Primary SourceExcerpt. The President of Russia Boris Yeltsin had already banned the CPSU, and some members of its politburo were contemplating life in KGB cells. On April 26, 1986, an explosion at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in Ukraine led to the radioactive contamination of the surrounding countryside and to radioactive fallout throughout Eastern and Western Europe. The reactor was being operated with too many control rods withdrawn. Top secret", 1992, The book by Politburo member Vitaly Vorotnikov, "This Is How It Went",1995. Adding to these anxietiesstemming from the lack of information about the nuclear disasterwas the backdrop of the Cold War and fear of a nuclear war. He also insists on informing the West and the socialist countries, especially because they are using the same reactors supplied by the USSR. Protocol No. Researchers explore genetic effects of Chernobyl radiation Copyright: IAEA Imagebank. Materials from non-English language sources are translated into English.The reporting includes firsthand accounts of experiences during all points of the Chernobyl disaster. Two weeks after the accident, an unnamed KGB officer from the Ukrainian SSR reports on the situation in evacuation sites, the sentiment of local people, the situation in transportation hubs and at key industrial facilities in Kiev, as well as about the measures taken to prevent foreign journalists from gathering information about the case. It affected large areas of the former Soviet Union and even parts of western Europe. (In 1991 in the USSR, Xerox copying machines were still inaccessible not only to ordinary citizens, but, as one can see, to members of parliament.) Large amounts of radioactive material were released into the atmosphere, where it was carried great distances by air currents. May 12, 1986. 215 pages of CIA files dating from 1971 to 1991.The files cover the Soviet Union's atomic energy program; The effect of the Chernobyl accident on the Soviet nuclear power program; and the social and political ramifications of the accident in the Soviet Union. These documents contain information regarding acceptable levels of radiation on individuals, in foods, as well as on roads, clothing, and equipment. Protocol No. Also at this link is: Untitled Notice on Public Attitudes Toward the Chernobyl Accident, Research Topic List: Inequality and Human Rights, Research Topic List: Political Revolutions, Research Topic List: Climate Change and Environmental Issues. Read more, The Nuclear Proliferation International History Project is a global network of individuals and institutions engaged in the study of international nuclear history through archival documents, oral history interviews, and other empirical sources. Only 1.5 million people (as well as 160,000 children under the age of 7 ) at the time of the accident were living in the zone of the largest contamination with iodine-131, those with irradiation exposure of the thyroid gland at 30 rem composed 87% of adults and 48% of children, at 11% and 35%, respectively, at 30 to 100 rem, and 2% of adults and 17% of children were at upwards of 100 rem. An exposure to radiation of 100 rem guarantees cancer. According to the report from the Ministry of Energy, the fire was extinguished by 3:30 a.m. and the reactor core was being cooled down. SSR Council of Ministers for Kiev Oblast, Fesenko, to Comrade Tsybulko V.M., First Secretary of the Kiev Oblast Committee of the CP of Ukraine, Colonel A.I. Read more, One Woodrow Wilson Plaza1300 Pennsylvania Ave. NWWashington, DC 20004-3027, Nuclear Proliferation International History Project. In 2006, WHO published its report summarizing the data from two decades of research on the health consequences of the Chernobyl accident. Col. Aksenov, 'Notice of Emergency Incident' (HDA SBU, Fond 11, Sprava 992, Tom 29). July 24th, 1973 Memo Report from Tiutiunnik, Chief of the Kiev-Sviatoshinskii District Department of the KGB Administration, to the Acting Director of the KGB Administration, Comrade G.I. According to Vladimir Dolgikh, the Central Committee Secretary in charge of heavy industry and energy production who received information from Station Director Viktor Bryukhanov, the fire was extinguished and the reactor was not damaged. The History and Public Policy Program strives to make public the primary source record of 20th and 21st century international history from repositories around the world, to facilitate scholarship based on those records, and to use these materials to provide context for classroom, public, and policy debates on global affairs. The posting today begins with Yaroshinskayas essay (written exclusively for this publication) reviewing the Chernobyl story and her own efforts dating back to 1986 to document and expose the lies and the secrecy that surrounded the disaster. September 30th, 1986 Order of the Committee of State Security [KGB] of the USSR. This report explains ecological and security problems which arose several years later as a result of the Chernobyl accident, as well as areas for improvement in control of the reactor site and medical testing of the local population. These meeting minutes detail the various forms of protection against radiation undertaken in and around the city of Kiev following the Chernobyl disaster. (One of the authors of the idea of returning children and pregnant women to the danger zoneYuri Israelwas subsequently awarded the Order of Lenin for Chernobyl.), Secret recipes from the Politburo on the use of radioactive meat and milk are undoubtedly one of the strongest parts of the Kremlin-Chernobyl bestseller. The Chernobyl Collection contains 70 maps and over 150 documents, and features full page-level digitization, complete original graphics, and searchable text, and is cross-searchable with numerous other East View digital resources. Voices from Chernobyl: The oral history of a nuclear disaster (K. Gessen, Trans.). (HDA SBU, Fond 11, Sprava 992, Tom 29). Florida Gov. The author Adam Higginbotham, whose book Midnight in Chernobyl (2019) illuminates the tragedy with quotations from his hundreds of interviews, also relied on a trove of Soviet-era documents collected by the Ukrainian National Chernobyl Museum in Kiev. Chernyaevs notes from the same Politburo session as Document 14 are less detailed than those made by official stenographers, but they capture the heated emotional atmosphere of the meeting and they cover the entire Chernobyl discussion. May 7th, 1986 Minutes of Meeting of the Operative Group of the Kiev Party City Committee Office, 7 May 1986. This statement comes from the leaders of seven industrialized European countries and expresses sympathy and offers aid to the USSR and the town of Pripyat. Col. Aksenov, 'Notice of Emergency Incident', Notice: Information from Places of Evacuation, Memo Report from the Head of the KGB Administration under the Ukr. August 22, 1986. They present a fascinating account of a rare fight at the Politburo, where representatives of various agencies were trying to shift the blame onto one another and protect their turf. Allow the re-evacuation (return) of children and pregnant women to all residential areas where the combined calculated dose will not exceed 10 rem for the first year (237 residential areas in total), and there where the calculated doses of radiation exposure (without the restriction of the consumption of contaminated foods) surpasses 10 rem,from October 1, 1986(174 residential areas) Israel, Burenkov, Aleksandrov. This is despite the fact that a month earlier the head of the State Committee for Hydrometeorology Yuri Israel reported: Areas with radiation levels higher than 5 mR/hr () are recognized as dangerous for people to live in. The 1987 report Radioactive Fallout from the Chernobyl Nuclear Reactor AccidentThe Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory performed a variety of measurements to determine the level of the radioactive fallout on the western United States. Washington, D.C., August 15, 2019 Documents from the highest levels of the Soviet Union, including notes, protocols and diaries of Politburo sessions in the immediate aftermath of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster in 1986, detail a sequence of cover-up, revelation, shock, mobilization, individual bravery, and bureaucratic turf battles in the Soviet reaction, according to the Top Secret Chernobyl e-book published today by the National Security Archive. () At present, there are around 10 thousand tons of meat with contamination levels of radioactive materials from 1.1*10-7 Ci/kg to 1.0*10-g Ci/kg in storage in fridges of the meat industry in a number of regions, in August to December of this year it is expected that another 30 thousand tons of such meat will enter into production. And then comes the recommendation: disperse the meat contaminated with radioactive material around the country as much as possible, and use it for the production of sausage products, canned goods, and manufactured meat products at a ratio of one to 10 with normal meat.. When? (HDA SBU, Fond 11, Sprava 992, Tom 29). Secret. Virginia Gewin. Attachment to paragraph 10 of Protocol No. At the end of the session Gorbachev gives sweeping instructions on removing several ministers and lower-level officials for failure to prevent and deal with the consequences of the accident. (HDA SBU, Fond. Outside of the Soviet Union (USSR), the world was unaware of the Chernobyl accident until April 28, 1986, two days after the meltdown of Reactor No. The brochure discusses the reasons for the accident and compares Chernobyl and Soviet-style plants to those in the West, concluding that the French and American reactors possess superior safety standards. It goes on to discuss the increased global use of