Midnight in Chernobyl

by Adam Higginbotham

  Nothing more than a slogan: Kotkin, Armageddon Averted, 67.

  “We can’t procrastinate”: Politburo meeting minutes (April 28, 1986), in Pikhoya, Soviet Union, 431.

  Gorbachev’s grip on power remained tenuous: Committed reformers in the Politburo at the time were in a minority of four: Yeltsin, Yakovlev, Shevardnadze, and Gorbachev himself. Ligachev was a hardliner and Ryzhkov a moderate conservative. Remnick, Lenin’s Tomb, 48.

  The official record of the meeting: The working record quotes Ligachev (who, by most other accounts, opposed information sharing) as saying, “The people have been accommodated well. We should make a statement about the incident without delay.” Politburo meeting minutes (April 28, 1986), in Pikhoya, Soviet Union, 431.

  The second most powerful man in the Kremlin: Jonathan Harris, “Ligachev, Egor Kuzmich,” in Joseph Wieczynski, ed., The Gorbachev Encyclopedia (Salt Lake City: Schlacks, 1993), 246.

  “Come off it!”: Heydar Aliyev, testimony in the documentary The Second Russian Revolution (1991), “Episode Two: The Battle for Glasnost,” online at www.youtube.com/watch?v=5PafRkPMFWI; Aliyev, interview transcripts, 2RR, archive file no. 3/1/6 and 1/4/2.

  Others at the table: Yakovlev, interview transcript, 2RR, 6.

  “The statement should be formulated”: Politburo meeting minutes (April 28, 1986), in Pikhoya, Soviet Union, 431.

  Ligachev had apparently prevailed: Aliyev, interview transcript 1/4/2, 2RR, 9. Leonid Dobrokhotov, Central Committee spokesman, says during an interview in the second episode of The Second Russian Revolution: “The instructions were traditional—that is to say, we had to play down the catastrophe, to prevent panic among the people, and to fight against what was then called bourgeois falsification, bourgeois propaganda, and inventions.”

  By 2:00 p.m. in Stockholm, Swedish state authorities: Stern, Crisis Decisionmaking, 136.

  Back in the town of Chernobyl: Sklyarov, Chernobyl Was . . . Tomorrow, 70.

  That afternoon in Moscow: Stern, Crisis Decisionmaking, 137–38.

  The official told Örn: Hawkes et al., Worst Accident in the World, 117.

  “One of the atomic reactors has been damaged”: Text of the announcement is from the official summary of the April 28 Politburo meeting available in RGANI, Opis 53, Reel 1.1007, File 1: “Excerpts from the protocol of meeting no. 8 of the CPSU Politburo” [Выписка из протокола № 8 заседания Политбюро ЦК КПСС от 28 апреля 1986 года]. The time of the broadcast is specified in Alexander Amerisov, “A Chronology of Soviet Media Coverage,” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists 42, no. 7 (August/September 1986): 38. For Western coverage of the announcement, see William J. Eaton, “Soviets Report Nuclear Accident: Radiation Cloud Sweeps Northern Europe; Termed Not Threatening,” Los Angeles Times, April 29, 1986; and Serge Schmemann, “Soviet Announces Nuclear Accident at Electric Plant,” New York Times, April 29, 1986.

  At 9:25 p.m. Moscow time, Vremya: BBC Summary of World Broadcasts, “Accident at Chernobyl Nuclear Power Station,” SU/8246/I, April 30, 1986 (Wednesday). The video of the Vremya news segment is available at “The announcement of the Vremya program about Chernobyl of 04.28.1986” [Сообщение программы Время о Чернобыле от 28-04-1986], published April 2011 and accessed May 2018: www.youtube.com/watch?v=VG6eIuAfLoM.

  Their editors did their best to keep it quiet: Marples, Chernobyl and Nuclear Power in the USSR, 3.

