perm filename APWIRE[SJM,JMC] blob
sn#822806 filedate 1986-08-15 generic text, type C, neo UTF8
COMMENT ā VALID 00592 PAGES
C REC PAGE DESCRIPTION
C00001 00001
C00037 00002 accident/tragedy/disaster/catastrophe/meltdown/explosion
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C03822 00437 a068 0543 24 May 86
C03831 00438 a201 0854 24 May 86
C03841 00439 a204 0905 24 May 86
C03843 00440 //08 0927 24 May 86
C03850 00441 a204 0906 25 May 86
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C03932 00451 a054 0356 27 May 86
C03938 00452 a066 0508 27 May 86
C03941 00453 a069 0523 27 May 86
C03943 00454 a002 2136 27 May 86
C03954 00455 PM-Digest Advisory,0094
C03961 00456 a025 0102 28 May 86
C03983 00457 a074 0722 28 May 86
C03994 00458 a002 2128 28 May 86
C03997 00459 a043 0306 29 May 86
C04004 00460 a066 0601 29 May 86
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C04149 00473 a219 1213 31 May 86
C04156 00474 a235 1524 31 May 86
C04165 00475 a240 1613 31 May 86
C04174 00476 a258 1803 31 May 86
C04177 00477 a008 0410 01 Jun 86
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C04195 00479 a215 1110 01 Jun 86
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C04219 00481 a254 1557 01 Jun 86
C04229 00482 a014 0010 02 Jun 86
C04240 00483 a032 0254 02 Jun 86
C04243 00484 a043 0344 03 Jun 86
C04252 00485 a071 0650 03 Jun 86
C04256 00486 a041 0305 04 Jun 86
C04260 00487 a035 0204 05 Jun 86
C04264 00488 a046 0343 05 Jun 86
C04269 00489 a002 2119 05 Jun 86
C04280 00490 a020 2350 05 Jun 86
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C04337 00498 a201 0832 08 Jun 86
C04340 00499 a208 0939 08 Jun 86
C04344 00500 a210 1008 08 Jun 86
C04353 00501 a288 1914 08 Jun 86
C04359 00502 a003 2130 08 Jun 86
C04364 00503 a036 0236 10 Jun 86
C04368 00504 a060 0536 10 Jun 86
C04378 00505 a036 0254 11 Jun 86
C04384 00506 a076 0716 13 Jun 86
C04390 00507 a201 0915 14 Jun 86
C04402 00508 a214 1020 14 Jun 86 AM-Chernobyl Children, Bjt,0981
C04415 00509 a232 1235 14 Jun 86
C04422 00510 a251 1535 14 Jun 86
C04431 00511 a201 0826 15 Jun 86
C04442 00512 a289 2101 15 Jun 86
C04445 00513 a002 2126 15 Jun 86
C04457 00514 a005 2152 15 Jun 86
C04463 00515 a022 0045 16 Jun 86
C04471 00516 a044 0408 16 Jun 86
C04473 00517 a036 0254 16 Jun 86
C04480 00518 a002 2135 16 Jun 86
C04492 00519 a023 0034 17 Jun 86
C04497 00520 a055 0506 17 Jun 86
C04501 00521 a026 0154 18 Jun 86
C04516 00522 a053 0425 19 Jun 86
C04520 00523 a009 2238 19 Jun 86
C04526 00524 a062 0726 20 Jun 86
C04538 00525 a005 2145 20 Jun 86
C04540 00526 a034 0208 21 Jun 86
C04544 00527 a052 0406 21 Jun 86
C04546 00528 a215 1048 21 Jun 86
C04549 00529 a204 0908 22 Jun 86 M-Chernobyl-Nuclear,0443
C04554 00530 a213 1057 22 Jun 86
C04557 00531 a026 0148 23 Jun 86 PM-TV-Women's Summit,0600
C04571 00532 a072 0659 25 Jun 86 PM-Religion Roundup, Adv 27,0626
C04578 00533 a033 0230 26 Jun 86 PM-Ireland-Divorce, Bjt,0643
C04586 00534 a034 0241 26 Jun 86 PM-Europe-South Africa, Bjt,0606
C04599 00535 a245 1601 29 Jun 86 AM-Chernobyl-Nuclear,0234
C04602 00536 a227 1400 29 Jun 86 Soviets-Jackson,0345
C04607 00537 a079 0905 30 Jun 86 Gorbachev Says United States Sabotages Arms Control
C04613 00538 a053 0447 03 Jul 86 PM-Chernobyl Recovery,0241
C04616 00539 a055 0453 03 Jul 86 PM-BRF--Australia-Chernobyl,0138
C04618 00540 a042 0223 04 Jul 86 PM-Chernobyl-Britain,0316
C04622 00541 a048 0322 05 Jul 86 PM-Chernobyl-Nuclear,0580
C04628 00542 a201 0952 05 Jul 86
C04640 00543 a211 1101 05 Jul 86 AM-Europe-Chernobyl, Bjt,0705
C04648 00544 a212 1113 05 Jul 86 AM-Chernobyl-Nuclear,0693
C04655 00545 a252 1530 06 Jul 86 AM-Soviet-Ecology,0626
C04662 00546 a251 1536 05 Jul 86
C04666 00547 a230 1406 08 Jul 86 AM-Chernobyl,0380
C04670 00548 a077 0715 11 Jul 86 PM-Survival '86, Adv 14 - 2 Takes,0770
C04678 00549 a295 2101 13 Jul 86
C04681 00550 a214 1137 15 Jul 86
C04684 00551 a245 1638 15 Jul 86
C04690 00552 a043 0353 16 Jul 86
C04694 00553 a018 0006 17 Jul 86
C04701 00554 a288 2055 17 Jul 86
C04704 00555 a042 0343 18 Jul 86
C04712 00556 a212 1119 18 Jul 86
C04714 00557 a222 1242 18 Jul 86
C04721 00558 a055 0419 19 Jul 86
C04731 00559 n999 0748 19 Jul 86
C04735 00560 a212 1020 19 Jul 86
C04740 00561 a240 1406 19 Jul 86
C04749 00562 a201 0836 20 Jul 86
C04758 00563 a223 1146 20 Jul 86
C04766 00564 a266 1602 20 Jul 86
C04773 00565 a284 1744 20 Jul 86
C04777 00566 a030 0216 21 Jul 86
C04784 00567 a279 2052 21 Jul 86
C04787 00568 a078 0719 22 Jul 86
C04792 00569 a079 0728 22 Jul 86
C04798 00570 a053 0505 23 Jul 86
C04805 00571 a213 1224 23 Jul 86
C04808 00572 a238 1623 23 Jul 86
C04814 00573 a056 0428 24 Jul 86
C04825 00574 a201 1034 24 Jul 86
C04836 00575 a219 1233 24 Jul 86
C04848 00576 a235 1408 27 Jul 86
C04866 00577 a280 1914 27 Jul 86
C04871 00578 a050 0435 02 Aug 86
C04878 00579 a079 0833 02 Aug 86
C04885 00580 a228 1321 02 Aug 86
C04904 00581 a256 1707 02 Aug 86
C04916 00582 a204 0916 03 Aug 86
C04923 00583 a237 1436 03 Aug 86 AM-Soviets-Trust Group,0323
C04930 00584 a206 1058 06 Aug 86 BC-Hanford Reactor,0408
C04935 00585 a079 0833 09 Aug 86 PM-Chernobyl,0458
C04940 00586 a080 0841 09 Aug 86 PM-Chernobyl-Oregon,0412
C04945 00587 a223 1200 09 Aug 86 AM-Kiev-Chernobyl, Bjt,0936
C04965 00588 a251 1608 09 Aug 86 AM-Seabrook Sit-In,0544
C04971 00589 a067 0700 11 Aug 86 PM-Gale-Chernobyl,0502
C04977 00590 a018 0026 13 Aug 86 ::-Reagan, Bjt,0769
C04994 00591 a023 0116 14 Aug 86 PM-Nuclear Waste,0401
C04999 00592 a063 0558 14 Aug 86 PM-Chernobyl,0357
C05003 ENDMK
Cā;
accident/tragedy/disaster/catastrophe/meltdown/explosion
spew/plume
a080 0725 28 Apr 86
PM-Sweden-Radiation,0263
Increased Radiation from Soviet Union, Swedish Official Says
by JOHANN RAPP
STOCKHOLM, Sweden (AP) - Slight increases in radiation levels
detected near a nuclear power plant in eastern Sweden apparently were
caused by a radiation leak in the Soviet Union, a Swedish official
said today.
Bo Holmquist, a senior official in the regional government in
Uppsala, north of Stockholm, which supervises Sweden's Forsmark
nuclear power plant, said increased radiation was discovered around
the plant this morning.
''But the source of the leak is somewhere to the east of us and to
the east of Finland, if you know what I mean,'' he told The
Associated Press in a telephone interview after the Swedish news
agency TT reported increased radiation was detected outside the
Forsmark plant.
Holmquist, whose remarks clearly referred to the Soviet Union, said
radiation from a leak there had probably been carried by the wind to
large parts of the Swedish coast.
It is about 120 miles from the Soviet Union to the Swedish mainland
at its closest point across the Baltic sea.
''The radiation level was very weak, but it showed on Forsmark's
sensitive equipment,'' Holmquist said. He added that the levels
presented no danger.
In accordance with an alert procedure that goes into effect if a
leak is suspected at Forsmark, some of the station's employees were
sent home, Holmquist said.
He said authorities began to suspect another source of radiation
when similar radioactive recordings were made at a monitoring station
in Nykoping, south of Stockholm.
AP-NY-04-28-86 1025EDT
- - - - - -
a087 0842 28 Apr 86
PM-Sweden-Radiation, 1st Add, a080,0221
Eds: Adds background, detail
STOCKHOLM: of Stockholm.
Holmquist said Swedish officials have been in contact with
authorities in Finland, and that increased radiation levels also have
been found there. He said the source of the radiation was not
Finland.
The news agency TT, Tidningarnas Telegrambyra, said the increased
radiation levels at Forsmark, 90 miles north of Stockholm, were
discovered when employees arrived this morning.
When they enter and leave the Forsmark plant, the workers' radiation
levels are routinely checked, officials said.
What was detected was radiation of ''a few millirem an hour, a
dosage which is harmless to people but illegally high for
discharges,'' Olle Blomqvist, an information officer at the State
Power Board was quoted as telling TT.
Almost the entire Baltic coast of the Soviet Union is closed to
foreigners. It was not known if there are nuclear facilities there.
There was no report in the Soviet media today of any radiation leak.
Soviet nuclear accidents never have been reported in the Soviet
Union, nor confirmed by Soviet officials.
However, exiled Soviet scientists have said there was a major
nuclear accident in the Chelyabinsk region of the Ural Mountains in
1958 that killed hundreds of people and contaminated a large area.
The region has since been off limits to everyone.
AP-NY-04-28-86 1142EDT
a201 1015 28 Apr 86
AM-News Digest,0981
For Tuesday AMs
Here are the top stories at this hour from The Associated Press. The
RADIATION LEAK: Cloud over Sweden Linked to Soviet Union
STOCKHOLM, Sweden - Slight increases in radiation levels detected
near a nuclear power plant in eastern Sweden apparently were caused
by a radiation leak in the Soviet Union, a Swedish official says.
Slug AM-Radiation Leak.
a206 1049 28 Apr 86
BC-Soviet-Nuclear,0197
URGENT
Soviets Report Nuclear Accident
MOSCOW (AP) - The Soviet government Monday reported a nuclear
accident at the Chernobyl power plant. It said one nuclear reactor
was damaged and those ''affected'' were being given aid.
The report was issued by the official Soviet news agency Tass after
Swedish officials said slight increases in radiation levels were
detected north of Stockholm, apparently because of a radiation leak
in the Soviet Union.
It was believed to be the first time the Soviets had reported a
nuclear accident. The accident report came in a brief dispatch from
the Soviet Council of Ministers carried by Tass.
The government said an investigatory commission has been set up,
adding, ''measures are being undertaken to eliminate the consequences
of the accident.''
One nuclear reactor was damaged in the accident, Tass said. The
report gave no other details.
There is a city in the Ukraine named Chernobyl, north of Kiev. It
was not clear from the Tass report whether that is where the nuclear
plant accident occurred.
The city of Chernobyl is some 750 miles from the area in Sweden
where officials reported increased radiation.
AP-NY-04-28-86 1348EDT
- - - - - -
a209 1121 28 Apr 86
BC-Soviet-Nuclear, 1st Ld-Writethru, a206,0549
URGENT
Eds: UPDATES thruout with more from Tass, details from Sweden. ADDS
byline.
By CAROL J. WILLIAMS
MOSCOW (AP) - The Soviet government reported a nuclear accident at
the Chernobyl power plant monday, saying one nuclear reactor was
damaged and those ''affected'' were being given aid.
Reports on the accident carried by the official Tass news agency did
not disclose whether there were any deaths. It was not immediately
known if the reference to those ''affected'' implied that some people
were injured.
The Tass reports were issued after Swedish officials said increased
radiation levels were detected north of Stockholm, apparently because
of a radiation leak in the Soviet Union. Similar increases in
radiation levels were reported in Finland.
It was believed to be the first time the Soviets had reported on a
nuclear accident. The initial accident report came in a brief
dispatch from the Soviet Council of Ministers that was carried by
Tass.
The government said an investigatory commission has been set up,
adding, ''measures are being undertaken to eliminate the consequences
of the accident.''
One nuclear reactor was damaged in the accident, Tass said. It gave
no other details.
There is a city in the Ukraine named Chernobyl, north of Kiev. It
was not clear from the Tass report whether that is where the nuclear
plant accident occurred.
The city of Chernobyl is some 750 miles from the area in Sweden
where officials reported increased radiation.
An editor answering the telephone at Tass said the nuclear plant was
in the Ukraine, but he was unsure whether it was actually in the city
of Chernobyl. Tass did not report when the accident occurred, and the
editor said he did not know.
Tass reported the accident was the first in the Soviet Union.
However, Western analysts and exiled Soviet scientists have said
there was a nuclear accident in the Chelyabinsk area of the Ural
Mountains in 1958 that killed hundreds of people and contaminated a
wide area. The region is still off limits.
A Swedish official reported earlier Monday that increased radiation
levels detected on Sweden's eastern coast apparently were caused by a
radiation leak in the Soviet Union.
Bo Holmquist, a senior official in the regional government in
Uppsala, north of Stockholm, which supervises Sweden's Forsmark
nuclear power plant, said increased radiation was discovered around
the plant Monday morning.
Holmquist told The Associated Press that radiation from a leak in
the Soviet Union had probably been carried by the wind to large parts
of the Swedish coast.
''The radiation level was very weak, but it showed on Forsmark's
sensitive equipment,'' he said, adding that the levels presented no
danger in Sweden.
In accordance with an alert procedure that goes into effect if a
leak is suspected at Forsmark, some of the station's employees were
sent home, Holmquist said.
He said authorities began to suspect another source of radiation
when similar radioactive recordings were made at a monitoring station
in Nykoping, south of Stockholm.
Holmquist said Swedish officials have been in contact with
authorities in Finland, and that increased radiation levels also have
been found there. He said the source of the radiation was not
Finland.
AP-NY-04-28-86 1421EDT
a226 1413 28 Apr 86
AM-Radiation Leak, Bjt,0780
Soviets Report Nuclear Accident, Say One Reactor Damaged
Eds: Stands for Stockholm-dated story on AMs News Digest
LaserGraphic upcoming
By CAROL J. WILLIAMS
MOSCOW (AP) - The Soviet Union on Monday reported a nuclear accident
that damaged an atomic reactor at the Chernobyl power plant and said
that people affected were being given aid.
Announcement by the official news agency Tass followed reports from
Sweden that increased radiation levels were detected north of
Stockholm, more than 750 miles northwest of the Ukranian town of
Chernobyl. Finland also reported increased radiation, but both
countries said the levels were not dangerous.
The Soviets reported it was the first nuclear accident in the Soviet
Union and that a government commission was set up, an indication that
the accident was serious.
The first, brief Tass announcement did not say when the accident
occurred or give details beyond saying, ''Measures are being
undertaken to eliminate the consequences of the accident. Aid is
being given to those affected.''
A subsequent Tass report said it was the first such accident in the
Soviet Union, ''although in other countries similar incidents have
occurred more than once.'' But the reports did not say if any deaths
resulted and it was not immediately known if the reference to those
''affected'' implied that some people were injured.
Swedish officials would not name the source of the radiation
detected at the Forsmark nuclear power plant north of Stockholm, but
said Sweden had received no warning.
Bo Holmquist, a senior regional government official responsible for
the Forsmark plant, told The Associated Press in Sweden, ''The source
of the leak is somewhere to the east of us and to the east of
Finland, if you know what I mean.''
Energy Minister Birgitta Dahl also declined to identify the source
of the radiation but said it was ''unacceptable that the Swedish
authorities had been given no notification.''
In New York, Eugene Ganthorn, an analyst at the office of the Atomic
Industrial Forum, a U.S. industry group of utilities and suppliers,
said the Chernobyl plant is located at a new town called Pripyat near
Chernobyl.
The plant consists of four 1,000-megawatt reactors of identical
design constructed in 1977, 1978, 1981 and 1983. He said it is a
light-water cooled, graphite-moderated design not used in the United
States.
Ganthorn said it was not known if any of the four Soviet reactors
had a containment structure like the steel and concrete surrounding
key components of all U.S. plants, including the reactor.
Ganthorn said the Atomic Industrial Forum had no idea what happened
at the Soviet reactor.
It was believed to be the first time the Soviets had reported on a
nuclear accident. The initial accident report came in a four-sentence
Tass dispatch of an announcement from the Soviet Council of
Ministers, or government.
Tass spoke of the Chernobyl power plant, but did not give its
location. Chernobyl is north of Kiev, capital of the Ukraine, and an
editor answering the telephone at the Tass office said the plant was
located in the Ukraine.
The editor said he did not know when the accident occurred.
Although Tass said it was the first such accident in the Soviet
Union, Western analysts and exiled Soviet scientists have said there
was a nuclear accident in the Chelyabinsk area of the Ural Mountains
in 1958 that killed hundreds of people and contaminated a wide area.
The region is still off limits.
The initial four-sentence Tass report said:
''An accident has occurred at the Chernobyl atomic power plant as
one of the atomic reactors was damaged.
''Measures are being undertaken to eliminate the consequences of the
accident. Aid is being given to those affected.
''A government commission has been set up.''
But first word came from Sweden when the radiation, apparently blown
across the Baltic Sea, was detected.
''The radiation level was very weak, but it showed on Forsmark's
sensitive equipment,'' Holmquist said. He added that the levels
presented no danger in Sweden.
In accordance with an alert procedure that goes into effect if a
leak is suspected at Forsmark, some of the station's employees were
sent home, Holmquist said.
Holmquist said Swedish officials have been in contact with
authorities in Finland, and that increased radiation levels also have
been found there.
What was detected was radiation of ''a few millirem an hour, a
dosage which is harmless to people but illegally high for
discharges,'' Olle Blomqvist, an information officer at the State
Power Board was quoted as telling the Swedish news agency TT.
AP-NY-04-28-86 1713EDT
- - - - - -
a238 1535 28 Apr 86
AM-Radiation Leak, 1st Ld, a226,0602
Soviets Report Nuclear Accident, Say Reactor Damaged
Eds: New and edited grafs 1-15, RECASTS lead, more Swedish comment,
White House comment, other material, picks up 16th pvs 'In New York'.
By CAROL J. WILLIAMS
MOSCOW (AP) - The Soviet Union said Monday that a nuclear accident
damaged an atomic reactor at the Chernobyl power plant in the
Ukraine, and Sweden reported radiation north of Stockholm, more than
750 miles away.
The official news agency, Tass, said people affected were being
aided, but did not say whether there were injuries or deaths, when
the accident occurred, nor the exact location of the plant.
Tass said it was the first nuclear accident in the Soviet Union and
a government commission was appointed, an indication that it was
serious.
Lars Erik de Geer of Sweden's Defense Research Agency said: ''It
must have been a relatively big accident, since we have received such
high levels of radiation from so far away.''
Finland reported picking up increased radiation Sunday night, but
neither it nor Sweden said the levels were dangerous. Denmark also
was recording increased levels, indicating radiation had blown from
the Ukraine over much of Scandinavia without warning.
Birgitta Dahl, Sweden's energy minister, said the Soviets were asked
for an extensive report and added: ''They should immediately have
warned us.''
She said initial inquiries drew the response that Soviet officials
were not aware of a radiation leak, but she said the questions
probably led to the unusual Soviet confirmation of the accident.
''We must demand higher safety standards in the Soviet Union,'' she
said, and Sweden may insist that the Soviet civil nuclear program be
overseen by the International Atomic Energy Agency, a U.N. agency.
White House spokesman Edward Djerejian said: ''It must be very
serious if the Soviets talk about it.''
Soviet media seldom report natural disasters or accidents unless
injuries and damage are widespread.
The first, brief Tass announcement did not give details beyond
saying, ''Measures are being undertaken to eliminate the consequences
of the accident. Aid is being given to those affected.''
A subsequent Tass report called it the first such accident in the
Soviet Union, ''although in other countries similar incidents have
occurred more than once.''
Tass mentioned the 1979 accident at Three Mile Island in
Pennsylvania, the worst accident at a U.S. commercial nuclear plant.
No deaths resulted there.
In Washington, Jim McKenzie of the the Union of Concerned
Scientists, an anti-nuclear group, said the information he had
''indicates probably a core meltdown.''
McKenzie said he drew the conclusion from being told by Swedish
reporters that radioactive iodine and cesium were present and
radiating at five to 10 times the natural levels. ''There must have
been quite a release of radioactivity,'' he said.
Asked about the core meltdown statement, Frank Graham, vice
president of the Atomic Industrial Forum for international affairs,
said, ''We don't know enough to say.''
At the State Department in Washington, U.S. officials said Swedish
diplomats told them they presume the accident caused fatalities
because the radiation was detected more than 700 miles from the
scene. But a Swedish Embassy official said he had heard no such
speculation.
Bo Holmquist, a senior regional Swedish government official
responsible for the Forsmark nuclear power plant north of Stockholm,
which detected the radiation, told The Associated Press: ''The source
of the leak is somewhere to the east of us and to the east of
Finland, if you know what I mean.''
In New York, 16th graf pvs.
AP-NY-04-28-86 1835EDT
- - - - - -
a245 1616 28 Apr 86
AM-Radiation Leak, 2nd Ld, a226,a238,0232
Soviets Report Nuclear Accident, Say Reactor Damaged
Eds: LEADS grafs 1-6 with de Geer saying levels corresponded to those
recorded in weapons tests. No reports from Eastern Europe.
By CAROL J. WILLIAMS
MOSCOW (AP) - The Soviet Union said Monday that a nuclear accident
damaged an atomic reactor at the Chernobyl power plant in the
Ukraine. Radiation swept across Finland, Denmark and Sweden, more
than 750 miles away.
The official news agency, Tass, said people affected were being
aided, but did not say whether there were injuries or deaths, when
the accident occurred, nor the exact location of the plant.
Tass said it was the first nuclear accident in the Soviet Union and
a government commission was appointed, an indication that it was
serious.
Lars Erik de Geer of Sweden's Defense Research Agency said: ''It
must have been a relatively big accident, since we have received such
high levels of radiation from so far away.''
He said the radiation levels corresponded to those recorded after
nuclear weapons' tests in the atmosphere during the 1970s. ''I know
of no earlier nuclear power plant accident which has led to such high
radiation levels in this area,'' he said.
Eastern European countries, much closer to the plant site than
Scandinavia, made no public reports of radiation level increases.
Finland reported, 6th graf pvs.
AP-NY-04-28-86 1915EDT
a243 1610 28 Apr 86
AM-Digest Briefs,0933
Eds: This package does not contain the following items from the News
Digest: WASHINGTON - US-Soviet Accident; WASHINGTON - Weapons
Shipments; HONOLULU - Reagan; PRINCETON, Mass. - Distraught Farmer;
NEW YORK - Satellite Pirates; SAN FRANCISCO - Whitworth; MOSCOW -
Tumanov; HAMPTON, Va. - Harvey; TOKYO - Japan-Emperor; SYDNEY,
Australia - Dinosaurs of Darkness.
MOSCOW (AP) - The Soviet Union said Monday that a nuclear accident
damaged an atomic reactor at the Chernobyl power plant in the
Ukraine, and Sweden reported radiation north of Stockholm, more than
750 miles away.
The official news agency, Tass, said people affected were being
aided, but did not say whether there were injuries or deaths, when
the accident occurred, nor the exact location of the plant.
Tass said it was the first nuclear accident in the Soviet Union and
a government commission was appointed, an indication that it was
serious.
a246 1626 28 Apr 86
AM-US-Soviet Accident,0576
URGENT
With AM-Radiation Leak Bjt
US Trying To Assess Effects Of Soviet Nuclear Accident
By GUY DARST
WASHINGTON (AP) - The nuclear accident in the Soviet Union is
presumed to have caused fatalities, U.S. officials said Monday,
citing reports from Swedish diplomats. A prominent scientist said the
type of radiation monitored in Scandinavia indicated there had been a
meltdown of the reactor's nuclear fuel.
The Soviet Union announced a nuclear accident damaged an atomic
reactor at its Chernobyl power plant in the Ukraine and said that
people affected were being given aid.
Ed Zebroski, chief nuclear scientist for the Electric Power Research
Institute in Palo Alto, Calif., said, ''If the radioactivity is a few
millirem 700 miles away, I'd hate to be within 10 miles'' of the
damaged plant.
''The fuel definitely melted,'' he said.
The report by the official news agency Tass did not disclose the
exact location of the plant, and gave no details about damage and did
not say whether there were injuries or deaths.
Soviet affairs experts at the State Department were surprised at the
quick disclosure of the accident. They said the Kremlin apparently
wanted to defuse speculation that the accident involved a nuclear
weapon and also recognized that the nuclear fallout was too extensive
to ignore publicly.
Officials speaking on condition of anonymity declined to elaborate
on the reports from Swedish officials regarding possible fatalities.
White House spokesman Larry Speakes told reporters aboard Air Force
One that to his knowledge, the United States had not been notified of
the accident through diplomatic channels. Speakes was with the
president, en route to Guam.
Some U.S. officials suggested an easterly wind could have had
serious consequences for the Soviet Union's western neighbors,
including Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary and Romania, all of which
are much closer to the accident site than the Scandinavian countries.
A U.S. anti-nuclear group, citing the type of radiation being
monitored, also raised the possibility of a core meltdown. But an
industry group said it was too early to tell what had happened.
Jim McKenzie of the Union of Concerned Scientists, an anti-nuclear
lobbying group, said he based his conclusion that the Soviet accident
involved core melting on information provided by Swedish reporters.
He said they told him that radioactivity five to 10 times the normal
level had been detected north of Stockholm, and that this included
iodine and cesium compounds.
Radioactive iodine and cesium are products of nuclear fission and
would be produced in uranium reactor fuel. For them to be found in
that strength at that distance, ''It indicates probably a core
melt,'' said McKenzie, a physicist who is the group's senior
scientist.
Meltdowns can occur when heat is produced in the reactor faster than
it can be carried away. This could lead to failure of the structure
of the reactor itself, the melting of its fuel core and dispersal of
its radioactive components through hydrogen explosions, steam
migration and other processes.
The Three Mile Island accident near Harrisburg, Pa., in 1979 was a
partial meltdown. No one was killed and very little radiation was
released. It was the United States' worst commercial nuclear
accident.
Asked if he agreed with McKenzie's assessment that a meltdown may
have occurred, Frank Graham, vice president of the Atomic Industrial
Forum for international affairs, said, ''We don't know enough to
say.''
AP-NY-04-28-86 1926EDT
- - - - - -
a258 1747 28 Apr 86
AM-US-Soviet Accident, INSERT, a246,0045
EDS: INSERTS 6th graf, 'The reactor ...' with location; moves up
reference to TMI
... or deaths, 6th graf.
The reactor is about 100 miles north of the city of Kiev, the State
Department said.
Soviet affairs, 7th graf pvs.
AP-NY-04-28-86 2046EDT
a268 1846 28 Apr 86
AM-Radiation-Injured,0261
URGENT
Budapest Radio Reports Casualties in Soviet Nuclear Plant Accident
Budapest, Hungary (AP) - The government-run radio reported early
Tuesday that people were injured in the accident at a Soviet nuclear
power station near the city of Kiev.
''There are injuries. ... The injured are being medically treated,''
said the broadcast on Budapest Radio. ''Steps are being taken to
eliminate the consequences of the accident.''
The broadcast referred to an official communique that it said was
read on Vremya, the main evening newscast in the Soviet Union. But in
Moscow, there had been no report of injuries. The Soviet Union's
official Tass news agency had referred only to aid being given to
those ''affected.''
It is highly unusual for Budapest Radio to carry information that
was not released in the Soviet Union.
''An accident has occurred at a Soviet nuclear power station at
Chernobyl. One reactor was damaged,'' said Budapest Radio, giving the
same information that was released in Moscow.
The radio report noted that Chernobyl is located at the junction of
two rivers, Pripyat and Uzh, ''where the Kiev water reservoir on the
Dniepr (river) begins.'' It made no other reference to the water
supply for Kiev, a city of 2.4 million.
''The cause and character of the accident, the number of casualties
and the size of damage are not known,'' the report said.
No warnings were made in Hungary about possible radiation from the
accident, although Scandinavian countries much farther away reported
levels 5 to 10 times above normal.
AP-NY-04-28-86 2146EDT
a002 2125 28 Apr 86
PM-News Digest,1114
Tuesday, April 29, 1986
Here are the top stories for PMs. The General Desk supervisor is Ron
RADIATION LEAK:
Soviets Admit Accident; Hungary Reports Injuries
MOSCOW - The Soviet Union says a nuclear accident damaged an atomic
reactor in the Ukraine and radiation was windblown across three
Scandinavian countries. The official Soviet news agency Tass says
people were ''affected,'' while Bupapest radio says there were
injuries. Slug PM-Radiation Leak.
Developing.
U.S. Scientists Say It's Much Worse than Three Mile Island
WASHINGTON - From the little that is known, U.S. scientists and
officials are concluding that the Soviet Union's nuclear accident is
a full-fledged fuel meltdown - and far worse than Three Mile Island.
Slug PM-US-Soviet Accident. New material, may stand.
By Guy Darst
Fallout Might Get Here By the Weekend, But Will Be Very Slight
WASHINGTON - Fallout from the Soviet nuclear accident might be
detectable in the United States by the weekend, but the amounts would
be so small that they would not present a health hazard here, a U.S.
nuclear expert says. Slug PM-Radiation-Health Effects.
a007 2158 28 Apr 86
PM-US-Soviet Accident, Bjt,0616
Soviet Nuclear Accident Seen Far Worse Than 1979 Three Mile Island
Incident
By GUY DARST
WASHINGTON (AP) - From the little that is known, U.S. scientists and
officials are concluding that the Soviet Union's nuclear accident is
a full-fledged fuel meltdown - and far worse than Three Mile Island.
The four-reactor complex at Chernobyl, about 100 miles north of
Kiev, probably has caused fatalities, U.S. officials concluded Monday
on the basis of reports from Swedish diplomats.
At the March 1979 accident at the Three Mile Island nuclear power
plant near Harrisburg, Pa., an estimated 250,000 people fled, but no
one was killed or directly injured.
A report Monday by the official Soviet news agency Tass provided no
details on injuries, but government-run radio in Hungary reported
that the accident had caused injuries. The Hungarian report also
noted that Chernobyl was located at the conjunction of two rivers,
near the reservoir that supplies Kiev, a city of 2.4 million people
and the capital of the Ukraine.
Three Mile Island is considered the worst commercial nuclear
accident that has occurred in the United States. It, too, involved a
partial melting of the nuclear fuel after valves and indicators
failed and operators made mistakes that resulted in loss of coolant
water and the uncovering of the fuel core.
Very little radioactivity was released, and most of that was in the
form of unreactive gases that quickly lost radioactivity and
dispersed. Most radioactivity was held in the giant, super-strong
containment building of steel and concrete which is standard for all
U.S. power reactors.
Thane Gustavson, a Soviet energy specialist at the Center for
Strategic and International Studies at Georgetown University, when
asked how the Soviet accident compared with Three Mile Island, told
Washington, D.C., television station WJLA, ''In the Soviet Union, we
seem to have something far worse.''
Soviet reactors are highly unusual in that most use graphite to slow
down neutrons and don't have containment structures. It was not
immediately clear whether the malfunctioning reactor at Chernobyl was
of this type or the pressurized water type like Three Mile Island.
In Scandinavia, radiation monitors recorded levels up to 10 times
normal for some types of radioactive fallout from the Soviet
accident. The State Power Board in Sweden described it as ''a few
millirem an hour.'' A chest X-ray is about 25 millirem.
That description led one U.S. expert, Ed Zebroski, to say, ''If the
radioactivity is a few millirem 700 miles away, I'd hate to be within
10 miles'' of the damaged plant.
Zebroski is chief nuclear scientist for the Electric Power Research
Institute in Palo Alto, Calif. He has visited Soviet reactors, though
not the complex at Chernobyl.
''The fuel definitely melted,'' he said, basing that conclusion on
radiation readings in Sweden of neptunium, a radioactive short-lived
artificial element, as well as cesium and iodine. All three are
produced in the fission of the uranium fuel of the reactor.
But Frank Graham, a vice president of the Atomic Industrial Forum,
said not enough was known to say whether a meltdown occurred.
A meltdown, possible in some but not all reactor designs, is a
severe accident because the fuel gets so hot that highly radioactive
fission products can be ''boiled off.'' Such fission products can be
carried in the air by steam for substantial distances if there is no
containment or if the containment structure is breached.
Zebroski, comparing the Chernobyl and Three Mile Island accidents,
said the ''most plausible'' maximum radiation dose outside the Three
Mile Island plant was about 10 millirems, less than half a chest
X-ray.
AP-NY-04-29-86 0058EDT
- - - - - -
a020 0009 29 Apr 86
PM-US-Soviet Accident, 1st Ld, a007,0175
Soviet Nuclear Accident Seen Far Worse Than 1979 Three Mile Island
Incident
EDs: UPDATES with administration offer to help
By GUY DARST
WASHINGTON (AP) - From the little that is known, U.S. scientists and
officials are concluding that the Soviet Union's nuclear accident is
a full-fledged fuel meltdown - and far worse than Three Mile Island.
The Reagan administration, responding to reports of the seriousness
of the accident, said today it would be willing to respond to Soviet
requests for aid in dealing with the problem.
President Reagan's chief of staff, Donald Regan, with the president
at a Guam refueling stop on the way to the Indonesian island of Bali,
said the United States ''could be helpful and would be if asked'' by
the Soviets to assist in dealing with the nuclear disaster.
''We have a lot of experience in how we can handle these things,
both medically and scientifically,'' Regan said after speaking to the
president about the accident.
The four-reactor, 2nd graf
AP-NY-04-29-86 0309EDT
- - - - - -
a029 0142 29 Apr 86
PM-News Digest, Advisory,0124
All the budgets have moved. Here is a list with Laserphoto numbers:
WASHINGTON - US-Soviet Accident, a007, a020
WASHINGTON - Meese-Terrorism, a010, LaserPhoto WX5
WASHINGTON - Radiation-Health Effects, a011
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. - Shuttle Remains, a013
WASHINGTON - Tax Rdp, a014
WASHINGTON - Teachers Survey, a015
WASHINGTON - Reserve Musters, a016
WASHINGTON - Weapons Shipments, a017
MUNHANGO, Angola - Angola-US, a018
MORRISTOWN, N.J. - Methodist-Nuclear, a019
NEW YORK - College Giving, a021
ANDERSEN AIR FORCE BASE, Guam - Reagan, a022
SAN FRANCISCO - Whitworth, a023
WINDSOR, England - Duchess-Burial, a024
BEIRUT - Abu Nidal, a025
MOSCOW - Radiation Leak, a027
The AP
AP-NY-04-29-86 0442EDT
- - - - - -
a082 0855 29 Apr 86
PM-US-Soviet Accident, 2nd Ld, a020,0477
URGENT
EDs: Tops with 14 grafs
By GUY DARST
WASHINGTON (AP) - The Chernobyl reactor that apparently experienced
a meltdown and other similar Soviet power plants have been plagued by
leaks for years, a retired U.S. atomic industry executive said today.
''They have had numerous small leaks with this type of
graphite-moderated pressure tube reactor,'' said Gordon Hurlbert,
retired president of Westinghouse Power Systems Co. ''This might have
been a massive leak into the charcoal. Charcoal and water don't mix
too well.''
From the little that is known, some U.S. scientists and officials
are concluding that the accident at the four-reactor Chernobyl
complex about 100 miles north of Kiev was a full-fledged fuel
meltdown.
Radio Moscow today labeled the accident a ''disaster.''
West German officials said they had been asked to make available
anti-radiation experts and medicine. Requests were also made to West
German and Swedish officials for information on fighting meltdown
fires, a seeming indication that radioactivity was still being
released into the atmosphere.
The Reagan administration, responding to reports of the seriousness
of the accident, said today it would be willing to respond to Soviet
requests for aid in dealing with the problem.
President Reagan's chief of staff, Donald Regan, said the United
States ''could be helpful and would be if asked. We have a lot of
experience in how we can handle these things, both medically and
scientifically,'' Regan said in Guam.
But spokesmen for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the Energy
Department and the Federal Emergency Management Agency as well as the
Atomic Industrial Forum, a trade group, all said they had not been
asked for help.
Hurlbert toured several Soviet nuclear plants in May 1983 as the
head of a U.S. committee to the World Energy Conference. While he did
not visit the Chernobyl plant, he said the U.S. team did tour a
''sister'' plant of the same design at Voronezh.
From information that the Soviets provided to the U.S. team,
Hurlbert said in a telephone interview today, it appears that the
reactor involved in the accident had no large concrete and steel
containment to prevent a release of radioactivity into the
atmosphere.
''There are four reactors at the Chernobyl site,'' Hurlbert said.
''Two pressurized water reactors that look very much like a
Westinghouse reactor have containments but the graphite-moderated
reactors do not.
''It would appear that it is one of the graphite-moderated reactors
without containment that had the accident,'' he said. ''They were in
buildings just like a factory building.''
Hurlbert described the design of the Soviet graphite-moderated
reactor as a cross between a Canadian CANDU reactor, which also
utilizes graphite, and a General Electric Co. boiling water reactor.
All U.S. nuclear power plants must have containment structures.
At The: 6th graf
AP-NY-04-29-86 1155EDT
a011 2230 28 Apr 86
PM-Radiation-Health Effects, Bjt,0684
US Experts Say Soviet Citizens May Not Face Great Health Risks
By LAURA KING
WASHINGTON (AP) - Fallout from the Soviet nuclear accident might be
detectable in the United States by the weekend, but the amounts would
be so small they would not present a health hazard here, a U.S.
nuclear expert says.
And even in the Soviet Union, health risks outside the immediate
area of the accident might not be all that great, experts said
Monday.
By the time fallout reached the United States, which could happen in
five or six days, ''there is no question there will be a sizeable
dilution, there's tremendous mixing in the atmosphere,'' said Kenneth
L. Mossman, who directs Georgetown University Medical Center's
program in radiation science.
''It is likely that with sensitive radiation detectors, we might be
able to pick it up,'' Mossman said in a telephone interview.
The Soviet Union said a nuclear accident had damaged an atomic
reactor at the Chernobyl power plant in the Ukraine. Radiation as
much as 10 times above normal was recorded north of Stockholm,
Sweden, and this included iodine and cesium compounds - both products
of nuclear fission which would be produced in uranium reactor fuel.
The Soviets provided no information about injuries and damage caused
by the accident, but government radio in Hungary said there had been
casualties.
Mossman said the type of radiation detected in the United States and
elsewhere could provide clues as to the nature and scope of the
Soviet accident.
''The kinds of radioactive materials that were emitted might tell us
about the nature of the damage to the reactor fuel. Depending on how
badly fuel was damaged, depending what's in environment, it could
help us analyze the type of the damage. But that's speculation on my
part,'' he said.
Information director Lennart Franzon at the Forsmark nuclear plant
north of Stockholm said an analysis of the radioactive emission will
take a few days to conclude, but a preliminary report indicated
graphite and cesium 137 were present.
Mossman and another expert, Richard C. Reba, who heads the division
of nuclear medicine at George Washington University Medical Center,
said the health risks to Soviet citizens might not be great even in a
nearby population center such as Kiev, about 100 miles from the
accident site.
''If the Three Mile Island accident is any indication as to the
severity of health effects, I would imagine there wouldn't be much in
the way (of health effects,'' Mossman said.
The Three Mile Island accident near Harrisburg, Pa., in 1979 was a
partial meltdown. No one was killed and very little radiation was
released, but scientists are still monitoring the long-term effects.
With the Soviet accident ''radiation injury is really not going to
be a major factor,'' Reba said. Even if there had been a meltdown, he
said, the dilution of water- and airborne radiation would minimize
the health effects.
Reba and Mossman said radioactive iodine in humans would migrate to
the thyroid gland.
''The thyroid is a rather sensitive organ with respect to cancer
induction,'' Mossman said.
Cesium, if inhaled or ingested, spreads throughout the body, he
said, lodging in muscles and elsewhere.
Reba said major injuries or deaths stemming from the accident were
probably confined to plant workers in the immediate vicinity, but
predicted few such injuries in surrounding communities.
''There's such a big dilution effect,'' he said. ''A lot of
radioactivity is gas, and most radioactive gas is very short-lived.''
If radioactive iodine gets into the water supply, it can be treated
with a salt that blocks the thyroid's ability to absorb it, he said.
Reports on government radio in Hungary said the plant was located at
the conjunction of two rivers, near the reservoir that supplies Kiev,
a city of 2.4 million people.
''Its (radioactive iodine's) half-life is eight days, so it's only a
temporary risk,'' Reba said.
Cesium, on the other hand, has a much longer half-life, and can
remain in the body for decades. Even so, he said, it can be present
in the body with little health effect, Mossman said.
AP-NY-04-29-86 0130EDT
- - - - - -
a062 0625 29 Apr 86
PM-Radiation-Health Effects, Insert, a011,0257
WASHINGTON INSERT 7 grafs after 4th graf to show radiation likely to
hit northwestern United States first, monitoring being stepped up
beginning today
Charlie Porter, director of Eastern Environmental Radiation Facility
in Montgomery, Ala., said monitoring stations in all 50 states would
be watched more closely beginning today. The facility, with
headquarters in Montgomery, is an arm of the Environmental Protection
Agency which monitors radioactivity as it affects the U.S.
population.
Porter said if the radioactive cloud ascends to altitudes of 15,000
feet or higher it would probably pass over the polar ice cap, move
across Canada and into the northwestern United States.
''Based on past experience, if it gets high enough into the
atmosphere so that it gets into the jetstream, the normal path it
follows is across the northwest part of the country,'' Porter said
today.
He said, however, that radioative materials have been known to
circle the Earth several times before falling to the ground.
Porter said the EPA maintains ground-level monitoring stations in
U.S. state capitals that measure the amount of radiation being
absorbed by people.
''We're calling all the station operators and instructing them to
begin taking daily samples,'' Porter said. Normally, he said,
readings are taken every three days.
He said the EPA does not believe the cloud, if it passes into the
United States, will be dangerous. But Porter cautioned that there is
no way to be sure without knowing the scope of the Soviet accident.
The Soviet: 5th graf
AP-NY-04-29-86 0925EDT
a063 0642 29 Apr 86
PM-Reagan, 1st Ld-Writethru, a022,0933
Precede Andersen Air Force Base, Guam
EDs: New, editedthruout
By MICHAEL PUTZEL
AP White House Correspondent
BALI, Indonesia (AP) - President Reagan landed here today for talks
with top officials of the non-communist nations of Southeast Asia,
his arrival marred by the Indonesian government's seizure of two
Australian reporters from the White House press plane.
The president and Mrs. Reagan were escorted by President and Mrs.
Suharto down a long red carpet from Air Force One to the ''Gates of
Bali,'' a stone structure at the symbolic entry point to the island.
Young Balinese women in traditional dress performed a ritual dance
for their guests and tossed orange flower petals at the Reagans' feet
before the two couples walked through the gates and proceeded toward
the president's hotel.
In a tense but momentary confrontation minutes earlier, uniformed
Indonesian officials boarded the press plane, then summoned Richard
Palfreyman and James Middleton to the door.
The two correspondents for Australian Broadcasting Corp.,
accompanied by deputy presidential press secretary Edward Djerejian,
were led away to the airport's transit lounge. Indonesian authorities
had warned that if the pair violated a ban on Australian news media
representatives they would be expelled from the country.
The action, brought on when the two journalists made a last-minute
decision to remain on the plane in Guam after being told they were
not welcome in Indonesia, served to focus attention on human rights
issues that neither the United States nor Indonesia had planned to
raise in public during President Reagan's visit.
Djerejian said he explained to one Indonesian official the White
House position that all 250 journalists accredited to cover the
president's trip ''should be permitted to do so.''
He said the official ''very politely told me the decision had been
made and there would be no change in that.''
Djerejian said two Australian consulor officials who met the
reporters told the correspondents that the Indonesians had asked the
journalists to ''transit the country'' and that there was a
possibilility they would be put on a flight to Tokyo scheduled to
leave about two hours later.
Other journalists on the plane, most of them Americans, were
permitted to leave the aircraft to cover the Reagans' arrival despite
warnings that they might be subjected to a lengthy customs check.
Journalists accompanying Reagan and other high officials customarily
are granted ''courtesy of the port'' and are not required to complete
all formalities before entering a friendly country.
Reagan, at an earlier refueling stop on Guam, told U.S. military
families he was going to Bali to ''reaffirm America's commitment to
free markets and free trade.''
During his three-day visit to the picturesque resort island of Bali,
Reagan will meet with foreign ministers of the Association of
Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), a compact of six non-Communist
trading partners, all intent on increasing trade with the United
States.
The officials he is seeing, Reagan said, represent nations that have
''in large part embraced human liberty, both political and economic,
and in recent years the people of these nations have produced a
remarkable record of economic growth.''
But some of the member nations, including Indonesia, the conference
host, have long histories of authoritarian rule, and U.S. officials
said privately Reagan has no intention of pressing human rights
issues during his stay.
''We will reassert our belief,'' Reagan said, ''that in liberty, we
can work together to bring still greater prosperty to the Pacific.''
But in Tokyo next week, when he meets with leaders of the world's
major industrial democracies, Reagan's message will be more direct.
''We will stress the connection - the necessary connection - between
freedom and economic growth,'' he said, ''and we will lay plans to
expand world trade still further.''
President Suharto banned all journalists working for Australian
media, following publication of an article in a Sydney newspaper
comparing Suharto's family with that of deposed Philippines President
Ferdinand Marcos.
U.S. diplomatic efforts to win an exemption for two correspondents
failed. But the two said on Guam that their own government had told
them there was still a chance the Indonesians would relent.
Palfreyman said he and Middleton had received no indication that
they would be granted permission to enter Bali. But he announced to
his American colleagues here after getting the go-ahead from his home
office in Sydney, ''We're going.''
Middleton quoted Deputy White House Press Secretary Ed Djerejian as
telling him, ''Come ahead'' on the White House press charter
accompanying Reagan. ''You are welcome. Let's give it a shot.''
Asked what they would do if the Indonesians refused them entry,
Palfreyman replied, ''Leave quietly.''
Paul Wolfowitz, U.S. ambassador to Indonesia, met with Indonesian
officials during the hour prior to the plane's departure to discuss
the journalists' plight, but officials still refused to grant
permission to enter Bali, said White House Press Secretary Larry
Speakes.
Chief of Staff Donald Regan, commenting on the Soviet nuclear power
plant accident announced Monday by the official Soviet news agency
Tass, said the United States ''could be helpful and would be if
asked'' by the Soviets to assist in dealing with the disaster.
However, Regan said the Soviets had not asked for any assistance.
Although few details of damage or casualties have been provided,
U.S. nuclear experts have said they believe there were fatalities.
''We have a lot of experience in how we can handle these things,
both medically and scientifically,'' Regan said after speaking to
Reagan about the accident.
AP-NY-04-29-86 0942EDT
a027 0130 29 Apr 86
PM-Radiation Leak, Bjt,0786
Media Mum On Nuclear Accident; Travel To Kiev Restricted
MOSCOW (AP) - A Foreign Ministry spokesman said today that travel to
the Ukrainian capital of Kiev might be dangerous, but there was no
other official word on what U.S. scientists say may have been a
meltdown at the nearby Chernobyl nuclear power plant.
The official news agency Tass first reported the incident Monday in
a four-sentence dispatch that said one of the plant's atomic reactors
was damaged and measures were being taken to ''eliminate the
consequences.''
It did not say how serious the accident was, or whether it there had
been injuries. Abnormally high radiation levels were reported in
Sweden, Denmark and Finland, more than 750 miles to the northwest.
Government-run radio in Hungary reported there had been injuries.
The Hungarian report also said Chernobyl is located at the
conjunction of two rivers, near the reservoir that supplies Kiev, a
city of 2.4 million people.
Little additional information could be obtained today about the
accident at the four-reactor Chernobyl complex, located about 100
miles north of Kiev. Attempts to call Kiev from Moscow were
unsuccessful.
Asked about the possibility of travel by foreign reporters to the
Kiev area, Foreign Ministry spokesman Alexander Sazonov said today,
''I don't know whether it's possible right now because it may be
dangerous.''
''We will give you all the information when we have it,'' he said.
Kiev radio, monitored in London, which last repeated the Tass
announcement at 3:15 p.m. Monday, as of today had not mentioned the
incident again.
Although Tass said it was the first such accident in the Soviet
Union, Western analysts and exiled Soviet scientists have said there
was a nuclear accident in the Chelyabinsk area of the Ural Mountains
in 1958 that killed hundreds of people and contaminated a wide area.
The region is still off limits.
Soviet media seldom report natural disasters or accidents unless
injuries and damage are widespread. Tass said a government commission
had been appointed.
The Reagan administration said today it would be willing to respond
to Soviet requests for aid in dealing with the problem.
Reagan's chief of staff, Donald Regan, who was with the president at
a Guam refueling stop on the way to the Indonesian island of Bali,
said the United States ''could be helpful and would be if asked'' by
the Soviets to help out.
In Finland increased radiation levels, first noticed Sunday night,
were 10 times higher than normal, said Gunnar Bengtsson, head of
Sweden's Radiation and Nuclear Safety Board. Danish and Norwegian
officials reported lesser increases.
Neither Hungary nor any other Eastern European country, much closer
to the plant site than Scandinavia, made public reports of radiation
levels. Polish radio, monitored in London, reported today that a
radioactive cloud passed over northeast Poland on Monday, but said
measurements indicated there was no health danger.
Polish radio said a commission led by Deputy Premier Zbigniew
Szalajda was monitoring the situation and analyzing the measurements,
and would keep the public informed.
In Sweden, radiation levels between three and four times higher than
normal, were first discovered Monday morning during a routine check
of a worker at the Forsmark plant, 750 miles northwest of Kiev, plant
information director Lennart Franzon told The Associated Press.
Lars Erik de Geer, of Sweden's Defense Research Agency, said the
radiation levels corresponded to those recorded after Chinese nuclear
weapons tests in the atmosphere during the 1970s.
''I know of no earlier nuclear power plant accident which has lead
to such high radiation levels in this area,'' he said.
What was detected was radiation of ''a few millirem an hour, a
dosage which is harmless to people but illegally high for
discharges,'' Olle Blomqvist, an information officer at the State
Power Board was quoted as telling the Swedish news agency TT.
Rems are a measurement of radiation exposure. A rem consists of a
thousand millirems, and 25 millirems is the amount of radiation from
a chest X-ray. Exposure to about 1,000 millirems in one year would
produce one chance or two in 10,000 of developing fatal cancer.
Birgitta Dahl, Sweden's energy minister, said the Soviets were asked
for an extensive report. ''They should immediately have warned us,''
she said.
In Washington, Jim McKenzie of the the Union of Concerned
Scientists, an anti-nuclear group, said the information he had
''indicates probably a core meltdown.''
McKenzie said he drew the conclusion from Swedish reports that
radioactive iodine and cesium were present and radiating at five to
10 times the natural levels. ''There must have been quite a release
of radioactivity,'' he said.
AP-NY-04-29-86 0430EDT
- - - - - -
a036 0243 29 Apr 86
PM-Radiation Leak, 1st Ld, a027,0417
Media Mum On Nuclear Accident; Travel To Kiev Restricted
Eds: ADDS byline. LEADS with radiation levels falling in Northern
Europe today, U.S. officials say small amount of radiation might
reach U.S. by weekend.
By KEN OLSEN
MOSCOW (AP) - A Foreign Ministry spokesman said today that travel to
the Ukrainian capital of Kiev might be dangerous, but there was no
other official word on what U.S. scientists say may have been a
meltdown at the nearby Chernobyl nuclear power plant.
The official news agency Tass first reported the incident Monday in
a four-sentence dispatch that said one of the plant's atomic reactors
was damaged and measures were being taken to ''eliminate the
consequences.''
It did not say how serious the accident was, or whether it there had
been injuries. Abnormally high radiation levels were reported in
Sweden, Denmark and Finland, more than 750 miles to the northwest.
Radiation levels in those countries appeared to be falling today,
but spokesman Torkel Bennerstedt of Sweden's National Institute of
Radiation Protection said the levels might rise again.
Government-run radio in Hungary reported there had been injuries and
that the injured were receiving medical help. The Hungarian report
also said Chernobyl is located at the conjunction of two rivers, near
the reservoir that supplies Kiev, a city of 2.4 million people.
Little additional information could be obtained today about the
accident at the four-reactor Chernobyl complex, located about 100
miles north of Kiev. Attempts to call Kiev from Moscow were
unsuccessful.
Asked about the possibility of travel by foreign reporters to the
Kiev area, Foreign Ministry spokesman Alexander Sazonov said today,
''I don't know whether it's possible right now because it may be
dangerous.''
''We will give you all the information when we have it,'' he said.
Kiev radio, monitored in London, which last repeated the Tass
announcement at 3:15 p.m. Monday, as of today had not mentioned the
incident again.
U.S. experts said fallout from the Soviet accident might be
detectable in the United States by the weekend, but that the amounts
would be too small to be dangerous.
They also said that health risks in the Soviet Union outside the
immediate area of the plant may not be great.
Other officials said the accident at Chernobyl appeared to be far
worse than the United States' worst accident at Three Mile Island in
Pennsylvania in March 1979.
Although Tass, 9th graf
AP-NY-04-29-86 0543EDT
- - - - - -
a052 0522 29 Apr 86
PM-Radiation Leak, 2nd Ld, a036,1585
Travel To Kiev Restricted, Sweden Asked For Advice On Reactor Fire
URGENT
Eds: LEADS in 23 grafs to UPDATE with comments from Kiev residents,
Sweden reportedly asked to help Soviets with fire in a nuclear
reactor
By KEN OLSEN
MOSCOW (AP) - A Foreign Ministry spokesman warned today that travel
to Kiev might be dangerous because of the Chernobyl nuclear plant
accident. In Sweden, a nuclear expert said Soviet officials have
sought advice on how to fight a fire in a nuclear plant.
There was no confirmed word on deaths or injuries, although experts
and officials in the United States said the nuclear accident was
almost certainly a fuel meltdown that caused fatalities.
The official news agency Tass first reported the accident Monday in
a four-sentence dispatch saying one of the plant's atomic reactors
was damaged and measures were being taken to ''eliminate the
consequences.''
It did not say how serious the accident was or when it occurred.
Abnormally high radiation levels were reported in Sweden, Denmark and
Finland, more than 750 miles northwest of the plant.
In Stockholm today, Friedrich Reich, a reactor inspector at Sweden's
State Nuclear Power Inspection Board, disclosed that Soviet officials
have sought MOSCOW: in Finland.
In Sweden, the National Institute of Radiation Protection issued a
traveler's advisory warning tourists planning visits to the Eastern
bloc to avoid areas between the site of the nuclear plant accident
inside the Soviet Union and the north of Poland.
U.S. experts said fallout from the Soviet accident might be
detectable in the United States by the weekend, but that the amounts
would be too small to be dangerous.
They also said that health risks in the Soviet Union outside the
immediate area of the plant may not be great.
Other officials said the accident at Chernobyl appeared to be far
worse than the United States' worst accident at Three Mile Island in
Pennsylvania in March 1979.
Although Tass said it was the first such accident in the Soviet
Union, Western analysts and exiled Soviet scientists have said there
was a nuclear accident in the Chelyabinsk area of the Ural Mountains
in 1958 that killed hundreds of people and contaminated a wide area.
The region is still off limits.
Soviet media seldom report natural disasters or accidents unless
injuries and damage are widespread. Tass said a government commission
had been appointed.
The Reagan administration said today it would be willing to respond
to Soviet requests for aid in dealing with the problem.
Reagan's chief of staff, Donald Regan, who was with the president at
a Guam refueling stop on the way to the Indonesian island of Bali,
said the United States ''could be helpful and would be if asked'' by
the Soviets to help out.
In Finland increased radiation levels, first noticed Sunday night,
were 10 times higher than normal, said Gunnar Bengtsson, head of
Sweden's Radiation and Nuclear Safety Board. Danish and Norwegian
officials reported lesser increases.
Neither Hungary nor any other Eastern European country, much closer
to the plant site than Scandinavia, made public reports of radiation
levels. Polish radio, monitored in London, reported today that a
radioactive cloud passed high over northeast Poland on Monday, but
said measurements indicated there was no health danger.
Polish radio said a commission led by Deputy Premier Zbigniew
Szalajda was monitoring the situation and analyzing the measurements,
and would keep the public informed.
In Sweden, radiation levels between three and four times higher than
normal, were first discovered Monday morning during a routine check
of a worker at the Forsmark plant, 750 miles northwest of Kiev, plant
information director Lennart Franzon told The Associated Press.
Lars Erik de Geer, of Sweden's Defense Research Agency, said the
radiation levels corresponded to those recorded after Chinese nuclear
weapons tests in the atmosphere during the 1970s.
''I know of no earlier nuclear power plant accident which has lead
to such high radiation levels in this area,'' he said.
What was detected was radiation of ''a few millirem an hour, a
dosage which is harmless to people but illegally high for
discharges,'' Olle Blomqvist, an information officer at the State
Power Board was quoted as telling the Swedish news agency TT.
Rems are a measurement of radiation exposure. A rem consists of a
thousand millirems, and 25 millirems is the amount of radiation from
a chest X-ray. Exposure to about 1,000 millirems in one year would
produce one chance or two in 10,000 of developing fatal cancer.
Birgitta Dahl, Sweden's energy minister, said the Soviets were asked
for an extensive report. ''They should immediately have warned us,''
she said.
In Washington, Jim McKenzie of the the Union of Concerned
Scientists, an anti-nuclear group, said the information he had
''indicates probably a core meltdown.''
McKenzie said he drew the conclusion from Swedish reports that
radioactive iodine and cesium were present and radiating at five to
10 times the natural levels. ''There must have been quite a release
of radioactivity,'' he said.
A meltdown can occur when the heat in a reactor core builds up
faster than it can be dissipated, and radioactive fuel may be boiled
off into the atmosphere.
In New York, Eugene Gantzhorn, an analyst at the office of the
Atomic Industrial Forum, a U.S. industry group of utilities and
suppliers, said the Chernobyl plant is located at a new town called
Pripyat near Chernobyl, a city that also produces clothing, lumber
and dairy products and has a metalworking industry.
The plant consists of four 1,000-megawatt reactors of identical
design constructed in 1977, 1978, 1981 and 1983, according to
Gantzhorn. He said it is a light-water cooled, graphite-moderated
design not used in the United States.
Gantzhorn said it was not known if any of the four Soviet reactors
had a containment structure like the steel and concrete surrounding
key components of all U.S. plants.
Swedish advice on how ''to combat a fire in a nuclear plant.''
Asked if the request meant there had been a core meltdown, Reich
said in a radio interview: ''Yes, one could be certain of that
already
BUST BUST BUST
AP-NY-04-29-86 0820EDT
- - - - - -
a053 0537 29 Apr 86
PM-Radiation Leak, 2nd Ld, a036,0744
Travel To Kiev Restricted, Sweden Asked For Advice On Reactor Fire
URGENT
Eds: LEADS in 23 grafs to UPDATE with comments from Kiev residents,
Sweden reportedly asked to help Soviets with fire in a nuclear
reactor
By KEN OLSEN
MOSCOW (AP) - A Foreign Ministry spokesman warned today that travel
to Kiev might be dangerous because of the Chernobyl nuclear plant
accident. In Sweden, a nuclear expert said Soviet officials have
sought advice on how to fight a fire in a nuclear plant.
There was no confirmed word on deaths or injuries, although experts
and officials in the United States said the nuclear accident was
almost certainly a fuel meltdown that caused fatalities.
The official news agency Tass first reported the accident Monday in
a four-sentence dispatch saying one of the plant's atomic reactors
was damaged and measures were being taken to ''eliminate the
consequences.''
It did not say how serious the accident was or when it occurred.
Abnormally high radiation levels were reported in Sweden, Denmark and
Finland, more than 750 miles northwest of the plant.
In Stockholm today, Friedrich Reich, a reactor inspector at Sweden's
State Nuclear Power Inspection Board, disclosed that Soviet officials
have sought Swedish advice on how ''to combat a fire in a nuclear
plant.''
Asked if the request meant there had been a core meltdown, Reich
said in a radio interview: ''Yes, one could be certain of that
already yesterday.''
Ulf Baverstam, senior scientist at the National Institute of
Radiation Protection in Stockholm, told ABC the Soviets have asked
Sweden to help fight a fire burning in a reactor.
''The absolutely latest news is that the Russians have asked the
Swedes to help them to fight a fire in their burning graphite reactor
and evidently it's quite a huge accident that has gone on,'' said
Baverstam. He was interviewed this morning on ABC-TV's ''Good Morning
America'' show.
Radiation levels in Sweden, Denmark and Finland appeared to be
falling today, but spokesman Torkel Bennerstedt of Sweden's National
Institute of Radiation Protection said the levels might rise again.
Little additional information could be obtained today in the Soviet
Union about the accident at the four-reactor Chernobyl complex,
located about 60 miles north of Kiev.
Telephone calls to Kiev were difficult to get through, but a woman
at Kiev's Lybed Hotel said: ''Our government is doing everything to
have no damage for our people. And as for our life, it is very normal
and without any, any, any kind of strange events.''
The woman, who spoke English but did not give her name, said traffic
was normal and schools were open in Kiev. ''Everything is good, and
no damage for us,'' she said.
Two trains arrived in Moscow from Kiev today and passengers said
they had not noticed any signs of evacuations or disruptions.
One man said there were rumors in Kiev that a worker at the reactor
had been asleep Sunday and failed to notice alarm signals indicating
problems. He said there were no deaths and that he knew little else.
He spoke on condition of anonymity.
Officials with Western embassies here said they had not received any
information from Soviet authorities on the extent of the accident,
nor on any possible health risks.
Government-run radio in Hungary reported there had been injuries and
that the injured were receiving medical help. The Hungarian report
also said Chernobyl is located at the conjunction of two rivers, near
the reservoir that supplies Kiev, a city of 2.4 million people.
Asked about the possibility of travel by foreign reporters to the
Kiev area, Foreign Ministry spokesman Alexander Sazonov said today,
''I don't know whether it's possible right now because it may be
dangerous.''
''We will give you all the information when we have it,'' he said.
But a spokesman for Intourist, the Soviet national travel agency,
said there were no plans to cancel trips to Kiev.
Finnish construction company Lemminkainen Oy, which has 60 men
building a factory in Kiew, said their workers reported everything
was normal in the city.
''The Soviet authorities have promised to inform us if there is any
danger to our men,'' Lemminkainen Oy announced.
The company contacted its workers by telex from Helsinki because
telephone calls to Soviet Union were stopped by a public employees
strike in Finland.
MORE
AP-NY-04-29-86 0835EDT
- - - - - -
a055 0544 29 Apr 86
PM-News Advisory,0070
The General Desk supervisor is John Daniszewski (212) 621-1604. The
-PM-Radiation Leak, a053-54. Developing. Update coming with more
comment from experts.
-PM-Duchess-Burial, a024. Update planned after funeral 10:30 a.m.
-PM-Shuttle Remains, a013, Update planned with remains departing,
scheduled 9:30 a.m. EDT.
-PM-Methodist-Nuclear, a019. Prenoon update planned with vote.
AP-NY-04-29-86 0843EDT
- - - - - -
a060 0618 29 Apr 86
PM-Radiation Leak, 3rd Ld, a053,0451
URGENT
Two Nations Asked How To Fight Fire In Nuclear Reactor
Eds: LEADS in 11 grafs to UPDATE with details on request to fight
reactor fire. CORRECTs Swedish official's name to Frigyes Reisch in
grafs 7 and 8. EDITS throughout to tighten.
By KEN OLSEN
MOSCOW (AP) - A Foreign Ministry spokesman warned today that travel
to Kiev might be dangerous because of the Chernobyl nuclear plant
disaster. The Soviets asked at least two countries for advice on
fighting a fire in the crippled atomic reactor.
There was no confirmed word on deaths or injuries, although experts
and officials in the United States said the nuclear accident was
almost certainly a fuel meltdown that caused fatalities.
The official news agency Tass first reported the accident Monday in
a four-sentence dispatch saying one of the plant's atomic reactors
was damaged and measures were being taken to ''eliminate the
consequences.''
It did not say how serious the accident was or when it occurred.
Abnormally high radiation levels were first detected Sunday in
Finland and also reported in Denmark and Sweden, more than 750 miles
northwest of the plant.
An official of a West German atomic energy lobbying group said today
the Soviet Embassy in Bonn asked for advice on how to fight fire in a
nuclear power plant.
''That must be the worst (accident) that has ever happened in the
peaceful use of nuclear energy,'' Manfred Petroll, of the West German
Atomic Forum, told The Associated Press. He said the Soviet diplomat
specifically asked how to combat a graphite fire.
In Stockholm today, Frigyes Reisch, a reactor inspector at Sweden's
State Nuclear Power Inspection Board, disclosed that Soviet officials
have sought Swedish advice on how ''to combat a fire in a nuclear
plant.''
Asked if the request meant there had been a core meltdown, Reisch
said in a radio interview: ''Yes, one could be certain of that
already yesterday.''
A meltdown can occur when the heat in a reactor core builds up
faster than it can be dissipated, and radioactive fuel may be boiled
off into the atmosphere.
Ulf Baverstam, senior scientist at the National Institute of
Radiation Protection in Stockholm who appeared on ABC-TV's ''Good
Morning America,'' said: ''The absolutely latest news is that the
Russians have asked the Swedes to help them to fight a fire in their
burning graphite reactor and evidently it's quite a huge accident
that has gone on.''
Walter Patterson, an independent U.S. nuclear consultant, said on
NBC-TV's ''Today'' said a fire still burning would imply ''there is
still radioactivity spewing into the air from it.''
Radiation levels: 9th graf
AP-NY-04-29-86 0918EDT
- - - - - -
a068 0724 29 Apr 86
PM-Radiation Leak, 4rd Ld, a060,0581
URGENT
Eds: to UPDATE with Soviet broadcast on accident.
By KEN OLSEN
MOSCOW (AP) - The Soviets appealed for advice from at least two
countries in fighting a fire at its Chernobyl nuclear power plant
where a disastrous accident may still be spewing radioactivity into
the atmosphere today.
The Soviets today called the accident a disaster and said victims
were receiving aid. A Foreign Ministry spokesman warned that travel
to Kiev, 60 miles south of the plant, might be dangerous, but there
was no confirmed word on deaths or injuries.
Experts and officials in the United States said the disaster was
almost certainly a fuel meltdown that caused fatalities, and noted
that radioactivity released in the accident also could pose a
long-term health risk in the area.
The official news agency Tass first reported the accident Monday in
a four-sentence dispatch saying one of the plant's atomic reactors
was damaged and measures were being taken to ''eliminate the
consequences.''
It did not say how serious the accident was or when it occurred.
Abnormally high radiation levels were first detected Sunday in
Finland and also reported in Denmark and Sweden, more than 750 miles
northwest of the plant.
A brief broadcast over Radio Moscow was the first information today
from the Soviets.
''A government commission has been set up to investigate what caused
the accident ... and efforts are being applied to eliminate the
consequences of the accident and to help the victims.''
''The disaster was the first one at Soviet nuclear power plants in
more than 30 years,'' the broadcast said. ''Drastic measures are
being carried out to guarantee the power reactors' reliability and
safety.''
An official of a West German atomic energy lobbying group said today
the Soviet Embassy in Bonn asked for advice on how to fight fire in a
nuclear power plant.
''That must be the worst (accident) that has ever happened in the
peaceful use of nuclear energy,'' Manfred Petroll, of the West German
Atomic Forum, told The Associated Press.
In Stockholm, Frigyes Reisch, a reactor inspector at Sweden's State
Nuclear Power Inspection Board, disclosed that Soviet officials have
sought Swedish advice on how ''to combat a fire in a nuclear plant.''
Asked if the request meant there had been a core meltdown, Reisch
said in a radio interview: ''Yes, one could be certain of that
already yesterday.''
A meltdown can occur when the heat in a reactor core builds up
faster than it can be dissipated, and radioactive fuel may be boiled
off into the atmosphere.
Zhores Medvedev, an exiled Soviet geneticist who appeared on
NBC-TV's ''Today'' show, said radioactivity released from the
disaster could be dangerous for years to people living in the area.
Medvedev said ''there could be some fatalities from a kind of
technical blast if it's happened, but from radiation people do not
die immediately.'' He also noted that the plant is near the Dnieper
River, from which Kiev draws water, ''So it's very serious for this
area.''
Government-run radio in Hungary reported there were injuries and
that Chernobyl is located at the conjunction of two rivers near the
reservoir that supplies Kiev, which has 2.4 million people.
Barry Smith, a research scientist at the British Meterological
Office in London, said light winds were pushing radioactive dust back
toward the Soviet Union from Scandinavia.
Ulf Baverstam, 10th graf.
AP-NY-04-29-86 1023EDT
- - - - - -
a080 0839 29 Apr 86
PM-Radiation Leak, 5th Ld, a068,0456
URGENT
Soviets Ask How To Fight Fire In Reactor, West Germany Asked For
Medicine
Eds: LEADS in 12 grafs to UPDATE with Soviets requesting experts,
medicine from West Germany
By KEN OLSEN
MOSCOW (AP) - The Soviet government appealed for advice from two
countries in fighting a fire at its Chernobyl nuclear power plant,
which still may be spewing radioactivity into the atmosphere today
after a disastrous accident.
The Soviets today called the accident in the Ukraine a disaster and
said victims were receiving aid. A Foreign Ministry spokesman warned
that travel to Kiev, 60 miles south of the plant, might be dangerous,
but there was no confirmed word on deaths or injuries.
Officials in West Germany and Sweden said the Soviet Union had asked
for help in the accident which sent a radioactive cloud above
Scandinavia, more than 750 miles away to the northwest. An official
of the West German atomic energy lobbying group said a Soviet
diplomat asked that anti-radiation experts and medicine be made
available.
Experts and officials in the United States said the disaster was
almost certainly a fuel meltdown that caused fatalities, and that
radioactivity could pose a long-term health risk in the area and
possibly affect the Dnieper River.
The official news agency Tass first reported the accident Monday in
a four-sentence dispatch saying one of the plant's atomic reactors
was damaged and measures were being taken to ''eliminate the
consequences.''
It did not say how serious the accident was or when it occurred.
Abnormally high radiation levels were first detected Sunday in
Finland and also reported in Denmark and Sweden.
A brief broadcast over Radio Moscow was the first information today
from the Soviets.
''A government commission has been set up to investigate what caused
the accident . . . and efforts are being applied to eliminate the
consequences of the accident and to help the victims.''
''The disaster was the first one at Soviet nuclear power plants in
more than 30 years,'' the broadcast said. ''Drastic measures are
being carried out to guarantee the power reactors' reliability and
safety.''
Manfred Petroll, of the West German Atomic Forum, said today the
Soviet Embassy in Bonn asked for advice on how to fight a fire in a
nuclear power plant.
''That must be the worst (accident) that has ever happened in the
peaceful use of nuclear energy,'' Petroll told The Associated Press.
His group promotes the use of nuclear power in West Germany.
''The Soviet ambassador was here at the ministry this morning and
was offered all possible assistance we could give,'' West German
Foreign Ministry spokesman Klaus-Peter Ringwald said.
In Stockholm,: 11th graf
AP-NY-04-29-86 1138EDT
- - - - - -
a090 0953 29 Apr 86
PM-Radiation Leak, 6th Ld, a080,0493
URGENT
Soviets Ask How To Fight Fire In Reactor, West Germany Asked For
Medicine
Eds: UPDATES with reports of evacuation, other details
By KEN OLSEN
MOSCOW (AP) - The Soviet government appealed for advice from two
countries in fighting a fire at its Chernobyl nuclear power plant,
which still may be spewing radioactivity into the atmosphere today
after a disastrous accident.
The Soviets today called the accident in the Ukraine a disaster and
said victims were receiving aid. There was no confirmed word on
deaths or injuries, but the Danish public broadcasting system
reported diplomats in Moscow said tens of thousands of people were
evacuated.
A Soviet Foreign Ministry spokesman warned that travel to Kiev, 60
miles south of the plant, might be dangerous, but reports from the
city of 2.4 million indicated no disruptions.
Nuclear experts in West Germany and Sweden said the Soviet Union had
asked for help in the accident that sent a radioactive cloud above
Scandinavia, more than 750 miles away to the northwest. An official
of the West German atomic energy lobbying group said Soviet diplomats
asked that anti-radiation experts and medicine be made available.
Experts and officials in the United States said the disaster was
almost certainly a fuel meltdown that caused fatalities, and that
radioactivity could pose a long-term health risk in the area and
possibly affect the Dnieper River.
The official news agency Tass first reported the accident Monday in
a four-sentence dispatch saying one of the plant's atomic reactors
was damaged and measures were being taken to ''eliminate the
consequences.''
