IN 1990, (UPI) MOSCOW, Jan. 4 reported: A spokesman for the Soviet government acknowledged today that troops of the Soviet Central Asian republic of Abkhazia had been fired upon when they approached the Institute of Experimental Pathology and Therapy at Sukhumi operated by Dr. Boris Lupin. Bizarre rumors have swirled for decades around the facility, among them allegations that Dr. Lupin had been using artificial insemination techniques in an effort to create human-ape hybrids with supernormal strength and dulled intellects as ideal drone workers and troops.Dr Lupin's Laboratory by Eric LippsThe Soviet spokesman revealed that the institute's defenders were in fact products of Lupin's experiments, which had evolved far beyond the crude efforts to combine human sperm and ape ova or vice versa. Those early efforts, he said, had failed, apparently due to immunological incompatibilities and to the fact, unknown at the beginning, that whereas chimps and gorillas actually possess 48 chromosomes, humans have 46. Until the 1950s, it was believed that humans also had 48 chromosomes.

Lupin's later experiments apparently involved a version of genetic recombination of the sort which became feasible in the 1960s and early '70s, and involved efforts to hybridize human DNA with that of both chimpanzees and gorillas. According to the account released by the Soviet government, it appears that Lupin had actually achieved limited success with these efforts, producing individuals ranging from those with mostly human DNA and some ape traits, resembling, according to the Central Asians, stereotypical "cavemen," to those resembling upright-walking apes apparently capable of following orders and operating rifles. Lupin allegedly considered these hybrids prototypes of the ultimate uniform model he planned to produce.

The government spokesman asserted that Premier Gorbachev had been ignorant of these efforts, and had believed that the Institute had been devoted exclusively to the primate research for which it was officially known, some of which had contributed to the Soviet space program. When pressed as to the Kremlin's intentions regarding the interspecies creatures Dr. Lupin has already produced, and the technology used to create them, the Kremlin?s representative was vague, fueling speculation that Lupin's work may be continued elsewhere.

That, however, may not be altogether Moscow's decision to make. Unrest in Abkhazia has raised the specter of secession. If the Soviet Socialist Republic of Abkhazia were to sever its ties with Moscow, the likely result would be war - but whether armed conflict erupts or not, Moscow may be unable to maintain control of Lupin's technology. The prospect of such sophisticated genetic manipulation methods falling into the hands of breakaway republic or even terrorist groups is likely to be of major concern to the CIA, as well as to security organizations in other countries.