D.C. symposium features experts' discussion on Chornobyl
by Yaro Bihun
WASHINGTON - The Chornobyl nuclear disaster, which has claimed 31 lives, may end up killing more than 100,000 people through cancer caused by exposure to its radiation.
Dr. Ihor Masnyk of the National Cancer Institute says Soviet experts estimate that about 45,000 people in Ukraine and Byelorussia will die of cancer over the next 70 years as a result of long-term exposure to Chornobyl's radiation. Some Western estimates based on the same data, however, expect the death toll to top 100,000 during the same period.
"The true figure may never be known because of the large population used as the base line, and the almost paranoid security clamps placed by Soviet authorities on population data." Dr. Masnyk told a symposium on the impact and consequences of the Chornobyl accident.
Dr. Masnyk, who is acting associate director for international affairs at the NCI, spoke about the "Biomedical Aspects of Chornobyl" during a panel discussion with three other experts on the catastrophe: Dr. David Marples of the Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies at the University of Alberta, whose book "Chernobyl and Nuclear Power in the USSR" was published by St. Martin's Press this month; Paul Goble, an expert on Soviet nationalities at the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research; and Dr. Larissa Fontana, who heads the Washington Ukrainian Community Network. Dr. Andrew Hruszkewycz of George Washington University and the National Institute of Health was the moderator.
The discussion, held December 10 at the St. Sophia Center, was sponsored by The Washington Group, an association of Ukrainian American professionals.
"Although probably not the last one, the Chornobyl accident is the worst accident in the field of nuclear energy thus far," Dr. Masnyk said.
In comparison to the Three Mile Island nuclear accident in the United States, which released 15 curies of radioactivity, Chornobyl put more than 100 million curies into the environment, he said. Half of this load was deposited within 30 kilometers from the plant, "which presents a mammoth clean-up problem and raises the specter of lingering health effects" as the radioactivity continues to enter the food chain over the next generation.
About 135,000 people were evacuated from the 30-kilometer zone, but, Dr. Masnyk said, because of superficial testing, it will be difficult to determine in the future which incidents of cancer among that group were caused by Chornobyl and which by something else, Dr. Masnyk said.
In addition to the 31 already dead (according to official Soviet reports) from acute radiation poisoning, and the scores of thousands that will die in the future, babies born to women who were between the eighth and 15th week of pregnancy at the time of radiation exposure carry a risk of severe mental retardation, and diminished mental performance in the less affected, he said.
Soviets spurned aid
Dr. Masnyk said that Soviet authorities have thus far spurned all official U.S. efforts at instituting medical cooperation on Chornobyl.
Dr. Marples, an expert on Soviet energy and nuclear power policy, uncovered severe dangers in the way nuclear power was being developed in Ukraine. He warned in October 1985 that unless the Soviets improved safety mechanisms, an accident at the Ukrainian nuclear power plant was quite likely in the near future.
Problems with the Chornobyl plant have been reported in the press since 1974, Dr. Marples said, and "the situation at Soviet nuclear plants before Chornobyl gave cause for serious concern if not alarm."
Problems continue to plague the industry after Chornobyl. None of the reactors scheduled to come on line in 1986 did, including one at the model facility in Zaporizhzhia, which was built from start to finish in the world-record time of four years.
Dr. Marples recalled that when Vladimir Dolgikh, a candidate member of the Politburo, visited Zaporizhzhia in October, he revealed some of the problems causing the six-month delay in bringing the reactor on line by June. Those problems, Dr. Marples said, were all familiar: a lack of skilled personnel, shoddy construction materials, chronic supply problems and an outdated centralized planning system.
And the entombment of the exploded Chornobyl reactor, first billed as a solution for hundreds of years, is now estimated to last only one generation, according to Dr. Marples, "and the next generation might think of something more appropriate."
Decontamination problems
The massive decontamination process around Chornobyl has been plagued by problems, as well, he said. Thousands of conscripts have been brought in from the Baltic republics; safety standards have lapsed; there have been complaints about unavailable funds for protective clothing, inadequate housing and a lack of shower facilities for clean-up personnel.
Two reactors at Chornobyl have already been restarted and Moscow has announced that a third will be restarted by next June, the fifth will go on line in 1987 and the sixth by 1990.
At the world energy conference in Cannes, France, in October, Valeriy Legasov, a member of the presidium of the Soviet Academy of Sciences, announced that the USSR plans to increase its reliance on nuclear energy. He was quoted as saying that the Soviet Union had lost more farmland from the construction of hydro-electric dams than from the entire Chornobyl accident. And Soviet Premier Nikolai Ryzhkov had said that Soviet nuclear power capacity would be increased by 500 to 600 percent by the year 2000.
