CC CPSU From May 4 to 9 I was in the area of the Chernobyl Power Station I believe I have an obligation to share some of my observations 1 Evacuation of Pripyat The situation with radiation in the city was clear within an hour No planned emergency evacuation measures existed people did not know what to do According to all instructions and orders which have been in existence for the last 25 years the decision regarding evacuation of the population from the danger zone had to be taken by the local leadership By the time the Government commission arrived they could have evacuated everyone even on foot But nobody was willing to take the responsibility the Swedes first evacuated people from the zone of their station and only later started to find out that the radiation release did not happen there 2 Soldiers working in danger zones including 800 meters from the reactor did not have means for individual protection including those men who were unloading lead In conversations it became clear that they did not have such protective clothing Helicopter pilots were in the same situation It was a mistake for officers including Marshals and Generals to show off their bravery by appearing next to the reactor wearing regular uniforms In this situation one must rely on reason and not on a false notion of courage 3 Drivers who evacuated Pripyat and built levies along the river also worked without individual means of protection One cannot rely on the excuse that the radiation dose was under the yearly norm --most of them were young people and consequently it would affect their children The same applies to the adoption of combat norms for the army units This was an extreme measure for combat action to be taken during passage through a zone where nuclear weapons were used In my view this order was precisely a result of the absence at that moment of means of individual protection which were only available to special units 4 The entire system of civil defense turned out to be completely paralyzed There were not even any working dosimeters 5 Fire-fighting units performed marvelously They prevented the accident from spreading at an early stage But even the units based in Pripyat did not have appropriate uniforms for working in a zone of elevated radiation 6 The roof of the machine room was made of flammable materials from the exact same materials that were used at the fabric factory in Bukhara which burned to the ground in the early 70s And even though several officials were tried after the accident in Bukhara the same materials were used in building the nuclear power station 7 Within the system of the Ministry of Energy the requirements and attitude toward nuclear power stations are several times lower than within the system of the Ministry of Medium Machine Building In particular a the number of service personnel has been cut b they regularly undertake obligations to cut the time of scheduled repairs by 6 or 7 days including during the repairs of the 4th block c according to experts the quality of the equipment being supplied to the station has been reduced by half in the last ten years The nuclear power station NPS receives a lot of defective equipment from supplier plants and they do not have a sufficient quantity of control and measuring equipment d it takes three to four months to fill even urgent requests for repairs in the Ministry of Energy because they require long back-and-forth correspondence In the Ministry of Medium Machine Building it takes a maximum of one week e protection of working blocs is clearly inadequate f in recent years the Ministry of Energy started treating nuclear power stations in the same way as it treats coal power stations or hydroelectric power stations it does not draw a strict distinction between nuclear and regular power generators 8 The inefficiency of local authorities is appalling They did not have clothing shoes or underwear to supply to the victims and were waiting for orders from Moscow 9 Panicky moods emerged in Kiev for many reasons but primarily because of the absence of information Information not even about what happened but about the levels of radiation in the city Foreign propaganda had a big influence but not a single leader of the republic spoke on TV or radio who could say very simple words to the effect that there were no grounds to worry and no danger to the health of children and residents Comrade Lyashko appeared on the screen for the first time only after his meeting with foreign journalists Information about Comrades Ligachev and Ryzhkov's visit to the area of the NPS had a positive impact However the silence of the republican leadership in subsequent days in my view led to rising panic again especially when people found out that the children and families of the leadership were leaving the city The ticket line at the booking offices at the CC CPU was a thousand persons long Naturally this was very well known in the city On May 5 the Minister of Public Health of the Ukrainian SSR in my view performed poorly on TV which in turn caused a new wave of panic For the most part on television they showed performances of dance groups and other shows while some very simple information about radiation levels in the city and basic comments by scientists and experts of whom we have many in Kiev would have removed the stress as happened after their publication in the central newspapers In general CC CPU waited for instructions from Moscow although the emergence of a panicky mood could have been prevented early on Besides we constantly heard the phrase We did not get any such instructions from the center There was an exception Secretary of the Kiev regional party committee Cde Revenko kept constantly informing the secretaries of regional committees and through them rankand-file communists about the real state of affairs it helped that he visited Chernobyl regularly And it produced results that region did not have the same level of panic that we witnessed in Kiev 10 Now people's moods have changed radically But in essence the elimination of the consequences of the accident is only beginning A new explosion has been prevented but a dangerous radiation situation remains Elimination of consequences will take between several weeks and many months People will not be able to return to their homes for a long time And we have to explain this to them along with many basic rules for living in the conditions of an area that has been contaminated with radiation Even down to such details as the fact that they must not pick mushrooms here this year and so on And the main thing we must categorically ensure the safety of the people who work in the zone and do it right now Whereas there could have been some exceptions during the first stage because of the very complex situation there can be no excuse now for exposing people to the radiation xxx We have to make a thorough analysis of the lessons of this tragedy in the name of those thousands of people who are so selflessly fighting this misfortune People came together and took this burden on their shoulders without thinking about the consequences There are numerous examples of heroism For instance several individuals in particular Major L Telyatnikov Lieutenants V Pravik V Kibenkov and others contained the accident and saved the station They knew that they were getting a deadly doze of radiation yet they did not abandon the block until the fire was extinguished In my view they deserve the rank of Hero of the Soviet Union They don't have long to live but why wait till all the necessary documents are processed--this will take months Of course I do not have full information about the developments but I feel an obligation to share what I have seen V Gubarev Pravda Science editor Translated by Svetlana Savranskaya for the National Security Archive This document is from the holdings of The National Security Archive Suite 701 Gelman Library The George Washington University 2130 H Street NW Washington D C 20037 Phone 202 994-7000 Fax 202 994-7005 nsarchiv@gwu edu