It did not say how serious the accident was or when it occurred.
Abnormally high radiation levels were first detected Sunday in
Finland and also reported in Denmark and Sweden.
A brief broadcast over Radio Moscow was the first information today
from the Soviets.
''A government commission has been set up to investigate what caused
the accident ... and efforts are being applied to eliminate the
consequences of the accident and to help the victims.''
''The disaster was the first one at Soviet nuclear power plants in
more than 30 years,'' the broadcast said. ''Drastic measures are
being carried out to guarantee the power reactors' reliability and
safety.''
Manfred Petroll, of the West German Atomic Forum, said today the
Soviet Embassy in Bonn asked for advice from experts on how to fight
a graphite fire in a nuclear power plant.
''That must be the worst (accident) that has ever happened in the
peaceful use of nuclear energy,'' Petroll told The Associated Press.
His group promotes the use of nuclear power in West Germany.
''The Soviet ambassador was here at the ministry this morning and
was offered all possible assistance we could give,'' West German
Foreign Ministry spokesman Klaus-Peter Ringwald said. West German
officials said no official request was made to the government.
In Stockholm, 13th graf
AP-NY-04-29-86 1253EDT
- - - - - -
a100 1048 29 Apr 86
PM-Radiation Leak, 7th Ld, a090,0273
URGENT
Soviets Say Two Died In Nuclear Accident, Evacuations Carried Out
Eds: LEADS in 7 grafs to UPDATE with Soviets saying two killed and
others evacuated
By KEN OLSEN
MOSCOW (AP) - Two people were killed in the Chernobyl nuclear power
plant disaster, the Soviet government said today, and an unspecified
number of residents from four nearby communities were evacuated.
A statement distributed by the official news agency Tass said the
''radiation situation'' at the plant was stable and that needed
medical aid was administered.
The brief statement was the first confirmation by the Soviets of any
casualties in the nuclear accident in the Ukraine, which a Radio
Moscow broadcast earlier today called a disaster.
The statement did not go into details about the accident, but said
it ''resulted in the destruction of part of the structural elements
of the building housing the reactor.''
Nuclear experts in West Germany and Sweden said the Soviet Union has
asked for help in fighting a fire at the nuclear plant. The accident
sent a radioactive cloud over Scandinavia, more than 750 miles to the
northwest. An official of the West German atomic energy lobbying
group said Soviet diplomats asked that anti-radiation experts and
medicine be made available.
A Soviet Foreign Ministry spokesman warned that travel to Kiev, 60
miles south of the plant, might be dangerous, but reports from the
city of 2.4 million indicated no disruptions.
The Soviet statement said Pripyat, a town with a population of
25,000 developed around the plant, and three unidentified communities
were evacuated.
Experts and: 5th graf
AP-NY-04-29-86 1347EDT
a039 0319 29 Apr 86
PM-Digest Briefs,1076
Eds: This package does not contain the following items from the News
Digest: MOSCOW-Radiation Leak; WASHINGTON-US-Soviet Accident;
ANDERSEN AIR FORCE BASE, Guam-Reagan; WINDSOR,
England-Duchess-Burial; LONDON-Windsor Revival; CAPE
CANAVERAL-Shuttle Remains; WASHINGTON-Weapons Shipments; MORRISTOWN,
N.J.-Methodist-Nuclear; LAMU, Kenya-Kenyan Isle.
---
WASHINGTON (AP) - Fallout from the Soviet nuclear accident might be
detectable in the United States by the weekend, but the amounts would
be so small they would not present a health hazard here, a U.S.
nuclear expert says.
And even in the Soviet Union, health risks outside the immediate
area of the accident might not be all that great, experts said
Monday.
By the time fallout reached the United States, which could happen in
five or six days, ''there is no question there will be a sizeable
dilution, there's tremendous mixing in the atmosphere,'' said Kenneth
L. Mossman, who directs Georgetown University Medical Center's
program in radiation science.
AP-NY-04-29-86 0619EDT
a045 0411 29 Apr 86
PM-Radiation Leak, Advisory,0048
Editors:
We are putting together a lead to the PM-Radiation Leak Bjt which
will update with several details, including hotel worker in Kiev
saying things appear normal today in the Ukrainian capital, Soviets
saying no tourist trips to the city canceled.
AP-NY-04-29-86 0711EDT
a054 0538 29 Apr 86
PM-Radiation Leak, 2nd Ld, 1st add, a054,0051
MOSCOW: in Finland.
In Sweden, the National Institute of Radiation Protection issued a
traveler's advisory warning tourists planning visits to the Eastern
bloc to avoid areas between the site of the nuclear plant accident
inside the Soviet Union and the north of Poland.
U.S. experts: 10th graf
AP-NY-04-29-86 0838EDT
a075 0807 29 Apr 86
PM-BRF--Seabrook,0138
Seabrook Cancels Shelter Announcement; Says Not Related To Soviet
Accident
SEABROOK, N.H. (AP) - An announcement scheduled today about
sheltering people in case of a radiation release from the Seabrook
nuclear power plant has been postponed, but officials said the delay
was not due to the Soviet nuclear accident.
''We just decided to wait a day or two,'' Seabrook spokesman John
Kyte said today. He would not elaborate, and no new date was set.
Monday, Seabrook officials scheduled the news conference to discuss
plans for protecting the public in case of a major accident at
Seabrook when it begins operating. They planned to respond to demands
by Massachusetts officials that they build shelters to protect
beachgoers from radiation or shut the plant down in the summer.
Seabrook, on the Atlantic coast, is about 30 miles north of Boston.
AP-NY-04-29-86 1107EDT
a079 0830 29 Apr 86
PM-Millirem Explainer,0247
Radiation Measurement Gauges Effect on Humans
With PM-Radiation Leak
NEW YORK (AP) - As scientists try to gauge the possible hazard posed
by the accident at the Soviet nuclear plant, they will use an
important measure unfamiliar to most laymen: millirems.
A millirem measures the effect that radiation produces in human
tissue. Technically, it is one-thousandth of a rem, a measure used in
setting radiological protection standards.
The Atomic Industrial Forum, an American group of utilities and
suppliers, cites estimates that a typical American receives a dose of
about 180 millirems a year from natural and man-made sources. For
example, about 100 millirems a year come from natural sources, such
as cosmic rays and geological deposits, the estimates say.
Fallout from nuclear tests adds another four millirems or so a year.
Much of the man-made radiation is from medical uses of radiation,
the estimates say. For example, a chest x-ray gives a localized
surface dose of 30 to 50 millirems.
According to ''The Nuclear Almanac,'' compiled by faculty of the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, flying in a commercial
airplane adds another one-fifth of a millirem per hour to the body's
dose.
Exposure to about 1,000 millirems in one year is estimated to
produce one or two chances in 10,000 of developing fatal cancer. The
MIT almanac quotes estimates that 1,000 millirems of parental
exposure throughout a general population will produce an increase of
5 to 75 serious genetic disorders per million live-born offspring, in
the first generation.
AP-NY-04-29-86 1130EDT
a083 0902 29 Apr 86
PM-Soviet Reactors,0391
Soviet Reactor Type Not Used Commercially In U.S.
With PM-Radiation Leak
By PAUL RAEBURN
AP Science Editor
NEW YORK (AP) - The reactors in the Soviet Union's Chernobyl nuclear
power plant differ from commercial American reactors in the use of
graphite to moderate the chain reaction.
Commercial nuclear plants in the United States use water to moderate
the nuclear reaction, said Thomas Cochran, a senior staff scientist
with the Natural Resources Defense Council in Washington.
''The graphite has some advantages and disadvantages,'' said
Cochran. ''It has a very high heat capacity - an advantage. On the
other hand, there are problems such as occurred at the Windscale
reactor in the United Kingdom in October 1957, where they had a
fire.''
The Windscale plant, used primarily to produce plutonium, uses
graphite as a moderator, said Cochran, a physicist who specializes in
nuclear power and nuclear weapons issues.
Both graphite and uranium can burn when a reactor gets too hot.
''Then you have a real serious problem,'' he said. ''As in the case
of the Soviet Union, where you're getting cesium and iodine in
Scandinavia, inside the reactor the levels might be enormous.''
The detection of cesium is particularly disturbing, Cochran said. It
suggest that filters at the nuclear plant were not able to contain
much of the radiactive material released in the accident.
He said he has seen pictures of the Chernobyl plant, and he is
confident that the reactors are not inside so-called containment
buildings.
These buildings, typically made of concrete several feet thick, are
intended to prevent the escape of radioactive material.
In the absence of a containment building, filters are used to
capture some of the radioactive materials. They cannot contain
everything, but they should capture cesium, Cochran said. In the
Soviet case, they apparently didn't.
Moderating materials - either water or graphite - are used to slow
neutrons inside the nuclear reactor.
Neutrons are subatomic particles that sustain the chain reaction.
They are released when uranium atoms are split. The released neutrons
then split other uranium atoms, continuing the reaction.
The neutrons must be slowed down, however, to prevent their escape
from the fuel. That is the job of the moderating agents. The neutrons
are slowed as they pass through water or graphite.
AP-NY-04-29-86 1202EDT
a088 0933 29 Apr 86
PM-US-Soviet Accident, 2nd Ld, Insert, a0821,0117
WEASHINGTON Insert 3 grafs after 8th graf: But spokesman xx for
help on NRC asking for information.
Victor Stello, executive director for operations at the NRC, said
the commission had asked the Soviet Union for information about the
accident via the State Department, which must go through the Soviet
Embassy.
Stello, who led the NRC investigation of the Three Mile Island
accident, said he does not foresee a Soviet silence similar to the
one that followed a reportedly serious accident in 1957.
''In terms of reactor safety, the attitudes that I perceive are
different so I would expect that we would get the information,''
Stello said.
Hurlbert toured: 9th graf
AP-NY-04-29-86 1233EDT
a089 0944 29 Apr 86
PM-Nuclear-Soviet Life,0628
Odds of Meltdown 'One in 10,000 Years,' Soviet Official Says
Safety precautions at Soviet nuclear power plants are so strict that
''the odds of a meltdown are one in 10,000 years,'' according to the
minister of power and electrification in the Ukraine.
Vitali Sklyarov made the comment recently in Soviet Life, an
English-language magazine published by the Soviet Embassy and
circulated in the United States under a reciprocal agreement between
the two countries.
The February issue's 10-page color spread on the nuclear power
industry emphasized the safety of the country's nuclear plants.
Noting that ''nuclear plants are being built close to big cities and
resort areas,'' Soviet Life correspondent Maxim Rylsky asked
Sklyarov: ''How safe are they?''
Sklyarov replied: ''The odds of a meltdown are one in 10,000 years.
The plants have safe and reliable controls that are protected from
any breakdown with three safety lines. The lines operate
independently without duplicating one another. New equipment with
higher reliability is being developed. . .
''The environment is also securely protected. Hermetically sealed
buildings, closed cycles for technological processes with radioactive
agents and systems for purification and harmless waste disposal
preclude any discharge into the external environment.''
Sklyarov said several institutes and universities in the Ukraine
train personnel for the republic's nuclear power plants, but he did
not mention how many people are employed by the plants.
''Young people come to us willingly,'' he said.
An article reprinted from the USSR Academy of Sciences' magazine
Priroda (Nature), claimed there has been no serious threat to
personnel or nearby residents since the first Soviet nuclear power
plant opened 30 years ago.
It also said that ''not a single disruption in normal operation
occurred that would have resulted in the contamination of the air,
water or soil.''
A short feature titled ''Born of the Atom'' described life in the
town of Pripyat, which grew up around the nine-year-old Chernobyl
nuclear power plant, site of this week's accident.
The article did not specify the population of Pripyat, but noted
that it is ''made up mostly of young people'' with an average age of
26.
Soviet Life said Pripyat residents can see its nuclear power units
from their apartment windows.
''The units resemble a ship with white superstructures on deck,'' it
said. ''Radiating from the ship are the openwork pylons of power
transmission lines.''
The magazine said Pyotr Bondarenko, a shift superintendent in the
plant's department of labor protection and safety review, considers
working at Chernobyl safer than driving a car.
''Robots and computers have taken over a lot of operations,''
Bondarenko was quoted as saying. ''In order to hold a job here, you
have to know industrial safety rules to perfection and pass an exam
in them every year.''
Chernobyl's reactor is housed in a concrete silo and has
''environmental protection systems,'' the magazine said.
''Even if the incredible should happen,'' it said, ''the automatic
control and safety systems would shut down the reactor in a matter of
seconds. The plant has emergency core cooling systems and many other
technological safety designs and systems.''
The magazine said warm water of the plant's cooling pond ''is the
domain of a large-scale fishery that supplies fresh fish to stores in
Pripyat all year round, while its banks have been taken over by
anglers.''
Pripyat Mayor Vladimir Voloshko said the town's streets ''abound in
flowers. The blocks of apartments stand in pine groves. Each
residential area has a school, a library, shops, sports facilities
and playgrounds close by.''
Voloshko expressed no concerns about Chernobyl, instead describing
traffic, day-care and a lack of job opportunities for women as
Pripyat's chief problems.
AP-NY-04-29-86 1244EDT
a093 1020 29 Apr 86
BC-Nuclear Accidents,0477
Chronology of Nuclear Plant Problems
Here is a chronology of notable nuclear accidents worldwide.
Dec. 2, 1952: At Chalk River, Canada, an employee error leads to a
million gallons of radioactive water leaking inside an experimental
nuclear reactor. Took six months to clean up.
Oct 7-10, 1957: At Windscale Pile, a plutonium production reactor
north of Liverpool, England, a fire leads to largest known accidental
release of radioactive material. Government later attributes 39
cancer deaths to mishap.
1957: A nuclear accident, probably at a weapons facility, occurred
in the Ural Mountains in the Soviet Union. Little information exists,
but it is believed that hundreds of square miles had to be evacuated.
May 23, 1958: A second accident at Chalk River sparked by an
overheated fuel rod leads to another long cleanup.
Jan 3, 1961: A steam explosion at a military experimental reactor
near Idaho Falls, Idaho, kills three servicemen.
Oct. 5, 1966: At Enrico Fermi plant, an experimental breeder reactor
near Detroit, part of fuel core melts. No injuries, but radiation
levels high inside the plant. Plant was closed in 1972.
Oct. 17, 1969: At a reactor in Saint-Laurent, France, fuel loading
error leads to partial meltdown. No injuries and only small amount of
radioactive material escapes.
Nov. 19, 1971: Over 50,000 gallons of radioactive waste water flows
into the Mississippi River, when the waste storage space at the
Northern States Power Co.'s reactor in Monticello, Minn., overflows.
March 22, 1975: Worker using a candle to check for air leaks at the
Brown's Ferry reactor in Decatur, Ala., causes a $150 million fire
which lowers cooling water to dangerous levels. No injuries or
release of radioactivity.
March 28, 1979: Three Mile Island in Middletown, Pa., has partial
meltdown and some radioactivity is released into the atmosphere in
what many consider the nation's worst commercial nuclear mishap.
Reactor is still being decontaminated.
Aug. 7, 1979: Accidental release of enriched uranium at a top-secret
fuel plant near Erwin, Tenn., exposes about 1,000 people to above
normal doses of radiation.
Feb. 11, 1981: At least eight workers exposed to radiation at
Sequoyah I, a Tennessee Valley Authority power plant when over
100,000 gallons of radioactive coolant leaks into the containment
building.
April 25, 1981: Workers exposed to radioactive material at a nuclear
plant in Tsuruga, Japan during repairs.
Jan. 25, 1982: At the Ginna plant near Rochester, N.Y., a tube
ruptures and a small amount of radioactive steam escapes into the
atmosphere.
April 19, 1984: Sequoyah I has second accident when supeheated
radioactive water erups during maintenance procedure. No injuries.
June 9, 1985: Davis-Besse plant near Oak Harbor, Ohio loses cooling
water supplies due to human and equipment error. Problem is caught in
time to prevent meltdown.
AP-NY-04-29-86 1320EDT
a095 1025 29 Apr 86
PM-Soviet-Deaths,0075
URGENT
Two Killed In Nuclear Accident, Soviets Say
MOSCOW (AP) - The Soviet Union announced today that two people were
killed in the Chernobyl nuclear power plant accident. It said people
living around the plant and in some nearby population centers were
evacuated.
A statement by the Soviet government, distributed by the official
news agency Tass, said the ''radiation situation'' at the plant had
been stabilized and medical aid has been given to those affected.
AP-NY-04-29-86 1324EDT
a201 1105 29 Apr 86
AM-News Digest, 2 takes,0868
For Wednesday AMs
Here are the top stories at this hour from The Associated Press. The
SOVIET NUCLEAR DISASTER:
Details Scarce on What May Be Worst ivilian Accident Ever
MOSCOW - A Soviet news report calls the Chernobyl nuclear power
plant accident a ''disaster'' but few details emerge. Some Western
experts say it could be the worst civilian nuclear accident ever.
Slug AM-Nuclear Disaster. Developing. 850.
By Roxinne Ervasti. LaserGraphics upcoming.
Meltdown Seen Likely, Radiation Contamination Continues
STOCKHOLM, Sweden - Swedish officials say radiation blown over
northern Europe from the Ukraine clearly resulted from a core
meltdown, one of the worst possible accidents. They say any
continuing contamination was being blown toward Poland and
Czechoslovakia. Slug AM-Soviet-North Europe. Developing. 600.
LaserPhoto upcoming.
U.S. Offers Assistance in Coping With Disaster
WASHINGTON - The U.S. government says it will be willing to help the
Soviets cope with their nuclear disaster. American experts call the
accident a full-fledged meltdown; one says similar Soviet power
plants have been plagued by leaks for years. Slug AM-US-Soviet
Accident Rdp. Developing.
U.S. Federal, State Officials Monitor for Radioactive Fallout
OLYMPIA, Wash. - State and federal officials Tuesday watched
monitoring devices for any signs of radioactive fallout from the
Soviet nuclear accident. Authorities said the fallout could drift
across the Northwest by the weekend, but would be in an amount so
small it would not present a health hazard. Slug AM-Radiation
Monitoring. New material. Developing.
By John White. LaserPhoto upcoming.
Soviet Citizens Kept in Dark on Health Risk
MOSCOW - A brief Tass dispatch was the first Soviet report on the
Chernobyl nuclear accident, issued after Sweden reported high
radiation levels. Officials are keeping silent on the extent, leaving
people in the dark about what happened or the health risk. Slug
AM-Soviet-Silence. May develop. 600.
Methodist Bishops Call for Nuclear Freeze
REAGAN:
TERRORISM:
Slain Hostage Is Buried with Military Honors
DEAVER: Records Show Former Reagan Aide Lobbied Friends, Officials
ECONOMY: Sales of New Homes Hit Record High
CHICAGO ELECTION: Voters Decide Two Crucial Alderman Races
CHALLENGER EPILOGUE: Astronauts' Remains Are Flown to Delaware
AP-NY-04-29-86 1405EDT
a205 1128 29 Apr 86
AM-News Advisory,0226
In addition to the stories listed on the AM-News Digest, we are
planning the following for AMs:
TEL AVIV, Israel - Israeli security forces capture a Syrian-backed
SANTIAGO, Chile - A dynamite blast demolished a wall next door to
WASHINGTON - The deadlock over a fiscal 1987 spending plan showed no
LOMA LINDA, Calif. - Baby Rachel, whose doctors pleaded publicly for
MINEOLA, N.Y. - A group of touring Long Island high school students
was in Kiev when the Soviet nuclear plant disaster occurred. However,
chaperones on the trip have assured parents here that everybody is
fine. AM-Nuclear-Students.
AP-NY-04-29-86 1428EDT
a232 1604 29 Apr 86
AM-Digest Advisory,0120
The budgets have cleared. Here is a listing, with LaserPhoto
numbers:
BALI, Indonesia - Reagan, a206. BAL3,4,5.
ANKARA, Turkey - Turkey-Attack, a211.
WASHINGTON - Reserve Musters, a212.
WASHINGTON - Education Trends, a213.
CHICAGO - Council Shakeup, a214.
STOCKHOLM, Sweden - Soviet-Northern Europe, a215.
MOSCOW - Soviet-Silence, a216.
DOVER AIR FORCE BASE, Del. - Shuttle Remains, a217.
OLYMPIA, Wash. - Radiation Monitoring, a219.
WASHINGTON - US-Soviet Accident Rdp, a221-5.
WASHINGTON - Deaver, a223.
MORRISTOWN, N.J. - Nuclear-Methodists, a226.
WASHINGTON - Economy, a228.
MOSCOW - Nuclear Disaster, a230.
SAN FRANCISCO - Kilburn Funeral, a231. FX4.
The AP
AP-NY-04-29-86 1904EDT
a210 1216 29 Apr 86
BC-Nuclear-Markets,0421
Investors Dump U.S. Utility Stocks in Reaction to Soviet Accident
Eds: A version moved on the business wire
By RICK GLADSTONE
AP Business Writer
NEW YORK (AP) - U.S. utility stock prices fell sharply tuesday in
reaction to news of a Soviet nuclear plant disaster, and brokers said
stocks of companies with incomplete or unlicensed reactors were hurt
the most.
Prices of wheat futures meanwhile climbed as traders speculated that
Soviet crops might be hurt by the accident.
The Dow Jones average of 15 utility stocks fell 5.43 points to to
180.14, the biggest drop since the average fell 8.22 points on May
28, 1962.
''I think the situation in Russia certainly has had a ripple effect
in the United States,'' said Joseph B. Muldoon, a utility securities
analyst at Janney Montgomery Scott Inc., a Philadelphia investment
firm.
Linda S. Caldwell, a utility analyst at the Chicago investment firm
Duff & Phelps Inc., said: ''I've been getting a lot of calls, and our
clients seem concerned. Basically, anyone building a nuclear plant
got hit.''
The Soviet government has acknowledged a disaster occurred at its
Chernobyl nuclear power plant, 60 miles south of the city of Kiev,
and appealed to experts in West Germany and Sweden for help in
containing it.
Among the utility stocks most affected was Long Island Lighting Co.,
which dropped $1 a share to $11.62 1/2 on volume exceeding 1.7 million
shares in New York Stock Exchange trading. It has run into stiff
opposition to starting up its Shoreham nuclear power plant on New
York's Long Island because of concerns over an evacuation plan.
Eastern Utilities of Boston fell $1.37 1/2 to $31.87 1/2; Commonwealth
Edison of Chicago fell $1.62 1/2 to $31.12 1/2; Southern Co. of Atlanta
fell 37 1/2 cents to $22.50; Philadelphia Electric Co. fell 37 1/2 cents to
$17.62 1/2; and Carolina Power & Light of Raleigh, N.C., fell 87 1/2 cents
to $32.87 1/2. All have unfinished or unlicensed nuclear plants.
Although utility stock prices suffered, the price of wheat futures
was up. Traders speculated the effect the accident would have on
Soviet crops and the implications for U.S. exports.
At one point at the Chicago Board of Trade, wheat futures advanced
by the 20 cent a bushel limit for daily trading and corn was up its
10 cent limit. Prices later receded.
A U.S. government meteorologist said the radioactive cloud from the
accident traveled away from Russia's major winter grain region and
has had a ''minimal impact'' on crops.
AP-NY-04-29-86 1515EDT
a215 1321 29 Apr 86
AM-Soviet-North Europe, Bjt,0679
Radioactive Drift Shifts; Swedes Say Core Meltdown Likely
By CECILIA LONNELL
STOCKHOLM, Sweden (AP) - Swedish experts on Tuesday said radiation
blown over northern Europe indicates a core meltdown occurred at a
crippled Soviet nuclear plant. A radio report told of tens of
thousands of evacuations from the area around the plant.
Scandinavian officials complained about Soviet handling of the
accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, about 60 miles from
Kiev. The Soviet government on Tuesday said two people were killed,
but has not disclosed details on the accident.
Radioactivity levels in the Nordic countries rose to as much as six
times above normal Sunday, but were declining Tuesday and Swedish
weather experts said wind shifts were taking any further radiation
into Poland and Czechoslovakia. Officials said the radioactivity
posed no health danger to Nordic countries.
Bengt Pettersson of Sweden's Nuclear Power Inspection Board told a
news conference the concentration and composition of radioactive
fallout measured in Scandinavia indicated a core meltdown, one of the
most dangerous accidents possible in a nuclear power plant.
Danish Prime Minister Poul Schlueter, the first Nordic leader to
publicly criticize Soviet handling of the accident, said it was
''totally insufficient'' that the Soviet Union had not warned that
the radioactivity was coming.
''It shouldn't be that way in a modern society,'' he said,
complaining that Soviet officials admitted the accident only after
radiation was detected in the West on Sunday.
The Danish, Swedish and Norwegian ambassadors were reported to have
gone to the Soviet Foreign Ministry in Moscow to demand a verbal
explanation.
Swedish television on Tuesday evening showed an interview with a
Finnish tourist who said she had been told Sunday to leave Kiev and
return to Finland.
The woman, Ritva Eloranta, said a tourist guide told them that ''two
reactors had exploded'' and that 25,000 people had been evacuated
from the plant area. But she said the guide said there was no danger
from radiation in Kiev.
Danish radio reported that diplomats in Moscow had told of ''tens of
thousands'' being evacuated from the area around the power plant.
It said a West German technician working at the facility had told
diplomats by telephone of a 18-mile security zone being set up around
the plant.
A Swedish national radio reporter in Moscow cited ''very
well-informed sources'' as describing truck convoys moving north from
the area.
Nuclear experts in Sweden and West Germany said Soviet officials had
asked for help in fighting a fire at the nuclear plant, but that the
Soviets did not give any details of the accident.
Jan Olof Snihs, head of the Swedish Radiation Protection Board,
joined officials elsewhere in Scandinavia in assuring the public that
increased radiation in the Nordic area was not high enough to be
dangerous.
But widespread concern gripped Scandinavia. Copenhagen drugstores
reported hundreds of Danes seeking iodine tablets, which can hinder
the body's absorption of radioactivity.
''Half the city has been here and asked for iodine,'' said
pharmacist Peter Hostrup, at one leading drug store.
The Soviet facility at Chernobyl has four reactors. Swedish
officials said none was thought to be encased in a structure designed
to capture escaping contaminated steam.
Finland, which has a sensitive political relationship to the
neighboring Soviet Union, appeared Tuesday to be reacting with more
restraint than other Nordic countries even though it received most of
the drifting radiation.
It said it was setting up a ministerial committee but it disclosed
no effort to seek an explanation from the Soviets.
Swedish officials said 25 radioactivity measuring stations around
Sweden showed increased radiation levels Sunday but the instruments
were not checked over the weekend and the changes not discovered
until Monday.
Swedish newspapers on Tuesday criticized what they called the lack
of emergency preparedness around Sweden's four nuclear plants. The
high radiation levels were first discovered outside the country's
Forsmark plant on the Swedish east coast, about 100 miles north of
Stockholm.
AP-NY-04-29-86 1621EDT
a216 1334 29 Apr 86
AM-Soviet-Silence, Bjt,0787
Soviets Maintain Strict Control Of Information on Nuclear Disaster
By CAROL J. WILLIAMS
MOSCOW (AP) - The Soviet Union on Tuesday struggled to contain a
nuclear power plant disaster that may have affected thousands of
people and the controlled Soviet press maintained strict control of
information about the accident.
After the initial, four-sentence report by the official news agency
Tass on Monday night, the Soviet news media were silent for 24 hours
about an accident that may have melted the core of a Ukranian nuclear
reactor and sent a radioactive cloud rolling across hundreds of miles
of Russian plains.
The silence was in keeping with Soviet information policy that tries
to minimize natural disasters, airline crashes and other bad news
affecting the Soviet Union. There also is an attempt to avoid playing
up news that might upset the country's 278 million people or be taken
as a reflection on the Soviet government and Communist Party.
The first report by Tass was issued hours after Scandinavian
countries detected increased radiation and said the radiation
apparently came from the Soviet Union.
Tass said the accident was at the Chernobyl plant, but did not say
the accident occurred only 60 miles from Kiev, a city of 2.4 million
people. The report did not say what happened, when it happened,
mention whether there were casualties or discuss possible risks to
health.
The report was read on the main TV news program Monday night and
there was no new information issued until nearly 24 hours later when
Tass issued a second government statement saying two people were
killed and that people had been evacuated from four towns in the
area.
That report said the radiation from the damaged plant had been
contained and that medical aid had been ''given to those affected.''
A Radio Moscow report on Tuesday referred to the accident as a
''disaster'' and said victims were being given help. But it offered
no other details.
Western reporters and diplomats had difficulty getting telephone
calls through to Kiev, 475 miles from Moscow and the nearest large
city to Chernobyl. Intercity and international telephone calls in the
Soviet Union must be booked through Soviet operators, who reported
throughout the day that lines to Kiev and nearby cities were busy.
The few calls that did get through reached people who said they knew
nothing about the accident and that activity in the Ukrainian capital
appeared normal.
In a call to a Kiev newspaper, a staff member said he knew nothing
more about the accident than what was reported by Tass.
''I don't know facts, and I can't rely on rumors,'' said the man,
who declined to identify himself or say what rumors he had heard.
All foreigners stationed in Moscow are restricted to a 25-mile
radius of the Kremlin unless they give at least 48 hours notice of
travel plans to the Foreign Ministry. They normally must arrange an
itinarary with state agencies handling transportation and
accommodation, which usually takes a minimum of a week.
That means foreign correspondents working in Moscow cannot
immediately travel to areas where news events occur to get first-hand
information. On Tuesday, reporters inquiring about going to Kiev were
told either that the city was closed now, or that they should write
letters requesting arrangements.
A Foreign Ministry spokesman said it might be dangerous to travel to
Kiev.
Many areas of the Soviet Union are closed to foreigners.
Exiled Soviet scientists disclosed in the 1970s that the Chelyabinsk
area of the Ural Mountains is closed to foreigners and most Soviets
because of a 1958 accident at a nuclear waste dump that killed
hundreds and contaminated a huge area of the forestland.
That nuclear accident was never reported in the Soviet Union.
The Kremlin's control of the news media and its silence about
natural and man-made disasters is deeply rooted in the 68-year
history and ideology of the Communist country.
The media are considered tools of the social revolution being
carried out by the Communist Party and the primary role of the press
is to further party causes.
When the Soviets do report on disasters at home few details are
given and the Soviet media often carry more detail on disasters in
foreign countries.
The state-run media have been writing lately about the need for more
publicity about problems in the country. And papers have printed some
letters from readers complaining that they were told more about the
earthquake in Mexico City last year than they were about a quake of
apparently equal intensity in the Central Asian republic of
Tadzhikistan.
AP-NY-04-29-86 1634EDT
a219 1402 29 Apr 86
AM-Radiation Monitoring, Bjt,0727
Northwest Braces for Possible Fallout
Laserphoto YM1
By JOHN WHITE
OLYMPIA, Wash. (AP) - Gov. Booth Gardner met with health officials
and radiation monitoring was stepped up Tuesday as Washington state
prepared for the weekend arrival of fallout from the Soviet nuclear
accident.
Experts said radioactivity from the power plant disaster, expected
to appear over the northwestern United States as early as Saturday,
would probably pose no health threat there or in the Soviet Union
outside the immediate area of the power plant disaster.
''In time it will get here, there's no question about that,'' said
John Wallace, chairman of the University of Washington Department of
Atmospheric Science. ''It could be any time, probably three or four
days would be the minimum, and in any event it probably wouldn't take
more than a week.''
Wallace said that by then, the radiation would be widely dispersed
and ''the differences between what we get here and what they'd
experience in New York a day or so later wouldn't be that great.''
''There is no question there will be a sizable dilution, there's
tremendous mixing in the atmosphere,'' said Kenneth L. Mossman, who
directs Georgetown University Medical Center's program in radiation
science in Washington, D.C.
Charlie Porter, director of the Eastern Environmental Radiation
Facility in Montgomery, Ala., said fallout detection stations in all
50 states will deliver data to his agency, an arm of the federal
Environmental Protection Agency.
''We're calling all the station operators and instructing them to
begin taking daily samples,'' Porter said. Normally, readings are
taken every three days.
Porter said the EPA does not believe the cloud would be dangerous.
But he said there was no way to be sure without knowing the scope of
the Soviet accident.
Gardner met with officials from the state's health, environment and
emergency agencies to review steps the state could take in the event
abnormally high radiation levels reach the Northwest.
''There is nothing to be worried about in the Northwest at this
point, but we will maintain continuous monitoring of the situation,''
said Gardner press aide Jim Kneeland.
Filters on radiation monitors at the capital in Olympia, at Spokane
and at the Hanford nuclear reservation in eastern Washington were
ordered changed daily instead of the usual once a week, officials
said.
Federal officials have said if the radioactive cloud from the
accident at the Soviet nuclear power plant at Chernobyl ascends to
15,000 feet or higher, it probably would pass over the polar ice cap,
move across Canada and into the northwestern United States.
Mossman said the type of radiation detected in the United States and
elsewhere could provide clues as to the nature and scope of the
Soviet accident.
The Soviet Union said the accident had damaged an atomic reactor at
the Chernobyl power plant in the Ukraine. Radiation as much as 10
times above normal was recorded north of Stockholm, Sweden, and
included iodine and cesium compounds - both products of nuclear
fission which would be produced in uranium reactor fuel.
Mossman and another expert, Richard C. Reba, who heads the division
of nuclear medicine at George Washington University Medical Center,
said the health risks to Soviet citizens might not be great even in a
nearby population center such as Kiev, about 100 miles from the
accident site.
''If the Three Mile Island accident is any indication as to the
severity of health effects, I would imagine there wouldn't be much in
the way (of health effects,'' Mossman said.
The Three Mile Island accident near Harrisburg, Pa., in 1979 was a
partial meltdown. No one was killed and very little radiation was
released, but scientists are still monitoring the long-term effects.
With the Soviet accident ''radiation injury is really not going to
be a major factor,'' Reba said. Even in a meltdown, he said, the
dilution of water- and airborne radiation would minimize the health
effects.
Reba and Mossman said radioactive iodine in humans would migrate to
the thyroid gland where it can cause cancer.
Cesium, if inhaled or ingested, spreads throughout the body, Mossman
said, lodging in muscles and elsewhere. Cesium lasts much longer than
iodine, but it can remain in the body for decades with little health
effect, Mossman said.
AP-NY-04-29-86 1702EDT
a221 1417 29 Apr 86
AM-US-Soviet Accident Rdp, Bjt,0509
URGENT
By NORMAN BLACK
and JILL LAWRENCE
WASHINGTON (AP) - U.S. intelligence agencies have concluded that the
disaster at the Soviet nuclear plant in Chernobyl was definitely a
meltdown that probably was touched off by an internal chemical
explosion, sources said Tuesday.
Arms control administrator Kenneth Adelman, meanwhile, told Congress
that low death claims out of Moscow were ''frankly preposterous.'' He
said temperatures reached as high as 4,000 degrees at the
graphite-cooled reactor, and added, ''The graphite is burning and
will continue to burn for a good number of days.''
A ranking administration official, speaking on condition of
anonymity, told The Associated Press that officials evaluating recent
intelligence ''don't believe there was a nuclear explosion per se,''
at Chernobyl. ''But there was clearly a meltdown.''
The source added as of early Tuesday morning Washington time,
''smoke was still billowing from the site. The roof had been blown
off and large portions of the walls (of the reactor) had caved in.
''And it seemed at the time that the nuclear unit just above it
might still be in some danger.''
The source added the U.S. government was convinced there had been a
huge release of radiation, but that the most serious radioactive
fallout on the ground occurred within an area stretching out about 10
miles out from the plant.
This official also said the intelligence analysts were now convinced
the accident occurred sometime Saturday.
''There is concern over water contamination,'' Adelman told a Senate
committee Tuesday afternoon. ''It is on a river. We've got to assume
the water level is relatively high. The burning core at 4,000 degrees
is at such an intense temperature, if it goes into the water you
could have serious, serious problems with contamination.''
He said the United States has offered ''to help in any way we can.''
Adelman said those in the greatest risk are apparently the
inhabitants of a village of 2,000 persons built to house workers at
the nuclear facility and their families.
And when told by a senator that the Soviet Union has claimed that
only two deaths persons were killed by the accident, Adelman said
that was ''frankly preposterous in terms of an accident of this
magnitude.''
A source who had assessed intelligence reports said of the Soviet
reactor site: ''These are definitely power plants and not production
centers for nuclear warheads. But these are huge plants that provide
a major link in their electrical grid. There are four of them in a
line at this complex, and none of them are operating now.''
At the Pentagon, meantime, spokesman Robert Sims said the United
States had not learned of the accident in advance of Monday's
announcement by the Soviet press agency Tass.
The United States government offered Tuesday to help the Soviet
Union cope with the disastrous nuclear power plant accident, but came
away from a meeting with a Soviet official with few new details about
what actually happened.
MORE
AP-NY-04-29-86 1717EDT
- - - - - -
a225 1459 29 Apr 86
AM-US-Soviet Accident Rdp, 1st Add, a221,0674
WASHINGTON: recovered it.''
U.S. experts speculated that the accident, at the Chernobyl reactor
complex 60 miles north of Kiev, caused fatalities ranging from a few
to hundreds. And most of them said it couldn't happen here.
They also said fallout from the Soviet accident would have scant
effect on the environment in this country.
In Guam, preparing to accompany President Reagan to Bali,
presidential chief of staff Donald Regan said the United States
''could be helpful and would be if asked. We have a lot of experience
in how we can handle these things, both medically and
scientifically.''
Assistant Secretary of State Rozanne L. Ridgway extended the offer
of technical and humane assistance to Oleg M. Sokolov, the charge at
the Soviet embassy in a meeting at the State Department that
apparently had been scheduled in advance of the accident.
Sokolov apparently revealed little information during the visit.
''We hope the Soviets will provide information in a timely manner,''
said State Department spokesman Charles Redman.
James Vaughan, acting assistant energy secretary for nuclear
affairs, said he could not confirm reports that 2,100 people had died
as a result of the accident.
''We do not have any corroborating evidence of that figure,''
Vaughan told the House Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs.
Michail Timofeev, the Soviet deputy minister for civil aviation,
told reporters the scope of the accident was being exaggerated.
''I just came from the capital (Moscow) and I consider myself to be
a well-informed person,'' he said at a news conference at Dulles
International Airport just outside Washington.
Asked about the 2,100-casualty report, Timofeev said: ''These
figures in no way reflect the accident. The figures are in the tens
of people who have been injured. This is a local accident.
''The rumors are a little exaggerated. It is an accident. It's not a
catastrophe and this accident will not have any lasting effect on
anyone.''
Asked the source of his information, Timofeev said it was
''official.''
The news conference was scheduled to mark the resumption of flights
of the Soviet airline, Aeroflot, to the United States.
Radio Moscow called the accident a disaster. U.S. environmentalists
and nuclear industry spokesmen agreed that all signs pointed to a
fatal calamity in the Ukraine.
''I don't doubt that it is a very serious accident. It is probably
an accident where there are some fatalities, which we have not
experienced before,'' said Paul Turner, vice president of the Atomic
Industrial Forum, an industry trade group.
''My guess is hundreds of immediate deaths, thousands of long-term
deaths from induction of cancer of various types,'' said Thomas
Cochran, senior staff attorney for the Natural Resources Defense
Fund, stressing he lacked complete information.
The State Department said the U.S. embassy in Moscow was trying to
locate Americans in the Kiev area. An official who insisted on
anonymity said there wouldn't be ''more than a handful.'' The
department has asked Intourist, the Soviet travel agency, to provide
information on the whereabouts of U.S. tourists.
Theories on the cause of the accident ranged from explosions to
leaks.
''It's not implausible that there may have been some kind of
industrial explosion that could have caused them to lose their power
systems and their control systems,'' said Vaughan.
''They have had numerous small leaks with this type of
graphite-moderated pressure tube reactor,'' said Gordon Hurlbert,
retired president of Westinghouse Power Systems Co. ''This might have
been a massive leak into the charcoal. Charcoal and water don't mix
too well.''
Hulbert, who toured Soviet reactors in 1983, said the graphite
models in Chernobyl ''were in buildings just like a factory
building.''
Turner, the industry official, called the containment required in
the United States ''a significant added barrier to the release of
radioactive material if everything else doesn't work right.'' He said
the TMI accident, in which only a small amount or radiation escaped
the containment, demonstrated that the system works.
AP-NY-04-29-86 1759EDT
a230 1551 29 Apr 86
AM-Nuclear Disaster, Bjt,0889
URGENT
Soviets Appeal For Foreign Help, Evacuate Thousands
LaserGraphics
By ROXINNE ERVASTI
MOSCOW (AP) - The Soviet Union struggled Tuesday to cope with one of
history's worst nuclear disasters, appealing for foreign help to
fight a reactor fire and evacuating thousands of people from the
imperiled countryside.
In its first report on casualties, the Soviet government said the
Ukrainian nuclear plant disaster killed two people, and a Soviet
official visiting Washington said less than a hundred had been
injured.
But a U.S. official described such a relatively low casualty toll as
''preposterous.''
A radioactive cloud loosed by the accident shifted, meanwhile, from
Scandinavia back toward Central Europe.
Poland ordered emergency measures, including anti-radioactive
treatments for children. European political leaders angrily demanded
that Moscow explain why it had not quickly alerted the rest of the
world to the disaster, an apparent reactor meltdown believed to have
occurred late last week.
''It shouldn't be that way in a modern society,'' declared Denmark's
prime minister, Poul Schlueter.
Some called on the Soviets to shut down all their nuclear plants
until international inspections could be carried out.
The Soviet government claimed the ''radiation situation'' had been
stabilized at the damaged Chernobyl plant, 450 miles southwest of
Moscow. But Swedish officials said the Soviets had asked the
Stockholm government for information on combating nuclear-plant
fires, indicating continuing serious problems.
In Washington, U.S. arms control administrator Kenneth Adelman said
the reactor fire ''will continue to burn for a good number of days.''
He said reactor temperatures had reached 7,000 degrees Fahrenheit,
more than enough to have caused a calamitous meltdown of reactor
fuel.
The official Soviet news media provided only sketchy accounts of the
accident. Other reports, however, drew a picture of hurried exodus
from the affected area, but seeming unconcern in the Ukrainian
capital of Kiev, just 60 miles away.
A West German technician working at the Chernobyl facility said an
18-mile security zone had been established around the damaged plant,
the Danish state radio reported. Swedish radio, citing unnamed
sources in the Soviet Union, said truck convoys were streaming north
from the area, in the rolling hills near the Dnepr River, the Soviet
Union's industrial heartland.
But foreigners living in Kiev said life in the city of 2.4 million
people appeared normal.
''No one was aware of anything. No one seemed upset or concerned at
all. Activity ... was completely normal,'' U.S. Air Force Col. Robert
Berls said Tuesday after arriving here from Kiev.
Manfred Petroll, a West German nuclear industry spokesman, said the
accident ''must be the worst that has ever happened in the peaceful
use of nuclear energy.''
Western experts said, however, serious health hazards - many of them
not showing up until years from now - are unlikely beyond a 30-mile
range of the site.
Some scientists abroad noted that Kiev's drinking water, drawn from
the Dnieper River, theoretically could become contaminated. The
Ukraine is also a major grain-growing region for the Soviets.
A Soviet government statement Tuesday, distributed by the official
news agency Tass, said in part:
''The radiation situation at the electric power station and the
adjacent territory has now been stabilized and the necessary medical
aid is being given to those affected. The inhabitants of the nuclear
power station's settlement and three nearby populated localities have
been evacuated.''
It said two people had been killed during the accident, but did not
specify how or where they died, or how many others had been exposed
to radiation.
Mikhail Timofeev, Soviet deputy minister for civil aviation, told
reporters after he arrived in Washington Tuesday from Moscow that
''tens of people'' had been injured.
Adelman, asked in a U.S. Senate hearing about the Soviet report of
two deaths, described it as ''frankly preposterous in terms of an
accident of this magnitude.''
The power station's ''settlement,'' referred to by Tass, is Pripyat,
a new town with a population of about 25,000. The three other
evacuated towns were not identified. Danish radio quoted Moscow
diplomats as saying tens of thousands had been evacuated.
The Soviet statement said the accident occurred in the fourth of
Chernobyl's four power generating units - apparently meaning the
newest, completed in 1983 - and that the reactor was damaged,
destroying its housing and producing ''a certain leak of radioactive
substances.''
But it did not say what radioactive substances had been released,
for how long, and at what levels they had been ''stabilized.''
The science attache at a Western embassy, who spoke on condition he
not be identified, said the statement made it appear the situation
was ''slightly less serious'' than many experts earlier thought. But
he said that without precise scientific information it was impossible
to better assess the accident.
Foreign specialists generally agreed that the radioactivity readings
over a wide area of Europe indicated the Soviet reactor had suffered
at least a partial meltdown.
In a meltdown, the heat of the nuclear fuel core builds up faster
than it can be released, and radioactive material is boiled off into
the atmosphere. It is a particularly dangerous accident when the
reactor, as apparently is the case at Chernobyl, is not housed in a
concrete-and-steel containment.
AP-NY-04-29-86 1851EDT
a250 1801 29 Apr 86
AM-Nuclear Disaster, 1st Ld, a231,0251
Eds: UPDATES with Leahy saying no CIA evidence of many dead, U.S.
embassy in touch with Americans in Kiev
By ROXINNE ERVASTI
MOSCOW (AP) - The Soviet Union appealed Tuesday for Swedish and West
German help to fight a nuclear reactor fire and evacuated thousands
of people imperiled by one of history's worst nuclear disasters.
In its first report on casualties, the Soviet government said the
nuclear plant disaster near the Ukrainian capital of Kiev killed two
people, and a Soviet official visiting Washington said less than a
hundred had been injured.
U.S. Sen. Patrick Leahy said after a CIA briefing in Washington,
''I've seen nothing that indicated that huge numbers of people are
dead. It could be two, 12 or two dozen.''
Leahy, D-Vt., vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee,
said he had heard nothing to support a report that as many as 2,000
people were killed.
The U.S. State Department said the embassy in Moscow was in contact
with registered Americans known to be in the Kiev area and there was
no indication any had been injured. It did not say how many Americans
were in Kiev, a city of 2.4 million people 60 miles southeast of the
Chernobyl plant site.
Foreign embassies said they were assured there was no danger in
Kiev, but the Foreign Ministry told reporters asking for permission
to fly there that it could be dangerous.
A radioactive, 4th graf
AP-NY-04-29-86 2101EDT
a233 1612 29 Apr 86
AM-Nuclear-Students,0462
Parents of American Students in Kiev Told They Are Safe
By LAWRENCE NEUMEISTER
MINEOLA, N.Y. (AP) - Two American tour groups, including about 25
Long Island high school students, were in the Soviet city of Kiev as
a nuclear disaster developed 60 miles away, but organizers said
Tuesday that everyone was safe.
''The information we recieved via Finland was that both groups had
arrived in Kiev and both groups were proceeding on their sightseeing
itinerary ... and there was no immediate danger,'' said Michael
Holownia, New York district manager for Finnair, the airline that
organized the tours.
But some parents said they were worried.
''I'm not sure I believe it,'' said Loretta Stelter, whose
17-year-old daughter, Linda, is a senior at Massapequa High School.
''I'm not going to be happy until I speak to my daughter by phone.''
A Soviet Foreign Ministry spokesman has warned that travel to the
Ukrainian capital, 60 miles south of the Chernobyl nuclear plant,
might be dangerous, but reports from the city of 2.4 million
residents indicated no disruptions.
Information about the tour groups came from the Soviet Union, adults
on the tour and airline sources, Holowina said.
One group of 18 included about eight students from Massapequa High,
he said, adding that others were adults. The second group included
about 15 students from Garden City High School and Roslyn High School
and an equal number of adults, he said.
The trips were organized by teachers and others, and were not
affiliated with the schools.
Both groups left April 23 for Moscow and are scheduled to return to
New York on Sunday. The Garden City group arrived in Kiev on Sunday
and the Massapequa group arrived in Kiev the next day.
The Soviet Union has not said when the accident occurred, but first
word came Monday and two deaths were announced Tuesday. The accident
sent a radioactive cloud over Scandinavia, more than 750 miles to the
northwest, which was detected Sunday.
Both tour groups were expected to leave Kiev on Wednesday, Holownia
said.
James Tarrou of Wantagh, a Russian studies teacher at Garden City
High School, spoke by telephone from Kiev a Finnair representative in
Moscow, Holowina said.
''He said he knew of the situation, had ackowledged that they were
proceeding as scheduled and said they were told they were in no
immediate danger,'' Holownia said, adding that he was calling
relatives to reassure them.
Patricia Tarrou said she had not heard from her husband, but had
received his message through a Finnair representative. She said she
was encouraged that she did not hear anything sooner.
''I felt that no news was probably good news,'' she said.
AP-NY-04-29-86 1912EDT
a238 1644 29 Apr 86
AM-Cuba-Nuclear,0332
Soviets Building Reactors On Cuba
With AM-Nuclear Disaster Bjt
By DAN SEWELL
MIAMI (AP) - Fidel Castro is staking Cuba's energy future to nuclear
reactors designed by Soviet specialists, and experts said Tuesday the
Soviet disaster is likely to raise concerns about the project less
than 200 miles from Florida.
''If there were an accident of major variety (in Cuba), we would be
in bad shape around here,'' said Baehram Kursunoglu, who heads the
University of Miami's Center for Theoretical Research.
Castro has emphasized the safety features of the four reactors under
construction near the southern city of Cienfuegos. Dave Joliffe, a
spokesman for the American Nuclear Society, said available
information indicates that retaining walls are being built around the
reactors and that pressurized water will be used to moderate chain
reactions.
Water is used in U.S. plants, while the Chernobyl plant in the
Soviet Union used graphite and apparently had no protective
containing walls such as those that surround U.S. plants.
Kursunoglu, a Turkish-born physicist, has been invited to a forum
planning committee in Moscow in September to set an agenda for a 1987
forum of 20 international experts on nuclear energy. He said a major
priority of such groups now will be improving nuclear safety.
He added that he will call for international inspections of all
nuclear power plants.
''I'm sure the people in Florida are going to be upset (about the
Cuban project), but I'm not sure there's much they can do about it,''
said Bob Jefferson, a New Mexico-based consultant on nuclear energy.
Jefferson, who said current Soviet nuclear designs are much safer
than those used in the Chernobyl reactors, said East Bloc countries
have allowed some international inspections but for the most part
haven't been as cooperative as Western nuclear nations.
Designed by Soviet specialists and being built by Cuban and
Bulgarian workers, the reactors in Cuba are to begin operations in
1989.
AP-NY-04-29-86 1943EDT
a239 1654 29 Apr 86
AM-US-Soviet Accident Rdp, 1st Ld,0559
Meltdown Occurred, Fire May Still Be Burning, Intelligence Sources Say
EDS: UPDATES with CIA briefing, physicists disagree on meltdown,
CLARIFIES that 4,000 degrees is Centigrade
By NORMAN BLACK
and
JILL LAWRENCE
WASHINGTON (AP) - U.S. intelligence sources reported that the
Chernobyl nuclear reactor complex in the Soviet Ukraine experienced a
meltdown Saturday, was still billowing smoke Tuesday and threatened
another reactor at the same site.
Arms control administrator Kenneth Adelman, meanwhile, told Congress
that Soviet claims of only two deaths were ''frankly preposterous''
and called the incident ''the most catastrophic nuclear disaster in
history.''
He said temperatures reached as high as 4,000 degrees (Centigrade,
or 7,232 degrees Fahrenheit) at the graphite-cooled reactor and
added, ''The graphite is burning and will continue to burn for a good
number of days.''
Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence
Committee said after a CIA briefing Tuesday, ''I've seen nothing that
indicates that huge numbers of people are dead. It could be two, 12
or two dozen. Certainly the blast itself would have killed anyone in
the immediate area.''
But Leahy said he had seen nothing to confirm a report that 2,000
people had been killed.
He said radiation from the damaged plant ''continues to escape at an
alarming rate ... The nations around the Soviet Union are right to be
very concerned''
Emerging from the CIA briefing, Sen. Malcolm Wallop, R-Wyo., told
reporters, ''As we understand it, the building itself was essentially
destroyed ...One would have to assume there is contamination flowing
everywhere within that 30-kilometer radius. You've got a hot
radioactive core and it's still burning.''
The estimates are that the radiation levels are ''100,000 to 200,000
to perhaps a million times greater than anything that was
contemplated at the worst point in the appraisal of Three Mile
Island,'' Wallop said, attributing that assertion to information he
recieved from briefers.
''There are extensive levels of radiation, some of which are high
enough to cause instantaneous death, some of which will cause death
in days or weeks,'' Wallop said. ''There is a hot fire burning and no
ready way of putting it out.''
A ranking administration official, speaking on condition of
anonymity, told The Associated Press that officials evaluating recent
intelligence ''don't believe there was a nuclear explosion per se''
at Chernobyl. ''But there was clearly a meltdown.''
However, a group of physicists said they did not believe a meltdown
was possible. Dr. William W. Havens Jr., executive secretary of the
American Physical Society, said it would take temperatures of about
5,000 degrees Fahrenheit to melt the low-grade uranium oxide fuel. It
would be hard to reach temperatures of even 3,000 degrees in a
graphite carbon fire, he said.
''There was no fuel meltdown,'' said Allan Bromley, a physics
professor at Yale. But he added, ''As long as the fire continues,
there will be a continued release of radiation.''
As of early Tuesday morning EDT, ''smoke was still billowing from
the site. The roof had been blown off and large portions of the walls
(of the reactor building) had caved in,'' the administration official
said. ''And it seemed at the time that (another) nuclear unit just
above it might still be in some danger.''
The source, 6th graf
AP-NY-04-29-86 1954EDT
a240 1701 29 Apr 86
AM-Nuclear-Stocks,0394
Investors Dump U.S. Utility Stocks in Reaction to Soviet Accident
With AM-Nuclear Disaster
Eds: A version moving on financial wires
By RICK GLADSTONE
AP Business Writer
NEW YORK (AP) - U.S. utility stock prices fell Tuesday in reaction
to the Soviet nuclear plant disaster, which raised fears that safety
concerns aroused in this country would cause costly delays at
unfinished reactors.
The Dow Jones average of 15 utility stocks fell 2.93 points to
182.65. At one point the indicator was off by 5.43 points, considered
an unusually steep decline, but many of the stocks recovered in late
trading.
''I think the ation in Russia certainly has had a ripple effect
in the United States,'' said Joseph B. Muldoon, a utility securities
analyst at Janney Montgomery Scott Inc., a Philadelphia investment
firm.
Linda S. Caldwell, a utility analyst at the Chicago investment firm
Duff & Phelps Inc., said: ''I've been getting a lot of calls, and our
clients seem concerned. Basically, anyone building a nuclear plant
got hit.''
The Soviet government has acknowledged a disaster occurred at its
Chernobyl nuclear power plant, 60 miles south of the city of Kiev,
and appealed to experts in West Germany and Sweden for help in
containing it.
Among the utility stocks most affected was Long Island Lighting Co.,
which dropped 50 cents a share to $12.12 1/2 on volume of 2.1 million
shares. The company has encountered stiff opposition to starting its
Shoreham nuclear power plant on New York's Long Island because of
concerns over an evacuation plan.
Commonwealth Edison of Chicago fell $1.87 1/2 to $30.87 1/2 on volume
exceeding 1.7 million shares. Besides the Soviet disaster, analysts
said the loss also was caused by an Illinois court decision that
reversed a $494.8 million rate hike the utility instituted last year.
Among other declining utility stocks, American Electric Power Co.
Inc. of Columbus, Ohio, fell 62.5 cents to $26.50 on volume exceeding
1.1 million shares, and AZP Group Inc. of Phoenix, Ariz., fell 50
cents to $29 on volume exceeding 1.3. million shares. Both utilities
have nuclear plant projects.
Fulton S. Holmes, a utility analyst at New York's Thomson McKinnon
Securities, said each unfinished plant costs the sponsoring companies
$30 million a day, and investors fear delays over safety concerns
caused by the Soviet accident will aggravate the loss.
AP-NY-04-29-86 2001EDT
a266 2047 29 Apr 86
AM-Reactor Containment,0576
US Has Five Reactors With No Containment
With AM-Nuclear Disaster Bjt
By MATT YANCEY
WASHINGTON (AP) - Nuclear critics called Tuesday for the
construction of concrete and steel protective containment domes over
five U.S. atomic weapons reactors, in the wake of the Soviet nuclear
power plant accident.
Such containments, with four-foot-thick walls to prevent the escape
of radioactivity into the atomosphere in the event of an accident,
are required by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission for all 101
licensed U.S. civilian nuclear power plants.
But weapons reactors operated in South Carolina and Washington state
by the Department of Energy to produce tritium and plutonium for use
in atomic warheads are not covered by NRC regulations and lack the
containments.
The lack of such an enclosure is blamed for the escape of massive
amounts of radiation since a fire apparently broke out Saturday in
one of four reactors at the Chernobyl power plant about 60 miles
south of Kiev in the Soviet Union.
Four of the weapons production reactors are located at the Energy
Department's Savannah River plant at Aiken, S.C. The fifth, the
dual-use N reactor that produces both plutonium for weapons and steam
for generating electricity, is located in Hanford, Wash.
Robert Alvarez of of the Environmental Policy Institute said none of
the weapons reactors could meet NRC health and safety standards.
''And one of the reasons is that they don't have safety domes,'' he
said. '''All reactors should be required to have them.''
Alvarez said his group had been calling for the construction of
containments around the weapons reacotors for six years.
''The government has refused to do it,'' he said. ''The reason, as
far as I'm concerned, has more to do with political expediency to
manufacture nuclear weapons than any technical reason.''
Energy Department officials maintained Tuesday that the containments
are not needed, saying the reactors all have what they called
confinement systems and filters to remove any radioactive materials
from gases that might escape in an accident.
Jim Gaver, an Energy Department spokesman at the Savannah River,
said containments are not necessary for the weapons reactors because
they operate at much lower temperatures and pressures than civilian
power plants.
''The honest answer is the probability of a nculear accident here is
extremely remote,'' he said. ''In the event an accident should
happen, the effect to off-site population would be minimal.''
Michael Lawrence, director of the Energy Department's Hanford
operations, said comparing its N reactor with the burning Chernobyl
plant is ''like comparing a Mack truck to an Isuzu pickup.''
He said the Hanford safety systems include equipment to flood the
reactor's core with water or inert gases to put out any fire.
''In our examination of maximum credible accidents, we postulate
that the internal temperature could go as high as 1,000 degrees,''
Lawarence said. ''The temperature at which graphite burns is
approximately 2,200 degrees.''
Nuclear critics, however, were unconvinced.
''That's what the Soviets were saying about their design, too,''
said Thomas Cochran, a scientist for the Natural Resources Defense
Council.
Cochran said the filters and other confinement systems rely on the
what he admitted was a very slim chance that a weapons reactor could
ever incur a meltdown. But he said such systems, in the event a
meltdown did occur, would not be nearly has effective as a
four-foot-thick containment.
AP-NY-04-29-86 2347EDT
a002 2123 29 Apr 86
PM-News Digest,1146
Wednesday, April 30, 1986
Here are the top stories for PMs. The General Desk supervisor is Ron
NUCLEAR DISASTER:
Few Believe Soviet Report that Only Two Died
MOSCOW - Concern about the Soviet nuclear power plant accident has
spread across Europe, but the government has only issued two brief
reports on what happened at Chernobyl. Few believe the government's
report that only two people died in what may be the worst nuclear
disaster ever. Slug PM-Nuclear Disaster.
Developing. LaserGraphic NY5, chronology of accidents; LaserGraphic
NY6, top five countries with nuclear plants. By Roxinne Ervasti.
Spy Satellite Tells The World What the Soviets Won't
WASHINGTON - The American government, making use of its spy
satellites, is telling the world through leaks and intelligence
briefings what the Soviet Union won't tell its own people: History's
worst nuclear power disaster could be a million times worse than
Three Mile Island. Slug PM-US-Soviet Accident Rdp. 1000 words.
Top prospects uncertain. By Guy Darst
Scandinavian Leaders Hope to Bolster Warning Systems
STOCKHOLM, Sweden - Scandinavian leaders hope to bolster their
warning systems against any other nuclear accidents following the
Soviet one in which radioactive contamination swept across their
countries without warning. Slug PM-Scandinavia-Radiation.
Developing. By Cecilia Lonnell.
Soviet Accident Produces Political Fallout in the U.S.
WASHINGTON - What may be the worst nuclear power accident in history
at a plant in the Soviet Union is producing a new dose of political
fallout for a U.S. atomic program already reeling from cost overruns,
plant cancellations, safety concerns and fears about radioactive
wastes. Slug PM-US-Nuclear Powers. New material, should stand. 750
words.
By Matt Yancey
Soviets Rejected Lesson Of TMI About Containment
HARRISBURG, Pa. - Even after the lesson of Three Mile Island, Soviet
officials rejected as needlessly cautious the construction of a
concrete-and-steel containment building like the one that held back
radiation in the worst U.S. commercial nuclear accident. Slug
PM-Nuclear Containment. New material, may stand. 700 words.
By Rich Kirkpatrick.
Can It Happen Here? Industry Official and Foes Stake Out Their Turf
WASHINGTON - It could happen here, nuclear foes declared. No it
couldn't, an industry official countered. Groups on both sides of the
nuclear debate in the United States had clear opinions about
implications of the Soviet nuclear power plant accident, though all
were quick to concede they had few details about the accident itself.
Slug PM-Nuclear Foes. New material, may stand. 690 words.
LaserPhoto WX6, Walske comenting. By Robert Furlow
a028 0215 30 Apr 86
PM-Digest Advisory,0121
All the budgets have moved. Here is a list with Laserphoto numbers:
BALI - PM-Reagan-ASEAN, a008
WASHINGTON - PM-Nixon Papers, a009. Laserphoto WX4.
WASHINGTON - PM-Deaver, a010
WINDSOR - PM-Duchess of Windsor, a012
WASHINGTON - PM-FHA, a013
WASHINGTON - PM-Nuclear Foes, a014. Laserphoto WX6.
WASHINGTON - PM-US-Nuclear Powers, a015
NEW YORK - PM-Speech Technology, a016. Laserphoto NY4.
HARRISBURG - PM-Nuclear Containment, a017
STOCKHOLM - PM-Scandinavia-Radiation, a018
CHICAGO - PM-Council Shakeup, a019. Laserphoto CX4.
WASHINGTON - PM-US-Soviet Accident Rdp, a020
LOS ANGELES - PM-Library Fire, a021
MOSCOW - PM-Nuclear Disaster, a023
NEW YORK - PM-Deteriorating Shirts, a026
BALI - PM-Reagan, a027
AP-NY-04-30-86 0515EDT
a014 2333 29 Apr 86
PM-Nuclear Foes, Bjt,0713
Environmental Groups, Nuclear Industry Joust Over Chernobyl Disaster
Laserphoto WX6
By ROBERT FURLOW
WASHINGTON (AP) - It could happen here, nuclear foes declared.
No it couldn't, an industry official countered.
Groups on both sides of the nuclear debate in the United States had
clear opinions Tuesday about implications of the Soviet nuclear power
plant accident, though all were quick to concede they had few details
about the accident itself.
A quickly pulled-together coalition of 18 environmental and
energy-safety groups called for tightening of federal power plant
controls rather than weakening as some have proposed.
But doing away with nuclear power entirely is the best long-range
solution, coalition members said.
''As long as there are operating nuclear power plants in the United
States, we live with the risk of a similar accident here,'' a group
statement said.
''We presently have a de facto phase-out of nuclear power in the
United States,'' the coalition said, with members contending at a
news conference that such power is proving less efficient than other
energy sources. ''We should accelerate this phase-out through a
transition to least-cost energy planning and environmentally sound
energy technologies.''
However, a very different view came from Carl Walske, president of
the Atomic Industrial Forum, an industry group.
Asked at a news conference about chances of such an accident here,
he said, ''I don't think it's possible in the United States.''
He cited basic differences between Soviet and U.S. nuclear plants, a
crucial one being the containment domes that American power reactors
have and the Soviet one lacked.
''My opinion is it couldn't happen here because all of our analysis
and all the data we find in operating these reactors indicate we're
on track with a system where that can't happen,'' Walske said.
The anti-nuclear forces said earlier that they expected such
contentions and that they strongly disagreed.
Members of their coalition said the 1979 accident at the Three Mile
Island plant in Pennsylvania showed that even modern U.S. plants with
containment domes aren't immune from potentially disastrous mishaps.
The Three Mile Island accident was a partial meltdown, but very
little radiation was released. No one was killed, although 250,000
people were evacuated.
''The proposals for safety deregulation being advanced by the
nuclear industry and the agency responsible for regulating it suggest
that the lessons of Three Mile Island have never been learned,'' the
statement said. ''The accident at Chernobyl, apparently the worst
nuclear plant accident in history, affords us a second chance.''
''We urge that the warning be heeded and that the nation's civilian
nuclear policies be re-evaluated before an even worse accident
occurs. And we call upon all nations to begin planning for the
orderly phase-out of nuclear power worldwide.''
The groups also called for an international investigation of the
Soviet accident. They took the Russian government to task for acting
''irresponsibly by not promptly warning its neighbors of the accident
so adequate precautions could have been taken'' as radioactive
materials floated their way.
A statement released by Walske's industry group in Bethesda, Md.,
said that based on what was known by late Tuesday the group ''does
not expect this to have any significant impact on the U.S. nuclear
industry.''
But the coalition of nuclear foes said in their statement: ''We call
on the Congress and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to halt efforts
to deregulate nuclear power and roll back safety standards. This is
the absolute wrong time to further weaken the nuclear plant licensing
process, to limit liability for nuclear accidents and to raise
permissible levels of radiation exposure.''
The coalition said a handful of U.S. reactors don't have containment
domes, and they said that lack should be remedied.
However, Walske noted that those plants are used for military
nuclear production, not for producing electric power. ''They're not
stressed and strained as much as commercial plants so the need for
containment is less,'' he said.
Groups endorsing the coalition statement were the Union of Concerned
Scientists, Environmental Action, Health and Energy Institute, Safe
Energy Communications Council, Public Citizen, Nuclear Information &
Resource Service, Greenpeace, Sierra Club, National Audubon Society,
Friends of the Earth, Solar Lobby Environmental Policy Institute,
Christic Institute, Government Accountability Project, Blacks Against
Nukes, Environmental Task Force, Task Force Against Nuclear Pollution
and League of Conservation Voters.
AP-NY-04-30-86 0233EDT
a015 2352 29 Apr 86
PM-US-Nuclear Powers, Bjt,1028
Chernobyl Accident Sends Shock Waves Toward U.S. Nuclear Industry
By MATT YANCEY
WASHINGTON (AP) - The Chernobyl catastrophe in the Soviet Union,
which may be the worst nuclear energy accident in history, is
producing a new dose of political fallout for a U.S. atomic program
already reeling from cost overruns, plant cancellations, safety
concerns and fears about radioactive wastes.
Stocks of American utilities with heavy investments in atomic power
plants plummeted Tuesday as news about the severity of the accident
at the four-reactor Chernobyl plant 60 miles north of Kiev began
filtering to the United States.
Nuclear industry officials braced themselves for a repeat of the
political and public furor that stalled the U.S. program for two full
years immediately after the 1979 accident at the Three Mile Island
plant in Pennsylvania.
However, citing the more stringent government regulation of nuclear
power here than in the Soviet Union, particularly since the TMI
accident, officials and energy experts said the long-term effect of
the Chernobyl accident on the U.S. atomic activities will be minimal.
''Those who want to discredit nuclear energy will use this to do
that,'' said Elihu Bergman, executive director of Americans for
Energy Independence, a coalition of industry and academic experts.
''The real issue is the effect that declining oil prices will have on
utility plans for new power plants.''
Charles K. Ebinger, director of energy and strategic resources
studies at Georgetown University's Center for Strategic Studies,
called the disaster ''just the type of thing nuclear opponents have
been looking for.''
Sen. James McClure, R-Idaho, said he feared ''many people would try
to draw parallels between this accident and the U.S. experience.''
But, he added, ''We have nothing in this country that is identical to
the Soviet plants.''
An ad-hoc coalition of several anti-nuclear and environmental groups
- including the Union of Concerned Scientists, the Sierra Club and
the National Audubon Society - cited the Soviet accident on Tuesday
in calling for shutting down the U.S. atomic program.
''As long as there are operating nuclear power plants in the United
States, we live with the risk of a similar accident here,'' the
coalition said in a statement.
However, industry and government officials said the same kind of
accident is virtually impossible at a civilian power plant here,
primarily because all U.S. plants are enclosed in four-foot-thick
concrete and steel containments.
According to the International Atomic Energy Agency, no nation other
than the Soviet Union operates civilian power plant reactors without
containments to prevent radiation from escaping into the atmosphere
if other safety systems fail.
In addition, ever since a 1974 fire at the Browns Ferry nuclear
plant in Alabama, government regulators have required U.S. reactors
to have expensive automatic sprinkler systems for extinguishing fires
similar to the one at Chernobyl.
U.S. reactors, as opposed to those in the Soviet Union, have a
''defense-in-depth'' concept, said James Vaughan, acting assistant
energy secretary for nuclear power programs.
''People who live around power plants in this country are not
subjected to the kind of risks that this type of accident
represents,'' said Paul Turner, vice president of the Atomic
Industrial Forum, an industry group.
Ed Davis, president of the American Nuclear Energy Council, the
industry's lobbying arm, said the Soviet accident ''doesn't help us,
but I'm optimistic we'll weather the storm.''
''It's clear that the Soviets have taken some shortcuts and I think
the public will recognize the contrasts between the two systems,''
Davis said. ''Utilities were not planning to order any new reactors
for at least three to five years anyway.''
With 101 civilian power reactors holding Nuclear Regulatory
Commission operating licenses, atomic power now provides about
one-sixth of the United States' electricity. That is expected to grow
to 19 percent by 1995 as most of the 27 plants still under
construction are completed, according to Energy Department
projections.
However, no new plants have been ordered since 1978. And utilities
have canceled more than 100 reactors, largely because the growth in
electricity demand has not met the historic annual 7 percent
increases that had been anticipated into the future when the plants
were ordered in the 1970s.
Plants completed in recent years have been plagued by expensive
safety ''backfits'' ordered in the wake of Three Mile Island,
double-digit interest rates and prolonged construction periods.
William Lee, chairman of Duke Power Co., one of the nation's largest
nuclear utilities, told congressional committees last year that no
utility will order another reactor until some of the regulatory and
financial paths for them are cleared.
Congress, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the Reagan
administration have been working in recent years to remove some of
the barriers to a nuclear revival.
Legislation extending no-fault nuclear accident insurance to future
plants but raising the liability ceiling from its current $620
million level to $2 billion to $8 billion was passed by a House
committee last week and a Senate committee earlier this year.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has taken several steps and the
Reagan administration is sponsoring bills to pre-approve
''standardized'' designs for future plants.
Industry and Wall Street officials said the Soviet accident may set
those efforts back temporarily.
''One thing members of Congress do not like to do is legislate in
the absence of facts so I think they're going to be inclined to put
things on hold for awhile,'' said Davis.
While the stock prices of electric utilities with large investments
in nuclear plants dropped Tuesday, largely in reaction to the Soviet
accident, financial analysts said they expect them to rebound.
Fulton S. Holmes, a utility analyst at New York's Thomson McKinnon
Securities, said each unfinished plant costs the sponsoring companies
$30 million a day, and investors fear delays over safety concerns
caused by the Soviet accident will aggravate the loss.
''I think this reaction is the nervous nellies, not the people who
know what's going on in the industry,'' said Joseph B. Muldoon, a
utility securities analyst at Janney Montgomery Scott Inc., a
Philadelphia investment firm.
AP-NY-04-30-86 0252EDT
a017 0016 30 Apr 86
PM-Nuclear Containment, Bjt,0734
Concrete And Steel Contained TMI Hazards
By RICH KIRKPATRICK
HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) - A concrete and steel building kept lethal
levels of radiation from escaping during the Three Mile Island
accident in 1979, but Soviet officials dismissed the barrier a few
months later as unnecessary.
Blocked by 3-foot-thick walls, radioactive iodine, cesium, strontium
and other hazardous elements that escaped from the ruptured and
partially melted uranium fuel at TMI went no farther than the
building's basement.
The plant's owner, GPU Nuclear Corp., refuses to speculate on what
would have happened had there been no containment, as is the case at
the Chernobyl nuclear station near Kiev in the Soviet Union.
U.S. intelligence sources said Tuesday that the Chernobyl reactor
core had melted down and that the graphite coolant was burning.
Radiation was detected more than 750 miles away over Scandinavia, and
the Soviet Union reported that two people were killed and four towns
evacuated.
Containments are required by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission for
all 101 licensed U.S. civilian nuclear power plants, but five
government reactors that produce material for nuclear weapons don't
have the structures because they are not covered by the regulation.
Four of the weapons-production reactors are at the U.S. Energy
Department's Savannah River plant at Aiken, S.C. The fifth, which
produces plutonium for weapons and steam for electricity, is in
Hanford, Wash.
DOE officials maintained that the containments are not needed
because the reactors have confinement systems and filters to remove
radioactive materials from gases that might escape during an
accident. The plants also operate at much lower temperatures and
pressures than civilian plants, they said.
Critics, however, were unconvinced.
''That's what the Soviets were saying about their design, too,''
said Thomas Cochran, a scientist for the Natural Resources Defense
Council.
Pennsylvania Gov. Dick Thornburgh, who managed the state's response
to the TMI accident, said he tried to share his experience with
Soviet officials during a November 1979 visit there.
So strong was their belief in the safety of their plants that they
waved off his comments about evacuations and other preparations,
Thornburgh said.
''Safety was a solved problem,'' Thornburgh quoted the Soviet
officials as saying. ''The threat from nuclear facilities was less
than that from coal and the entire concern about safety had been
overdramatized.''
They saw little need for containment buildings and said reactors
were so safe that one could be built in Red Square in Moscow, he
said.
Various studies after the March 1979 accident near here describe the
extent of contamination held in check by safeguards common to U.S.
commercial reactors.
