Posted on 04/18/2006 3:25:25 PM PDT by RWR8189
The nuclear meltdown at Chernobyl 20 years ago this month, even more than my launch of perestroika, was perhaps the real cause of the collapse of the Soviet Union five years later. Indeed, the Chernobyl catastrophe was a historic turning point: there was the era before the disaster, and there is the very different era that has followed. The morning of the explosion at the Chernobyl nuclear station on April 26, 1986, the Politburo met to discuss the situation, and then organized a government commission to deal with the consequences. The commission was to control the situation, and to ensure that serious measures were taken, particularly in regard to people's health in the disaster zone. Moreover, the Academy of Science established a group of leading scientists, who were immediately dispatched to the Chernobyl region. The Politburo did not immediately have appropriate information that accurately reflected the situation after the explosion. Nevertheless, it was the general consensus of the Politburo that we should openly deliver the information upon receiving it. This would be in the spirit of the glasnost policy that was by then already established in the Soviet Union. Thus, claims that the Politburo engaged in concealment of information about the disaster is far from the truth. One reason I believe that there was no deliberate deception is that, when the governmental commission visited the scene right after the disaster and stayed overnight in Polesie, near Chernobyl, its members all had dinner with regular food and water, and they moved about without respirators, like everybody else who worked there. If the local administration or the scientists knew the real impact of the disaster, they would not have risked doing this. In fact, nobody knew the truth, and that is why all our attempts to receive full information about the extent of the catastrophe were in vain. We initially believed that the main impact of the explosion would be in Ukraine, but Belarus, to the northwest, was hit even worse, and then Poland and Sweden suffered the consequences. Of course, the world first learned of the Chernobyl disaster from Swedish scientists, creating the impression that we were hiding something. But in truth we had nothing to hide, as we simply had no information for a day and a half. Only a few days later, we learned that what happened was not a simple accident, but a genuine nuclear catastrophe - an explosion of Chernobyl's fourth reactor. Although the first report on Chernobyl appeared in Pravda on April 28, the situation was far from clear. For example, when the reactor blew up, the fire was immediately put out with water, which only worsened the situation as nuclear particles began spreading through the atmosphere. Meanwhile we were still able to take measures in helping people in the disaster zone; they were evacuated, and more than 200 medical organizations helped test the population for radiation poisoning. There was a serious danger that the contents of the nuclear reactor would seep into the soil, and then leak into the Dnepr River, thus endangering the population of Kiev and other cities along the riverbanks. Therefore, we started the job of protecting the river banks, initiating a total deactivation of the Chernobyl plant. The resources of a huge country were mobilized to control the devastation, including work to prepare the sarcophagus that would encase the fourth reactor. The Chernobyl disaster, more than anything else, opened the possibility of much greater freedom of expression, to the point that the system as we knew it could no longer continue. It made absolutely clear how important it was to continue the policy of glasnost, and I must say that I started to think about time in terms of pre-Chernobyl and post-Chernobyl. The price of the Chernobyl catastrophe was overwhelming, not only in human terms, but also economically. Even today, the legacy of Chernobyl affects the economies of Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus. Some even suggest that the economic price for the U.S.S.R. was so high that it stopped the arms race, as I could not keep building arms while paying to clean up Chernobyl. This is wrong. In my declaration of January 15, 1986, I addressed arms reduction, including nuclear arms, and I proposed that by the year 2000 no country should have atomic weapons. I personally felt a moral responsibility to end the arms race. But Chernobyl opened my eyes like nothing else: it showed the horrible consequences of nuclear power, even when it is used for non-military purposes. One could now imagine much more clearly what might happen if a nuclear bomb exploded. According to scientific experts, one SS-18 rocket could contain a hundred Chernobyls. Unfortunately, the problem of nuclear arms is still very serious today. Countries that have them - the members of the so-called "nuclear club" - are in no hurry to get rid of them. On the contrary, they continue to refine their arsenals, while countries without nuclear weapons want them, believing that the nuclear club's monopoly is a threat to the world peace. The 20th anniversary of the Chernobyl catastrophe reminds us that we should not forget the horrible lesson taught to the world in 1986. We should do everything in our power to make all nuclear facilities safe and secure. We should also start seriously working on the production of alternative sources of energy. The fact that world leaders now increasingly talk about this imperative suggests that the lesson of Chernobyl is finally being understood. Mikhail Gorbachev, the last president of the Soviet Union, is chairman of the Gorbachev Foundation in Moscow and the head of the International Green Cross. THE DAILY STAR publishes this commentary in collaboration with Project Syndicate (www.project-syndicate.org).
Memo to Gorby:
Socialism is a failed system.
Reading this guy is about as good a use of time as reading Arianna Huffington...
