Chernobyl Nuclear Accident Congressional Hearings Transcript

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very real sense, Chernobyl Is the world's problem. The plight of its victirris has become a
rrvDral issue which transcends national boundaries , and calls for international solutions.
For years, the Soviet regime maintained that only 24 to 34 people died as a
direct result of the Chornobyl meltdown. ^ As late as 1990, the Communist Health
Minister of Ukraine, Mr. Romanenko claimed that only 209 persons hove suffered illnesses
related to Chornobyl's effects.'*
The stubborn deceit involved in the Soviet coverup of Chornobyl is now coming
to light,
as we gain access to newly declassified documents from the Kremlin which
show that not 34, but as many as eight thousand persons -- mostly nuclear clean-up
workers may have already died as a result of radiation exposure in Chornobyl.' An
article published in April of this year, in "Izvestiyo" reveals excerpts from secret protocols
of the Soviet politburo which directly contradict the public pronouncements of Soviet
authorities in the spring of 1986.*
We now know that the Politburo was receiving daily updates on thousands of
clean-up workers and hundreds of local children who were hospitalized with radiation
sickness, even while publicolly, Soviet officials were telling the world that the health
impact had been grossly exaggerated by the Western press.''
Even if we considered the first weeks following the accident in isolation,
Chornobyl would rank as one of the single greatest ecological disasters of this century.
Unfortunately, the real long-term tragedy is just beginning to unfold.
3 "Chemobyl Said To Affect Health of Thousands in A Soviet Region". New York Times,
November 3, 1991.
4 Alia Yaroshin'ska, "Forty Secret Protocols of the Kremlin's Wisemen", Izvestiya, April 25, 1992.
Romanenko's assurances are still being echoed by a number of Western experts, including Dr.
Marvin Goldman, professor of radiation biology at the University of California at Davis, and
director of a Soviet-American program on health effects of nuclear operations. New Yort< Times,
supra.
5 "Chernobyl disaster worse than reported", Los Angeles Times, April 14, 1992. See also:
Medvedev, Z. The legacy of Chemobyl. New York, W.W. Norton, 1990. Davis, A.M., "Health
Care After Chemobyl: Radiation, Scarcity, and Fear". The PSR Quarteriy, March 1922, Vol. 2.
No. 1 . Davis and Medvedev lend credence to the higher death estimates in that at least 3,400
persons were sent on brief runs across the roof of the reactor, to pick up radioactive debris and
bits of graphite fuel with their bare hands. Radiation fields in this area reached as high as 10,000
rads per hour
.
"Some of these workers may well have received lethal doses, but were cared for
in military... hospitals where their illnesses were either misdiagnosed or covered up."
6 Yaroshin'ska, supra , note 4.
7 Ibid