Nearly 11 million curies of radioactive iodine were retained in
water and about 36,000 curies in the atmosphere inside the sealed
building, according to the President's Commission on the TMI
Accident. But only about 14 curies escaped from water that had been
pumped to an unsealed auxiliary building in the accident's early
hours, officials have said.
Curies are a measure of radioactive decay and 14 curies translate
roughly into a dose rate of 0.01 rem over a 50-year period to a
person. U.S. guidelines for employees at nuclear plants limit
exposure to any kind of radiation over a three-month period to 3 rem.
Iodine was a concern during the accident because of its ability to
combine with other substances in human bodies and in the food chain.
The element tends to collect in the thyroid gland and in high
concentrations can cause tumors.
Although considerable amounts of cesium and strontium were released
from the damaged fuel, no detectable amounts were ever found outside
containment, the president's report said.
About 10 million curies of gases, mostly xenon, did reach the
atmosphere, but came out of water in the auxiliary building. The gas
was not considered especially hazardous because it doesn't combine
with anything and was dissipated in the atmosphere.
Radiation levels in parts of the building continue to be hazardous.
In the basement, where more than 600,0000 gallons of contaminated
water collected during and after the accident, dose levels are still
35 rem per hour, plant spokesman Gordon Tomb said Tuesday. He said
that at some isolated spots along the walls, the dose rates are as
high as 1,000 rem per hour.
The most deadly elements, plutonium and uranium, stayed within the
reactor system and no evidence was found that they had contaminated
the interior of the containment building, plant officials said last
year.
AP-NY-04-30-86 0316EDT
a018 0025 30 Apr 86
PM-Scandinavia-Radiation, Bjt,0501
Scandinavians Demand Earlier Warning
By CECILIA LONNELL
STOCKHOLM, Sweden (AP) - Scandinavian leaders are demanding earlier
warning about nuclear accidents such as the power plant disaster in
Soviet Union, which they first learned about when they began to pick
up an increase in radiation already over their countries.
Health officials said radiation in the Nordic countries, which did
not reach dangerous levels, was expected to continue declining today,
four days after the accident at Chernobyl, north of the Ukrainian
capital of Kiev, hundreds of miles to the southeast.
Swedish weather experts said Tuesday that a change in winds had
ended further contamination of Northern Europe and that any
continuing contamination would be blown into Poland and
Czechoslovakia.
The accident apparently happened Saturday, but Soviet officials did
not say anything about it until late Monday, hours after Swedish and
Finnish experts said they had detected increases in radiation and
pointed the finger at the Soviet Union.
The Soviets still have provided little information about the
disaster beyond announcing that two people died and several villages
have been evacuated. But U.S. intelligence reports indicate that a
fire still is burning at the Chernobyl plant.
Bengt Pettersson of Sweden's Nuclear Power Inspection Board told a
news conference Tuesday the concentration and composition of
radioactive fallout measured in Scandinavia indicated a core
meltdown, one of the most dangerous accidents possible in a nuclear
power plant.
Danish Prime Minister Poul Schlueter called it ''totally
unacceptable and unsatisfactory that we can come to experience such a
great, tragic, nuclear power accident without the governments in the
affected countries, at least neighboring states, being informed about
what happened.''
Schlueter said Denmark would push for international agreements
requiring the Soviet Union and other countries with nuclear power
plants to provide quick warning of accidents.
Birgitta Dahl, the Swedish energy minister, said it was
''unacceptable that Sweden was not immediately informed.''
The Danish, Swedish and Norwegian ambassadors in Moscow reportedly
went to the Soviet Foreign Ministry to demand an explanation.
Jan-Olof Snihs, head of Sweden's Radiation Protection Institute,
said work would probably be speeded up on converting 25 scientific
radiation measuring stations around the country to provide early
warnings.
The automatic stations began detecting increases in radioactivity on
Sunday, but the readings were not noticed until Monday, Snihs said.
Despite assurances that the radiation levels were not dangerous,
hundreds of Danes flocked to drugstores to buy iodine tablets, which
can hinder the body's absorption of radiation.
Sweden and West Germany have said the Soviets asked for advice on
how to control a fire at the nuclear power plant.
Stockholm University Professor Frantisek Janouch, a nuclear
physicist who spent 10 years doing research in the Soviet Union, was
quoted by the Swedish national news agency TT as saying that
indicated the accident was very serious and that ''they are at a
loss, and do not know how to handle the situation.''
AP-NY-04-30-86 0325EDT
- - - - - -
a043 0408 30 Apr 86
PM-Scandinavia-Radiation, 1st Ld, a018,0191
EDS: UPDATES with reports of contaminated rainwater, milk
By CECILIA LONNELL
STOCKHOLM, Sweden (AP) - A government official today warned against
drinking rainwater in two cities after a reactor fire at a Soviet
nuclear power plant sent a radioactive cloud across Scandinavia.
Torkel Bennerstedt, of the Radiation Protection Institute, said
rainwater had been contaminated in Uppsala north of Stockholm and in
Gavle in central Sweden where it rained Tuesday.
He could not supply figures reflecting the level of contamination of
the rainwater, but said it ''did not seem advisable,'' to drink the
water.
Swedish national radio also reported that milk from cows on the
island of Gotland off the eastern Swedish coast had been
contaminated, but was still considered safe to drink.
Finnish radio today said rain on Tuesday had caused radiation levels
of up to 80-100 times normal in the west coast town of Vaasa, but
that there still was no cause for alarm.
Officials said rainwater taken from childrens' playgrounds had been
tested and found to present no danger, the radio said.
Health officials, 2nd graf
AP-NY-04-30-86 0708EDT
- - - - - -
a061 0643 30 Apr 86
PM-Scandinavia-Radiation, 2nd Ld, a043-18,0508
Scandinavians Demand Earlier Warning
Eds: LEADS with 15 grafs to expand warning against drinking rainwater
to east coast region, rainfall also concentrating radiation in parts
of Finland
By CECILIA LONNELL
STOCKHOLM, Sweden (AP) - Radiation experts today warned against
drinking rainwater in areas along Sweden's east coast because of
contamination by radiation from the Soviet nuclear plant accident.
The National Radiation Protection Institute issued its warning for
central to northern Sweden along the east coast, where it said
otherwise safe levels of radiation were concentrated in rainfall
because of the accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant.
''We have received some recordings that show a relatively high
concentration of radioactivity where there has been rainfall,'' said
Gunnar Bengtsson, a senior spokesman at the institute.
Bengtsson said in a radio interview that some standing rainwater in
the affected areas contained radiation equivalent to that received in
an X-ray.
Officials said urban water supplies were not affected because they
did not deliver concentrated fresh rainwater to households. However,
rainwater is widely used for drinking by residents of summer cottages
in rural areas.
In Sweden and the other Nordic countries, radiation levels were
highest Sunday and Monday but even then did not reach dangerous
levels. Health officials said the levels were expected to continue
falling today.
Aake Eriksson, a researcher at Ultuna University in Uppsala, advised
against letting children play in puddles of rainwater.
Swedish national radio reported that milk from cows on the island of
Gotland off the eastern Swedish coast had been contaminated, but was
still considered safe to drink.
In neighboring Finland, the Office of Nuclear Radiation Safety
distributed a statement today saying that overnight showers there
also concentrated radiation in the central part of Finland. Finnish
radio said rain Tuesday caused radiation levels of up to 80-100 times
normal in the west coast town of Vaasa.
But Finnish officials said the brief peaks in radiation posed no
health threat, and that emergency measures would be triggered only if
readings hit 1,000 times normal.
Finnish radio quoted officials as saying rainwater taken from
childrens' playgrounds had been tested and found to present no
danger.
Although U.S. intelligence indicated the Soviet nuclear plant at
Chernobyl, north of the Ukrainian capital of Kiev, was still burning
Tuesday and emitting radiation, Swedish weather experts said a change
in winds had ended further contamination of northern Europe. They
said any continuing contamination would be blown into Poland and
Czechoslovakia.
Swedish Energy Minister Birgitta Dahl in a radio interview today
said the Chernobyl fire appeared to have happened Friday, rather than
Saturday as others have said.
Soviet officials did not report the accident until late Monday,
hours after Scandinavian experts said they detected increases in
radiation.
Ms. Dahl said Sweden was preparing ''a list of demands with regard
to the Soviet Union'' and indicated they would include a call for
tighter safety measures at Soviet nuclear installations.
The Soviets still: 10th graf
AP-NY-04-30-86 0943EDT
- - - - - -
a090 0900 30 Apr 86
PM-Scandinavia-Radiation, 3rd Ld, a061,0348
Scandinavians Demand Earlier Warning
Eds: LEADS with 11 grafs to UPDATE with Soviet ambassador promising
information on any new problems, ban on food imports from East Europe
By CECILIA LONNELL
STOCKHOLM, Sweden (AP) - The Soviet ambassador today assured Sweden
that Moscow will give fuller information on any new problem stemming
from the accident at a Soviet nuclear reactor, but said the situation
has stabilized, the Swedish Foreign Ministry said.
But a ministry spokesman, Bertil Jobeus, told The Associated Press
that Moscow has not answered Sweden's questions about the technical
nature of the accident.
Sweden and Denmark have been sharply critical of the Soviet Union's
failure to report the accident at the Chernobyl reactor in the
Ukraine until late Monday. Outside experts estimated a fire broke out
at the reactor Friday or Saturday.
The accident sent a radioactive cloud drifting over Eastern Europe
and Scandinavia. Radiation experts in Sweden said the radiation did
not reach dangerous levels and was declining, but today warned
against drinking rainwater in affected areas.
Jobeus said Soviet Ambassador Boris Pankin told Foreign Ministry
officials ''that if anything worse happens, Swedes and others will be
better informed.''
The spokesman quoted Pankin as saying the three other reactors at
the Chernobyl power station were shut down, and that the situation
was stabilized at the damaged reactor.
U.S. officials, however, said they believed the reactor still was
burning and emitting radiation today.
Meanwhile, the National Swedish Food Administration banned imports
of fresh vegetables, fish and meat from East European countries hit
by the radiation. The agency said Swedish-grown foodstuffs were safe
to eat.
The National Radiation Protection Institute warned against drinking
rainwater in areas from central to northern Sweden along the east
coast, where it said otherwise safe levels of radiation fallout were
concentrated in rainwater.
Gunnar Bengtsson, a senior spokesman at the institute, said in a
radio interview that some standing rainwater in the affected areas
contained radiation equivalent to that received in an X-ray.
Officials said: 5th graf
AP-NY-04-30-86 1159EDT
a020 0055 30 Apr 86
PM-US-Soviet Accident Rdp, Bjt,1108
U.S. Government Tells World What Happened at Chernobyl
By GUY DARST
WASHINGTON (AP) - The American government, making use of its spy
satellites, is telling the world through leaks and intelligence
briefings what the Soviet Union won't tell its own people: One of
history's worst nuclear power disasters could be a million times
worse than Three Mile Island.
The U.S. government is laying out a picture of a reactor building
blown apart, a gigantic raging fire and deadly radiation still thrown
into the air four days after the still unexplained mishap at
Chernobyl, 60 miles north of Kiev in the Soviet Union's breadbasket,
the Ukraine.
Emerging from a closed-door briefing Tuesday by the Central
Intelligence Agency, Sen. Malcolm Wallop, R-Wyo., said, ''One would
have to assume that there is contamination flowing everywhere within
that 30-kilometer (19 miles) radius,'' a reported evacuation zone.
Radiation is ''100,000 to 200,000 to perhaps a million times greater
than anything that was contemplated at the worst point in the
appraisal of Three Mile Island,'' Wallop said. He said that
assessment came from his briefers.
''There are extensive levels of radiation, some of which are high
enough to cause instantaneous death, some of which will cause death
in days or weeks,'' Wallop said.
Despite the apparent severity of the accident, presidential
spokesman Larry Speakes said there appeared to be no threat to the
United States.
''It appears the radioactive air mass is currently moving to the
northwest,'' over Scandinavia and toward the polar cap, Speakes told
reporters in Bali accompanying President Reagan on his Far East trip.
In Washington, the Environmental Protection Agency released a
statement saying the radioactivity was expected to disperse by
''normal atmospheric activity'' over the next few days. The agency
said that if any radiation were to eventually reach the United
States, it would probably have dispersed to a level too low to
threaten public safety.
The Three Mile Island accident in 1979 near Harrisburg, Pa.,
theoretically could not have dosed anyone outside the plant more than
100 millirems - four chest X-rays - and experts said the most exposed
individual more likely received 10 millirems at most.
In a rare gesture, the United States offered help to the Soviet
Union, but there was no word that the offer was accepted by Moscow.
The State Department informed the Soviets this country would be
willing to send doctors to treat radiation victims and equipment and
personnel to monitor the severity of the radiation release, its spead
and its potential for longterm damage.
But criticism was heard too. A resolution introduced in the Senate
urged that the International Atomic Energy Agency investigate the
accident, which apparently occurred last Saturday. A House
resolution, with 100 co-sponsors, condemned the Soviets for failing
to notify the world as soon as it knew the threat to its neighbors.
No word came from U.S. sources on the death toll at Chernobyl.
''It could be two, 12 or two dozen,'' said Sen. Patrick Leahy,
D-Vt., vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee. ''I've
seen nothing that indicates that huge numbers of people are dead.''
The Soviets officially announced a toll of two, but that was termed
''frankly preposterous'' by Kenneth Adelman, head of the Arms Control
and Disarmament Agency.
Radiation is escaping from the plant because nearly 2,000 tons of
graphite used to control the fission reaction is on fire. The fire is
throwing into the air the radioactive fission products that have
accumulated in the reactor fuel.
It could burn for days, experts say.
''As long as the fire continues, there will be a continued release
of radiation,'' Allan Bromley, a physics professor at Yale
University, told a Washington news conference.
Speakes said such an accident could not happen in the United States
because U.S. power reactors - unlike Chernobyl - have containment
structures designed to keep any releases of radioactivity from
escaping, plus additional safeguards.
Small amounts of radioactive gas were released during the Three Mile
Island accident.
A ranking administration official with access to intelligence said
that on Tuesday morning ''smoke was still billowing from the site.
... The roof had been blown off and large portions of the walls (of
the reactor building) had caved in.''
The adjacent reactor in the four-unit complex seemed to be in some
danger from the fire, the administration official said. The three
remaining reactors had been shut down.
It was clear that such precise detail came from the KH-11 spy
satellite, but nobody in a position to know that would confirm it.
The administration official said intelligence analysts ''don't
believe there was a nuclear explosion per se'' at Chernobyl. ''But
there was clearly a meltdown'' in a process triggered by a
conventional explosion of some kind.
''There was no fuel meltdown,'' Bromley said. Though fuel rods may
have melted, the uranium oxide fuel could not have gotten hot enough
- 5,000 degrees Celsius, he said.
The reactor has 1,661 vertical rods containing uranium surrounded by
water that is turned into steam by the heat of fission.
The EPA statement said the accident involved the fourth and newest
Chernobyl reactor.
Most of the core of the reactor, which was of a type called RBMK by
the Soviets, was destroyed by the fire, the statement said.
The core contains approximately 200 tons of uranium interspersed
within 1,700 tons of graphite, according to EPA.
''The fire will continue to spread radiation from the core as along
as it burns, although the Soviets have indicated that the rate of
release is decreasing,'' said the EPA.
Most speculation by experts in the U.S. nuclear industry followed
this line of thinking: interruption of coolant flow to the reactor,
heat buildup, collapse of fuel tubes, possible explosion of hydrogen
bubble formed by the hot fuel tubes, ignition of graphite, perhaps
unnoticed at first. There are many unanswered questions such as what
happened to backup systems.
But Bromley introduced an alternative: Something going wrong while
deliberately heating the graphite to remove energy that builds up by
the constant bombardment with neutrons.
This energy must be released periodically by heating the graphite.
If the operation is not carefully controlled, too much heat can
result in a fire.
But Vic Dean of General Atomic Technologies in San Diego, the
company that built the only commercial graphite reactor in the United
States, the gas-cooled reactor at Fort St. Vrain, Colo., said he
didn't think such a process started the accident.
AP-NY-04-30-86 0355EDT
a023 0140 30 Apr 86
PM-Nuclear Disaster, Bjt,1242
Thousands Evacuated As Nuclear Disaster Threatens Other Reactors
By ROXINNE ERVASTI
MOSCOW (AP) - Soviet officials ordered the evacuation of four towns
and shut down the remaining reactors at Chernobyl, where an inferno
was believed to still be raging after a nuclear disaster spawned a
radiation cloud that contaminated water and milk 1,000 miles away.
The government, in a sketchy report Tuesday on the weekend disaster
60 miles north of Kiev in the Ukraine, reported two deaths.
Soviet newspapers today provided their first information on the
disaster, but limited themselves to printing only a text of a
government statement that was released Tuesday. Soviet officials
reached by telephone in Kiev today refused to comment.
U.S. intelligence sources in Washington said the Chernobyl reactor
complex experienced a meltdown Saturday, still was billowing smoke
Tuesday and threatened another reactor at the same site.
U.S. officials said there appeared to be no way to put the fire out
immediately. Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., vice chairman of the Senate
Intelligence Committee, said after a CIA briefing Tuesday that
radiation from the damaged plant ''continues to escape at an alarming
rate.''
Sweden and West Germany said Tuesday that the Soviets had asked for
help in controling the fire.
Swedish national radio, quoting the Radiation Protection Institute,
said today that warnings might be issued against drinking rain water
in areas where recent showers had concentrated radioactive
contamination from Chernobyl, more than 1,000 miles away.
The radio said rainfall had raised contamination levels in Uppsala
north of Stockholm and in Gavle in central Sweden. It said
radioactive contamination had also been detected in milk from cows on
the island of Gotland, off the eastern Swedish coast, but that it was
still considered safe to drink.
Fallout might also be detectable in the United States by the
weekend, but the amounts would be too small to be dangerous, U.S.
specialists said. Because of shifting wind patterns, there were
forecasts that the radiation could show up on both coasts.
The radioactive cloud looped back toward Central Europe and the
Soviet Union from Scandinavia on Tuesday, and weathermen around the
world tried to track the fallout.
Reports drew a picture of a hurried exodus from the Chernobyl area,
but seeming unconcern in Kiev. Michael Moss, a University of
Washington student in Kiev, said in a telephone interview today that
life in Kiev was normal. ''Nobody in the city is terribly worried
about it,'' he said.
The State Department said the embassy in Moscow was in contact with
Americans in the Kiev area, and that there was no indication any had
been injured.
Swedish radio, citing unidentified sources in the Soviet Union, said
truck convoys were streaming north from the area near the Dnepr River
in the Soviet industrial heartland.
A West German technician working at the Chernobyl facility said an
18-mile security zone had been established around the damaged plant,
Danish state radio reported.
In its first report on casualties, the Soviet news agency Tass said
two people had been killed, and a Soviet official visiting Washington
said less than a hundred had been injured.
A Soviet government statement, distributed by the official Tass news
agency, said in part:
''The radiation situation at the electric power station and the
adjacent territory has now been stabilized and the necessary medical
aid is being given to those affected. The inhabitants of the nuclear
power station's settlement and three nearby populated localities have
been evacuated.''
It did not say how or where the two people died, or how many others
had been exposed to radiation.
Mikhail Timofeev, Soviet deputy minister for civil aviation, told
reporters in Washington Tuesday that ''tens of people'' had been
injured.
The power station's ''settlement,'' referred to by Tass, is Pripyat,
a town with a population of about 25,000. The three other evacuated
towns were not identified. Danish radio quoted Moscow diplomats as
saying tens of thousands had been evacuated.
The Soviet statement said the accident occurred in the fourth of
Chernobyl's four power generating units - apparently meaning the
newest, completed in 1983 - and that the reactor was damaged,
destroying its housing and producing ''a certain leak of radioactive
substances.''
Western experts said serious health hazards - many of them not
showing up until years from now - are unlikely beyond a 30-mile range
of the site.
Some scientists abroad noted that Kiev's drinking water, drawn from
the Dnepr River, could become contaminated. The Ukraine is also a
major grain-growing region for the Soviets.
U.S. arms control administrator Kenneth Adelman in Washington said
the Soviet report of two deaths ''frankly preposterous,'' and called
the incident ''the most catastrophic nuclear disaster in history.''
Emerging from a CIA briefing, Sen. Malcolm Wallop, R-Wyo., told
reporters there were extensive levels of radiation, ''some of which
are high enough to cause instantaneous death, some of which will
cause death in days or weeks.''
''There is a hot fire burning and no ready way of putting it out,''
he said.
In Bali, White House spokesman Larry Speakes, traveling with
President Reagan, called on the Soviet Union to provide more
information about the incident, and repeated an offer of technical
help.
''Fighting the fire will be very difficult due to the extremely high
levels of radiation near the reactor,'' Speakes said. ''No one in the
world has experience in dealing with a situation like this.''
The White House established a special task force to coordinate the
government's response to the accident.
Poland banned the sale of milk from cows that feed on fresh grass
and said children would be treated with potassium iodine solution for
possible radioactive contamination, but state television said the
general public was not endangered because of the ''temporary
character'' of the fallout.
European political leaders angrily demanded that Moscow explain why
it had not quickly alerted the rest of the world to the disaster,
with some calling on the Soviets to shut down all their nuclear
plants until international inspections could be carried out their
estimated 45 operating reactors.
Adelman said reactor temperatures had reached 7,000 degrees
Fahrenheit, more than enough to have caused a calamitous meltdown of
reactor fuel. But other scientists disagreed.
Manfred Petroll, a West German nuclear industry spokesman, told The
Associated Press that diplomats at the Soviet Embassy in Bonn had
asked for advice in combating a graphite fire in a nuclear reactor.
He said other Soviet diplomats were trying to arrange assistance from
West German anti-radiation experts and the possible delivery of
medicine.
In a meltdown, the heat of the nuclear fuel core builds up faster
than it can be released, and radioactive material is boiled off into
the atmosphere. It is a particularly dangerous accident when the
reactor, as apparently is the case at Chernobyl, is not housed in a
concrete-and-steel containment.
Specialists interviewed in the United States on Tuesday suggested
that the fire might have started when air came in contact with
superheated graphite, th...
(End missing.)
- - - - - -
a045 0424 30 Apr 86
PM-Nuclear Disaster, 1st Ld, a023,0491
EDS: UPDATES with radio operator's report; U.S., Britain, Finland
seeking to get citizens out of Kiev.
By ROXINNE ERVASTI
MOSCOW (AP) - The United States and Britain today sought to get
their citizens out of the Ukrainian capital Kiev because of the
disaster at a nearby nuclear power plant that resulted in an inferno,
and according to one report, caused hundreds of casualties.
The accident also sent a cloud of radiation into the air that
contaminated rainwater and milk in Sweden more than 1,000 miles away.
Dutch amateur radio operator Annis Kofman said he picked up a
broadcast late Tuesday that appeared to come from the Chernobyl area
north of Kiev in which an unidentified ham radio operator said that
two reactors were on fire and ''many hundreds dead and wounded.''
There was no confirmation of the report.
''We heard heavy explosions ... you can't imagine what's happening
here (with) all the death and the fire,'' Kofman quoted the Soviet
operator as saying in emotional tones.
Kofman said the Soviet operator spoke in English to another man with
a call sign peculiar to Japan.
''I'm here, 20 miles from it, and in fact I don't know what to do,''
Kofman quoted the radio operator as saying. ''I don't know if our
leaders know what to do because this is a real disaster. Please tell
the world to help us.''
''Thousands and thousands of people are moving, taking their
children and cattle to the south,'' he quoted the radio operator as
saying. Kofman said the man reported he was trying to get
uncontaminated supplies of food and water, but expressed fears that
such supplies could soon run out, Kofman said.
The government, in a sketchy report Tuesday on the weekend disaster,
reported two deaths and said four towns had been evacuated. It said
the remaining three nuclear reactors at the Chernobyl nuclear plant
had been shut down.
Britain and Finland today began arranging for the evacuation of
their citizens, while the American Embassy in Moscow advised U.S.
citizens to leave Kiev.
British Embassy spokesman Donald MacLaren said the mission had urged
Soviet authorities to cooperate with its efforts to evacuate about 70
British students and tourists in Kiev and another 30 from Minsk, the
capital of Soviet Byelorussia to the north.
In Helsinki, the Finnish Foreign Ministry said it was planning to
send a special plane to pull about 100 Finns from Kiev because the
Soviets had not provided enough information on the situation there.
U.S. Embassy spokesman Jaroslav Verner said he did not know exactly
how many Americans were traveling in the Ukraine, but that the U.S.
State Department had issued an advisory warning people to leave Kiev.
U.S. and British officials did not immediately explain why they
wanted to get their citizens out of the city.
Soviet newspapers, 3rd graf
AP-NY-04-30-86 0724EDT
- - - - - -
a049 0510 30 Apr 86
PM-Digest Briefs,0989
Eds: This package does not contain the following items from the News
Digest: MOSCOW-Nuclear Disaster, a023; WASHINGTON-US-Soviet Accident
Rdp, a020; STOCKHOLM-Scandinavia-Radiation, a018;
WASHINGTON-US-Nuclear Power, a015; HARRISBURG-Nuclear Containment,
a017; WASHINGTON-Nuclear Foes, a014; NEW YORK-Speech Technology,
a016; NEW YORK-Deteriorating Shirts, a026; WASHINGTON-Deaver, a010.
- - - - - -
a053 0556 30 Apr 86
PM-Nuclear Disaster, 2nd Ld, a045,0381
URGENT
Fire Still Burning, Radioactive Contamination Found 1,000 Miles Away
Eds: LEADS in 9 grafs to UPDATE with another report of hundreds of
casualties
By ROXINNE ERVASTI
MOSCOW (AP) - An inferno raging in the devastated Ukrainian atomic
power plant spewed more radiation into the atmosphere today, and
reports said there were hundreds of deaths in what could be the
world's worst nuclear disaster.
Sweden, more than 1,000 miles northwest of the Chernobyl plant,
warned residents on its east coast against drinking contaminated
rainwater. Radioactive fallout reached Austria today, and some
officials advised parents to keep infants indoors.
The Soviet government, which has provided scant information, has
said two people were killed and four communities evacuated because of
the accident, which occurred 60 miles north of Kiev, the Ukrainian
capital of 2.4 million.
But other reports indicate the accident was of catastrophic
proportions and not yet contained, and the Soviet Union was seeking
help from the West. The United States and Britain sought to get their
citizens out of Kiev.
Dutch amateur radio operator Annis Kofman said he picked up a
broadcast late Tuesday that appeared to come from near the crippled
plant in which an unidentified ham radio operator said two reactors
were on fire and ''many hundreds dead and wounded.'' Other reports
mentioned only one crippled reactor.
An American professor, in a telephone interview from Kiev on the
NBC-TV ''Today'' show, said she was told of hundreds of casualties
and water supply problems.
Intourist guides ''told us that their information indicated
something like 300 casualties,'' said Karen Black, a language and
literature professor from Bates College in Lewiston, Maine. ''We were
given the information that the city water supply, which . . . is
right next to where the accident was . . . has been now cut off to
the city and they are using alternate water supplies.''
Kofman quoted the Soviet ham radio operator as saying in emotional
tones: ''We heard heavy explosions . . . you can't imagine what's
happening here (with) all the death and the fire.''
Kofman said the Soviet operator, whose report could not be
independently confirmed, spoke in English to another man with a call
sign peculiar to Japan.
''I'm here,: 7th graf
AP-NY-04-30-86 0855EDT
- - - - - -
a082 0823 30 Apr 86
PM-Nuclear Disaster, 2nd Ld, a045,0697
URGENT
Fire Still Burning, Radioactive Contamination Found 1,000 Miles Away
Eds: LEADS with 18 grafs to UPDATE with France trying to get its
citizens out of Ukraine and to move up source of reports of high
casualties
By ROXINNE ERVASTI
MOSCOW (AP) - An inferno raging in the devastated Ukrainian atomic
power plant spewed more radiation into the atmosphere today, and
several European nations warned their people about the danger from
what could be the world's worst nuclear disaster.
The Soviet Union acknowledged two people dead in the Chernobyl plant
accident 60 miles north of Kiev, but reports from U.S. officials in
Washington, a Dutch ham radio operator and an American professor in
Kiev indicated a much higher toll.
Radiation spread more than 1,000 miles over much of Europe and
prompted Sweden to warn against drinking contaminated rainwater and
Austria to advise parents to keep infants indoors. Children lined up
at health centers in Poland for medication against possible radiation
poison.
Several European leaders angrily demanded that Moscow explain why it
had not quickly alerted the world to the disaster, which was first
detected in Scandinavia on Sunday but not confirmed by the Soviet
Union until Monday. West German Foreign Minister Hans-Dietrich
Gensher urged the Soviets to shut down all power plants similar to
the Chernobyl facility.
Britain and Finland began arranging the evacuation of their citizens
from Kiev, while the U.S. Embassy in Moscow advised Americans to
leave the Ukrainian capital of 2.4 million. France asked the Soviet
government to authorize French citizens in the Ukraine to leave.
The Soviet government issued a terse statement Tuesday saying two
people were killed and four communities near the plant evacuated. A
Soviet official visiting Washington said less than a hundred people
were injured.
But a top U.S. official called the accident ''the most catastrophic
nuclear disaster in history'' and experts warned of long-term health
problems.
Dutch amateur radio operator Annis Kofman said he picked up a
broadcast late Tuesday that appeared to come from near the crippled
plant in which an unidentified ham radio operator said two reactors
were on fire and ''many hundreds dead and wounded.''
U.S. intelligence sources in Washington said the complex experienced
a meltdown Saturday and threatened one of the other three reactors,
which were shut down after the accident.
An American professor, in a telephone interview from Kiev on the
NBC-TV ''Today'' show, said she was told of hundreds of casualties.
Intourist guides ''told us that their information indicated
something like 300 casualties,'' said Karen Black, a language and
literature professor from Bates College in Lewiston, Maine. ''We were
given the information that the city water supply . . . has been now
cut off to the city and they are using alternate water supplies.''
She said Kiev appeared normal. ''You would not know anything has
happened at all.''
Kofman quoted the Soviet ham radio operator as saying in emotional
tones: ''We heard heavy explosions . . . you can't imagine what's
happening here (with) all the death and the fire.''
Kofman said the Soviet operator, whose report could not be
independently verified, spoke in English to another man with a call
sign peculiar to Japan.
''I'm here, 20 miles from it, and in fact I don't know what to do,''
Kofman quoted the Soviet ham radio operator as saying. ''I don't know
if our leaders know what to do because this is a real disaster.
Please tell the world to help us.''
''Thousands and thousands of people are moving, taking their
children and cattle to the south,'' he quoted the radio operator as
saying.
British Embassy spokesman Donald MacLaren said it was trying to
evacuate about 70 British students and tourists in Kiev and another
30 from Minsk, the capital of Soviet Byelorussia to the north.
U.S. Embassy spokesman Jaroslav Verner said he did not know how many
Americans were traveling in the Ukraine, but that the State
Department issued an advisory warning people to leave Kiev. The State
Department said there was no indication of American casualties.
U.S. officials: 17th graf
AP-NY-04-30-86 1123EDT
- - - - - -
a096 0935 30 Apr 86
PM-Nuclear Disaster, 3rd Ld, a082,0282
URGENT
Fire Still Burning, Radioactive Contamination Found 1,000 Miles Away
Eds: LEADS in 5 grafs to UPDATE with U.S. report of possible second
meltdown; Radio Moscow report
By ROXINNE ERVASTI
MOSCOW (AP) - A second reactor at the Ukrainian nuclear plant may
have been devastated by a meltdown today, and several European
nations warned their citizens about the radiation danger from what
could be the world's worst nuclear disaster.
The Soviet Union acknowledged two people dead in the Chernobyl plant
accident 60 miles north of Kiev, but reports from U.S. officials in
Washington, a Dutch ham radio operator and an American professor in
Kiev indicated a much higher toll.
Reagan administration sources in Washington, who spoke on condition
of anonymity, said today it was clear an inferno still raged at the
site and was spewing radiation into the atmosphere. They said U.S.
intelligence agencies now believe that a problem in one Chernobyl
reactor evolved into a meltdown by Saturday and a second meltdown had
occurred or was occurring in a second.
Radiation spread more than 1,000 miles over much of Europe and
prompted Sweden to warn against drinking contaminated rainwater and
Austria to advise parents to keep infants indoors. Children lined up
at health centers in Poland for medication against possible radiation
poison. Yugoslavia's official news agency said levels of
radioactivity were three to four times above normal in the country's
north.
Moscow radio today charged that Western media was ''spreading
falsehoods as confirmed facts.'' The English language broadcast,
monitored in London, said the reports were designed to question the
reliability of the Soviet nuclear power industry.
Several European: 4th graf
AP-NY-04-30-86 1235EDT
- - - - - -
a208 1055 30 Apr 86
PM-Nuclear Disaster, 4th Ld, a096,0264
URGENT
197 Reported Injured In Reactor Accident
Eds: LEADS in 7 grafs to UPDATE with 197 reported injured
By ROXINNE ERVASTI
MOSCOW (AP) - The Soviet government announced tonight 197 people
were hospitalized after the Ukrainian nuclear power plant
catastrophe. U.S. intelligence reports said the initial accident may
have triggered a second meltdown.
It was the first official injury count provided by the Soviet Union,
which earlier said two people were killed in the accident at the
Chernobyl plant 60 miles north of Kiev. Tonight's statement repeated
that two people died.
U.S. intelligence sources said today a second reactor at the nuclear
plant may have been devastated by a meltdown today. U.S. officials
said an inferno still raged at the site and was spewing radiation
into the atmosphere.
Reports from U.S. officials in Washington, a Dutch ham radio
operator and an American professor in Kiev indicated casualties in
the hundreds. Tonight's report, carried by the official Soviet news
agency Tass, denied Western reports of thousands of dead.
The report from the Council of Ministers said the radiation levels
around the plant have decreased in the past 24 hours.
Earlier, radiation spread more than 1,000 miles over much of Europe
and prompted Sweden to warn against drinking contaminated rainwater
and Austria to advise parents to keep infants indoors. Children lined
up at health centers in Poland for medication against possible
radiation poison.
Increased radiation were reported in Yugoslavia and Switzerland, but
was said to be below dangerous levels.
Several European: 6th graf
AP-NY-04-30-86 1354EDT
n999 0140 30 Apr 86
. . .e material that surrounds and is supposed to
help control the uranium fuel reaction.
The fire might have taken a day or two to become apparent, while
plant personnel thought they had the accident under control, the
specialists said. The Soviets never acknowledged it, but an accident
in 1957 or 1958 near Chelyabinsk, in the Ural mountains, may have
killed hundreds of people and spread radioactivity over as much as
1,000 square miles. That disaster was reported by the CIA and later
confirmed by exiled Soviet scientists.
AP-NY-04-30-86 0439EDT
a032 0251 30 Apr 86
PM-Chernobyl-Casualties,0539
URGENT
Amateur Radio Monitor Overhears Report Of Mass Casualties
With PM-Nuclear Disaster, Bjt
By PAUL VERSCHUUR
AMSTERDAM, Netherlands (AP) - A Dutch radio amateur said today that
he had monitored a ham radio broadcast apparently from the Soviet
Union which told of hundreds of casualties from the Chernobyl nuclear
disaster and appealed to the world for help.
Annis Kofman, who monitors ham radio broadcasts as a hobby, said he
picked up what appeared to be a ham transmission late Tuesday from
the vicinity of Chernobyl, and a short-wave radio operator speaking
English with a heavy Russian accent said there were ''many hundreds
dead and wounded.''
The report could not be confirmed independently, and the identity of
the Soviet radio operator could not be determined.
Official sources in the Soviet Union have so far said only that two
people died in the Chernobyl accident, but have not disclosed further
details.
U.S. intelligence sources in Washington said one of four reactors at
the Chernobyl complex 60 miles north of Kiev in the Ukraine
experienced a meltdown Saturday, still was billowing smoke Tuesday
and was threatening another reactor at the same site.
However, the short-wave operator said ''there are not one, but two
reactors (which have) melted down (and) exploded and are burning,''
according to Kofman.
''We heard heavy explosions ... you can't imagine what's happening
here (with) all the death and the fire,'' Kofman quoted the radio
operator as saying in emotional tones.
Kofman, a public relations specialist with the Dutch Public
Communications Authority PTT, monitored the broadcast from his home
in the coastal Dutch city of Bergen.
Kofman told The Associated Press that he did not hear the radio
operator identify himself. The radio operator was speaking to another
ham with a call sign peculiar to Japan.
''I'm here, 20 miles from it, and in fact I don't know what to do,''
Kofman quoted the radio operator as saying in the broadcast, which
Kofman monitored from 11 p.m.-11:10 p.m. local time (9 p.m.-9:10 p.m.
EDT)
He said the radio operator claimed the death toll could go much
higher yet, and that thousands of local residents were being
evacuated to areas south of Chernobyl.
''Thousands and thousands of people are moving, taking their
children and cattle to the south,'' said the radio operator.
''I heard many dead can't be removed because of the radiation,''
Kofman quoted the radio operator as saying.
''I don't know if our leaders know what to do because this is a real
disaster. Please tell the world to help us,'' said the radio
operator, according to Kofman.
The radio operator said he was trying to get uncontaminated supplies
of food and water, but expressed fears that such supplies could soon
run out, Kofman said.
Kofman added that he did not hear when the nuclear accident took
place.
The Dutch radio hobbyist said he does not have an amateur
broadcasting license, and could not question the man making the
transmission, but was convinced of its authenticity.
''It's beyond question for me,'' that the broadcast emanated from
the Soviet Union, Kofman said.
He told the AP that he picked up and transcribed the conversation
while listening for news of the nuclear accident from the Soviet
Union.
AP-NY-04-30-86 0551EDT
a042 0404 30 Apr 86
BC-Quotes,0120
Current Quotations
''People who live around power plants in this country are not
subjected to the kind of risks that this type of accident
represents.'' - Paul Turner, vice president of the Atomic Industrial
Forum, an industry group, referring to the Soviet nuclear plant
disaster.
---
''As long as there are operating nuclear power plants in the United
States, we live with the risk of a similar accident here.'' - A
statement by a coalition of environmental and anti-nuclear groups,
referring to the Soviet nuclear plant disaster.
---
AP-NY-04-30-86 0704EDT
a047 0442 30 Apr 86
PM-Radiation-Economy,0493
Soviet Accident Shows Influence On U.S. Markets
Wheat and corn futures prices soared on commodities exchanges amid
beliefs that the Soviet nuclear accident might damage that nation's
crop prospects, and U.S. utilities stocks fell as the tragedy renewed
fears about nuclear safety.
Among the stocks most affected by concern over delays in U.S.
nuclear construction was Long Island Lighting Co., whose stock fell
50 cents a share on the New York Stock Exchange to close Tuesday at
$12.12 1/2.
The company has encountered stiff opposition to its Shoreham nuclear
power plant on New York's Long Island because of concerns over an
evacuation plan.
The commodities futures soared Tuesday at the Chicago Board of Trade
and Chicago Mercantile Exchange as investors gambled that damage to
the Soviet crop from radiation at the Chenobyl plant near Kiev would
lead to increased sales of U.S. grain.
Norton D. Strommen, chief meteorologist with the World Agricultural
Outlook Board in Washington, D.C., said Tuesday there would be
minimal impact on Soviet winter grain because wind patterns would
have sent the radioactive cloud away from major producing areas.
But Strommen and Ed Cook, an economist with the U.S. Agriculture
Department, said too little was known about the accident to say
whether there was serious contamination of farmland, crops or
animals.
In the path of the radioactive cloud were farms producing 13 percent
of the Soviet Union's milk supply and 11 percent to 12 percent of its
meat, one of eastern Europe's major dairy and meat-producing areas,
Cook said.
Crop production anywhere can affect the world's supply-and-demand
patterns and move prices on futures exchanges.
In New York, the Dow Jones average of 15 utility stocks fell 2.93
points Tuesday to 182.65. At one point the indicator was off 5.43
points, considered an unusually steep decline, but many of the stocks
recovered in late trading.
''I think the situation in Russia certainly has had a ripple effect
in the United States,'' said Joseph B. Muldoon, a utility securities
analyst at Janney Montgomery Scott Inc., a Philadelphia investment
firm.
Linda S. Caldwell, a utility analyst at the Chicago investment firm
Duff & Phelps Inc., said: ''I've been getting a lot of calls, and our
clients seem concerned. Basically, anyone building a nuclear plant
got hit.''
Many analysts speculated that the Soviet accident served as a
convenient excuse for investors to dump holdings in an industry that
has not been doing well economically.
''People are saying, 'Hey, I made some money in utility stocks, why
risk it,''' Ms. Caldwell said.
Some analysts said safety fears in the United States were unfounded
because U.S. standards are considered superior to those in the Soviet
Union, which generally does not rely on emergency backup systems.
''I think this reaction is the 'Nervous Nellies,' not the people who
know what's going on in the industry,'' Muldoon said.
AP-NY-04-30-86 0741EDT
- - - - - -
a203 1036 30 Apr 86
PM-Radiation-Economy, 1st Ld, a047,0377
Eds: Leads with 9 grafs to UPDATE with stock and commodity trading
today
Wheat and corn futures prices soared again today on commodities
exchanges amid belief that the Soviet nuclear accident might damage
that nation's crop prospects, and utilities stocks declined some more
as the disaster renewed fears about nuclear safety.
Stocks of food processors and other companies that might have to pay
higher prices for grain also suffered.
Among the stocks most affected was Long Island Lighting Co., whose
stock fell $1.12 1/2 to $11 by noon on the New York Stock Exchange,
following a 50-cent drop on Tuesday. The company has encountered
stiff opposition to its Shoreham nuclear power plant on New York's
Long Island because of concerns over an evacuation plan.
Although grain and soybean futures prices opened sharply higher on
the Chicago Board of Trade and the Chicago Mercantile Exchange today,
trading seemed less frenzied than on Tuesday. Prices soared Tuesday
as investors gambled that damage to the Soviet crop from radiation at
the Chernobyl plant near Kiev would lead to increased sales of U.S.
grain.
Norton D. Strommen, chief meteorologist with the World Agricultural
Outlook Board in Washington, D.C., said Tuesday there would be
minimal impact on Soviet winter grain because wind patterns would
have sent the radioactive cloud away from major producing areas.
But Strommen and Ed Cook, an economist with the U.S. Agriculture
Department, said too little was known about the accident to say
whether there was serious contamination of farmland, crops or
animals.
In the path of the radioactive cloud were farms producing 13 percent
of the Soviet Union's milk supply and 11 percent to 12 percent of its
meat, one of eastern Europe's major dairy and meat-producing areas,
Cook said.
Crop production anywhere can affect the world's supply-and-demand
patterns and move prices on futures exchanges.
In stock trading, the Dow Jones average of 15 utility stocks fell
2.93 points Tuesday to 182.65. At one point the indicator was off
5.43 points, considered an unusually steep decline, but many of the
stocks recovered in late trading. By midday today, the utilities
average had fallen an additional 3.02 points to 179.63.
''I think: 10th graf
AP-NY-04-30-86 1336EDT
a048 0452 30 Apr 86
PM-Radiation Monitoring,0554
Radiation Monitoring Stepped Up, But Officials Urge Caution
By JOHN WHITE
OLYMPIA, Wash. (AP) - Officials across the nation stepped up
radiation monitoring as a radioactive cloud wafted across the world,
but cautioned that the Soviet nuclear accident probably poses little
danger to Americans.
''Be sensible. The sky is not falling. This is a radioactive
world,'' said former Washington Gov. Dixy Lee Ray, who served as head
of the old Atomic Energy Commission and later was an assistant
secretary of state.
The Pacific Northwest braced for fallout from the badly damaged
nuclear plant at Chernobyl, north of Kiev in the Ukraine, but after
reviewing emergency procedures, Gov. Booth Gardner also said
residents have no cause for alarm.
Federal officials have said that the cloud would pass over the polar
ice cap, move across Canada and into the northwestern United States.
But it may be days or weeks before any signs are detected in North
America, said Charlie Porter, director of the federal Eastern
Environmental Radiation Facility in Montgomery, Ala.
''There's a lot of things that can happen with the winds up there,
and it could just get dispersed,'' Porter said, ''but the way the
polar winds usually travel, if it comes our way, Alaska's the first
one it comes to.''
The cloud is in the jet stream, at least 30,000 feet high, and could
pass over Alaska and the rest of the United States unnoticed, he
said.
''In the old days of (above-ground) nuclear testing, I remember
watching a cloud that crossed the U.S. three times,'' he said. ''We
never got any fallout from that.''
Porter said radiation levels detected in the Scandinavian countries,
which first drew world attention to the accident, were still below
what would be immediately harmful.
Radiation as much as 10 times above normal was recorded north of
Stockholm, Sweden, and it included iodine and cesium compounds - both
products of nuclear fission that would be produced in uranium reactor
fuel.
Nuclear experts Kenneth L. Mossman and Richard C. Reba said
radioactive iodine in humans would migrate to the thyroid gland,
where it could cause cancer.
Mossman, who directs Georgetown University Medical Center's program
in radiation science in Washington, D.C., said the type of radiation
detected in the United States and elsewhere could provide clues about
the nature and scope of the Soviet accident, which Soviet officials
said killed two people.
Because meteorologists and other scientists can't predict accurately
where the prevailing winds will take the cloud, the Environmental
Protection Agency's monitoring network in all 50 states will be
watching for unusually high radiation readings, Porter said.
More than a dozen stations across Alaska are being checked daily
rather than once every two weeks, and two special radioactivity
monitors in Juneau and Alaska have been activated, said Al Ewing,
regional administrator for the Environmental Protection Agency.
''In time it will get here, there's no question about that,'' said
John Wallace, chairman of the University of Washington Department of
Atmospheric Science in Seattle, but the radiation should be widely
dispersed.
Filters on radiation monitors in Olympia, at Spokane and at the
Hanford nuclear reservation in eastern Washington were ordered
changed daily instead of the usual once a week, officials said.
AP-NY-04-30-86 0751EDT
a054 0602 30 Apr 86
PM-India-Explosion,0351
Explosion, Fire Reported at Heavy Water Factory
NEW DELHI, India (AP) - A hydrogen leak triggered an explosion and
fire at a heavy water factory in eastern India, the United News of
India reported today. It said serious damage was reported but no
casualties.
The news agency, quoting unidentified plant sources, said the
explosion occurred Tuesday night at the facility at Talchar in Orissa
state, 220 miles southwest of Calcutta.
It took three hours for firefighters to bring the blaze under
control, United News of India said. It said plant workers apparently
escaped safely.
Plant officials could not be contacted directly by telephone from
New Delhi because of faulty telephone lines.
Heavy water is made up of oxygen and a heavier isotope of hydrogen
than that found in the atmosphere. It is used for cooling nuclear
reactors as well as in scientific experiments and industrial
purposes.
There was no report of involvement of radioactivity in the explosion
and fire.
The United News of India quoted a workers' association spokesman as
saying the explosion was caused when a hydrogen pump's capacity of
660 pounds was exceeded by 110 pounds to increase production.
The spokesman, whose name was not given, also was quoted as saying
the plant's control room was destroyed by the explosion and that the
factory was shut down.
United News of India quoted a plant official, M.K. Saha, as saying
that experts were arriving from India's Atomic Energy Commission in
Bombay to investigate the accident. The news agency said it was the
first accident at the plant.
The Talchar plant is one of five heavy water facilities in India.
The country has four nuclear power plants, none near Talchar.
India's nuclear power program is based on natural uranium, cooled by
heavy water manufactured in India. In such nuclear power reactors,
often called ''swimming pool'' reactors, uranium fuel rods are
immersed in a bath of heavy water, which slows the movement of
neutrons in the fuel.
In some other reactors, such as Soviet reactor where a disastrous
accident has occurred in the Ukraine, graphite is used to slow the
neutron movement.
AP-NY-04-30-86 0902EDT
a058 0623 30 Apr 86
PM-Students-Nuclear,0651
American Students in Kiev; Parents Told They Are Safe
With PM-Nuclear Disaster Bjt
A woman whose daughter is among a group of students visiting Kiev,
60 miles from a damaged nuclear power plant that has spread
radioactive fallout to West Europe, says she had been apprehensive
about the trip because of terrorism.
A Maine college professor in Kiev with a group of students said
everything appeared normal in the Soviet city, but a Washington
student there said that while he was safe and hoped to remain, ''I'm
getting worried.''
The Soviet Union characterized the accident in Chernobyl as a
disaster and reported two deaths and the evacuations of four
settlements near Chernobyl, north of Kiev, a city of 2.4 million
people. Fallout has reached Belgium.
''I'm not sure I believe it,'' said Loretta Stelter, whose
17-year-old daughter, Linda, is among eight Massapequa (N.Y.) High
School students and 10 adults visiting the Soviet Union. ''I'm not
going to be happy until I speak to my daughter by phone.''
Mrs. Stelter said she allowed he daughter to go on the 13-day trip
despite anxiety about international terrorism following the U.S. raid
on Libya.
''What we're afraid of is terrorism and what we get instead is a
stinking nuclear accident,'' Mrs. Stelter said.
The group left April 23 and was to return Sunday. A second group -
about 30 people from high schools in the Long Island, N.Y.,
communities of Garden City and Rosyln - was in Kiev on similar tours.
Relatives of those in the group were contacted Tuesday by Michael
Holownia, New York district manager for Finnair, which helped
organize the tours.
''The information we received via Finland was that both groups had
arrived in Kiev and both groups were proceeding on their sightseeing
itinerary . . . and there was no immediate danger,'' he said, adding
that the tours would continue as scheduled.
Karen Black, a language and literature professor from Bates College
in Lewiston, Maine, said today in a telephone interview on NBC's
''Today'' show that her group's Intourist guides had informed them of
the accident.
The group's plans were changed at one point ''because we were going
to one place that I gather would have been more or less in the path
or in the direction of the evacuation.''
However, ''out on the streets, everything is very normal. You would
not know anything has happened at all,'' she said.
Dominick DiFranco, whose 17-year-old daughter, Linda, was among the
Massapequa group, said he has heard there have been no problems for
the visitors.
''One of the parents on the trip called home and said everything was
fine and they're having a ball,'' he said. ''They said they visited a
school and it was 60 or 70 degrees. We are a little concerned not
knowing exactly what's happening.''
Also in Kiev, the Soviet Union's third largest city, was Michael
Moss, a 20-year-old University of Washington junior who is studying
Slavic languages.
Moss, one of 86 American and English students in the Soviet Union
under the auspices of the London-based Progressive Tours, called his
parents Tuesday to assure them he was not in any danger, said his
mother, Juliette Moss of Orinda, Calif.
In a telephone interview today with The Associated Press, Moss said
he first heard of the disaster at breakfast Tuesday, following the
first report on Soviet television the previous night.
''Yesterday (Tuesday) in the morning and pretty much through the
afternoon I was fine, and then people really started getting very
worried, so the tension is certainly building,'' he said. ''I'm
getting worried.''
His group had been in Kiev about two weeks and were scheduled to
stay there for a total of 10 weeks.
''I'd really like to stay,'' he said. ''We'll see what happens.''
AP-NY-04-30-86 0922EDT
a059 0630 30 Apr 86
PM-Soviet-Reaction,0395
Muscovites Confident Government Can Handle Nuclear Accident
By KEN OLSEN
MOSCOW (AP) - Moscow residents interviewed on city streets today
expressed confidence the Soviet government could handle the accident
at the Chernobyl nuclear plant.
Some said they had not even heard of the accident, and refused to
comment when shown a brief government statement that appeared in the
morning editions of national newspapers.
Soviet citizens have learned very little about the accident from the
official media, which has released only a trickle of information.
The government statement, distributed Tuesday by the Tass news
agency and read on evening radio and television news programs, said
two people were killed in the accident and people near the nuclear
power plant north of Kiev were evacuated.
It said a government commission was appointed to investigate.
''Of course, as any Soviet citizen, I am concerned,'' said a young
woman at a bus stop near the Ukraine Hotel in central Moscow. ''But
I'm quite sure that everything will be taken care of, and the Soviet
government will do all that is necessary.''
Like others interviewed, she refused to give her name.
''It's a big misfortune,'' said a retired electrical engineer. When
asked how well he thought the government was handling the incident,
he said, ''Of course, I am not an expert. I know that the population
has been evacuated and everything will be done in a necessary way,
and as I understand it, cooperation with other countries has been
established.''
The Soviet media has not carried Western reports that Moscow asked
Sweden and West Germany for advice on how to fight a nuclear plant
fire. When asked how he knew about these reports, the retired
engineer said only that he thought he had read it in a newspaper.
A woman who identified herself as an economist said she thought the
accident was serious enough to warrant concern. But she expressed
confidence in the Soviet nuclear power program and said it is
necessary because of dwindling resources such as oil and gas.
''Everything will be done in order that the consequences (of the
accident) will have the minimum effect on the health of people and on
their working conditions,'' she said.
People arriving in Moscow from the Ukraine by train and airplane on
Tuesday said they knew little about the accident and that life
appeared normal in Kiev.
AP-NY-04-30-86 0929EDT
a062 0650 30 Apr 86
PM-Radiation Effects,0346
Radiation's Effects: Blistering Of Skin, Vomiting, Hemorrhaging and
Death
NEW YORK (AP) - Severe radiation poisoning can produce blistering of
the skin, nausea, vomiting, hemorrhaging and bleeding all over the
body. Death usually occurs within a few weeks.
Lower doses of radiation produce no immediately visible effects but
can lead to cancer and birth defects years later.
The bone marrow and the intestines are the organs most sensitive to
radiation, says Alan Nelson of the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology, a specialist on the health effects of radiation.
Damage to the bone marrow is likely to be the first result of severe
radiation exposure. Nausea and vomiting develop, along with a
haunting sense of malaise, Nelson writes in ''The Nuclear Almanac,''
a book compiled by professors at MIT.
After a short period, the effects of bone marrow damage disappear.
The victim feels fine. Two or three weeks later, however, more
serious complications appear. The bone marrow is unable to make blood
cells called platelets, which are essential to clotting. Bleeding
begins throughout the body. Victims become disoriented and lose
equilibrium.
The blood can become infected with bacteria. Death follows three or
four weeks after the exposure.
Larger doses of radiation damage the intestines, causing symptoms
like those of cholera - nausea, vomiting, diarrhea and loss of
appetite. Very few victims survive intestinal damage, says Nelson. If
they do, they are likely to succumb later to bone marrow disorders.
In extreme doses, a mysterious condition occurs in which the entire
nervous system is somehow shorted out. Disorientation, irritability,
hyperactivity, convulsions and coma can occur within minutes.
If the coma is survived, a period of calm can ensue. Minutes later,
however, tremors begin, blood pressure rises ''and eyes may become
deep red with hemorrhage,'' says Nelson. Death occurs within a few
hours.
Lower doses of radiation are known to produce genetic damage and
cancer, and they can be particularly dangerous for the sensitive,
growing cells of the fetus.
Much remains to be learned about the precise means by which
radiation exposure can produce damage many years later, Nelson says.
AP-NY-04-30-86 0949EDT
- - - - - -
a074 0741 30 Apr 86
PM-Radiation Effects, 1st add, a062,0083
NEW YORK: Nelson says
Radioactive iodine released in nuclear accidents can cause tumors in
the thyroid gland - where the body concentrates iodine.
That can be prevented by administering iodine tablets to people
about to be exposed to radiation. Their thyroid glands will then
become saturated with non-radioactive iodine and thus will be unable
to accumulate the harmful radioactive iodine.
Treatment after exposure to radioactive iodine can still help reduce
the radiation dose to the thyroid, doctors say.
AP-NY-04-30-86 1041EDT
***************
a083 0826 30 Apr 86
PM-Soviet Nuke-Intelligence,0112
URGENT
By NORMAN BLACK
AP Military Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) - U.S. intelligence agencies now believe that a
second Soviet nuclear reactor at the Chernobyl complex either has
already experienced, or is experiencing, a meltdown, administration
sources said today.
The sources, who agreed to discuss the matter only if not
identified, also disclosed that the first reactor to be destroyed in
the disaster apparently began experiencing a ''major problem'' last
Friday.
By Saturday, the problem had evolved into a meltdown of the reactor
core, and by Sunday, apparently while trying to deal with the
meltdown, a chemical explosion was touched off that ripped the
reactor building apart.
AP-NY-04-30-86 1125EDT
- - - - - -
a086 0841 30 Apr 86
PM-Soviet Nuke-Intelligence, 1st Add, a083,0109
URGENT
WASHN: building apart.
The sources refused to detail how the U.S. intelligence agencies had
reached their conclusions that a second reactor at the site was
experiencing problems.
One official noted that there were four nuclear reactors at the
complex and that the four were ''twinned'' in pairs in terms of their
operation and link-up to large generator halls.
The official stressed that the United States had not been able to
verify a second meltdown as yet, but repeatedly maintained there were
''other indications'' beyond just the close proximity of the two
reactor buildings to suggest the second reactor was in serious
trouble.
AP-NY-04-30-86 1140EDT
- - - - - -
a087 0844 30 Apr 86
PM-Soviet Nuke-Intelligence, 2nd Add, a086,0146
URGENT
WASHN: serious trouble.
Offering the most detailed account yet of the findings by U.S.
intelligence officials, the sources said it was clear that the
disaster was continuing.
A fire at the first reactor is still burning, venting smoke, vapors
and radiation, one source said.
There are a small number of Soviets at the site, apparently trying
to contain that fire, the source continued. All four reactors at the
complex are definitely shut down, the source said.
Intelligence officials have now determined ''that there was probably
a problem, a major problem, at this plant on Friday,'' the source
said.
''They may have been able to evacuate people at that time. On
Saturday, it developed into a meltdown. It may be that in trying to
deal with that, to contain it, they touched off a chemical explosion,
probably hydrogen.
AP-NY-04-30-86 1143EDT
- - - - - -
a088 0846 30 Apr 86
PM-Soviet Nuke-Intelligence, 3rd Add, a087,0100
URGENT
WASHN: probalby hydrogen.
''We believe that most likely occurred on Sunday. The meltdown
vented radiation. On Sunday, the explosion severely damaged one of
the four 1,000-megawatt reactors in this area.
''The condition of that (reactor) building is that the top was blown
off. There is considerable blast damage and rubble around it. Vapors
and smoke are escapaing from a large role in the roof of the reactor
building.
''In addition, there is a large generator hall next to the reactor
building. Parts of that roof are also missing. There is significant
damage there.''
AP-NY-04-30-86 1145EDT
- - - - - -
a089 0853 30 Apr 86
PM-Soviet Nuke-Intelligence, 4th Add, a088,0298
URGENT
WASHN: damage there.''
The sources said the fire at the first reactor ''is still not
controlled. We believe there are still trying to contain that, to get
that fire out. There is a limited number of people and equipment at
the site working.''
As for the second, nearby reactor, the source said: ''There is a
possibility that they may have a similar problem there. The theory
ever since we first learned about this . . . has been that fire and
damage could spread and be associated between the two reactors.
''But we estimate that there could be a meltdown at the second. It
could be (that) another meltdown has taken place or could be taking
place.''
The source said U.S. intelligence agencies had reached that
conclusion ''because of the close association of the building and
other indications.''
The source refused to elaborate beyond saying there was no easy way
to verify a second meltdown positively because ''radiation could be
venting without seeing it. It wouldn't be visible.''
The source dismissed suggestions by some scientists that no
meltdowns had occurred at the area. He cited in part the presence of
radioactive iodine and cesium in the radiation detected by
Scandanavian countries.''
The source added, however, the United States still has no good
estimate of the levels of radiation released in the disaster nor a
count of casualties.
The shutdown of the four nuclear reactors has definitely
''weakened'' the Soviet power grid in the Ukraine as well as for
Eastern European allies of the Soviet Union, the source said.
Should the Soviets decide, as a precautionary matter, to shut down
all reactors of similar design, they would lose roughly 60 percent of
their nuclear electricity-generating capability, the source said.
AP-NY-04-30-86 1152EDT
***************
a091 0904 30 Apr 86
PM-US-Soviet Accident Rdp, 1st Ld-1st Add, a091,0200
URGENT
WASHINGTON: casualties.
Thomas, who will head the task force, said, ''We don't have any
information that indicates that there is a problem with a second
reactor at this facility.'' But contradictory information was being
provided by other officials, anonymously.
NRC official Harold Denton told reporters there was ''still fire
going on'' at the Cherbonyl reactor site and that there had been an
evacuation of the reactor control room.''
''The initiating event is unknown,'' said Denton, a Nuclear
Regulatory Commission safety expert who briefed reporters following
the 1979 accident at Three Mile Island.
By Saturday, the problem had evolved into a meltdown of the reactor
core, and by Sunday, apparently while trying to deal with the
meltdown, a chemical explosion was touched off that ripped the
reactor building apart.
Denton said that whatever the initial incident was, trouble turned
to disaster when the merging of steam and air, graphite cooling and
the metal cladding caused the ''violent explosion.''
He said it was so violent that it breached the containment building.
Previously, U.S. officials with access to intelligence reports said
there was no containment on the reactor.
The U.S. government: 2nd graf
AP-NY-04-30-86 1203EDT
- - - - - -
a095 0921 30 Apr 86
PM-Soviet Accident Rdp Advisory,0018
EDs: Pls note Soviet Accident Rdp 1st Ld a091-92 moved out of
sequence
The AP
AP-NY-04-30-86 1221EDT
***************
a092 0907 30 Apr 86
PM-US-Soviet Accident Rdp, 1st Ld, a0474,0178
URGENT
By GUY DARST
WASHINGTON (AP) - American officials said today the chemical blast
that triggered a Soviet nuclear catastrophe at Chernobyl was a
''violent explosion'' that came from ''inside the reactor core.''
Sources said the atomic accident was spreading to a second reactor at
the Cherbonyl site.
Officials, monitoring the disaster from afar, said the accident
poses no immediate health or environmental threats to Americans.
Meantime, intelligence sources said a second Soviet reactor at
Chernobyl complex either has already experienced, or is experiencing,
a meltdown. The sources, who agreed to discuss the matter only if not
identified, also disclosed that the first reactor to be destroyed in
the disaster apparently began experiencing a ''major problem'' last
Friday.
Lee Thomas, head of the Environmental Protection Agency, told
reporters at a briefing by a newly created Interagency Task Force on
the accident, ''We don't have enough information on both what
occurred, the extent of the action that was taken over a period of
time . . . to draw conclusions about casualties.''
AP-NY-04-30-86 1207EDT
a100 1003 30 Apr 86
PM-Cuba-Nuclear,0232
Soviet-Built Plants On Nearby Island Concern U.S. Officials
MIAMI (AP) - Fidel Castro's repeated boasts that Cuba's nuclear
reactors are being built with the best of Soviet technology is cause
for worry in nearby Florida following the Chernobyl disaster.
Rep. Dante Fascell, D-Fla., chairman of the House Foreign Affairs
Committee, said he asked the State Department and the Organization of
American States on Tuesday to press Cuba for verification that
necessary safeguards are in place.
''Unless this is done, the plant could pose a threat not only to the
United States, particularly to Florida, but to the Caribbean and
Central America as well, and equally, to the citizens of Cuba
themselves,'' Fascell said.
Four reactors are under construction near the southern Cuba city of
Cienfuegos, less than 200 miles from Key West, and Castro has
emphasized their safety features.
Dave Joliffe, a spokesman for the American Nuclear Society, said
available information indicates that retaining walls are being built
around the reactors and that pressurized water will be used to
moderate chain reactions.
Water is used in U.S. plants, while the Chernobyl plant used
graphite and apparently had no protective containing walls such as
those that surround most U.S. plants.
Designed by Soviet specialists and being built by Cuban and
Bulgarian workers, the four reactors in Cuba are scheduled to begin
operations in 1989.
AP-NY-04-30-86 1300EDT
a201 1027 30 Apr 86
AM-News Digest,1014
For Thursday AMs
Here are the top stories at this hour from The Associated Press. The
CHERNOBYL CATASTROPHE
Reports Indicate Hundreds Dead at Soviet Nuclear Plant
MOSCOW - Western governments warn citizens about traveling in Kiev
area and some begin evacuation efforts because of the Chernobyl
nuclear plant disaster. Experts in West disagree on severity of
accident, health risks since no details offered. Outside reports
indicate catastrophe, with hundreds of deaths. Slug AM-Nuclear
Disaster. Developing.
By Carol J. Williams. LaserColor AMS1, color photo of Chernobyl.
U.S. Believes Second Reactor Meltdown Is Involved
WASHINGTON - U.S. intelligence agencies now believe a second Soviet
nuclear reactor at the Chernobyl complex either has already
experienced, or is experiencing, a meltdown, administration sources
say. Slug AM-Nuke-Intelligence. Developing.
By AP Military Writer Norman Black. LaserPhoto upcoming.
West Europeans Attack Moscow Handling, Demand Accounting
COPENHAGEN, Denmark - West European countries, now confronting
drifting contamination, sharply attack Moscow's handling of the
Chernobyl nuclear power plant accident. West Germany's Hans-Dietrich
Genscher demands full accounting, international agency inspection.
Slug West Europe. Developing. 750.
LaserPhoto WART50, child given radiation drug in Poland.
States Step Up Fallout Monitoriting; No Health Threat Seen
UNDATED - Health officials believe the fallout from the Soviet
nuclear disaster will pose no threat to people in the United States,
but agencies are taking precautions anyway. New York has stepped up
milk testing and Colorado has announced a ''fallout alert,'' but
meteorologists say they can't say for certain where and when the
first radiation will be detected. AM-Nuclear Precautions. Developing.
LaserPhoto upcoming.
Five U.S. Reactors Lack Containment Domes
WASHINGTON - Like the Soviet nuclear power plant that apparently
melted down, five large U.S. Energy Department reactors lack thick
containment domes to block or trap escaping radiation in the event
other safety systems fail. Slug AM-Weapons Reactors. New material.
Developing. About 800.
By Matt Yancey.
AP-NY-04-30-86 1327EDT
a202 1029 30 Apr 86
BC-Soviet Announcement,0106
URGENT
Soviets Say 197 People Injured In Reactor Disaster
MOSCOW (AP) - The Soviet government announced Wednesday night that
197 people were hospitalized after the Chernobyl nuclear power plant
disaster. It was the first official tally of those injured in the
nuclear accident in the Ukraine.
A statement issued by the Council of Ministers and distributed by
the official news agency Tass said the plant's reactor had been shut
down and that radiation levels were dropping.
The statement denied some Western news reports that thousands of
people were killed in the accident at the Chernobyl plant.
Earlier, Soviet officials said two people died in the accident.
AP-NY-04-30-86 1329EDT
a216 1156 30 Apr 86
AM-Nuke-Intelligence, Bjt,0717
Administration Officials Say Accident Worse Than First Believed
By NORMAN BLACK
AP Military Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) - A disastrous accident at a Soviet nuclear power
plant, three days in the making, has spread to a second nuclear
reactor, Reagan administration sources said Wednesday.
These sources, offering the most detailed assessment to date of the
accident at the Chernobyl complex, said U.S. intelligence agencies
are convinced a second of the four reactors at the site either has
already experienced, or is experiencing, a meltdown of its core.
A meltdown definitely occurred within the first reactor, said
officials who spoke to reporters under strict ground rules of
confidentiality.
These sources said a fire at that first reactor still was burning
out of control Wednesday, spewing smoke, vapors and radiation into
the atmosphere.
The officials flatly refused to discuss how U.S. intelligence
agencies had pieced together a chronology of the Chernobyl disaster.
It appeared certain, however, the officials were referring to an
assessment based on photo reconnaissance from American spy satellites
as well as on data from other satellite sensors, such as infrared
detection devices.
The sources stressed, however, they had no independent assessment of
how much radiation had been released into the air - only that such
radioactive fallout was continuing.
Publicly, Lee Thomas, the head of the Environmental Protection
Agency, told reporters: ''We don't have any information that
indicates that there is a problem with a second reactor at this
facility.''
But that was contradicted by the administration officials speaking
privately.
The sources refused to detail how the U.S. intelligence agencies had
reached their conclusions that a second reactor at the site was
experiencing problems.
One official noted there were four nuclear reactors at the complex
and that the four were ''twinned'' in pairs in terms of their
operation and link-up to large generator halls.
The official stressed that the United States had not been able to
positively verify a second meltdown as yet, but maintained there were
''other indications,'' beyond just the close proximity of the two
reactor buildings, to suggest the second reactor was in serious
trouble.
He refused to elaborate on those ''other indications.''
The sources also said it was now clear to American analysts that the
Soviets knew they had a major disaster in the making last Friday and
may even have begun evacuations on that day, yet failed to warn
nearby countries.
The first indication in the West that a disaster had occurred came
on Monday when sensors in Scandanavian countries began picking up
much higher than normal levels of atmospheric radiation. The Soviet
Union subsequently confirmed there had been some type of accident,
but still has not provided any details.
According to the administration officials, the intelligence agencies
have developed evidence suggesting the first reactor at Chernobyl -
''what we would call reactor No. 4'' - began experiencing a ''major
problem'' last Friday.
The specific problem is unknown, although speculation has focused on
a loss of coolant.
In any event, the sources continued, by Saturday the problem had
evolved into a meltdown of the reactor core. And by Sunday,
apparently while trying to deal with the meltdown, a chemical
explosion was touched off that ripped the reactor building apart.
Harold Denton, the director of the Office of Nuclear Reactor
Regulation at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission here, appeared with
Thomas at a public briefing Wednesday by a newly created Interagency
Task Force on the accident and was asked what could have started it.
''We can only speculate about what the initial event was,'' he
replied. ''It's clear that whatever happened caused the loss of
coolant in this plant.
''Fuel melting began to occur. As water and steam got to the fuel
there was a reaction between water and the cladding. The cladding is
zirconium.
''As a result of the metal-water reactions, the pressure tube
cladding began to fail and steam began to attack the graphite.
Graphite will react with water to produce hydrogen and carbon
monoxide and other combustible products. There is every indication
that as a result of this interaction between the cladding and the
steam and air, a violent explosion occurred inside the reactor
core,'' Denton said.
AP-NY-04-30-86 1455EDT
- - - - - -
a241 1625 30 Apr 86
AM-Digest Advisory,0114
The budgets have cleared. Here is a listing, with LaserPhoto
numbers.
WASH - Nuke-Intelligence, a216.
BOSTON - Newborns, a217.
NEW YORK - Fantasticks, a218.
UNDATED - Nuclear Precautions, a220.
COPENHAGEN, Denmark - West Europe, a222. WART50.
EL PASO, Texas - West Texas Politics, a224.
BALI, Indonisia - Reagan, a225.
MEXICO CITY - Mexico-Earthquake, a228.
WASH - Elderly Poverty, a231.
WASH - Scotus Rdp, a232.
UNDATED - Libyan Expulsions, a234.
WASH - Economy, a235.
MOSCOW - Nuclear Disaster, a236.
WASH - Weapons Reactors, a238.
AMRITSAR, India - India-Punjab, a240.
AP-NY-04-30-86 1925EDT
a220 1248 30 Apr 86
AM-Nuclear Precautions, Bjt,0813
States Step Up Fallout Monitoring; No Health Threat Expected
LaserPhoto upcoming
A hastily expanded network of radiation sensors in all 50 states
sniffed the air Wednesday for signs of fallout from the nuclear plant
disaster in the Soviet Union, but no increased radiation was
reported.
Colorado's Health Department issued a ''fallout alert,'' but that
appeared to be no more than what other states were doing: watching
and waiting. Some states activated monitors which had been idle for
years.
''We don't expect a problem,'' said John Baghott, director of the
Colorado Health Department's consumer protection division.
''We're still thinking we're not going to see much in the state,
primarily because of the way the wind's been blowing, although the
weather can change,'' said Larry Anderson, director of Utah's Bureau
of Radiation Control.
''Everybody's holding their breath and wondering what happened,''
Anderson said. ''We don't expect to see anything for a couple of days
if we see anything at all.''
The federal Environmental Protection Agency ordered intensified
monitoring across the nation on Tuesday. Some idle stations were
reactivated, and daily sampling became the rule at some stations
which had only been checked once a week.
The plume from the devastated reactor at Chernobyl, in the Ukraine,
at first drifted toward the west and might have continued toward
Alaska and the Pacific Northwest. But Swedish meteorologists said
Wednesday that winds had shifted, driving the plume toward Poland and
Czechslovakia.
Sheldon Meyer, director of office of radiation programs with EPA,
said in Washington Wedneday that the largest particles of fallout
would drop within 100 miles of Chernobyl.
''Based upon the data we do have, we don't expect that if that plume
reaches the U.S., there would be any significant health effect on the
population,'' he said.
Charlie Porter, director of federal Eastern Environmental Radiation
Facility in Montgomery, Ala., said it might be days or weeks before
any signs are detected in North America.
Washington State officials were paying close attention to readings
in Alaska. ''If readings increase there we'll have lead time to
decide what steps should be taken here,'' said Gov. Booth Gardner's
press secretary, Jim Kneeland.
Kentucky reactivated a monitoring station in Frankfort which had
been idle several years, said Edsel Moore, director of the cabinet's
Division of Radiation and Product Safety. A ground-level station in
Lincoln, Neb., was also reactivated at the EPA's request.
Jim Setser of the Georgia Environmental Protection Division said the
state was not advising residents to take any precautions now.
''You can unduly alarm people and cause more stress and more damage
than by the actual problem itself,'' he said Wednesday. ''We would
know long before it ever reached Georgia that it was coming in.''
''This incident does not pose any kind of reasonable threat to North
America,'' said Dr. Neil E. Todreas, head of the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology's Department of Nuclear Engineering.
''Based on what we know now, we are advising the public that there
is no need to be concerned,'' said Bailus Walker, Massachusetts'
commissioner of public health. If excess radiation is detected,
Walker said, he will require that dairy herds be fed stored grain and
would restrict the use of home-grown vegetables.
Dr. William Hausler, director of the Hygenic Lab at the University
of Iowa, said two radiation monitors at the university had been
turned on.
''That's all that we've done. We do this when there's been
atmospheric detonations, underground tests,'' Hausler said.