nuclear energy and requests information from the USSR on the cause of the explosion so that the other nuclear countries can avoid such an accident. Top Secret Chernobyl: The Nuclear Disaster through the Eyes of the According to Malcolm Browne, a journalist for The New York Times, Sweden was ideally situated to peek under Moscows veil of secrecy surrounding the Chernobyl accident due its close proximity to the USSR. Topics covering the accident and its aftermath including domestic and international politics, sociological affairs, Chernobyl nuclear disaster plant fire, evacuations, sealing the reactor, cleanup mobilization, health implications, and people returning to region.DEPARTMENT OF ENGERY REPORTS1,244 pages of reports dating from 1982 to 2009 produced or commissioned by the Department of Energy.The agencies and institutions contributing to these reports include Los Alamos National Laboratory, United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Savannah River Nuclear Solutions, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Brookhaven National Laboratory, Argonne National Laboratory, and the Pacific Northwest Laboratory.Highlights include:The 1986 Report of the U.S. Department of Energy's Team Analyses of the Chernobyl-4 Atomic Energy Station Accident Sequence DOE/NE-0076.The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) formed a team of experts from Argonne National Laboratory, Brookhaven National Laboratory, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, and Pacific Northwest Laboratory. National Security Archive. Quote from Mieczyslaw Sowinski, head of the Polish atomic energy agency, explaining why Poland refrained from mentioning high radiation levels measured on April 27, 1986 (Kaufman and New York Times 1986). In this document, an unnamed KGB agent reports on the situation two weeks after the incident, including transportation and journalist suppression methods. The primary research for Midnight In Chernobyl encompassed hundreds of hours of interviews with scores of eye . This collection contains Ukrainian and national KGB reports, Communist Party directives, and Ukrainian Academy of Science measurements which discuss technical issues with the plant, details of the accident, and emergency responses across the republic. However, the veto in the only deputies copy center was imposed by a certain Vladimir Pronin from the secret sector of the Armed Forces of the USSR. The hot core material of reactor 4 started about 30 separate fires in the unit 4 reactor hall and turbine building, as well as on the roof of the adjoining unit 3. Articles and. Obtained through FOIA from the Central Intelligence Agency. Excerpts from this amazing document are available to us thanks to the extraordinary work by the first Director of the Russian state archival agency (Rosarchiv), Rudolph Pikhoia, who published them in his book on the history of the Soviet government. Committee for State Security (KGB), Ukraine. It was not until alarms from radiation detectors in other countries, many hundreds of miles away, forced the Soviets to admit to the Chernobyl accident.Radioactive material was dispersed over 60,000 square miles of Ukraine, Belarus, and Russia. () There are 10,198 people under in-patient examination and treatment, of which 345 people have symptoms of radiation sickness.. And the main deadly isotope leaking out the Chernobyl reactor was not Cesium-137, but Deception-86. As it follows from the documents, the first meeting of the Politburo group was held on April 29, 1986. Survivors of one of the world's worst ever nuclear accidents at the Chernobyl power plant in Ukraine on 26 April 1986 have been reflecting on the events of that fateful day 37 years ago, as. This document lists public responses to Chernobyl, citing a Ukrainian professor who attributed the accident to a Russian desire to exterminate Ukrainians, former members of underground Ukrainian Nationalist movements (OUN) expressing sympathy to those affected, and how several truck drivers refused to drive in area of the plant, choosing to quit their jobs instead. (1986, May 03). March 1st, 1984 Report to M. Z. Banduristiy, the KGB Chief of the Ukrainian SSR in Kiev and the surrounding region on the emergency at the 3rd and 4th units of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. Yet in response to these accidents more calls for stringent international nuclear safety measures entered public narratives of nuclear power. Extraordinary session of the CC CPSU Politburo. Top Secret Chernobyl is the first part of a two-volume documentary publication, taking the Chernobyl story through July 1986. Secret. The report said despite the high rate of cancer, only 15 fatalities in these 7,000 cases have occurred.THE DOCUMENTS - Chernobyl Primary DocumentsCIA FILES215 pages of CIA files dating from 1971 to 1991.The files cover the Soviet Union's atomic energy