In February 2014, it was 80 years since the birth of Academician Mikhailov, but, to the greatest regret, Viktor Nikitovich has not been with us for the third year already. It is possible to write and write about his merits, his contribution to the activities of the nuclear weapons complex of the USSR MSM and the Ministry of Atomic Energy of the Russian Federation, but it would be better, perhaps, to just say a word about a person who left a bright mark not only in the history of the domestic nuclear industry, but also in my soul.
For the first time, I, an employee of the nuclear Arzamas-16, found myself in the spacious office of Viktor Mikhailov - still the Deputy Minister of Atomic Energy and Industry of the USSR for the nuclear weapons complex - in the summer of 1991. Nuclear weapons-makers were then called blind hawks, and Mikhailov publicly declared in response: "Yes, I am a hawk" - and later he called his book the same. But this was not a statement of an apologist for wars, but the position of a fighter and, at the same time, a staunch supporter of peace. In 2003, after our return from China, where the Chinese arranged a flight to Tibet especially for him, he told me: "In the blue eyes of Tibetan children, I saw the secret of the world." For a world where Russia's nuclear weapons rule out war, he worked.
When we met, he was 57 years old, and he was full of strength and energy. The voice is confident, but without lordship, manners are also confident, but also without lordship. We talked for over half an hour about the role and significance of nuclear weapons for ensuring a stable world and stopped at the fact that when he was in Sarov, we would discuss more specifically how to defend common sense in approaches to the problem of nuclear weapons.
NUCLEAR PROBLEMS IN AN ERA OF CHANGE
There came a time when previously "closed" gunsmiths had to fight on the information and analytical field, engage in ideological protection of nuclear weapons work, and Mikhailov, as they say, half a turn supported all this. In particular, at that time the difficultly hatched idea of holding a Sarov colloquium on international cooperation and global stability in Arzamas-16 on the basis of the All-Union Research Institute of Experimental Physics was seriously considered. Such a colloquium was conceived as a kind of alternative to the Pugwash movement, more and more pro-American and unconstructive.
A project was conceived together with the journal of the USSR Ministry of Foreign Affairs "International Affairs", preliminary materials were already being prepared, even a draft invitation to Sarov was written for Margaret Thatcher, who had a reputation as a supporter of nuclear weapons. However, August 1991 came to an unkind memory. Mikhailov believed that in the conditions of the impending collapse of the state, the importance of the nuclear factor as a factor of stabilization was only increasing, but an avalanche of dastardly events that had surged in, buried the project.
This avalanche swept away in 1992 not just individual ideas - entire industries collapsed. In the USSR, there was a powerful "nine" defense ministries. This scientific and technical community determined not only the military, but in general the pioneering capabilities of Soviet Russia in many branches of knowledge and economics. The skillfully used potential of the Nine could give the country a lot, but in 1992 none of the ministries found a single weighty and active defender of the interests of native industries, each of which was associated with the interests of the state and society. The only exception was the Ministry of Atomic Energy and Industry (MAEP) - the MAEP had Mikhailov!
The moment was critical - the nuclear status of Russia was at stake, and it ensured the preservation of the Russian civilizational principle in world culture. The loss of the nuclear industry was fraught with the loss of the Russia that we had. And then "Professor M." - as newspapers began to call him at the turn of the 80s and 90s, without smoothing out the corners and expressions, said at a meeting with Yeltsin that the nuclear industry is not the property of Yeltsin or Mikhailov, but the common property of the peoples of Russia and the result of intense efforts of several generations Russian nuclear scientists. There is no Russia without a single nuclear industry. Even at the peak of the collapse, this position turned out to be impossible to ignore, and on March 2, 1992, a decree was signed on the formation of the Ministry of the Russian Federation for Atomic Energy, with the appointment of Viktor Mikhailov as Minister.