''I think this is only reasonable. We need baseline levels to
compare it to if anything occurs in the next week or two.''
On Tuesday, New York Gov. Mario Cuomo ordered increased sampling of
milk supplies - a precaution which officials in other states thought
was unnecessary.
''We've not really discussed whether or not we need to do any milk
sampling yet,'' said Mark Smith, chief of licensing and environmental
surveillance in the Division of Radiation Control of the Arkansas
Health Department. ''Probably what we'll do is see if anything shows
up in the air samples or not - it won't show up in the milk until it
showed up in the air samples.''
Porter said the course of a nuclear plume is always unpredictable,
and the United States might get no fallout at all.
''There's a lot of things that can happen with the winds up there,
and it could just get dispersed,'' Porter said.
Although no state official was predicting any threat, Dayne Brown,
chief of the radiation protection section of the North Carolina
Department of Human Resources, said it was important to take
precautions.
''No one feels comfortable,'' he said, ''when a bureaucrat sits down
and says, 'we don't expect any problems so we're not going to do
anything.'''
AP-NY-04-30-86 1548EDT
a222 1309 30 Apr 86
AM-West Europe, Bjt,0627
West European Countries Attack Soviet Handling of Accident
By STEPHEN H. MILLER
COPENHAGEN, Denmark (AP) - North and West European countries,
confronted with drifting radioactivity,on Wednesday sharply attacked
Soviet secrecy about the nuclear reactor accident in the Ukraine.
''Soviet society is far too primitive to use such a sophisticated
technique as nuclear power,'' wrote the daily Svenska Dagbladet
newspaper in Stockholm, Sweden.
Radiation in Sweden from the accident at the Chernobyl reactor was
disclosed hours before the Soviet Union admitted anything had gone
wrong.
Svenska Dagbladet said Soviet authorities ''showed a nonchalance
bordering on the unbelievable'' by failing to warn other countries.
''What kind of people govern the Soiet Union?'' asked the
conservative newspaper Die Welt in West Germany. ''What happened in
the Ukraine is not a tragedy. It is a crime.''
West German Foreign Minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher, attending a
meeting of ministers of seven West European nations in Venice, Italy,
demanded that all similar Soviet power plants be closed until the
cause of the Chernobyl accident was known.
''There is no question of national sovereignty in this field,'' said
Foreign Minister Giulio Andreotti of Italy, who was at the same
meeting. ''There are no frontiers to stop atomic radiation.''
Foreign Secretary Sir Geoffrey Howe of Britain said the meeting's
participants ''expressed deep concern at the Soviets' failure of
giving early warning or intimation - a serious lapse in European
good-neighborliness.''
As winds shifted Wednesday, the radioactivity was reported to have
stopped drifting into Scandinavia and to have begun appearing in
Austria and Switzerland.
Switzerland's second-ranking Foreign Ministry official, Edouard
Brunner, said it was astounding that the Soviets confirmed the
accident only after Scandinavian countries asked for information.
''The new reactor catastrophe demonstrates not only the weaknesses
and deficiencies of the Soviet system, but also especially the
incredible danger that arises from the isolation of a nation,
especially a superpower,'' said the Zurich newspaper Tages Anzeiger.
In Austria, where some grocers were being told not to display
vegetables and fruit outside, the conservative daily Die Presse
complained that for ''two unbelievable days the Soviet Union left the
world in the dark about the mishap near Kiev.''
Even in Finland, which has a delicate political relationship with
the neighboring Soviet Union, newspapers criticized Moscow's handling
of the accident.
Finland's biggest newspaper, the Helsingin Sanomat, said it was
''likely the Soviet Union would have tried to keep quiet about the
accident altogether if the radiation had not reached Scandinavia.''
The Finnish government was restrained in its response to the
incident, but said it was sending a plane to evacuate about 100 Finns
from Kiev.
Soviet ambassadors assured the Swedish, Norwegian and Danish
governments Wednesday that the situation had stabilized, but
Scandinavian officials said they were told little not already
contained in sparse Soviet news reports.
The office of Norwegian Prime Minister Kaare Willoch said it had
given Soviet Ambassador Dimitry S. Polyansky a list of questions the
government wanted answered.
There also were critical reactions in West European countries not
affected by the radioactivity.
In Italy, lawmakers used a special session of the legislature to
condemn Soviet handling of the incident. A Communist senator, Andrea
Margheri, said Moscow's silence on the accident was ''a black hole in
Soviet information of utmost gravity.''
In London, the environmental group Greenpeace predicted that the
accident would cause 10,000 cases of cancer in the Soviet Union over
the next 20 years and up to 4,000 in Sweden over the next 30 years.
In Paris, the leftist newspaper Liberation said, ''Communists make
electricity like they make war - without worrying too much about
victims and by eliminating observers.''
AP-NY-04-30-86 1609EDT
a227 1356 30 Apr 86
AM-Soviet Reaction,0589
Muscovites React With Public Caution, Private Concern
By ALISON SMALE
MOSCOW (AP) - The Soviet Union issued a few more details about the
Chernobyl nuclear accident on Wednesday, but several Soviets
expressed concern that they did not know much about the disaster.
Some residents of Moscow mentioned a lack of news in Soviet media
and pressed Westerners for information.
'Oh, we thought you were going to tell us all about it,'' sighed one
disappointed woman to a Western reporter. She said she thought
foreigners would have some official knowledge of the extent of
injuries and damage at the accident site, in the area of the Ukraine
near Kiev.
On Wednesday night the Soviet government for the first time
announced that 197 people had been hospitalized because of the
accident and said there was no radiation danger in the Kiev area.
Wednesday night's television commentary, which pledged to keep
people informed about the accident, plus government assurances that
there was no danger seemed designed to quiet the concerns of the
people.
On Monday night the Soviet government issued a four-sentence
statement acknowledging there had been an accident. There was another
statement Tuesday night that said two people died and that the
immediate area had been evacuated. On Wednesday night, television
showed the first picture of the damaged reactor. It showed a tall
tower with a building behind it. On the right side, the walls and
roof of the structure had caved in, twisted wreckage could be seen
and it appeared charred.
Both a commentary accompanying the photograph and a 300-word Soviet
government statement distributed by the official news agency Tass
were critical of what it called ''rumors'' in the West that thousands
had been killed.
Many Moscow residents approached on the street reacted with a
traditional reluctance to discuss sensitive matters with strangers.
Some said they had not even heard about the accident.
''Of course, as any Soviet citizen, I am concerned,'' said a young
woman at a bus stop near the Ukraine hotel in central Moscow.
''But I'm quite sure everything will be taken care of, and the
Soviet government will do all that is necessary,'' she said.
Like others interviewed, she declined to give her name.
Information has been released gradually, recalling the way
information was given after the Soviet Union shot down a Korean Air
Lines jet with 269 people on board in September 1983. It was six days
before the Soviets acknowledged that Soviet jets shot down the
passenger plane.
The Soviet Union has kept reports to a minimum, in keeping with a
policy of playing down bad news about the Soviet Union.
By contrast, catastrophes in the West often are covered quickly and
fully by the Soviet press. When the U.S. space shuttle Challenger
exploded in January, Soviet television ran film of the explosion just
two hours later.
It took several days for Soviet television to run a picture of the
damaged Chernobyl plant and the Tass news agency, which could have
offered the picture for distribution worldwide, said it did not have
the picture.
Tass earlier offered a year-old archive photograph of Chernobyl,
then suggested Wednesday that Western agencies might like three
pictures of happy Kiev citizens preparing for May Day celebrations.
The Communist Party daily Pravda on Wednesday carried no pictures of
Chernobyl, but did run seven pictures on three different pages of
smiling people enjoying spring weather in the Ukraine.
AP-NY-04-30-86 1655EDT
a236 1541 30 Apr 86
AM-Nuclear Disaster, Bjt,0943
Foreigners Evacuated, Radiation Spreads; Soviets Claim under Control
By CAROL J. WILLIAMS
MOSCOW (AP) - Frustrated by Soviet secrecy, Western governments
urged their citizens Wednesday to pull out of the stricken Ukraine,
where a nuclear fire spewed more radiation out across Europe and
touched off a storm of world outrage.
The Kremlin claimed radiation levels were dropping at the devastated
Chernobyl nuclear power plant. But a Soviet diplomat was quoted as
saying the situation was ''out of control,'' and U.S. sources in
Washington agreed.
In its most detailed casualty report, the Soviet government said
Wednesday that two people were killed in the accident and 197 others
were hospitalized. But unofficial, unverified reports spoke of higher
casualty tolls.
Those reports did not speak of potential long-term casualties, but
the London-based Greenpeace environmental group estimated 10,000
Soviets would develop cancer over 30 years as a result of what many
consider history's worst nuclear disaster.
Some of Kiev's 2.4 million people were fleeing the Ukrainian capital
for Moscow, 450 miles to the northeast, a West German human rights
group said.
Radioactive clouds, meanwhile, spread as far west as the Swiss Alps
and Norway, borne on mile-high winds.
European health officials reassured the public that radiation levels
presented no major danger. But anger built up against the Soviets,
who kept word of the deadly nuclear event from the rest of the world
until Monday, three days after it happened.
''The Soviet Union has an obligation and duty to the international
community to give the fullest possible explanation of what happened
and why,'' Britain's foreign secretary, Sir Geoffrey Howe, said at a
West European ministers' meeting in Italy.
His West German counterpart, Hans-Dietrich Genscher, called on
Moscow to shut down all nuclear power stations similar to the
crippled Chernobyl plant, which uses an unusual graphite-moderation
process.
The Soviet government has thrown a wall of near-total secrecy around
what happened last week at Chernobyl, a four-reactor complex 60 miles
north of Kiev.
''I am not authorized to tell you anything,'' a Ukrainian Health
Ministry official said Wednesday, in a typical comment. He was
reached by telephone by Moscow.
Later in the day, the official news media carried a 300-word
statement by the Soviet Council of Ministers saying remedial measures
had reduced the radioactivity spilling from the damaged reactor, and
''the radiation levels in the area of the atomic power station (had
been) lowered.''
It said the chain reaction had been shut down and specialists were
cleaning up ''polluted sections'' around the plant.
Of the 197 people hospitalized, 49 were discharged after a checkup,
it said. The statement also criticized Western news agencies for
''spreading rumors'' that thousands had been killed.
But, again, the Soviet statement offered little on the cause and
effects of the accident. The most detailed such information came from
intelligence and other U.S. sources in Washington, apparently
obtained via U.S. surveillance satellites.
Harold Denton, a safety expert at the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory
Commission, told reporters it was unclear what touched off the
reactor fire last Friday. But by Saturday, he said, it had evolved
into a meltdown - the burning up of the uranium fuel core, an
extremely dangerous event. By Sunday, a chemical explosion occurred
that ripped the reactor building apart.
Denton estimated the fire would burn for weeks, and U.S.
intelligence sources, speaking on condition of anonymity, said a
second Chernobyl reactor had become involved, apparently in a
meltdown. The fire ''is still not controlled,'' said one.
Soviet ambassadors in several European capitals said the Chernobyl
situation had been ''stabilized,'' and Ambassador Leonid M. Zamyatin
in London said the three other reactors were shut down and ''in
order.'' But Swiss officials said the Soviet envoy to Bern, Ivan
Ippolitov, told them the situation was still ''out of control.''
The U.S. Embassy spokesman here, Jaroslav Verner, said the embassy
was advising American tourists in Kiev to leave the region. The
ambassador, Arthur Hartman, said the embassy was seeking equipment to
test for radiation in Moscow.
British diplomats pressed Soviet authorities for help in evacuating
about 100 British travelers and students from Kiev and Minsk, 200
miles northwest of the nuclear plant and apparently in the path of
radioactive winds.
French, Finnish, West German and other foreign officials also issued
travel advisories to their citizens. One diplomat, who would not be
identified, complained that none of the embassies had received
substantial information from the Soviets.
The Soviet government Tuesday said four towns near the nuclear site
had been evacuated, including Pripyat, a new town of 25,000 people
built up around the plant.
But a West German group, the International Organization for Human
Rights, said the scare had spread to Kiev.
''Unknown numbers of refugees have left the city of Kiev for the
past two days,'' said the organization, which said its information
came from contacts in Moscow.
It said refugees reported that Kiev authorities had banned swimming,
fishing or other use of open water.
Professor Karen Black of Maine's Bates College, leader of a student
tour group in Kiev, said she was told the city was using alternative
water supplies, since the Dnieper reservoir, just downstream from the
Chernobyl plant, might be contaminated.
The professor, in an NBC telephone interview, said her Soviet tour
guide told her that ''something like 300 casualties'' had occurred
near the plant. But in Kiev, she said, ''everything is very normal.''
One of the unnamed Washington sources said it was ''beyond belief''
that only two people had died.
AP-NY-04-30-86 1840EDT
a238 1603 30 Apr 86
AM-Weapons Reactors, Bjt,0923
Five U.S. Reactors Lack Containment Domes
By MATT YANCEY
WASHINGTON (AP) - Five large U.S. reactors used to produce nuclear
weapons lack thick containment domes to trap escaping radiation if
other safety systems fail in an accident, and one of them has been
deteriorating for years, officials said Wednesday.
The absence of such a protective steel and concrete shell around the
Chernobyl reactor believed to have melted down in the Soviet Union is
blamed by U.S. officials for the release of massive amounts of
radiation in the worst nuclear power accident in history.
In response to a suit from environmental groups, U.S. officials
considered building a containment dome around one of four weapons
reactors near Aiken, S.C., two years ago but concluded that - with a
$850 million price tag - it was unnecessary to do so.
The concrete and steel domes used at U.S. commercial plants are four
feet thick.
In addition, according to Energy Department documents, officials
have been concerned for years about the warping graphite core and
embrittled and bowing process tubes in the N weapons reactor at
Hanford, Wash. - the U.S. plant closest in design to the Soviet
reactor where the accident occurred.
Like the Chernobyl plant, the N reactor is cooled with water and
uses graphite to control the fission reaction inside but has no
containment dome. Energy Deparment officials maintain that
differences between the Washington and Soviet plants - the type fuel
used, structural design and and operating conditions - are sufficient
to make any comparison unwarranted.
''No. 1, its function is defense, not commercial power generation as
the Soviet reactor is,'' Energy Secretary John Herringgton said of
the Hanford plant. ''That's a big difference, both in its functions
and operation.''
Nonetheless, James Vaughan, acting assistant energy secretary for
nuclear programs, told a congressional hearing Tuesday that the
Chernobyl accident ''could have some bearing'' on the future of the
Hanford reactor, and three senators called Wednesday for a thorough
congressional review of the plant.
Rep. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., said the House Energy investigations
subcommittee plans to expand an ongoing inquiry into the operation of
the Hanford reactor to include the adequacy of its safeguards.
According to Energy Department documents, the Hanford plant has
several problems, including the potential for a meltdown during an
earthquake because of inadequate support for pipes carrying cooling
water to its core.
In its proposed budget for fiscal 1987, the department is seeking
$800,000 to replace the pipe hangers, saying the current models could
fail in an earthquake ''inceasing the potential for a core
meltdown.''
Officials also want $12.1 million to replace hundreds of process
tubes running through the core that have become brittle and bowed
with age, through radiation bombardment. The 35-cubic-foot graphite
bed used for controlling the chain reaction is warping and will have
to be replaced in the mid-1990s.
Michael Lawrence, director of the department's Hanford operations,
said Wednesday that the warped bed and aged tubes ''in no way affect
the safety of the N reactor.''
Lawrence said that because the weapons reactors operate at much
lower pressures and temperatures than civilian power plants, a
confinement technology utilizing filters to remove radioactive
materials from escaping gases would be as effective as a containment
approach.
Largely because the weapons reactors - each roughly the size of the
Three Mile Island reactor that suffered a core melt in 1979 - lack
the containments, environmentalists charged Wednesday they could not
meet government safety standards imposed on civilian nuclear power
plants.
''They should be subjected to the same regulatory review process
that we require of commercial reactors,'' said Thomas Cochran, a
scientist for the Natural Resources Defense Council, a group strongly
critical of U.S. atomic programs.
''One major difference between U.S. commercial reactors and Soviet
ones that ours are heavily scrutinized,'' Cochran said. ''But the
Energy Department is operating in a self-regulating regime outside
any public review or independent regulatory oversight.''
All of the weapons reactors - four on the government's Savannah
River property in South Carolina and the N Reactor at Hanford - were
built in the 1950s and early 1960s, before the nuclear plants became
a source of electricity in the United States.
Since 1960, the Nuclear Regulatory Administration and its
predecessor agency, the Atomic Energy Commission, have required
containments for nuclear reactors as a last defense against massive
amounts of radiation poisoning all nearby life.
The weapons plants, however, are all exempt from NRC regulation.
Harold Denton, head of reactor regulation for the NRC, said
Wednesday that one of the main lessons learned from the TMI accident
was the value of containments.
''If you have a big strong containment, you can cope with a large
number of events without getting the public affected,'' he said.
Denton, however, did not question the former AEC's decision to forgo
the containments when the Savannah River and Hanford weapons reactors
were built, saying both complexes were sited on large land areas of
300 to 400 square miles.
''That was back in the early days of the technology,'' he said.
''So, to some extent they may have tried to trade distance for
containment.''
In the 1979 TMI accident, the containment on the Harrisburg, Pa.,
plant is largely credited for trapping most of the radiation inside
and keeping the maxium exposure of nearby residents to 10 millirems -
about half the level of one chest X-ray.
AP-NY-04-30-86 1903EDT
a240 1623 30 Apr 86
AM-Nuclear-Photos,0280
URGENT
First Satellite Pictures Appear To Show Two Fires
STOCKHOLM, Sweden (AP) - The first commercially available pictures
taken of the Chernobyl nuclear plant from a space satellite appear to
show two fires, the distributor of the pictures said Wednesday.
The photographs, shown for the first time Wednesday evening on a
Swedish television news program, had poor resolution and detail was
difficult to see through a plume of smoke. Thermal data collected by
the satellites and superimposed on the image indicated two hot spots.
Soviet authorities say the fire involved only one of the four
Chernobyl reactors. U.S. intelligence reports say the accident last
Friday may have caused a meltdown in a second reactor.
''The picture shows a large billowing cloud of smoke. The satellite,
however, also has a thermal sensor and, looking at this thermic tape,
you also distinguish two sources of intense heat,'' said Lars
Bjerksjo of the Satelltbild agency, which supplied the pictures.
''We cannot, however, say whether they stem from meltdowns,''
Bjerksjo said. ''All we can say now is that it's two separate very
hot spots. One is slightly less hot than the other, possibly because
it's covered by the cloud of smoke.''
The images were received at the space center Esrange at Kiruna in
northern Sweden.
Bjerksjo said they were made by the U.S. civilian satellite
Land-Sat, and more detailed pictures would be available in two days
when the recently launched French-Swedish satellite Spot-Sat starts
operating.
Spot-Sat can show three times as much detail as Land-Sat because of
better capability for picture resolution, Bjerksjo said.
He said it would pass over the reactor site Thursday morning and
pictures would be available late Thursday or Friday.
AP-NY-04-30-86 1922EDT
a245 1650 30 Apr 86
AM-TMI-Disclosure,0800
Facts About TMI Accident Leaked Out Slowly
With AM-Nuclear Disaster Bjt
By BOB DVORCHAK
HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) - A nuclear reactor has gone haywire. Officials
who built it minimize the dangers and issue misleading statements on
radioactive releases. Experts complain they are being kept in the
dark.
If this sounds like a description of the current Soviet nuclear
disaster, it also applies to what happened seven years ago at Three
Mile Island, where the government is open, the press is free and
industry is accountable.
''It's routine to cover up the dangers of these accidents. It's not
only endemic to the Soviet Union. It happened here,'' Eric Epstein of
the anti-nuclear Three Mile Island Alert, said Wednesday.
''The utility intentionally misinformed state and federal officials
to the severity of the accident. There should be no back-patting
because we live in an open society. They've misled us about what went
on here,'' Epstein said.
Metropolitan Edison Co., the operator of Three Mile Island,
dispersed a steady stream of optimism about the safety of its plant
during the first days of the worst accident in U.S. commercial
nuclear power history on March 28, 1979.
The company has denied misleading the public, but officials were
critical of the utility's comments.
''Met Ed's handling of information during the first three days of
the accident resulted in the loss of its credibility as an
information source with state and local officials, as well as with
the news media,'' according to a presidential commission that studied
the accident.
''Part of the problem was that the utility was slow to confirm
'pessimistic' news about the accident,'' the report said.
The credibility problem surfaced soon after radioactive releases
were measured outside the plant, located on an island in the
Susquehanna River near Harrisburg.
A series of mechanical breakdowns and human errors robbed a uranium
core of its cooling water, causing some of the fuel to melt and
releasing radioactivity to the environment. A federal study later
said the reactor came within 30 to 60 minutes of a meltdown.
At an 11 a.m. briefing on that first day, Lt. Gov. William Scranton
held a briefing and told reporters, ''Everything is under control.''
But at about the same time, the utility was venting radioactive steam
from the crippled plant.
Later in the day, a testy Scranton held another briefing to tell
reporters, ''Metropolitan Edison has given you and us conflicting
information.''
John Herbein, vice president for generation for the utility, told
reporters who had gathered at TMI that morning that ''the plant is in
a safe condition.''
Asked later by Scranton why he didn't tell reporters about the
radioactive releases, Herbein replied: ''It didn't come up.''
Meanwhile, about 18 to 20 engineers from Babcock & Wilcox Corp.,
which built Three Mile Island, met at 9 a.m. in Lynchburg, Va., to
discuss the accident. ''B&W's most prevalent feeling was we're just
in the dark,'' one of those present told federal regulators later.
The utility's first statement at 10 a.m., by information director
Blaine Fabian in Reading, said, ''There has been no recordings of any
significant levels of radiation, and none are expected outside the
plant.''
Two hours later, spokesman David Klusick said, ''There is absolutely
no danger of a meltdown.''
Robert Reid, mayor of Middletown, a community three miles from the
plant, said he was told at 8:45 a.m. by a Met Ed official that the
incident was not serious and no radiation escaped.
''Twenty seconds later, I walked out to my car and the announcer
told me on the radio there were radioactive particles released. Now,
how are we to believe anything?'' Reid said.
On Thursday, company spokesman Don Curry told a reporter, ''We
concede it's not just a little thing.''
Later that day, the company began discharging slightly radioactive
water into the river because its holding tanks were filled to the
brim. None of the communities downstream or the media were told of
the releases.
On Friday, a new release of radioactivity triggered an evacuation of
pregnant women and small children from a five-mile radius. When asked
about the events, Herbein said, ''I don't know why we have to tell
you each and every thing we do.''
That was the company's last news conference. Further statements were
coordinated through the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission as
technicians scrambled to bring the accident under control.
Presidential aide Gene Eidenberg said, ''The magnitude was not
known. There was more that was unkown than known. There was a great
sense of need to have more information.''
---
Editors: Bob Dvorchak was AP correspondent in Harrisburg at the time
of the TMI accident.
AP-NY-04-30-86 1949EDT
a248 1710 30 Apr 86
AM-Nuclear Detection,0410
Sophisticated Equipment Available if Needed in Russian Disaster
With AM-Nuclear Disaster Bjt
By ROBERT MACY
LAS VEGAS, Nev. (AP) - The United States is ready to send the Soviet
Union elaborate airborne detection gear that is designed to foil a
nuclear terrorist's threat or track radiation in a nuclear accident.
The equipment - helicopters and fixed wing aircraft in Washington,
D.C., and Las Vegas - could be dispatched within a matter of hours on
wide-bodied Air Force cargo jets.
It has been used several times, including the recovery of debris
from a fallen Soviet satellite in 1978 and the monitoring of the
Three Mile Island accident in 1979.
If used again, it would likely be operated by some members of a Las
Vegas-based group known as the Nuclear Emergency Search Team. NEST
has been deployed 20 times, mainly in cases of stolen nuclear
material or nuclear extortion threats. The team, now numbering
several hundred, is comprised of scientists and others involved in
the nation's nuclear testing program.
Gail Bradshaw, a spokeswoman for the Department of Energy in
Washington, said NEST would not likely be dispatched as a team if the
Soviets sought U.S. help in the Chernobyl disaster.
''But they would likely use some NEST equipment, and the team
members who operate that equipment,'' Ms. Bradshaw said.
A source who asked not to be identified said team members would have
the capability of measuring the amount of radiation and identifying
the kinds of radiation and the hazards involved. Team members would
also be able to assist in clean-up operations and make
recommendations on evacuations.
The NEST mission is primarily to locate a nuclear device, identify
and disarm it, and assist in clean-up if all else fails.
The team has never been confronted with a live nuclear device. But
Thomas Clark, manager of the Energy Department's Nevada Operations
Office, said in a recent interview there is a growing concern that
members will someday face such a problem in light of increased
terrorism activity.
Most of the equipment is owned by EG&G of Las Vegas, a major
contractor in the nation's nuclear testing program. It has several
helicopters and several fixed wing-aircraft that are used continually
in radiation monitoring work. Most are based in Las Vegas, with a few
in Washington.
''We've offered our assistance, both technical and humanitarian,''
said EG&G spokesman Phil Keif in Washington.
AP-NY-04-30-86 2009EDT
a250 1721 30 Apr 86
AM-Radiation Movement,0293
Meteorologists Unsure of Soviet Radiation Route
By RANDOLPH E. SCHMID
WASHINGTON (AP) - If it follows the pattern of other air pollutants,
radiation from the Soviet nuclear accident could wind up over the
North Pole, but scientists are unsure where it might go from there.
Pollutants sometimes accumulate over the Arctic regions at this time
of year, eventually dissipating in the air over the northern parts of
the Soviet Union, Canada and Alaska, said John Miller of the National
Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
These pollutants, mostly forms of sulfur believed to originate
industrial production in the Soviet Union and Western Europe, follow
low-level wind patterns into the Arctic, said Miller, a meteorologist
with NOAA's Air Resources Laboratory.
He suggested that the airborne radiation from the Chernobyl nuclear
accident might follow the same pattern.
There has been some speculation that high-level jet stream winds
blowing from West to East around the globe could transport the
radiation from the Chernobyl accident to the United States.
While this type of movement has occurred in the past, carrying
radiation around the world from nuclear tests, for example, or dust
and smoke from volcanoes, Miller said it seems less likely in this
incident.
''I'm not sure the jet stream is so important in this case, because
this is a surface release. If it were an atomic bomb that went high
into the atmosphere, it would be a different story,'' said Miller.
''I think most of this is low-level transport, 5,000 feet or so. The
possibility of it getting up to the jet stream is pretty remote,'' he
said. The powerful jet stream winds are in the neighborhood of 35,000
to 40,000 feet above the Earth.
AP-NY-04-30-86 2021EDT
a251 1731 30 Apr 86
AM-Israel-Reactor,0550
Former Soviet Engineer Says Soviet Reactors Unsafe
With AM-Nuclear Disaster Bjt
JERUSALEM (AP) - A former Soviet nuclear reactor engineer said
Wednesday that he knew from first hand experience that there was
negligence in the design and construction of the ill-fated Chernobyl
nuclear reactor.
Boris Tokarasky, former quality engineer for the Soviet government
Institute for Reactor and Power Station Construction, said he was
involved in the construction of the Chernobyl power station before he
emigrated to Israel.
He said Soviet reactor-design and management was dangerously
deficient in technical standards.
''The nuclear reactors in the Soviet Union are of such a safety
standard that what happened in Chernobyl could happen very soon in
any of the other reactors in the Soviet Union, and I have no doubt of
this,'' Tokarasky said in an interview with Armed Forces Radio, which
was taped and broadcast Thursday morning.
Tokarasky, 49, immigrated to Israel from Leningrad in 1978. He
declined to say what work he does now, although he said he had lost
touch with Soviet nuclear developments since leaving the country.
He said in the broadcast that the fire at the Chernobyl reactor
could continue burning ''until the material runs out. ... It could be
months or even years.
The scientist also said the Soviet claim that only two people were
killed in the fire was implausible because four shifts of 100 people
each worked in the immediate reactor area, with hundreds more in
other units nearby.
Tokarasky also was critical of the attitude he encountered during
his work on Soviet reactors.
''There was a fault in the city Novokuybyshevsk; there was an
explosion in which three people were killed,'' he said. ''The
directors there told me, 'We will rebuild the buildings from the same
drawings, but we will move them 100-200 meters away from each other,
so that if there is another fault, only those who are close by will
be hurt.' ... This is the sort of responsibility and safety they
had.''
In another case, Tokarasky told of a reactor near Leningrad where a
pipe was vibrating dangerously, and he and colleagues suggested
welding it to strengthen the section while minimizing exposure of the
repair workers to dangerous radiation.
''The Russian directors there told us they had done more - they
welded the whole pipe, using many work hours,'' he said. ''As a
result, the workers were exposed to a high level of risk and the pipe
was also damaged (by being too stiff).
''And when we asked about the over-exposure to radiation, we were
told 'It's no problem. We gave the workers milk,''' the scientist
said.
Tokarasky said the Soviet nuclear reactors used the same turbines
and pressure-piping as coal-fired power stations because they are not
sophisticated enough to develop systems especially for nuclear
stations.
''They can't, because their technological level is very low, and
they simply close their eyes to this,'' Tokarasky said.
He also said available technology was not used properly.
For example, he said one power station had a computerized control
panel that indicated which pipes for the transfer of radioactive
material were hermetically sealed. But the Soviet opertors still sent
a man ''with a big hammer'' to make sure.
AP-NY-04-30-86 2031EDT
a256 1758 30 Apr 86
AM-Westinghouse-Nuclear,0277
Soviet Disaster Raises Anxiety, Reactor Builder Says
With AM-Nuclear Disaster Bjt
Eds: a longer version moved on business wires.
By EARL BOHN
AP Business Writer
PITTSBURGH (AP) - The Soviet nuclear power plant disaster is
unlikely to hurt sales for American nuclear reactor builders because
business couldn't be much worse, industry officials said Wednesday.
''It's academic domestically and that's pretty much the situation
worldwide,'' said Bob McCoy, electric industry analyst for the Wall
Street firm Kidder Peabody.
''The business side of nuclear power is primarily now service and
reloading fuel,'' he said. ''So what's happening in Russia is having
no impact on anybody's current plans.''
The last nuclear power plant order was placed in the United States
in 1978 by Commonwealth Edison Co. of Chicago for two units, still to
be built in Carroll County, Ill. The last order on which construction
has actually begun dates to 1973, according to the Atomic Industry
Forum, an industry organization.
The head of commercial power for Pittsburgh-based Westinghouse
Electric Corp., the world's largest producer of nuclear power plants,
said the Soviet disaster clearly heightened anxiety over the safety
of reactors everywhere.
''The anti-nukes are coming out with the 'I-told-you-sos,' without
making the distinction'' between Soviet nuclear power standards and
the higher safety standards in the United States, said Jim Moore,
Westinghouse general manager of commercial nuclear power.
''It's going to take some time before all that settles down,'' he
said. ''It's something we're going to have to wrestle with. But since
nobody is sitting down with me to talk about ordering plants. ... I
don't see any impact on our technology.''
AP-NY-04-30-86 2058EDT
a002 2130 30 Apr 86
PM-News Digest,1368
Thursday, May 1, 1986
Here are the top stories for PMs. The General Desk supervisor is Ron
NUCLEAR DISASTER:
Soviet Reports Continue to Differ from Those of Other Nations
MOSCOW - The Soviets say the Chernobyl nuclear power plant disaster
injured 197 people and ripped apart a reactor building, but assured
the public the crippled reactor was shut down and radiation levels
were subsiding. Reports from elsewhere suggest a far worse situation.
Slug PM-Nuclear Disaster.
Developing. LaserColor WX6, Satellite photo of Chernobyl nuclear
plant. By Andrew Rosenthal.
Senator Calls for Airlift of Americans Out of Soviet Union
WASHINGTON - A prominent senator, citing Kremlin efforts to
''conceal the magnitude'' of the nuclear disaster in Cherbonyl, is
calling on the State Department to provide aircraft for American
tourists who ''wish to be evacuated'' from the Soviet Union. Slug
PM-US-Soviet Accident Rdp. New material, may stand. 800 words.
By Guy Darst
U.S. Spy Satellites Put to the Test and Get Good Marks
WASHINGTON - The ability of American spy satellites to peer into
other nations has been impressively demonstrated in recent days as
the U.S. government has released detailed information on the Soviet
nuclear disaster, officials say. Slug PM-Soviet Accident-US
Intelligence. New material, should stand. 750 words.
By Tim Ahern
Former Soviet Engineer Says Plant Was Disaster Waiting to Happen
JERUSALEM, Israel - A former Soviet engineer who worked on the
ill-fated Chernobyl nuclear power plant says the plant was a disaster
waiting to happen. He cites Soviet negligence and poor safety
standards. Slug PM-Israel-Reactor.
Developing. By David Nordell.
Town Near Damaged Nuclear Reactor Has Ancient History
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. - Chernobyl, destined to join Hiroshima and
Three-Mile Island as a synonym for nuclear catastrophe, is an
ancient, rollicking river town, fought over by Lithuanian lords,
Polish nobles, and White and Red Russian armies before officials
vowed that its nuclear power plant was completely safe. Slug
PM-Chernobyl Profile. New, will stand. 600 words.
By Arnold Zeitlin.
Soviet Secrecy over Accident Is at Odds With Gorbachev Openness
WASHINGTON - The Kremlin's failure to answer questions about the
Cherbonyl reactor calamity is at odds with Soviet leader Mikhail
Gorbachev' candor campaign and could thrust Soviet ties with the
outside world into a nuclear winter of many years, experts predict.
Slug PM-Soviet Accident-Impact. New, should stand. 700 words.
By Bryan Brumley
Experts Says Radioactive Plume Has Largely Spared Vital Farm Land
WASHINGTON - The plume of radioactivity streaming from the crippled
Chernobyl nuclear plant, located near the Soviet Union's Ukrainian
breadbasket, has so far largely spared the precious farmland and the
country's important winter wheat crop, government and private
analysts say. Slug PM-Nuclear-Crops. New, should stand. 750 words.
By Jim Drinkard
Disaster Sparks Concern for Growing Latin Nuclear Industry
MEXICO CITY - The Soviet nuclear disaster is causing serious worry
in Latin America, where governments have been hastening to develop
atomic power despite a regional economic crisis. Slug PM-Latin
Nuclear. New, will stand. 750 words.
By Soll Sussman.
Ukrainians In United States Worry About Fate Of Those At Home
UNDATED - Ukrainian-Americans say they've had little success trying
to communicate with friends and family in their homeland since
nuclear disaster struck, and don't know whether U.S. aid will be
accepted by the Soviets. Slug PM-US-Ukrainian Reax. New, will stand.
600 words.
LaserPhoto NY5, Ukrainians at New York church service. By Nicholas
K. Geranios.
REAGAN TRIP:
Soviet Disaster Will share Stage with Terrorism at Economic Summit
TOKYO - As West Germany and Italy report radiation contamination,
the nuclear accident in the Soviet Union will share billing with
terror and trade as major topics for the seven-nation economic summit
opening Sunday in Tokyo. Slug PM-Summit Diplomacy. New, should stand.
700 words.
By Diplomatic Writer Barry Schweid
BRITISH PRISONS: Inmates Riot in Five Prisons; At Least 50 Escape
SPACE PIONEER: First American in Space Looks Back at 25-Year Effort
SOUTH AFRICA: Unrest Spreads in Once-Docile Tribal Homelands
MEXICAN MENNONITES: Fight Alcohol and Drug Use by Their Youths
POLAR EXPEDITION: Steger Expedition Within Reach of North Pole
***************
a004 2135 30 Apr 86
PM-Newspage Stocks,0215
Stock Market Setback Was Expected
NEW YORK (AP) - A stock price retreat on Wall Street may turn out to
be a temporary pause in a rally that has carried the Dow Jones
industrial average to record heights 42 times since last September.
The stock market took a nose-dive Wednesday and the Dow Jones
average of 30 industrials skidded 41.91 to 1,783.98. It was the
biggest loss in absolute terms for a single day, eclipsing the old
mark of 39.10 points on Jan. 8, 1986, when the average fell to
1,526.61.
Analysts said the big drop was no cause for panic. The market just
needs to relax after climbing so far so fast. When Wall Street
started its surge last autumn the average stood just below 1,300.
In percentage terms, the drop in the Dow industrials was only 2.3
percent of the average's total value. That was far less than on the
day that went down in history as Black Monday - Oct. 28, 1929 - when
the average that has become Wall Street's best-known barometer
plummeted 12.9 percent in value.
New reports about the nuclear disaster in the Soviet Union set a
nervous tone in the market and left traders reluctant to hold utility
and other issues.
AP-NY-05-01-86 0035EDT
- - - - - -
a063 0558 01 May 86
PM-News Advisory,0071
The General Desk supervisor is John Daniszewski (212) 621-1604. The
Laserphoto Desk supervisor is Rich Kareckas (212) 621-1900.
All times EDT
-PM-Newspage Stocks, a004, will be updated in late morning with
morning stock market activity.
-PM-US-Soviet Accident Rdp, a048. Update planned with comments from
Soviet attache.
-PM-Budget, a033. Prenoon update planned.
-PM-Polar Expedition, a059. Developing. Late update likely.
AP-NY-05-01-86 0857EDT
- - - - - -
a086 0855 01 May 86
PM-Newspage Stocks, 1st Ld - Writethru, a004,0290
Stocks Drop Again Today
Eds: Updates throughout with prices dropping again in early trading
today
NEW YORK (AP) - Stock prices dropped again today in early trading,
one day after the market suffered its worst single-day point loss in
history, a retreat blamed largely on pessimism over the economy and
the Soviet nuclear disaster.
The Dow Jones average of 30 industrial stocks, Wall Street's
best-known barometer, fell 5.09 points to 1,778.89 in the first
half-hour of trading today.
Broader indicators of stock values also declined. The New York Stock
Exchange composite index, which measures all listed issues, fell 0.76
to 134.99 in early trading. The American Exchange market value index
fell 0.87 to 268.10.
Losers outran gainers by a 4-1 margin on the New York Stock
Exchange, where volume exceeded 21.4 million shares in early trading.
On Wednesday, the Dow Jones industrials plunged 41.91 to 1,783.98,
the indicator's biggest one-day point loss, eclipsing the previous
record plunge of 39.10 points set Jan. 8.
In percentage terms, the drop in the Dow industrials was only 2.3
percent of the average's total value. That was far less than on the
day that went down in history as Black Monday - Oct. 28, 1929 - when
the average plummeted 12.9 percent in value.
New reports about the nuclear disaster in the Soviet Union set a
nervous tone in the market and left traders reluctant to hold utility
and other issues. But analysts said the big drop was no cause for
panic, arguing that the market needs to relax after climbing to
record heights over the past several months. When Wall Street started
its surge last autumn the average stood just below the 1,300 level.
AP-NY-05-01-86 1152EDT
- - - - - -
a202 1028 01 May 86
PM-Newspage Stocks, 2nd Ld, a086,0140
Stocks Drop Again Today
Eds: Leads with 4 grafs to UPDATE with noon figures
NEW YORK (AP) - Stock prices edged lower at midday today, one day
after the market suffered a record single-day point loss on one index
in a retreat blamed largely on pessimism over the economy and the
Soviet nuclear disaster.
The Dow Jones average of 30 industrial stocks, Wall Street's
best-known barometer, fell 5.33 points to 1,778.65 by noon EDT.
Broader indicators of stock values also declined. The New York Stock
Exchange composite index, which measures all listed issues, fell 0.50
to 135.25. The American Exchange market value index fell 0.97 to
268.0.
Losers outran gainers by a nearly 4-1 ratio on the New York Stock
Exchange, where volume totaled 67.16 million shares at noon.
On Wednesday,: 5th graf
AP-NY-05-01-86 1327EDT
***************
a006 2204 30 Apr 86
PM-US-Soviet Accident Rdp, Bjt,1035
Kremlin Stonewalling, U.S. Officials Complain
Laserphoto WX5
By GUY DARST
WASHINGTON (AP) - A prominent senator, citing Kremlin efforts to
''conceal the magnitude'' of the nuclear disaster in Cherbonyl, is
calling on the State Department to provide aircraft for American
tourists who ''wish to be evacuated'' from the Soviet Union.
U.S. officials say stonewalling from Moscow is making it difficult
to advise American travelers about radiation hazards in the Soviet
Union.
Noting that other countries such as France and Finland had taken
steps to evacuate citizens from Kiev, 60 miles from the Chernobyl
reactors, one U.S. official said the United States would take every
step to protect its citizens.
''We want some indication of the radiation intensity,'' the official
said. ''They are not being helpful.''
The official, who would discuss the new strain in relations only on
grounds he not be identified, said this country had been deliberately
soft-pedaling its criticism of Soviet responsiveness, partly out of
concern the Kremlin might be even less inclined to cooperate in the
face of harsh statements from Washington.
He said there is a perception in the U.S. government that the
magnitude of the tragedy has ''overwhelmed'' the Kremlin and
''paralyzed the decision-making process, as it could ours.''
In Bali, Indonesia, President Reagan told reporters that Soviet
leader Mikhail Gorbachev had contacted U.S. officials about the
Chernobyl nuclear plant disaster but that there was no response to an
American offer of humanitarian and technical aid.
''We're trying to keep track of what's going on over there but we're
limited in our knowledge,'' the president said.
Word of contact with Gorbachev came as U.S. officials in Washington
were complaining that the Soviet Union was not providing enough
detail on the power plant accident to allow experts to gauge the
health hazard.
''Among the many concerns arising from the disaster in Cherbonyl is
the safety of U.S. travelers in the Soviet Union, particularily
children and pregnant women,'' Sen. Daniel Moynihan said in a letter
Wednesday to the Undersecretary of State John C. Whitehead.
Moynihan said his staff had ''already been in contact with Finnair,
which has volunteered to help speed the departure'' of American
tourists.
''In view of the continuing Soviet effort to conceal the magnitude
of this disaster, I ask that the State Department keep U.S. travelers
fully informed of the health risks confronting them, and that
aircraft be provided for those who wish to be evacuated.''
Though the nation's intelligence agencies have been able to glean
much information from satellite photos, analysts cannot detect or
measure radiation on the ground.
That helped explain how a dispute arose among U.S. intelligence
analysts over whether a second of the four Chernobyl reactors had
suffered a meltdown.
One official said a second meltdown was under way, but another
emerged from an intelligence briefing to say, on the basis of what he
had been told, that such a hypothesis was ''dead wrong.''
No one, though, disputed this description of the scene as of
Wednesday by an official who spoke under ground rules that prevent
his identification:
''The condition of that (reactor) building is that the top was blown
off. There is considerable blast damage and rubble around it. Vapors
and smoke are escaping from a large hole in the roof of the reactor
building. In addition, there is a large generator hall next to the
reactor building. Parts of that roof are also missing. There is
significant damage there.''
All schools of analysts insisted they had no way to measure
casualties, whether a handful or in the thousands.
Harold Denton of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission told reporters a
still-unexplained loss of coolant flow caused reactor fuel tubes to
overheat and graphite fuel cladding to react with remaining water.
''As a result of the metal-water reactions, the pressure tube
cladding began to fail and steam began to attack the graphite.
Graphite will react with water to produce hydrogen and carbon
monoxide and other combustible products. There is every indication
that as a result of this interaction between the cladding and the
steam and air, a violent explosion occurred inside the reactor
core.''
There were these other developments:
-Grain and meat prices continued soaring on U.S. commodities
exchanges, and shares of utilities and food processing companies were
prominent among losers on the stock markets.
-Democrats on the House Interior Committee used the example of the
Soviet accident to win a two-week delay in consideration of a
Republican move to cut the nuclear industry's maximum reactor
accident liability from $8.2 billion to $2 billion. The committee had
voted 21-20 last week to raise the limit from the present $650
million to $8.2 billion.
-Some travel agents reported cancellations of trips to the Soviet
Union, but the New York office of the Soviet travel agency,
Intourist, said it was too early to tell if a significant drop in
business had occurred.
-The Ukrainian Congress Committee of America criticized Soviet
safety precautions. Telephone lines to the Soviet Union by U.S.
citizens worried about relatives in the Ukraine and elsewhere were
reported jammed.
Lee Thomas, administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency,
went public with the issue of the Soviet's lack of candor from the
very start of what has become the world's gravest nuclear power plant
accident.
''We're very concerned about the notification issue,'' Thomas said.
''And I think that as we get better information about exactly when
the event occurred, when notification could have been made, I think
we'll be able to draw more conclusions about that concern.''
European countries have been making this point in strong terms from
the beginning.
The official who discussed the matter anonymously noted that
higher-than-normal radiation levels have been detected in Norway, 900
miles from the accident site. Moscow is only half as far away but the
Soviets have said nothing about the radiation level there, he said.
Some 278 Americans are posted in the Soviet Union - 190 officials in
Moscow, 24 in the consular office in Leningrad, 25 U.S. businessmen
in Moscow and 39 journalists.
AP-NY-05-01-86 0104EDT
- - - - - -
a008 2217 30 Apr 86
PM-US-Soviet Accident Rdp, SUB, a006,0058
WASHINGTON, to CORRECT to zirconium fuel cladding sted graphite fuel
cladding, SUB for 19th graf, Harold Denton ... remaining water.
Harold Denton of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission told reporters a
still-unexplained loss of coolant flow caused reactor fuel tubes to
overheat and zirconium fuel cladding to react with remaining water.
''As a, 20th graf
AP-NY-05-01-86 0117EDT
- - - - - -
a024 0058 01 May 86
PM-US-Soviet Accident Rdp, 1st Ld, a006,0128
EDs: CORRECTS number of miles in 3rd graf to 80 sted of 60.
By GUY DARST
WASHINGTON (AP) - A prominent senator, citing Kremlin efforts to
''conceal the magnitude'' of the nuclear disaster in Cherbonyl, is
calling on the State Department to provide aircraft for American
tourists who wish to be evacuated from the Soviet Union.
U.S. officials say stonewalling from Moscow is making it difficult
to advise American travelers about radiation hazards in the Soviet
Union.
Noting that other countries such as France and Finland had taken
steps to evacuate citizens from Kiev, 80 miles from the Chernobyl
reactors, one U.S. official said the United States would take every
step to protect its citizens.
''We want, 4th graf
AP-NY-05-01-86 0357EDT
- - - - - -
a041 0332 01 May 86
PM-Digest Advisory,0124
All the budgets have moved. Here is a list with Laserphoto numbers:
WASHINGTON - PM-US-Soviet Accident Rdp, a006, a008, a024. Laserphoto
WX5.
NEW YORK - PM-Ellis Ad, a007. Laserphoto NY8.
WASHINGTON - PM-Soviet-Nuclear-Impact, a009
CAMBRIDGE - PM-Chernobyl Profile, a010
KUALA LUMPUR - PM-Nancy-Drugs, a011
WASHINGTON - PM-Soviet Accident-US Intelligence, a013
WASHINGTON - PM-Nuclear-Crops, a014
NEW YORK - PM-Polar Expedition, a015, a023
MEXICO CITY - PM-Latin Nuclear, a016
JERUSALEM - PM-Israel-Reactor, a017
UNDATED - PM-US-Ukrainian Reax, a018. Laserphoto NY5.
DALLAS - PM-Five Texases, a019
TOKYO - PM-Summit-Diplomacy, a022
LONDON - PM-British Prisons, a026
BALI - PM-Reagan, a035
MOSCOW - PM-Nuclear Disaster, a040. Laserphoto WX6.
AP-NY-05-01-86 0632EDT
- - - - - -
a048 0421 01 May 86
PM-US-Soviet Accident Rdp, 2nd Ld, a006, a008, a024,0272
URGENT
EDS: UPDATES with Shultz saying Soviets rejected U.S. offer of
assistance
By GUY DARST
WASHINGTON (AP) - The Soviet Union has rejected the U.S. offer of
assistance in dealing with the nuclear disaster in Cherbonyl, and
casualties from the accident are higher ''by a good measure'' than
the Kremlin has acknowleged, Secretary of State George Shultz said
today.
''They did reply that they appreciated the offer (of assistance) and
they don't sense any need for it at this point,'' said Shultz in
Bali, Indonesia, where he is accompanying President Reagan on his
13-day Far East trip.
He said the Soviets ''felt they had what they needed to deal with
the problem.''
The Soviet decision was relayed to officials in Washington, Shultz
said. He said he did not know when it was received, but that he
learned of it this morning.
The Soviet Union has said that two people were killed in the
accident and that 197 were injured. Shultz said ''the scope of the
accident is certainly a major one'' and that ''the casualty rates are
higher than those that have been announced by the Soviet Union by a
good measure.''
He did not provide any figures, but said the United States has ''a
fuller picture'' of the accident's dimension that has been presented
by Moscow.
On Wednesday, a prominent senator, citing Kremlin efforts to
''conceal the magnitude'' of the nuclear disaster in Cherbonyl,
called on the State Department to provide aircraft for American
tourists who wish to be evacuated from the Soviet Union.
U.S. officials, 2nd graf
AP-NY-05-01-86 0721EDT
- - - - - -
a073 0721 01 May 86
PM-US-Soviet Accident Rdp, 2nd Ld, Insert, a048,1217
WASHINGTON Insert after6th graf: He did xxx by Moscow
Presidential spokesman Larry Speakes, also in Bali, said on the CBS
''Morning News'' that Soviet and U.S. officials had met three times
to discuss the accident.
''In the first meeting, we offered assistance; in the second
meeting, they provided us a report that indicated the scope of the
accident there, without replying to our offer of help; and, in the
third meeting, they did reply to our offer of help.''
Speakes repeated the U.S. assessment that ''they do have a fire in
progress'' but would not divulge on what that was based except to
say, ''We know more than the Soviets have indicated to their own
people.''
Sen. Patrick Leahy, the ranking Democrat on the Senate intelligence
committee, said in an interview on ABC-TV's ''Good Morning America,''
that the accident amounted to ''an incalculable disaster for the
Soviet Union.''
He said none of the four reactors at the Chernobyl site would be
usable again and added that ''the ultimate effect on crops in that
area,'' the country's breadbasket, ''are almost incalculable.''
Yet Soviet Foreign Ministry spokesman Vladimir Lomeiko, on the same
show minutes earlier, maintained that ''everything is under control
now.''
As to why the offers of help from the United States and others have
been rejected, Lomeiko said, ''Each country has the right of
investigating the tragedies of this sort.''
He also charged:
''There is a campaign in the West that does not want to acknowledge
the data that the Soviet government is providing. This is a very
serious matter and a campaign has been released of misinformation, in
fact, and it is being fanned up on all networks. . . . And that
creates an image of the lying Russians.''
On Wednesday,: 7th graf
AP-NY-05-01-86 1018EDT
- - - - - -
a218 1201 01 May 86
PM-US-Soviet Accident Rdp, 3rd Ld, a048,0324
EDs: First 7 grafs new
By GUY DARST
WASHINGTON (AP) - The Soviet Union has rejected - at least for now -
the U.S. offer of assistance in dealing with the nuclear disaster in
Chernobyl, the U.S. task force set up to monitor the disaster said
today.
The interagency group also said that Soviet authorities ''have
reported that they have smothered the fire'' burning at the
four-reactor site. But a statement from the task force added that
''from our information, it is not clear whether the fire is out or
not.''
The task force noted that infrared photos taken by the Landsat
satellite showed a second heat source at Chernobyl. The statement
said that, while experts ''cannot confirm news reports of damage at a
second reactor,'' it has been determined that the hot spot in the
satellite photo ''is not a reactor.''
As for Tuesday's offer of U.S. aid to the Soviet Union, the
statement noted that a senior Soviet official on Wednesday
''delivered a note to the Department of State expressing appreciation
for our offer of assistance and stating that, for the time being,
assistance is not needed.''
The statement also said that radiation monitors in the United States
and Canada had detected no increase in radioactive particles from the
plume generated by the accident.
Rather, the task force said, the radioactive air mass ''is now
widely dispersed throughout northern Europe and polar regions.
Portions of radioactivity off the northwest Norwegian coast yesterday
morning should continue to disperse with possible movement toward the
east in the next several days. Other portions of the radioactive air
mass may move eastward through the Soviet Union and through the polar
regions over the coming week.''
Earlier, Secretary of State George Shultz said casualties from the
accident are higher ''by a good measure'' than the Kremlin has
acknowledged.
The Soviet Union has: 5th graf
AP-NY-05-01-86 1501EDT
a009 2231 30 Apr 86
PM-Soviet-Nuclear-Impact Bjt,0764
The Diplomatic Fallout from Chernobyl May Haunt Moscow for Years
Eds: Stands for item slugged Soviet Accident-Impact on the News
Digest
By BRYAN BRUMLEY
WASHINGTON (AP) - The Kremlin's failure to answer questions about
the Cherbonyl reactor calamity is not in line with Soviet leader
Mikhail Gorbachev's reputed candor campaign and could thrust Soviet
ties with the outside world into a nuclear winter of many years,
experts predict.
''The longer they stonewall, the longer the rest of the world is
going to be hostile,'' said Marshall Goldman, a professor at Harvard
University's Russian Research Institute.
''We forget things after a while. But I don't think we will forget
this so easily,'' said Goldman, predicting that the Chernobyl
disaster would damage Soviet ties with the outside world far more
than the downing of a Korean Air Lines jet in 1983 or the invasion of
Afghanistan in 1979.
''If the Soviet Union does not open up and make a lot of information
available, it could lead Western nations to be much more skeptical
about cooperation in other areas,'' said Loren Graham, a specialist
on Soviet science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
''It's not going to go away,'' said Goldman. ''They cannot take the
traditional Soviet response: 'hunker down, it will go away.' It is
something more than the KAL incident. There is no way they can blame
this on anybody else.''
In Bali, Indonesia, President Reagan told reporters Gorbachev had
contacted U.S. officials about the nuclear disaster but that there
was no response on an American offer of humanitarian and technical
aid.
''We're trying to keep track of what's going on over there but we're
limited in our knowledge,'' the president said.
Reagan did not say when or how Gorbachev had been in touch with U.S.
officials.
The meltdown was believed to be most severe crisis faced by
Gorbachev since he rose to power in March 1985, and he did not appear
to be living up to his calls for ''glastnost,'' or candor, said
experts in and out of government.
The Soviet leader had not answered increasingly sharp demands for
information by Western European nations, which are normally
circumspect in their statements regarding the giant to their east.
State Department officials said it was too soon to predict whether
the accident would alter Soviet dealings with the United States,
ranging from plans for a summit to arms control talks in Geneva or
U.S. plans to open a consulate in the Ukrainian capital of Kiev.
One State Department official said it appeared ''the Soviets are
involved in a cover-up. ... It may be like Afghanistan. We know there
are atrocities going on but there is nothing we can do.''
''We were hoping that they would learn the lesson that cooperation
works better than secrecy. And that might lead them to agreements on
arms control or other issues,'' said the State Department official,
who spoke on condition of anonymity.
Nations throughout Western Europe angrily urged Moscow to provide
more information about radiation from the crippled reactor, which was
first detected by Swedish workers Monday, before the Soviet Union
acknowledged the accident had occurred.
''Soviet society is far too primitive to use such a sophisticated
technique as nuclear power,'' thundered the newspaper Svenska
Dagbladet, of neutral Sweden.
The West German government called for the Soviet Union to shut down
other nuclear plants.
''What kind of people govern the Soviet Union?'' demanded Die Welt,
a conservative West German newspaper.
Poul Schueter, the prime minister of Denmark, said ''it shouldn't be
that way in a modern society. If anything like this would ever happen
again, the Danish and other governments would be notified.''
Graham, of MIT, held out the hope that the Chernobyl accident would
prompt Moscow to reach a pact to allow international teams to inspect
reactors in Eastern and Western Europe.
''Gorbachev has agreed to on-site inspections for arms control,''
said Graham. ''Surely, he could allow foreigners in their reactor
plants'' for safety inspections.
While the Soviet media carried only sketchy reports on the disaster,
Polish authorities warned of radioactive contamination along the
border, prompting some U.S. experts to predict strained relations
between Moscow and its satellite neighbors over the accident.
The failure of Soviet media to carry similar precautions about
radiation warnings for the population could raise the casualty count
from the accident and make it hard for Kremlin leaders to accuse
other nations of human rights abuse, experts said.
AP-NY-05-01-86 0130EDT
a010 2243 30 Apr 86
PM-Chernobyl Profile, Bjt,0657
Bustling River Town Is Site Of Soviet Nuclear Accident
By ARNOLD ZEITLIN
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. (AP) - Chernobyl was an old, bustling river town
known for furs and proud of its single wide-screen movie house before
joining Hiroshima, Nagasaki and Three Mile Island as a synonym for
nuclear calamity.
Lithuanian lords, Polish nobles, Cossacks, White and Red Russians
and Nazis fought over the Ukrainian city since it was first mentioned
in historical documents in 1193.
The nuclear power plant near Chernobyl, where a still-unknown
disaster has spewed radiation over much of Europe, was begun in 1972,
a high mark in the development of the city.
Articles and other material giving a picture of the Prypiat River
city and assembled Wednesday by Harvard University's Ukrainian
Research and Russian Research institutes provide little detail about
the city after 1972.
An article in the Ukrainian Encyclopedia written by emigre scholars
and published in the West report that the Chernobyl plant, 60 miles
north of Kiev, was the region's first. It was completed in 1977 and
scheduled in 1985 to reach a capacity of 4 million kilowatts.
Not only did the city have 44 physicians, a hospital, three middle
schools with 2,300 students and two libraries, according to the 1971
Soviet edition of the Ukrainian-language ''Towns and Villages of the
Ukraine,'' it also boasted a cinema with a wide screen.
The edition was the latest in the Harvard University library, said
Lubomyr Hajda, a Ukrainian born in Poland and now teaching at
Harvard.
The article described Chernobyl as a town of about 10,000 people
with a broad central square and well-laid-out streets built since the
Nazis destroyed the port, sinking 22 ships and vessels, tortured 500
people and shipped others to German labor camps. It had a stadium, a
park and a local newspaper called ''The Banner of Victory.''
Chernobyl, near the confluence of the Prypiat and the Dnepr rivers,
has been a district capital for centuries. Where serfs once worked up
to five days for their feudal lords before they were allowed to work
their own crops, state and communal farms provide cattle for milk and
meat, flax for linen and potatoes and other vegetables.
Despite claims in Soviet publications that capitalists brought
insufferable conditions to Chernobyl, its population grew after the
1861 liberation of the serfs. It surpassed 16,000 in the late 19th
century, but as Josef Stalin was gaining victory over Leon Trotsky in
1926, the population was down to 9,300.
The city thrived in the late 19th century, with guilds for tailors,
smiths and furriers, trade fairs seven times a year, factories making
candles, others employing women skilled in embroidery, and repair
facilities for river boats.
In 1910, the city had two physicians and three midwives.
The Soviet publications were silent on what documents first
mentioned Chernobyl. By the end of the 14th century, it had been
conquered by the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, then Europe's largest
power. By 1569, Polish nobles ruled, provoking a 1648-54 Cossack
rebellion throughout the Ukraine.
But Chernobyl actually didn't become part of Russia until the
partition of Poland in 1793. The town was mobilized and armed in the
1812 Napoleonic War, but Napoleon never showed up.
Soviet chronicles describe worker uprisings in Chernobyl during the
1905 revolution. After Russia pulled out of World War I, German
troops occupied Chernobyl in March 1918.
By December 1918, an independent Ukrainian government held sway.
Soviet troops took the city in February 1919. White Russians, backed
by Russia's World War I allies, held the town in September, but lost
it to the Red Army two months later.
Poles took the town in April 1920, losing it to the Red Army in
June.
Little is written in Soviet chronicles of Stalin's policies driving
landowners off their land in the Ukraine and the 1932-33 famine that
killed millions.
''Socialist transformations occurred in the lives of the peasants,''
the 1971 account of the period obliquely reported.
AP-NY-05-01-86 0142EDT
a013 2314 30 Apr 86
PM-Soviet Accident-US Intelligence, Bjt,0639
Soviet Nuclear Disaster Shows U.S. Ability To Snoop With Satellites
By TIM AHERN
WASHINGTON (AP) - The ability of American spy satellites to peer
into other nations has been impressively demonstrated in recent days
as the U.S. government released detailed information on the Soviet
nuclear disaster, U.S. officials say.
''We have very, very good satellite technology,'' Sen. William
Cohen, R-Maine, and a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee,
said Wednesday. ''This has been quite a demonstration of it.''
With the Soviet government providing scant information, considerable
detail about what happened has come from U.S. intelligence sources,
speaking on condition of anonymity.
At least two types of American satellites are now orbiting over the
Soviet Union, picking up information and beaming it to the United
States, those sources said Wednesday.
One is a KH-11 photo reconnaissance satellite that is sending back
pictures of the devastated reactor at Chernobyl. The other is a ''Big
Bird'' satellite with infrared capability that can easily track the
enormous heat generated by the still-burning nuclear fire, those
sources said.
At least one of those satellites was rerouted to have it pass
directly over Chernobyl after the accident occurred, the sources
said.
In recent weeks, there have been a series of charges by
administration officials that congressional sources with access to
intelligence are leaking it to the press, and countercharges from
Capitol Hill that the leaks are coming from the administration.
But in the current case, there is little criticism from Congress
about the information being made public.
''In view of the fact that there is little justification for
classifying what is a major international disaster and not a military
matter, I don't see any problem with releasing this information,''
Cohen said.
Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., vice chairman of the Intelligence
Committee and a frequent critic of administration leaks, agreed.
''I don't have any problem with the administration giving out this
information like they're doing, as long as they're careful not to
give away the store on their ability to monitor the Soviets,'' Leahy
said.
''We've relied heavily on our overhead collection ability,'' said
Sen. John Warner, R-Va., a member of the Armed Services Committee.
''I think the administration has been very forthcoming with Congress
in providing us with real-time information.''
In military jargon, ''real-time'' is the phrase used for information
that is provided as it is occurring or shortly afterwards.
Cohen called the current situation ''an absolute pluperfect case of
how surveillance can be used for peaceful purposes.''
It was the second time in less than three weeks that America's
technological surveillance capabilities had been vividly
demonstrated.
On April 14, when President Reagan went on national television to
announce the bombing of Libya, he said he was acting because the
United States had incontrovertible evidence Libya had been directly
involved in the April 5 bombing of a West Berlin disco that killed
one American serviceman and injured dozens more.
U.S. officials said later that the National Security Agency, the
nation's largest and most secretive intelligence organization, had
intercepted messages sent between Tripoli and a Libyan ''People's
Bureau'' that provided a clear link between Libyan strongman Moammar
Khadafy and the West Berlin attack.
Sen. Malcolm Wallop, R-Wyo., cautioned Wednesday that what the
Soviets say about the Chernobyl disaster may be conditioned on what
the United States admits it knows.
''They are waiting to see what our intelligence can produce before
they say anything,'' he said.
U.S. officials have said repeatedly they didn't know about Chernobyl
until Swedish officials raised the public warning flag Monday
morning.
''But if Sweden hadn't raised it, the satellites would have found it
soon enough,'' said one source. ''It's pretty hard to miss something
that big.''
AP-NY-05-01-86 0214EDT
a014 2327 30 Apr 86
PM-Nuclear-Crops, Bjt,0673
Spewing Radiation So Far Has Spared Soviet Cropland
By JIM DRINKARD
WASHINGTON (AP) - The plume of radioactivity streaming from the
crippled Chernobyl nuclear plant, located near the country's Ukranian
breadbasket, has so far largely spared the precious farmland and the
country's important winter wheat crop, say government and private
analysts.
Because winds have carried the nuclear cloud west and north, it has
skirted the areas where winter grain crops are growing, Norton D.
Strommen, chief meteorologist for the Agriculture Department's World
Agricultural Outlook Board, said Wednesday.
The board, through the National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration, has access to Soviet weather data under a cooperative
agreement, and believes the information it is receiving is accurate,
officials said.
The data showed that on Wednesday surface winds had diminished and
high-level air movement was mostly to the west.
''The major winter grain producing areas have been spared of any
contamination,'' Strommen said. Radioactive fallout has occurred in
some dairy areas, he said, although the extent of contamination
remained unclear.
Also unknown was whether, and how much, the fallout might affect
other livestock and the planting of spring crops, including grains
and vegetables, he said. Since most Soviet cropland is farther north
than American farming areas, spring planting season is just beginning
there.
The Soviet breadbasket is the Ukraine, the area south of Chernobyl
and north of the Black Sea. It produces major portions of the
country's staple grains and livestock and represents the best balance
of soil, rainfall and climate for agriculture in the Soviet Union.
''It's like Nebraska, parts of Iowa and Kansas, and Minnesota,''
said John Schnittker, a former Agriculture Department policymaker who
now is a Washington consultant on world farming.
Schnittker said the accident so far has had little effect on
agriculture, but he said that could change if winds shift and
radiation continues to spew from the plant.
''In my judgment, the prospective losses are relatively
insignificant, compared with the Russian expected harvest and
certainly compared with world stocks,'' Schnittker said. ''It's not a
big deal from the world grain standpoint.''
While the Soviets could lose perhaps 1 million to 2 million tons of
grain, total harvests this year are expected to be 180 million to 200
million tons. Worldwide, excess stocks being carried over into the
new crop year are 315 million tons, he noted, far more than enough to
make up any Soviet losses.
Livestock and dairy losses probably could be made up by nations like
New Zealand and members of the European Economic Community, which
frequently sell surplus butter and other products to the Soviets at
cut-rate prices, he said.
Other experts noted the long-standing Soviet ability to retrench and
tighten belts in times of shortage, and said any agricultural losses
from the accident would not necessarily create new markets for
foreign exporters.
Commodity futures markets have reacted with wild optimism to the
Soviet situation, believing that it promises stronger demand for
grains and higher prices, but Schnittker said such activity was based
only on speculation.
''I suspect the sharp rise in the markets will not be sustained and
will be reversed,'' he said.
Schnittker said judging from past experience with radiation leaks,
cropland in the immediate area of the plant will be rendered
unusable, but that will be a relatively small area.
''The long-term effects should be smaller than the short-term
effects'' as the radiation dissipates, he said.
Sheldon Myers, director of the Office of Radiation Programs for the
Environmental Protection Agency, said the largest radioactive
particles from the plant would fall out of the air within 100 to 200
miles of Chernobyl.
The range the contamination travels will depend largely on wind
patterns and precipitation, he said. A lack of rainfall will allow
the radiation to spread further and thus be more diluted, he said.
Another possible effect was contamination of the Ukraine's water
supply, which is fed by the Dneiper River downstream from the nuclear
power plant. But Strommen said since the area generally has adequate
rainfall, few crops there are irrigated.
AP-NY-05-01-86 0226EDT
- - - - - -
a087 0904 01 May 86
PM-Nuclear-Crops, 1st Ld, a014,0398
URGENT
Eds: First 10 grafs new, winds shift to cover some of prime farming
region
By JIM DRINKARD
WASHINGTON (AP) - Winds shifted today to carry the plume of
radioactivity streaming from the crippled Chernobyl nuclear plant
southwestward over some of the richest land in the Soviet Union's
Ukranian breadbasket, the Agriculture Department said.
The change in weather patterns was carrying radioactive particles
into the western Ukraine, one of the most productive Soviet winter
wheat areas, and into Romania, Hungary, eastern Czechoslovakia and
Austria, said Norton D. Strommen, chief meteorologist for the
Agriculture Department's World Agricultural Outlook Board.
Strommen said the new wind pattern appeared likely to remain stable
for at least 24 to 48 hours, meaning there was potential for fallout
in those areas and contamination of crops and livestock there,
although the extent of contamination remained unclear.
''At this point, it's very difficult to pinpoint a percentage, but
we can indicate this is the western end of some of the prime winter
grain areas,'' he said. ''It does include some of their best areas''
in terms of grain yields.
Strommen said all of the department's information sources, including
satellite surveillance, indicated that the flow of radioactive
contamination from the plant continued today and had not been
contained.
Until the winds shifted, prevailing breezes had kept the radioactive
plume to the west and north of the plant and away from the most
important agricultural areas.
Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont, the ranking Democrat on the Senate
intelligence committee, said today that ''the ultimate effect of
crops in that area is almost incalculable.''
Interviewed on ABC-TV's ''Good Morning America,'' Leahy added that
''you've got 6,000 megawatts of power they've shut down right there
in the Ukraine, in their breadbasket.'' He said he thinks the
accident will be ''an incalculable disaster for the Soviet Union.''
The outlook board, through the National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration, has access to Soviet weather data under a cooperative
agreement, and believes the information it is receiving is accurate,
officials said.
Officials were unclear as to whether, and how much, the fallout
might affect other livestock and the planting of spring crops,
including grains and vegetables. Since most Soviet cropland is
farther north than American farming areas, spring planting season is
just beginning there.
The Soviet: 7th graf
AP-NY-05-01-86 1203EDT
a016 2350 30 Apr 86
PM-Latin Nuclear, Bjt,0748
Soviet Disaster Worries Latin Americans Over Nuclear Power Development
By SOLL SUSSMAN
MEXICO CITY (AP) - The Soviet nuclear disaster is causing serious
worry in Latin America, where governments have been trying to develop
atomic power despite a regional economic crisis.
Except for Cuba, most of the countries had to cut back their plans
for lack of money. Now, the meltdown of a Soviet reactor is creating
second thoughts about nuclear-generated electricity.
In Cuba, 90 miles south of Florida, President Fidel Castro has
boasted repeatedly that four planned reactors there are being built
with the best of Soviet technology.
The reactors, scheduled to begin operating in 1989, were designed by
Soviet specialists and are being built by Cuban and Bulgarian
workers. Indications are the Cubans will proceed with their plan
despite recent financial problems.
But now, countries like Argentina, Brazil and Mexico that have
delayed or cut back their plans are suddenly faced with new worries
about safety.
Mexicans have special cause for concern. Only 2 1/2 years ago, a worker
stole some Cobalt-60 from a hospital in Ciudad Juarez, across the
border from El Paso, Texas, and sold it to a junkyard, setting off a
serious release of radiation.
The 44-pound cylinder used in cancer treatments was melted for
scrap, contaminating 6,000 tons of steel later used to make
construction rods and metal tables and chairs. An estimated 500 tons
of the ''hot'' steel entered the United States before being detected.
Much of that steel has been retrieved and buried in six mammoth
concrete coffins in northern Mexico's Samalayuca desert. The
government declared the emergency over and the matter was virtually
forgotten until this week.
But the Soviet accident at Chernobyl has revived worries about
safety at the Laguna Verde plant on the Gulf of Mexico, which is
supposed to be tested this year and go into operation in 1987.
''The accident calls for reflection. How will these installations
fare facing international terrorism; how well prepared will we be in
Mexico to control one of these failures in the Laguna Verde plant?''
asked Mexico City's El Sol newspaper in an editorial Wednesday.
Laguna Verde was planned as the first of 10 to 20 plants, to be
built with Mexican oil money by the year 2000 at an estimated cost of
$20 billion. But sagging oil prices since 1982 have sent its economy
into a tailspin from which it has yet to recover.
Started in 1978, Laguna Verde was delayed several times by technical
problems, some of them reportedly involving safety. The Nuclear
Research Institute recently claimed it has trained people and the
necessary equipment to deal with almost any problem that might
develop.
Perhaps, the newspaper Excelsior suggested, the entire concept of
nuclear energy should be re-examined.
''The peaceful use of the atom to generate energy is very far still
from being perfected and the risks for the ecology are immense ...
there exists no standard design for reactors and the countries
involved in their development adopt jealous attitudes so as not to
share their technology in this area,'' it said.
Brazilians jokingly call their only functioning reactor, built by
Westinghouse near Rio de Janeiro, ''vagalume,'' or firefly in
Portuguese, because it constantly goes on and off due to maintenance
problems. But so far there have been no leaks.
''Vagalume'' was part of a plan initiated in the 1970's to build
nine reactors with West German technology as the best answer to
Brazil's chronic fuel shortage. The country has virtually no usable
petroleum deposits.
But economic difficulties reduced the project to only two more
plants - and doubts are now developing about these because of the
Soviet incident.
''Does this incident and former ones justify rethinking the use of
nuclear energy for military and peaceful ends?'' asked Sao Paulo's
influential newspaper O Estado.
Considered Latin America's leader in nuclear energy, Argentina
confidently fired up in 1974 the first of six reactors plants it
planned to build by the year 2000. A second one was started in 1983,
and a third is due for completion by 1990.
But that plan, too, has been pruned for lack of money. Now
Argentines are having second thoughts about the entire project.
''While the radioactive cloud resulting from the (Soviet) accident
moves across the skies of northern Europe, men and women from all
over the world worriedly wonder about the possibility that someday
something similar might occur where they live,'' Argentina's largest
circulation daily, Clarin, warned in an editorial Wednesday.
AP-NY-05-01-86 0249EDT
a017 2359 30 Apr 86
PM-Israel-Reactor, Bjt,0517
Former Engineer Blasts Soviets Nuclear Construction
JERUSALEM (AP) - The disaster at the Soviet Union's Chernobyl
nuclear power plant could be repeated at any of the Soviets'
estimated 44 other reactors because of shoddy design and poor
management, said an engineer who helped build the Chernobyl plant.
Boris Tokarasky, who emigrated to Israel in 1978, also said in an
interview broadcast today on Israel's Armed Forces Radio that the
fire raging in at least one of Chernobyl's four reactors could
continue ''until the material runs out. ... It could be months or
even years.''
Tokarasky, 49, was a quality engineer with the Soviet Union's
Institute for Reactor and Power Station Construction, and said he was
involved with the construction of the Chernobyl plant before he
emigrated.
''The nuclear reactors in the Soviet Union are of such a safety
standard that what happened in Chernobyl could happen very soon in
any of the other reactors in the Soviet Union, and I have no doubt of
this,'' Tokarasky said in the interview.
He also said he doubted official Soviet claims that only two people
died in the accident. Other reports vary widely, with some saying
hundreds of people may have died.
Four shifts of 100 people each worked in the immediate reactor area,
with hundreds more in other units nearby, Tokarasky said.
