Milton Leitenberg is an American academic specializing in arms control and weapons of mass destruction. He is a senior research associate with the Center for International and Security Studies at Maryland (CISSM), a division within the School of Public Policy at the University of Maryland.[1]
News agencies call upon him as an arms control expert, most recently to comment upon the possibility that the COVID-19 virus had escaped from one of the two virology laboratories in Wuhan, China.[2] In a June 2020 article in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists he examined the evidence for an accidental escape of the virus from a laboratory. He concluded that such an escape is "a plausible, if unproven, possibility", as is the alternative explanation of a natural evolution in the field, and that the true source of the virus is currently unknown.[3]
The Soviet Biological Weapons Program: A History
In 2012, Leitenberg and Raymond A. Zilinskas co-authored The Soviet Biological Weapons Program: A History. A review in the journal Microbe described the book as "a significant source document for microbiologists, policy makers, historians, and students interested in this important subject".[4] Tim Trevan writing in Nature called the book "an authoritative take on the Soviet Union's vast, covert and costly bioweapons programme" and "a major contribution to the field".[5] Michael D. Gordin said in The Historian, "This is a magisterial history of something that was not supposed to exist."[6] In a 15-page monograph from the Harvard-Sussex Program, John R. Walker said "Undoubtedly The Soviet Biological Weapons Program: A History will be the standard and definitive reference source on this issue for years to come... a thoroughly impressive achievement by any standard."[7]
Leitenberg, M. (2014), testimony, Subcommittee on Europe, Eurasia, and ND Emerging Threats of the Committee on Foreign Affairs House of Representatives Hearings: Assessing the Biological Weapons Threat: Russia and Beyond. 7 May 2014, 113th Congress. (video, transcript)
Leitenberg, M. (2010). Assessing the Threat of Bioterrorism. In Friedman, B. H., Harper, J., & Preble, C. A. (Eds.), Terrorizing ourselves: Why US counterterrorism policy is failing and how to fix it. Cato Institute, 161-183.
Leitenberg, M. (2009). Bio-Defense Way Ahead Project [Presentation at CISSM, School of Public Policy, University of Maryland, September 16, 2009].
Milton Leitenberg (2001). "Biological Weapons in the Twentieth Century: A Review and Analysis". Critical Reviews in Microbiology. 27 (4): 267–320. doi:10.1080/20014091096774. PMID11791799. S2CID33988479.
Milton Leitenberg (1999). "Aum Shinrikyo's Efforts to Produce Biological Weapons: A Case Study in the Serial Propagation of Misinformation". Terrorism and Political Violence,11(4):149-158. doi:10.1080/09546559908427537.
Leitenberg, M. (1995), testimony, Senate Government Affairs Committee, Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, Hearings: Global Proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction, 1 November 1995, 104th Congress.(transcript)