Soviet Union Gorbachev Goes on the Offensive

By John Greenwald.

For 18 days his silence resounded around the world. Then finally last week Soviet Leader Mikhail Gorbachev publicly acknowledged the gravity of the April 26 accident that destroyed a nuclear reactor at the Chernobyl power station in the Ukraine and spread radioactive fallout across the globe. "For the first time ever," Gorbachev declared on Soviet TV, "we have confronted in reality the sinister power of uncontrolled nuclear energy."

The 25-minute speech was more than just an official explanation of the Chernobyl disaster, which forced the evacuation of nearly 100,000 Soviet people. It was a dogged effort by Gorbachev to strike back at foreign critics and limit the severe damage to Soviet prestige caused by the accident and by Moscow's initial refusal to let the rest of the world know what had happened. As workers labored to encase the crippled reactor in concrete and render it harmless, Gorbachev strove to seize the offensive and contain the worst political fallout from the disaster.

By turns gracious, outraged and somber, the Soviet party chief used the occasion to call for a global early-warning system that would alert the world in the event of future nuclear power mishaps. He also rather clumsily linked the dangers of atomic power with the threat of nuclear weapons, noting that "inherent in the nuclear arsenals stockpiled are thousands upon thousands of disasters far more horrible than the Chernobyl one." Gorbachev then disingenuously invited President Reagan to meet in Europe "or, say, in Hiroshima" to negotiate a test moratorium. He pointedly extended the Soviet Union's own ten-month test ban until Aug. 6, which marks the 41st anniversary of the Hiroshima bombing. In Geneva, meanwhile, Soviet negotiators offered a plan for removing medium-range nuclear missiles from Europe.

While he played the dove on nuclear issues, Gorbachev lashed out aggressively at sensational Western news reports of the Chernobyl disaster. Said he: "Generally speaking, we faced a veritable mountain of lies--most dishonest and malicious lies." The Soviet leader spoke of stories citing "thousands of casualties, mass graves of the dead, desolate Kiev, that the entire land of the Ukraine has been poisoned, and on and on." Such accounts, Gorbachev said, reflected the desire of "certain Western politicians" to "defame the Soviet Union" and deflect growing criticism of the "militaristic course" of U.S. policy.

In Washington the Reagan Administration called Gorbachev's charges unfounded. Said a White House statement: "If some reports carried in the mass media were in fact inaccurate, this was an inevitable result of the extreme secrecy with which the Soviet authorities dealt with the accident in the days immediately following it. Citizens of foreign countries and their governments had a legitimate interest in knowing the facts, since their own health could be affected." While it rejected Gorbachev's proposal for a summit meeting to discuss a ban on nuclear tests, the Reagan Administration stressed that the previously agreed-upon U.S.-Soviet summit remains "possible" this year. Meanwhile, PlanEcon, a Washington research group that studies the Soviet bloc, said the nuclear accident may cost the Soviet Union up to $4.3 billion in medical expenses and agricultural and other economic losses.

In his talk, Gorbachev spoke more deliberately about the suffering at Chernobyl. He reported that two workers had been killed by the initial explosion and flames that tore through the plant at 1:23 in the morning, and that seven other people had died after being treated for acute radiation sickness. By week's end the death toll had climbed to 13. In all, 299 victims were hospitalized (see box). The Soviet leader said that it was too early to determine the precise cause of the accident, which apparently began with a sudden power surge while the reactor was undergoing maintenance. That was followed by a devastating hydrogen blast and fire and the release of a cloud of radiation. While the mishap's "most serious consequences have been averted," Gorbachev said, "the end is not yet." Noting that the area around the plant remains dangerously contaminated, he added, "Extensive work still lies ahead."

Thousands of laborers set about sealing off the reactor and cleaning up nearby areas last week. Helicopters continued to drop tons of sand, lead and boron onto the reactor each day to keep radiation from reaching the air. On the ground, crews worked to seal off the 570 degrees mass from the soil and water below. The news agency TASS reported that at one crucial point, three men in protective garments dove into a pool that had collected beneath the reactor and opened valves to let the water out. That ended the danger that the reactor could fall into the pool and set off steam explosions that would spread radioactivity farther than the original accident.

Ivan Yemilianov, a senior designer of the stricken unit, said Soviet engineers planned to entomb the reactor in concrete for hundreds of years to allow the radioactive substances to decay. The scheme will require workers to pump an insulating layer of liquid-nitrogen refrigerant into a tunnel just beneath the reactor. The crippled unit will then be encased within a concrete barrier that will descend 96 ft. into the ground. Engineers were also spreading a plastic film over some 300,000 sq. yds. of soil a day to prevent further contamination and hold tainted earth in place.

Meanwhile, Moscow was practicing its own political damage control. The Communist Party daily Pravda said that three local officials were punished for failing to distribute wages and clothing after the accident and for otherwise ignoring the needs of evacuees. One offender was expelled from the party and a second was reprimanded. Western experts called the moves part of a concerted effort to blame local authorities for Moscow's delay in responding to the disaster--the first evacuations were not ordered until 36 hours after the accident--and its failure for three days to announce that a serious nuclear mishap had occurred.

Other nations continued to seek protection from possible nuclear fallout. After arduous debate, the twelve member nations of the European Community agreed to ban all meat and farm products from East European countries affected by the fallout from Chernobyl. The boycott will remain in effect at least through May. The move infuriated exporters such as Yugoslavia and Poland, which rely on hard currency raised from agricultural sales to pay off foreign debts. Officials in Warsaw were especially angered by a U.S. plan to ship powdered milk for distribution in Poland through nongovernment agencies. Their bitter retort: an offer to send blankets and sleeping bags to private charities for the homeless in New York City.

Elsewhere, West German militants smashed windows and hurled rocks at police last week as 10,000 antinuclear demonstrators marched in Hamburg. But perhaps the most stunning response to the Chernobyl accident came from France, which relies on the atom for 65% of its electric power. After first assuring its citizens that the nuclear cloud had passed them by, the French government admitted last week that radiation readings in some regions had been 400 times as high as normal. While that was alarming enough, red-faced French officials compounded the problem by insisting that their failure to notify the public was not a serious omission, because the radiation posed no health risks. Their reticence once more dramatically illustrated the uneasiness and fear that the Chernobyl disaster continues to generate.

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With reporting by James O. Jackson and Nancy Traver/Moscow