Tokarasky was critical of the attitude he encountered during his
work on Soviet reactors.
''There was a fault (technical problem) in the city of
Novokuybyshevsk; there was an explosion in which three people were
killed,'' he said. ''The directors there told me, 'We will rebuild
the buildings from the same drawings, but we will move them 100-200
meters away from each other, so that if there is another fault, only
those who are close by will be hurt.' ... This is the sort of
responsibility and safety they had.''
He also told of an instance in which a pipe was vibrating
dangerously in a reactor near Leningrad. Tokarasky said he and his
colleagues suggested that a section be welded to provide added
strength while minimizing the repair crew's exposure to radiation.
''The Russian directors there told us they had done more - they
welded the whole pipe, using many work hours,'' he said. ''As a
result, the workers were exposed to a high level of risk and the pipe
was also damaged (by being too stiff).
''And when we asked about the over-exposure to radiation, we were
told 'It's no problem. We gave the workers milk,' '' he said.
Soviet nuclear reactors use the same turbines and pressure pipes as
coal-fired power stations because the Soviet system is not
sophisticated enough to develop systems especially for nuclear
stations, he said. ''Their technological level is very low, and they
simply close their eyes to this,'' Tokarasky said.
Available technology also is not used properly in the Soviet plants,
he said.
One power station had a computerized control panel that indicated
which pipes for the transfer of radioactive material were
hermetically sealed. But the Soviet opertors still sent a man ''with
a big hammer'' to make sure, he said.
AP-NY-05-01-86 0259EDT
a018 0012 01 May 86
PM-US-Ukrainian Reax, Bjt,0715
Ukrainian-Americans Can Do Little But Pray
LaserPhoto NY5
By NICHOLAS K. GERANIOS
Ukrainian-Americans have flooded phone lines with little success in
reaching relatives in their homeland since the Soviets acknowledged a
nuclear disaster, and are mobilizing aid drives despite uncertainties
about whether relief will be accepted.
''It's like your hands are tied,'' said the Rev. Mychajlo Kuzma, at
St. Joseph's Ukrainian Catholic Church in Chicago, home to about
100,000 people of Ukrainian origin. ''All you can do is pray.''
Rallies and special church services were planned through the weekend
in such Ukrainian emigre centers as New York, Chicago and
Philadelphia. An estimated 2 million Americans are of Ukrainian
descent.
News of the fire at the Chernobyl atomic power plant came in the
week before Easter, which for most Orthodox and some Catholic
Ukrainians is observed this Sunday.
''A time of great happiness has turned into a time of great
tragedy,'' said the Rev. Patrick Paschak of St. George's Ukrainian
Catholic Church in New York, which has a Ukrainian community of
80,000 to 100,000.
Wednesday evening, more than 2,000 people, some crying, were in
church praying for relatives in the Ukraine, said Paschak.
Many Ukrainian families take their Easter meal to church in baskets
on Saturday for a special blessing.
''This year there will be black ribbons on the baskets,'' said Ronya
Lozynskyj of New York, an executive with the Ukrainian Congress
Committee of America.
While the Soviets had reported two people dead and 197 hospitalized
in the wake of the accident at the plant 60 miles north of the
Ukrainian capital of Kiev, unofficial reports of casualties were much
higher.
''We know reports of two dead are not true,'' said Kuzma.
Alexander Chernyk, president of the Ukrainian Educational and
Cultural Center in Philadelphia, reported trying to get information
over a short-wave radio. ''We are listening to Radio Kiev. They are
just reporting on the nice weather and other hogwash that has no
bearing on the tragedy that has occurred. They are talking about
preparations for May Day.''
Many with relatives in the area have tried to call Kiev, which has
2.4 million residents and is the Soviet Union's third-largest city.
''But nobody is answering in the city of Kiev,'' said the Rev.
Stephan Zencuch of St. Vladimir's Ukrainian Orthodox Church in
Chicago.
''I don't think the Soviets want us to get through,'' said Wasyl
Liscynesky, president of the Ukrainian United Organizations of
Cleveland, which has a Ukrainian community of about 20,000.
''I try to call, but the line is always busy,'' said Lidia Koval, a
New York City woman who been trying to reach her daughter, son-in-law
and 10-year-old grandson in Kiev.
Officials at American Telephone & Telegraph Co. in Pittsburgh, the
routing point for all U.S. calls to the Soviet Union, blame the
delays on the number of calls, saying they have tripled since the
accident.
Alexander Kotlyar of San Francisco, an engineer who left the Soviet
Union in 1979, said he reached relatives in Kiev and found them
unharmed. ''But they only know what Soviet radio says - that there
was an explosion, nothing more.''
Telling relatives in the Soviet Union about the disaster could cause
panic, said Svetlana Bogomolny, a University of Iowa instructor. ''If
I called them and told them to run away, what would they do?''
And there appeared no consensus on the question of helping family
and friends in the Ukraine - largely due to uncertainty about whether
the Soviets will accept such aid.
The Ukrainian center in the Philadelphia area, home to about 70,000
Ukrainian-Americans, is raising funds despite the uncertainty, said
Chernyk.
Liscynesky said his Cleveland group hopes to get assistance directly
to disaster victims. ''We will not be putting money in the hands of
the Communist bureaucrats,'' he said.
Victor Potapenko, a member of the Ukrainian Student Organization of
Michnowsky in Detroit, said his organization will hold a blood drive
next week for those injured in the nuclear accident.
''The idea is a symbolical gesture. We're expecting the blood to
reach there, but the way things are going, it may not,'' he said.
''By our symbolic effort, we want to ask the U.S. and the western
world to put pressure on the Soviet Union to tell the Ukrainians how
to survive the accident.''
AP-NY-05-01-86 0312EDT
a022 0053 01 May 86
PM-Summit-Diplomacy, Bjt,0630
Nuclear Accident Rivals Terror and Trade for Summit Topics
By BARRY SCHWEID
AP Diplomatic Writer
TOKYO (AP) - The nuclear disaster in the Soviet Union probably will
rival terror and trade as a major topic of the seven-nation summit
opening Sunday and offers an unexpected opportunity for consensus
among world leaders sometimes at odds with each other.
The accident at the Chernobyl power plant near Kiev has sparked
health concerns across Europe and outrage throughout the world about
Kremlin secrecy.
Radioactive clouds already have been detected in two summit
countries, West Germany and Italy. Normally, prevailing winds blowing
west to east would have moved radioactive contamination toward Japan,
but that has not occurred because winds have gone in other
directions.
President Reagan, who arrives here Friday, complained today the
Soviets are ''usually a little close-mouthed about these things and
this is no exception.'' In a brief exchange with reporters in Bali,
Indonesia, Reagan said, ''I don't think we have any information that
isn't available to you already.''
Thousands of miles away, at a West European ministers' meeting in
Italy, Britain's foreign secretary, Sir Geoffrey Howe, said, ''The
Soviet Union has an obligation and duty to the international
community to give the fullest possible explanation of what happened
and why.''
Summit partners may well agree on criticism of Moscow for its
three-day delay in revealing the accident and its refusal to provide
information.
White House spokesman Larry Speakes, with Reagan in Bali, said the
disaster ''certainly could be discussed'' in Tokyo. ''It is a matter
on the minds of many of those (who will be) present.''
The meeting will bring together the leaders of the United States,
Canada, Japan, Britain, France, Italy and West Germany.
The Reagan administration, recognizing the fact that the world
measures summit meetings by the communiques issued at the windup, may
obtain a statement of unity on anti-terrorism. But U.S. officials say
they are not pressing the partners. ''It's not one we want to fight a
battle over,'' said Speakes.
In fact, some of the agreements that may be reached to combat
terrorism might be kept secret. Secretary of State George Shultz
said, ''I think there will be a concentration on the things that need
to be done ... probably things that shouldn't be announced and won't
be announced, although there may very well be some kind of statement
on the subject.''
In any event, the French have withdrawn their reservations to a
strong statement on terrorism. Of all the West European countries,
only the French people registered a majority, 61 percent, in support
of the U.S. attack on Libya in polls taken immediately aferward.
In fact, administration officials said President Francois Mitterrand
suggested stronger U.S. measures before the air strike was carried
out.
At the same time, though, polls show a majority of French people
support their government's decision not to allow the U.S. F111s to
fly over France, which added 2,400 miles to the jet fighter planes'
roundtrip journey. And people all over Western Europe were plunged by
a spate of terrorist incidents into a debate over the value of strong
U.S. ties.
However, West European governments have sent scores of Libyan
diplomats packing or restricted their travel. There is now closer
sharing of intelligence with the United States and curbs put on
Libyan trade.
In the trade discussions, Reagan and Treasury Secretary James A.
Baker III will try to open Japan, Canada and Western Europe to a
heavier influx of U.S. factory and agricultural products.
The United States is operating at a huge trade deficit with its
summit partners - $49.7 billion last year with Japan, $27.4 billion
with Western Europe, and $22.2 billion with Canada.
AP-NY-05-01-86 0352EDT
a025 0102 01 May 86
BC-Sweden-Radiation,0186
URGENT
Soviets Ask Sweden To Help Radiation Victims
STOCKHOLM, Sweden (AP) - Soviet officials have asked Sweden if
Stockholm's Karolinska Hospital is prepared to receive people
suffering radiation sickness from the Soviet nuclear plant accident,
a hospital spokeswoman said Thursday.
Hospital spokeswoman Tania Blanck, quoting Karolinska's professor
Jan Wersaall, said that Soviet officials had made inquiries
Wednesday.
''They did not specify how many victims they wished to send, nor
what type of radiation injuries they wanted help with,'' she said.
Several hospitals in Stockholm are capable of treating radiation
injuries, but Karolinska is the only one in the Swedish capital which
has specialized equipment for radiation burn, Ms. Blanck said.
She said the victims were ''welcome, of course,'' but there was no
indication whether the Soviets had actually decided to send victims
to Sweden.
The Swedish government says it is willing to help the Soviets, but
the issue of aiding victims of radiation sickness did not come up at
a meeting on Wednesday between Foreign Ministry officials and Soviet
Ambassador Boris Pankin, said Foreign Ministry spokesman Ulf
Haakansson.
AP-NY-05-01-86 0402EDT
- - - - - -
a045 0402 01 May 86
BC-Sweden-Radiation, 1st Ld - Writethru, a025,0288
URGENT
Eds: LEADS throughout to update with hospital spokeswoman admitting
error.
STOCKHOLM, Sweden (AP) - Soviet officials have told Sweden they do
not need foreign help at this point in treating victims of radiation
sickness from the Chernobyl reactor accident, a Swedish Foreign
Ministry spokesman said Thursday.
The Soviet position emerged after a spokeswoman at Sweden's
Karolinska hospital corrected her report that Soviet officials
Wednesday had asked if Karolinska would be prepared to treat
radiation-sickness patients.
Actually, a doctor at Karolinska wrote to Sweden's National
Radiation Protection Institute asking if it was appropriate to offer
help to Soviet patients, said spokeswoman Tania Blanck, correcting
her earlier report.
A copy of the letter was sent to the Soviet Embassy, and a Soviet
aide had called to say only that the Soviet ambassador would be
informed of the letter's contents, the spokeswoman said.
''I'm sorry, I just found out that what I told you this morning was
not correct,'' Ms. Blanck told The Associated Press.
Her earlier statement had caused the Swedish Foreign Ministry to
seek clarification from the Soviet Embassy, and Foreign Ministry
spokesman Ulf Haakansson said a senior Soviet official had indicated
no outside assistance was required.
Haakansson said the official told Swedish officials ''the Soviet
Union has sufficient material, scientific and technical resources to
handle the consequences of the breakdown.''
''Therefore, at this point, there is no need for assistance from
other states,'' Haakansson quoted the official as saying. He did not
give the Soviet's name.
Haakansson said the Soviet claimed that radioactive discharges from
Chernobyl had decreased, and that the contaminated area 80 miles
north of the Ukrainian capital of Kiev was being cleaned up.
AP-NY-05-01-86 0701EDT
a034 0219 01 May 86
PM-Soviet-May Day,0598
Soviet Workers Parade on Red Square, Absent Some of Adulation for
Leadership
By ROXINNE ERVASTI
MOSCOW (AP) - Mikhail S. Gorbachev and other Politburo members
assembled atop Lenin's tomb today as workers trooped across Red
Square in a May Day celebration that seemed unaffected by a
disastrous nuclear accident near Kiev.
National television and radio broadcast live coverage of the
precision march by hundreds of thousands of participants, and major
newspapers also devoted much of their space to the officially
sanctioned workers' holiday.
The newspapers festooning their front pages with banner headlines in
red ink proclaiming ''happy holiday comrades,'' drawings of the
Kremlin and other festive decorations.
They paid scant attention to the nuclear disaster at Chernobyl in
the Ukraine, running a day-old government statement on their inside
pages.
But in keeping with Gorbachev's style, the celebration did lack some
of the adulation traditionally given Kremlin leaders.
For the first time in recent memory, the Soviets did not erect
portraits of the members of the Politburo, the Communist Party's
policy-making body, around the capital.
Gorbachev led the Politburo members and other leading officials onto
the top of the mausoleum that contains the remains of Vladimir I.
Lenin, founder of the Soviet state, just before the demonstration
began.
They waved to the crowd and received flowers from a column of
schoolboys and girls who scampered up the monument's steps.
The marching workers carried flowers, banners, placards and balloons
that turned Red Square into a sea of red, lavender, yellow, blue and
green. They were sheparded into the square along Moscow's main
streets by hundreds of civilian organizers and police, and kept in
neat ranks inside the square.
Television coverage showed all of the Moscow-based Politburo members
were on hand for the parade, including President Andrei A. Gromyko,
reported to have been hospitalized briefly in late April.
Gromyko, 76, the Politburo's senior member and former Soviet foreign
minister, appeared fit as he chatted with Gorbachev.
Portraits of Politburo members were carried in the mass of humanity
that surged across Red Square between the soaring walls of the
Kremlin and the huge GUM department store, which was decorated with a
four-story-high May Day poster.
On past May Day and Nov. 7 Revolution Day holidays, the leaders'
pictures were hung on several buildings in Moscow, along with Lenin's
portrait. Three-story-high portraits were put on metal stands on
Kutuzovksy Prospekt, a major thoroughfare in central Moscow.
But since coming to power in March 1985, Gorbachev has cut back on
some of the trappings of public adulation of the leadership, and now
the Kremlin apparently has decided to end the holiday tradition of
color portraits as well.
Many of the placards carried through Red Square focused on Soviet
proposals for disarmament and the Kremlin's call for a ban on space
weapons. Billboards on city streets also reflected these themes.
TV and radio reporters interviewed Soviets and foreign guests on the
square who said they supported Soviet arms control policy.
One worker interviewed said the Soviet Union was trying to ward off
''direct attempts by imperialism to thwart policies of peace and
disarmament.''
Early in the parade, officials piped a radio link to the Mir (Peace)
space station through the loudspeakers that also blared slogans and
patriotic music onto Red Square.
''We are celebrating May Day just as the entire country is, and in
fact together with the entire country,'' cosmonaut Leonid Kizim, who
has been aboard the orbiting plaform with Vladimir Solovev since
March 15, said from space.
''We want to make the world more beautiful with our work,'' Kizim
said.
AP-NY-05-01-86 0519EDT
a038 0303 01 May 86
PM-Reagan-Nuclear,0514
Reagan Says Soviets Are Close-Mouthed on Nuclear Accident
By MICHAEL PUTZEL
AP White House Correspondent
BALI, Indonesia (AP) - President Reagan said today the Soviet Union
is being ''close-mouthed'' about the nuclear calamity in the Ukraine,
and that it would be helpful if the Kremlin gave the world more
information.
He said a message received from Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev did
not include a response to U.S. offers of assistance in treating
casualties and fighting the fire resulting from the world's worst
known nuclear accident.
''We're trying to keep track of what's going on over there,'' Reagan
told reporters at the start of a meeting with Indonesian President
Suharto. ''We're limited in our knowledge.''
Reagan said Gorbachev's message did not contain much information
that was not already generally known.
It ''would be helpful,'' Reagan said, if Gorbachev would provide
more details.
Gorbachev's message apparently was sent before he received the U.S.
offer of medical and technical assistance, Reagan told reporters.
Asked if the Soviets are telling the United States what it needs to
know, Reagan replied, ''Well, they're usually a little close-mouthed
about these things, and this is no exception.''
Later in the day, however, Reagan said he did not mean ''to suggest
a timetable for someone faced with this type of accident. That's up
to them to decide when they have all the information they want to
divulge.''
In his first public comments since learning of the disaster, Reagan
reiterated official U.S. assessments that the radioactive fallout
from the power plant explosion ''wouldn't represent any health
threat'' in the United States.
Presidential spokesman Larry Speakes, meanwhile, said when a Soviet
diplomat in Washington delivered Gorbachev's message on Wednesday the
envoy ''expressed appreciation for our offer but did not come back
with specific requests of any type.''
It appeared, Speakes said, that Gorbachev's message was drafted
before the aid offer and was simply a general diplomatic notice
intended for distribution to other nations around the world.
He said the two leaders' messages apparently ''crossed in the mail,
so to speak.''
Speakes said U.S. disaster teams have considerable knowledge about
the problems posed by fires of the type the Soviet reactor
experienced and could be helpful in controlling the damage.
Regarding the delay from Friday, when the accident occurred, until
Monday, when the Swedes first detected it and the Soviets issued
their first report, Speakes said:
''We believe the Soviet Union should notify other states of the
transboundary effects of the incident and furnish them with the
information necessary to address these effects.''
Although there are no international agreements that specifically
require notification when such incidents occur, Speakes said, ''it is
a principle accepted and customary in international law that an
incident likely to have transboundary effects should be notified in a
timely fashion.''
Had the United States been quickly informed about the accident, it
might have been able to provide advice and expertise to help the
Soviets contain the radioactive contamination that followed, Speakes
said.
AP-NY-05-01-86 0602EDT
- - - - - -
a055 0504 01 May 86
PM-Reagan-Nuclear, 1st Ld, a038,0274
Reagan Says Soviets Are Close-Mouthed on Nuclear Accident
Eds: Tops with 8 grafs on Shultz news kfc
By MICHAEL PUTZEL
AP White House Correspondent
BALI, Indonesia (AP) - President Reagan said today the Soviet Union
is being ''close-mouthed'' about the nuclear calamity in the Ukraine,
while Secretary of State George Shultz said the Kremlin is
understating accident casualties ''by a good measure.''
Shultz, at a news conference, also revealed Moscow has rejected the
offer of U.S. help in treating casualties and fighting the fire
resulting from the world's worst known nuclear accident.
He said the Soviets told the United States through diplomatic
channels in Washington that they appreciated the American offer but
''felt they had what they needed to deal with the problem.''
The secretary said U.S. photographs have provided the United States
with more information than the Soviets have revealed. Saying that the
scope of the accident ''is certainly a major one,'' Shultz said that
casualty rates ''are higher than those that have been announced by
the Soviet Union by a good measure.''
According to the Kremlin, two people were killed and 197 people were
injured. Shultz said he could not estimate what the actual figures
were.
Asked why Reagan didn't use the Soviet-American ''hotline'' to talk
with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev about the accident, Shultz said
there was no reason to do so.
''There is no threat; there's no major misunderstanding,'' the
secretary said. ''It would be a misuse of the hotline.''
Earlier, Reagan said it would be helpful if the Kremlin gave the
world more information.
''We're trying: 3rd graf
AP-NY-05-01-86 0804EDT
a040 0329 01 May 86
PM-Nuclear Disaster, Bjt,0975
Soviets Say Radiation Falling; Reagan Says He and Gorbachev In Touch
LaserPhoto WX6
By ANDREW ROSENTHAL
MOSCOW (AP) - The Soviet Union claims radiation levels around the
Chernobyl nuclear disaster are falling despite U.S. reports of a
raging fire and continued releases of radioactivity. President Reagan
said a message from the Kremlin today provided few details.
''We're trying to keep track of what's going on over there, but
we're limited in our knowledge,'' Reagan told reporters in Bali,
Indonesia, as he toured Asia.
On Wednesday, the Soviets reported that two people had been killed
and 197 injured in an accident at the Ukrainian nuclear power plant,
80 miles north of Kiev. The government statement said a reactor
building had been ripped apart, but gave no cause.
Asked today if Mikhail S. Gorbachev, the Soviet leader, had accepted
a U.S. offer for humanitarian and technical assistance, Reagan said,
''No, we've heard from him but he apparently has not received our
offer yet.''
Reagan did not specify how he and Gorbachev had been in contact, but
when asked if the Kremlin was providing U.S. officials with thorough
information, the president replied, ''Well, they're usually a little
close-mouthed about these things, and this is no exception.''
Soviet authorities and the state-run media have not given any
details of the accident, the condition of those injured or details on
the nuclear contamination caused by the cloud that has stretched
1,000 miles across parts of the Soviet Union, Eastern Europe and
Scandinavia.
A report on Wednesday evening's television news said there had been
no ''gigantic destruction or fire'' at the four-reactor complex, and
specifically denied reports that thousands had died in the weekend
mishap.
Wednesday's government statement said 49 of the 197 injured had been
discharged from hospitals after medical examinations, and that the
air quality in the region of Kiev, the Soviet Union's third-largest
city, ''evokes no concern.''
The government said the quality of drinking water meets Soviet
standards, that work was continuing to ''eliminate the consequences
of the accident,'' and that farms and factories were functioning
normally.
Neither state-run television nor the government has said whether
there had been an explosion at Chernobyl, as had been reported by
U.S. sources in Washington.
The government statement said the damaged reactor was safely shut
down and that ''the emanation of radioactive substances decreased.''
There was no allusion to reports by the U.S. sources that a second
reactor may have suffered a meltdown or may be threatened by one.
The U.S. sources, who spoke Wednesday on condition they not be
identified, said a fire at the first reactor was still venting smoke,
vapors and radiation into the air over the Ukraine.
The Soviets' tight-lipped handling of the disaster drew angry
attacks from Western European countries confronted by drifting
radioactivity, and measures continued to counter any health or safety
risks.
Sweden warned against drinking contaminated rainwater, and children
lined up at health centers in Poland for medication against possible
radiation poison.
The Finnish government made plans for an airlift of 100 Finns from
Kiev and an Austrian company working on a men's clothing factory sent
a plane to Minsk to pick up 70 wives and children of men working on a
construction project.
In Moscow, the British Embassy said it was trying to arrange
evacuation of 100 British tourists and students from Minsk and Kiev,
and the U.S. Embassy warned against travel to the area.
U.S. Ambassador Arthur Hartman issued a statement to the American
community in Moscow saying he was pressing the Soviets for details
and trying to bring in equipment to check radiation levels in the
capital.
Conflicting reports persisted about the cause of the mishap and how
it developed.
One of the Soviet statements issued to date said the accident
occured in ''the fourth reactor'' at Chernobyl, leading some Western
specialists to believe it was in the newest of the reactors.
The Soviet ambassador to Britain, Leonid Zamyatin, said Wednesday in
London, however, that the disaster took place in the oldest reactor.
Western scientists say that reactor was completed in 1977.
The sources in Washington said U.S intelligence agencies believe a
''major problem'' began last Friday and that on Saturday, it had
evolved into a meltdown of the reactor's core.
By Sunday, the sources said, a non-nuclear explosion apparently
touched off by workers trying to deal with the meltdown ripped apart
the reactor building.
The sources said they believed that a second reactor paired with the
first one in the Chernobyl complex then began a meltdown. In his
remarks today, Reagan said U.S. officials ''have no way of knowing''
whether a second meltdown took place.
A commentator on Soviet television's evening news Wednesday showed
the first photograph of the Chernobyl plant, a grainy,
black-and-white picture he said was taken immediately after the
accident.
The commentator, Alexander Galkin, said the photo refuted Western
news reports of widespread destruction and fires. But the picture
clearly showed extensive damage to the reactor building.
The left wing appeared undamaged, but the roof and wall of the right
wing were gone and the remains appeared to be charred. Twisted
wreckage jutted from the ruined structure.
The Soviet's media handling of the nuclear plant disaster appeared
aimed at calming the public, but information was released in a
trickle reminiscent of the step-by-step reporting of the downing of a
South Korean airliner by a Soviet jet in September 1983.
Wednesday night's government statement was not read on the evening
news until 10 minutes into the broadcast. Today's major national
dailies devoted their front pages to the May Day workers' holiday,
and published the text of the statement on Chernobyl on an inside
page.
AP-NY-05-01-86 0629EDT
- - - - - -
a046 0413 01 May 86
PM-Nuclear Disaster, 1st Ld, a040,0621
URGENT
EDS: UPDATES with Soviets celebrating May Day normally, turning down
Swedish offer of help, British and American students arrive in Moscow
from Kiev
By ANDREW ROSENTHAL
MOSCOW (AP) - The Soviet Union today projected an official calm
about the nuclear disaster near Chernobyl, celebrating May Day as
usual and insisting radiation levels had fallen despite U.S. reports
of an unabated inferno and discharge of radiation.
But about 80 British and American students who arrived in Moscow
from Kiev, about 80 miles south of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant,
were taken to a clinic for radiation tests that a British educator
said were suggested by the Soviets.
The Soviets turned down an offer from Sweden to accept radiation
sickness patients at a Stockholm hospital, officials in Sweden said.
''The Soviet Union has sufficient material, scientific and technical
resources to handle the consequences of the breakdown. Therefore, at
this point, there is no need for assistance from other states,''
Foreign Ministry spokesman Ulf Haakansson quoted a senior Soviet
official as saying.
Spokeswoman Tania Blanck at Stockholm's Karolinska Hospital had said
the Soviets inquired about medical assistance, but later said she was
mistaken. She said the hospital had offered the help.
On Wednesday, the Soviets reported that two people had been killed
and 197 injured in the accident at the Ukrainian nuclear power plant.
The government statement said a reactor building had been ripped
apart, but gave no cause.
On a tour of Asia, President Reagan said in Bail, Indonesia today
that although Soviet officials had provided some information about
the disaster, the Kremlin's account was incomplete.
''We're trying to keep track of what's going on over there, but
we're limited in our knowledge,'' Reagan told reporters.
Asked if Mikhail S. Gorbachev, the Soviet leader, had accepted a
U.S. offer for humanitarian and technical assistance, Reagan said,
''No, we've heard from him but he apparently has not received our
offer yet.''
The Soviets celebrated May Day, the officially sanctioned workers'
holiday, with the traditional parades today in Moscow and other
cities, including Kiev. Leading newspapers relegated a day-old
government report on the disaster to their inside pages, and played
up holiday news.
Soviet authorities and the state-run media have given few details of
the accident, the condition of those injured or details on the
nuclear contamination caused by the cloud that has stretched 1,000
miles across parts of the Soviet Union, Eastern Europe and
Scandinavia.
A report on Wednesday evening's television news said there had been
no ''gigantic destruction or fire'' at the four-reactor complex, and
specifically denied reports that thousands had died in the weekend
mishap.
Wednesday's government statement said 49 of the 197 injured had been
discharged from hospitals after medical examinations, and that the
air quality in the region of Kiev, the Soviet Union's third-largest
city, ''evokes no concern.''
The government said the quality of drinking water meets Soviet
standards, that work was continuing to ''eliminate the consequences
of the accident,'' and that farms and factories were functioning
normally.
Margo Light, a British coordinator for studies in the Soviet Union
said of the tests given the students: ''They (the Soviets) want to
test them in order to ... give certificates to say that they are free
of radiation. ... If they're not free of radiation, they'll get a
certificate saying that.''
None of the students would talk in detail about the situation in
Kiev, saying they were exhausted by an overnight train ride, but some
said the situation in the Ukrainian capital was calm and that there
was no hint of a nuclear mishap.
Neither state-run, 10th graf
AP-NY-05-01-86 0713EDT
- - - - - -
a051 0443 01 May 86
PM-Digest Briefs,0768
Eds: This package does not contain the following items from the News
Digest: MOSCOW-Nuclear Disaster, a040; WASHINGTON-US-Soviet Accident
Rdp, a006; WASHINGTON-Soviet Accident-US Intelligence, a013;
CAMBRIDGE-Chernobyl Profile, a010; WASHINGTON-Soviet-Nuclear-Impact,
a009; MEXICO CITY-Latin Nuclear, a016; UNDATED-US-Ukrainian Reax,
a018; TOKYO-Summit Diplomacy, a022; UNDATED-Shepard Remembers,
a063-64-65; KANYAMAZANE-Homelands-Turmoil, a098;
CUAUHTEMOC-Mexico-Mennonites, a096; DALLAS-Five Texases, a019; NEW
YORK-Ellis Ad, a007.
---
JERUSALEM (AP) - The disaster at the Soviet Union's Chernobyl
nuclear power plant could be repeated at any of the Soviets'
estimated 44 other reactors because of shoddy design and poor
management, said an engineer who helped build the Chernobyl plant.
Boris Tokarasky, who emigrated to Israel in 1978, also said in an
interview broadcast today on Israel's Armed Forces Radio that the
fire raging in at least one of Chernobyl's four reactors could
continue ''until the material runs out. ... It could be months or
even years.''
Tokarasky, 49, was a quality engineer with the Soviet Union's
Institute for Reactor and Power Station Construction, and said he was
involved with the construction of the Chernobyl plant before he
emigrated.
---
WASHINGTON (AP) - The plume of radioactivity streaming from the
crippled Chernobyl nuclear plant, located near the country's Ukranian
breadbasket, has so far largely spared the precious farmland and the
country's important winter wheat crop, say government and private
analysts.
Because winds have carried the nuclear cloud west and north, it has
skirted the areas where winter grain crops are growing, Norton D.
Strommen, chief meteorologist for the Agriculture Department's World
Agricultural Outlook Board, said Wednesday.
The board, through the National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration, has access to Soviet weather data under a cooperative
agreement, and believes the information it is receiving is accurate,
officials said.
---
BALI, Indonesia (AP) - President Reagan today expressed great
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia (AP) - When Nancy Reagan arrives Friday to
LONDON (AP) - Enraged inmates rioted at seven prisons and destroyed
NEW YORK (AP) - Twenty-one dogs, two sleds and six adventurers
AP-NY-05-01-86 0742EDT
- - - - - -
a062 0556 01 May 86
PM-Nuclear Disaster, 2nd Ld, a046,0690
URGENT
Soviets Turn Down U.S. Offer of Aid; Report Radioactivity Dropping
Eds: LEADS in top 20 grafs to UPDATE with new Soviet statement,
Shultz saaid Soviets reject U.S. offer of aid
By ANDREW ROSENTHAL
MOSCOW (AP) - The Soviet Union turned down an offer of U.S. aid to
help deal with the Chernobyl nuclear disaster, and today said
radiation at the devastated Ukrainian power plant had dropped.
A Soviet government statement said 18 people injured in the nuclear
plant accident were in serious condition.
Secretary of State George Shultz said, however, that casualties were
''a good measure'' higher than the two dead and 197 injured
acknowledged by the Kremlin, adding ''the scope of the accident is
certainly a major one.''
The Soviets projected an official air of calm today, observing the
May Day workers' holiday with the traditional parade through Red
Square. Major newspapers relegated a day-old government statement on
the nuclear accident to the inside pages.
Today's report from Council of Ministers, distributed by the
official Tass news agency, said radioactivity ''on the territory of
the NPS (nuclear power station) . . . dropped 1.5-2 times,'' and said
work was under way to deactivate areas of contaminated by
radioactivity.
The statement gave no details of the current or previous radiation
levels. The government statement issued Wednesday night also said
radiation had declined at the Chernobyl plant, but did not provide
any data.
Wednesday's statement said a reactor had been ripped apart in the
accident, but gave no cause.
Today's five-sentence report carried by Tass said medical aid was
being administered to those affected, of whom 18 were said to be in
serious condition. No foreigners were involved, the Soviet news
agency said.
Speaking in Bali, Indonesia, where he was accompanying President
Reagan on his Asian tour, Shultz said the Soviets rejected a U.S.
offer of humanitarian and technical assistance because they ''felt
they had what they needed to deal with the problem.''
The Soviet decision was relayed to officials in Washington, Shultz
said. He said he did not know when it was received, but that he
learned of it today.
Shultz said, ''the casualty rates are higher than those announced by
the Soviet Union by a good measure.'' He gave no figures.
The Soviets also turned down an offer from Sweden to accept
radiation sickness patients at the Karolinska hospital, officials in
Stockholm said today.
''The Soviet Union has sufficient material, scientific and technical
resources to handle the consequences of the breakdown,'' Foreign
Ministry spokesman Ulf Haakansson quoted a senior Soviet official as
saying.
Soviet authorities and the state-run media have given few details on
the accident late last week, which sent a radioactive cloud across
parts of the Soviet Union and much of Europe.
About 80 British and American students arrived in Moscow today from
Kiev, about 80 miles south of the stricken nuclear power plant, and
were taken to a clinic for radiation tests.
A British diplomat, speaking on condition of anonimity, said none of
the students had been exposed to harmful levels of radiation, but
said there were different levels of radiation detected.
Margo Light, a British coordinator for studies in the Soviet Union
said the tests were given the students at the request of the Soviets.
None of the students would talk in detail about the situation in
Kiev, saying they were exhausted by an overnight train ride, but some
said the situation in the Ukrainian capital was calm and that there
was no hint of a nuclear disaster.
A report on Wednesday evening's television news said there had been
no ''gigantic destruction or fire'' at the four-reactor complex, and
specifically denied reports that thousands had died.
Wednesday's government statement said air quality in the region of
Kiev, the Soviet Union's third-largest city, ''evokes no concern.''
The government said the quality of drinking water meets Soviet
standards, that work was continuing to ''eliminate the consequences
of the accident,'' and that farms and factories were functioning
normally.
Neither state-run: 17th graf
AP-NY-05-01-86 0856EDT
- - - - - -
a074 0734 01 May 86
PM-Nuclear Disaster, 3rd Ld, a062,0610
URGENT
Soviets Turn Down U.S. Offer of Aid; Report Radioactivity Dropping
Eds: LEADS with 18 grafs to UPDATE with Swedish official saying
reactor fire out, other details
By ANDREW ROSENTHAL
MOSCOW (AP) - The Soviet Union turned down an offer of U.S. aid to
help deal with the Chernobyl nuclear disaster, and today said
radiation at the devastated Ukrainian power plant had dropped.
A Soviet government statement today said 18 people injured in the
nuclear plant accident were in serious condition. It said no
foreigners were injured.
Secretary of State George Shultz said, however, that casualties were
''a good measure'' higher than the two dead and 197 injured
acknowledged by the Kremlin. He said, ''The scope of the accident is
certainly a major one.''
In Stockholm, a Swedish official said he was told by the
International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna, Austria, that the
Soviets had reported to the agency that the reactor fire was out.
U.S. intelligence sources in Washington said Wednesday that a fire
still was raging at the plant and could burn for weeks. But Gunnar
Bengtsson, the head of Sweden's National Radiation Protection
Institute, said he understood the Soviet Union told the Vienna agency
that the fire was out.
Also today, the Soviets also turned down an offer from Sweden to
accept radiation sickness patients at the Karolinska hospital,
officials in Stockholm said.
Hundreds of foreign students, tourists and workers were trying to
get out of the Soviet Union today.
A British diplomat said American and British students who arrived in
Moscow from Kiev, about 80 miles south of the plant, were tested by
Soviet doctors who found they were not exposed to harmful levels of
radiation.
The Soviets projected an official air of calm, observing the May Day
workers' holiday with the traditional parade through Red Square.
Major newspapers relegated a day-old government statement on the
nuclear accident to the inside pages.
The official Tass news agency said a May Day parade was held as
scheduled in Kiev.
Today's report from the Council of Ministers, distributed by Tass,
said radioactivity ''on the territory of the NPS (nuclear power
station) ... dropped 1.5-2 times,'' and said work was under way to
deactivate areas contaminated by radioactivity.
The five-sentence statement did not specify the current or previous
radiation levels. The government statement issued Wednesday night
also said radiation had declined at the Chernobyl plant, but did not
provide any data.
Wednesday's statement said a reactor was ripped apart in the
accident, but gave no cause. The U.S. intelligence sources, speaking
on condition of anonymity, said they believe problems began Friday at
the reactor leading to a meltdown, and that a non-nuclear explosion
occurred Sunday.
Radiation from the Ukrainian plant spread over Scandinavia and
Eastern Europe, prompting anger over the Soviets' failure to provide
full information about the accident.
Shultz, who was accompanying President Reagan on an Asian tour, said
in Bali, Indonesia, that the Soviets rejected a U.S. offer of
humanitarian and technical aid because they ''felt they had what they
needed to deal with the problem.''
Shultz said he did not know when officials in Washington received
the Soviet response, but that he learned of it today.
''The casualty rates are higher than those announced by the Soviet
Union by a good measure,'' he said, but gave no figures.
Swedish Foreign Ministry spokesman Ulf Haakansson quoted a senior
Soviet official as saying his country had ''sufficient material,
scientific and technical resources to handle the consequences of the
breakdown.''
About 80: 15th graf
AP-NY-05-01-86 1031EDT
- - - - - -
a083 0821 01 May 86
PM-Nuclear Disaster, 3rd Ld, Insert, a074,0194
MOSCOW Insert after4th graf to UPDATE with Vienna agency saying it
has no word on fire; Insert after 6th graf, Israel ham operator
saying Soviet ham reported 300 casualties, other details.
But in Vienna, the agency's chief spokesman, Hans-Friedrich Meyer,
said he could not confirm the fire was out. ''We have never been
informed officially that there was a fire,'' he said.
The statement that Meyer said the Soviets gave the agency today
echoed previous Soviet statements released in Moscow, and said merely
that radiation levels around the plant had decreased and a cleanup
was under way. The statements have made no mention of a fire.
U.S. intelligence sources in Washington said Wednesday that a fire
still was raging at the plant and could burn for weeks.
Also today, the Soviets also turned down an offer from Sweden to
accept radiation sickness patients at the Karolinska hospital,
officials in Stockholm said.
In Tel Aviv, an Israeli amateur radio operator said a Soviet ham
operator told him there were 300 casualties, but that it wasn't clear
how many of those were dead.
Hundreds of: 7th graf
AP-NY-05-01-86 1121EDT
a047 0416 01 May 86
BC-Quotes,0126
Current Quotations
''Well, they're usually a little close-mouthed about these things,
and this is no exception.'' - President Reagan, asked if the Soviets
are telling the United States what it needs to know about the nuclear
disaster.
---
''That's what's called a budget meltdown.'' - Senate Majority Leader
Bob Dole, as a bipartisan fiscal 1987 budget threatened to unravel.
---
''The nuclear reactors in the Soviet Union are of such a safety
standard that what happened in Chernobyl could happen very soon in
any of the other reactors in the Soviet Union, and I have no doubt of
this.'' - Boris Tokarasky, who was an engineer with the Soviet
Union's Institute for Reactor and Power Station Construction before
he immigrated to Israel.
AP-NY-05-01-86 0716EDT
a053 0453 01 May 86
PM-Students-Nuclear,0178
URGENT
American, British Students Said To Show No Harmful Levels Of
Radiation
By ALISON SMALE
MOSCOW (AP) - A British diplomat said today that Soviet tests
reportedly indicate about 80 British and a half-dozen American
students were not exposed to harmful levels of radiation while
staying 80 miles south of the Chernobyl nuclear plant disaster.
The students were tested today at a Moscow hospital after arriving
from Kiev, the city of 2.4 million people that is 80 miles from the
crippled Ukrainian power plant. The tests were done by Soviet
doctors.
A British diplomat said the embassy in Moscow was told the tests
indicated none of the students were exposed to harmful levels of
radiation. The diplomat spoke on condition of anonymity.
The nuclear plant began spewing radiation late last week, and U.S.
intelligence sources have said a fire in one reactor likely is still
releasing radiation into the air. Some U.S. sources say two reactors
- including the one that is burning - may have experienced a
meltdown.
AP-NY-05-01-86 0753EDT
- - - - - -
a056 0510 01 May 86
PM-Students Nuclear, 1st Add, a053,0363
MOSCOW: a meltdown.
The British diplomat, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said
Soviet officials reported no indications from the tests that the
students' health was endangered in the Ukraine.
''To my knowledge all of them are well and in no danger at all,'' he
said. ''There were different levels of radiation detected, not
particularly significant as far as I understand it. Even at the top
end of the range, we believe it is well within safety limits.''
The students had been in Kiev for about two weeks. They said they
decided to cut short their 10-week tour because of the possible
health hazard from radiation.
''Life is going on totally as normal, absolutely,'' said Hank
Birnbaum of Sagle, Idaho, who was coordinating the students' programs
in Kiev for the London agency Progressive Tours.
''It's unfortunate we have to leave and it's also unfortunate we
can't find out concretely what has happened and what exactly the
level of danger was when we were in Kiev, or even here,'' Birnbaum
said upon arriving in the Soviet capital as the student group headed
for the medical examinations at a Moscow hospital.
Birnbaum said there was some disagreement among the students as to
whether it was necessary to leave, but ''basically we decided it was
better to be safe than sorry.''
One American student who declined to identify herself complained
that she thought the significance of the accident ''has been blown
out of proportion'' and that cutting short their visit was
unnecessary.
''It was just really staying for 10 weeks that bothered us,'' said
one English girl who refused to give her name.
An American girl who refused to give her name told a Western
reporter as she came out of the hospital that she had been checked by
a machine she took to be a geiger counter, given a blood test and had
her blood pressure and chest checked.
Students told television reporters that they were given certificates
which they understood said they were radiation-free.
Each examination lasted only a few minutes and no students reported
receiving the results of blood tests.
AP-NY-05-01-86 0810EDT
- - - - - -
a057 0518 01 May 86
PM-Students Nuclear, 2nd Add, a056,0290
MOSCOW: blood tests.
The students told ABC-TV they detected no panic among Soviet
acquaintances and no desire on their part to leave Kiev.
''We just have different standards,'' said one unidentified girl.
''We are actually aware of the risk of low-level radiation . . . They
(the Soviets) feel they have all the information and do not need to
leave.''
Soviet officials who arranged the Wednesday night departure from
Kiev of the students thought the group was overreacting but were
helpful about getting them train tickets, the students said.
Soviet travelers arriving at Moscow's Kiev railway station from the
Ukrainian capital reported the situation there was normal, as had
travelers from Kiev in the previous two days.
Uniformed police patrolled the platform and the Soviets did not talk
at length with Western reporters.
A man who said he worked in nuclear research and had come from Kiev
said with a calm smile, ''Look at me, I'm alive, I'm not a corpse.''
Asked if authorities in Kiev had issued any warnings about health
dangers from contaminated food or air, he said they had not.
Margo Light, a British coordinator for Russian studies programs in
the Soviet Union, said earlier today she had met a group of 22
British students who arrived from Minsk. They also reported that life
there was normal, she said.
''The situation in both cities is very calm,'' she said. ''You can't
tell from being on the streets'' that anything unusual has happened.
Minsk is thought to have been in the path of a radiation cloud that
swept north from the Chernobyl plant to Scandinavia and west to
Poland. Increased radiation has since been detected in much of
Europe.
AP-NY-05-01-86 0815EDT
- - - - - -
a065 0610 01 May 86
PM-Students-Nuclear, 1st Ld, a053-56-57,0284
URGENT
American, British Students Said To Show No Harmful Levels Of
Radiation
Eds: Recasts top 7 grafs to show that tests suggested by Soviets,
students planning to leave for London today
By ALISON SMALE
MOSCOW (AP) - More than 80 British and American students who
returned to Moscow from Kiev today because of the Chernobyl nuclear
accident immediately were examined for exposure to radiation. A
British diplomat said he was told the tests showed the students were
in no danger.
''To my knowledge all of them are well and in no danger at all,''
said the diplomat, who said information on the tests was given to the
British Embassy in Moscow.
''There were different levels of radiation detected, not
particularly significant as far as I understand it,'' he said,
speaking on condition of anonymity. ''Even at the top end of the
range, we believe it is well within safety limits.''
The students were tested at a Moscow hospital after arriving from
Kiev, the city of 2.4 million people located 80 miles from the
crippled Chernobyl nuclear power plant. The tests were done by Soviet
doctors.
Margo Light, a British coordinator for Russian studies programs in
the Soviet Union, said the tests were suggested by Soviet officials.
The student group planned to leave Moscow later today on a British
Airways flight to London.
The Chernobyl plant began spewing radiation late last week, and U.S.
intelligence sources have said a fire in one reactor likely still is
releasing radiation into the air. Some U.S. sources say two reactors,
including the one that is burning, may have experienced a meltdown.
The students: 7th graf
AP-NY-05-01-86 0910EDT
- - - - - -
a088 0906 01 May 86
PM-Students-Nuclear, 1st Ld, Sub, a065,0110
MOSCOW SUB 14th graf: An American xxx chest checked with two grafs
detailing the tests the students were given and airline preparations
The students were given blood and urine tests, blood pressure checks
and were screened with a geiger counter, said Paul Foldi, 21, of
Wilmington, Del., as he and the others prepared to depart for London
from Moscow's Sheremetyevo Airport.
British Airways also planned to test students with a geiger counter
before they boarded the plane to ensure that they were not carrying
contaminated items. The airline had clothing available in the event
the students' belongings were deemed unsafe.
Students told: 15th graf
AP-NY-05-01-86 1206EDT
a058 0528 01 May 86
PM-Soviet Radiation,0262
URGENT
Soviets Claim Radiation Decreasing At Power Plant
Eds: Will be incorporated in PM-Nuclear Disaster.
MOSCOW (AP) - The Soviet Union today reported another decrease in
radiation at the Chernobyl nuclear power station. A government
statement said 18 of the 197 people injured in the accident are in
serious condition.
The report from the Council of Ministers, distributed by the
official news agency Tass, did not provide many specific details and
was vague in its description of radiation levels at the plant about
80 miles north of the Ukrainian capital of Kiev.
''Efforts to implement a complex of technical measures continued at
the Chernobyl nuclear power station,'' the statement said.
''The radioactivity on the territory of the NPS (nuclear power
station) and the NPS' settlement dropped 1.5-2 times,'' it said. The
statement provided no figures on current or previous radiation
levels.
A government statement issued Wednesday night also said radiation
was dropping at the Chernobyl plant, but did not provide any specific
data.
The five-sentence statement issued today said that there were no
foreigners among the 197 people injured in the accident.
Official Soviet reports have said two people died in the accident.
''Medical assistance is being administered to those affected, of
whom 18 people are in a serious condition,'' the statement said.
The nuclear plant near Chernobyl began spewing radiation late last
week, and U.S. intelligence sources have said a fire in one reactor
likely is still releasing radiation into the air. Some U.S. sources
say two reactors - including the one that is burning - may have
experienced a meltdown.
AP-NY-05-01-86 0823EDT
a068 0646 01 May 86
PM-Nuclear Tragedy, Adv 02,0754
$adv 02
For Release Fri PMs May 2
Washington Today: Suddenly, Deaver and Khadafy Seem Less Compelling
By GEORGE GEDDA
WASHINGTON (AP) - ''Everybody's scared.''
That brief comment by a State Department official summed up the mood
here this week after the perils of life in the nuclear age shifted
from academic theory to grim reality.
After the Chernobyl accident in the Soviet Union, news from
elsewhere seemed less compelling. For now, Michael K. Deaver's
travails looked like a minor footnote by comparison and so did Maria
Shriver's wedding. Even the adventures of Moammar Khadafy appeared to
be tame stuff next to what happened in the Ukraine.
Terrorism usually directly afflicts only small numbers of people but
a nuclear disaster can affect thousands, perhaps millions. And for
the dozens of other countries who rely on nuclear power, the response
was universal: Could it happen here?
Once again, the mind-numbing lexicon of nuclear energy was filling
newspapers, with its array of baffling terms like meltdown,
millirems, fuel rods and containment structures. To most people, the
accident meant one thing: huge amounts of cancer-causing radiation
particles were spilled into the atmosphere.
In the U.S. government, officials began talking about nightmarish
scenarios. Would milk for Swedish and Polish children be safe? Would
a wind shift endanger the countries along the Soviet Union's western
border and beyond?
Would contamination rob the Soviets of some of their most productive
terrain? Would the Black Sea, with its resort towns and rich fishing
waters, suddenly be off-limits? Would all four reactors in the
Chernobyl area go up in smoke?
There were other types of questions. Why were the Soviet authorities
being so secretive about the incident? Were they overwhelmed by the
magnitude of the disaster?
What about the four nuclear reactors being built in Cuba less than
200 miles from Key West, Fla., with the help of Soviet technology?
Will they be safe?
President Fidel Castro has stressed that the reactors will possess
state-of-the-art safety features. But the official line in Cuba is
that nuclear accidents can occur only in capitalist countries because
''class interests'' produce engineering ''deficiencies.'' That
position was spelled out in the Cuban press 17 months ago.
MORE
AP-NY-05-01-86 0946EDT
- - - - - -
a070 0656 01 May 86
PM-Nuclear Tragedy, 1st add, a068, Adv 02,0390
$adv 02
For Release Fri PMs May 2
WASHINGTON: months ago
If Reagan administration officials felt smug over the Soviet
misfortune, they weren't indicating it publicly. The official posture
was: don't gloat, extend deep regrets and offer assistance.
For the Reagan administration, the disaster transcended ideological
boundaries. Much like the outpouring of U.S. food aid last year to
drought-stricken Ethiopia, a loyal ally of Moscow, the administration
felt this week that the usual criticism of the Soviets should be set
aside and replaced by offers of help.
Since the halcyon days of their World War II alliance, there have
only been rare instances of Soviet-American cooperation in
life-threatening situations. Thus it was something of a novelty
Tuesday when Assistant Secretary of State Rozanne Ridgway told Soviet
diplomat Oleg Sokolov the United States was prepared to offer doctors
and other forms of assistance.
But when the administration asked for details of the disaster,
Soviet diplomats have gone no further than the scant information that
has been carried in the Soviet media.
For once, it was the Europeans who were criticizing the Soviets more
than the Americans.
''The Soviet Union has an obligation and duty to the international
community to give the fullest possible explanation of what happened
and why,'' Britain's foreign secretary, Sir Geoffrey Howe, said at a
West European ministers' meeting in Italy.
Swedish officials were especially angry, contending Soviet
authorities were remiss in not alerting Sweden about the accident
before the wind-blown radiation particles passed over that country
early this week.
The State Department offered only a hint of criticism about Moscow's
unresponsiveness, mindful that a more confrontational approach might
make the Kremlin even less inclined to cooperate.
Meanwhile, the administration was in the dark about radiation levels
in Moscow, where about 250 U.S. diplomats, businessmen and
journalists reside.
There was a nagging suspicion that the Soviets were keeping the
world in the dark, a concern that was reinforced by a Dutch ham radio
operator who quoted an English-speaking Russian as saying from the
disaster site:
''We heard heavy explosions . . . you can't imagine what's happening
here (with) all the death and fire. (There are) many hundreds of dead
and wounded. Please tell the world to help us.''
End Adv PM Fri May 2
AP-NY-05-01-86 0955EDT
- - - - - -
a094 0941 01 May 86
PM-Nuclear Tragedy Advisory,,0034
EDITORS:
An update to PM-Nuclear Tragedy, the Washington Today column for
Friday PMs which moved in advance today as a068-70 will move early in
the Friday PM cycle.
The AP
AP-NY-05-01-86 1237EDT
a069 0648 01 May 86
PM-Nuclear Fire,0093
URGENT
Radiation Expert Says He Has Been Told Nuclear Fire Is Out
STOCKHOLM, Sweden (AP) - The head of Sweden's National Radiation
Protection Institute said today he has been advised that the
Chernobyl nuclear power plant fire had been extinguished.
Gunnar Bengtsson said he was told by telephone by the International
Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna, Austria, that the fire had been put
out.
''This is fresh information,'' he said in a telephone interview with
The Associated Press.
He said he understood the agency in Vienna received its information
from the Soviet Union.
AP-NY-05-01-86 0948EDT
- - - - - -
a081 0808 01 May 86
PM-Nuclear Fire, 1st Ld-Writethru, a069,0181
URGENT
Radiation Expert Says He Has Been Told Nuclear Fire Is Out
Eds: Updates throughout, agency in Austria denies receiving report
about nuclear fire
STOCKHOLM, Sweden (AP) - The head of Sweden's National Radiation
Protection Institute said today he was told by the International
Atomic Energy Agency that the Chernobyl nuclear plant fire had been
put out. The international agency denied the report.
Gunnar Bengtsson said he was advised by telephone by the
international agency in Vienna, Austria, that the fire had been
extinguished.
But a spokesman for the agency in Austria told The Associated Press
in Vienna that a Soviet statement it received today did not mention a
fire at the nuclear plant.
Hans-Friedrich Meyer, chief spokesman for the agency in Vienna, said
by telephone that he could not confirm or deny whether a fire had
been put out at the nuclear plant.
''We have never been informed officially that there was a fire,''
Meyer said.
Bengtsson had said he understood the agency in Vienna received its
information from the Soviet Union.
AP-NY-05-01-86 1108EDT
a072 0712 01 May 86
PM-Nuclear-Interviews,0353
Soviet Spokesman Defends Official Account of Accident
NEW YORK (AP) - A Soviet Foreign Ministry spokesman interviewed on
U.S. television today called reports of massive casualties from a
Ukrainian nuclear plant accident ''an absurdity'' and accused Western
reporters of starting an anti-Soviet campaign.
But a U.S. senator responded by saying the spokesman was being
absurd and termed Soviet statements ''baloney.''
''Right now, there is a campaign in the West that does not want to
acknowledge the data that the Soviet government is providing,'' said
Vladimir Lomeiko, chief press spokesman for the Soviet Foreign
Ministry.
''This is a very serious matter, and a campaign has been released of
misinformation, in fact, and it is being fanned up on all networks.''
Lomeiko, interviewed in New York on ABC's ''Good Morning America,''
said the Soviet Union's official version is accurate - that there
have been two deaths and 197 injuries in the accident at the
Chernobyl nuclear plant.
He said he had close friends and relatives in the Ukraine, and ''if
something horrible happened of the scale which the American press and
networks are reporting, we couldn't be really here.''
Lomeiko continued: ''Who needs to create on the basis of this
tragedy and sorrow this situation and this atmosphere of psychosis
and distrust? And that creates an image of the lying Russians.''
He said the Soviets reported the accident to the world as soon as it
became evident, and have been providing accurate information ever
since.
''That's baloney,'' responded Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., interviewed
later on the same program. He said the Soviets reported the accident
only after they were forced to because of radiation detected in
Sweden.
''Two dead and 197 injured, that's absurdity,'' he said. ''There
have to be more than that.''
U.S. officials, based on satellite photos and other intelligence,
have characterized the accident as a major disaster involving large
releases of radiation and loss of life.
Leahy, ranking Democrat on the Senate Select Committee on
Intelligence, said, ''There's no question it's the worst nuclear
reactor accident ever in history.''
AP-NY-05-01-86 1012EDT
a076 0746 01 May 86
PM-Nuclear-German Account,0455
German Nuclear Official Recalls Unexpected Visit from Soviet
With PM-Nuclear Disaster
Eds: 8:15 a.m. in first graf is Bonn time.
PHILADELPHIA (AP) - At 8:15 a.m. Tuesday in Bonn, West Germany, a
Soviet Embassy official burst unannounced into the office of Manfred
Petroll at the Atomic Forum.
A.I. Tschagaev, the embassy's science and technology officer, looked
worried, Petroll was quoted as saying in today's editions of the
Philadelphia Inquirer, and he came quickly to the point: What did the
West Germans know about putting out graphite fires in nuclear
reactors?
Petroll, press spokesman for the German nuclear industry
association, said he was astonished by the incident.
Petroll said he had heard about an accident at a Soviet nuclear
plant near Kiev, but he had no idea that the reactor's graphite,
which surrounds the reactor's core and is used to control the atomic
reaction, was afire. That meant things were bad, he said.
Even more surpising, Petroll said, was that the Soviets were asking
him for help. He said they clearly did not know what to do.
''He (Tschagaev) said it was a huge catastrophe,'' said Petroll.
''He spoke of a terrible incident.''
The surprise meeting was only one of several in Bonn on Tuesday
between Soviet officials and West Germans both in and out of the
government, the newspaper said. According to five Germans familiar
with the contacts, the Soviets never sought equipment, medical
supplies or personnel to help with the accident. They sought only
advice and gave few details.
Petroll said he, Tschagaev and the forum's director, Peter Haug, sat
in Haug's office for 2 1/2 hours and dialed every German nuclear expert
they knew. He said the Soviet took a lot of notes, and sometimes took
the telephone to ask questions.
An hour into the meeting, the Germans called their government to
announce that a worried Soviet official was sitting before them.
Throughout the chaos, Petroll said he and Haug sought to learn
exactly what had happended to the Soviet plant but were largely
unsuccessfully. Tschagaev said the cables from Moscow told the
embassy nothing about the accident and had only ordered that the
staff learn about graphite fires, Petroll said.
At one point, Tschagaev did say there was a loss of coolant in the
reactor, Petroll said.
From that information and the inquiries about graphite fires, the
Germans concluded that the reactor core was melting, Petroll said.
When they mentioned their assumption to their colleagues on the
phone, Tschagaev, who was listening, did not challenge it, he said.
Although the Germans are leaders in nuclear power production,
Petroll said his colleagues and superiors apparently were unable to
provide concrete advice to because there are no reactors like the
Soviet one in West Germany.
AP-NY-05-01-86 1043EDT
a201 1025 01 May 86
AM-News Digest,0955
For Friday AMs
Here are the top stories at this hour from The Associated Press. The
NUCLEAR DISASTER:
Soviets Say Radiation Is Decreasing; Foreigners Leave Ukraine
MOSCOW - Foreigners leave the Ukraine to avoid radiation from the
nuclear plant disaster at Chernobyl. The Soviet government says
radiation levels are decreasing and reports that 18 of 197 people
injured remain in serious condition. Slug AM-Nuclear Disaster.
Developing.
By Carol J. Williams.
U.S. Interagency Task Force Briefs Congress
WASHINGTON - An interagency task force briefs Congress on latest
developments in the Soviet nuclear disaster. President Reagan and
other officials say they need more than the limited information now
being provided by the Soviets, who have refused U.S. aid. Slug
AM-US-Soviet Accident Rdp. Developing.
By Jill Lawrence. LaserPhoto staffing.
Experts Say U.S. Intelligence May Give Worst-Case Scenario
WASHINGTON - Some U.S. nuclear experts say it is conceivable that
only two people died in the Soviet accident, as Moscow claims, and
contend U.S. intelligence information may present a worst-case
scenario that is not occurring. Slug AM-Nuclear Doubts. Developing.
By Jill Lawrence.
Accident in Farming Region Shakes Up Commodity Market
LONDON - Nuclear disaster in the Ukraine, a major Soviet farming
region, prompts a sharp rise in world wheat, livestock and sugar
prices. Analysts say heavy contamination of the region could damage
Soviet farming output for years to come. Slug AM-Nuclear-Soviet
Farms. Should stand. 750.
By Robert Glass.
PHILIPPINES: Thousands of Marcos Supporters in Street Battles
SOUTH AFRICA: Two Million Blacks Boycott Jobs, Schools
MAY DAY: Millions from Athens to Moscow March for Workers
REAGAN-SUMMIT
BUDGET: Negotiations Stretch Halfway Around the Globe
SALVADOR CRASH: 37 Killed aboard Military Transport
SATELLITE LAUNCH: NASA's First Since Challenger Disaster
BLACK BOYCOTT: Mississippi School To Pick New Superintendent
DEAVER: Trade Representative Checks Ex-Employees for Conflicts
AP-NY-05-01-86 1325EDT
***************
a205 1043 01 May 86
AM-Nuclear-Satellites,0573
Tell-Tale Photo Taken By Commercial Spacecraft
With AM-US-Soviet Accident Rdp Bjt
By HARRY F. ROSENTHAL
WASHINGTON (AP) - That tell-tale overhead picture showing
destruction at the Chernobyl nuclear plant in the Soviet Union was
made not by a CIA spy satellite but by a commercial spacecraft that
circles the world every eight days.
''We were basically lucky to be over that area at that time,'' said
Debbie Williams of EOSAT, the firm that acquired the Landsat
satellite from the government last year and sells its product to
governments and 8,000 to 10,000 private companies in 80 countries.
The satellite does everything from spotting problems for farmers to
finding oil for drillers.
Ms. Williams would not identify the client who asked for the picture
of the damaged nuclear plant, but said ''they took the opportunity
since we were going over the area and had foresight enough to turn
the equipment on.''
While the EOSAT picture was widely publicized, other photographs
taken by American spy satellites have been kept secret.
The ability of U.S spy satellites to look into other nations has
been demonstrated impressively in the past week, according to
officials familiar with the pictures.
''We have very, very good satellite technology,'' said Sen. William
Cohen, R-Maine, a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee. ''This
has been quite a demonstration of it.''
Sen. John Warner, R-Va., said, ''We've relied heavily on our
overhead collection ability'' and he praised the administration for
sharing the information with Congress.
At least two types of American spy satellites orbit over the
Ukraine, beaming their information back to Earth on passes over the
United States, said sources speaking on condition of anonymity.
EOSAT, formally the Earth Observation Satellite Company, is owned by
Hughes Aircraft and RCA and has been in the business of selling
pictures from orbit since last September when title to Landsat 4 and
5 were turned over to the company.
The government, which had operated Landsat satellites since 1972 and
lost millions of dollars on the venture, pledged $250 million in
startup subsidies to the company.
In 1983, the Reagan administration proposed to turn Landsat and
government-operated weather satellites to private operators. Congress
balked at relinquishing control over the weather satellites but
embraced the idea of a private firm opeating Landsat and selling the
data.
The contract with EOSAT requires data be marketed on ''a
non-discriminatory basis.''
The data, perceived by heat and temperature sensors, is transmitted
to 13 ground stations. The picture over Chernobyl was made on an
infrared band and picked up by the ground station in Kiruna, Sweden.
At the same time, it was received in the United States through the
Tracking and Data Relay Satellite, an orbiting switchboard that
routes such transmissions to the Goddard Space Flight Center in
Maryland where it was processed by EOSAT.
''We don't do analysis, we do sell the raw data,'' said Ms.
Williams. ''The Swedes used the same Landsat scene, did an
enhancement and came up with two red spots.''
This was not the first time that Landsat has been used to photograph
disaster scenes. A satellite helped survey the Mount St. Helens
volcanic eruption in Washington State and, more recently, provided
before and after views of the Mexico City region when it was hit by a
devastating earthquake.
Landsat 4 will make a daytime pass over the Chernobyl area on May 6,
Ms. Williams said. Landsat 5 will pass over that night.
AP-NY-05-01-86 1343EDT
a208 1058 01 May 86
AM-Kiev-Nuclear,0144
Newspaper Reports Holiday in Kiev, No Mention of Accident
With AM-Nuclear Disaster, Bjt
MOSCOW (AP) - The government newspaper Izvestia provided a colorful
report Thursday on May Day celebrations in the Ukrainian capital of
Kiev and made no mention of the nuclear plant accident 80 miles to
the north.
The evening newspaper covered the Kiev celebration in a roundup of
holiday observances around the country.
''Fresh green chestnuts, scarlet tulips, bright red banners and
posters greeted the first of May in the capital of the Soviet
Ukraine,'' the newspaper said.
The account described the music and marchers in the official parade
through Kiev's main square, then added that the Ukraine has much to
celebrate on this day of international worker solidarity.
It said industrial production in the republic has increased 6.9
percent so far this year and detailed some of the major economic
achievements.
AP-NY-05-01-86 1358EDT
a211 1114 01 May 86
AM-Chernobyl Location,0133
Soviets Fix Precise Location Of Chernobyl Plant
MOSCOW (AP) - One of the many questions surrounding the accident at
the Chernobyl nuclear power plant during the first days after the
accident was reported was the exact location of the disaster.
The initial Soviet government statement Monday said only that there
had been an accident at the Chernobyl station, without saying where
it was.
Working from small-scale maps, reports placed the town from 50 to 60
miles north of Kiev, the Ukranian capital.
A Soviet government statement Tuesday night clarified that the plant
actually was not at Chernobyl, but near the town of Pripyat which
grew up around the complex several miles north of Chernobyl.
A Tass report Wednesday said the plant site is 130 kilometers from
Kiev, or slightly more than 80 miles.
AP-NY-05-01-86 1413EDT
a216 1142 01 May 86
BC-Radiation-Marrow Transplants3,0542
Soviets Agree To Accept Medical Aid from International Group
LOS ANGELES (AP) - The Soviet Union agreed on Thursday to accept
help for victims of a nuclear accident near Kiev from an
international bone-marrow transplant organization, the group's
chairman said.
Dr. Robert P. Gale of the the International Bone Marrow Transplant
Registry, which represents 128 centers that do bone marrow
transplants, said he received a telephone call Thursday from the
Soviet Embassy in Washington. Soviet officials told him they were
''anxious for me come, confer with my counterparts in the Soviet
Union and, if necessary, take whatever steps are necessary,'' he
said.
Those steps would include determining the number of people suffering
from radiation sickness, then overseeing massive international
efforts to locate suitable bone marrow donors and perform
transplants, Gale said.
Armand Hammer, chairman of the President Reagan's cancer advisory
panel, had conveyed the group's offer to the Soviet Embassy, he said.
The registry has access to lists of 50,000 to 100,000 people who
have offered to donate bone marrow, said Gale, an associate professor
of medicine at the University of California at Los Angeles. Most live
in the United States, Western Europe and Scandinavia.
Marrow transplants are the only way to treat otherwise fatal doses
of radiation, Gale said.
''Individuals who received lethal doses and were not killed outright
will die within one to two weeks because of bone marrow failure,''
Gale said. ''The way to save them is by identifying them and doing
transplants.''
Radiation destroys the marrow, where vital components of the blood
and the immune system are produced.
The transplants are commonly used to treat leukemia and a
marrow-destroying disease called aplastic anemia. The donor is
anesthetized while marrow is withdrawn from his hip bones through a
hollow needle, and typically spends a day and a night in the
hospital.
The donor's body replaces the missing marrow, Gale said.
The marrow cells are injected into a recipient's blood, and travel
to the interior of the bones, where they reproduce themselves, Gale
said.
He said sophisticated medical treatment would be needed to keep
radiation victims alive while marrow transplants are arranged.
''My guess is that the Soviets are taking care of the immediately
ill,'' and may be unable to care for those who need transplants, Gale
said.
He said he had no information on how many people might have been
exposed to enough radiation to require the treatment. Doctors
experienced in marrow transplants hope to be allowed to fly to the
Soviet Union and assess the need for their help, he said.
''We're physicians and we see the chance to save some lives. We'll
worry about how to arrange it and who will pay for it after the
fact,'' Gale said.
The Soviets don't report to the registry, and apparently have only
limited experience with marrow transplants, Gale said.
The registry, based in Milwaukee, is funded by the U.S. National
Institutes of Health, European governments and private organizations.
It keeps track of marrow transplants, and has access to donor pools
organized by its members.
Hammer, chairman of Occidental Petroleum Corp., has had extensive
business contacts with the Soviet Union.
AP-NY-05-01-86 1441EDT
a228 1312 01 May 86
AM-Nuclear-Soviet Farms, Bjt,0692
Soviet Accident Triggers Rally on Commodities Markets
By ROBERT GLASS
Associated Press Writer
LONDON (AP) - The nuclear accident in the Ukraine, one of the Soviet
Union's biggest farming regions, has caused a sharp rise in wheat and
livestock prices on world markets, commodities analysts said
Thursday.
In the absence of any word from the Soviet Union on possible
radiation damage to soil, water, crops and herds, commodities markets
have been gripped by speculation that the Soviets will be forced to
increase imports of grain, sugar and milk products.
Commodities analysits said it was too early to assess the extent of
radioactive pollution in the Ukraine from the Chernobyl nuclear
reactor but that heavy fallout could damage Soviet agricultural
output for years to come.
Sweden and Denmark have already banned food imports from the Soviet
Union and some Eastern European countries.
''The market is going through the roof,'' said Bill Demaria, an
analyst with the London-based International Wheat Council. ''We
haven't seen excitement like this for months and months.''
The Ukraine, an area about the size of Texas in the southwest corner
of the Soviet Union, is the country's third-most important farming
region. According International Wheat Council, Ukrainian farms
produce about one-fifth of all grain grown in the country and also
about one-fifth of its cattle and pigs.
But most of the farmland lies to the south of Chernobyl nuclear
power plant and the first radioactive cloud released by last
weekend's accident blew to the north, away from the most important
crop-producing areas.
In Washington, the U.S. Agriculture Department reported shifting
winds were carrying the radioactive plume to the southwest on
Thursday, in a direction that could ultimately affect some of the
Soviet Union's richest, black earth areas.
Wheat prices, which had been falling steadily recently, shot up this
week on the Chicago futures market. Last Friday wheat for May
delivery was quoted at $2.89 a bushel. By Thursday, it had jumped to
$3.28.
Corn markets have also benefited from expectations of an increase in
exports to the Soviet Union and Poland.
Speculation over possible contamination of Soviet livestock has
similarly driven up prices on the Chicago meat markets.
Sugar futures rose sharply in New York early this week. The Soviet
Union is the world's largest producer of sugar beets but traders said
the market had been rising for months and the rally could not be
solely attributed to the nuclear accident.
Analysts in London and Chicago attributed the commodities rally
mainly to speculative buying and said it could fizzle out.
''I think the prices of the past few days were based more on
conjecture and fears and panic, rather than any hard evidence,'' said
Susan Hackman, a grain analyst for Agri Analysis Inc. of Chicago.
''That's what markets do - they feed on uncertainty.''
Chip Hatcher, a livestock analyst for Chicago brokers Geldermann
Inc., also said the market was dealing with uncertainty. ''Who knows
where the market is headed because who knows the extent of damage
that's been done (to Soviet livestock)?'' he said.
He said the meat market was ''simply operating out of fear. I think
the market will be extremely choppy and show very wide ranges over
the next few days.''
The Soviet Union is by far the world's biggest cereal importer,
although imports fell last year after an unusually good harvest. The
government has not published data on grain production since 1979, but
the International Wheat Council estimates the Soviets produced 191
million metric tons of wheat and course grains last year.
Not taking the nuclear accident into account, the country is
expected to import 32 million metric tons of grain during 1985-86.
The wheat council says there is enough grain stockpiled in the
United States and the European Common Market to supply the Soviet
Union and Poland this year. But it says a problem could arise if
there is heavy contamination of farmland, greatly increasing demand
for imported grain.
''If there is has been only limited contamination, it may not cause
any severe problems,'' said Demaria, the wheat council spokesman.
''But if there has been heavy contamination, that land could be out
of production for several years.''
AP-NY-05-01-86 1612EDT
***************
a232 1355 01 May 86
PM-Soviet-Testifies,0329
URGENT
WASHINGTON (AP) - A Soviet embassy official went before a House
subcommittee today to give his government's version of events at the
Cherbonyl nuclear plant. He said he did not know if the plant remains
on fire but said the ''accident is not over with'' at the reactor
site.
Vitaly Churkin, the second secretary of the Soviet embassy here,
said it was his understanding that there was no damage to a second
reactor at the Cherbonyl complex. He took questions from members of a
House energy and defended his nation's reporting of the disaster.
He repeated the Soviet statements that the toll from the accident
was two dead and 197 injured.
Churkin brushed aside a question from subcommittee Chairman Edward
Markey, D-Mass., concerning why the Soviets would not accept
internation inspection of the Cherbonyl facility to assure the world
that damage was no greater than Moscow has portrayed.
''You are asking a very specific question. I cannot answer it
specifically,'' he said. ''I have an official answer to your question
- I'm sure we'll be willing to do'' whatever is required to insure
that the accident does not happen again.
He was asked whether the plant remained on fire, and said, ''I don't
know,'' but added, ''the accident is not all over with.''
''That is clear,'' he continued. ''We have not told other countries
that everything is OK now and they can relax.''
He further acknowledged that it poses ''certain threats'' to the
Soviet people and ''some threats to a certain extent outside the
Soviet Union.''
But he said the situation ''is very carefully taken care of'' and is
being ''managed.''
Rep. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., asked the Soviet official at one point to
say in laymen's terms how the accident happened.
''Can you tell me in those same laymen's terms how the Challenger
accident happened?'' he replied. ''It is something no one thought
could happen.''
AP-NY-05-01-86 1655EDT
***************
a233 1412 01 May 86
AM-Nuclear Disaster, Bjt, 2 takes,0926
Soviets Say Cleaning Up Disaster, Reject Help
By CAROL J. WILLIAMS
Associated Press Writer
MOSCOW (AP) - The Soviet Union told a nervous world on Thursday that
this nation was cleaning up damage done by the nuclear plant
disaster, an accident that sent an invisible radioactive cloud over
Europe at the whim of the wind.
The Kremlin presented a calm face, and rejected offers of technical
help from the United States and other countries. But an international
bone-marrow transplant organization said its offer to aid victims had
been accepted.
Traditional May Day parades were held as usual, including one in
Kiev, the Ukranian city of 2.4 million only 80 miles from the
Chernobyl power plant where a reactor caught fire last Friday.
The cause of the accident has not been revealed, but Soviet
radiation expert Pavel Ramzaev said when asked Thursday if it was a
meltdown of the reactor core: ''I suppose that is so.''
There were conflicting reports about whether the reactor fire had
been extinguished. U.S. intelligence sources had said Wednesday in
Washington that it still raged and could burn for weeks.
The U.S. Agriculture Department said Thursday that shifting winds
were carrying a radioactive plume from the stricken plant over the
western Ukraine, the richest of Soviet farmland, and into Romania,
Hungary, eastern Czechoslovakia and Austria.
The Soviet government said only: ''Efforts to implement a complex of
technical measures continued at the Chernobyl nuclear power station
(NPS) in the duration of April 30. The radioactivity on the territory
of the NPS and the NPS' settlement dropped 1.5-2 times.
''Work is under way to deactivate the contaminated areas adjacent to
the NPS territory.
''Medical assistance is administered to those affected, of whom 18
people are in serious condition. There are no foreign citizens among
those affected.''
