Poland Apparently Got Soviet Warning

Late on the night of Saturday, April 26, as Soviet authorities struggled to control a crippled nuclear reactor in the Ukraine, Polish officials 400 miles to the west were making discreet inquiries in at least one central Warsaw hospital about available stocks of iodine.

Doctors on duty at the hospital were mystified by the inquiry, not only because of the late hour but because iodine is ordinarily used only in very small quantities as an antiseptic and in the treatment of thyroid diseases. And it is one of the few medications in Poland that is never in short supply.

The reason for official interest in iodine became clear two days later, on April 28. Pressed by the Swedish government to explain the source of airborne radioactivity emanating from its territory, the Soviet Union issued a four-line statement conceding that a major nuclear reactor accident had occurred at Chernobyl, near Kiev.

Distribution of Iodine

A day later, on April 29, the Polish government ordered the mass distribution of iodine to children to prevent them from absorbing radioactive iodine-131, the main component of the fallout that by now was sweeping across Europe. On that day, Poland expanded its iodine program to embrace all 10 million of its children under the age of 16.

The inquiry about iodine stocks the previous Saturday provides circumstantial evidence that the Soviet Union gave prompt but secret warning of the Chernobyl disaster to Poland, its Warsaw Pact ally, while failing to tell Western countries about the spreading plume of contamination until it triggered radiation alarms in Sweden and Finland.

A doctor who was on duty at one of nine district hospitals in Warsaw on April 26-27 said the request for information about iodine supplies was so puzzling that it was a major topic of conversation among the medical staff that night. The doctor, who asked not to be identified by name or hospital, said the question was directed to the hospital’s pharmaceutical supply supervisor but that it was unclear where the inquiry had originated.

There are unconfirmed reports of at least one similar inquiry about iodine stocks the same night, directed to a Warsaw pharmaceutical center. But the full scope of inventory, and the agency directing it, could not be determined.

Government spokesman Jerzy Urban was unavailable for comment Monday. His office declined to respond to questions about whether Poland had been warned of the accident before the first official Tass announcement on April 28.

Soviet Confirmation

On May 1, five days after the accident, Soviet officials confirmed that it occurred the previous Saturday, April 26.

U.S. intelligence officials have said they believe that a breakdown began in the Chernobyl reactor on Friday, evolved into a major accident on Saturday as the graphite reactor caught fire, and culminated on Sunday in a steam or chemical explosion that blew off the roof of the reactor building, releasing large amounts of fission wastes.

Western diplomats said it was plausible that Soviet authorities provided some form of notice to neighboring Poland as early as Saturday, possibly using their closely linked security and intelligence services as a channel. The specific inquiry about iodine, however, suggests that experts on the health effects of radioactive contamination, possibly in military units that could be counted on to maintain secrecy, were consulted at an early stage.

The Soviet Union’s failure to provide any public warning of the accident has led to sharp criticism from Western governments, some of which have called for a formal international agreement requiring immediate public notification of a nuclear accident. The Soviet Union, joined by some of its Warsaw Pact allies, notably Czechoslovakia, has in turn accused the West of exploiting the Chernobyl disaster for propaganda purposes.

‘Lapse in Neighborliness’

Scandinavian governments have expressed outrage at Soviet silence about the disaster, the neutral Swiss government said it “regretted” having been told four days after the fact and Britain’s foreign secretary, Geoffrey Howe, called it a “serious lapse in European good neighborliness.”

However, Georgy A. Arbatov, head of the Institute for the Study of the United States and Canada in the Soviet Foreign Ministry, contended Sunday that “other countries didn’t suffer.”

Speaking of President Reagan, Arbatov said: “He says we owe him explanations. I think he owes the world a lot of explanations about why does he go on with nuclear testing?”

Although Arbatov did not say so, both the United States and the Soviet Union conduct nuclear weapons tests underground, where radioactivity is confined to deep rock strata.

Asked on a phone-in program broadcast by the British Broadcasting Corp. why the Soviet Union gave no warning of the contamination from Chernobyl, Arbatov said there may have been “technical difficulties” in doing so, but that in any case “we didn’t see any danger to any neighbors, even to our neighboring cities like Kiev.”

However, if the Soviets warned one or more of its allies but not Western nations, Moscow would be vulnerable to criticism that it fully appreciated the need for warning but cynically hoped to suppress news of the accident from leaking to the world at large, at least until it was long over.

Allies in Delicate Position

Moscow’s allies, Poland in particular, have found themselves in a delicate position. The lack of any official expressions of displeasure at being dusted with fallout has underscored their subservience to Moscow. On the other hand, for Poland to acknowledge a prior warning which it kept to itself would do little to help the relations it is trying to restore with Western Europe.

Urban, the government spokesman, left the impression last week that Polish authorities had learned about the accident at the same time as Western governments. He himself, he said, was awakened with the news at about 2 a.m. Tuesday, hours after the Tass news agency had disclosed it in Moscow.

But when a Western reporter asked Urban whether Poland had expressed any displeasure to Moscow for not being notified promptly, Urban shot back, “How do you know they didn’t warn us?”