  The second extraordinary meeting of the Politburo in two days: V. I. Vorotnikov, This Is How It Went . . . From the Diary of a Member of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union [А было это так . . . Из дневника члена Политбюро ЦК КПСС] (Moscow: Soyuz Veteranov Knigoizdaniya SI–MAR, 1995), 96–97.

  Vladimir Dolgikh gave his colleagues the latest news: Politburo meeting minutes (April 29, 1986), from Russian Government Archives Fond 3, Opis 120, Document 65, reproduced in Maleyev, Chernobyl. Days and Years, 245. A different version of events is proposed by Pikhoya, whose summary of meeting proceedings suggests that Dolgikh described deteriorating conditions at the plant: Pikhoya, Soviet Union, 432.

  They were facing disaster: Politburo meeting minutes (April 29, 1986), in Maleyev, Chernobyl. Days and Years, 246. Vorotnikov maintains that it was only at this second meeting that the reports made the emerging scale of the accident clear (This Is How It Went, 96–97).

  “The more honest we are, the better”: Politburo meeting minutes (April 29, 1986), reproduced in Maleyev, Chernobyl. Days and Years, 247 and 249.

  They agreed to cable statements: “Resolution of the CPSU Central Committee: On Additional Measures Related to the Liquidation of the Accident at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant” [О дополнительных мерах, связанных с ликвидацией аварии на Чернобыльской АЭС], top secret, April 29, 1986, in RGANI, Opis 53, Reel 1.1007, File 2.

  “Should we give information to our people?”: Politburo meeting minutes (April 29, 1986), in Maleyev, Chernobyl. Days and Years, 248.

  Vremya broadcast a new statement: Amerisov, “A Chronology of Soviet Media Coverage,” 38; Marples, Chernobyl and Nuclear Power in the USSR, 4; Mickiewicz, Split Signals, 61–62.

  Luther Whittington of the wire service: Nicholas Daniloff, Of Spies and Spokesmen: My Life as a Cold War Correspondent (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 2008), 343. In their book on the history of UPI, Gregory Gordon and Ronald Cohen suggested that Whittington was the victim of a deliberate attempt to discredit Western reporting, orchestrated by the KGB. Gregory Gordon and Ronald E. Cohen, Down to the Wire: UPI’s Fight for Survival (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1990), 340–41.

  “ ‘2,000 DIE’ IN NUKEMARE’ ”: Luther Whittington, “ ‘2,000 Die’ in Nukemare; Soviets Appeal for Help as N-plant Burns out of Control,” New York Post, April 29, 1986; “ ‘2000 Dead’ in Atom Horror: Reports in Russia Danger Zone Tell of Hospitals Packed with Radiation Accident Victims,” Daily Mail, April 29, 1986.

  That night, the lurid death toll: Hawkes et al., Worst Accident in the World, 126.

  A secret intelligence assessment: “Estimate of Fatalities at Chernobyl Reactor Accident,” cable from Morton I. Abramovitz to George Shultz, Secret, May 2, 1986, CREST record CIA-RDP88G01117R000401020003-1, approved for release December 29, 2011.

  Meanwhile, the radioactive cloud: ApSimon and Wilson, “Tracking the Cloud from Chernobyl,” 44.

  The West German and Swedish governments lodged furious complaints: William J. Eaton and Willion Tuohy, “Soviets Seek Advice on A-Plant Fire ‘Disaster’: Bonn, Stockholm Help Sought, but Moscow Says Only 2 Died,” Los Angeles Times, April 30, 1986; Karen DeYoung, “Stockholm, Bonn Ask for Details of Chernobyl Mishap: Soviets Seek West’s Help to Cope With Nuclear Disaster,” Washington Post, April 30, 1986; Stern, Crisis Decisionmaking, 230.

  In Denmark, pharmacies: Stern, Crisis Decisionmaking, 147; DeYoung, “Stockholm, Bonn Ask for Details.”

