The name of academician A. G. Mer^anov became known in the 1970s in connection with the discovery of a new technology for producing solid solutions, the self-propagating high-temperature synthesis. This technology, which allowed the inexpensive synthesis of materials with specific properties, attracted interest from abroad and offers of foreign contracts. The security services, however, per ceived business collaboration as a threat to state interests. Only intervention by A. P. Aleksandrov saved Merzhanov and his colleagues from repression.