Even the regulations governing when it was necessary to tell the population that a radiation leak had taken place were contradictory, and it was unclear who had the final say in authorizing evacuation. Scherbina may have feared creating panic in Pripyat. But at that point, he had little reason to believe that Soviet citizens—long hardened to news of misfortune and distrustful of official information—would really lose their heads if warned of an accident; more urgent was the state’s compulsion for secrecy.