The ''settlement'' is Pripyat, a town of 25,000 built at the plant
site.
A more lengthy statement on the disaster released on Wednesday was
relegated to inside pages of the official press.
A Foreign Ministry official in Red Square for the parade said a news
conference would be held when more information became available, but
added that he could not predict when that would be.
Officially, the casualty toll is two dead and 197 injured, but
Secretary of State George P. Shultz said it was higher ''by good
measure.''
He said the United States, through satellites and other technical
means, has ''a fuller picture'' of the catastrophe's dimension than
the Soviet Union as given, and ''the scope of the accident is
certainly a major one.''
An Israeli amateur radio operator in Tel Aviv said a Soviet ham told
him there were 300 casualties, but how many ware dead was not clear.
David Ben-Bassat said the Soviet ham operator told him Wednesday
that he lived 30 miles north of the reactor and ''nobody drinks the
water. We are afraid.''
The Soviet Union's first public mention of any effect on other
countries came in a report Thursday by the official news agency Tass
on a meeting in New York between U.N. Secretary-General Javier Perez
de Cuellar and Yuri Dubinin, chief Soviet delegate to the United
Nations.
It said: ''The Soviet government has informed a group of European
states of the accident and steps undertaken to liquidate its
consequences, so that the governments of nations that could be
affected could take the necessary measures for securing the health of
the population and to protect the environment.''
Vladimir Lomeiko, a Soviet Foreign Ministry spokesman, said in an
ABC television interview that reports of high casualties were ''an
absurdity.'' He accused Western reporters of starting an anti-Soviet
campaign.
''Who needs to create on the basis of this tragedy and sorrow this
situation and this atmosphere of psychosis and distrust?'' he said.
More foreigners left the Ukraine to avoid potential health hazards.
Their governments monitored the radioactivity and denounced the
Soviets for not providing full information.
London's Daily Mail said in an editorial: ''The fact that it (the
Soviet Union) cares nothing for those beyond its borders will be
remembered long after the name of the Chernobyl power station has
been forgotten.''
The British Foreign Office warned travelers to avoid Moscow and
Warsaw, the Polish capital, saying Soviet authorities were
withholding information about radiation levels.
Because of the wind shift, no new radiation was reported in Sweden,
but levels three times normal were recorded in northern Austria after
overnight showers.
The levels are not considered dangerous to health, but people were
advised to keep children indoors and not to drink milk from cows that
had eaten freshly cut grass in the previous 24 hours.
Norton D. Strommen, chief meteorologist of the U.S. Agriculture
Department's World Agricultural Outlook Board, said in Washington
that the new wind pattern appeared likely to remain stable for at
least 24 to 48 hours.
That meant there was a potential for fallout in the western Ukraine
and the the other countries affected, he said, but the possible
extent remained unclear.
''At this point, it's very difficult to pinpoint a percentage, but
we can indicate this is the western end of some of the prime winter
grain areas. It does include some of their best areas'' in terms of
yield, Strommen said.
All the department's information sources, including satellite
surveillance, indicated that the flow of radiation from the Chernobyl
plant continued Thursday and had not been contained, he said.
MORE
AP-NY-05-01-86 1712EDT
- - - - - -
a245 1554 01 May 86
AM-Digest Advisory,0105
All budgets have cleared. Here is a listing.
MOSCOW - Nuclear Disaster, a233, a234.
WASHINGTON - US-Soviet Accident Rdp, a235.
WASHINGTON - Nuclear Doubts, a244.
LONDON - Nuclear-Soviet Farms, a228.
MANILA, Philippines - Philippines, a242.
JOHANNESBURG, South Africa - South Africa, a222.
UNDATED - May Day Rdp, a239.
BALI, Indonesia - Reagan, a229.
WASHINGTON - Budget, a231.
SAN SALVADOR - Salvador-Plane, a240.
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. - Satellite Launch, a227.
INDIANOLA, Miss. - Black Boycott, a243.
WASHINGTON - Deaver, a241.
WASHINGTON - Pornography Commission, a230.
CHICAGO - Alcohol-Stroke, a225.
AP-NY-05-01-86 1849EDT
- - - - - -
a251 1639 01 May 86
AM-Nuclear Disaster, 1st Ld, a233,0403
Soviets Say Radiation Decreasing
Eds: LEADS with 11 grafs on new satellite picture of Chernobyl plant,
appearance of Soviet embassy official before House panel.
By CAROL J. WILLIAMS
Associated Press Writer
MOSCOW (AP) - The Soviet Union told a nervous world Thursday that
radiation from the nuclear plant disaster was decreasing, but one of
its diplomats said other countries should not relax because the
''accident is not over.''
Radiation levels continued to drop in Scandinavia and a wind shift
sent the invisible radioactive cloud over the Soviet Union's richest
wheatlands toward Austria.
The Kremlin presented a calm face, rejecting offers of help from the
United States and other countries. An international bone-marrow
transplant organization said, however, that its offer to aid victims
had been accepted.
Traditional May Day parades were held as usual, including one in
Kiev, the Ukrainian city of 2.4 million only 80 miles from the
Chernobyl power plant where a reactor caught fire Friday. State
television showed colorfully dressed folk dancers performing there.
The cause of the accident has not been revealed, but Soviet
radiation expert Pavel Ramzaev said when asked Thursday if it was a
meltdown of the reactor core: ''I suppose that is so.''
There were conflicting reports about whether the reactor fire had
been extinguished. U.S. intelligence sources had said Wednesday in
Washington that it still raged and could burn for weeks.
Vitaly Churkin, second secretary of the Soviet Embassy in
Washington, testifying before a House of Representatives subcommittee
Thursday, was asked whether the fire had been put out. He said, ''I
don't know,'' and added: ''The accident is not over with. That is
clear. We have not told other countries that everything is OK and
they can relax.''
Swedish analysts said a picture made of the plant Thursday by a
Swedish-French satellite showed that the blaze appeared at least to
have lost intensity.
''It's difficult to be 100 percent sure if the fire is
extinguished,'' said Christer Larsson, head of the Space Media
Network, a Stockholm agency handling rights to the photo. ''It's
probably still very hot there, several thousand degrees. It's
difficult to say something definite on this.''
''We cannot see the smoke which we saw Wednesday,'' said Lars
Bjerkesjo of Satellitbild, the company that received the picture in
northern Sweden. ''It appears the fire has decreased.''
The U.S., 6th graf pvs.
AP-NY-05-01-86 1939EDT
***************
a234 1420 01 May 86
AM-Nuclear Disaster, 1st Add,0418
MOSCOW: contained, he said.
About 80 British and half a dozen American students who had been
visiting Kiev for two weeks arrived in Moscow by train early Thursday
and Soviet doctors who gave them medical tests reported no serious
contamination.
They flew to London after receiving certificates of good health from
the Soviets and additional radiation checks from British Airways
before departure.
A British diplomat, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said Soviet
officials told the embassy the tests indicated the students were not
exposed to hazardous levels of radiation.
Neither the official Soviet statement issued Wednesday afternoon nor
any of the three previous ones has given details about specific
damage resulting from the accident, the nature of injuries or
potential health hazards.
The Soviets have not specifically denied that a fire or explosion
occurred at the power station, as reported in the West, but a
television commentator displayed a black-and-white photograph
Wednesday night that he said proved ''there is no gigantic
destruction or fire.''
Wednesday's official statement said a reactor was ripped apart in
the accident, but gave no cause. The U.S. intelligence sources,
speaking on condition of anonymity, said they believe problems began
Friday leading to a meltdown, and a non-nuclear explosion occurred
Sunday.
In Stockholm, Gunnar Bentsson of Sweden's National Radiation
Protection Institute said the International Atomic Energy Agency in
Vienna told him the Soviets had notified it the fire was out.
The agency's chief spokesman said, however, that he could not
confirm the fire had been extinguished.''We have never been informed
officially that there was a fire,'' Hans-Friedrich Meyer said.
Ramzaev, the Soviet radiation expert, claimed there were no problems
in any of the other reactors and that all reactors at the plant had
been shut down safely. He is director of the Institute of Radiation
Hygiene in Leningrad and Soviet delegate to the International
Commission on Radiation Protection.
Hundreds of Western tourists and businessmen decided to leave the
Soviet Union because of the lack of specific information on the risk
of staying.
Finland sent a special plane to to evacuate 160 tourists, students
and constructions workers from the Kiev area. Another 180 Britons
traveling in Moscow and Leningrad planned to leave on a Britannia
Airways charter early Friday.
''Basically we decided it was better to be safe than sorry,'' said
Hank Birnbaum of Sagle, Idaho, who was coordinating the Kiev
students' programs on a 10-week Russian language study tour.
AP-NY-05-01-86 1719EDT
***************
a235 1435 01 May 86
AM-US-Soviet Accident Rdp, Bjt,0861
URGENT
Soviet Embassy Official Briefs U.S. Task Force
By JILL LAWRENCE
Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) - U.S. officials painted a picture Thursday of
radiation deaths, contaminated farmland and continuing radiation
releases at the damaged Ukrainian nuclear plant even as a Soviet
official told a U.S. government task force that the situation was
under control.
An interagency task force monitoring the accident said radiation
sampling in the United States had revealed no increase above normal
background levels thus far. The task force also said it was still
unclear whether a fire at the crippled Soviet reactor was still
burning and whether a second reactor had been damaged.
A representative of the Soviet embassy in Washington, in an
extraordinary appearance before a U.S. congressional subcommittee,
insisted that the Soviet Union had met its responsibilities to other
countries in notifying them of potential dangers from the accident.
Vitaly Churkin was grilled by several congressmen on the task force
about details of the accident, but repeatedly said he did not have
the kind of technical information they pressed him for.
''I just am not a technical expert,'' he said as they asked question
after question about specifics of the accident.
He said he could not say, for example, whether the damaged reactor
was still burning but acknowledged that it is part of ''an accident
which has not been liquidated yet.''
''The accident, obviously, is not all over with,'' he said later.
''That is clear. We have not told other countries that everything is
OK now and they can relax.''
He further acknowledged that it poses ''certain threats'' to the
Soviet people and ''some threats to a ceretain extent outside the
Soviet Union.''
But he said the situation ''is very carefully taken care of'' and is
being ''managed.''
Rep. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., asked the Soviet official at one point to
say in laymen's terms how the accident happened.
''Can you tell me in those same laymen's terms how the Challenger
accident happened?'' he replied. ''It is something no one thought
could happen.''
Secretary of State George Shultz said the Soviets declined
humanitarian and technical assistance the United States offered
Tuesday in response to the accident at the four-reactor Chernobyl
nuclear complex 80 miles north of Kiev.
''They don't sense any need for it at this point,'' Shultz said in
Bali, Indonesia, where he is accompanying President Reagan on a
13-day Far Eastern trip. He said the Soviets ''felt they had what
they needed to deal with the problem.''
The Soviet government has minimized the impact of the accident,
saying it killed two people and hospitalized 197. But Shultz, while
not offering specific casualty figures of his own, said the United
States has ''a fuller picture'' than the few sketchy details offered
by the Kremlin.
''The scope of the accident is certainly a major one,'' Shultz said.
''The casualty rates are higher than those that have been announced
by the Soviet Union by a good measure.''
At the start of a meeting with Indonesian President Suharto, Reagan
said U.S. officials are trying to keep track of the Soviet accident
and its consequences. But he added, ''We're limited in our knowledge
... They're usually a little close-mouthed about these things, and
this is no exception.''
Based on U.S. intelligence, administration sources have said they
believe there was an explosion, meltdown and graphite fire at one
reactor, and a second reactor could be having similar problems.
Soviet Foreign Ministry spokesman Vladimir Lomeiko, interviewed
Thursday on ABC-TV's ''Good Morning America,'' said ''everything is
under control now'' at the troubled reactor complex. And a Soviet
government statement said radiation releases had decreased and a
cleanup was under way.
''The Soviets have reported they have smothered the fire. From our
information it is not clear whether the fire is out or not,'' the
interagency task force said in a statement Thursday afternoon. The
group also said a second hot spot seen in a satellite photo is not a
reactor.
Presidential spokesman Larry Speakes had told reporters earlier
Thursday in Bali that ''as far as we know, the fire (at the first
reactor) is still burning.''
Norton D. Strommen, chief meteorologist for the Agriculture
Department's World Agricultural Outlook Board, said satellite
surveillance and other information sources indicated that radioactive
contamination was continuing to flow from the plant Thursday.
Strommen also said winds shifted Thursday, carrying radioactive
particles southwest into the western Ukraine - one of the Soviet
Union's ''prime winter grain areas'' - as well as into Romania,
Hungary, eastern Czechoslovakia and Austria. He said the westward
pattern, expected to hold for a day or two, could result in
contamination of crops and livestock.
The interagency task force, headed by Environmental Protection
Agency administrator Lee Thomas, said the radioactive air mass
created by the accident was widely dispersed throughout northern
Europe and the polar regions. It said portions of radioactivity off
the northwest Norwegian coast would continue to disperse, possibly to
the east, and other portions could move eastward through the Soviet
Union in the next week.
AP-NY-05-01-86 1735EDT
- - - - - -
a250 1632 01 May 86
AM-US-Soviet Accident Rdp, 1st Ld, a235,0437
Soviet Embassy Official Defends Accident Reporting
EDS: LEADS with 15 grafs with details of Soviet official's House
testimony.
By JILL LAWRENCE
Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) - A Soviet official, in an extraordinary appearance
before a House subcommittee, said Thursday his country delayed
telling the world about the Chernobyl accident because officials
wanted to know ''what the consequences were before making an
announcement.''
And Vitaly Churkin, a second secretary of the Soviet Embassy, calmly
responding to sometimes testy questions of House members, insisted:
''We have been very forthcoming.''
Churkin's testimony did not deviate from the official accounts put
out by the Soviet government in the wake of the April 26 accident at
the four-reactor Chernobyl nuclear complex, 80 miles north of Kiev.
The embassy representative insisted that only two people were killed
in the April 26 accident and 197 injured, 18 of them seriously.
He also maintained the Soviet Union had met its responsibilities to
notify other countries of the accident.
''Definitely there has been an accident which has not been
liquidated yet and theoretically poses a threat to people outside the
Soviet Union,'' Churkin said. ''We are still trying to manage the
situation. We have not told other countries yet that everything is OK
and that they can relax.''
Subcommittee chairman Ed Markey, D-Mass., told Churkin that instead
of celebrating May Day, the Soviets should have been sending a
''Mayday (warning) signal'' to the residents of the Soviet Union who
lived near the Chernobyl fallout.
''It would not be correct on my part to accept any advice from
you,'' Churkin replied. He added, ''If they have any problems, they
will not have medical bills to pay.''
At another point, Rep. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., pressed the Soviet
official at one point to say in laymen's terms how the accident
happened.
''Can you tell me in those same laymen's terms how the Challenger
accident happened,'' replied Churkin, adding that, like the shuttle
explosion, the nuclear accident was ''something no one thought could
happen.''
U.S. officials continued to offer a more severe assessment of the
accident Thursday, citing the likelihood of numerous radiation
deaths, contaminated farmland and continuing radiation releases at
the damaged plant.
Secretary of State George Shultz said the United States has ''a
fuller picture'' than the few sketchy details offered by the Kremlin.
''The scope of the accident is certainly a major one,'' Shultz said.
''The casualty rates are higher than those that have been announced
by the Soviet Union by a good measure.''
At the start, 16th graf pvs.
AP-NY-05-01-86 1931EDT
***************
a236 1439 01 May 86
BC-Nuclear Disaster, Advisory,0233
EDITORS:
MANAGING EDITORS:
WIRE EDITORS:
SUNDAY EDITORS:
For your weekend planning, here are some of the stories the AP is
working on in connection with the Chernobyl nuclear accident:
From Moscow, a wrapup of everything known to date about the nuclear
plant disaster, how the Soviet government handled it, vastly
different accounts of deaths and injuries. About 1,700 words.
From Sweden, a minute-by-minute account of how the radiation was
detected and why it took so long to report.
From Washington, a story on how the U.S. government reacted to the
disaster, with an offer of aid, an expression of sympathy, and then
became the world's main source of information about the accident.
Opponents of nuclear power seized an opportunity, and the industry
found itself on the defensive.
From Washington, the assessments by experts in and out of government
of what went wrong at Chernobyl, and a report on American views of
Soviet nuclear power plant technology.
From Richland, Wash., a story about the workers at the Hanford
nuclear plant, which like Chernobyl has no containment facility, and
how they are reacting to the Soviet disaster.
We will keep you advised about when the stories will move on the
wire and about accompanying art work.
The AP
AP-NY-05-01-86 1739EDT
***************
a239 1500 01 May 86
AM-May Day Rdp, Bjt,0708
Clashes in Poland, Philippines at May Day Rallies, S. Africans Strike
By GEORGE BOEHMER
Associated Press Writer
Millions of people worldwide marched in May Day parades from Athens
to Asuncion on Thursday in support of workers, and in Poland police
prevented Solidarity supporters from staging their own unofficial
celebrations.
In Peking, a female rock drummer in a sequined suit attracted
enthusiastic crowds at a May Day party in the Working People's
Cultural Palace. More than 3,000 model workers and army heroes were
honored in a ceremony at Tiananmen Square.
Philippine police in Manila clashed with supporters of ousted
President Ferdinand E. Marcos during a May Day rally, and police also
clashed with May Day demonstrators in Chile and Paraguay.
In South Africa, hundreds of thousands of black workers who stayed
off their jobs to demand racial equality also demanded that May Day
be made a national holiday.
Hundreds of thousands of workers paraded through Moscow's Red Square
under brilliant sunshine.
Soviet Leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev joined ruling Politburo members
in watching the parade from atop the Lenin Mausoleum. It was his
first public appearance since the accident late last week at the
Chernobyl nuclear power plant in the Ukraine.
As usual, some marchers carried anti-U.S. posters, and placards and
floats celebrated successes in Soviet labor. But noticeably missing
were the usual placards proclaiming that various power plants would
meet their production goals.
Marches also were held in Kiev, 80 miles south of the plant, and in
other Soviet cities, the state-run media reported.
In Manila, police used tear gas and fire hoses to disperse Marcos
loyalists who were demonstrating after a May Day rally led by
President Corazon Aquino. Witnesses said the Marcos supporters and
supporters of Mrs. Aquino fought with rocks and bottles.
In Warsaw, helmeted police with shields and riot sticks turned back
hundreds of supporters of the outlawed Solidarity free trade union
federation who tried to stage an unofficial May Day March.
Police detained 25 participants but the march broke up without a
major clash. Police also stifled demonstrations in Gdansk, the Krakow
suburb of Nowa Huta, Wroclaw, Poznan and Bydgoszcz.
In Asuncion, capital of Paraguay, police used tear gas, water cannon
and nightsticks to break up a rally of about 1,200 supporters of an
opposition labor movement. At least five demonstrators were reported
hurt.
Monsignor Mario Medina, a Roman Catholic bishop, was among those
soaked by water.
Paraguay has been governed since 1954 by the military government of
President Alfredo Stroessner.
In Chile, also under a right-wing military government, police in
Santiago dispersed up to 300 demonstrators.
Peaceful rallies were held in Cuba, Bolivia and Brazil.
In South Africa, millions of blacks stayed away from work and
schools in what appeared to be the largest anti-apartheid protest in
the country's history.
The Association of Chambers of Commerce of South Africa said worker
absenteeism ranged from 70 to 100 percent. The predominantly black
National Union of Mineworkers said 25 miners were injured in
disturbances.
Most May Day rallies elsewhere were peaceful.
In Athens, more than 20,000 Greek workers marched for higher wages
and repeal of the Socialist government's economic austerity program.
In West Germany, union leaders reported more than 800,000 people
attended activities nationwide.
High unemployment was a common theme of union-organized marches in
major French and Spanish cities, which attracted tens of thousands of
people.
In Japan, organizers said 3.8 million people joined in May Day
rallies nationwide, but police put the number of participants at 1.5
million. Workers called for shorter working hours.
In Prague, where state-run television said some 220,000 people
attended a rally, Czechoslovakia's president and Communist Party
leader, Gustaf Husak, blasted what he called ''imperialist circles''
for escalating the arms race, the official news agency CTK reported.
In Budapest, Hungary, former Communist party leader Janos Kadar
addressed a rally of about 250,000 people, emphasizing national
unity.
East German's official ADN news agency said hundreds of thousands of
people joined in May Day rallies, and that speakers criticized the
United States' April 15 bombing of Libya and U.S. arms policies.
ADN said tens of thousands of marchers in the Bulgarian capital of
Sofia carried signs praising Soviet arms policies.
Rallies also were held in Romania, Albania, Egypt, Angola, Tanzania
and Angola.
AP-NY-05-01-86 1800EDT
- - - - - -
a269 1847 01 May 86
AM-May Day Rdp, 1st Ld, a239,0624
Clashes in Poland, Philippines at May Day Rallies, S. Africans Strike
Eds: LEADS with 17 grafs to show two shot in Chile, three policemen
burned with acid, May Day speech in Cuba about sugar crop, San
Salvadorans paint U.S. Embassy, peasants march in Guatemala, rallies
in Nicaragua, unions march in Mexico City.
By GEORGE BOEHMER
Associated Press Writer
Millions of people marched in May Day parades Thursday from Manila
to Santiago in support of workers, and in Poland police prevented
Solidarity supporters from staging their own unofficial celebrations.
In Peking, a female rock drummer in a sequined suit attracted
enthusiastic crowds at a May Day party in the Working People's
Cultural Palace. More than 3,000 model workers and army heroes were
honored at Tiananmen Square.
In the Chilean capital of Santiago, three policemen were burned when
May Day marchers tossed acid on them during a protest against the
12-year rule of President Augusto Pinochet.
Pinochet deployed truckloads of army soldiers to stop an opposition
labor rally, and at least two men were shot in the worst disorder
this year against his military government.
Following the shooting, hundreds of protesters rampaged through
Santiago, tearing down traffic signs and benches and turning them
into barricades. Riot patrols took to the streets to quell the
disturbances and by late Thursday 500 had been reported arrested.
In Warsaw, helmeted police with shields and riot sticks turned back
hundreds of supporters of the outlawed Solidarity trade union who
tried to stage an unofficial May Day march. Police also stifled
demonstrations in Gdansk, a Krakow suburb and Wroclaw.
In Asuncion, capital of Paraguay, police used tear gas, water
cannons and nightsticks to break up a rally of about 1,200 supporters
of an opposition labor movement. At least five demonstrators were
reported hurt.
Monsignor Mario Medina, a Roman Catholic bishop, was among those
soaked by water.
Paraguay has been ruled since 1954 by the military government of
President Alfredo Stroessner.
In Cuba, thousands gathered at Revolution Plaza were told during May
Day celebrations that the sugar harvest under way is crucial to the
economy, Cuban state radio reported.
''This month will be the decisive one for the sugar crop and it is
necessary to make a big effort from workers,'' said Roberto Veiga,
secretary general of Cuba's Labor Central and a member of Fidel
Castro's Council of State.
Castro attended May Day festivities but Veiga gave the major
address, which was carried on Cuban radio monitored in Miami.
Cuba this week announced a 90-day suspension of payments on its debt
to Western creditors, estimated at $3.5 billion.
President Daniel Ortega's May Day address to 30,000 workers in
Nicaragua detailed the death and injury toll from more than four
years of war against U.S.-backed guerrillas trying to overthrow his
leftist government. But in a separate rally, the leader of the
Nicaraguan Workers Federation and the Roman Catholic archbishop,
Miguel Obando y Bravo, told 2,000 workers that there is no labor
freedom in Nicaragua, and noted that the right to strike has been
suspended under an emergency decree.
In San Salvador, El Salvador, about 35,000 marchers paraded through
the capital to mark May Day, painting anti-American slogans on the
U.S. Embassy.
In Guatemala, about 4,000 workers and peasants from three labor
organizations turned out for the first May Day parade in Guatemala
City in seven years. The country returned to civilian rule in
January.
Elsewhere in Latin America, peaceful rallies were held in Mexico
City, where more than 1 million members of government-affiliated
unions paraded peacefully before President Miguel de La Madrid, and
in Bolivia and Brazil.
In South Africa, 17th graf pvs.
AP-NY-05-01-86 2147EDT
***************
a244 1547 01 May 86
AM-Nuclear Doubts, Bjt,0626
Experts Say Soviet Assessment May Be As Close As U.S. Assessment
By JILL LAWRENCE
Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) - Nuclear industry experts said Thursday the U.S.
government may have been exaggerating the seriousness of the nuclear
reactor accident in Chernobyl even as the Soviet government was
trying to minimize its impact.
They said Soviet claims that only two people died in the accident
are entirely plausible - more so, in fact, than unverified reports
repeated by various government officials that as many as 2,000 may
have died.
The experts, as well as members of a government task force, also
called into question earlier suggestions from unnamed U.S. officials
who were citing intelligence reports a day earlier raising the
possibility that two reactors had been involved in the accident.
Reagan administration sources, citing intelligence information, have
postulated a disastrous chain of events involving a meltdown,
chemical explosion and nuclear fire at one reactor along with hints
that there may have been problems at the second reactor.
And virtually every official commenting on the crisis has dismissed
the official Soviet death toll.
''I imagine the Russians want to put the best face on it. On the
other hand, there are those who've said ... this is the worst thing
that could have happened under the worst circumstances. The truth
probably lies somewhere in between,'' said Frank Graham, vice
president of the Atomic Industrial Forum.
''There are a lot of things that indicate it may not be the worst
case,'' he added, citing relatively normal activity going on in Kiev,
80 miles south of the reactor complex. ''If it were still a
tremendous danger and they had another plant going down, I think the
Soviets would be taking additional precautions ... to protect their
citizens in Kiev.''
Tom Cochran, senior staff scientist with the Natural Resources
Defense Council, an environmental watchdog group, said he did not
know whether the U.S. intelligence community was overstating the
seriousness of the accident.
He added: ''There are a number of factors that suggest that it could
be very serious. But they could be consistent with something much
less serious, given what limited data we have.''
A Soviet embassy official appearing before a House subcommittee
Thursday - Vitaly Churkin - reiterated his government's position that
the disaster had killed two people and injured 197, 18 of them
seriously.
''I find it a little offensive that some sources are very intent in
asserting that there were many casualties,'' Churkin said during his
extraordinary testimony.
Earlier Thursday, Secretary of State George Shultz had told
reporters the U.S. government had a much fuller picture of the
disaster than what the Kremlin was telling its people. He said
casualties were higher ''by a good measure'' than the official Soviet
line.
Two other U.S. officials earlier this week dismissed Soviet claims
of two deaths as ''frankly preposterous'' and ''beyond belief.''
Graham and Cochran, while saying they suspect fatalities were higher
than two, called the Soviet figure plausible and ''within the realm
of credibility.'' Alan Krass, senior arms analyst for the Union of
Concerned Scientists, a nuclear safety watchdog group, also called
the low number conceivable.
Krass and Cochran both said 2,000 casualties - an unconfirmed
estimate widely quoted on Capitol Hill - was a more preposterous
number than two.
''Radioactivity doesn't kill that fast. It's not an instantaneous
killer like at Bhopal with the poison gas,'' said Krass.
Krass said the satellite pictures and infrared images on which U.S.
intelligence analysts are basing their conclusions are not
definitive. The unique situation makes it even harder to interpret
the images, he said, because there is nothing to compare them with.
AP-NY-05-01-86 1846EDT
***************
a246 1614 01 May 86
AM-Digest Briefs,1140
Eds: This package does not contain the following items from the News
Digest: MOSCOW - Disaster-Inform; NEW YORK - Nuclear-Iodine Tablets;
LONDON - Nuclear-Soviet Farms; TOKYO - Summit Security; TOKYO - Japan
in Transition; WASHINGTON - Budget; INDIANOLA, Miss. - Black Boycott;
WASHINGTON - Deaver; WASHINGTON - Pornography Commission; CHICAGO -
Alcohol-Stroke; VANCOUVER, British Columbia - Expo 86; WASHINGTON -
Congress-Personal Lives.
By The Associated Press
MOSCOW - The Soviet Union told a nervous world Thursday that
radiation from the nuclear plant disaster was decreasing, but one of
its diplomats said other countries should not relax because the
''accident is not over.''
Radiation levels continued to drop in Scandinavia and a wind shift
sent the invisible radioactive cloud over the Soviet Union's richest
wheatlands toward Austria.
The Kremlin presented a calm face, rejecting offers of help from the
United States and other countries, but an international bone-marrow
transplant organization said its offer to aid victims had been
accepted.
---
WASHINGTON - A Soviet official, in an extraordinary appearance
before a House subcommittee, said Thursday his country delayed
telling the world about the Chernobyl accident because the Kremlin
wanted to know ''what the consequences were before making an
announcement.''
And Vitaly L. Churkin, a second secretary of the Soviet Embassy,
calmly responding to sometimes testy questions of House members,
insisted: ''We have been very forthcoming.''
Churkin's testimony did not deviate from the official accounts put
out by the Soviet government in the wake of the accident at the
four-reactor Chernobyl nuclear complex, 80 miles north of Kiev. He
did confirm Western intelligence reports that the accident occurred
last Saturday.
---
WASHINGTON - Nuclear industry experts said Thursday the U.S.
government may have been exaggerating the seriousness of the nuclear
reactor accident in Chernobyl even as the Soviet government was
trying to minimize its impact.
They said Soviet claims that only two people died in the accident
are entirely plausible - more so, in fact, than unverified reports
repeated by various government officials that as many as 2,000 may
have died.
The experts, as well as members of a government task force, also
called into question earlier suggestions from unnamed U.S. officials
who were citing intelligence reports a day earlier raising the
possibility that two reactors had been involved in the accident.
---
STOCKHOLM, Sweden - Radiation levels from the Soviet nuclear reactor
accident dropped in Scandinavia on Thursday and Swedish officials
said that even pregnant women shouldn't worry about radiation danger.
Soviet diplomats told the Norwegian and Swedish governments that
Moscow did not need foreign help in dealing with the disaster at the
Chernobyl power station in the Ukraine.
''Fallout of the radioactive material is reduced and the radiation
level in the accident area (Chernobyl) has dropped during the past
days,'' the Soviet Embassy in Oslo said in a statement to Norwegian
Prime Minister Kaare Willoch.
---
MANILA, Philippines - Police battled thousands of supporters of
deposed President Ferdinand E. Marcos after a May Day rally Thursday
in the most widespread street violence of President Corazon Aquino's
2-month-old government.
Police used tear gas, fire hoses, clubs and warning shots to break
up the demonstrators, and arrested 54 of them. Hospitals reported 34
people injured, including two from gunshot wounds.
Businesses and cars were damaged by protesters throwing rocks and
bottles and swinging pipes and sticks.
---
JOHANNESBURG, South Africa - Millions of blacks stayed away from
jobs and schools Thursday, crippling factories, mines and stores in
the largest anti-apartheid protest in South African history.
The nationwide strike, demanding in part that May Day be declared a
national holiday, signaled a powerful new organizational strength
among black workers, students and civic groups in the campaign for
equal rights.
An academic monitoring group said at least 1.5 million workers, and
possibly many more, struck for the day in the nation's four largest
cities alone. A government spokesman also estimated at least 1
million urban black students boycotted classes for the day.
---
Millions of people worldwide marched in May Day parades from Athens
to Asuncion on Thursday in support of workers, and in Poland police
prevented Solidarity supporters from staging their own unofficial
celebrations.
In Peking, a female rock drummer in a sequined suit attracted
enthusiastic crowds at a May Day party in the Working People's
Cultural Palace. More than 3,000 model workers and army heroes were
honored in a ceremony at Tiananmen Square.
Philippine police in Manila clashed with supporters of ousted
President Ferdinand E. Marcos during a May Day rally, and police also
clashed with May Day demonstrators in Chile and Paraguay.
---
BALI, Indonesia - Secretary of State George Shultz said Thursday the
Reagan administration considers deposed Philippine President
Ferdinand Marcos ''a free man'' entitled to call supporters in his
homeland and to move from the United States if he wishes.
In blunt-spoken language exposing tension between the administration
and the government of Marcos successor Corazon Aquino, Shultz also
said ''we don't have infinite capacity to provide money'' to Manila.
He said that Philippine Vice President Salvador Laurel, in a meeting
with President Reagan, was told the administration believes the
courts - and not the executive branch of the U.S. government - must
resolve claims by the Aquino government that Marcos stole billions in
money and other valuables belonging to the Filipinos.
---
LA FUENTE, El Salvador - A Salvadoran air force transport plane
carrying 37 soldiers caught fire just after takeoff, slammed into a
hill and exploded Thursday, killing all aboard.
The armed forces press office blamed mechanical problems, but did
not elaborate. No injuries were reported on the ground.
The DC-6, bound for Panama, crashed at 4:32 a.m., two minutes after
it left the military airfield at Ilopango air base on the eastern
outskirts of San Salvador.
---
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. - NASA on Thursday postponed for at least 24
hours the first space launch here since the Challenger disaster,
after a small amount of fuel leaked past a valve in the engine system
of a Delta rocket.
The leak of about a quarter-cup of kerosene-type fuel was found a
little more than three hours before the rocket, carrying a weather
satellite, was to blast off.
Spokesman Hugh Harris of the National Aeronautics and Space
Administration said the standard leak test on the launch pad was
followed by two others that failed to produce any additional leakage.
However, the rocket's fuel lines have to be flushed and purged before
the flight can take place, putting the mission off at least until
Friday at 6:18 p.m. EDT, he said.
AP-NY-05-01-86 1914EDT
***************
a252 1643 01 May 86
AM-Bone Marrow-Soviets,0197
Soviets to Allow American Specialist to Treat Nuclear Victims
WASHINGTON (AP) - Top Soviet officials have agreed to permit an
American specialist in bone marrow transplants to treat victinms of
the nuclear accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant near Kiev,
four U.S. senators said Thursday.
One of them, Sen. Albert Gore, D-Tenn., said that Dr. Richard Gale,
chairman of the International Bone Marrow Transplant Registry, was
prepared to fly immediately to the Soviet Union.
Gore said Gale is a personal friend of American industrialist Armand
Hammer, who Gore said has agreed to sponsor the trip.
''We have just learned from Oleg M. Sokolov, (the acting Soviet
ambassador) that Dr. Gale's trip to the Soviet Union has been
approved so that he may provide medical assistance to the victims of
the meltdown tragedy,'' Gore said.
''Dr. Gale is considered one of the leading authorities in the world
on bone marrow transplants, and we believe his expertise will be
welcomed by the Soviet medical community,'' Gore said.
''We hope he is the first of many Americans who will be allowed to
help the Soviets recover from this catastrophe,'' he said.
AP-NY-05-01-86 1942EDT
***************
a255 1714 01 May 86
AM-Europe-Radiation,0871
Country-by-Country Breakdown Of Radiation Levels After Soviet
Disaster
FRANKFURT, West Germany (AP) - Following is a breakdown of
Thursday's radiation levels in Europe following last weekend's
nuclear power plant disaster in the Soviet Union. No levels dangerous
to humans were reported in any country, although some nations took
precautionary measures. There were no reports Thursday from Norway or
Finland.
---
AUSTRIA - The Federal Office of the Environment said radiation
levels remained three times higher than normal, ranging between 0.020
and 0.037 millirems. But readings were declining slowly across the
nation Thursday. The highest reading in Vienna on Wednesday was about
0.045 millirems.
(A millirem measures the effect that radiation produces in human
tissue. it is one-thousandths of a rem, a measure used in setting
radiological protection standards. Experts in Frankfurt say an
average West German receives about 110 millirems per year, from
natural sources, such as cosmic rays and geological deposits, and
man-made sources, such as fallout from nuclear tests. Exposure to
about 1,000 millirems in one year is estimated to produce one or two
chances in 10,000 of developing fatal cancer.)
---
BELGIUM - Radioactivity was at 0.006 millirems Thursday, the same
level registered for the past few years, officials said.
---
BRITAIN - A spokesman for the National Radiological Protection Board
said Thursday, ''There has been no increase in background radiation
detected in Great Britain.'' No current millirem reading was
provided.
---
CZECHOSLOVAKIA - The state-run CTK news agency said Wednesday that
''systematic monitoring'' of radioactivity in various regions of the
country turned up no threat to public health. There was no
announcement on Thursday's radioactivity readings.
---
DENMARK - Officials at the Risoe experimental nuclear station said
0.02 millirems were measured Wednesday and Thursday, a level
considered normal.
---
FRANCE - The French Central Service for the Protection Against
Radioactivity said, ''A minor increase in atmospheric radioactivity''
was registered Thursday morning in southeast France, but this had
''no significance for public health.'' A spokesman said the increase
posed a risk equivalent to ''smoking one cigarette in your whole
life.'' The official did not provide a millirem reading.
---
GREECE - The state-run atomic energy institute, Democritos, reported
Thursday there have been no increases in atmospheric radioactivity
around the country. It did not give current millirem readings.
---
HUNGARY - The Budapest newspaper Magyar Nemzet said Thursday there
was no significant increase in radiation, but gave no figures.
---
ITALY - Italian research stations reported Thursday that
radioactivity had increased to up to twice above normal but said
there was no cause for alarm. Health Minister Renato Altissimo said
that when the nuclear cloud reaches Italy over the weekend, the
radioactivity level would increase by 10 times normal levels, but
that no danger would be posed. No millirem readings were released.
---
NETHERLANDS - Officials reported 0.04 millirems radiation both
Wednesday and Thursday, a normal figure. There has been no indication
of abnormal rise in radiation since the Soviet accident, said the
Dutch Health Ministry.
---
POLAND - A Government commission said Thursday that radiation levels
recorded ranged from a maximum of 500 times normal in the small
northern town of Mikolajki to readings of 10 times normal. The
commission said residents of Mikolajki, 100 miles north of Warsaw,
would receive about 7.4 millirems an hour of radiation. Sale of milk
from grass-fed cows has been banned, and government ordered that all
children receive iodine solutions at schools and health clinics. The
government said radiation levels were declining.
---
ROMANIA - State-run radio reported some increase in radioactivity in
the country's northeast Thursday. The government has set up a
commission to coordinate measures against possible ill effects
without saying whether any such problems existed. The government
released no specific millirem reading.
---
SWEDEN - Radiation levels were dispersing in the atmosphere
Thursday, but higher levels were registered in milk. Without giving
figures, the National Radiation Protection Institute said the levels
showing up in milk were not serious, were being monitored, and
farmers may be advised later to keep their cows indoors.
---
SWITZERLAND - Readings in the east were four to 10 times higher than
normal Thursday, at 0.04 millirems, while in the west they were
slightly higher, at about 0.015 millirems. Ten times the normal
amount of radiation was reported in Davos, in eastern Switzerland, on
Wednesday, and three times normal in Zurich. The country's normal
millirem reading is 0.010.
---
WEST GERMANY - Meteorological offices took readings 30 times higher
than normal in southeastern West Germany on Thursday, down from 60
times above normal on Wednesday. Officials said levels of 2,000-3,000
times above normal would endanger humans. They released no specific
millirem reading.
---
YUGOSLAVIA - The state-run Tanjug news agency said radioactive
iodine in the air was three to four times higher than normal in the
northwestern part of the country. It said this was a ''worrisome
increase'' but no threat to humans. But measures such as avoidance of
rainwater consumption have been advised. No millirem readings were
provided.
AP-NY-05-01-86 2013EDT
***************
a256 1721 01 May 86
AM-Hanford Plans,0422
Emergency Preparedness Doesn't Include Chernobyl-Type Accident
With AM-Nuclear Disaster Bjt
By JOHN K. WILEY
Associated Press Writer
RICHLAND, Wash. (AP) - The U.S. Energy Department's emergency
preparedness plan for the Hanford nuclear reservation contains no
provisions for a reactor disaster similar to the one in the Soviet
Union, a department official said Thursday.
Hanford's N Reactor has a graphite block core and other design
features similar to the Chernobyl reactor, which has spewed radiation
over hundreds of miles as far as Western Europe since the accident
late last week.
The Chernobyl accident would be considered a general emergency, the
most severe of four Energy Department classifications, said Don Elle,
chief of radiological and environmental safety monitoring at Hanford
for the Energy Department.
But the scenarios do not include a general emergency at Hanford,
because ''our accident assessments don't foresee anything like that
happening,'' Elle said.
Periodic drills and emergency procedures are geared toward an
accidental release of radiation from the site, in south-central
Washington, and evacuation measures are taken into account, he said.
It is believed, however, that such radiation releases would not
exceed Energy Department guidelines that would call for evacuation of
the 40 or 50 famililes living within a 10-mile radius of the plant,
Elle said.
A computerized telephone dialing system to notify nearby residents
is being implemented and each of the families has been given a Civil
Defense-type radio receiver in the event of a major emergency, he
said.
A spokesman for the environmental group Greenpeace said he was not
surprised that Energy Department officials would not include plans
for a meltdown event.
''That confirms my suspicion,'' Greenpeace spokesman Tom Buchanan
said in a telephone interview from Seattle.
''When they're assuring us that it can't happen here, they haven't
even gone through scenarios that show it could happen,'' he said.
Greenpeace is one of a number of environmental or anti-nuclear
groups in the Northwest that have called for the immediate shutdown
of the N Reactor as a safety hazard.
The 23-year-old N Reactor, operated for military purposes, is the
only graphite core reactor in the United States and has no
containment building, another similarity with the Chernobyl plant.
But Energy Department officials have said the possibility of a
meltdown would be virtually impossible at the N Reactor.
They maintain that differences between the two plants - type of fuel
used, structural design and operating conditions - are sufficient to
make a comparison unwarranted.
AP-NY-05-01-86 2021EDT
***************
a259 1741 01 May 86
AM-Soviet-May Day,0302
Soviets Celebrate May Day, No Mention of Nuclear Accident
With AM-May Day Rdp, Bjt
By ROXINNE ERVASTI
Associated Press Writer
MOSCOW (AP) - The Soviet Union celebrated May Day with parades and
pageantry Thursday and publicly ignored the nuclear disaster in the
Ukraine that spread radiation over large areas of the country.
But in the Red Square parade in the Soviet capital, there were no
posters saluting the nuclear energy industry. It appeared that all
references to nuclear power were removed from the two-hour parade
that features thousands of marchers carrying banners and posters.
A Soviet press report on the May Day parade in Kiev, only 80 miles
from the accident at the Chernobyl nuclear plant, said the Ukranian
capital staged a colorful ceremony. There was no mention of the
nuclear accident.
The Moscow parade had about a dozen posters carried by workers that
criticized the United States for attacks on Libya and for not
agreeing with a Soviet proposal to halt nuclear tests.
Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev and other members of the
Communist Party Politburo viewed the parade from atop the Lenin
mausoleum, occasionally waving at the passing men, women and children
passing through Red Square. Gorbachev's family stood on a viewing
stand with other invited spectators.
In past May Day parades, the placards and floats celebrating Soviet
labor achievements have included specific references to energy
workers, including nuclear power workers.
The party's Central Committee every year publishes a list of about
100 official slogans weeks in advance of May Day. The list this year
was published on April 13, before the Chernobyl accident, and
included calls to meet energy plans.
In Thursday's parade, there were two posters promoting energy
conservation, but there were no specific references to nuclear
energy.
AP-NY-05-01-86 2041EDT
***************
a260 1748 01 May 86
AM-Sweden-Radiation,0372
Swedes Say Radiation Levels Drop
By LARRY THORSON
Associated Press Writer
STOCKHOLM, Sweden (AP) - Radiation levels from the Soviet nuclear
reactor fire dropped in Scandinavia on Thursday and Swedish officials
said that even pregnant women should not worry about radiation
danger.
But radiation has led to higher levels of radiation in milk, which
the authorities will monitor, said Gunnar Bengtsson, head of Sweden's
National Radiation Protection Institute.
Without giving figures, Bengtsson said on Swedish television that
the level in milk was not serious. ''But we may later advise farmers
to keep their livestock indoors,'' he said.
Cows grazing in pastures eat radioactive dust along with grass, and
the radioactive substances tend to concentrate in the milk.
Soviet diplomats told the Norwegian and Swedish governments that
Moscow did not need foreign help in dealing with the disaster at the
Chernobyl power station in the Ukraine.
''Fallout of the radioactive material is reduced and the radiation
level in the accident area (Chernobyl) has dropped during the past
days,'' the Soviet Embassy in Oslo said in a statement to Norwegian
Prime Minister Kaare Willoch.
Sweden on Monday was the first country to raise an alarm when it
detected increased radiation levels from the Soviet Union. Moscow
later announced there had been a nuclear accident in the Ukraine.
When the first radioactive clouds reached Sweden, the Swedes said
radiation was five times greater than normal but did not pose a
health danger.
After complaining that the Soviets had not warned their Scandinavian
neighbors about the approach of radioactive debris, the Nordic
countries appeared to be receiving reassurances from Moscow that the
situation was improving rather than worsening.
Bengtsson told a news conference that measurements in Sweden
indicated that the fallout was dispersing in the atmosphere.
Debris deposited on the ground already was decaying and losing its
radioactivity, he said.
Even pregnant women don't have to worry now, he said, and his agency
advised people there was no need to take iodide tablets.
Some people in northern and eastern Europe were taking the tablets
to prevent a buildup of radioactive iodine in the thyroid gland - an
organ sensitive to radiation.
AP-NY-05-01-86 2048EDT
***************
a267 1833 01 May 86
AM-Weapons Reactors,0328
Energy Department Says Nuclear Accident Not Likely in US
By GUY DARST
Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) - A meltdown of one of the five nuclear reactors
producing weapons materials without high-strength containment
structures could theoretically happen, but it is not a ''credible
event,'' a Energy Department official told Congress on Thursday.
These reactors have other systems designed to capture radioactive
materials before they escape, Delbert Bunch told the energy
conservation and power subcommittee of the House Energy and Commerce
Committee.
One of the reactors is located at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation in
southeastern Washington, and also produces electric power sold
commercially, and the other four are at Savannah River, Ga.
Bunch, who is assistant secretary of energy in charge of reactor
deployment, was pressed by Chairman Edward Markey, D-Mass., on
whether a meltdown is possible at those rectors.
Bunch had said a reactor with a concrete-and-steel dome four feet
thick designed to prevent release of radioactive materials in an
accident was ''not neccessarily'' safer than one without.
But he also said the department had put on ''extra systems as part
of our defense in depth concept,'' in spite of ''the best estimate of
the techical community that you could not get significant core
damage.''
Markey said Bunch was inconsistent and ''absolutely crazy to take
that position.''
Bunch said, ''I said before I did not believe it was a credible
event. You clearly could theorize a set of events in which you would
have melting of some fuel elements in the reactor.''
Only one of the reactors, the electricity and weapons reactor at
Hanford, resembles the design of the Soviet reactor at Chernobyl in
that it is water-cooled and uses graphite to slow down the fission
neutrons.
The other four weapons reactors use so-called heavy water, water in
which the hydrogen atoms contain a neutron as well as a proton, to
slow down the fission neutrons.
AP-NY-05-01-86 2133EDT
***************
a271 1905 01 May 86
AM-Nuclear-Iodine Tablets,0464
Risks Associated With Iodine Tablets, Nobelist Says
By PAUL RAEBURN
AP Science Editor
NEW YORK (AP) - Iodine tablets intended to protect people from some
dangers of radioactive fallout can in rare cases produce severe or
fatal reactions, and if used improperly can increase a person's
radiation dose, says a Nobel-prize-winning physicist who specializes
in nuclear medicine.
The tablets are intended to keep the body from absorbing radioactive
iodine by first saturating the body with non-radioactive iodine.
In Poland, the government has said that because of the Soviet
nuclear disaster radioactive iodine in the air is above normal and
all children have been ordered to take iodine.
In California, druggists are reporting increased demand for
potassium iodide, the form in which iodine is taken to prevent
radiation damage.
Potassium iodide is available only by prescription or through
agencies connected with emergency planning for nuclear accidents.
''There is a small group of people who have shown unusual
sensitivity to iodine,'' Rosalyn Yalow of the Veterans Administration
Medical Center in New York City's Bronx said Thursday. ''It's like
one in 100,000 or one in a million, but if you didn't need it (the
iodine), that would be bad.''
Furthermore, she said, people who take potassium iodide tablets
after they have been exposed to radioactive iodine will discharge the
radioactive iodine more slowly than if they had not taken the
tablets, she said.
That could increase the total dose of radiation they receive.
The body concentrates iodine in the thyroid gland, a tiny gland in
the neck that regulates the body's rate of metabolism, Yalow said.
The thyroid thus receives a larger dose of radiation from the
accumulating radioactive iodine than does the rest of the body.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration, in its official
recommendations on the subject of potassium iodide pills, says the
pills can prevent up to 90 percent of radioactive iodine absorption
if taken a few hours before or immediately after exposure to
radioactive iodine, said David Duarte, an FDA spokesman.
However, the drug is not a panacea, Duarte said. It does not protect
against any of the many other radioactive materials that can be
released in a nuclear plant accident.
''It's very important to evaluate just what the exposure is before
you start treating people for a disease that may not exist,'' said
Yalow. She won the Nobel Prize for development of the
radioimmunoassay, a test that made obsolete the former practice of
using radioactive tracers to diagnose thyroid disease.
In any case, iodine, which can cause thyroid cancer, is much less of
a threat than other radioactive elements, she said. ''Thyroid cancer
has a very low lethality,'' she said. ''It isn't like lung cancer.
AP-NY-05-01-86 2204EDT
***************
a275 1926 01 May 86
AM-US-Soviet Medical,0160
US Wants Experts To Send Doctors, Technicians, To Soviet
WASHINGTON (AP) - The United States has asked the Soviet Union for
permission to send a small team of doctors and technicians to Moscow
and Leningrad to determine whether the Ukranian nuclear accident
poses a health hazard for U.S. diplomats and their families, an
official said Thursday.
The official, who asked not to be identified, said the
administration wants to determine radiation levels at the U.S.
Embassy and to give physical checkups to the diplomats and their
families.
If the visas are approved, the official said State Department
doctors would be sent along with technicians from the Evironmental
Protection Agency.
The official noted that increased radiation levels were detected in
Norway, more than 900 miles from the accident site, while Moscow is
only about half that distance away. He said the Soviets have given no
information about radiation levels in the two cities, where more than
200 U.S. diplomats are stationed.
AP-NY-05-01-86 2226EDT
***************
a279 1942 01 May 86
AM-Nuclear News,0324
Voice of America Says It Is Reaching 29 Million Listeners In USSR
By HENRY GOTTLIEB
Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) - Western news about the Chernobyl nuclear accident,
including reports of more casualties than the Soviets acknowledge,
are reaching up to 29 million radio listeners in the Soviet Union, a
Voice of America spokesman said Thursday.
But the region around Kiev, the biggest city near the disaster, may
be blacked out.
The Soviets have spent huge sums to jam Western broadcast signals
around major cities, according to a VOA report prepared last
November. Kiev, the third largest population center in the Soviet
Union is 80 miles from Chernobyl.
The Soviet jamming program includes ground stations that put a
20-to-25-mile blackout ring around a city, and so-called ''sky-wave''
systems that block an even larger area by sending signals into the
stratosphere to block incoming radio transmissions.
Since reporting on the nuclear reactor accident began Monday, there
has been no noticeable increase in jamming, according to the VOA.
Fred Quinn, a VOA spokesman, said that even with the jamming,the
service's estimated listening audience is 29 million people in the
Soviet Union and 28 million more in Eastern Europe.
What they've been hearing about the accident is basically what
listeners in the United States have been hearing on the radio: Soviet
statements that the situation is not dangerous and under control and
Western reports of a major disaster with global implications.
Soviet listeners to the VOA would have known of the accident before
it was reported by the Soviet media. Quinn said VOA picked up news
agency reports Monday morning that higher-than-normal radiation
levels were measured in Scandinavia and that officials in Sweden
believed there had been a mishap at a nuclear reactor in the Soviet
Union.
The Soviet Union did not disclose the accident until Monday
afternoon and VOA also carried that report, Quinn said.
AP-NY-05-01-86 2242EDT
***************
a281 1955 01 May 86
AM-Soviet-Reactors,0218
Magazine Says Soviets Run Reactors Longer Than Normal
With AM-Nuclear Disaster, Bjt
LONDON (AP) - The Economist magazine said Thursday that the Soviet
Union runs its nuclear power stations far longer than the normal
6,000 hours a year. It added that the total output from Soviet
nuclear power stations has fallen behind planned levels because new
plants were not opened on time.
The article was written over several months by Dr. David Wilson, a
Soviet specialist at Leeds University, and was completed before the
accident Friday at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant 80 miles from
Kiev, The Economist said.
It said existing Soviet nuclear stations are being run for many
hours longer than normal in other nations and that regular service
work was not being carried. It did not specify how many additional
hours the plants were run.
By the end of 1985, the report said, the Soviet Union was operating
18 nuclear power stations with a total capacity of 26,840 megawatts.
The Chernobyl plant was capable of producing 4,000 megawatts, or 15
percent of all nuclear power in the Soviet Union.
Wilson said the Soviets had added 37 percent less capacity than
planned so far in the current five-year plan. Planners subsequently
set a lower target, but the industry still missed that by 12 percent,
he said.
AP-NY-05-01-86 2254EDT
***************
a002 2135 01 May 86
PM-News Digest,1232
PMs AP News Digest
Friday, May 2, 1986
Here are the top stories for PMs. The General Desk supervisor is Ron
NUCLEAR DISASTER:
Soviets Say Radiation Eases But Foreigners Continue to Leave
MOSCOW - The Soviet government says radiation around the Chernobyl
nuclear accident site has decreased, but in the absence of
information on potential health risks, hundreds of foreign visitors
have left the Soviet Union. Slug PM-Nuclear Disaster.
Developing. LaserPhoto NY4, satellite view of Chernobyl plant. By
Carol J. Williams.
Soviets Use House Hearing to Dispute Stonewall Charges
WASHINGTON - The Soviet Union chose an extraordinary forum - a House
subcommittee hearing - to dispute accusations it is hiding the truth
about the Chernobyl nuclear accident. Slug PM-US-Soviet Accident Rdp.
New material, may stand. 960 words.
LaserPhoto WX6, Churkin at House committee hearing. By Guy Darst.
Soviet Envoy Put on Capitol Hill Hot Seat
WASHINGTON - The second secretary at the Soviet Embassy was playing
tennis with his wife when his superiors called with a most delicate
assignment: He was to rush to Capitol Hill and explain the Soviet
Union's handling of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster. Slug PM-Soviet
Testifies. New, will stand. 600 words.
By Tim Ahern
Analysts and Witness Say Fire Has Died Down
STOCKHOLM, Sweden - A satellite picture received in Sweden shows the
fire at the stricken Chernobyl nuclear power station has died down,
analysts say. A Finnish pilot who flew over the site says nothing
seems to be burning in reactor No. 4. Slug PM-Chernobyl Fire.
Developing.
Most Experts Say the Truth Is Between U.S. and Soviet Version
WASHINGTON - The Reagan administration is moderating its most
dramatic scenario of the Chernobyl disaster as the Soviets continue
to minimize the incident and some U.S. nuclear experts say the truth
lies somewhere in between. Slug PM-Nuclear-Doubts. New material, may
stand. 670 words.
By Jill Lawrence
WASHINGTON TODAY: Even Veteran Diplomats Admit ''Everybody's
Scared''
WASHINGTON - ''Everybody's scared.'' That brief comment by a State
Department official summed up the mood here this week after the
perils of life in the nuclear age shifted from academic theory to
grim reality. Slug PM-Nuclear Tragedy. 750 words.
Moved in advance as a068, a070 of May 1.
Washington Today by George Gedda.
a010 2232 01 May 86
PM-US-Soviet Accident Rdp, Bjt,0866
Soviet Official Makes Rare Congressional Visit
By GUY DARST
Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) - The Soviet Union chose an extraordinary forum - a
House subcommittee hearing - to dispute accusations it is hiding the
truth about the Chernobyl nuclear accident.
But the subcommittee and the world learned nothing the Soviets had
not said before.
''We have nothing to hide,'' said Vitaly L. Churkin, second
secretary of the Soviet Embassy, after his grilling Thursday
afternoon by 11 members of the House.
Churkin, 40, is believed to be only the second Soviet official ever
to appear before a congressional panel. The first was a trade
representative who testified before the Joint Economic Committee four
years ago.
Rep. Edward Markey, D-Mass., chairman of the subcommittee on energy
conservation and power, said after the hearing that he extended the
invitation because, ''I really thought they might have an interest in
testifying. I think they did it because they know they have to answer
the questions the world is asking.''
A State Department official, speaking on condition that his name not
be used, said the Soviets accepted because their public image was
marred in Europe and the United States by the perception that they
are withholding information.
Markey admitted some disappointment: ''I don't think he gave the
answers to many specific questions.'' And the State Department
official said Churkin had nothing new.
At the same time Thursday, the U.S. government task force studying
the accident said:
-There ''definitely'' was no second meltdown at Chernobyl. A second
''hot spot'' on the public Landsat satellite photo of the plant is
either a solar reflection or an industrial facility of some sort,
such as a pipe-heating shop or a forge.
-It is ''plausible'' but unconfirmed that the fire in the reactor is
out, as the Soviets say.
-The bulk of the radiation to be expected probably has been released
by now.
Churkin stuck close to his government's official line on the
accident, starting off by reading - it hardly took five minutes to do
it - all the official statements issued since Monday's initial
disclosure. He referred back to those statements frequently.
In his perfectly fluent and idiomatic English marred only by a
misplaced accent here and there, Churkin made two points over and
over: The casualty figures are correct, and the Soviets did all they
could be expected to do to notify other countries of possible
airborne contamination.
Asked why it took from Saturday, when the accident started, until
Monday to say anything publicly, Churkin replied, ''I would imagine
there was a desire to see what was really happening and what the
consequences were before making an announcement.'' Since then, ''We
have been very forthcoming'' with neighboring countries.
He said he could not say if the Chernobyl site would be opened to
international inspection, but his country would do ''whatever is
necessary'' to prevent a recurrence.
In an interview later on the ''MacNeil-Lehrer NewsHour'' on PBS,
Churkin said, ''We are prepared to cooperate'' in preventing such
accidents.
Under sometimes hostile questioning from the subcommittee - although
the tone never got any hotter than what is heard in a dozen hearing
rooms every day - Churkin said in one of his sometimes testy
responses, ''I reject any implication of untruth'' in his
government's report of two dead and 197 injured, 18 of them
seriously.
''I find it a little offensive that some sources are very intent in
asserting that there were many casualties,'' he said.
To another critical observation he replied, ''If you want to talk to
my country in a commanding tone, forget it.''
Markey asked him to come back next week, but Churkin said he would
be away and Markey should ask the embassy to send someone else.
Markey said he would.
And there were these other developments:
-Los Angeles surgeon Robert P. Gale, a specialist in bone marrow
transplants, left for the Soviet Union to help treat the victims,
saying, ''We have got to act very fast.'' Gale is a friend of Armand
Hammer, the U.S. industrialist who has close ties to the Soviet Union
and who helped persuade the Soviets to accept their first foreign
help. Bone marrow destruction is a primary cause of death from
radiation.
-The Nuclear Regulatory Commission said it had begun a special
review of the only licensed U.S. power reactor with a graphite core
like the one at Chernobyl, even though the two designs are otherwise
quite different. Harold Denton of the commission said the review of
Colorado's Fort St. Vrain plant was ''just to make sure there isn't
something we missed on the first review.''
-Energy Department officials told Markey's subcommittee that their
graphite reactor at Hanford, Wash., though in some ways similar to
the Chernobyl reactor, had systems to confine radioactivity in an
accident.
Like the Chernobyl reactor, both the Hanford and Fort St. Vrain
reactors lack the super-strong containment structure that all other
U.S. power reactors have.
-The House approved a resolution criticizing the Soviet Union for
withholding information about the Chernobyl disaster.
AP-NY-05-02-86 0132EDT
- - - - - -
a025 0103 02 May 86
PM-US-Soviet Accident Rdp, 1st Ld, a010,0207
EDs: Leads with announcement of Cabinet-level review of Soviet
nuclear accident.
By GUY DARST
Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) - President Reagan has asked Vice President George
Bush to convene a Cabinet-level meeting today to review the Soviet
nuclear accident, while on Capitol Hill, the Soviet Union chose the
extraordinary forum of a House subcommittee hearing to dispute
accusations it is hiding the truth.
White House spokesman Larry Speakes, in announcing Reagan's action
as Air Force One flew toward Tokyo, said the United States wants to
assess the information that it has about the disaster and to consider
health and other aspects.
The United States believes the accident was ''of extensive
proportions,'' much worse than the Soviets have indicated, Speakes
said.
The review headed by Bush will consider what the U.S. diplomatic
response to the accident should be and determine what further steps
should be taken for working with the international atomic agencies,
Speakes said.
On Thursday, Vitaly L. Churkin, second secretary of the Soviet
Embassy, went before a House panel to discuss allegations that the
Soviets have not been forthcoming about the accident at Chernobyl.
''We have nothing to hide,'' he said.
Churkin, 40, is, 4th graf
AP-NY-05-02-86 0403EDT
- - - - - -
a100 1012 02 May 86
PM-US-Soviet Accident Rdp, 2nd, a025,1,0165
Soviet Official Makes Rare Congressional Visit
EDs: First 4 grafs new
By GUY DARST
Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) - Top Reagan administration officials reviewed the
Soviet nuclear disaster at a White House meeting today and Secretary
of Defense Caspar Weinberger said the radioactive cloud from the
accident appears to pose no threat to the United States.
''I don't think so; not at this point,'' Weinberger said when asked
if there was any concern about the radioactive cloud causing a
problem when it reaches this country.
The secretary, encountered by a reporter while conducting an
acquaintance on a tour of the White House after the meeting, said the
session was ''just a general review'' of the accident.
President Reagan asked Vice President George Bush Thursday to
convene the Cabinet-level meeting, while on Capitol Hill the Soviet
Union chose the extraordinary forum of a House subcommittee hearing
to dispute accusations it is hiding the truth.
White House: 2nd graf
AP-NY-05-02-86 1311EDT
- - - - - -
a209 1115 02 May 86
PM-US-Soviet Accident Rdp, 3rd Ld, a100,0289
EDs: First 9 grafs new
By GUY DARST
Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) - Top Reagan administration officials reviewed the
Chernobyl nuclear accident at a White House meeting today and said
they do not expect the disaster in the Soviet Union to create a
danger to health in the United States.
Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger, asked whether there was any
concern that the radioactive cloud from the accident might cause a
health problem in the United States, replied, ''I don't think so; not
at this point.''
Weinberger spoke to a reporter after attending the meeting, chaired
by Vice President George Bush. The secretary described the session as
a ''general review'' of the accident.
Bush's press secretary, Marlin Fitzwater, said members of a task
force set up by President Reagan to monitor health and environmental
implications ''advised the vice president that they do not expect the
Soviet accident to result in adverse health consequences in the
United States.''
Fitzwater said Bush would ''make a full report to the president this
afternoon on the status of U.S. government information and
activities.''
He said the report was expected to be in written form and would be
transmitted to Reagan in Tokyo, where the president arrived earlier
in the day for the weekend economic summit meeting.
''Daily monitoring of environmental contamination continues,'' the
spokesman said. ''The U.S. government continues to press the Soviet
Union for additional data on the accident and subsequent radiation
releases.''
Fitzwater's statement said the group met for an hour to review U.S.
activities in response to the accident.
''The vice president commended U.S. agencies for responding rapidly
and effectively,'' the press secretary said.
White House: 5th graf
AP-NY-05-02-86 1415EDT
***************
a012 2255 01 May 86
PM-Reagan, Bjt,0540
Reagan Heads for Tokyo Summit
By MICHAEL PUTZEL
AP White House Correspondent
BALI, Indonesia (AP) - President Reagan flew to Japan today to meet
other world leaders at an economic summit suddenly overshadowed by
the Soviets' nuclear power plant catastrophe.
When Reagan left the United States a week ago for a leisurely
journey across the Pacific, attention already had shifted from
economic issues to terrorism and the U.S. reprisal raid on Libya.
But before the leaders of the world's seven great industrial
democracies gathered, even terrorism had been shoved off center stage
by the explosion and fire in a nuclear reactor in the Ukraine and the
possible consequences for the Soviet Union and its neighbors.
Security surrounding the Tokyo summit and the leaders' separate
meetings leading up to the three-day conference beginning Sunday is
the toughest in Japan's history. Secretary of State George Shultz has
described the gathering as ''a juicy target'' for terrorists.
After a rash of guerrilla attacks on public facilities, some 30,000
police officers, including 4,000 riot policemen, were assembled to
protect Akaska Palace, the government guest house in central Tokyo
where the summit will be held, and other summit-related buildings and
hotels.
Japanese security officials said their unprecedented alert will
involve every member of the country's 250,000-member police ''in one
way or another.''
As Reagan flew to Japan, his wife, Nancy, headed for Malaysia and
Thailand to discuss her anti-drug campaign. The Reagans kissed
goodbye at the airport in Bali, Indonesia, where the president had
stopped for talks with President Suharto and the foreign ministers of
the six members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations
(ASEAN).
Mrs. Reagan will rejoin her husband Monday in Tokyo.
In a toast at an elegant formal dinner given by his host, Suharto,
Reagan ended his visit focusing on the friendship and strong ties
between the two nations ''even though our methods of government
differ.''
It was an indirect reference to Suharto's authoritarian rule, which
the United States accepts as it concentrates on maintaining close
relations with the fifth most populous nation in the world and one
which has enjoyed stupendous economic growth in recent years.
In Bali, Reagan also conferred with Philippine Vice President
Salvador Laurel.
Afterward, Shultz said the United States wishes the government of
Corazon Aquino would stop frustrating efforts to find a new home for
deposed President Ferdinand Marcos, now in exile in Hawaii.
''If he wishes to go to another country, the government of the
Philippines should not discourage that, and he should be provided
with a passport,'' Shultz told reporters.
Shultz also disclosed the United States has sought to dissuade
Marcos from making his frequent phone calls to supporters in the
Philippines and the news media but has had no success.
''He's a free man,'' the secretary said.
Shultz took issue with Laurel's request for greater U.S. help in
recovering the billions of dollars in cash and treasures that it
claims Marcos took out of the country.
The secretary, who will stop in the Philippines on the way home,
said that the administration had taken great pains to demonstrate its
support for the new government.
AP-NY-05-02-86 0154EDT
- - - - - -
a053 0446 02 May 86
PM-Reagan, 1st Ld, a012,0101
Reagan Arrives in Tokyo for Summit
Precede Bali, Indonesia
Eds: Tops with 2 grafs with Reagan arrival
By MICHAEL PUTZEL
AP White House Correspondent
TOKYO (AP) - President Reagan arrived in Japan today to confer with
other world leaders at an economic summit suddenly overshadowed by
the Soviets' nuclear power plant catastrophe.
Reagan emerged from Air Force One at 7:29 a.m. EST (8:29 p.m.) Tokyo
time and was greeted by a host of Japanese dignitaries. The president
made no statements, going quickly to a limousine for a ride to the
Hotel Okura.
When Reagan: 2nd graf
AP-NY-05-02-86 0746EDT
- - - - - -
a063 0604 02 May 86
PM-Reagan, 2nd Ld, a053,0064
Reagan Arrives in Tokyo for Summit
Eds: SUBS lead to note security conditions
By MICHAEL PUTZEL
AP White House Correspondent
TOKYO (AP) - President Reagan arrived in Japan amid extraordinarily
tight security today to confer with other world leaders at an
economic summit suddenly overshadowed by the Soviets' nuclear power
plant catastrophe and surging international terrorism.
Reagan emerged: 2nd graf
AP-NY-05-02-86 0902EDT
- - - - - -
a064 0608 02 May 86
PM-Reagan, 2nd Ld, Insert, a063,0095
TOYKO Insert 1 graf after 7th graf: Jappanese security xxx
anoother.'' with details of security attending Reagan's arrival at
Tokyo airport
A pool of a dozen reporters and photographers who had arrived with
Reagan on Air Force One today were prevented by Tokyo police from
witnessing closely the president's deplaning at the Tokyo
International Airport. Police surrounded the reporters and
photographers as they stepped down from the rear steps of Reagan's
plane and pushed them away from the area amid howls of protests by
the journalists.
As Reagan: 8th graf
AP-NY-05-02-86 0906EDT
- - - - - -
a071 0648 02 May 86
PM-Reagan, 2nd Ld, Insert a063,0162
TOKYO INSERT 1 graf after 4th graf with material with other summit
partners; SUB 6th graf: After a rash xxx and hotels to CORRECT
spelling of Akasaka Palace.
Italian Prime Minister Bettino Craxi arrived here Thursday. West
German Chancellor Helmut Kohl was stopping over in Thailand en route
to Tokyo and British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher arrived in
South Korea today for a visit before going on to Tokyo Sunday.
Security surrounding the Tokyo summit and the leaders' separate
meetings leading up to the three-day conference beginning Sunday is
the toughest in Japan's history. Secretary of State George Shultz has
described the gathering as ''a juicy target'' for terrorists.
After a rash of guerrilla attacks on public facilities, some 30,000
police officers, including 4,000 riot policemen, were assembled to
protect Akasaka Palace, the government guest house in central Tokyo
where the summit will be held, and other summit-related buildings and
hotels.
Japanese security: 8th graf
AP-NY-05-02-86 0948EDT
- - - - - -
a078 0758 02 May 86
PM-Reagan, 2nd Ld, Insert a063-64-71,0047
TOKYO INSERT 1th grafafter 5th graf with material on other summit
leaders
Canadian Prime Minister Brian Mulroney, French President Francois
Mitterrand, European Community President Jacques Delors and EC
co-representative, Dutch Prime Minister Ruud Lubbers, arrive Saturday
and Sunday.
Security surrounding; 6th graf
AP-NY-05-02-86 1057EDT
***************
a013 2305 01 May 86
PM-Soviet Testifies, Bjt,0605
A Most Delicate Diplomatic Assignment
By TIM AHERN
Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) - The second secretary at the Soviet Embassy was
playing tennis with his wife when his superiors called with a most
delicate assignment: He was to rush to Capitol Hill and explain the
Soviet Union's handling of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster.
And so Vitaly L. Churkin went up to the Hill. For more than an hour,
the 40-year-old, silver-haired diplomat, speaking in flawless but
accented English, calmly sparred with members of Congress and
staunchly performed his assignment.
The State Department was taken by surprise. A government official,
speaking anonymously, said he assumed it was attempt to repair the
damage the Soviet image has suffered in world public opinion.
At times, the exchanges with U.S. legislators were testy.
Rep. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., asked Churkin to say in layman's terms how
the accident happened.
''It occurred on April 26,'' replied the Soviet. ''Can you tell me
in those same layman's terms why the Challenger disaster happened?''
''I am not trying to be polemical, but please understand that of
course it is a complicated technical problem,'' Churkin added.
The idea of inviting a Soviet spokesman to answer questions about
Chernobyl occurred Thursday morning to Rep. Edward Markey, D-Mass.,
chairman of the House subcommittee on energy conservation and power.
Markey was meeting with the panel's staff, reviewing plans for a
scheduled 1:30 p.m. subcommittee meeting with administration
officials who were part of an interagency task force set up to
monitor the Chernobyl disaster.
''I really thought they might have an interest in testifying. It was
worth a shot,'' Markey said.
The Soviets have been heavily criticized for providing little
information about the accident to either the world or their own
people. But Markey said, ''I think they understand now that they have
to answer the questions the world is asking.''
Peter Franchot, Markey's administrative assistant, called the Soviet
Embassy about 10:30 a.m. and asked by name for several officials whom
Franchot knew.
''I finally got hold of some guy and passed along the invitation,''
Franchot said later. ''They said immediately that they were
interested and they would get back to me.''
About two hours later, the Soviet official called back and said ''a
Mr. Churkin would be calling me,'' Franchot recalled. ''Apparently,
they said, they had pulled him in off the tennis courts where he was
playing with his wife.''
''Churkin didn't call, but about 12:50 I called back and they said
Churkin was on his way up here,'' said Franchot. ''The whole thing
was really pretty straightforward, pretty cut-and-dried.''
''I realize the extraordinary nature of the appearance,'' said
Markey. ''I've never heard of a Soviet official appearing before a
congressional committee.''
But congressional historians said that on May 20, 1982, Vladislav K.
Navarov, the USSR's deputy trade representative, testified before the
Joint Economic Committee subcommittee on monetary and fiscal policy.
Markey has been highly critical of nuclear power and he and his
subcommittee often have had sharp questions for its advocates.
But they were unsuccessful when they tried to pin down Churkin, who
has been in the embassy for four years. The questions were sometimes
far from friendly, but Churkin never lost his demeanor.
''We have been very forthcoming,'' he insisted.
Markey said later, ''I don't think he gave the answers to many
specific questions. His testimony was a first step, but there are
still many, many questions.''
Said Churkin: ''I came because I was invited. We have nothing to
hide.''
AP-NY-05-02-86 0206EDT
***************
a016 2332 01 May 86
PM-Chernobyl Fire, Bjt,0659
Swedish Analysts Say Fire Easing, But Uncertain Whether It's Out
STOCKHOLM, Sweden (AP) - Analysts say a satellite picture shows a
decrease in the fire at the Soviet Union's Chernobyl nuclear power
station north of Kiev, but they cannot tell whether the fire has been
extinguished.
Officials in Scandinavia also said Thursday that low levels of
fallout from the power station in the Ukraine had continued to
decline and that some safety measures were being eased.
However, Swedes were advised that to be on the safe side they should
avoid eating wild morels, soup made from freshly picked wild nettles
or parsley grown outdoors.
''We cannot see the smoke which we saw Wednesday,'' Lars Bjerkesjo
of Satellitbild, the company which received the satellite picture,
was quoted as saying.
''We can see the structure of the reactor a lot more clearly and the
picture confirms our earlier conclusions that about one-fourth of the
building is damaged,'' the national news agency TT quoted him as
saying.
Christer Larsson of Space Media Network, an agency handling the
rights to photos made by a French-Swedish satellite, said: ''It's
difficult to be 100 percent sure if the fire is extinguished.''