There sure is a whole of of chunky vomit in this article isn't there.
Whoops, there goes another Gorbasm.
Gorby on-the-wrong-side-of-history-again bump
"Socialism's meltdown accelerated the fall of the Soviet system."
Sorry, but I had to read a little.... "Moreover, the Academy of Science established a group of leading scientists, who were immediately dispatched to the Chernobyl region."
LOFL!!!
What does not follow.... "And then suddenly, we were losing our leading scientists to a strange illness...their hair was falling out..they were losing their vision...and then they just died... it was the strangest thing! So then we got some more of our leading scientists and sent them over to Chernobyl... and they got sick too.."
In reality, the USSR was a crappy ship, with an incompetent captain, and it ran into an iceberg named Reagan.
Vietnam -- Even in our defeat, we demonstrated the price we were willing to pay to stop Soviet expansion, the costs to the USSR were more significant then the dollars that we spent.
Afghanistan -- The Soviet defeat by those they viewed with disdain and contempt demonstrated that with proper support of their opposition that they could be made to suffer both economically and in the eyes of the world.
Ronald Reagan -- He warned them, he told them, he showed them and he did it through determination.
The left cannot stand being proved wrong.
The Soviet Union was a ecological disaster at every level. Why should any sane person listen to you now?
"The nuclear meltdown at Chernobyl 20 years ago this month, even more than my launch of perestroika, was perhaps the real cause of the collapse of the Soviet Union five years later."
Modest, isn't he ?
No. He is less of a Communist that Ms. Huffington
. . . because it dramatized the price you could find yourself paying for having been kept in the dark and fed B.S.
Chernobyl was a non-event in terms of people killed and injured. I studied this in detail while working in the commercial nuclear industry.
More background:
The Chernobyl Catastrophe Reassessed
http://www.acsh.org/factsfears/newsID.632/news_detail.asp
The UN report emphasizes a factor that the anti-nuclear and other activist groups always ignore: the greatest threat from the Chernobyl accident, and even more so in the case of Three Mile Island earlier, was the fear factor, the "mental health impact," as the report terms it. Somewhere between 200,000 and 350,000 people were evacuated from the area over the subsequent years, although three out of four of the reactors resumed operation before the end of 1986. The earth and water near the facility were heavily contaminated, but again, the report noted that, for the overwhelming majority, stress and anxiety -- the fear of radiation effects, the loss of homes and livelihoods -- were more serious problems than the actual radiation.
"Fear of radiation is a far greater threat to the affected individuals than radiation itself," UN Assistant Secretary General Kalman Mizsei told a conference on Chernobyl. Those relocated went through "a deeply traumatic experience."
Tourists Flock to the Dead Zone of Chernobyl
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2004/04/25/wcher25.xml&sSheet=/news/2004/04/25/ixnewstop.html
Many locals are surprisingly unconcerned by the legacy of Chernobyl. About 600 people have returned to live inside the dead zone. Maria Dika, 42, leaning from a balcony in Chernobyl town, said she had suffered no long-term ill effects after three months of treatment for acute radiation sickness. She was working as a security guard at Reactor Four on the night of the disaster.
"We're fine," she joked. "No health problems. The radiation has got used to us." Tatiana Khrushch, 66, agreed. "The air's clean, the water's lovely and the mushrooms are great," she said. "This is a fine place."
Lessons of Chernobyl: Nuclear Power is Safe
http://www.21stcenturysciencetech.com/Articles%202004/Spring2004/Jaworowski_on_Chernobyl.pdf
I see that old Gorby is protected by Vladimir Putin.
You are wrong.
Vietnam -- Even in our defeat, we demonstrated the price we were willing to pay to stop Soviet expansion, the costs to the USSR were more significant then the dollars that we spent.==
You sound like Soviets got afraid of America? Laughable. Soviets withstood huge war with Htler which costed 20 mlns of lifes. Do you ready to pay 20 mlns of lifes to crush Soviet Union?
Afghanistan -- The Soviet defeat by those they viewed with disdain and contempt demonstrated that with proper support of their opposition that they could be made to suffer both economically and in the eyes of the world.==
Eyes of the world doesn't much matter. Especcially the world is not end on West. There are many other sides of the world.
Ronald Reagan -- He warned them, he told them, he showed them and he did it through determination.==
When Reagan proclaimed his program of Star wars he accualy helped soviet hardliners to strenthen thier power. If America continued such program then today we would see Soviet Union standing there stronger then ever. And America would need to start thermonuclier war to crush Soviet Union.
Would you ready to start thermonuclier war with SOviet Union?
I don't think so if today America is catious to start war even with North Korea under real fear that they may use thier allergedly nuclier bomb.
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