program; The effect of the Chernobyl accident on the Soviet nuclear power program; and the social and political ramifications of the accident in the Soviet Union.A 1981 report covers the less publicized Soviet nuclear "accident" near Kyshtym in 1957-58.Media reporting of the nuclear accident near Kyshtym first appeared in 1958. In two landmark studies, researchers have used cutting-edge genomic tools to investigate the potential health effects of exposure to ionizing radiation, a known carcinogen, from the 1986 accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in northern Ukraine. This document summarizes the specialists' report on the lack of reliability of the reactors at Chernobyl, citing that the lack of protective layers and other structural flaws in the reactor that could lead to radioactive contamination and accidents. "Thirty-seven years ago, the Chernobyl NPP accident left a huge scar on the whole world," Zelenskyy said in . A study of the claims by Medvedev can be found in the Department of Energy section, in the 1982 report "An Analysis of the Alleged Kyshtym Disaster"U.S. GOVERNMENT FOREIGN PRESS MONITORING900 pages of foreign media monitoring reports from 1986 to 1992, produced by the U.S. government's National Technical Information Service's U.S. Joint Publication Research Service. The National Security Archive is committed to digital accessibility. At the same time, Matlock believes that there are ways we can capitalize on this indirectly. He predicts correctly that one could expect an upsurge in generalized anti-nuclear sentiments, unless we act rapidly to lead public opinion. Matlock also outlines a notional proposal for the elimination of nuclear weapons clearly responding to Gorbachevs proposal of January 1986. April 27th, 1986 Untitled notice on levels of radiation in Chernobyl NPP and steps taken in response. Adam Higginbotham, author of "Midnight in Chernobyl," charts the official record of the Chernobyl disaster with documents from numerous Soviet archives. A report on how military personnel involved in the response to the Chernobyl accident are being improperly managed at the site, leading to inefficiencies in the cleanup process. It shows that updates from the construction site and first few years of plant operation were dire as early as the 1970s. Chernobyl is a wonderfully written, beautifully acted masterpiece which tells the story of the terrible nuclear accident which occurred at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in the USSR in 1986. Research Starter encyclopedia article about the Chernobyl nuclear accident. On April 29, 1986, the International Herald Tribune ran a front-page headline Nuclear Accident At Soviet Plant Causes Injuries. Much of the article described what was known about the Chernobyl accident, but the concluding paragraph shifts the narrative to the Three Mile Island accident, termed The worst commercial nuclear accident in the United States (Compiled by Our Staff from Dispatches 1986). His main criticism is about the lack of information, the level of secrecy, and the degree of incompetency that led to unnecessary human losses, especially among the fire-fighters. INR information memorandum from Morton Abramowitz to the Secretary of State: Estimate of fatalities at Chernobyl reactor accident. Radiation: The Chernobyl accident - WHO Smaller amounts of radioactive material were detected over Eastern and Western Europe, Scandinavia and even the United States. July 8th, 1986 Inventory of Information Subject to Classification on Issues related to the Accident in Block # 4 of the Chernobyl Atomic Energy Station (ChAES). The Chernobyl meltdown resulted in scores of deaths and contamination over a wide area. Samoilov, Head of the 3rd Department of the 6th Service of the KGB Administration of the USSR for the City of Moscow, 'Information about Several Problems in the Use of Atomic Energy Stations in the USSR' (HDA SBU, Fond 11, Sprava 992, Tom 6). Photo Credit: Ukrainian Society for Friendship and Cultural Relations with Foreign Countries (USFCRFC), The book by Alla Yaroshinskaya, "Chernobyl. Protocol No. (HDA SBU, Fond 11, Sprava 991, Tom 1). May 8th, 1986 Notice: Information from Places of Evacuation. Excerpt from the International Herald Tribune May 2, 1986 (Schmemann and New York Times Service 1986). Key sources include protocols of the Politburo Operational Group on Chernobyl that were published in Russian by the journalist and former Supreme Soviet deputy Alla Yaroshinskaya in 1992. This was a shock: the special services were watching all of the deputies actions! Volume 2. This collection contains Ukrainian and national KGB reports, Communist Party directives, and Ukrainian Academy of Science measurements which discuss technical issues with the plant, details of the accident, and emergency responses across the republic. Chernobyl Nuclear Accident, 1986 | Wilson