THE VIENNA CONGRESS

DATE : 25 - 29 of August 1986

LOCATION : Vienna, Austria

OUTCOME : Public relations triumph for the Soviet Union

The Soviet government were happy that the conference was considered a public relations triumph as the actual information of the Chernobyl disaster was being contained and they could improve their faulty nuclear reactor power in the future without world’s suspicion or media scrutiny. Unfortunately for Legasov, who was deeply concerned and traumatized by the whole incident and wanted to ensure it will never happen again in the future, was deeply disappointed and lost faith in his own government once he was deeply committed to it which is why we could not afford any of his views of the disaster be shared to the public.

It is noted that Legasov will be the only one in the commission not be awarded the ‘Hero of the Socialist Labor’ due to his habit of violating the chain of command and his lack of deference to the scientific establishment had irked senior members of the scientific community especiallly after the Chernobyl nuclear disaster and his undisclosed report of his investigation.

RECORDED STATEMENT FROM THE LEGASOV TAPES

DATE: Unknown

TAPE VARIANT: The Legasov Tapes (Tape 4 Side A)

RECORDED BY: Valery Legasov

SUBJECT:

PART: #003 Legasov describing his involvement with the liquidation

STATEMENT TRANSACRIPT:

“

And when I visited the Chernobyl station after the accident and saw what was happening there, I myself drew a precise and unequivocal conclusion, that the Chernobyl disaster is an apotheosis, the pinnacle of all the mismanagement that has been carried out for decades in our country. ... [In operation there was] No careful monitoring of the instrument, no attention to the condition of the equipment between planned preventive maintenance... When one looks at the chain of events, why someone acted in this way and another in that way and so on, it is impossible to point to a single culprit, an initiator of all the unpleasant events that led to the crime. Because it is a chain that links to itself... allowing operation of stations without an external localisation shelter. This mistake was fundamental... The first design mistake was that there should be at least two emergency protection systems, as required by international standards and as common sense suggests... second emergency protection system must work independently, whatever the circumstances of the operator may

And finally, the third design mistake, which is hard to explain, was that all the numerous emergency protection systems were accessible to the station staff... Of course, the mistakes made by the operators are well known and there is no need to list them yet again. These mistakes themselves are monstrous... I would very much like to ask to make such a statement that, as of today, we do not have safe nuclear energy, or a concept of safe nuclear energy, or even a concept of a safe nuclear reactor that is completely ready...

Legasov expressed concerns that a similar nuclear accident could still occur during an interview with journalist Ales Adamovich while hospitalized at Moscow Hospital 6 in Moscow, Soviet Union