Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant-Moment in time

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Robert Richardson

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MOMENT IN TIME: APRIL 28, 1986

NW-MIT-CHERNOBYL-ADMIT-0427
FILE – This April 1986 aerial file photo shows the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, the site of the world’s worst nuclear accident, as made two to three days after the explosion in Chernobyl, Ukraine. (AP Photo/File) 
It was only 41 words but Mikhail Gorbachev, the last general secretary of the Communist Party, later described the events as leading to the collapse of the Soviet Union. At 9:02 p.m., on April 28, 1986, the Soviet Union issued a statement: “There has been an accident at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant. One of the nuclear reactors was damaged. The effects of the accident are being remedied. Assistance has been provided for any affected people. An investigative commission has been set up.” The accident happened two days previous and it was still early in Gorbachev’s policy of glasnost, which was meant to leverage the ingenuity of the Soviet citizen to address the problems of their system and seek solutions through openness and transparency in government. The policy had the opposite effect. The attempted cover-up of the world’s worst nuclear disaster showed Soviet citizens the hypocrisy of glasnost and that their government and industry were inferior and incompetent. The outcome was open dissent. The Berlin Wall fell in 1989 and Gorbachev resigned after an attempted coup in 1991, effectively ending 74 years of Communist rule. – Graeme Harris

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