''What's left is enormous heat, and what's the difference between
fire and a thousand degrees?'' he said.
The Soviets, in their sketchy reports on the situation, never have
said there was a fire at Chernobyl.
Kai Bjorkman, pilot of a plane sent to Kiev by Finland to evacuate
Finnish citizens, said he flew his DC-8 over the Chernobyl area,
''but did not see any glow or anything of the stricken nuclear power
plant.''
Aapo Rytomaa, a researcher at Finland's Office of Nuclear Radiation
Safety, said small traces of radioactive iodine were found in all of
the 72 Finns who left Kiev.
He said the Soviets told Finland not to bring Geiger counters along
on the flight, but the jetliner carried one anyway. Rytomaa said the
level of radiation at the Kiev airport was not alarming, but he did
not provide specific figures.
Sweden's prime minister and the head of the country's Communist
Party criticized the Soviet Union during May Day rallies for not
providing enough information on fallout from the Chernobyl disaster.
Prime Minister Ingvar Carlsson, who recently visited Moscow, said:
''A neighboring country must immediately give complete information
after an accident. ... The Soviet Union has not done so in this
case.''
The criticism of Lars Werner, head of the Swedish Communist Party,
was much sharper. ''It's unreasonable, unacceptable and yes, even
cynical that the Soviet Union waited several days to give us
information,'' he said.
The Soviets first reported the problem in Chernobyl on Monday after
Scandinavian countries already had detected and reported increases in
radiation blown their way from the Soviet Ukraine.
Gunnar Bengtsson, head of Sweden's National Radiation Protection
Institute, said on nationwide television late Thursday that although
no serious problems were known to exist, Swedes might want to avoid
morels, nettle soup and garden parsley.
He said that because radiation passing through Swedish dairy cows
was producing higher levels of radiation in milk, ''we may later
advise farmers to keep their livestock indoors.''
But he also advised Swedes that fallout levels had fallen so low
that even pregnant women no longer needed to worry about radiation.
Neighboring Denmark decided to join Sweden in banning at least
temporarily wine, vodka, honey, fruit and other consumer items
imported from the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe.
Danish officials said less than 1 percent of the country's food
imports would be affected and the ban would be lifted if it was
established none of the products contained had been affected by the
nuclear accident at Chernobyl.
World Health Organization officials planned a meeting in Copenhagen
to organize a conference on ways countries affected by Chernobyl
fallout could deal with it.
AP-NY-05-02-86 0232EDT
***************
a002 2130 30 Apr 86
PM-News Digest,1368
PMs AP News Digest
Thursday, May 1, 1986
Here are the top stories for PMs. The General Desk supervisor is Ron
Sirak (212) 621-1604. The Laserphoto Desk supervisor is Ed Stephens
(212) 621-1900.
For repeats of AP copy, the Service Desk can be reached at (212)
621-1595 or 1596.
NUCLEAR DISASTER:
Soviet Reports Continue to Differ from Those of Other Nations
MOSCOW - The Soviets say the Chernobyl nuclear power plant disaster
injured 197 people and ripped apart a reactor building, but assured
the public the crippled reactor was shut down and radiation levels
were subsiding. Reports from elsewhere suggest a far worse situation.
Slug PM-Nuclear Disaster.
Developing. LaserColor WX6, Satellite photo of Chernobyl nuclear
plant. By Andrew Rosenthal.
Senator Calls for Airlift of Americans Out of Soviet Union
WASHINGTON - A prominent senator, citing Kremlin efforts to
''conceal the magnitude'' of the nuclear disaster in Cherbonyl, is
calling on the State Department to provide aircraft for American
tourists who ''wish to be evacuated'' from the Soviet Union. Slug
PM-US-Soviet Accident Rdp. New material, may stand. 800 words.
By Guy Darst
U.S. Spy Satellites Put to the Test and Get Good Marks
WASHINGTON - The ability of American spy satellites to peer into
other nations has been impressively demonstrated in recent days as
the U.S. government has released detailed information on the Soviet
nuclear disaster, officials say. Slug PM-Soviet Accident-US
Intelligence. New material, should stand. 750 words.
By Tim Ahern
Former Soviet Engineer Says Plant Was Disaster Waiting to Happen
JERUSALEM, Israel - A former Soviet engineer who worked on the
ill-fated Chernobyl nuclear power plant says the plant was a disaster
waiting to happen. He cites Soviet negligence and poor safety
standards. Slug PM-Israel-Reactor.
Developing. By David Nordell.
Town Near Damaged Nuclear Reactor Has Ancient History
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. - Chernobyl, destined to join Hiroshima and
Three-Mile Island as a synonym for nuclear catastrophe, is an
ancient, rollicking river town, fought over by Lithuanian lords,
Polish nobles, and White and Red Russian armies before officials
vowed that its nuclear power plant was completely safe. Slug
PM-Chernobyl Profile. New, will stand. 600 words.
By Arnold Zeitlin.
Soviet Secrecy over Accident Is at Odds With Gorbachev Openness
WASHINGTON - The Kremlin's failure to answer questions about the
Cherbonyl reactor calamity is at odds with Soviet leader Mikhail
Gorbachev' candor campaign and could thrust Soviet ties with the
outside world into a nuclear winter of many years, experts predict.
Slug PM-Soviet Accident-Impact. New, should stand. 700 words.
By Bryan Brumley
Experts Says Radioactive Plume Has Largely Spared Vital Farm Land
WASHINGTON - The plume of radioactivity streaming from the crippled
Chernobyl nuclear plant, located near the Soviet Union's Ukrainian
breadbasket, has so far largely spared the precious farmland and the
country's important winter wheat crop, government and private
analysts say. Slug PM-Nuclear-Crops. New, should stand. 750 words.
By Jim Drinkard
Disaster Sparks Concern for Growing Latin Nuclear Industry
MEXICO CITY - The Soviet nuclear disaster is causing serious worry
in Latin America, where governments have been hastening to develop
atomic power despite a regional economic crisis. Slug PM-Latin
Nuclear. New, will stand. 750 words.
By Soll Sussman.
Ukrainians In United States Worry About Fate Of Those At Home
UNDATED - Ukrainian-Americans say they've had little success trying
to communicate with friends and family in their homeland since
nuclear disaster struck, and don't know whether U.S. aid will be
accepted by the Soviets. Slug PM-US-Ukrainian Reax. New, will stand.
600 words.
LaserPhoto NY5, Ukrainians at New York church service. By Nicholas
Soviet Disaster Will share Stage with Terrorism at Economic Summit
TOKYO - As West Germany and Italy report radiation contamination,
the nuclear accident in the Soviet Union will share billing with
terror and trade as major topics for the seven-nation economic summit
opening Sunday in Tokyo. Slug PM-Summit Diplomacy. New, should stand.
700 words.
By Diplomatic Writer Barry Schweid
***************
a004 2135 30 Apr 86
PM-Newspage Stocks,0215
Stock Market Setback Was Expected
NEW YORK (AP) - A stock price retreat on Wall Street may turn out to
be a temporary pause in a rally that has carried the Dow Jones
industrial average to record heights 42 times since last September.
The stock market took a nose-dive Wednesday and the Dow Jones
average of 30 industrials skidded 41.91 to 1,783.98. It was the
biggest loss in absolute terms for a single day, eclipsing the old
mark of 39.10 points on Jan. 8, 1986, when the average fell to
1,526.61.
Analysts said the big drop was no cause for panic. The market just
needs to relax after climbing so far so fast. When Wall Street
started its surge last autumn the average stood just below 1,300.
In percentage terms, the drop in the Dow industrials was only 2.3
percent of the average's total value. That was far less than on the
day that went down in history as Black Monday - Oct. 28, 1929 - when
the average that has become Wall Street's best-known barometer
plummeted 12.9 percent in value.
New reports about the nuclear disaster in the Soviet Union set a
nervous tone in the market and left traders reluctant to hold utility
and other issues.
AP-NY-05-01-86 0035EDT
- - - - - -
a063 0558 01 May 86
PM-News Advisory,0071
-PM-US-Soviet Accident Rdp, a048. Update planned with comments from
Soviet attache.
AP-NY-05-01-86 0857EDT
- - - - - -
a086 0855 01 May 86
PM-Newspage Stocks, 1st Ld - Writethru, a004,0290
Stocks Drop Again Today
Eds: Updates throughout with prices dropping again in early trading
today
NEW YORK (AP) - Stock prices dropped again today in early trading,
one day after the market suffered its worst single-day point loss in
history, a retreat blamed largely on pessimism over the economy and
the Soviet nuclear disaster.
The Dow Jones average of 30 industrial stocks, Wall Street's
best-known barometer, fell 5.09 points to 1,778.89 in the first
half-hour of trading today.
Broader indicators of stock values also declined. The New York Stock
Exchange composite index, which measures all listed issues, fell 0.76
to 134.99 in early trading. The American Exchange market value index
fell 0.87 to 268.10.
Losers outran gainers by a 4-1 margin on the New York Stock
Exchange, where volume exceeded 21.4 million shares in early trading.
On Wednesday, the Dow Jones industrials plunged 41.91 to 1,783.98,
the indicator's biggest one-day point loss, eclipsing the previous
record plunge of 39.10 points set Jan. 8.
In percentage terms, the drop in the Dow industrials was only 2.3
percent of the average's total value. That was far less than on the
day that went down in history as Black Monday - Oct. 28, 1929 - when
the average plummeted 12.9 percent in value.
New reports about the nuclear disaster in the Soviet Union set a
nervous tone in the market and left traders reluctant to hold utility
and other issues. But analysts said the big drop was no cause for
panic, arguing that the market needs to relax after climbing to
record heights over the past several months. When Wall Street started
its surge last autumn the average stood just below the 1,300 level.
AP-NY-05-01-86 1152EDT
- - - - - -
a202 1028 01 May 86
PM-Newspage Stocks, 2nd Ld, a086,0140
Stocks Drop Again Today
Eds: Leads with 4 grafs to UPDATE with noon figures
NEW YORK (AP) - Stock prices edged lower at midday today, one day
after the market suffered a record single-day point loss on one index
in a retreat blamed largely on pessimism over the economy and the
Soviet nuclear disaster.
The Dow Jones average of 30 industrial stocks, Wall Street's
best-known barometer, fell 5.33 points to 1,778.65 by noon EDT.
Broader indicators of stock values also declined. The New York Stock
Exchange composite index, which measures all listed issues, fell 0.50
to 135.25. The American Exchange market value index fell 0.97 to
268.0.
Losers outran gainers by a nearly 4-1 ratio on the New York Stock
Exchange, where volume totaled 67.16 million shares at noon.
On Wednesday,: 5th graf
AP-NY-05-01-86 1327EDT
***************
a006 2204 30 Apr 86
PM-US-Soviet Accident Rdp, Bjt,1035
Kremlin Stonewalling, U.S. Officials Complain
Laserphoto WX5
By GUY DARST
Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) - A prominent senator, citing Kremlin efforts to
''conceal the magnitude'' of the nuclear disaster in Cherbonyl, is
calling on the State Department to provide aircraft for American
tourists who ''wish to be evacuated'' from the Soviet Union.
U.S. officials say stonewalling from Moscow is making it difficult
to advise American travelers about radiation hazards in the Soviet
Union.
Noting that other countries such as France and Finland had taken
steps to evacuate citizens from Kiev, 60 miles from the Chernobyl
reactors, one U.S. official said the United States would take every
step to protect its citizens.
''We want some indication of the radiation intensity,'' the official
said. ''They are not being helpful.''
The official, who would discuss the new strain in relations only on
grounds he not be identified, said this country had been deliberately
soft-pedaling its criticism of Soviet responsiveness, partly out of
concern the Kremlin might be even less inclined to cooperate in the
face of harsh statements from Washington.
He said there is a perception in the U.S. government that the
magnitude of the tragedy has ''overwhelmed'' the Kremlin and
''paralyzed the decision-making process, as it could ours.''
In Bali, Indonesia, President Reagan told reporters that Soviet
leader Mikhail Gorbachev had contacted U.S. officials about the
Chernobyl nuclear plant disaster but that there was no response to an
American offer of humanitarian and technical aid.
''We're trying to keep track of what's going on over there but we're
limited in our knowledge,'' the president said.
Word of contact with Gorbachev came as U.S. officials in Washington
were complaining that the Soviet Union was not providing enough
detail on the power plant accident to allow experts to gauge the
health hazard.
''Among the many concerns arising from the disaster in Cherbonyl is
the safety of U.S. travelers in the Soviet Union, particularily
children and pregnant women,'' Sen. Daniel Moynihan said in a letter
Wednesday to the Undersecretary of State John C. Whitehead.
Moynihan said his staff had ''already been in contact with Finnair,
which has volunteered to help speed the departure'' of American
tourists.
''In view of the continuing Soviet effort to conceal the magnitude
of this disaster, I ask that the State Department keep U.S. travelers
fully informed of the health risks confronting them, and that
aircraft be provided for those who wish to be evacuated.''
Though the nation's intelligence agencies have been able to glean
much information from satellite photos, analysts cannot detect or
measure radiation on the ground.
That helped explain how a dispute arose among U.S. intelligence
analysts over whether a second of the four Chernobyl reactors had
suffered a meltdown.
One official said a second meltdown was under way, but another
emerged from an intelligence briefing to say, on the basis of what he
had been told, that such a hypothesis was ''dead wrong.''
No one, though, disputed this description of the scene as of
Wednesday by an official who spoke under ground rules that prevent
his identification:
''The condition of that (reactor) building is that the top was blown
off. There is considerable blast damage and rubble around it. Vapors
and smoke are escaping from a large hole in the roof of the reactor
building. In addition, there is a large generator hall next to the
reactor building. Parts of that roof are also missing. There is
significant damage there.''
All schools of analysts insisted they had no way to measure
casualties, whether a handful or in the thousands.
Harold Denton of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission told reporters a
still-unexplained loss of coolant flow caused reactor fuel tubes to
overheat and graphite fuel cladding to react with remaining water.
''As a result of the metal-water reactions, the pressure tube
cladding began to fail and steam began to attack the graphite.
Graphite will react with water to produce hydrogen and carbon
monoxide and other combustible products. There is every indication
that as a result of this interaction between the cladding and the
steam and air, a violent explosion occurred inside the reactor
core.''
There were these other developments:
-Grain and meat prices continued soaring on U.S. commodities
exchanges, and shares of utilities and food processing companies were
prominent among losers on the stock markets.
-Democrats on the House Interior Committee used the example of the
Soviet accident to win a two-week delay in consideration of a
Republican move to cut the nuclear industry's maximum reactor
accident liability from $8.2 billion to $2 billion. The committee had
voted 21-20 last week to raise the limit from the present $650
million to $8.2 billion.
-Some travel agents reported cancellations of trips to the Soviet
Union, but the New York office of the Soviet travel agency,
Intourist, said it was too early to tell if a significant drop in
business had occurred.
-The Ukrainian Congress Committee of America criticized Soviet
safety precautions. Telephone lines to the Soviet Union by U.S.
citizens worried about relatives in the Ukraine and elsewhere were
reported jammed.
Lee Thomas, administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency,
went public with the issue of the Soviet's lack of candor from the
very start of what has become the world's gravest nuclear power plant
accident.
''We're very concerned about the notification issue,'' Thomas said.
''And I think that as we get better information about exactly when
the event occurred, when notification could have been made, I think
we'll be able to draw more conclusions about that concern.''
European countries have been making this point in strong terms from
the beginning.
The official who discussed the matter anonymously noted that
higher-than-normal radiation levels have been detected in Norway, 900
miles from the accident site. Moscow is only half as far away but the
Soviets have said nothing about the radiation level there, he said.
Some 278 Americans are posted in the Soviet Union - 190 officials in
Moscow, 24 in the consular office in Leningrad, 25 U.S. businessmen
in Moscow and 39 journalists.
AP-NY-05-01-86 0104EDT
- - - - - -
a008 2217 30 Apr 86
PM-US-Soviet Accident Rdp, SUB, a006,0058
WASHINGTON, to CORRECT to zirconium fuel cladding sted graphite fuel
cladding, SUB for 19th graf, Harold Denton ... remaining water.
Harold Denton of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission told reporters a
still-unexplained loss of coolant flow caused reactor fuel tubes to
overheat and zirconium fuel cladding to react with remaining water.
''As a, 20th graf
AP-NY-05-01-86 0117EDT
- - - - - -
a024 0058 01 May 86
PM-US-Soviet Accident Rdp, 1st Ld, a006,0128
EDs: CORRECTS number of miles in 3rd graf to 80 sted of 60.
By GUY DARST
Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) - A prominent senator, citing Kremlin efforts to
''conceal the magnitude'' of the nuclear disaster in Cherbonyl, is
calling on the State Department to provide aircraft for American
tourists who wish to be evacuated from the Soviet Union.
U.S. officials say stonewalling from Moscow is making it difficult
to advise American travelers about radiation hazards in the Soviet
Union.
Noting that other countries such as France and Finland had taken
steps to evacuate citizens from Kiev, 80 miles from the Chernobyl
reactors, one U.S. official said the United States would take every
step to protect its citizens.
''We want, 4th graf
AP-NY-05-01-86 0357EDT
- - - - - -
a041 0332 01 May 86
PM-Digest Advisory,0124
All the budgets have moved. Here is a list with Laserphoto numbers:
WASHINGTON - PM-US-Soviet Accident Rdp, a006, a008, a024. Laserphoto
WX5.
NEW YORK - PM-Ellis Ad, a007. Laserphoto NY8.
WASHINGTON - PM-Soviet-Nuclear-Impact, a009
CAMBRIDGE - PM-Chernobyl Profile, a010
KUALA LUMPUR - PM-Nancy-Drugs, a011
WASHINGTON - PM-Soviet Accident-US Intelligence, a013
WASHINGTON - PM-Nuclear-Crops, a014
NEW YORK - PM-Polar Expedition, a015, a023
MEXICO CITY - PM-Latin Nuclear, a016
JERUSALEM - PM-Israel-Reactor, a017
UNDATED - PM-US-Ukrainian Reax, a018. Laserphoto NY5.
DALLAS - PM-Five Texases, a019
TOKYO - PM-Summit-Diplomacy, a022
LONDON - PM-British Prisons, a026
BALI - PM-Reagan, a035
MOSCOW - PM-Nuclear Disaster, a040. Laserphoto WX6.
The AP
AP-NY-05-01-86 0632EDT
- - - - - -
a048 0421 01 May 86
PM-US-Soviet Accident Rdp, 2nd Ld, a006, a008, a024,0272
URGENT
EDS: UPDATES with Shultz saying Soviets rejected U.S. offer of
assistance
By GUY DARST
Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) - The Soviet Union has rejected the U.S. offer of
assistance in dealing with the nuclear disaster in Cherbonyl, and
casualties from the accident are higher ''by a good measure'' than
the Kremlin has acknowleged, Secretary of State George Shultz said
today.
''They did reply that they appreciated the offer (of assistance) and
they don't sense any need for it at this point,'' said Shultz in
Bali, Indonesia, where he is accompanying President Reagan on his
13-day Far East trip.
He said the Soviets ''felt they had what they needed to deal with
the problem.''
The Soviet decision was relayed to officials in Washington, Shultz
said. He said he did not know when it was received, but that he
learned of it this morning.
The Soviet Union has said that two people were killed in the
accident and that 197 were injured. Shultz said ''the scope of the
accident is certainly a major one'' and that ''the casualty rates are
higher than those that have been announced by the Soviet Union by a
good measure.''
He did not provide any figures, but said the United States has ''a
fuller picture'' of the accident's dimension that has been presented
by Moscow.
On Wednesday, a prominent senator, citing Kremlin efforts to
''conceal the magnitude'' of the nuclear disaster in Cherbonyl,
called on the State Department to provide aircraft for American
tourists who wish to be evacuated from the Soviet Union.
U.S. officials, 2nd graf
AP-NY-05-01-86 0721EDT
- - - - - -
a073 0721 01 May 86
PM-US-Soviet Accident Rdp, 2nd Ld, Insert, a048,1217
WASHINGTON Insert after6th graf: He did xxx by Moscow
Presidential spokesman Larry Speakes, also in Bali, said on the CBS
''Morning News'' that Soviet and U.S. officials had met three times
to discuss the accident.
''In the first meeting, we offered assistance; in the second
meeting, they provided us a report that indicated the scope of the
accident there, without replying to our offer of help; and, in the
third meeting, they did reply to our offer of help.''
Speakes repeated the U.S. assessment that ''they do have a fire in
progress'' but would not divulge on what that was based except to
say, ''We know more than the Soviets have indicated to their own
people.''
Sen. Patrick Leahy, the ranking Democrat on the Senate intelligence
committee, said in an interview on ABC-TV's ''Good Morning America,''
that the accident amounted to ''an incalculable disaster for the
Soviet Union.''
He said none of the four reactors at the Chernobyl site would be
usable again and added that ''the ultimate effect on crops in that
area,'' the country's breadbasket, ''are almost incalculable.''
Yet Soviet Foreign Ministry spokesman Vladimir Lomeiko, on the same
show minutes earlier, maintained that ''everything is under control
now.''
As to why the offers of help from the United States and others have
been rejected, Lomeiko said, ''Each country has the right of
investigating the tragedies of this sort.''
He also charged:
''There is a campaign in the West that does not want to acknowledge
the data that the Soviet government is providing. This is a very
serious matter and a campaign has been released of misinformation, in
fact, and it is being fanned up on all networks. . . . And that
creates an image of the lying Russians.''
On Wednesday,: 7th graf
AP-NY-05-01-86 1018EDT
- - - - - -
a218 1201 01 May 86
PM-US-Soviet Accident Rdp, 3rd Ld, a048,0324
EDs: First 7 grafs new
By GUY DARST
Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) - The Soviet Union has rejected - at least for now -
the U.S. offer of assistance in dealing with the nuclear disaster in
Chernobyl, the U.S. task force set up to monitor the disaster said
today.
The interagency group also said that Soviet authorities ''have
reported that they have smothered the fire'' burning at the
four-reactor site. But a statement from the task force added that
''from our information, it is not clear whether the fire is out or
not.''
The task force noted that infrared photos taken by the Landsat
satellite showed a second heat source at Chernobyl. The statement
said that, while experts ''cannot confirm news reports of damage at a
second reactor,'' it has been determined that the hot spot in the
satellite photo ''is not a reactor.''
As for Tuesday's offer of U.S. aid to the Soviet Union, the
statement noted that a senior Soviet official on Wednesday
''delivered a note to the Department of State expressing appreciation
for our offer of assistance and stating that, for the time being,
assistance is not needed.''
The statement also said that radiation monitors in the United States
and Canada had detected no increase in radioactive particles from the
plume generated by the accident.
Rather, the task force said, the radioactive air mass ''is now
widely dispersed throughout northern Europe and polar regions.
Portions of radioactivity off the northwest Norwegian coast yesterday
morning should continue to disperse with possible movement toward the
east in the next several days. Other portions of the radioactive air
mass may move eastward through the Soviet Union and through the polar
regions over the coming week.''
Earlier, Secretary of State George Shultz said casualties from the
accident are higher ''by a good measure'' than the Kremlin has
acknowledged.
The Soviet Union has: 5th graf
AP-NY-05-01-86 1501EDT
***************
a009 2231 30 Apr 86
PM-Soviet-Nuclear-Impact Bjt,0764
The Diplomatic Fallout from Chernobyl May Haunt Moscow for Years
Eds: Stands for item slugged Soviet Accident-Impact on the News
Digest
By BRYAN BRUMLEY
Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) - The Kremlin's failure to answer questions about
the Cherbonyl reactor calamity is not in line with Soviet leader
Mikhail Gorbachev's reputed candor campaign and could thrust Soviet
ties with the outside world into a nuclear winter of many years,
experts predict.
''The longer they stonewall, the longer the rest of the world is
going to be hostile,'' said Marshall Goldman, a professor at Harvard
University's Russian Research Institute.
''We forget things after a while. But I don't think we will forget
this so easily,'' said Goldman, predicting that the Chernobyl
disaster would damage Soviet ties with the outside world far more
than the downing of a Korean Air Lines jet in 1983 or the invasion of
Afghanistan in 1979.
''If the Soviet Union does not open up and make a lot of information
available, it could lead Western nations to be much more skeptical
about cooperation in other areas,'' said Loren Graham, a specialist
on Soviet science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
''It's not going to go away,'' said Goldman. ''They cannot take the
traditional Soviet response: 'hunker down, it will go away.' It is
something more than the KAL incident. There is no way they can blame
this on anybody else.''
In Bali, Indonesia, President Reagan told reporters Gorbachev had
contacted U.S. officials about the nuclear disaster but that there
was no response on an American offer of humanitarian and technical
aid.
''We're trying to keep track of what's going on over there but we're
limited in our knowledge,'' the president said.
Reagan did not say when or how Gorbachev had been in touch with U.S.
officials.
The meltdown was believed to be most severe crisis faced by
Gorbachev since he rose to power in March 1985, and he did not appear
to be living up to his calls for ''glastnost,'' or candor, said
experts in and out of government.
The Soviet leader had not answered increasingly sharp demands for
information by Western European nations, which are normally
circumspect in their statements regarding the giant to their east.
State Department officials said it was too soon to predict whether
the accident would alter Soviet dealings with the United States,
ranging from plans for a summit to arms control talks in Geneva or
U.S. plans to open a consulate in the Ukrainian capital of Kiev.
One State Department official said it appeared ''the Soviets are
involved in a cover-up. ... It may be like Afghanistan. We know there
are atrocities going on but there is nothing we can do.''
''We were hoping that they would learn the lesson that cooperation
works better than secrecy. And that might lead them to agreements on
arms control or other issues,'' said the State Department official,
who spoke on condition of anonymity.
Nations throughout Western Europe angrily urged Moscow to provide
more information about radiation from the crippled reactor, which was
first detected by Swedish workers Monday, before the Soviet Union
acknowledged the accident had occurred.
''Soviet society is far too primitive to use such a sophisticated
technique as nuclear power,'' thundered the newspaper Svenska
Dagbladet, of neutral Sweden.
The West German government called for the Soviet Union to shut down
other nuclear plants.
''What kind of people govern the Soviet Union?'' demanded Die Welt,
a conservative West German newspaper.
Poul Schueter, the prime minister of Denmark, said ''it shouldn't be
that way in a modern society. If anything like this would ever happen
again, the Danish and other governments would be notified.''
Graham, of MIT, held out the hope that the Chernobyl accident would
prompt Moscow to reach a pact to allow international teams to inspect
reactors in Eastern and Western Europe.
''Gorbachev has agreed to on-site inspections for arms control,''
said Graham. ''Surely, he could allow foreigners in their reactor
plants'' for safety inspections.
While the Soviet media carried only sketchy reports on the disaster,
Polish authorities warned of radioactive contamination along the
border, prompting some U.S. experts to predict strained relations
between Moscow and its satellite neighbors over the accident.
The failure of Soviet media to carry similar precautions about
radiation warnings for the population could raise the casualty count
from the accident and make it hard for Kremlin leaders to accuse
other nations of human rights abuse, experts said.
AP-NY-05-01-86 0130EDT
***************
a010 2243 30 Apr 86
PM-Chernobyl Profile, Bjt,0657
Bustling River Town Is Site Of Soviet Nuclear Accident
By ARNOLD ZEITLIN
Associated Press Writer
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. (AP) - Chernobyl was an old, bustling river town
known for furs and proud of its single wide-screen movie house before
joining Hiroshima, Nagasaki and Three Mile Island as a synonym for
nuclear calamity.
Lithuanian lords, Polish nobles, Cossacks, White and Red Russians
and Nazis fought over the Ukrainian city since it was first mentioned
in historical documents in 1193.
The nuclear power plant near Chernobyl, where a still-unknown
disaster has spewed radiation over much of Europe, was begun in 1972,
a high mark in the development of the city.
Articles and other material giving a picture of the Prypiat River
city and assembled Wednesday by Harvard University's Ukrainian
Research and Russian Research institutes provide little detail about
the city after 1972.
An article in the Ukrainian Encyclopedia written by emigre scholars
and published in the West report that the Chernobyl plant, 60 miles
north of Kiev, was the region's first. It was completed in 1977 and
scheduled in 1985 to reach a capacity of 4 million kilowatts.
Not only did the city have 44 physicians, a hospital, three middle
schools with 2,300 students and two libraries, according to the 1971
Soviet edition of the Ukrainian-language ''Towns and Villages of the
Ukraine,'' it also boasted a cinema with a wide screen.
The edition was the latest in the Harvard University library, said
Lubomyr Hajda, a Ukrainian born in Poland and now teaching at
Harvard.
The article described Chernobyl as a town of about 10,000 people
with a broad central square and well-laid-out streets built since the
Nazis destroyed the port, sinking 22 ships and vessels, tortured 500
people and shipped others to German labor camps. It had a stadium, a
park and a local newspaper called ''The Banner of Victory.''
Chernobyl, near the confluence of the Prypiat and the Dnepr rivers,
has been a district capital for centuries. Where serfs once worked up
to five days for their feudal lords before they were allowed to work
their own crops, state and communal farms provide cattle for milk and
meat, flax for linen and potatoes and other vegetables.
Despite claims in Soviet publications that capitalists brought
insufferable conditions to Chernobyl, its population grew after the
1861 liberation of the serfs. It surpassed 16,000 in the late 19th
century, but as Josef Stalin was gaining victory over Leon Trotsky in
1926, the population was down to 9,300.
The city thrived in the late 19th century, with guilds for tailors,
smiths and furriers, trade fairs seven times a year, factories making
candles, others employing women skilled in embroidery, and repair
facilities for river boats.
In 1910, the city had two physicians and three midwives.
The Soviet publications were silent on what documents first
mentioned Chernobyl. By the end of the 14th century, it had been
conquered by the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, then Europe's largest
power. By 1569, Polish nobles ruled, provoking a 1648-54 Cossack
rebellion throughout the Ukraine.
But Chernobyl actually didn't become part of Russia until the
partition of Poland in 1793. The town was mobilized and armed in the
1812 Napoleonic War, but Napoleon never showed up.
Soviet chronicles describe worker uprisings in Chernobyl during the
1905 revolution. After Russia pulled out of World War I, German
troops occupied Chernobyl in March 1918.
By December 1918, an independent Ukrainian government held sway.
Soviet troops took the city in February 1919. White Russians, backed
by Russia's World War I allies, held the town in September, but lost
it to the Red Army two months later.
Poles took the town in April 1920, losing it to the Red Army in
June.
Little is written in Soviet chronicles of Stalin's policies driving
landowners off their land in the Ukraine and the 1932-33 famine that
killed millions.
''Socialist transformations occurred in the lives of the peasants,''
the 1971 account of the period obliquely reported.
AP-NY-05-01-86 0142EDT
***************
a013 2314 30 Apr 86
PM-Soviet Accident-US Intelligence, Bjt,0639
Soviet Nuclear Disaster Shows U.S. Ability To Snoop With Satellites
By TIM AHERN
Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) - The ability of American spy satellites to peer
into other nations has been impressively demonstrated in recent days
as the U.S. government released detailed information on the Soviet
nuclear disaster, U.S. officials say.
''We have very, very good satellite technology,'' Sen. William
Cohen, R-Maine, and a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee,
said Wednesday. ''This has been quite a demonstration of it.''
With the Soviet government providing scant information, considerable
detail about what happened has come from U.S. intelligence sources,
speaking on condition of anonymity.
At least two types of American satellites are now orbiting over the
Soviet Union, picking up information and beaming it to the United
States, those sources said Wednesday.
One is a KH-11 photo reconnaissance satellite that is sending back
pictures of the devastated reactor at Chernobyl. The other is a ''Big
Bird'' satellite with infrared capability that can easily track the
enormous heat generated by the still-burning nuclear fire, those
sources said.
At least one of those satellites was rerouted to have it pass
directly over Chernobyl after the accident occurred, the sources
said.
In recent weeks, there have been a series of charges by
administration officials that congressional sources with access to
intelligence are leaking it to the press, and countercharges from
Capitol Hill that the leaks are coming from the administration.
But in the current case, there is little criticism from Congress
about the information being made public.
''In view of the fact that there is little justification for
classifying what is a major international disaster and not a military
matter, I don't see any problem with releasing this information,''
Cohen said.
Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., vice chairman of the Intelligence
Committee and a frequent critic of administration leaks, agreed.
''I don't have any problem with the administration giving out this
information like they're doing, as long as they're careful not to
give away the store on their ability to monitor the Soviets,'' Leahy
said.
''We've relied heavily on our overhead collection ability,'' said
Sen. John Warner, R-Va., a member of the Armed Services Committee.
''I think the administration has been very forthcoming with Congress
in providing us with real-time information.''
In military jargon, ''real-time'' is the phrase used for information
that is provided as it is occurring or shortly afterwards.
Cohen called the current situation ''an absolute pluperfect case of
how surveillance can be used for peaceful purposes.''
It was the second time in less than three weeks that America's
technological surveillance capabilities had been vividly
demonstrated.
On April 14, when President Reagan went on national television to
announce the bombing of Libya, he said he was acting because the
United States had incontrovertible evidence Libya had been directly
involved in the April 5 bombing of a West Berlin disco that killed
one American serviceman and injured dozens more.
U.S. officials said later that the National Security Agency, the
nation's largest and most secretive intelligence organization, had
intercepted messages sent between Tripoli and a Libyan ''People's
Bureau'' that provided a clear link between Libyan strongman Moammar
Khadafy and the West Berlin attack.
Sen. Malcolm Wallop, R-Wyo., cautioned Wednesday that what the
Soviets say about the Chernobyl disaster may be conditioned on what
the United States admits it knows.
''They are waiting to see what our intelligence can produce before
they say anything,'' he said.
U.S. officials have said repeatedly they didn't know about Chernobyl
until Swedish officials raised the public warning flag Monday
morning.
''But if Sweden hadn't raised it, the satellites would have found it
soon enough,'' said one source. ''It's pretty hard to miss something
that big.''
AP-NY-05-01-86 0214EDT
***************
a014 2327 30 Apr 86
PM-Nuclear-Crops, Bjt,0673
Spewing Radiation So Far Has Spared Soviet Cropland
By JIM DRINKARD
Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) - The plume of radioactivity streaming from the
crippled Chernobyl nuclear plant, located near the country's Ukranian
breadbasket, has so far largely spared the precious farmland and the
country's important winter wheat crop, say government and private
analysts.
Because winds have carried the nuclear cloud west and north, it has
skirted the areas where winter grain crops are growing, Norton D.
Strommen, chief meteorologist for the Agriculture Department's World
Agricultural Outlook Board, said Wednesday.
The board, through the National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration, has access to Soviet weather data under a cooperative
agreement, and believes the information it is receiving is accurate,
officials said.
The data showed that on Wednesday surface winds had diminished and
high-level air movement was mostly to the west.
''The major winter grain producing areas have been spared of any
contamination,'' Strommen said. Radioactive fallout has occurred in
some dairy areas, he said, although the extent of contamination
remained unclear.
Also unknown was whether, and how much, the fallout might affect
other livestock and the planting of spring crops, including grains
and vegetables, he said. Since most Soviet cropland is farther north
than American farming areas, spring planting season is just beginning
there.
The Soviet breadbasket is the Ukraine, the area south of Chernobyl
and north of the Black Sea. It produces major portions of the
country's staple grains and livestock and represents the best balance
of soil, rainfall and climate for agriculture in the Soviet Union.
''It's like Nebraska, parts of Iowa and Kansas, and Minnesota,''
said John Schnittker, a former Agriculture Department policymaker who
now is a Washington consultant on world farming.
Schnittker said the accident so far has had little effect on
agriculture, but he said that could change if winds shift and
radiation continues to spew from the plant.
''In my judgment, the prospective losses are relatively
insignificant, compared with the Russian expected harvest and
certainly compared with world stocks,'' Schnittker said. ''It's not a
big deal from the world grain standpoint.''
While the Soviets could lose perhaps 1 million to 2 million tons of
grain, total harvests this year are expected to be 180 million to 200
million tons. Worldwide, excess stocks being carried over into the
new crop year are 315 million tons, he noted, far more than enough to
make up any Soviet losses.
Livestock and dairy losses probably could be made up by nations like
New Zealand and members of the European Economic Community, which
frequently sell surplus butter and other products to the Soviets at
cut-rate prices, he said.
Other experts noted the long-standing Soviet ability to retrench and
tighten belts in times of shortage, and said any agricultural losses
from the accident would not necessarily create new markets for
foreign exporters.
Commodity futures markets have reacted with wild optimism to the
Soviet situation, believing that it promises stronger demand for
grains and higher prices, but Schnittker said such activity was based
only on speculation.
''I suspect the sharp rise in the markets will not be sustained and
will be reversed,'' he said.
Schnittker said judging from past experience with radiation leaks,
cropland in the immediate area of the plant will be rendered
unusable, but that will be a relatively small area.
''The long-term effects should be smaller than the short-term
effects'' as the radiation dissipates, he said.
Sheldon Myers, director of the Office of Radiation Programs for the
Environmental Protection Agency, said the largest radioactive
particles from the plant would fall out of the air within 100 to 200
miles of Chernobyl.
The range the contamination travels will depend largely on wind
patterns and precipitation, he said. A lack of rainfall will allow
the radiation to spread further and thus be more diluted, he said.
Another possible effect was contamination of the Ukraine's water
supply, which is fed by the Dneiper River downstream from the nuclear
power plant. But Strommen said since the area generally has adequate
rainfall, few crops there are irrigated.
AP-NY-05-01-86 0226EDT
- - - - - -
a087 0904 01 May 86
PM-Nuclear-Crops, 1st Ld, a014,0398
URGENT
Eds: First 10 grafs new, winds shift to cover some of prime farming
region
By JIM DRINKARD
Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) - Winds shifted today to carry the plume of
radioactivity streaming from the crippled Chernobyl nuclear plant
southwestward over some of the richest land in the Soviet Union's
Ukranian breadbasket, the Agriculture Department said.
The change in weather patterns was carrying radioactive particles
into the western Ukraine, one of the most productive Soviet winter
wheat areas, and into Romania, Hungary, eastern Czechoslovakia and
Austria, said Norton D. Strommen, chief meteorologist for the
Agriculture Department's World Agricultural Outlook Board.
Strommen said the new wind pattern appeared likely to remain stable
for at least 24 to 48 hours, meaning there was potential for fallout
in those areas and contamination of crops and livestock there,
although the extent of contamination remained unclear.
''At this point, it's very difficult to pinpoint a percentage, but
we can indicate this is the western end of some of the prime winter
grain areas,'' he said. ''It does include some of their best areas''
in terms of grain yields.
Strommen said all of the department's information sources, including
satellite surveillance, indicated that the flow of radioactive
contamination from the plant continued today and had not been
contained.
Until the winds shifted, prevailing breezes had kept the radioactive
plume to the west and north of the plant and away from the most
important agricultural areas.
Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont, the ranking Democrat on the Senate
intelligence committee, said today that ''the ultimate effect of
crops in that area is almost incalculable.''
Interviewed on ABC-TV's ''Good Morning America,'' Leahy added that
''you've got 6,000 megawatts of power they've shut down right there
in the Ukraine, in their breadbasket.'' He said he thinks the
accident will be ''an incalculable disaster for the Soviet Union.''
The outlook board, through the National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration, has access to Soviet weather data under a cooperative
agreement, and believes the information it is receiving is accurate,
officials said.
Officials were unclear as to whether, and how much, the fallout
might affect other livestock and the planting of spring crops,
including grains and vegetables. Since most Soviet cropland is
farther north than American farming areas, spring planting season is
just beginning there.
The Soviet: 7th graf
AP-NY-05-01-86 1203EDT
***************
a016 2350 30 Apr 86
PM-Latin Nuclear, Bjt,0748
Soviet Disaster Worries Latin Americans Over Nuclear Power
Development
By SOLL SUSSMAN
Associated Press Writer
MEXICO CITY (AP) - The Soviet nuclear disaster is causing serious
worry in Latin America, where governments have been trying to develop
atomic power despite a regional economic crisis.
Except for Cuba, most of the countries had to cut back their plans
for lack of money. Now, the meltdown of a Soviet reactor is creating
second thoughts about nuclear-generated electricity.
In Cuba, 90 miles south of Florida, President Fidel Castro has
boasted repeatedly that four planned reactors there are being built
with the best of Soviet technology.
The reactors, scheduled to begin operating in 1989, were designed by
Soviet specialists and are being built by Cuban and Bulgarian
workers. Indications are the Cubans will proceed with their plan
despite recent financial problems.
But now, countries like Argentina, Brazil and Mexico that have
delayed or cut back their plans are suddenly faced with new worries
about safety.
Mexicans have special cause for concern. Only 2 1/2 years ago, a worker
stole some Cobalt-60 from a hospital in Ciudad Juarez, across the
border from El Paso, Texas, and sold it to a junkyard, setting off a
serious release of radiation.
The 44-pound cylinder used in cancer treatments was melted for
scrap, contaminating 6,000 tons of steel later used to make
construction rods and metal tables and chairs. An estimated 500 tons
of the ''hot'' steel entered the United States before being detected.
Much of that steel has been retrieved and buried in six mammoth
concrete coffins in northern Mexico's Samalayuca desert. The
government declared the emergency over and the matter was virtually
forgotten until this week.
But the Soviet accident at Chernobyl has revived worries about
safety at the Laguna Verde plant on the Gulf of Mexico, which is
supposed to be tested this year and go into operation in 1987.
''The accident calls for reflection. How will these installations
fare facing international terrorism; how well prepared will we be in
Mexico to control one of these failures in the Laguna Verde plant?''
asked Mexico City's El Sol newspaper in an editorial Wednesday.
Laguna Verde was planned as the first of 10 to 20 plants, to be
built with Mexican oil money by the year 2000 at an estimated cost of
$20 billion. But sagging oil prices since 1982 have sent its economy
into a tailspin from which it has yet to recover.
Started in 1978, Laguna Verde was delayed several times by technical
problems, some of them reportedly involving safety. The Nuclear
Research Institute recently claimed it has trained people and the
necessary equipment to deal with almost any problem that might
develop.
Perhaps, the newspaper Excelsior suggested, the entire concept of
nuclear energy should be re-examined.
''The peaceful use of the atom to generate energy is very far still
from being perfected and the risks for the ecology are immense ...
there exists no standard design for reactors and the countries
involved in their development adopt jealous attitudes so as not to
share their technology in this area,'' it said.
Brazilians jokingly call their only functioning reactor, built by
Westinghouse near Rio de Janeiro, ''vagalume,'' or firefly in
Portuguese, because it constantly goes on and off due to maintenance
problems. But so far there have been no leaks.
''Vagalume'' was part of a plan initiated in the 1970's to build
nine reactors with West German technology as the best answer to
Brazil's chronic fuel shortage. The country has virtually no usable
petroleum deposits.
But economic difficulties reduced the project to only two more
plants - and doubts are now developing about these because of the
Soviet incident.
''Does this incident and former ones justify rethinking the use of
nuclear energy for military and peaceful ends?'' asked Sao Paulo's
influential newspaper O Estado.
Considered Latin America's leader in nuclear energy, Argentina
confidently fired up in 1974 the first of six reactors plants it
planned to build by the year 2000. A second one was started in 1983,
and a third is due for completion by 1990.
But that plan, too, has been pruned for lack of money. Now
Argentines are having second thoughts about the entire project.
''While the radioactive cloud resulting from the (Soviet) accident
moves across the skies of northern Europe, men and women from all
over the world worriedly wonder about the possibility that someday
something similar might occur where they live,'' Argentina's largest
circulation daily, Clarin, warned in an editorial Wednesday.
AP-NY-05-01-86 0249EDT
***************
a017 2359 30 Apr 86
PM-Israel-Reactor, Bjt,0517
Former Engineer Blasts Soviets Nuclear Construction
JERUSALEM (AP) - The disaster at the Soviet Union's Chernobyl
nuclear power plant could be repeated at any of the Soviets'
estimated 44 other reactors because of shoddy design and poor
management, said an engineer who helped build the Chernobyl plant.
Boris Tokarasky, who emigrated to Israel in 1978, also said in an
interview broadcast today on Israel's Armed Forces Radio that the
fire raging in at least one of Chernobyl's four reactors could
continue ''until the material runs out. ... It could be months or
even years.''
Tokarasky, 49, was a quality engineer with the Soviet Union's
Institute for Reactor and Power Station Construction, and said he was
involved with the construction of the Chernobyl plant before he
emigrated.
''The nuclear reactors in the Soviet Union are of such a safety
standard that what happened in Chernobyl could happen very soon in
any of the other reactors in the Soviet Union, and I have no doubt of
this,'' Tokarasky said in the interview.
He also said he doubted official Soviet claims that only two people
died in the accident. Other reports vary widely, with some saying
hundreds of people may have died.
Four shifts of 100 people each worked in the immediate reactor area,
with hundreds more in other units nearby, Tokarasky said.
Tokarasky was critical of the attitude he encountered during his
work on Soviet reactors.
''There was a fault (technical problem) in the city of
Novokuybyshevsk; there was an explosion in which three people were
killed,'' he said. ''The directors there told me, 'We will rebuild
the buildings from the same drawings, but we will move them 100-200
meters away from each other, so that if there is another fault, only
those who are close by will be hurt.' ... This is the sort of
responsibility and safety they had.''
He also told of an instance in which a pipe was vibrating
dangerously in a reactor near Leningrad. Tokarasky said he and his
colleagues suggested that a section be welded to provide added
strength while minimizing the repair crew's exposure to radiation.
''The Russian directors there told us they had done more - they
welded the whole pipe, using many work hours,'' he said. ''As a
result, the workers were exposed to a high level of risk and the pipe
was also damaged (by being too stiff).
''And when we asked about the over-exposure to radiation, we were
told 'It's no problem. We gave the workers milk,' '' he said.
Soviet nuclear reactors use the same turbines and pressure pipes as
coal-fired power stations because the Soviet system is not
sophisticated enough to develop systems especially for nuclear
stations, he said. ''Their technological level is very low, and they
simply close their eyes to this,'' Tokarasky said.
Available technology also is not used properly in the Soviet plants,
he said.
One power station had a computerized control panel that indicated
which pipes for the transfer of radioactive material were
hermetically sealed. But the Soviet opertors still sent a man ''with
a big hammer'' to make sure, he said.
AP-NY-05-01-86 0259EDT
***************
a018 0012 01 May 86
PM-US-Ukrainian Reax, Bjt,0715
Ukrainian-Americans Can Do Little But Pray
LaserPhoto NY5
By NICHOLAS K. GERANIOS
Associated Press Writer
Ukrainian-Americans have flooded phone lines with little success in
reaching relatives in their homeland since the Soviets acknowledged a
nuclear disaster, and are mobilizing aid drives despite uncertainties
about whether relief will be accepted.
''It's like your hands are tied,'' said the Rev. Mychajlo Kuzma, at
St. Joseph's Ukrainian Catholic Church in Chicago, home to about
100,000 people of Ukrainian origin. ''All you can do is pray.''
Rallies and special church services were planned through the weekend
in such Ukrainian emigre centers as New York, Chicago and
Philadelphia. An estimated 2 million Americans are of Ukrainian
descent.
News of the fire at the Chernobyl atomic power plant came in the
week before Easter, which for most Orthodox and some Catholic
Ukrainians is observed this Sunday.
''A time of great happiness has turned into a time of great
tragedy,'' said the Rev. Patrick Paschak of St. George's Ukrainian
Catholic Church in New York, which has a Ukrainian community of
80,000 to 100,000.
Wednesday evening, more than 2,000 people, some crying, were in
church praying for relatives in the Ukraine, said Paschak.
Many Ukrainian families take their Easter meal to church in baskets
on Saturday for a special blessing.
''This year there will be black ribbons on the baskets,'' said Ronya
Lozynskyj of New York, an executive with the Ukrainian Congress
Committee of America.
While the Soviets had reported two people dead and 197 hospitalized
in the wake of the accident at the plant 60 miles north of the
Ukrainian capital of Kiev, unofficial reports of casualties were much
higher.
''We know reports of two dead are not true,'' said Kuzma.
Alexander Chernyk, president of the Ukrainian Educational and
Cultural Center in Philadelphia, reported trying to get information
over a short-wave radio. ''We are listening to Radio Kiev. They are
just reporting on the nice weather and other hogwash that has no
bearing on the tragedy that has occurred. They are talking about
preparations for May Day.''
Many with relatives in the area have tried to call Kiev, which has
2.4 million residents and is the Soviet Union's third-largest city.
''But nobody is answering in the city of Kiev,'' said the Rev.
Stephan Zencuch of St. Vladimir's Ukrainian Orthodox Church in
Chicago.
''I don't think the Soviets want us to get through,'' said Wasyl
Liscynesky, president of the Ukrainian United Organizations of
Cleveland, which has a Ukrainian community of about 20,000.
''I try to call, but the line is always busy,'' said Lidia Koval, a
New York City woman who been trying to reach her daughter, son-in-law
and 10-year-old grandson in Kiev.
Officials at American Telephone & Telegraph Co. in Pittsburgh, the
routing point for all U.S. calls to the Soviet Union, blame the
delays on the number of calls, saying they have tripled since the
accident.
Alexander Kotlyar of San Francisco, an engineer who left the Soviet
Union in 1979, said he reached relatives in Kiev and found them
unharmed. ''But they only know what Soviet radio says - that there
was an explosion, nothing more.''
Telling relatives in the Soviet Union about the disaster could cause
panic, said Svetlana Bogomolny, a University of Iowa instructor. ''If
I called them and told them to run away, what would they do?''
And there appeared no consensus on the question of helping family
and friends in the Ukraine - largely due to uncertainty about whether
the Soviets will accept such aid.
The Ukrainian center in the Philadelphia area, home to about 70,000
Ukrainian-Americans, is raising funds despite the uncertainty, said
Chernyk.
Liscynesky said his Cleveland group hopes to get assistance directly
to disaster victims. ''We will not be putting money in the hands of
the Communist bureaucrats,'' he said.
Victor Potapenko, a member of the Ukrainian Student Organization of
Michnowsky in Detroit, said his organization will hold a blood drive
next week for those injured in the nuclear accident.
''The idea is a symbolical gesture. We're expecting the blood to
reach there, but the way things are going, it may not,'' he said.
''By our symbolic effort, we want to ask the U.S. and the western
world to put pressure on the Soviet Union to tell the Ukrainians how
to survive the accident.''
AP-NY-05-01-86 0312EDT
***************
a022 0053 01 May 86
PM-Summit-Diplomacy, Bjt,0630
Nuclear Accident Rivals Terror and Trade for Summit Topics
By BARRY SCHWEID
AP Diplomatic Writer
TOKYO (AP) - The nuclear disaster in the Soviet Union probably will
rival terror and trade as a major topic of the seven-nation summit
opening Sunday and offers an unexpected opportunity for consensus
among world leaders sometimes at odds with each other.
The accident at the Chernobyl power plant near Kiev has sparked
health concerns across Europe and outrage throughout the world about
Kremlin secrecy.
Radioactive clouds already have been detected in two summit
countries, West Germany and Italy. Normally, prevailing winds blowing
west to east would have moved radioactive contamination toward Japan,
but that has not occurred because winds have gone in other
directions.
President Reagan, who arrives here Friday, complained today the
Soviets are ''usually a little close-mouthed about these things and
this is no exception.'' In a brief exchange with reporters in Bali,
Indonesia, Reagan said, ''I don't think we have any information that
isn't available to you already.''
Thousands of miles away, at a West European ministers' meeting in
Italy, Britain's foreign secretary, Sir Geoffrey Howe, said, ''The
Soviet Union has an obligation and duty to the international
community to give the fullest possible explanation of what happened
and why.''
Summit partners may well agree on criticism of Moscow for its
three-day delay in revealing the accident and its refusal to provide
information.
White House spokesman Larry Speakes, with Reagan in Bali, said the
disaster ''certainly could be discussed'' in Tokyo. ''It is a matter
on the minds of many of those (who will be) present.''
The meeting will bring together the leaders of the United States,
Canada, Japan, Britain, France, Italy and West Germany.
The Reagan administration, recognizing the fact that the world
measures summit meetings by the communiques issued at the windup, may
obtain a statement of unity on anti-terrorism. But U.S. officials say
they are not pressing the partners. ''It's not one we want to fight a
battle over,'' said Speakes.
In fact, some of the agreements that may be reached to combat
terrorism might be kept secret. Secretary of State George Shultz
said, ''I think there will be a concentration on the things that need
to be done ... probably things that shouldn't be announced and won't
be announced, although there may very well be some kind of statement
on the subject.''
In any event, the French have withdrawn their reservations to a
strong statement on terrorism. Of all the West European countries,
only the French people registered a majority, 61 percent, in support
of the U.S. attack on Libya in polls taken immediately aferward.
In fact, administration officials said President Francois Mitterrand
suggested stronger U.S. measures before the air strike was carried
out.
At the same time, though, polls show a majority of French people
support their government's decision not to allow the U.S. F111s to
fly over France, which added 2,400 miles to the jet fighter planes'
roundtrip journey. And people all over Western Europe were plunged by
a spate of terrorist incidents into a debate over the value of strong
U.S. ties.
However, West European governments have sent scores of Libyan
diplomats packing or restricted their travel. There is now closer
sharing of intelligence with the United States and curbs put on
Libyan trade.
In the trade discussions, Reagan and Treasury Secretary James A.
Baker III will try to open Japan, Canada and Western Europe to a
heavier influx of U.S. factory and agricultural products.
The United States is operating at a huge trade deficit with its
summit partners - $49.7 billion last year with Japan, $27.4 billion
with Western Europe, and $22.2 billion with Canada.
AP-NY-05-01-86 0352EDT
***************
a025 0102 01 May 86
BC-Sweden-Radiation,0186
URGENT
Soviets Ask Sweden To Help Radiation Victims
STOCKHOLM, Sweden (AP) - Soviet officials have asked Sweden if
Stockholm's Karolinska Hospital is prepared to receive people
suffering radiation sickness from the Soviet nuclear plant accident,
a hospital spokeswoman said Thursday.
Hospital spokeswoman Tania Blanck, quoting Karolinska's professor
Jan Wersaall, said that Soviet officials had made inquiries
Wednesday.
''They did not specify how many victims they wished to send, nor
what type of radiation injuries they wanted help with,'' she said.
Several hospitals in Stockholm are capable of treating radiation
injuries, but Karolinska is the only one in the Swedish capital which
has specialized equipment for radiation burn, Ms. Blanck said.
She said the victims were ''welcome, of course,'' but there was no
indication whether the Soviets had actually decided to send victims
to Sweden.
The Swedish government says it is willing to help the Soviets, but
the issue of aiding victims of radiation sickness did not come up at
a meeting on Wednesday between Foreign Ministry officials and Soviet
Ambassador Boris Pankin, said Foreign Ministry spokesman Ulf
Haakansson.
AP-NY-05-01-86 0402EDT
- - - - - -
a045 0402 01 May 86
BC-Sweden-Radiation, 1st Ld - Writethru, a025,0288
URGENT
Eds: LEADS throughout to update with hospital spokeswoman admitting
error.
STOCKHOLM, Sweden (AP) - Soviet officials have told Sweden they do
not need foreign help at this point in treating victims of radiation
sickness from the Chernobyl reactor accident, a Swedish Foreign
Ministry spokesman said Thursday.
The Soviet position emerged after a spokeswoman at Sweden's
Karolinska hospital corrected her report that Soviet officials
Wednesday had asked if Karolinska would be prepared to treat
radiation-sickness patients.
Actually, a doctor at Karolinska wrote to Sweden's National
Radiation Protection Institute asking if it was appropriate to offer
help to Soviet patients, said spokeswoman Tania Blanck, correcting
her earlier report.
A copy of the letter was sent to the Soviet Embassy, and a Soviet
aide had called to say only that the Soviet ambassador would be
informed of the letter's contents, the spokeswoman said.
''I'm sorry, I just found out that what I told you this morning was
not correct,'' Ms. Blanck told The Associated Press.
Her earlier statement had caused the Swedish Foreign Ministry to
seek clarification from the Soviet Embassy, and Foreign Ministry
spokesman Ulf Haakansson said a senior Soviet official had indicated
no outside assistance was required.
Haakansson said the official told Swedish officials ''the Soviet
Union has sufficient material, scientific and technical resources to
handle the consequences of the breakdown.''
''Therefore, at this point, there is no need for assistance from
other states,'' Haakansson quoted the official as saying. He did not
give the Soviet's name.
Haakansson said the Soviet claimed that radioactive discharges from
Chernobyl had decreased, and that the contaminated area 80 miles
north of the Ukrainian capital of Kiev was being cleaned up.
AP-NY-05-01-86 0701EDT
***************
a034 0219 01 May 86
PM-Soviet-May Day,0598
Soviet Workers Parade on Red Square, Absent Some of Adulation for
Leadership
By ROXINNE ERVASTI
Associated Press Writer
MOSCOW (AP) - Mikhail S. Gorbachev and other Politburo members
assembled atop Lenin's tomb today as workers trooped across Red
Square in a May Day celebration that seemed unaffected by a
disastrous nuclear accident near Kiev.
National television and radio broadcast live coverage of the
precision march by hundreds of thousands of participants, and major
newspapers also devoted much of their space to the officially
sanctioned workers' holiday.
The newspapers festooning their front pages with banner headlines in
red ink proclaiming ''happy holiday comrades,'' drawings of the
Kremlin and other festive decorations.
They paid scant attention to the nuclear disaster at Chernobyl in
the Ukraine, running a day-old government statement on their inside
pages.
But in keeping with Gorbachev's style, the celebration did lack some
of the adulation traditionally given Kremlin leaders.
For the first time in recent memory, the Soviets did not erect
portraits of the members of the Politburo, the Communist Party's
policy-making body, around the capital.
Gorbachev led the Politburo members and other leading officials onto
the top of the mausoleum that contains the remains of Vladimir I.
Lenin, founder of the Soviet state, just before the demonstration
began.
They waved to the crowd and received flowers from a column of
schoolboys and girls who scampered up the monument's steps.
The marching workers carried flowers, banners, placards and balloons
that turned Red Square into a sea of red, lavender, yellow, blue and
green. They were sheparded into the square along Moscow's main
streets by hundreds of civilian organizers and police, and kept in
neat ranks inside the square.
Television coverage showed all of the Moscow-based Politburo members
were on hand for the parade, including President Andrei A. Gromyko,
reported to have been hospitalized briefly in late April.
Gromyko, 76, the Politburo's senior member and former Soviet foreign
minister, appeared fit as he chatted with Gorbachev.
Portraits of Politburo members were carried in the mass of humanity
that surged across Red Square between the soaring walls of the
Kremlin and the huge GUM department store, which was decorated with a
four-story-high May Day poster.
On past May Day and Nov. 7 Revolution Day holidays, the leaders'
pictures were hung on several buildings in Moscow, along with Lenin's
portrait. Three-story-high portraits were put on metal stands on
Kutuzovksy Prospekt, a major thoroughfare in central Moscow.
But since coming to power in March 1985, Gorbachev has cut back on
some of the trappings of public adulation of the leadership, and now
the Kremlin apparently has decided to end the holiday tradition of
color portraits as well.
Many of the placards carried through Red Square focused on Soviet
proposals for disarmament and the Kremlin's call for a ban on space
weapons. Billboards on city streets also reflected these themes.
TV and radio reporters interviewed Soviets and foreign guests on the
square who said they supported Soviet arms control policy.
One worker interviewed said the Soviet Union was trying to ward off
''direct attempts by imperialism to thwart policies of peace and
disarmament.''
Early in the parade, officials piped a radio link to the Mir (Peace)
space station through the loudspeakers that also blared slogans and
patriotic music onto Red Square.
''We are celebrating May Day just as the entire country is, and in
fact together with the entire country,'' cosmonaut Leonid Kizim, who
has been aboard the orbiting plaform with Vladimir Solovev since
March 15, said from space.
''We want to make the world more beautiful with our work,'' Kizim
said.
AP-NY-05-01-86 0519EDT
***************
a038 0303 01 May 86
PM-Reagan-Nuclear,0514
Reagan Says Soviets Are Close-Mouthed on Nuclear Accident
By MICHAEL PUTZEL
AP White House Correspondent
BALI, Indonesia (AP) - President Reagan said today the Soviet Union
is being ''close-mouthed'' about the nuclear calamity in the Ukraine,
and that it would be helpful if the Kremlin gave the world more
information.
He said a message received from Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev did
not include a response to U.S. offers of assistance in treating
casualties and fighting the fire resulting from the world's worst
known nuclear accident.
''We're trying to keep track of what's going on over there,'' Reagan
told reporters at the start of a meeting with Indonesian President
Suharto. ''We're limited in our knowledge.''
Reagan said Gorbachev's message did not contain much information
that was not already generally known.
It ''would be helpful,'' Reagan said, if Gorbachev would provide
more details.
Gorbachev's message apparently was sent before he received the U.S.
offer of medical and technical assistance, Reagan told reporters.
Asked if the Soviets are telling the United States what it needs to
know, Reagan replied, ''Well, they're usually a little close-mouthed
about these things, and this is no exception.''
Later in the day, however, Reagan said he did not mean ''to suggest
a timetable for someone faced with this type of accident. That's up
to them to decide when they have all the information they want to
divulge.''
In his first public comments since learning of the disaster, Reagan
reiterated official U.S. assessments that the radioactive fallout
from the power plant explosion ''wouldn't represent any health
threat'' in the United States.
Presidential spokesman Larry Speakes, meanwhile, said when a Soviet
diplomat in Washington delivered Gorbachev's message on Wednesday the
envoy ''expressed appreciation for our offer but did not come back
with specific requests of any type.''
It appeared, Speakes said, that Gorbachev's message was drafted
before the aid offer and was simply a general diplomatic notice
intended for distribution to other nations around the world.
He said the two leaders' messages apparently ''crossed in the mail,
so to speak.''
Speakes said U.S. disaster teams have considerable knowledge about
the problems posed by fires of the type the Soviet reactor
experienced and could be helpful in controlling the damage.
Regarding the delay from Friday, when the accident occurred, until
Monday, when the Swedes first detected it and the Soviets issued
their first report, Speakes said:
''We believe the Soviet Union should notify other states of the
transboundary effects of the incident and furnish them with the
information necessary to address these effects.''
Although there are no international agreements that specifically
require notification when such incidents occur, Speakes said, ''it is
a principle accepted and customary in international law that an
incident likely to have transboundary effects should be notified in a
timely fashion.''
Had the United States been quickly informed about the accident, it
might have been able to provide advice and expertise to help the
Soviets contain the radioactive contamination that followed, Speakes
said.
AP-NY-05-01-86 0602EDT
- - - - - -
a055 0504 01 May 86
PM-Reagan-Nuclear, 1st Ld, a038,0274
Reagan Says Soviets Are Close-Mouthed on Nuclear Accident
Eds: Tops with 8 grafs on Shultz news kfc
By MICHAEL PUTZEL
AP White House Correspondent
BALI, Indonesia (AP) - President Reagan said today the Soviet Union
is being ''close-mouthed'' about the nuclear calamity in the Ukraine,
while Secretary of State George Shultz said the Kremlin is
understating accident casualties ''by a good measure.''
Shultz, at a news conference, also revealed Moscow has rejected the
offer of U.S. help in treating casualties and fighting the fire
resulting from the world's worst known nuclear accident.
He said the Soviets told the United States through diplomatic
channels in Washington that they appreciated the American offer but
''felt they had what they needed to deal with the problem.''
The secretary said U.S. photographs have provided the United States
with more information than the Soviets have revealed. Saying that the
scope of the accident ''is certainly a major one,'' Shultz said that
casualty rates ''are higher than those that have been announced by
the Soviet Union by a good measure.''
According to the Kremlin, two people were killed and 197 people were
injured. Shultz said he could not estimate what the actual figures
were.
Asked why Reagan didn't use the Soviet-American ''hotline'' to talk
with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev about the accident, Shultz said
there was no reason to do so.
''There is no threat; there's no major misunderstanding,'' the
secretary said. ''It would be a misuse of the hotline.''
Earlier, Reagan said it would be helpful if the Kremlin gave the
world more information.
''We're trying: 3rd graf
AP-NY-05-01-86 0804EDT
***************
a040 0329 01 May 86
PM-Nuclear Disaster, Bjt,0975
Soviets Say Radiation Falling; Reagan Says He and Gorbachev In Touch
LaserPhoto WX6
By ANDREW ROSENTHAL
Associated Press Writer
MOSCOW (AP) - The Soviet Union claims radiation levels around the
Chernobyl nuclear disaster are falling despite U.S. reports of a
raging fire and continued releases of radioactivity. President Reagan
said a message from the Kremlin today provided few details.
''We're trying to keep track of what's going on over there, but
we're limited in our knowledge,'' Reagan told reporters in Bali,
Indonesia, as he toured Asia.
On Wednesday, the Soviets reported that two people had been killed
and 197 injured in an accident at the Ukrainian nuclear power plant,
80 miles north of Kiev. The government statement said a reactor
building had been ripped apart, but gave no cause.
Asked today if Mikhail S. Gorbachev, the Soviet leader, had accepted
a U.S. offer for humanitarian and technical assistance, Reagan said,
''No, we've heard from him but he apparently has not received our
offer yet.''
Reagan did not specify how he and Gorbachev had been in contact, but
when asked if the Kremlin was providing U.S. officials with thorough
information, the president replied, ''Well, they're usually a little
close-mouthed about these things, and this is no exception.''
Soviet authorities and the state-run media have not given any
details of the accident, the condition of those injured or details on
the nuclear contamination caused by the cloud that has stretched
1,000 miles across parts of the Soviet Union, Eastern Europe and
Scandinavia.
A report on Wednesday evening's television news said there had been
no ''gigantic destruction or fire'' at the four-reactor complex, and
specifically denied reports that thousands had died in the weekend
mishap.
Wednesday's government statement said 49 of the 197 injured had been
discharged from hospitals after medical examinations, and that the
air quality in the region of Kiev, the Soviet Union's third-largest
city, ''evokes no concern.''
The government said the quality of drinking water meets Soviet
standards, that work was continuing to ''eliminate the consequences
of the accident,'' and that farms and factories were functioning
normally.
Neither state-run television nor the government has said whether
there had been an explosion at Chernobyl, as had been reported by
U.S. sources in Washington.
The government statement said the damaged reactor was safely shut
down and that ''the emanation of radioactive substances decreased.''
There was no allusion to reports by the U.S. sources that a second
reactor may have suffered a meltdown or may be threatened by one.
The U.S. sources, who spoke Wednesday on condition they not be
identified, said a fire at the first reactor was still venting smoke,
vapors and radiation into the air over the Ukraine.
The Soviets' tight-lipped handling of the disaster drew angry
attacks from Western European countries confronted by drifting
radioactivity, and measures continued to counter any health or safety
risks.
Sweden warned against drinking contaminated rainwater, and children
lined up at health centers in Poland for medication against possible
radiation poison.
The Finnish government made plans for an airlift of 100 Finns from
Kiev and an Austrian company working on a men's clothing factory sent
a plane to Minsk to pick up 70 wives and children of men working on a
construction project.
In Moscow, the British Embassy said it was trying to arrange
evacuation of 100 British tourists and students from Minsk and Kiev,
and the U.S. Embassy warned against travel to the area.
U.S. Ambassador Arthur Hartman issued a statement to the American
community in Moscow saying he was pressing the Soviets for details
and trying to bring in equipment to check radiation levels in the
capital.
Conflicting reports persisted about the cause of the mishap and how
it developed.
One of the Soviet statements issued to date said the accident
occured in ''the fourth reactor'' at Chernobyl, leading some Western
specialists to believe it was in the newest of the reactors.
The Soviet ambassador to Britain, Leonid Zamyatin, said Wednesday in
London, however, that the disaster took place in the oldest reactor.
Western scientists say that reactor was completed in 1977.
The sources in Washington said U.S intelligence agencies believe a
''major problem'' began last Friday and that on Saturday, it had
evolved into a meltdown of the reactor's core.
By Sunday, the sources said, a non-nuclear explosion apparently
touched off by workers trying to deal with the meltdown ripped apart
the reactor building.
The sources said they believed that a second reactor paired with the
first one in the Chernobyl complex then began a meltdown. In his
remarks today, Reagan said U.S. officials ''have no way of knowing''
whether a second meltdown took place.
A commentator on Soviet television's evening news Wednesday showed
the first photograph of the Chernobyl plant, a grainy,
black-and-white picture he said was taken immediately after the
accident.
The commentator, Alexander Galkin, said the photo refuted Western
news reports of widespread destruction and fires. But the picture
clearly showed extensive damage to the reactor building.
The left wing appeared undamaged, but the roof and wall of the right
wing were gone and the remains appeared to be charred. Twisted
wreckage jutted from the ruined structure.
The Soviet's media handling of the nuclear plant disaster appeared
aimed at calming the public, but information was released in a
trickle reminiscent of the step-by-step reporting of the downing of a
South Korean airliner by a Soviet jet in September 1983.
Wednesday night's government statement was not read on the evening
news until 10 minutes into the broadcast. Today's major national
dailies devoted their front pages to the May Day workers' holiday,
and published the text of the statement on Chernobyl on an inside
page.
AP-NY-05-01-86 0629EDT
- - - - - -
a046 0413 01 May 86
PM-Nuclear Disaster, 1st Ld, a040,0621
URGENT
EDS: UPDATES with Soviets celebrating May Day normally, turning down
Swedish offer of help, British and American students arrive in Moscow
from Kiev
By ANDREW ROSENTHAL
Associated Press Writer
MOSCOW (AP) - The Soviet Union today projected an official calm
about the nuclear disaster near Chernobyl, celebrating May Day as
usual and insisting radiation levels had fallen despite U.S. reports
of an unabated inferno and discharge of radiation.
But about 80 British and American students who arrived in Moscow
from Kiev, about 80 miles south of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant,
were taken to a clinic for radiation tests that a British educator
said were suggested by the Soviets.
The Soviets turned down an offer from Sweden to accept radiation
sickness patients at a Stockholm hospital, officials in Sweden said.
''The Soviet Union has sufficient material, scientific and technical
resources to handle the consequences of the breakdown. Therefore, at
this point, there is no need for assistance from other states,''
Foreign Ministry spokesman Ulf Haakansson quoted a senior Soviet
official as saying.
Spokeswoman Tania Blanck at Stockholm's Karolinska Hospital had said
the Soviets inquired about medical assistance, but later said she was
mistaken. She said the hospital had offered the help.
On Wednesday, the Soviets reported that two people had been killed
and 197 injured in the accident at the Ukrainian nuclear power plant.
The government statement said a reactor building had been ripped
apart, but gave no cause.
On a tour of Asia, President Reagan said in Bail, Indonesia today
that although Soviet officials had provided some information about
the disaster, the Kremlin's account was incomplete.
''We're trying to keep track of what's going on over there, but
we're limited in our knowledge,'' Reagan told reporters.
Asked if Mikhail S. Gorbachev, the Soviet leader, had accepted a
U.S. offer for humanitarian and technical assistance, Reagan said,
''No, we've heard from him but he apparently has not received our
offer yet.''
The Soviets celebrated May Day, the officially sanctioned workers'
holiday, with the traditional parades today in Moscow and other
cities, including Kiev. Leading newspapers relegated a day-old
government report on the disaster to their inside pages, and played
up holiday news.
Soviet authorities and the state-run media have given few details of
the accident, the condition of those injured or details on the
nuclear contamination caused by the cloud that has stretched 1,000
miles across parts of the Soviet Union, Eastern Europe and
Scandinavia.
A report on Wednesday evening's television news said there had been
no ''gigantic destruction or fire'' at the four-reactor complex, and
specifically denied reports that thousands had died in the weekend
mishap.
Wednesday's government statement said 49 of the 197 injured had been
discharged from hospitals after medical examinations, and that the
air quality in the region of Kiev, the Soviet Union's third-largest
city, ''evokes no concern.''
The government said the quality of drinking water meets Soviet
standards, that work was continuing to ''eliminate the consequences
of the accident,'' and that farms and factories were functioning
normally.
Margo Light, a British coordinator for studies in the Soviet Union
said of the tests given the students: ''They (the Soviets) want to
test them in order to ... give certificates to say that they are free
of radiation. ... If they're not free of radiation, they'll get a
certificate saying that.''
None of the students would talk in detail about the situation in
Kiev, saying they were exhausted by an overnight train ride, but some
said the situation in the Ukrainian capital was calm and that there
was no hint of a nuclear mishap.
Neither state-run, 10th graf
AP-NY-05-01-86 0713EDT
- - - - - -
a051 0443 01 May 86
PM-Digest Briefs,0768
Eds: This package does not contain the following items from the News
Digest: MOSCOW-Nuclear Disaster, a040; WASHINGTON-US-Soviet Accident
Rdp, a006; WASHINGTON-Soviet Accident-US Intelligence, a013;
CAMBRIDGE-Chernobyl Profile, a010; WASHINGTON-Soviet-Nuclear-Impact,
a009; MEXICO CITY-Latin Nuclear, a016; UNDATED-US-Ukrainian Reax,
a018; TOKYO-Summit Diplomacy, a022; UNDATED-Shepard Remembers,
a063-64-65; KANYAMAZANE-Homelands-Turmoil, a098;
CUAUHTEMOC-Mexico-Mennonites, a096; DALLAS-Five Texases, a019; NEW
YORK-Ellis Ad, a007.
---
By The Associated Press
JERUSALEM (AP) - The disaster at the Soviet Union's Chernobyl
nuclear power plant could be repeated at any of the Soviets'
estimated 44 other reactors because of shoddy design and poor
management, said an engineer who helped build the Chernobyl plant.
Boris Tokarasky, who emigrated to Israel in 1978, also said in an
interview broadcast today on Israel's Armed Forces Radio that the
fire raging in at least one of Chernobyl's four reactors could
continue ''until the material runs out. ... It could be months or
even years.''
Tokarasky, 49, was a quality engineer with the Soviet Union's
Institute for Reactor and Power Station Construction, and said he was
involved with the construction of the Chernobyl plant before he
emigrated.
