Valery Alekseevich Legasov: About the Disaster at the Chernobyl NPP

Valery A. Legasov.

Valery A. Legasov, born in 1936, became an academic at the age of 36. At the time of the Chernobyl accident, he was the chairman of the Department of Chemical Technology at the Chemistry Department of Moscow State University. Legasov was the man sent to the Chernobyl NPP to aid, try to gain control over the problem and to investigate the disaster; what caused it, what the consequenses could be and how it at all could happen. 

It may seem funny that a professor in chemistry was sent to the site of a nuclear disaster, but the truth is that Legasov was the only man present in Moscow at the time who was at all qualified to attend the emergency. Legasov,  by his wife being refered to as a strong and honest individual who wasn't afraid to speak his mind was the very person insisting on the evacuation of Pripyat, and obviously his voice was heard in this matter. Apparently this was not the case concerning some following issues - The Soviet regime allegedely forbade him to speak the truth, during the IAEA conference in Vienna (August 1986, where of course also Hans Blix attended), concerning the RBMK reactors and previous accidents and problems with said reactors throughout the Soviet Union.

After the immediate threats of the ChNPP's 4th reactor had settled and the Sarcophagus was built, Legasov would experience that his carreer had been damaged due to the being forced to hide the truth. For this he'd try to make up by writing several papers which were either censored nor not at all published. Eventually, the sense of failure became overwhelming for Valery Legasov, who committed suicide in 1988. On April 26th,  the 2nd anniversary of the disaster, Legasov's hanged body was found by his son returning from school. By then Legasov had been dead for approximately four hours. Valery Legasov became 51 years old.

The suicide of Legasov wasn't mentioned in any Soviet media.

Anatoly Dyatlov, the vice deputy chief engineer at the ChNPP, in charge of the experiment at reactor block 4 at the morning of the accident, was (as I've mentioned before) persecuted and sent to prison for criminal minsmanagement of potentially explosive enterprises. This man wrote a book entitled "Чернобыль - Как это было" ["Chernobyl - As it was"], where he told the story from his own point of view, blaming the construction of the RBMK reactors for what had happened. Dyatlov also wrote a letter to Hans Blix where he tried to explain the cause of the disaster, but not much more is currently know about this letter.

Valery Legasov didn't write any books, but (supposedly) the hours before his death, he made voice recordings covering five cassettes where he told about the Chernobyl affair. These tapes were found and eventually transcripted to written text. Some time ago, I found these documents. In spite of a long habit concerning the modern technology involving computers and so on, I still am not comfortable with reading from a screen so today I printed the 123 pages of Legasov's text set recordings. Leaving the copying service office, I started looking over the papers and found that it's actually understandable to me. I think that it will be possible for me to translate this. I am going to give it a try. As a matter of fact, I will start right away. 

Letter from Hans Blix

H. Blix (middle) at the ChNPP in 1987

Regular readers are already aware of the fact that I some time ago decided to contact Hans Blix, the former chairman of IAEA, but those of you who missed out on that part may read about it here.

Last week I finally got around to write that letter I had had in mind since late August. I sent it with regular mail, rather than calling or writing to any official work address in order not to come off as imposing and also in order to make sure to be noticed. A digital message can easily be ignored or forgotten, but these days a nicely articulated, hand made (I cannot say "hand written" as I did use a printer) catches and demands more attention. 

Today I received a reply. Having put down my contact information in matters of residential address, phone number and e-mail address, it was an easy thing for Hans Blix to simply respond by e-mail, and I was happy to receive this message because even though he cannot afford the time nor effort to get into detail with me concerning Chernobyl, he provided me with very useful information and pointers to where to direct further questions. 

Hans Blix wrote to me: 

"I have my hands overflowing with work regarding questions of disarmaments and the future of nuclear power and thus I'm not prepared to aid you..." "...At this point I'm not  involved in the questions concerning the causes or consequences of the accident, only when it comes to the Shelter project..."

The man is admirable. At the age of 84, he's still working and still dedicated to it. 

I will not hide my slight disappointment concerning not getting the opportunity of a thorough Q & A with Hans Blix, but as I didn't expect to get an answer at all but still received a long and elaborate e-mail, I really cannot complain as it's very useful for me and my continued research. It's a push forward. This has made paths branch further and I intend to investigate every stray.

Rounding up the Swedes

It is obvious that my presense is required at the exhibition. Having caught a cold, I could not be there this afternoon as planned, but two friends who visited the exhibition told me about the mess that had occurred; the banner detaching from the wall and the library personnel loading a lot of junk around it all. As this came to my knowledge late in the afternoon, of course I had no choice but to go there and take care of these nuisances. 

The disturbances were easily gotten rid of, and I could then find the peace to enjoy the flowers sent to the exhibition. Yes that's right, someone actually sent flowers to the exhibition all the way from Stockholm and it was a very pleasant surprise. There was a card attached as well, with a greeting reading "Hoping for a radiating success!"

A few days ago, I was made aware of that some have gotten the impression that this blog was only due to the exhibition and that I would quit writing after that and I admit that I might have stated something that may have encouraged such impressions, but the truth is that... it's not true: I will keep on posting in this blog for as long as there are things to be told.

Hans Blix visiting all-Union Scientific Center of Radioactive Medicine

Some days ago, I decided to write a letter to Hans Blix. Mr. Blix was the chairman of the International Atomic Energy Agency between 1981 and 1997 and the first foreigner to visit Chernobyl after the disaster ( as early as in May 1986) where he would discuss the matter of safer nuclear power in the Soviet Union. 

I figured that Hans Blix may be able to answer some of my questions, also because of knowing the political climate of that period (unfortunately politics are inevitable even in this matter) and when a friend actually presented me with proper contact information to Hans Blix, I realized that I would not have to go through with the usual "journalist's routine" but could rather get on straight ahead. 

Blix also met Valery Legasov, the nuclear chemist send from Moscow to investigate the Chernobyl accident (who committed suicide on the anniversary of the disaster in 1988). Also Legasov is an important key in the Chernobyl  jigzaw  and there are details that haven't been written, so when and if I manage to establish contact with Hans Blix, now 84 years old, there are chances that it'll all mean an important deal to my research.

A few weeks ago I contacted the nuclear power plant in Forsmark, who first discovered the Chernobyl fallout, asking to get in touch with someone who worked at the NPP at the time. I received a name and an address. Anders Markgren, assistant information officer at the Forsmark NPP, is now also on my list.


As you can see, I have no intentions of ceasing this.
Today, my father asked me if anyone closely involved ever wrote anything objective and truthful about the disaster. I could only mention Valery Legasov and say that it's possible that his writings are the closest to the truth as we can get, but he is -unfortunately- dead and dead men doesn't answer questions. 
I intend to find out how close to the truth you can get 25 years later. 




[Note: The photo is from profimedia.si]