  In Communist Poland: Murray Campbell, “Soviet A-leak ‘world’s worst’: 10,000 lung cancer deaths, harm to food cycle feared,” Globe and Mail, April 30, 1986.

  “The world has no idea of the catastrophe”: Hawkes et al., Worst Accident in the World, 127.

  Soviet spokesmen dismissed these stories: Marples, Chernobyl and Nuclear Power in the USSR, 6–7.

  Chebrikov notified his superiors: V. Chebrikov, “On the reaction of foreign diplomats and correspondents to the announcement of an accident at Chernobyl NPP” [О реакции иностранных дипломатов икорреспондентов на сообщение об аварии на Чернобыльской АЭС], KGB memo to Central Committee of the CPSU, April 20, 1986, in RGANI, Opis 53, Reel 1.1007, File 3.

  Apparently attempting to sever his remaining communications: Daniloff, Of Spies and Spokesmen, 344; Daniloff, author interview, 2017.

  Fifteen thousand people had been killed: Guy Ha
wtin, “Report: 15,000 Buried in Nuke Disposal Site,” New York Post, May 2, 1986.

  Using just three helicopters: Antoshkin, Regarding Chernobyl, 2.

  “Like hitting an elephant with a BB gun!”: Antoshkin, author interview, 2017. In his unpublished memoir, Regarding Chernobyl, Antoshkin recalls slightly different figures: fifty-five tonnes of sand, and ten of boron. Piers Paul Read reports that Scherbina at first told the chemical warfare generals, Ivanov and Pikalov, that Antoshkin was simply incompetent (Ablaze, 123–24).

  Heavy-lift helicopters: Nesterov, Heaven and Earth, 245. For a description of Mi-26, see “Russia’s airborne ‘cow,’ ” BBC News Online, August 20, 2002.

  But it proved almost impossible: Nesterov, Heaven and Earth, 247.

  Most crews flew a total of ten to fifteen sorties: Antoshkin, author interview, 2015, and 11–13 in his unpublished memoir The Role of Aviation in Localizing the Consequences of the Catastrophe at Chernobyl [Роль авиации в локализации последствий катастрофы на Чернобыльской АЭС].

  The temperature dropped from more than 1,000 degrees: Dolgikh, testimony to the Politburo on April 29, 1986, in meeting minutes reproduced in Maleyev, Chernobyl. Days and Years, 245. See also 258 for Legasov’s testimony to the Politburo on May 5, 1986.

  The government commission was forced to withdraw: Shasharin, “The Chernobyl Tragedy,” 96.

  The territory immediately surrounding the plant: Areas around the plant would soon be classified as three concentric circles, the innermost of which measured about 1.5 kilometers across: Mary Mycio, Wormwood Forest: A Natural History of Chernobyl (Washington, DC: Joseph Henry Press, 2005), 23. The term osobaya zona can be found, for example, in a KGB memo from December 1986, although there it denotes a larger area, about nine kilometers in diameter: Danilyuk, ed., “Chernobyl Tragedy,” Z arkhiviv, document no. 73: “Special report of the UkSSR KGB to the USSR KGB 6th Department concerning the radioactive situation and the progress in works on the cleaning up operation after the accident at the Chernobyl’ NPS,” December 31, 1986.

  The first meeting of the Politburo Operations Group: Baranovska, ed., The Chernobyl Tragedy, document no. 60: “Protocol of the first meeting of the Politburo Task Force on liquidating the consequences of the Chernobyl NPP accident,” April 29, 1986, 80–81.

  Legasov was afraid to ask: Legasov Tapes, cassette One, 14; Nikolai Ryzhkov, Ten Years of Great Shocks [Десять лет великих потрясений] (Moscow: Kniga-Prosveshchenie-Miloserdie, 1995), 167.

  The first 2,500 tonnes arrived: Lyashko, Weight of Memory, 362.

  By the time the light failed: Antoshkin, Regarding Chernobyl, 3.

