Word: chernobyls
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...minute speech was more than just an official explanation of the Chernobyl disaster, which forced the evacuation of nearly 100,000 Soviet people. It was a dogged effort by Gorbachev to strike back at foreign critics and limit the severe damage to Soviet prestige caused by the accident and by Moscow's initial refusal to let the rest of the world know what had happened. As workers labored to encase the crippled reactor in concrete and render it harmless, Gorbachev strove to seize the offensive and contain the worst political fallout from the disaster...
...system that would alert the world in the event of future nuclear power mishaps. He also rather clumsily linked the dangers of atomic power with the threat of nuclear weapons, noting that "inherent in the nuclear arsenals stockpiled are thousands upon thousands of disasters far more horrible than the Chernobyl one." Gorbachev then disingenuously invited President Reagan to meet in Europe "or, say, in Hiroshima" to negotiate a test moratorium. He pointedly extended the Soviet Union's own ten-month test ban until Aug. 6, which marks the 41st anniversary of the Hiroshima bombing. In Geneva, meanwhile, Soviet negotiators offered...
While he played the dove on nuclear issues, Gorbachev lashed out aggressively at sensational Western news reports of the Chernobyl disaster. Said he: "Generally speaking, we faced a veritable mountain of lies--most dishonest and malicious lies." The Soviet leader spoke of stories citing "thousands of casualties, mass graves of the dead, desolate Kiev, that the entire land of the Ukraine has been poisoned, and on and on." Such accounts, Gorbachev said, reflected the desire of "certain Western politicians" to "defame the Soviet Union" and deflect growing criticism of the "militaristic course" of U.S. policy...
...talk, Gorbachev spoke more deliberately about the suffering at Chernobyl. He reported that two workers had been killed by the initial explosion and flames that tore through the plant at 1:23 in the morning, and that seven other people had died after being treated for acute radiation sickness. By week's end the death toll had climbed to 13. In all, 299 victims were hospitalized (see box). The Soviet leader said that it was too early to determine the precise cause of the accident, which apparently began with a sudden power surge while the reactor was undergoing maintenance. That...
Other nations continued to seek protection from possible nuclear fallout. After arduous debate, the twelve member nations of the European Community agreed to ban all meat and farm products from East European countries affected by the fallout from Chernobyl. The boycott will remain in effect at least through May. The move infuriated exporters such as Yugoslavia and Poland, which rely on hard currency raised from agricultural sales to pay off foreign debts. Officials in Warsaw were especially angered by a U.S. plan to ship powdered milk for distribution in Poland through nongovernment agencies. Their bitter retort: an offer to send...