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 the situation by scientists. On Saturday, after instruments at the Kiev Institute of Botany registered a sharp increase in radiation, KGB officers arrived and sealed the devices “to avoid panic and the spreading of provocative rumors.” Even so, by the time General Secretary Gorbachev assembled the
...more