  A scientific report: Baranovska, ed., The Chernobyl Tragedy, document no. 59: “Memorandum of the Department of Science and Education of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Ukraine on immediate measures connected to the accident at the Chernobyl NPP,” April 29, 1986.

  The regional civil defense leaders had made preparations: Ivanov, “Chernobyl, Part 3: Evacuation,” 39. The number 10,000 is specified by Lyashko, Weight of Memory, 355.

  A shipment of parachutes was delivered: Mimka, author interview, 2016; Antoshkin, author interview, 2017; Nikolai Antoshkin, “Helicopters over Chernobyl” [Вертолеты над Чернобылем], interview by Sergei Lelekov, Nezavisimaya Gazeta, April 28, 2006, http://nvo.ng.ru/history/2006-04-28/1_chernobil.html.

  Each chute could carry as much as 1.5 tonnes: Antoshkin, author interview, 2017.

  When the general delivered his report that night: Nikolai Antoshkin, handwritten testimony, archive of the Chernobyl Museum.

  This time it turned almost due south: Zhores Medvedev, Legacy of Chernobyl, 158–59.

  At exactly one o’clock that afternoon: Y. Izrael, ed., Chernobyl: Radioactive Contamination of the Environment [Чернобыль: Радиоактивное загрязнение природных сред] (Leningrad: Gidrometeoizdat, 1990), 56. The accepted measure in the USSR for normal background radiation was between 4 and 20 microroentgen per hour. Radiation Safety Norms–76 [Нормы радиационной безопасности–76], Moscow: Atomizdat, 1978, cited in “For Reference” [Справочно], undated, archive of the Chernobyl Museum. In his memoir, Kiev district radiation reconnaissance officer Alexander Logachev states that he regarded the normal background in Ukraine as 11 microroentgen per hour (The Truth).

  The progress of the radioactive cloud had been tracked: Alla Yaroshinskaya, Chernobyl: Crime Without Punishment, 73–75.

  Inside the Ukrainian Ministry of Health: Iurii Shcherbak, account in Zhores Medvedev, Legacy of Chernobyl, 160; Shcherbak, interview transcript (June 12, 1990), 2RR archive file no. 3/8/5, 2.

  Familiar with the dangers of radiation: Zgursky had previously led the S. P. Korolev Manufacturing Company (later renamed Meridian), which produced specialized electronics, including gamma measurement devices. See “More than 60 years in the market of detection equipment and appliances” [Более 60 лет на рынке измерительной и бытовой техники], Meridian, http://www.merydian.kiev.ua/.

  He tried to convince Scherbitsky: Alexander Kitral, “Gorbachev to Scherbitsky: ‘Fail to hold the parade, and I’ll leave you to rot!’ ” [Горбачев—Щербицкому: «Не проведешь парад—сгною!»], Komsomolskaya Pravda v Ukraine, April 26, 2011, https://kp.ua/life/277409-horbachev-scherbytskomu-ne-provedesh-parad-shnoui.

  With only ten minutes to go, he was nowhere to be seen: Lyashko confirms that Scherbitsky arrived late and that he spent some time conferring “in an undertone” with E. V. Kachalovsky, who headed the Ukrainian government’s task force on responding to the Chernobyl accident: Lyashko, Weight of Memory, 356. See also the interview with Vitali Korotich, then a prominent magazine editor in Moscow, in The Second Russian Revolution, “Episode Two: The Battle For Glasnost” (BBC, 1991).

