As the deputy prime minister of the USSR, Aliyev was one of the most powerful men in the Soviet Union. Once the head of the Azerbaijani KGB, and one of only twelve voting members of the Politburo, he held joint responsibility for making the most profound decisions affecting the course of the empire. Yet by Monday morning, even Aliyev knew only the vaguest details about a nuclear accident in Ukraine. Not one word about Chernobyl had appeared in the Soviet press or been reported on radio or television. Authorities in Kiev, without prompting from Moscow, had already acted to suppress awareness of
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