"So Soviet confidence in the future of the industry is unassuaged... But one should be assured of one fact," Dr. Marples said, "and that is that the ramifications of the disaster are still with us."
Mr. Goble spoke about the "political fallout" of Chornobyl, analyzing its effect on Soviet domestic politics, on what he termed "high politics" with Eastern Europe and the West, and on the "low politics" of public opinion and attitudes of the middle- and low-level Soviet elite.
Political pundits missed the mark in predicting that Soviet party leader Mikhail Gorbachev would use Chornobyl as an excuse to replace the Ukrainian Communist Party boss, Volodymyr Shcherbytsky, the State Department official said, prefacing his remarks by saying that he was expressing his own opinions. On the contrary, he pointed out, those fired were in Moscow or were fired directly through Moscow ministries.
"The fact is that the Chornobyl plant was in Ukraine but bureaucratically and legally it was under the control of the all-union ministries in Moscow, and that the problems, if they existed, were problems of Moscow's own making."
From the late 1970s, he said there had been "a drumbeat of criticism" about Chornobyl, including an article in "Vitchyzna" 75 days before the accident, in which the chief construction engineer suggested that the problems here were the result of cost-cutting directives from Moscow over the past year, "very probably suggesting that this was Mr. Gorbachev's doing," Mr. Goble said.
"Glasnost" backfired
Mr. Goble suggested that, indeed, "glasnost had backfired" and that Mr. Gorbachev and Moscow had been put on the defensive.
Internationally, the Soviet Union lost face over Chornobyl, Mr. Goble said. "There was nearly unanimous condemnation" for the late and incomplete accounting of what happened, and Mr. Gorbachev's commitment to any kind of a more open society that would live up to its international obligations was called into question.
The consequences in Eastern Europe were most severe in Yugoslavia and especially in Poland, where thousands signed protest petitions, and pictures of children ingesting iodine were a daily feature on Polish television.
"The Soviet regime has proved on more than one occasion that it's not terribly interested in what the population thinks in terms of the policies that it adopts. But," he added, "as the regime has been less willing to use coercion, it has had to rely on a certain amount of popular support or even enthusiasm for particular policy choices, and popular attitudes affect what the regime is likely to do."
Mr. Goble cited three Soviet republics as examples of where public attitudes following Chornobyl influenced policy choices:
Mr. Goble acknowledged that the relationship between the Soviet government and Ukrainians abroad is different than with Armenians. "But, on the other hand, to the extent that attention is kept up, one can perhaps help some of the Ukrainians in the Soviet Union to achieve at least part of what the Armenians did."
Dr. Fontana, whose quick response group was formed after the Medvid incident, summarized what the U.S. government and the Ukrainian community did in response to the Chornobyl disaster.
"Up to this point the Ukrainian community in the free world has not been able successfully to send any humanitarian aid to the affected victims," Dr. Fontana said. "However, we have tried to sensitize the press, our legislators and various governments and the Soviet Union to our concern over the citizens of Ukraine and the responsibility of the Soviet Union as a nuclear power."
Noting the concern about the Soviet Union's restarting of the Chornobyl reactors too soon, Dr. Fontana suggested that Ukrainians form a special group to monitor the Chornobyl situation.
"We have no choice but to rise to the occasion of the challenge of Chornobyl. We must exhibit courage, concern and resolve, for the after-effects of Chornobyl will not go away. Our children and our children's children will be left to deal with this legacy, and it's our duty to set an example," she stated.
Ukrainians have a moral responsibility to remind the world, she said, "lest we be caught sleeping again."
Opening the symposium, Daria Stec, president of The Washington Group, said it was not the purpose of the panel to exaggerate the situation at Chornobyl. "We hope that things aren't as had as they could be," she said, "but we do feel that we need more objective and credible information."
The symposium was part of two days of activities in the U.S. capital organized by The Washington Group for Dr. Marples in conjunction with the publication of his book. The visit also included meetings with U.S. officials at the White House and State Department, a discussion with scholars at the Kennan Institute of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, a luncheon with editors of the journal Problems of Communism, a press briefing at the National Press Club, an appearance on the U.S. Information Agency's "Worldnet" live television broadcast to Europe, and an interview with the Voice of America. The program was organized by Marta Pereyma, TWG special projects director.
Copyright © The Ukrainian Weekly, December 28, 1986, No. 52, Vol. LIV
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