This is how a prominent physicist-gunsmith became the first Russian "atomic" minister. In his life, there were already many exciting and significant successes - successful charges and measurement techniques, successful field experiments and management decisions. But the behavior of Viktor Nikitovich at that historical stage in the life of Russia is, of course, his "starry minute", which becomes the result of his entire previous life and then illuminates the whole subsequent life.
As a minister, he attracted not only by his professionalism, decisiveness, quick reaction, an open position, but also by his unseen democratism, although he was by no means simple and could have been on his mind.
MAN OF STATE SCALE
Viktor Nikitovich, no doubt, turned out to be the last truly outstanding figure in the domestic nuclear industry. I will not pretend to be honest and say that he did not always and in all resist the mark to the end. However, Mikhailov secured a worthy place in history - and not only in the history of the largest industry, but also in the history of Russia: he retained the Soviet atomic ministry (the legendary Sredmash) in the form of the Russian Ministry of Atomic Energy.
Russia's nuclear weapons are the result of the activities of the entire industry, not just the part of it called the nuclear weapons complex. The nuclear industry was created as a single organism, developed comprehensively and Russia needs precisely as a cooperation in which everything is mutually intertwined - fundamental research and problems of safe energy, weapons problems and the extraction of raw uranium raw materials, military and peaceful electronics and the production of special materials.
It was the integrity of the industry that Mikhailov defended. At the same time, the systemic core of the industry was NWC, and the highest end “product” of NWC was a modern, high-tech and highly safe nuclear weapon (NWM). Nuclear weapons are the starting rung of a long ladder along which Russia rises to the pinnacle of effective defensive power. That is, such a power that provides us with the outside world and confidence in its preservation in any development of events in the world. That was the essence of the work and life of Academician Mikhailov, his associates and colleagues.
And he started in 1958 where all the outstanding gunsmiths of the first draft began, that is, in KB-11, in the closed "Arzamas-16". Born on ancient Russian soil, the son of a Great Patriotic War soldier who died at the front in 1943, he found himself at the center of the development of Russia's most important weapon - nuclear. While still studying at MEPhI, Viktor Mikhailov passed the theoretical "Landau-minimum" to Academician Lev Landau himself, and selected him to the "Object" - the only one from the graduation of that year - Academician Yakov Zeldovich. Mikhailov's diploma work was accepted at the "Object" by a commission whose members were two acting academicians, physicists Andrei Sakharov and Yakov Zeldovich, and one future academician and future lieutenant general, chief designer of nuclear charges Yevgeny Negin. Three members of the commission had seven "Golden Stars" of Heroes of Socialist Labor. Mikhailov did not manage to get his "Golden Star", but his path can be called a stellar one too.
In 1990, the situation in the nuclear weapons complex developed alarmingly, and the scientific director of Arzamas-16, the All-Union Research Institute of Experimental Physics, Yuli Khariton, sent a letter to the President of the USSR Gorbachev, beginning as follows: “Deep concern for the fate and state of the nuclear weapons complex of our state made me to contact you ….
Academician Khariton wrote about the state of weapons centers, about emerging personnel problems, about the safety of weapons and the need to resume nuclear tests, which “are a key stage in confirming their (nuclear weapons. - S. B.) technical characteristics: combat effectiveness, reliability and security.
Khariton asked for a personal meeting (as Gorbachev never held), and ended the letter with the following words: “The material presented reflects not just my thoughts, but also the sum of their discussions with the scientific leadership of the institutes (corresponding members of the Academy of Sciences, comrades Yu. Trutnev). A. and Avrorin E. N.) and the only person in our Ministry who understands the problem as a whole - our former researcher, now Deputy Minister Comrade V. N. Mikhailov."
The assessment of the Master and the Teacher is more than flattering.