Center Digital Archive INR Information Memorandum from Morton Abramowitz to the Secretary of State: Estimate of Fatalities at Chernobyl Reactor Accident. In fact, the number of people on the night shift was minimal and actual fatalities did total two on the first day of the accident. Chief of General Staff Marshal Sergey Akhromeyev reports on the Soviet militarys efforts to contain the fire and clean the most radioactive parts of the accident site. V. (HDA SBU, Fond 11, Sprava 992, Tom 6). Historic disaster. The first protocol reviews necessary measures to combat the damage done by the explosion in energy block 4. Note: For help with citing primary sources properly, check out this FAQ and be sure to reach out to your instructor with any questions you may have. We will write a custom Research Paper on Chernobyl Nuclear Plant Disaster: Primary and Secondary Sources specifically for you. 4. A chain reaction nuclear energy, as well as conservation efforts to help restore and protect those areas of ecosystems most effected by the Chernobyl accident. Milk from California and imported vegetables were also analyzed for radioactivity.Other report titles include: An Analysis of the Alleged Kyshtym Disaster; Workshop on Short-term Health Effects of Reactor Accidents; Preliminary Dose Assessment of the Chernobyl Accident; Internally Deposited Fallout from the Chernobyl Reactor Accident; Report on the Accident at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Station; Radioactive Fallout from the Chernobyl Nuclear Reactor Accident; Radioactivity in Persons Exposed to Fallout from the Chernobyl Reactor Accident' Radioactive Fallout in Livermore, CA and Central Northern Alaska from the Chernobyl Nuclear Reactor Accident; Projected Global Health Impacts from Severe Nuclear Accidents - Conversion of Projected Doses to Risks on a Global Scale - Experience From Chernobyl Releases; The Chernobyl Accident - Causes and Consequences; Chernobyl Lessons Learned Review of N Reactor; Reconstruction of Thyroid Doses for the Population of Belarus Following the Chernobyl Accident; The characterization and risk assessment of the Red Forest radioactive waste burial site at Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant; Estimated Long Term Health Effects of the Chernobyl Accident; and Environmental Problems Associated With Decommissioning the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant Cooling Pond.DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE REPORTS816 pages of reports dating from 1990 to 2010 produced or commissioned by the Department of Defense.The reports include: Chernobyl Accident Fatalities and Causes; Biomedical Lessons from the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant Accident; Nuclear Accidents in the Former Soviet Union Kyshtym, Chelyabinsk and Chernobyl; Retrospective Reconstruction of Radiation Doses of Chernobyl Liquidators by Electron Paramagnetic Resonance; Neurocognitive and Physical Abilities Assessments Twelve Years After the Chernobyl Nuclear Accident; Simulating Wet Deposition of Radiocesium from the Chernobyl Accident; and Radiation Injuries After the Chernobyl Accident Management, Outcome, and Lessons Learned.GAO REPORTS184 pages of reports from the United States General Accounting Office, whose name was later changed to the Government Accountability Office. (Please note, encyclopedias/tertiary sources should NOT be cited in your assignment. Archive of the President of the Russian Federation (APRF), Record of Session of the CC CPSU Politburo, 28 April 1986, working copy, published in Rudolph Pikhoia, Sovetskii Soyuz: Istoriya Vlasti, 1945-1991 (Novosibirsk: Sibirskii Khronograph, 2000), pp. 202-994-7000 ornsarchiv@gwu.edu. These protocols, and all the granular details of how the Soviet leadership dealt with the accident day-by-day, are available to scholars and citizens due to the courage and decisiveness of a brave Russian journalist and subsequently member of the first democratically elected Supreme Soviet, Alla Yaroshinskaya, who published these protocols after the August 1991 coup in Moscow. 127160). The accident has left some nearby towns uninhabitable to this day.Radioactivity forced Soviet officials to create a 30-kilometer-wide no-habitation zone around Chernobyl, sealing off Pripyat. Explore newspaper articles, headlines, images, and other primary sources below. 4. These excerpts provide a practically verbatim account of the first discussion of the Chernobyl accident by the full Politburo. The MIT Press. If you experience a barrier that affects your ability to access content on this page, let us know via ourContact form. Primary Sources - Rights and Responsibilities of the Chernobyl Accident April 27th, 1986 Notice from the Operative Plenipotentiary of the 2nd Division of the 6th Administration of the Ukr. It is part of the Wilson Center's History and Public Policy Program.