The Legacy of Chernobyl : Book Mark: The Soviet Union tried to keep the disaster at Chernobyl a secret, but as the toxic plume moved across Europe, the magnitude of this radioactive volcano became apparent. In his book, ‘The Legacy of Chernobyl,’ Zhores Medvedev describes the cover-up.

The 10 days from April 26 to May 6, 1986, have become known in Soviet literature as the “Battle of Chernobyl.” There were no direct reports from Chernobyl in those 10 days. At that stage, the people directly or indirectly responsible for the accident controlled the emergency measures. They had nothing to gain and a great deal to lose from glasnost.

Attempts to cover up inconvenient information and a tendency to shift responsibility were immediately apparent. They became even stronger later, particularly during and after the trial in July, 1987, of the director of the Chernobyl station and his deputies and engineering team. The proceedings of the trial were kept secret--not because classified technical information was divulged, but because they were too embarrassing.

The timing of the accident helped in the initial effort to cover it up.

The fact that the accident took place at night had one obvious advantage: There were few people in the immediate vicinity. The first concentrated cloud of radioactive debris, aerosol and gases that formed over the reactor passed over parts of the town of Pripyat, Yanov station and villages nearby. But most people were asleep indoors, protected from the radiation to some extent by the walls of their houses. Moreover, the night shift in the station was smaller than the day shifts. During the day shifts, for example, more than 2,000 workers normally worked on the construction sites at Units 5 and 6 at Chernobyl. There were far fewer people around at 1 a.m.

It is now known that the explosion that destroyed the reactor core in the early hours of April 26, 1986, blew nearly 20 million curies of radioactive materials and several million curies of the inert radioactive gases xenon-133 and krypton-85 into the atmosphere. Although the reports of the trial do not disclose the actual level of radiation, it was alleged that one local official “deliberately reduced the levels of radioactivity by several orders of magnitude” when he reported the situation to his superiors.

This attempt to lay the blame for the initial cover-up on the local administrators--who, it is implied, thereby made it difficult for Moscow officials to assess the disaster immediately--is misleading.

During the trial of station officials in July, 1987, it was reported that,”(Chernobyl station director Viktor) Bryukhanov and the former shift foreman, Boris Rogozhkin, were responsible for not taking the measures envisaged in the evacuation plan. Moreover, almost the entire shift that came to work at 8 a.m. remained unnecessarily at the station.

“The population of Pripyat was not warned about the accident, nor were the civil-defense headquarters informed. Since the civil-defense staff had no information about the situation, they took no measures. As a result, the usual rhythm of life on a Saturday proceeded . . . . The evacuation began only 36 hours later and was conducted according to a newly worked-out plan.”

But it is not fair to only blame local officials. One account of the accident makes it clear that officials in Moscow did not understand they were dealing with a catastrophe of global dimensions. There are signs, too, of an initial attempt to hide what had happened. The decision-making process seems to have been deliberately slow to preserve a facade of “business as usual.” The chairman of the commission formed to handle the situation was allowed, for example, to complete a routine, rather unimportant meeting. It was probably hoped that if there were no sign of crisis, rumors of the accident could be prevented.

Another indication that Moscow did not comprehend the seriousness of the accident was the low status of the commission first set up to handle the accident. Normally, when an industrial or natural disaster is considered to be nationally or internationally important, an energy commission is set up under a member or candidate member of the Politburo. Few people, even in the Soviet Union, knew commission chair Boris Shcherbina, one of more than a dozen deputy prime ministers. When it became clear a few days later that the Shcherbina commission lacked the necessary power to deal with the accident, a parallel, superior commission was set up under Nikolai I. Ryzhkov, a member of the Politburo.

Meanwhile, the situation deteriorated hourly. Throughout the night of April 26, the level of radioactivity in the air continued to increase. Gen. Vladmir Pikalov, the commander of chemical services for the Soviet Army who was dispatched to the scene, decided to inspect the destroyed reactor. As Pikalov and his driver drew closer to the reactor building, they noticed the air above the ruins was fluorescent. There were no flames, just the eerie light.

Pikalov understood the cause, but did not know how to deal with it. He decided to try something desperate. He took a special armored car equipped for radiological reconnaissance and drove to the plant. The gates were closed. Dismissing his driver, Pikalov took the wheel himself and smashed through the gates. He stopped near the destroyed building to take measurements. It was only then, more than 20 hours after the original explosion, that it was definitely established that the graphite of the reactor core was burning, that the core was still melting and that the reactor continued to release enormous quantities of radioactivity and heat.

At 7 a.m. Sunday, April 27, Pikalov and the group of nuclear experts who had spent the night discussing his findings, reported the situation to the government commission. The commission in turn reported to the Kremlin. Pikalov probably also reported to his military superiors in the Ministry of Defense. This was the first proper information received by the leaders of the Soviet Union about the scale of the disaster and its possible consequences.

By the time the government commission arrived in Pripyat, it was clear that if the reactor was still releasing enormous amounts of radioactive material, the danger to the local population was mounting rapidly. Evacuation was clearly indicated, but the commission’s medical officers wanted to delay it, on the ground that the radiation level in Pripyat was not high enough.

Although the authorities knew the gravity of the situation, they did not realize the radioactive plume had crossed the Soviet border and that the accident had acquired international dimensions. The radiation monitoring service had probably not yet been able to summarize the contours of the plume and offer computer predictions of its movements. There was still hope that the accident could be covered up. And as long as there was that chance, local radio and television could not be used to advise people to stay indoors. Thus people in Kiev were not informed of the accident and the evacuees from Pripyat were moved only a short distance, to villages in the Polessky district, 40 kilometers southwest of Chernobyl.

The news blackout was partly lifted on May 6, when Soviet journalists were allowed to send “heroic” reports from Chernobyl, including some details of the “great battle” that, it was claimed, had already been won. However, no technical details were given.

It was feared that public trust in nuclear energy would be undermined. Both the Soviet government and the nuclear industry wanted to preserve the momentum of the nuclear energy program. It was not only a crucial element of the Soviet Five-Year Plan and of the long-term plan to the year 2000, it was also the cornerstone of plans to integrate the economies of the Soviet Union and the countries of Eastern Europe.

The Chernobyl accident had serious repercussions for the Five-Year Plan, set to be presented during the Supreme Soviet session in June. But the government was unwilling to reconsider it at such short notice and no changes were made.

The 10-day news blackout on Chernobyl may have harmed the reputation of the Soviet government and its new policy of glasnost, but it did not surprise anyone who lives and works in the Soviet Union. Glasnost was new. It had not yet become a trend that could be trusted.

In fact, this short-sighted attitude made the emergency work more costly, particularly in terms of human health. But there was probably also a reluctance to appear helpless, and the Soviet government was helpless until the inferno of the graphite fire and the huge releases of radioactive products were controlled.

The reasons for the news blackout were thus primarily domestic.

No one knows what is left inside the sarcophagus and whether the Chernobyl radioactive volcano is really dead. Nor do they know whether it will be safe for future generations.

1990 by Zhores Medvedev.

BOOK REVIEW: A review of “The Legacy of Chernnobyl” appears in the Book Review section on page 2.