Working in Sarov and then in Moscow, Mikhailov did a lot to solve the problem of physical measurements during field tests. Polygon work was, so to speak, Mikhailov's passion, he gave her a lot of strength and talent. Yes, Russia's nuclear weapons are not a weapon of war, but a means of excluding an external war. However, this is not only a military-political means, but also a very specific nomenclature of actually functioning military-technical systems. Nuclear ammunition and its combat basis - a thermonuclear or nuclear charge, this is the "spool" that is small but expensive in the composition of the carrier. Comprehensive and full-fledged certification of the charge in full-scale field tests has always worried Mikhailov.
IF THERE IS A SWORD, THERE MUST BE A SHIELD
Mikhailov often reminded his colleagues of a Chinese proverb: “There is a sword, there is also a shield. There is a shield - there is a sword. Accurate in itself, especially in relation to the topic of nuclear weapons, this maxim also reflected Mikhailov's passion for China. There he was well known, he was awarded the highest order of the PRC, but Viktor Nikitovich always behaved with dignity both in matters of principle and in trifles. I remember how he did not hesitate to publicly reprimand one of the Chinese participants in the next Russian-Chinese seminar on strategic stability for giving a presentation in English. “You have come to Russia and you must remember this! For the future, we will just shoot such reports,”said Viktor Nikitovich.
He had, of course, many ill-wishers, and enemies too. In 1996, he got into a conflict with Zhirinovsky: the leader of the Liberal Democratic Party, at first “registered” in the closed Sarov, where he was supposed to speak, was slowed down in front of the checkpoint at the last moment and was not allowed to go “behind the thorn”. Zhirinovsky announced loudly that he would not tolerate this and Mikhailov would be removed. In those days I had a conversation with one of the leaders of the LDPR faction in the State Duma, and he asked:
- What, Mikhailov is so needed?
“If you want the nuclear industry to collapse, bring down Mikhailov,” I replied.
- Yes, everyone tells us so, and we will take it into account …
Of course, it was not my modest intercession that then played a role in the fact that the “push” from the Liberal Democratic Party of Russia to the minister stopped, and I recall this case because it was nice to hear from a person from the outside that there are many weighty people behind Mikhailov.
But in 1998, he still had to leave - he really stood out from the general row with his intransigence both in personal behavior and in the state position. His successors lowered the "bar" lower and lower: first, the status of the ministry was lost, and then Rosatom was transferred to the Ministry of Economy without any protests in the industry. And here Mikhailov's character reappeared - he became one of the decisive factors in restoring the independence of Rosatom, especially since he retained the post of scientific director of RFNC-VNIIEF and chairman of the weapons research and development center of Rosatom. He also acted in the direction of restoring the headquarters of the industry in the form of a two-unit ministry with two federal agencies - "arms" and "peace". But the circumstances were not in his favor, not in favor of the state interest.
His personal authority, however, remained high. Even within the framework of the MAE RF, he, being for some time the first deputy minister, laid the foundation for the Institute for Strategic Stability (ISS) - a compact but strong analytical organization of Rosatom. ISS immediately became the center of attraction for the state-minded military-political circles.
ISS was also not convenient for everyone, and some people had thoughts about curtailing his activities, but again Mikhailov's ability to put the question bluntly helped out. He stated that the ISS was formed by a decree of the President of the Russian Federation, which means that the president should also abolish it or lower its status. The argument worked …
Mikhailov died - as he lived. On Saturday, June 25, 2011, he climbed the porch of a dacha near Moscow and immediately fell. After his death, it turned out that he bequeathed to scatter his ashes over the Volga. And so they did.
In their midst, Viktor Nikitovich is often remembered even now - this is the lot of any major personality after her final departure. He was famous both in the world and in Russia. At one time, experts included him in the first hundred of the most influential Russian politicians, but Viktor Nikitovich himself was interested in only one type of policy - a balanced state and technical policy in the field of nuclear weapons that met Russia's interests.
It was only for this policy that he worked, and that is why he is glorious. The words “Russia's nuclear arsenal has become the best monument to him” may seem like a cliche, but this is so. And can you say better and more weighty?
