were the very last item on the entire Prepcom agenda.

 

We have also presented together with the NZ and Swiss ambassadors, Steven Starr and Hans Kristensen last October at the UN General Assembly First Committee.

 

At that time, Col Valery presented work based on an article jointly written by himself, Bruce Blair, Generals Esin and Zolotarev and Matt McKinzie of the Natural Resources Defense Council in the highly prestigious US journal Foreign Affairs, entitled 'smaller and safer', which was the result of computer simulations of 100 nuclear wars, and which proved mathematically that de-alerted nuclear weapons are, indeed, safer than ones that are kept on high alert. The basic work behind all of this was from Colonel Valery.

 

Colonel Valery is a unique voice, speaking as he does with the background of 30 years experience in the Soviet, and then the
Russian, Strategic Rocket Forces. He has unique and unreproducible inside knowledge especially of nuclear command
and control arrangements and procedures.

Contacts for the Human Survival Project:

 

John Hallam 0416 500 793
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Peter King0422 647 025
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