  “I told him”: Kitral, “Gorbachev to Scherbitsky”; Serhii Plokhy, The Gates of Europe: A History of Ukraine (New York: Basic Books, 2015), 310. Scherbitsky’s wife, Rada, confirmed the story about the Party card in an interview in 2006: Rada Scherbitskaya, interview by Yelena Sheremeta, “After Chernobyl, Gorbachev told Vladimir Vasiliyevich, ‘If you don’t hold the parade, say goodbye to the Party” [Рада Щербицкая: «После Чернобыля Горбачев сказал Владимиру Васильевичу: «Если не проведешь первомайскую демонстрацию, то можешь распрощаться с партией»], Fakty i kommentarii, February 17, 2006: http://fakty.ua/43896-rada-csherbickaya-quot-posle-chernobylya-gorbachev-skazal-vladimiru-vasilevichu-quot-esli-ne-provedesh-pervomajskuyu-demonstraciyu-to-mozhesh-rasprocshatsya-s-partiej-quot.

  “To hell with it”: Kitral, “Gorbachev to Scherbitsky”; Plokhy, Gates of Europe, 310–11. In 1991, as the Soviet Union was finally collapsing, author and member of the Supreme Soviet Iurii Shcherbak would say it had already become impossible to establish who truly issued the order for the parade to go ahead, because everything was discussed on the telephone and no written instructions were issued by anyone involved. Afterward, Scherbitsky’s people insisted it was Moscow’s directive; in the Kremlin, they blamed the Ukrainians (Shcherbak, interview transcript no. 3/8/5, 2RR, 7). For example, Nikolai Ryzhkov contests the Ukrainian account, insisting that authority over the parade resided with Scherbitsky alone. (See Ryzhkov, interview by Interfax, April 23, 2016: www.interfax.ru/world/505124.) Ryzhkov declined to be interviewed for this book.

  There were seas of red banners: Video footage of the parade is featured in The Second Russian Revolution, Episode 2: The Battle for Glasnost: www.youtube.com/watch?v=tyW6wbHft2M.

  Some concessions to the perils of the fallout: Kitral, “Gorbachev to Scherbitsky.”

  Some on the rostrum that morning: Sklyarov, Chernobyl Was . . . Tomorrow, 146.

  Later, when the wind changed directi
on again: Alan Flowers, author interview by telephone, February 2016; Justin Sparks, “Russia Diverted Chernobyl Rain, Says Scientist,” Sunday Times, August 8, 2004; Richard Gray, “How We Made Chernobyl Rain,” Sunday Telegraph, April 22, 2007. Moscow has repeatedly denied that cloud seeding took place after the accident, but two of the pilots involved in the operation—one of whom was later awarded a medal for involvement in the operation—described their efforts in the 2007 BBC documentary The Science of Superstorms.

  The May Day procession swept through Red Square: UPI, “Tens of Thousands in March: Nuclear Disaster Ignored at Soviet May Day Parade,” Los Angeles Times, May 1, 1986. During the celebrations, two cosmonauts orbiting Earth on the Soviet space station Mir contributed a live message from space.

  But afterward, Prime Minister Ryzhkov convened: Velikhov, Strawberries from Chernobyl, 245. Velikhov, interview transcript (June 12, 1990), 2RR archive file no. 1/1/14, 1.

  The group confronted the emergencies: “Protocol no. 3 of the meeting of the Politburo Operations Group of the CPSU Central Committee on problems related to the aftermath of the Chernobyl NPP accident” [Протокол № 3 заседания Оперативной группы Политбюро ЦК КПСС по вопросам связанным с ликвидацией последствий аварии на Чернобыльской АЭС], May 1, 1986, in RGANI, Opis 51, Reel 1.1006, File 19.

  This new team would be led by Ivan Silayev: Ibid. In November 1985 Silayev had been appointed deputy chairman of the USSR Council of Ministers, deputy prime minister and chairman of the council’s Bureau for Machine-Building.

  Ryzhkov went to see Gorbachev in his office: Ryzhkov, Ten Years of Great Shocks, 170–71.

  Flew to Kiev without him: Nikolai Ryzhkov, interview by Elena Novoselova, “The Chronicle of Silence” [Хроника молчания], Rossiiskaya Gazeta, April 25, 2016, https://rg.ru/2016/04/25/tridcat-let-nazad-proizoshla-avariia-na-chernobylskoj-aes.html.