Among the listed people who provided medical help to the party and state leaders, there was an abrupt addition—V. V. Zakusov, professor of pharmacology. He didn’t take part directly in the leaders’ treatment—he was at first only called in for an opinion, and given to sign the conclusion about the prescriptions that the ‘doctors-murderers’ had issued to hasten their patients’ death. Vasili Vasilyevitch Zakusov took the feather and, well aware of what lied ahead, wrote this: “The best doctors in the world will sign such prescriptions.” In that moment he stopped being an expert and became a suspect. In jail, even after tortures, he didn’t withdraw his conclusion.
From the book, on ‘The Doctors’ plot’ of 1953:
Among the listed people who provided medical help to the party and state leaders, there was an abrupt addition—V. V. Zakusov, professor of pharmacology. He didn’t take part directly in the leaders’ treatment—he was at first only called in for an opinion, and given to sign the conclusion about the prescriptions that the ‘doctors-murderers’ had issued to hasten their patients’ death. Vasili Vasilyevitch Zakusov took the feather and, well aware of what lied ahead, wrote this: “The best doctors in the world will sign such prescriptions.” In that moment he stopped being an expert and became a suspect. In jail, even after tortures, he didn’t withdraw his conclusion.