We take electricity pretty much for granted. Lights, subways, movies, sound systems, the Internet, television, air conditioning, coffee makers, toasters – you name it; they all use it.
So where does this miracle come from? Well, to state the obvious, from electric power plants. Have one go down for even an hour and people get upset. Have it explode and it forever becomes a symbol of technology gone amuck.
I was working on Capitol Hill in 1986 (before the Internet, cell phones and Wi-Fi) when news came that monitoring stations in Denmark, Sweden and Norway were reporting elevated levels of radiation but were mystified about the source.
The Cold War was still being fought back then. The USSR was a global power, but was visibly declining with living standards dropping and dissidents’ voices, echoed and re-echoed throughout the world, challenging its legitimacy. In office for barely a year, the young Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev had launched “perestroika” to restructure the economy and “glasnost” (openness) to replace the totalitarianism that was inexorably leading the country toward third world status – “Upper Volta with rockets,” as the saying went.
Early on Saturday, April 26, the fourth reactor building at Chornobyl nuclear power plant exploded and began spewing radioactivity miles into the air and the surrounding countryside. Although the Kremlin must have been immediately informed, President Gorbachev’s instinct was to jettison glasnost and revert to secrecy: no announcement, no warnings, no concern for people in the contamination zone or where it would soon spread.
It’s well-known today that the Chornobyl reactor had design flaws that rendered it susceptible to catastrophic failure. Indeed, it was known at the time: a literary magazine in Kyiv had pointed that out before the disaster, but the warnings were ignored in Moscow.
Perestroika in 1986 was still just a slogan. In the centralized Soviet economy, decisions and commands emanated from Moscow, which launched the ill-fated experiment to dismantle various fail-safe systems at Chornobyl to see what would happen. Now we know.
Two and a half days after the explosion, Swedish experts determined that the nuclear cloud had originated in the Soviet Union, specifically Ukraine, and demanded an explanation. A nuclear reactor explosion can’t be covered up forever – by then, American satellites had photos of fires burning out of control – but Soviet authorities nevertheless denied anything had happened, continuing to jam Western media like Voice of America, Radio Liberty, BBC and Deutsche Welle, which provided whatever news there was.
May Day, like Labor Day in America, was a big workers’ holiday for the Soviets, only more so. It came five days after the explosion. As radiation spread across the Ukrainian and Belarusian countryside, a smiling Mr. Gorbachev stood atop Lenin’s mausoleum at Red Square in Moscow, reviewing an extravagant parade and waving to the crowd.
There was a similar parade in Kyiv, 90 miles south of Chornobyl, only the reviewing stands where Communist Party bosses usually watched the festivities were pretty much empty. They had already sent their own children to safety and then, well aware of the dangerous radiation, also left the city, even as other less privileged children marched and danced on the Khreshchatyk, the capital’s main boulevard.
By then, the world beyond the sealed borders of the USSR knew that a nuclear meltdown had occurred and the Soviets felt compelled to not only address the unprecedented environmental and human catastrophe, but also what had become a global public relations disaster. And so, just hours after the May Day parades in Kyiv and Moscow, the second secretary of the Soviet Embassy in Washington, Vitaly Churkin, testified at a congressional hearing to try to mitigate the damage. As he spoke, aircraft at the power plant were dumping chemicals to try to stop the blaze. Within a few years, all the pilots who had flown those missions were dead. And yes, in case you’re wondering, the young diplomat who testified before the House Energy and Commerce Committee is the same Vitaly Churkin who is now Russia’s ambassador to the United Nations. I watched him testify. He was just as accomplished a liar then, testifying in flawless English about Chornobyl, as he is today denying Russia’s aggression in Ukraine.
On May 6, nearly two weeks after the reactor roof had blown, the first announcements finally ran on Kyiv radio and television warning the population to close their windows, wash and peel vegetables and keep children indoors; the same directives other governments hundreds of miles away had given their citizens over a week earlier. President Gorbachev? He didn’t make a public statement until May 16th, three weeks after the explosion.
As word spread about the incompetence that caused the explosion in the first place and then the cynical disregard for the affected populations, the people of Ukraine began to angrily speak out, demanding explanations, apologies and accountability. Even more significantly, some began organizing a Green Movement. The environmental issue was important in itself, of course, but even more so was the activism. In a country where individual initiative was forbidden and every organization had to be sanctioned, monitored and controlled by the party and the government (one and the same), having independent groups organize to publish posters, write uncensored critiques and freely assemble was, well, revolutionary. Outrage mounted as children and rescue workers began showing symptoms of cancer. Soon, assistance began arriving from foreign governments and private organizations in the West, including an ad hoc committee that became the Children of Chornobyl Relief Fund. This helped to break down the barriers to cooperation with the outside world and enhanced the status of newly emboldened organizations.
Chornobyl turned out to be as much political as it was environmental. Four years after the explosion the Supreme Soviet of the Ukrainian SSR voted 355-4 for state sovereignty; a year later, the Ukrainian Parliament declared independence, 321-2 and a nationwide referendum in December ratified it with more than 90 percent approval.
Today, Ukraine is still feeling the effects of Chornobyl, both negative and positive. I have yet to see a credible study of its demographic impact – how many were killed, died prematurely or decided to forego having children for fear of radiation-induced birth defects. And the country faces grave challenges related to its always troubled relationship with Russia. But now, 30 years after Chornobyl and having learned to distance itself from Moscow, Ukraine is free to chart its own course. And that can only be good.