On 26 April 1986, the landscape of Pripyat, in the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, would change forever. Pripyat was home to the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant, whose Number 4 reactor exploded that day, setting off a chain of horrific events that would cause insurmountable damage and impact tens of thousands of innocent lives.
Never one to publicize its calamities until forced to do so, the Soviet Union stayed mum about the explosion for as long as possible, all the while trying to contain the on-site damage and doing its best to protect the surrounding population through a series of evacuations. Less than 18 hours after the accident, radiation alarms were triggered at Sweden’s Forsmark plant, more than 1000 kilometers from Chernobyl, and after political finagling and threats, the Soviet Union finally acknowledged that yes, indeed, a bit of a mishap occurred at the Chernobyl station.
Word of the accident spread quickly once Western media became aware, and anxious calls were made to foreigners visiting Ukraine from worried family members and friends – Did you hear? A nuclear accident! A potential public affairs nightmare in the making, to say the least. By the morning of 30 April 1986, the Head of the Ukrainian KGB, Stepan Mukha, felt obliged to alert Volodymyr Shcherbytsky, the Head of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Ukraine to the increasing anxiety of their foreign guests, particularly against the backdrop of ensuring security for the upcoming May Day celebrations, still being held in spite of the radiation levels across Ukraine. The following translation of the resulting Secret special report provides the details.
We’ll be translating and publishing a number of declassified documents associated with Chernobyl over the coming months, in the run-up to the 40th anniversary of the disaster. We’ll be identifying the material through the tag “Chernobyl” for ease of discovery.
Note: All names taken from the body of the report were transliterated into the language of the surname country of origin to the best of our ability.
30 April 1986
STATE SECURITY COMMITTEE OF THE UKRAINIAN SSR
No. 94
Secret
Copy No. 1
CENTRAL COMMITTEE OF THE COMMUNIST PARTY OF UKRAINE
to comrade V.V. SHCHERBYTSKY
SPECIAL REPORT
Update on situation among foreigners regarding the accident at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant
According to operational and official data received by the KGB of the Ukrainian SSR, on April 29 of this year persistent attempts were noted on the part of employees of diplomatic and other missions of the US, France, and Canada in Moscow, and correspondents and other foreigners, to obtain information in connection with the accident at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant.
An employee of the French Embassy in the USSR, Vantomme, in a telephone conversation with his fellow countryman A. Por, who was on an internship in Kyiv, asked to inform him of any information concerning the explosion; he was interested in whether he had noticed any unusual traffic movements in Kyiv; he noted that, as a precaution, the embassy considered it advisable to recall the interns to Moscow until more precise information was received about possible consequences of the explosion.
A female student of the Russian language courses from England, M. Court, a Canadian citizen suspected of involvement in foreign national centers, informed an employee at the Canadian Embassy, D. Goulet, about the accident that had taken place by phone. The diplomat asked to inform the embassy about any changes in the situation in the city, specifically regarding the possible cessation of bus traffic, which could indicate the mobilization of transport for the evacuation of the population.
The American embassy staff (who were not named) called the regional epidemiological station, trying to find out the radiation level in the accident site and in Kyiv, and asked the staff of the Dnepr Hotel about the situation among the city’s population.
Similar questions were addressed to the Academy of Sciences of the Ukrainian SSR, the State Television and Radio Broadcasting Company of the Ukrainian SSR, the hotels Dnepr, Lybid, and Rus by correspondents of English, French, and Swedish newspapers and an employee of the Swiss company Brown Bovary.
The administrator of the Italian company Danieli, whose specialists are working on the construction of a heavy-duty drill pipe factory, made certain from management the events that had occurred would not affect the health of foreign specialists and that they would not interfere with their work. The head of a group of specialists from the Finnish company Lemkon at the Gorky Sewing Corporation (Kyiv) tried to drive a car to the accident site without the appropriate permission, explaining to the traffic police that he intended to find out the circumstances and seriousness of the incident.
Taking into account the attempts of individual officials of various Western organizations to contact countrymen staying in Intourist hotels, and in order to prevent the transmission of distorted and negative information, officials are reaching out to the heads of tour groups and individual foreign tourists. As a result, in response to provocative questions from a representative of the travel agency Finnair in Moscow, the head of one of the American groups, D. Tharrow, objectively covered the situation in Kyiv, and reported on the normal operations of businesses and transport. Then Tharrow gave an interview of similar content to a representative of the CAA broadcasting company, L. Stuart, who called him from the US, and who reported that views are emerging in the US regarding a state of emergency in Kyiv, panic, robberies, etc. Tharrow categorically rejected these allegations.
In a telephone conversation with US State Department employee T. Miller, a tourist from England, D. Smith, who is staying at the Lybid Hotel, reported that the situation in Kyiv is normal, excursion programs are being held according to plan, the city is not closed, and foreigners continue to arrive and depart freely.
Some of the foreigners in Kyiv (6060) are exhibiting signs of nervousness and are urgently trying to leave the city. A group of students from England who are taking Russian language courses asked their instructor to contact the US Embassy to find out if they can continue to stay in Kyiv. A group of US tourists (31 people) intended to purchase airline tickets to Leningrad ahead of schedule through Rus Hotel management. The situation in the group was pacified through operational means.
Individual interns from Canada (14 people in total) spoke negatively about the media in the USSR, “concealing the true situation,” demanding to be immediately sent back to Canada, via the Rodina society. Positive influence is exerted on foreigners through operational and official means.
The overwhelming majority of foreign students do not attach any serious importance to the incident, treating it as an accident “against which no one is insured.” Some of them express indignation that the Western media is inflating an unhealthy situation in terms of the Chernobyl accident.
Through operational and official means, monitoring of the situation among foreigners continues in order to prevent possible negative developments, and to identify and suppress attempts by some of them to conduct malign activities, taking into account the need to ensure security during upcoming May Day celebrations.
CHAIRMAN OF THE COMMITTEE OF STATE SECURITY OF THE UKRAINIAN SSR
[signed] S. MUKHA
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