---
WASHINGTON (AP) - The plume of radioactivity streaming from the
crippled Chernobyl nuclear plant, located near the country's Ukranian
breadbasket, has so far largely spared the precious farmland and the
country's important winter wheat crop, say government and private
analysts.
Because winds have carried the nuclear cloud west and north, it has
skirted the areas where winter grain crops are growing, Norton D.
Strommen, chief meteorologist for the Agriculture Department's World
Agricultural Outlook Board, said Wednesday.
The board, through the National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration, has access to Soviet weather data under a cooperative
agreement, and believes the information it is receiving is accurate,
officials said.
---
BALI, Indonesia (AP) - President Reagan today expressed great
disappointment that Vietnam has broken off talks on ''the last
vestige'' of the Vietnam war, the search for Americans still listed
as missing in action.
Hanoi cut off discussions with the United States two weeks ago,
saying the April 14 bombing of Libya in reprisal for terrorist
attacks on Americans had poisoned the atmosphere for further
discussions.
Reagan, addressing a meeting of Southeast Asian officials, said he
wanted ''to mention a humanitarian issue of great personal concern to
me, my administration and the American people.''
''Vietnam's recent apparent attempt to link this last vestige of the
war to other issues is a great disappointment to us,'' Reagan said.
''We were pleased with the evident progress over the past year'' in
which the United States and Vietnam held direct talks and conducted
joint efforts to recover the remains of Americans lost during the
war.
---
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia (AP) - When Nancy Reagan arrives Friday to
meet with anti-drug activists, she will be preaching to the already
converted: Malaysian law was amended two years ago to provide a
mandatory death penalty for traffickers in what the Malays call
''dadah.''
Dadah, originally the generic Malay word for medicine or drugs, was
chosen several years ago as an odious label for controlled substances
that are abused.
Dr. Siti Hamsah, the prime minister's wife, attended a first ladies'
conference on drug abuse sponsored by Mrs. Reagan in Washington last
year and returned home to mobilize parents to fight dadah by keeping
checks on children and counseling them.
---
LONDON (AP) - Enraged inmates rioted at seven prisons and destroyed
one of them with fire to protest restrictions imposed after most of
Britain's 18,500 prison guards refused to work overtime.
At least nine people, five prisoners and four guards were reported
hurt in the violence. Forty-two prisoners who escaped in the
confusion Wednesday remained at large today.
The violence was largely under control, but the situation in the
prisons remained tense.
---
NEW YORK (AP) - Twenty-one dogs, two sleds and six adventurers
hoping to become the second expedition to reach the North Pole
without air support neared their goal today after fliers saw them 470
miles into their 500-mile trek.
The five men and one woman of the Steger International Polar
Expedition, which set out on the 500-mile trek March 8, was seen
Tuesday by a Canadian military reconnaissance plane at 89 degrees, 30
minutes north latitude, just short of the pole, which is 90 degrees
north latitude.
''They are pretty tired people,'' Capt. Bernie Poole, the crew
commander for the flyover, said Wednesday. ''They waved their arms,
but they didn't jump up and down.''
AP-NY-05-01-86 0742EDT
- - - - - -
a062 0556 01 May 86
PM-Nuclear Disaster, 2nd Ld, a046,0690
URGENT
Soviets Turn Down U.S. Offer of Aid; Report Radioactivity Dropping
Eds: LEADS in top 20 grafs to UPDATE with new Soviet statement,
Shultz saaid Soviets reject U.S. offer of aid
By ANDREW ROSENTHAL
Associated Press Writer
MOSCOW (AP) - The Soviet Union turned down an offer of U.S. aid to
help deal with the Chernobyl nuclear disaster, and today said
radiation at the devastated Ukrainian power plant had dropped.
A Soviet government statement said 18 people injured in the nuclear
plant accident were in serious condition.
Secretary of State George Shultz said, however, that casualties were
''a good measure'' higher than the two dead and 197 injured
acknowledged by the Kremlin, adding ''the scope of the accident is
certainly a major one.''
The Soviets projected an official air of calm today, observing the
May Day workers' holiday with the traditional parade through Red
Square. Major newspapers relegated a day-old government statement on
the nuclear accident to the inside pages.
Today's report from Council of Ministers, distributed by the
official Tass news agency, said radioactivity ''on the territory of
the NPS (nuclear power station) . . . dropped 1.5-2 times,'' and said
work was under way to deactivate areas of contaminated by
radioactivity.
The statement gave no details of the current or previous radiation
levels. The government statement issued Wednesday night also said
radiation had declined at the Chernobyl plant, but did not provide
any data.
Wednesday's statement said a reactor had been ripped apart in the
accident, but gave no cause.
Today's five-sentence report carried by Tass said medical aid was
being administered to those affected, of whom 18 were said to be in
serious condition. No foreigners were involved, the Soviet news
agency said.
Speaking in Bali, Indonesia, where he was accompanying President
Reagan on his Asian tour, Shultz said the Soviets rejected a U.S.
offer of humanitarian and technical assistance because they ''felt
they had what they needed to deal with the problem.''
The Soviet decision was relayed to officials in Washington, Shultz
said. He said he did not know when it was received, but that he
learned of it today.
Shultz said, ''the casualty rates are higher than those announced by
the Soviet Union by a good measure.'' He gave no figures.
The Soviets also turned down an offer from Sweden to accept
radiation sickness patients at the Karolinska hospital, officials in
Stockholm said today.
''The Soviet Union has sufficient material, scientific and technical
resources to handle the consequences of the breakdown,'' Foreign
Ministry spokesman Ulf Haakansson quoted a senior Soviet official as
saying.
Soviet authorities and the state-run media have given few details on
the accident late last week, which sent a radioactive cloud across
parts of the Soviet Union and much of Europe.
About 80 British and American students arrived in Moscow today from
Kiev, about 80 miles south of the stricken nuclear power plant, and
were taken to a clinic for radiation tests.
A British diplomat, speaking on condition of anonimity, said none of
the students had been exposed to harmful levels of radiation, but
said there were different levels of radiation detected.
Margo Light, a British coordinator for studies in the Soviet Union
said the tests were given the students at the request of the Soviets.
None of the students would talk in detail about the situation in
Kiev, saying they were exhausted by an overnight train ride, but some
said the situation in the Ukrainian capital was calm and that there
was no hint of a nuclear disaster.
A report on Wednesday evening's television news said there had been
no ''gigantic destruction or fire'' at the four-reactor complex, and
specifically denied reports that thousands had died.
Wednesday's government statement said air quality in the region of
Kiev, the Soviet Union's third-largest city, ''evokes no concern.''
The government said the quality of drinking water meets Soviet
standards, that work was continuing to ''eliminate the consequences
of the accident,'' and that farms and factories were functioning
normally.
Neither state-run: 17th graf
AP-NY-05-01-86 0856EDT
- - - - - -
a074 0734 01 May 86
PM-Nuclear Disaster, 3rd Ld, a062,0610
URGENT
Soviets Turn Down U.S. Offer of Aid; Report Radioactivity Dropping
Eds: LEADS with 18 grafs to UPDATE with Swedish official saying
reactor fire out, other details
By ANDREW ROSENTHAL
Associated Press Writer
MOSCOW (AP) - The Soviet Union turned down an offer of U.S. aid to
help deal with the Chernobyl nuclear disaster, and today said
radiation at the devastated Ukrainian power plant had dropped.
A Soviet government statement today said 18 people injured in the
nuclear plant accident were in serious condition. It said no
foreigners were injured.
Secretary of State George Shultz said, however, that casualties were
''a good measure'' higher than the two dead and 197 injured
acknowledged by the Kremlin. He said, ''The scope of the accident is
certainly a major one.''
In Stockholm, a Swedish official said he was told by the
International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna, Austria, that the
Soviets had reported to the agency that the reactor fire was out.
U.S. intelligence sources in Washington said Wednesday that a fire
still was raging at the plant and could burn for weeks. But Gunnar
Bengtsson, the head of Sweden's National Radiation Protection
Institute, said he understood the Soviet Union told the Vienna agency
that the fire was out.
Also today, the Soviets also turned down an offer from Sweden to
accept radiation sickness patients at the Karolinska hospital,
officials in Stockholm said.
Hundreds of foreign students, tourists and workers were trying to
get out of the Soviet Union today.
A British diplomat said American and British students who arrived in
Moscow from Kiev, about 80 miles south of the plant, were tested by
Soviet doctors who found they were not exposed to harmful levels of
radiation.
The Soviets projected an official air of calm, observing the May Day
workers' holiday with the traditional parade through Red Square.
Major newspapers relegated a day-old government statement on the
nuclear accident to the inside pages.
The official Tass news agency said a May Day parade was held as
scheduled in Kiev.
Today's report from the Council of Ministers, distributed by Tass,
said radioactivity ''on the territory of the NPS (nuclear power
station) ... dropped 1.5-2 times,'' and said work was under way to
deactivate areas contaminated by radioactivity.
The five-sentence statement did not specify the current or previous
radiation levels. The government statement issued Wednesday night
also said radiation had declined at the Chernobyl plant, but did not
provide any data.
Wednesday's statement said a reactor was ripped apart in the
accident, but gave no cause. The U.S. intelligence sources, speaking
on condition of anonymity, said they believe problems began Friday at
the reactor leading to a meltdown, and that a non-nuclear explosion
occurred Sunday.
Radiation from the Ukrainian plant spread over Scandinavia and
Eastern Europe, prompting anger over the Soviets' failure to provide
full information about the accident.
Shultz, who was accompanying President Reagan on an Asian tour, said
in Bali, Indonesia, that the Soviets rejected a U.S. offer of
humanitarian and technical aid because they ''felt they had what they
needed to deal with the problem.''
Shultz said he did not know when officials in Washington received
the Soviet response, but that he learned of it today.
''The casualty rates are higher than those announced by the Soviet
Union by a good measure,'' he said, but gave no figures.
Swedish Foreign Ministry spokesman Ulf Haakansson quoted a senior
Soviet official as saying his country had ''sufficient material,
scientific and technical resources to handle the consequences of the
breakdown.''
About 80: 15th graf
AP-NY-05-01-86 1031EDT
- - - - - -
a083 0821 01 May 86
PM-Nuclear Disaster, 3rd Ld, Insert, a074,0194
MOSCOW Insert after4th graf to UPDATE with Vienna agency saying it
has no word on fire; Insert after 6th graf, Israel ham operator
saying Soviet ham reported 300 casualties, other details.
But in Vienna, the agency's chief spokesman, Hans-Friedrich Meyer,
said he could not confirm the fire was out. ''We have never been
informed officially that there was a fire,'' he said.
The statement that Meyer said the Soviets gave the agency today
echoed previous Soviet statements released in Moscow, and said merely
that radiation levels around the plant had decreased and a cleanup
was under way. The statements have made no mention of a fire.
U.S. intelligence sources in Washington said Wednesday that a fire
still was raging at the plant and could burn for weeks.
Also today, the Soviets also turned down an offer from Sweden to
accept radiation sickness patients at the Karolinska hospital,
officials in Stockholm said.
In Tel Aviv, an Israeli amateur radio operator said a Soviet ham
operator told him there were 300 casualties, but that it wasn't clear
how many of those were dead.
Hundreds of: 7th graf
AP-NY-05-01-86 1121EDT
***************
a047 0416 01 May 86
BC-Quotes,0126
Current Quotations
By The Associated Press
''Well, they're usually a little close-mouthed about these things,
and this is no exception.'' - President Reagan, asked if the Soviets
are telling the United States what it needs to know about the nuclear
disaster.
---
''That's what's called a budget meltdown.'' - Senate Majority Leader
Bob Dole, as a bipartisan fiscal 1987 budget threatened to unravel.
---
''The nuclear reactors in the Soviet Union are of such a safety
standard that what happened in Chernobyl could happen very soon in
any of the other reactors in the Soviet Union, and I have no doubt of
this.'' - Boris Tokarasky, who was an engineer with the Soviet
Union's Institute for Reactor and Power Station Construction before
he immigrated to Israel.
AP-NY-05-01-86 0716EDT
***************
a053 0453 01 May 86
PM-Students-Nuclear,0178
URGENT
American, British Students Said To Show No Harmful Levels Of
Radiation
By ALISON SMALE
Associated Press Writer
MOSCOW (AP) - A British diplomat said today that Soviet tests
reportedly indicate about 80 British and a half-dozen American
students were not exposed to harmful levels of radiation while
staying 80 miles south of the Chernobyl nuclear plant disaster.
The students were tested today at a Moscow hospital after arriving
from Kiev, the city of 2.4 million people that is 80 miles from the
crippled Ukrainian power plant. The tests were done by Soviet
doctors.
A British diplomat said the embassy in Moscow was told the tests
indicated none of the students were exposed to harmful levels of
radiation. The diplomat spoke on condition of anonymity.
The nuclear plant began spewing radiation late last week, and U.S.
intelligence sources have said a fire in one reactor likely is still
releasing radiation into the air. Some U.S. sources say two reactors
- including the one that is burning - may have experienced a
meltdown.
AP-NY-05-01-86 0753EDT
- - - - - -
a056 0510 01 May 86
PM-Students Nuclear, 1st Add, a053,0363
MOSCOW: a meltdown.
The British diplomat, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said
Soviet officials reported no indications from the tests that the
students' health was endangered in the Ukraine.
''To my knowledge all of them are well and in no danger at all,'' he
said. ''There were different levels of radiation detected, not
particularly significant as far as I understand it. Even at the top
end of the range, we believe it is well within safety limits.''
The students had been in Kiev for about two weeks. They said they
decided to cut short their 10-week tour because of the possible
health hazard from radiation.
''Life is going on totally as normal, absolutely,'' said Hank
Birnbaum of Sagle, Idaho, who was coordinating the students' programs
in Kiev for the London agency Progressive Tours.
''It's unfortunate we have to leave and it's also unfortunate we
can't find out concretely what has happened and what exactly the
level of danger was when we were in Kiev, or even here,'' Birnbaum
said upon arriving in the Soviet capital as the student group headed
for the medical examinations at a Moscow hospital.
Birnbaum said there was some disagreement among the students as to
whether it was necessary to leave, but ''basically we decided it was
better to be safe than sorry.''
One American student who declined to identify herself complained
that she thought the significance of the accident ''has been blown
out of proportion'' and that cutting short their visit was
unnecessary.
''It was just really staying for 10 weeks that bothered us,'' said
one English girl who refused to give her name.
An American girl who refused to give her name told a Western
reporter as she came out of the hospital that she had been checked by
a machine she took to be a geiger counter, given a blood test and had
her blood pressure and chest checked.
Students told television reporters that they were given certificates
which they understood said they were radiation-free.
Each examination lasted only a few minutes and no students reported
receiving the results of blood tests.
AP-NY-05-01-86 0810EDT
- - - - - -
a057 0518 01 May 86
PM-Students Nuclear, 2nd Add, a056,0290
MOSCOW: blood tests.
The students told ABC-TV they detected no panic among Soviet
acquaintances and no desire on their part to leave Kiev.
''We just have different standards,'' said one unidentified girl.
''We are actually aware of the risk of low-level radiation . . . They
(the Soviets) feel they have all the information and do not need to
leave.''
Soviet officials who arranged the Wednesday night departure from
Kiev of the students thought the group was overreacting but were
helpful about getting them train tickets, the students said.
Soviet travelers arriving at Moscow's Kiev railway station from the
Ukrainian capital reported the situation there was normal, as had
travelers from Kiev in the previous two days.
Uniformed police patrolled the platform and the Soviets did not talk
at length with Western reporters.
A man who said he worked in nuclear research and had come from Kiev
said with a calm smile, ''Look at me, I'm alive, I'm not a corpse.''
Asked if authorities in Kiev had issued any warnings about health
dangers from contaminated food or air, he said they had not.
Margo Light, a British coordinator for Russian studies programs in
the Soviet Union, said earlier today she had met a group of 22
British students who arrived from Minsk. They also reported that life
there was normal, she said.
''The situation in both cities is very calm,'' she said. ''You can't
tell from being on the streets'' that anything unusual has happened.
Minsk is thought to have been in the path of a radiation cloud that
swept north from the Chernobyl plant to Scandinavia and west to
Poland. Increased radiation has since been detected in much of
Europe.
AP-NY-05-01-86 0815EDT
- - - - - -
a065 0610 01 May 86
PM-Students-Nuclear, 1st Ld, a053-56-57,0284
URGENT
American, British Students Said To Show No Harmful Levels Of
Radiation
Eds: Recasts top 7 grafs to show that tests suggested by Soviets,
students planning to leave for London today
By ALISON SMALE
Associated Press Writer
MOSCOW (AP) - More than 80 British and American students who
returned to Moscow from Kiev today because of the Chernobyl nuclear
accident immediately were examined for exposure to radiation. A
British diplomat said he was told the tests showed the students were
in no danger.
''To my knowledge all of them are well and in no danger at all,''
said the diplomat, who said information on the tests was given to the
British Embassy in Moscow.
''There were different levels of radiation detected, not
particularly significant as far as I understand it,'' he said,
speaking on condition of anonymity. ''Even at the top end of the
range, we believe it is well within safety limits.''
The students were tested at a Moscow hospital after arriving from
Kiev, the city of 2.4 million people located 80 miles from the
crippled Chernobyl nuclear power plant. The tests were done by Soviet
doctors.
Margo Light, a British coordinator for Russian studies programs in
the Soviet Union, said the tests were suggested by Soviet officials.
The student group planned to leave Moscow later today on a British
Airways flight to London.
The Chernobyl plant began spewing radiation late last week, and U.S.
intelligence sources have said a fire in one reactor likely still is
releasing radiation into the air. Some U.S. sources say two reactors,
including the one that is burning, may have experienced a meltdown.
The students: 7th graf
AP-NY-05-01-86 0910EDT
- - - - - -
a088 0906 01 May 86
PM-Students-Nuclear, 1st Ld, Sub, a065,0110
MOSCOW SUB 14th graf: An American xxx chest checked with two grafs
detailing the tests the students were given and airline preparations
The students were given blood and urine tests, blood pressure checks
and were screened with a geiger counter, said Paul Foldi, 21, of
Wilmington, Del., as he and the others prepared to depart for London
from Moscow's Sheremetyevo Airport.
British Airways also planned to test students with a geiger counter
before they boarded the plane to ensure that they were not carrying
contaminated items. The airline had clothing available in the event
the students' belongings were deemed unsafe.
Students told: 15th graf
AP-NY-05-01-86 1206EDT
***************
a058 0528 01 May 86
PM-Soviet Radiation,0262
URGENT
Soviets Claim Radiation Decreasing At Power Plant
Eds: Will be incorporated in PM-Nuclear Disaster.
MOSCOW (AP) - The Soviet Union today reported another decrease in
radiation at the Chernobyl nuclear power station. A government
statement said 18 of the 197 people injured in the accident are in
serious condition.
The report from the Council of Ministers, distributed by the
official news agency Tass, did not provide many specific details and
was vague in its description of radiation levels at the plant about
80 miles north of the Ukrainian capital of Kiev.
''Efforts to implement a complex of technical measures continued at
the Chernobyl nuclear power station,'' the statement said.
''The radioactivity on the territory of the NPS (nuclear power
station) and the NPS' settlement dropped 1.5-2 times,'' it said. The
statement provided no figures on current or previous radiation
levels.
A government statement issued Wednesday night also said radiation
was dropping at the Chernobyl plant, but did not provide any specific
data.
The five-sentence statement issued today said that there were no
foreigners among the 197 people injured in the accident.
Official Soviet reports have said two people died in the accident.
''Medical assistance is being administered to those affected, of
whom 18 people are in a serious condition,'' the statement said.
The nuclear plant near Chernobyl began spewing radiation late last
week, and U.S. intelligence sources have said a fire in one reactor
likely is still releasing radiation into the air. Some U.S. sources
say two reactors - including the one that is burning - may have
experienced a meltdown.
AP-NY-05-01-86 0823EDT
***************
a068 0646 01 May 86
PM-Nuclear Tragedy, Adv 02,0754
$adv 02
For Release Fri PMs May 2
Washington Today: Suddenly, Deaver and Khadafy Seem Less Compelling
By GEORGE GEDDA
Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) - ''Everybody's scared.''
That brief comment by a State Department official summed up the mood
here this week after the perils of life in the nuclear age shifted
from academic theory to grim reality.
After the Chernobyl accident in the Soviet Union, news from
elsewhere seemed less compelling. For now, Michael K. Deaver's
travails looked like a minor footnote by comparison and so did Maria
Shriver's wedding. Even the adventures of Moammar Khadafy appeared to
be tame stuff next to what happened in the Ukraine.
Terrorism usually directly afflicts only small numbers of people but
a nuclear disaster can affect thousands, perhaps millions. And for
the dozens of other countries who rely on nuclear power, the response
was universal: Could it happen here?
Once again, the mind-numbing lexicon of nuclear energy was filling
newspapers, with its array of baffling terms like meltdown,
millirems, fuel rods and containment structures. To most people, the
accident meant one thing: huge amounts of cancer-causing radiation
particles were spilled into the atmosphere.
In the U.S. government, officials began talking about nightmarish
scenarios. Would milk for Swedish and Polish children be safe? Would
a wind shift endanger the countries along the Soviet Union's western
border and beyond?
Would contamination rob the Soviets of some of their most productive
terrain? Would the Black Sea, with its resort towns and rich fishing
waters, suddenly be off-limits? Would all four reactors in the
Chernobyl area go up in smoke?
There were other types of questions. Why were the Soviet authorities
being so secretive about the incident? Were they overwhelmed by the
magnitude of the disaster?
What about the four nuclear reactors being built in Cuba less than
200 miles from Key West, Fla., with the help of Soviet technology?
Will they be safe?
President Fidel Castro has stressed that the reactors will possess
state-of-the-art safety features. But the official line in Cuba is
that nuclear accidents can occur only in capitalist countries because
''class interests'' produce engineering ''deficiencies.'' That
position was spelled out in the Cuban press 17 months ago.
MORE
AP-NY-05-01-86 0946EDT
- - - - - -
a070 0656 01 May 86
PM-Nuclear Tragedy, 1st add, a068, Adv 02,0390
$adv 02
For Release Fri PMs May 2
WASHINGTON: months ago
If Reagan administration officials felt smug over the Soviet
misfortune, they weren't indicating it publicly. The official posture
was: don't gloat, extend deep regrets and offer assistance.
For the Reagan administration, the disaster transcended ideological
boundaries. Much like the outpouring of U.S. food aid last year to
drought-stricken Ethiopia, a loyal ally of Moscow, the administration
felt this week that the usual criticism of the Soviets should be set
aside and replaced by offers of help.
Since the halcyon days of their World War II alliance, there have
only been rare instances of Soviet-American cooperation in
life-threatening situations. Thus it was something of a novelty
Tuesday when Assistant Secretary of State Rozanne Ridgway told Soviet
diplomat Oleg Sokolov the United States was prepared to offer doctors
and other forms of assistance.
But when the administration asked for details of the disaster,
Soviet diplomats have gone no further than the scant information that
has been carried in the Soviet media.
For once, it was the Europeans who were criticizing the Soviets more
than the Americans.
''The Soviet Union has an obligation and duty to the international
community to give the fullest possible explanation of what happened
and why,'' Britain's foreign secretary, Sir Geoffrey Howe, said at a
West European ministers' meeting in Italy.
Swedish officials were especially angry, contending Soviet
authorities were remiss in not alerting Sweden about the accident
before the wind-blown radiation particles passed over that country
early this week.
The State Department offered only a hint of criticism about Moscow's
unresponsiveness, mindful that a more confrontational approach might
make the Kremlin even less inclined to cooperate.
Meanwhile, the administration was in the dark about radiation levels
in Moscow, where about 250 U.S. diplomats, businessmen and
journalists reside.
There was a nagging suspicion that the Soviets were keeping the
world in the dark, a concern that was reinforced by a Dutch ham radio
operator who quoted an English-speaking Russian as saying from the
disaster site:
''We heard heavy explosions . . . you can't imagine what's happening
here (with) all the death and fire. (There are) many hundreds of dead
and wounded. Please tell the world to help us.''
End Adv PM Fri May 2
AP-NY-05-01-86 0955EDT
- - - - - -
a094 0941 01 May 86
PM-Nuclear Tragedy Advisory,,0034
EDITORS:
An update to PM-Nuclear Tragedy, the Washington Today column for
Friday PMs which moved in advance today as a068-70 will move early in
the Friday PM cycle.
The AP
AP-NY-05-01-86 1237EDT
***************
a069 0648 01 May 86
PM-Nuclear Fire,0093
URGENT
Radiation Expert Says He Has Been Told Nuclear Fire Is Out
STOCKHOLM, Sweden (AP) - The head of Sweden's National Radiation
Protection Institute said today he has been advised that the
Chernobyl nuclear power plant fire had been extinguished.
Gunnar Bengtsson said he was told by telephone by the International
Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna, Austria, that the fire had been put
out.
''This is fresh information,'' he said in a telephone interview with
The Associated Press.
He said he understood the agency in Vienna received its information
from the Soviet Union.
AP-NY-05-01-86 0948EDT
- - - - - -
a081 0808 01 May 86
PM-Nuclear Fire, 1st Ld-Writethru, a069,0181
URGENT
Radiation Expert Says He Has Been Told Nuclear Fire Is Out
Eds: Updates throughout, agency in Austria denies receiving report
about nuclear fire
STOCKHOLM, Sweden (AP) - The head of Sweden's National Radiation
Protection Institute said today he was told by the International
Atomic Energy Agency that the Chernobyl nuclear plant fire had been
put out. The international agency denied the report.
Gunnar Bengtsson said he was advised by telephone by the
international agency in Vienna, Austria, that the fire had been
extinguished.
But a spokesman for the agency in Austria told The Associated Press
in Vienna that a Soviet statement it received today did not mention a
fire at the nuclear plant.
Hans-Friedrich Meyer, chief spokesman for the agency in Vienna, said
by telephone that he could not confirm or deny whether a fire had
been put out at the nuclear plant.
''We have never been informed officially that there was a fire,''
Meyer said.
Bengtsson had said he understood the agency in Vienna received its
information from the Soviet Union.
AP-NY-05-01-86 1108EDT
***************
a072 0712 01 May 86
PM-Nuclear-Interviews,0353
Soviet Spokesman Defends Official Account of Accident
NEW YORK (AP) - A Soviet Foreign Ministry spokesman interviewed on
U.S. television today called reports of massive casualties from a
Ukrainian nuclear plant accident ''an absurdity'' and accused Western
reporters of starting an anti-Soviet campaign.
But a U.S. senator responded by saying the spokesman was being
absurd and termed Soviet statements ''baloney.''
''Right now, there is a campaign in the West that does not want to
acknowledge the data that the Soviet government is providing,'' said
Vladimir Lomeiko, chief press spokesman for the Soviet Foreign
Ministry.
''This is a very serious matter, and a campaign has been released of
misinformation, in fact, and it is being fanned up on all networks.''
Lomeiko, interviewed in New York on ABC's ''Good Morning America,''
said the Soviet Union's official version is accurate - that there
have been two deaths and 197 injuries in the accident at the
Chernobyl nuclear plant.
He said he had close friends and relatives in the Ukraine, and ''if
something horrible happened of the scale which the American press and
networks are reporting, we couldn't be really here.''
Lomeiko continued: ''Who needs to create on the basis of this
tragedy and sorrow this situation and this atmosphere of psychosis
and distrust? And that creates an image of the lying Russians.''
He said the Soviets reported the accident to the world as soon as it
became evident, and have been providing accurate information ever
since.
''That's baloney,'' responded Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., interviewed
later on the same program. He said the Soviets reported the accident
only after they were forced to because of radiation detected in
Sweden.
''Two dead and 197 injured, that's absurdity,'' he said. ''There
have to be more than that.''
U.S. officials, based on satellite photos and other intelligence,
have characterized the accident as a major disaster involving large
releases of radiation and loss of life.
Leahy, ranking Democrat on the Senate Select Committee on
Intelligence, said, ''There's no question it's the worst nuclear
reactor accident ever in history.''
AP-NY-05-01-86 1012EDT
***************
a076 0746 01 May 86
PM-Nuclear-German Account,0455
German Nuclear Official Recalls Unexpected Visit from Soviet
With PM-Nuclear Disaster
Eds: 8:15 a.m. in first graf is Bonn time.
PHILADELPHIA (AP) - At 8:15 a.m. Tuesday in Bonn, West Germany, a
Soviet Embassy official burst unannounced into the office of Manfred
Petroll at the Atomic Forum.
A.I. Tschagaev, the embassy's science and technology officer, looked
worried, Petroll was quoted as saying in today's editions of the
Philadelphia Inquirer, and he came quickly to the point: What did the
West Germans know about putting out graphite fires in nuclear
reactors?
Petroll, press spokesman for the German nuclear industry
association, said he was astonished by the incident.
Petroll said he had heard about an accident at a Soviet nuclear
plant near Kiev, but he had no idea that the reactor's graphite,
which surrounds the reactor's core and is used to control the atomic
reaction, was afire. That meant things were bad, he said.
Even more surpising, Petroll said, was that the Soviets were asking
him for help. He said they clearly did not know what to do.
''He (Tschagaev) said it was a huge catastrophe,'' said Petroll.
''He spoke of a terrible incident.''
The surprise meeting was only one of several in Bonn on Tuesday
between Soviet officials and West Germans both in and out of the
government, the newspaper said. According to five Germans familiar
with the contacts, the Soviets never sought equipment, medical
supplies or personnel to help with the accident. They sought only
advice and gave few details.
Petroll said he, Tschagaev and the forum's director, Peter Haug, sat
in Haug's office for 2 1/2 hours and dialed every German nuclear expert
they knew. He said the Soviet took a lot of notes, and sometimes took
the telephone to ask questions.
An hour into the meeting, the Germans called their government to
announce that a worried Soviet official was sitting before them.
Throughout the chaos, Petroll said he and Haug sought to learn
exactly what had happended to the Soviet plant but were largely
unsuccessfully. Tschagaev said the cables from Moscow told the
embassy nothing about the accident and had only ordered that the
staff learn about graphite fires, Petroll said.
At one point, Tschagaev did say there was a loss of coolant in the
reactor, Petroll said.
From that information and the inquiries about graphite fires, the
Germans concluded that the reactor core was melting, Petroll said.
When they mentioned their assumption to their colleagues on the
phone, Tschagaev, who was listening, did not challenge it, he said.
Although the Germans are leaders in nuclear power production,
Petroll said his colleagues and superiors apparently were unable to
provide concrete advice to because there are no reactors like the
Soviet one in West Germany.
AP-NY-05-01-86 1043EDT
***************
a201 1025 01 May 86
AM-News Digest,0955
AMs AP News Digest
For Friday AMs
Here are the top stories at this hour from The Associated Press. The
NUCLEAR DISASTER:
Soviets Say Radiation Is Decreasing; Foreigners Leave Ukraine
MOSCOW - Foreigners leave the Ukraine to avoid radiation from the
nuclear plant disaster at Chernobyl. The Soviet government says
radiation levels are decreasing and reports that 18 of 197 people
injured remain in serious condition. Slug AM-Nuclear Disaster.
Developing.
By Carol J. Williams.
U.S. Interagency Task Force Briefs Congress
WASHINGTON - An interagency task force briefs Congress on latest
developments in the Soviet nuclear disaster. President Reagan and
other officials say they need more than the limited information now
being provided by the Soviets, who have refused U.S. aid. Slug
AM-US-Soviet Accident Rdp. Developing.
By Jill Lawrence. LaserPhoto staffing.
Experts Say U.S. Intelligence May Give Worst-Case Scenario
WASHINGTON - Some U.S. nuclear experts say it is conceivable that
only two people died in the Soviet accident, as Moscow claims, and
contend U.S. intelligence information may present a worst-case
scenario that is not occurring. Slug AM-Nuclear Doubts. Developing.
By Jill Lawrence.
Accident in Farming Region Shakes Up Commodity Market
LONDON - Nuclear disaster in the Ukraine, a major Soviet farming
region, prompts a sharp rise in world wheat, livestock and sugar
prices. Analysts say heavy contamination of the region could damage
Soviet farming output for years to come. Slug AM-Nuclear-Soviet
Farms. Should stand. 750.
By Robert Glass.
a205 1043 01 May 86
AM-Nuclear-Satellites,0573
Tell-Tale Photo Taken By Commercial Spacecraft
With AM-US-Soviet Accident Rdp Bjt
By HARRY F. ROSENTHAL
Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) - That tell-tale overhead picture showing
destruction at the Chernobyl nuclear plant in the Soviet Union was
made not by a CIA spy satellite but by a commercial spacecraft that
circles the world every eight days.
''We were basically lucky to be over that area at that time,'' said
Debbie Williams of EOSAT, the firm that acquired the Landsat
satellite from the government last year and sells its product to
governments and 8,000 to 10,000 private companies in 80 countries.
The satellite does everything from spotting problems for farmers to
finding oil for drillers.
Ms. Williams would not identify the client who asked for the picture
of the damaged nuclear plant, but said ''they took the opportunity
since we were going over the area and had foresight enough to turn
the equipment on.''
While the EOSAT picture was widely publicized, other photographs
taken by American spy satellites have been kept secret.
The ability of U.S spy satellites to look into other nations has
been demonstrated impressively in the past week, according to
officials familiar with the pictures.
''We have very, very good satellite technology,'' said Sen. William
Cohen, R-Maine, a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee. ''This
has been quite a demonstration of it.''
Sen. John Warner, R-Va., said, ''We've relied heavily on our
overhead collection ability'' and he praised the administration for
sharing the information with Congress.
At least two types of American spy satellites orbit over the
Ukraine, beaming their information back to Earth on passes over the
United States, said sources speaking on condition of anonymity.
EOSAT, formally the Earth Observation Satellite Company, is owned by
Hughes Aircraft and RCA and has been in the business of selling
pictures from orbit since last September when title to Landsat 4 and
5 were turned over to the company.
The government, which had operated Landsat satellites since 1972 and
lost millions of dollars on the venture, pledged $250 million in
startup subsidies to the company.
In 1983, the Reagan administration proposed to turn Landsat and
government-operated weather satellites to private operators. Congress
balked at relinquishing control over the weather satellites but
embraced the idea of a private firm opeating Landsat and selling the
data.
The contract with EOSAT requires data be marketed on ''a
non-discriminatory basis.''
The data, perceived by heat and temperature sensors, is transmitted
to 13 ground stations. The picture over Chernobyl was made on an
infrared band and picked up by the ground station in Kiruna, Sweden.
At the same time, it was received in the United States through the
Tracking and Data Relay Satellite, an orbiting switchboard that
routes such transmissions to the Goddard Space Flight Center in
Maryland where it was processed by EOSAT.
''We don't do analysis, we do sell the raw data,'' said Ms.
Williams. ''The Swedes used the same Landsat scene, did an
enhancement and came up with two red spots.''
This was not the first time that Landsat has been used to photograph
disaster scenes. A satellite helped survey the Mount St. Helens
volcanic eruption in Washington State and, more recently, provided
before and after views of the Mexico City region when it was hit by a
devastating earthquake.
Landsat 4 will make a daytime pass over the Chernobyl area on May 6,
Ms. Williams said. Landsat 5 will pass over that night.
AP-NY-05-01-86 1343EDT
***************
a208 1058 01 May 86
AM-Kiev-Nuclear,0144
Newspaper Reports Holiday in Kiev, No Mention of Accident
With AM-Nuclear Disaster, Bjt
MOSCOW (AP) - The government newspaper Izvestia provided a colorful
report Thursday on May Day celebrations in the Ukrainian capital of
Kiev and made no mention of the nuclear plant accident 80 miles to
the north.
The evening newspaper covered the Kiev celebration in a roundup of
holiday observances around the country.
''Fresh green chestnuts, scarlet tulips, bright red banners and
posters greeted the first of May in the capital of the Soviet
Ukraine,'' the newspaper said.
The account described the music and marchers in the official parade
through Kiev's main square, then added that the Ukraine has much to
celebrate on this day of international worker solidarity.
It said industrial production in the republic has increased 6.9
percent so far this year and detailed some of the major economic
achievements.
AP-NY-05-01-86 1358EDT
***************
a211 1114 01 May 86
AM-Chernobyl Location,0133
Soviets Fix Precise Location Of Chernobyl Plant
MOSCOW (AP) - One of the many questions surrounding the accident at
the Chernobyl nuclear power plant during the first days after the
accident was reported was the exact location of the disaster.
The initial Soviet government statement Monday said only that there
had been an accident at the Chernobyl station, without saying where
it was.
Working from small-scale maps, reports placed the town from 50 to 60
miles north of Kiev, the Ukranian capital.
A Soviet government statement Tuesday night clarified that the plant
actually was not at Chernobyl, but near the town of Pripyat which
grew up around the complex several miles north of Chernobyl.
A Tass report Wednesday said the plant site is 130 kilometers from
Kiev, or slightly more than 80 miles.
AP-NY-05-01-86 1413EDT
***************
a216 1142 01 May 86
BC-Radiation-Marrow Transplants3,0542
Soviets Agree To Accept Medical Aid from International Group
LOS ANGELES (AP) - The Soviet Union agreed on Thursday to accept
help for victims of a nuclear accident near Kiev from an
international bone-marrow transplant organization, the group's
chairman said.
Dr. Robert P. Gale of the the International Bone Marrow Transplant
Registry, which represents 128 centers that do bone marrow
transplants, said he received a telephone call Thursday from the
Soviet Embassy in Washington. Soviet officials told him they were
''anxious for me come, confer with my counterparts in the Soviet
Union and, if necessary, take whatever steps are necessary,'' he
said.
Those steps would include determining the number of people suffering
from radiation sickness, then overseeing massive international
efforts to locate suitable bone marrow donors and perform
transplants, Gale said.
Armand Hammer, chairman of the President Reagan's cancer advisory
panel, had conveyed the group's offer to the Soviet Embassy, he said.
The registry has access to lists of 50,000 to 100,000 people who
have offered to donate bone marrow, said Gale, an associate professor
of medicine at the University of California at Los Angeles. Most live
in the United States, Western Europe and Scandinavia.
Marrow transplants are the only way to treat otherwise fatal doses
of radiation, Gale said.
''Individuals who received lethal doses and were not killed outright
will die within one to two weeks because of bone marrow failure,''
Gale said. ''The way to save them is by identifying them and doing
transplants.''
Radiation destroys the marrow, where vital components of the blood
and the immune system are produced.
The transplants are commonly used to treat leukemia and a
marrow-destroying disease called aplastic anemia. The donor is
anesthetized while marrow is withdrawn from his hip bones through a
hollow needle, and typically spends a day and a night in the
hospital.
The donor's body replaces the missing marrow, Gale said.
The marrow cells are injected into a recipient's blood, and travel
to the interior of the bones, where they reproduce themselves, Gale
said.
He said sophisticated medical treatment would be needed to keep
radiation victims alive while marrow transplants are arranged.
''My guess is that the Soviets are taking care of the immediately
ill,'' and may be unable to care for those who need transplants, Gale
said.
He said he had no information on how many people might have been
exposed to enough radiation to require the treatment. Doctors
experienced in marrow transplants hope to be allowed to fly to the
Soviet Union and assess the need for their help, he said.
''We're physicians and we see the chance to save some lives. We'll
worry about how to arrange it and who will pay for it after the
fact,'' Gale said.
The Soviets don't report to the registry, and apparently have only
limited experience with marrow transplants, Gale said.
The registry, based in Milwaukee, is funded by the U.S. National
Institutes of Health, European governments and private organizations.
It keeps track of marrow transplants, and has access to donor pools
organized by its members.
Hammer, chairman of Occidental Petroleum Corp., has had extensive
business contacts with the Soviet Union.
AP-NY-05-01-86 1441EDT
***************
a228 1312 01 May 86
AM-Nuclear-Soviet Farms, Bjt,0692
Soviet Accident Triggers Rally on Commodities Markets
By ROBERT GLASS
Associated Press Writer
LONDON (AP) - The nuclear accident in the Ukraine, one of the Soviet
Union's biggest farming regions, has caused a sharp rise in wheat and
livestock prices on world markets, commodities analysts said
Thursday.
In the absence of any word from the Soviet Union on possible
radiation damage to soil, water, crops and herds, commodities markets
have been gripped by speculation that the Soviets will be forced to
increase imports of grain, sugar and milk products.
Commodities analysits said it was too early to assess the extent of
radioactive pollution in the Ukraine from the Chernobyl nuclear
reactor but that heavy fallout could damage Soviet agricultural
output for years to come.
Sweden and Denmark have already banned food imports from the Soviet
Union and some Eastern European countries.
''The market is going through the roof,'' said Bill Demaria, an
analyst with the London-based International Wheat Council. ''We
haven't seen excitement like this for months and months.''
The Ukraine, an area about the size of Texas in the southwest corner
of the Soviet Union, is the country's third-most important farming
region. According International Wheat Council, Ukrainian farms
produce about one-fifth of all grain grown in the country and also
about one-fifth of its cattle and pigs.
But most of the farmland lies to the south of Chernobyl nuclear
power plant and the first radioactive cloud released by last
weekend's accident blew to the north, away from the most important
crop-producing areas.
In Washington, the U.S. Agriculture Department reported shifting
winds were carrying the radioactive plume to the southwest on
Thursday, in a direction that could ultimately affect some of the
Soviet Union's richest, black earth areas.
Wheat prices, which had been falling steadily recently, shot up this
week on the Chicago futures market. Last Friday wheat for May
delivery was quoted at $2.89 a bushel. By Thursday, it had jumped to
$3.28.
Corn markets have also benefited from expectations of an increase in
exports to the Soviet Union and Poland.
Speculation over possible contamination of Soviet livestock has
similarly driven up prices on the Chicago meat markets.
Sugar futures rose sharply in New York early this week. The Soviet
Union is the world's largest producer of sugar beets but traders said
the market had been rising for months and the rally could not be
solely attributed to the nuclear accident.
Analysts in London and Chicago attributed the commodities rally
mainly to speculative buying and said it could fizzle out.
''I think the prices of the past few days were based more on
conjecture and fears and panic, rather than any hard evidence,'' said
Susan Hackman, a grain analyst for Agri Analysis Inc. of Chicago.
''That's what markets do - they feed on uncertainty.''
Chip Hatcher, a livestock analyst for Chicago brokers Geldermann
Inc., also said the market was dealing with uncertainty. ''Who knows
where the market is headed because who knows the extent of damage
that's been done (to Soviet livestock)?'' he said.
He said the meat market was ''simply operating out of fear. I think
the market will be extremely choppy and show very wide ranges over
the next few days.''
The Soviet Union is by far the world's biggest cereal importer,
although imports fell last year after an unusually good harvest. The
government has not published data on grain production since 1979, but
the International Wheat Council estimates the Soviets produced 191
million metric tons of wheat and course grains last year.
Not taking the nuclear accident into account, the country is
expected to import 32 million metric tons of grain during 1985-86.
The wheat council says there is enough grain stockpiled in the
United States and the European Common Market to supply the Soviet
Union and Poland this year. But it says a problem could arise if
there is heavy contamination of farmland, greatly increasing demand
for imported grain.
''If there is has been only limited contamination, it may not cause
any severe problems,'' said Demaria, the wheat council spokesman.
''But if there has been heavy contamination, that land could be out
of production for several years.''
AP-NY-05-01-86 1612EDT
***************
a232 1355 01 May 86
PM-Soviet-Testifies,0329
URGENT
WASHINGTON (AP) - A Soviet embassy official went before a House
subcommittee today to give his government's version of events at the
Cherbonyl nuclear plant. He said he did not know if the plant remains
on fire but said the ''accident is not over with'' at the reactor
site.
Vitaly Churkin, the second secretary of the Soviet embassy here,
said it was his understanding that there was no damage to a second
reactor at the Cherbonyl complex. He took questions from members of a
House energy and defended his nation's reporting of the disaster.
He repeated the Soviet statements that the toll from the accident
was two dead and 197 injured.
Churkin brushed aside a question from subcommittee Chairman Edward
Markey, D-Mass., concerning why the Soviets would not accept
internation inspection of the Cherbonyl facility to assure the world
that damage was no greater than Moscow has portrayed.
''You are asking a very specific question. I cannot answer it
specifically,'' he said. ''I have an official answer to your question
- I'm sure we'll be willing to do'' whatever is required to insure
that the accident does not happen again.
He was asked whether the plant remained on fire, and said, ''I don't
know,'' but added, ''the accident is not all over with.''
''That is clear,'' he continued. ''We have not told other countries
that everything is OK now and they can relax.''
He further acknowledged that it poses ''certain threats'' to the
Soviet people and ''some threats to a certain extent outside the
Soviet Union.''
But he said the situation ''is very carefully taken care of'' and is
being ''managed.''
Rep. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., asked the Soviet official at one point to
say in laymen's terms how the accident happened.
''Can you tell me in those same laymen's terms how the Challenger
accident happened?'' he replied. ''It is something no one thought
could happen.''
AP-NY-05-01-86 1655EDT
***************
a233 1412 01 May 86
AM-Nuclear Disaster, Bjt, 2 takes,0926
Soviets Say Cleaning Up Disaster, Reject Help
By CAROL J. WILLIAMS
Associated Press Writer
MOSCOW (AP) - The Soviet Union told a nervous world on Thursday that
this nation was cleaning up damage done by the nuclear plant
disaster, an accident that sent an invisible radioactive cloud over
Europe at the whim of the wind.
The Kremlin presented a calm face, and rejected offers of technical
help from the United States and other countries. But an international
bone-marrow transplant organization said its offer to aid victims had
been accepted.
Traditional May Day parades were held as usual, including one in
Kiev, the Ukranian city of 2.4 million only 80 miles from the
Chernobyl power plant where a reactor caught fire last Friday.
The cause of the accident has not been revealed, but Soviet
radiation expert Pavel Ramzaev said when asked Thursday if it was a
meltdown of the reactor core: ''I suppose that is so.''
There were conflicting reports about whether the reactor fire had
been extinguished. U.S. intelligence sources had said Wednesday in
Washington that it still raged and could burn for weeks.
The U.S. Agriculture Department said Thursday that shifting winds
were carrying a radioactive plume from the stricken plant over the
western Ukraine, the richest of Soviet farmland, and into Romania,
Hungary, eastern Czechoslovakia and Austria.
The Soviet government said only: ''Efforts to implement a complex of
technical measures continued at the Chernobyl nuclear power station
(NPS) in the duration of April 30. The radioactivity on the territory
of the NPS and the NPS' settlement dropped 1.5-2 times.
''Work is under way to deactivate the contaminated areas adjacent to
the NPS territory.
''Medical assistance is administered to those affected, of whom 18
people are in serious condition. There are no foreign citizens among
those affected.''
The ''settlement'' is Pripyat, a town of 25,000 built at the plant
site.
A more lengthy statement on the disaster released on Wednesday was
relegated to inside pages of the official press.
A Foreign Ministry official in Red Square for the parade said a news
conference would be held when more information became available, but
added that he could not predict when that would be.
Officially, the casualty toll is two dead and 197 injured, but
Secretary of State George P. Shultz said it was higher ''by good
measure.''
He said the United States, through satellites and other technical
means, has ''a fuller picture'' of the catastrophe's dimension than
the Soviet Union as given, and ''the scope of the accident is
certainly a major one.''
An Israeli amateur radio operator in Tel Aviv said a Soviet ham told
him there were 300 casualties, but how many ware dead was not clear.
David Ben-Bassat said the Soviet ham operator told him Wednesday
that he lived 30 miles north of the reactor and ''nobody drinks the
water. We are afraid.''
The Soviet Union's first public mention of any effect on other
countries came in a report Thursday by the official news agency Tass
on a meeting in New York between U.N. Secretary-General Javier Perez
de Cuellar and Yuri Dubinin, chief Soviet delegate to the United
Nations.
It said: ''The Soviet government has informed a group of European
states of the accident and steps undertaken to liquidate its
consequences, so that the governments of nations that could be
affected could take the necessary measures for securing the health of
the population and to protect the environment.''
Vladimir Lomeiko, a Soviet Foreign Ministry spokesman, said in an
ABC television interview that reports of high casualties were ''an
absurdity.'' He accused Western reporters of starting an anti-Soviet
campaign.
''Who needs to create on the basis of this tragedy and sorrow this
situation and this atmosphere of psychosis and distrust?'' he said.
More foreigners left the Ukraine to avoid potential health hazards.
Their governments monitored the radioactivity and denounced the
Soviets for not providing full information.
London's Daily Mail said in an editorial: ''The fact that it (the
Soviet Union) cares nothing for those beyond its borders will be
remembered long after the name of the Chernobyl power station has
been forgotten.''
The British Foreign Office warned travelers to avoid Moscow and
Warsaw, the Polish capital, saying Soviet authorities were
withholding information about radiation levels.
Because of the wind shift, no new radiation was reported in Sweden,
but levels three times normal were recorded in northern Austria after
overnight showers.
The levels are not considered dangerous to health, but people were
advised to keep children indoors and not to drink milk from cows that
had eaten freshly cut grass in the previous 24 hours.
Norton D. Strommen, chief meteorologist of the U.S. Agriculture
Department's World Agricultural Outlook Board, said in Washington
that the new wind pattern appeared likely to remain stable for at
least 24 to 48 hours.
That meant there was a potential for fallout in the western Ukraine
and the the other countries affected, he said, but the possible
extent remained unclear.
''At this point, it's very difficult to pinpoint a percentage, but
we can indicate this is the western end of some of the prime winter
grain areas. It does include some of their best areas'' in terms of
yield, Strommen said.
All the department's information sources, including satellite
surveillance, indicated that the flow of radiation from the Chernobyl
plant continued Thursday and had not been contained, he said.
MORE
AP-NY-05-01-86 1712EDT
- - - - - -
a245 1554 01 May 86
AM-Digest Advisory,0105
All budgets have cleared. Here is a listing.
MOSCOW - Nuclear Disaster, a233, a234.
WASHINGTON - US-Soviet Accident Rdp, a235.
WASHINGTON - Nuclear Doubts, a244.
LONDON - Nuclear-Soviet Farms, a228.
MANILA, Philippines - Philippines, a242.
JOHANNESBURG, South Africa - South Africa, a222.
UNDATED - May Day Rdp, a239.
BALI, Indonesia - Reagan, a229.
WASHINGTON - Budget, a231.
SAN SALVADOR - Salvador-Plane, a240.
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. - Satellite Launch, a227.
INDIANOLA, Miss. - Black Boycott, a243.
WASHINGTON - Deaver, a241.
WASHINGTON - Pornography Commission, a230.
CHICAGO - Alcohol-Stroke, a225.
AP-NY-05-01-86 1849EDT
- - - - - -
a251 1639 01 May 86
AM-Nuclear Disaster, 1st Ld, a233,0403
Soviets Say Radiation Decreasing
Eds: LEADS with 11 grafs on new satellite picture of Chernobyl plant,
appearance of Soviet embassy official before House panel.
By CAROL J. WILLIAMS
Associated Press Writer
MOSCOW (AP) - The Soviet Union told a nervous world Thursday that
radiation from the nuclear plant disaster was decreasing, but one of
its diplomats said other countries should not relax because the
''accident is not over.''
Radiation levels continued to drop in Scandinavia and a wind shift
sent the invisible radioactive cloud over the Soviet Union's richest
wheatlands toward Austria.
The Kremlin presented a calm face, rejecting offers of help from the
United States and other countries. An international bone-marrow
transplant organization said, however, that its offer to aid victims
had been accepted.
Traditional May Day parades were held as usual, including one in
Kiev, the Ukrainian city of 2.4 million only 80 miles from the
Chernobyl power plant where a reactor caught fire Friday. State
television showed colorfully dressed folk dancers performing there.
The cause of the accident has not been revealed, but Soviet
radiation expert Pavel Ramzaev said when asked Thursday if it was a
meltdown of the reactor core: ''I suppose that is so.''
There were conflicting reports about whether the reactor fire had
been extinguished. U.S. intelligence sources had said Wednesday in
Washington that it still raged and could burn for weeks.
Vitaly Churkin, second secretary of the Soviet Embassy in
Washington, testifying before a House of Representatives subcommittee
Thursday, was asked whether the fire had been put out. He said, ''I
don't know,'' and added: ''The accident is not over with. That is
clear. We have not told other countries that everything is OK and
they can relax.''
Swedish analysts said a picture made of the plant Thursday by a
Swedish-French satellite showed that the blaze appeared at least to
have lost intensity.
''It's difficult to be 100 percent sure if the fire is
extinguished,'' said Christer Larsson, head of the Space Media
Network, a Stockholm agency handling rights to the photo. ''It's
probably still very hot there, several thousand degrees. It's
difficult to say something definite on this.''
''We cannot see the smoke which we saw Wednesday,'' said Lars
Bjerkesjo of Satellitbild, the company that received the picture in
northern Sweden. ''It appears the fire has decreased.''
The U.S., 6th graf pvs.
AP-NY-05-01-86 1939EDT
***************
a234 1420 01 May 86
AM-Nuclear Disaster, 1st Add,0418
MOSCOW: contained, he said.
About 80 British and half a dozen American students who had been
visiting Kiev for two weeks arrived in Moscow by train early Thursday
and Soviet doctors who gave them medical tests reported no serious
contamination.
They flew to London after receiving certificates of good health from
the Soviets and additional radiation checks from British Airways
before departure.
A British diplomat, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said Soviet
officials told the embassy the tests indicated the students were not
exposed to hazardous levels of radiation.
Neither the official Soviet statement issued Wednesday afternoon nor
any of the three previous ones has given details about specific
damage resulting from the accident, the nature of injuries or
potential health hazards.
The Soviets have not specifically denied that a fire or explosion
occurred at the power station, as reported in the West, but a
television commentator displayed a black-and-white photograph
Wednesday night that he said proved ''there is no gigantic
destruction or fire.''
Wednesday's official statement said a reactor was ripped apart in
the accident, but gave no cause. The U.S. intelligence sources,
speaking on condition of anonymity, said they believe problems began
Friday leading to a meltdown, and a non-nuclear explosion occurred
Sunday.
In Stockholm, Gunnar Bentsson of Sweden's National Radiation
Protection Institute said the International Atomic Energy Agency in
Vienna told him the Soviets had notified it the fire was out.
The agency's chief spokesman said, however, that he could not
confirm the fire had been extinguished.''We have never been informed
officially that there was a fire,'' Hans-Friedrich Meyer said.
Ramzaev, the Soviet radiation expert, claimed there were no problems
in any of the other reactors and that all reactors at the plant had
been shut down safely. He is director of the Institute of Radiation
Hygiene in Leningrad and Soviet delegate to the International
Commission on Radiation Protection.
Hundreds of Western tourists and businessmen decided to leave the
Soviet Union because of the lack of specific information on the risk
of staying.
Finland sent a special plane to to evacuate 160 tourists, students
and constructions workers from the Kiev area. Another 180 Britons
traveling in Moscow and Leningrad planned to leave on a Britannia
Airways charter early Friday.
''Basically we decided it was better to be safe than sorry,'' said
Hank Birnbaum of Sagle, Idaho, who was coordinating the Kiev
students' programs on a 10-week Russian language study tour.
AP-NY-05-01-86 1719EDT
***************
a235 1435 01 May 86
AM-US-Soviet Accident Rdp, Bjt,0861
URGENT
Soviet Embassy Official Briefs U.S. Task Force
By JILL LAWRENCE
Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) - U.S. officials painted a picture Thursday of
radiation deaths, contaminated farmland and continuing radiation
releases at the damaged Ukrainian nuclear plant even as a Soviet
official told a U.S. government task force that the situation was
under control.
An interagency task force monitoring the accident said radiation
sampling in the United States had revealed no increase above normal
background levels thus far. The task force also said it was still
unclear whether a fire at the crippled Soviet reactor was still
burning and whether a second reactor had been damaged.
A representative of the Soviet embassy in Washington, in an
extraordinary appearance before a U.S. congressional subcommittee,
insisted that the Soviet Union had met its responsibilities to other
countries in notifying them of potential dangers from the accident.
Vitaly Churkin was grilled by several congressmen on the task force
about details of the accident, but repeatedly said he did not have
the kind of technical information they pressed him for.
''I just am not a technical expert,'' he said as they asked question
after question about specifics of the accident.
He said he could not say, for example, whether the damaged reactor
was still burning but acknowledged that it is part of ''an accident
which has not been liquidated yet.''
''The accident, obviously, is not all over with,'' he said later.
''That is clear. We have not told other countries that everything is
OK now and they can relax.''
He further acknowledged that it poses ''certain threats'' to the
Soviet people and ''some threats to a ceretain extent outside the
Soviet Union.''
But he said the situation ''is very carefully taken care of'' and is
being ''managed.''
Rep. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., asked the Soviet official at one point to
say in laymen's terms how the accident happened.
''Can you tell me in those same laymen's terms how the Challenger
accident happened?'' he replied. ''It is something no one thought
could happen.''
Secretary of State George Shultz said the Soviets declined
humanitarian and technical assistance the United States offered
Tuesday in response to the accident at the four-reactor Chernobyl
nuclear complex 80 miles north of Kiev.
''They don't sense any need for it at this point,'' Shultz said in
Bali, Indonesia, where he is accompanying President Reagan on a
13-day Far Eastern trip. He said the Soviets ''felt they had what
they needed to deal with the problem.''
The Soviet government has minimized the impact of the accident,
saying it killed two people and hospitalized 197. But Shultz, while
not offering specific casualty figures of his own, said the United
States has ''a fuller picture'' than the few sketchy details offered
by the Kremlin.
''The scope of the accident is certainly a major one,'' Shultz said.
''The casualty rates are higher than those that have been announced
by the Soviet Union by a good measure.''
At the start of a meeting with Indonesian President Suharto, Reagan
said U.S. officials are trying to keep track of the Soviet accident
and its consequences. But he added, ''We're limited in our knowledge
... They're usually a little close-mouthed about these things, and
this is no exception.''
Based on U.S. intelligence, administration sources have said they
believe there was an explosion, meltdown and graphite fire at one
reactor, and a second reactor could be having similar problems.
Soviet Foreign Ministry spokesman Vladimir Lomeiko, interviewed
Thursday on ABC-TV's ''Good Morning America,'' said ''everything is
under control now'' at the troubled reactor complex. And a Soviet
government statement said radiation releases had decreased and a
cleanup was under way.
''The Soviets have reported they have smothered the fire. From our
information it is not clear whether the fire is out or not,'' the
interagency task force said in a statement Thursday afternoon. The
group also said a second hot spot seen in a satellite photo is not a
reactor.
Presidential spokesman Larry Speakes had told reporters earlier
Thursday in Bali that ''as far as we know, the fire (at the first
reactor) is still burning.''
Norton D. Strommen, chief meteorologist for the Agriculture
Department's World Agricultural Outlook Board, said satellite
surveillance and other information sources indicated that radioactive
contamination was continuing to flow from the plant Thursday.
Strommen also said winds shifted Thursday, carrying radioactive
particles southwest into the western Ukraine - one of the Soviet
Union's ''prime winter grain areas'' - as well as into Romania,
Hungary, eastern Czechoslovakia and Austria. He said the westward
pattern, expected to hold for a day or two, could result in
contamination of crops and livestock.
The interagency task force, headed by Environmental Protection
Agency administrator Lee Thomas, said the radioactive air mass
created by the accident was widely dispersed throughout northern
Europe and the polar regions. It said portions of radioactivity off
the northwest Norwegian coast would continue to disperse, possibly to
the east, and other portions could move eastward through the Soviet
Union in the next week.
AP-NY-05-01-86 1735EDT
- - - - - -
a250 1632 01 May 86
AM-US-Soviet Accident Rdp, 1st Ld, a235,0437
Soviet Embassy Official Defends Accident Reporting
EDS: LEADS with 15 grafs with details of Soviet official's House
testimony.
By JILL LAWRENCE
Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) - A Soviet official, in an extraordinary appearance
before a House subcommittee, said Thursday his country delayed
telling the world about the Chernobyl accident because officials
wanted to know ''what the consequences were before making an
announcement.''
And Vitaly Churkin, a second secretary of the Soviet Embassy, calmly
responding to sometimes testy questions of House members, insisted:
''We have been very forthcoming.''
Churkin's testimony did not deviate from the official accounts put
out by the Soviet government in the wake of the April 26 accident at
the four-reactor Chernobyl nuclear complex, 80 miles north of Kiev.
The embassy representative insisted that only two people were killed
in the April 26 accident and 197 injured, 18 of them seriously.
He also maintained the Soviet Union had met its responsibilities to
notify other countries of the accident.
''Definitely there has been an accident which has not been
liquidated yet and theoretically poses a threat to people outside the
Soviet Union,'' Churkin said. ''We are still trying to manage the
situation. We have not told other countries yet that everything is OK
and that they can relax.''
Subcommittee chairman Ed Markey, D-Mass., told Churkin that instead
of celebrating May Day, the Soviets should have been sending a
''Mayday (warning) signal'' to the residents of the Soviet Union who
lived near the Chernobyl fallout.
''It would not be correct on my part to accept any advice from
you,'' Churkin replied. He added, ''If they have any problems, they
will not have medical bills to pay.''
At another point, Rep. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., pressed the Soviet
official at one point to say in laymen's terms how the accident
happened.
''Can you tell me in those same laymen's terms how the Challenger
accident happened,'' replied Churkin, adding that, like the shuttle
explosion, the nuclear accident was ''something no one thought could
happen.''
U.S. officials continued to offer a more severe assessment of the
accident Thursday, citing the likelihood of numerous radiation
deaths, contaminated farmland and continuing radiation releases at
the damaged plant.
Secretary of State George Shultz said the United States has ''a
fuller picture'' than the few sketchy details offered by the Kremlin.
''The scope of the accident is certainly a major one,'' Shultz said.
''The casualty rates are higher than those that have been announced
by the Soviet Union by a good measure.''
At the start, 16th graf pvs.
AP-NY-05-01-86 1931EDT
***************
a236 1439 01 May 86
BC-Nuclear Disaster, Advisory,0233
EDITORS:
MANAGING EDITORS:
WIRE EDITORS:
SUNDAY EDITORS:
For your weekend planning, here are some of the stories the AP is
working on in connection with the Chernobyl nuclear accident:
From Moscow, a wrapup of everything known to date about the nuclear
plant disaster, how the Soviet government handled it, vastly
different accounts of deaths and injuries. About 1,700 words.
From Sweden, a minute-by-minute account of how the radiation was
detected and why it took so long to report.
From Washington, a story on how the U.S. government reacted to the
disaster, with an offer of aid, an expression of sympathy, and then
became the world's main source of information about the accident.
Opponents of nuclear power seized an opportunity, and the industry
found itself on the defensive.
From Washington, the assessments by experts in and out of government
of what went wrong at Chernobyl, and a report on American views of
Soviet nuclear power plant technology.
From Richland, Wash., a story about the workers at the Hanford
nuclear plant, which like Chernobyl has no containment facility, and
how they are reacting to the Soviet disaster.
We will keep you advised about when the stories will move on the
wire and about accompanying art work.
The AP
AP-NY-05-01-86 1739EDT
***************
a239 1500 01 May 86
AM-May Day Rdp, Bjt,0708
Clashes in Poland, Philippines at May Day Rallies, S. Africans Strike
By GEORGE BOEHMER
Associated Press Writer
Millions of people worldwide marched in May Day parades from Athens
to Asuncion on Thursday in support of workers, and in Poland police
prevented Solidarity supporters from staging their own unofficial
celebrations.
In Peking, a female rock drummer in a sequined suit attracted
enthusiastic crowds at a May Day party in the Working People's
Cultural Palace. More than 3,000 model workers and army heroes were
honored in a ceremony at Tiananmen Square.
Philippine police in Manila clashed with supporters of ousted
President Ferdinand E. Marcos during a May Day rally, and police also
clashed with May Day demonstrators in Chile and Paraguay.
In South Africa, hundreds of thousands of black workers who stayed
off their jobs to demand racial equality also demanded that May Day
be made a national holiday.
Hundreds of thousands of workers paraded through Moscow's Red Square
under brilliant sunshine.
Soviet Leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev joined ruling Politburo members
in watching the parade from atop the Lenin Mausoleum. It was his
first public appearance since the accident late last week at the
Chernobyl nuclear power plant in the Ukraine.
As usual, some marchers carried anti-U.S. posters, and placards and
floats celebrated successes in Soviet labor. But noticeably missing
were the usual placards proclaiming that various power plants would
meet their production goals.
Marches also were held in Kiev, 80 miles south of the plant, and in
other Soviet cities, the state-run media reported.
In Manila, police used tear gas and fire hoses to disperse Marcos
loyalists who were demonstrating after a May Day rally led by
President Corazon Aquino. Witnesses said the Marcos supporters and
supporters of Mrs. Aquino fought with rocks and bottles.
In Warsaw, helmeted police with shields and riot sticks turned back
hundreds of supporters of the outlawed Solidarity free trade union
federation who tried to stage an unofficial May Day March.
Police detained 25 participants but the march broke up without a
major clash. Police also stifled demonstrations in Gdansk, the Krakow
suburb of Nowa Huta, Wroclaw, Poznan and Bydgoszcz.
In Asuncion, capital of Paraguay, police used tear gas, water cannon
and nightsticks to break up a rally of about 1,200 supporters of an
opposition labor movement. At least five demonstrators were reported
hurt.
Monsignor Mario Medina, a Roman Catholic bishop, was among those
soaked by water.
Paraguay has been governed since 1954 by the military government of
President Alfredo Stroessner.
In Chile, also under a right-wing military government, police in
Santiago dispersed up to 300 demonstrators.
Peaceful rallies were held in Cuba, Bolivia and Brazil.
In South Africa, millions of blacks stayed away from work and
schools in what appeared to be the largest anti-apartheid protest in
the country's history.
The Association of Chambers of Commerce of South Africa said worker
absenteeism ranged from 70 to 100 percent. The predominantly black
National Union of Mineworkers said 25 miners were injured in
disturbances.
Most May Day rallies elsewhere were peaceful.
In Athens, more than 20,000 Greek workers marched for higher wages
and repeal of the Socialist government's economic austerity program.
In West Germany, union leaders reported more than 800,000 people
attended activities nationwide.
High unemployment was a common theme of union-organized marches in
major French and Spanish cities, which attracted tens of thousands of
people.
In Japan, organizers said 3.8 million people joined in May Day
rallies nationwide, but police put the number of participants at 1.5
million. Workers called for shorter working hours.
In Prague, where state-run television said some 220,000 people
attended a rally, Czechoslovakia's president and Communist Party
leader, Gustaf Husak, blasted what he called ''imperialist circles''
for escalating the arms race, the official news agency CTK reported.
In Budapest, Hungary, former Communist party leader Janos Kadar
addressed a rally of about 250,000 people, emphasizing national
unity.
East German's official ADN news agency said hundreds of thousands of
people joined in May Day rallies, and that speakers criticized the
United States' April 15 bombing of Libya and U.S. arms policies.
ADN said tens of thousands of marchers in the Bulgarian capital of
Sofia carried signs praising Soviet arms policies.
Rallies also were held in Romania, Albania, Egypt, Angola, Tanzania
and Angola.
AP-NY-05-01-86 1800EDT
- - - - - -
a269 1847 01 May 86
AM-May Day Rdp, 1st Ld, a239,0624
Clashes in Poland, Philippines at May Day Rallies, S. Africans Strike
Eds: LEADS with 17 grafs to show two shot in Chile, three policemen
burned with acid, May Day speech in Cuba about sugar crop, San
Salvadorans paint U.S. Embassy, peasants march in Guatemala, rallies
in Nicaragua, unions march in Mexico City.
By GEORGE BOEHMER
Associated Press Writer
Millions of people marched in May Day parades Thursday from Manila
to Santiago in support of workers, and in Poland police prevented
Solidarity supporters from staging their own unofficial celebrations.
In Peking, a female rock drummer in a sequined suit attracted
enthusiastic crowds at a May Day party in the Working People's
Cultural Palace. More than 3,000 model workers and army heroes were
honored at Tiananmen Square.
In the Chilean capital of Santiago, three policemen were burned when
May Day marchers tossed acid on them during a protest against the
12-year rule of President Augusto Pinochet.
Pinochet deployed truckloads of army soldiers to stop an opposition
labor rally, and at least two men were shot in the worst disorder
this year against his military government.
Following the shooting, hundreds of protesters rampaged through
Santiago, tearing down traffic signs and benches and turning them
into barricades. Riot patrols took to the streets to quell the
disturbances and by late Thursday 500 had been reported arrested.
In Warsaw, helmeted police with shields and riot sticks turned back
hundreds of supporters of the outlawed Solidarity trade union who
tried to stage an unofficial May Day march. Police also stifled
demonstrations in Gdansk, a Krakow suburb and Wroclaw.
In Asuncion, capital of Paraguay, police used tear gas, water
cannons and nightsticks to break up a rally of about 1,200 supporters
of an opposition labor movement. At least five demonstrators were
reported hurt.
Monsignor Mario Medina, a Roman Catholic bishop, was among those
soaked by water.
Paraguay has been ruled since 1954 by the military government of
President Alfredo Stroessner.
In Cuba, thousands gathered at Revolution Plaza were told during May
Day celebrations that the sugar harvest under way is crucial to the
economy, Cuban state radio reported.
''This month will be the decisive one for the sugar crop and it is
necessary to make a big effort from workers,'' said Roberto Veiga,
secretary general of Cuba's Labor Central and a member of Fidel
Castro's Council of State.
Castro attended May Day festivities but Veiga gave the major
address, which was carried on Cuban radio monitored in Miami.
Cuba this week announced a 90-day suspension of payments on its debt
to Western creditors, estimated at $3.5 billion.
President Daniel Ortega's May Day address to 30,000 workers in
Nicaragua detailed the death and injury toll from more than four
years of war against U.S.-backed guerrillas trying to overthrow his
leftist government. But in a separate rally, the leader of the
Nicaraguan Workers Federation and the Roman Catholic archbishop,
Miguel Obando y Bravo, told 2,000 workers that there is no labor
freedom in Nicaragua, and noted that the right to strike has been
suspended under an emergency decree.
In San Salvador, El Salvador, about 35,000 marchers paraded through
the capital to mark May Day, painting anti-American slogans on the
U.S. Embassy.
In Guatemala, about 4,000 workers and peasants from three labor
organizations turned out for the first May Day parade in Guatemala
City in seven years. The country returned to civilian rule in
January.
Elsewhere in Latin America, peaceful rallies were held in Mexico
City, where more than 1 million members of government-affiliated
unions paraded peacefully before President Miguel de La Madrid, and
in Bolivia and Brazil.
In South Africa, 17th graf pvs.
AP-NY-05-01-86 2147EDT
***************
a244 1547 01 May 86
AM-Nuclear Doubts, Bjt,0626
Experts Say Soviet Assessment May Be As Close As U.S. Assessment
By JILL LAWRENCE
Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) - Nuclear industry experts said Thursday the U.S.
government may have been exaggerating the seriousness of the nuclear
reactor accident in Chernobyl even as the Soviet government was
trying to minimize its impact.
They said Soviet claims that only two people died in the accident
are entirely plausible - more so, in fact, than unverified reports
repeated by various government officials that as many as 2,000 may
have died.
The experts, as well as members of a government task force, also
called into question earlier suggestions from unnamed U.S. officials
who were citing intelligence reports a day earlier raising the
possibility that two reactors had been involved in the accident.
Reagan administration sources, citing intelligence information, have
postulated a disastrous chain of events involving a meltdown,
chemical explosion and nuclear fire at one reactor along with hints
that there may have been problems at the second reactor.
And virtually every official commenting on the crisis has dismissed
the official Soviet death toll.
''I imagine the Russians want to put the best face on it. On the
other hand, there are those who've said ... this is the worst thing
that could have happened under the worst circumstances. The truth
probably lies somewhere in between,'' said Frank Graham, vice
president of the Atomic Industrial Forum.
''There are a lot of things that indicate it may not be the worst
case,'' he added, citing relatively normal activity going on in Kiev,
80 miles south of the reactor complex. ''If it were still a
tremendous danger and they had another plant going down, I think the
Soviets would be taking additional precautions ... to protect their
citizens in Kiev.''
Tom Cochran, senior staff scientist with the Natural Resources
Defense Council, an environmental watchdog group, said he did not
know whether the U.S. intelligence community was overstating the
seriousness of the accident.
He added: ''There are a number of factors that suggest that it could
be very serious. But they could be consistent with something much
less serious, given what limited data we have.''
A Soviet embassy official appearing before a House subcommittee
Thursday - Vitaly Churkin - reiterated his government's position that
the disaster had killed two people and injured 197, 18 of them
seriously.
''I find it a little offensive that some sources are very intent in
asserting that there were many casualties,'' Churkin said during his
extraordinary testimony.
Earlier Thursday, Secretary of State George Shultz had told
reporters the U.S. government had a much fuller picture of the
disaster than what the Kremlin was telling its people. He said
casualties were higher ''by a good measure'' than the official Soviet
line.
Two other U.S. officials earlier this week dismissed Soviet claims
of two deaths as ''frankly preposterous'' and ''beyond belief.''
Graham and Cochran, while saying they suspect fatalities were higher
than two, called the Soviet figure plausible and ''within the realm
of credibility.'' Alan Krass, senior arms analyst for the Union of
Concerned Scientists, a nuclear safety watchdog group, also called
the low number conceivable.
Krass and Cochran both said 2,000 casualties - an unconfirmed
estimate widely quoted on Capitol Hill - was a more preposterous
number than two.
''Radioactivity doesn't kill that fast. It's not an instantaneous
killer like at Bhopal with the poison gas,'' said Krass.
Krass said the satellite pictures and infrared images on which U.S.
intelligence analysts are basing their conclusions are not
definitive. The unique situation makes it even harder to interpret
the images, he said, because there is nothing to compare them with.
AP-NY-05-01-86 1846EDT
***************
a246 1614 01 May 86
AM-Digest Briefs,1140
Eds: This package does not contain the following items from the News
Digest: MOSCOW - Disaster-Inform; NEW YORK - Nuclear-Iodine Tablets;
LONDON - Nuclear-Soviet Farms; TOKYO - Summit Security; TOKYO - Japan
in Transition; WASHINGTON - Budget; INDIANOLA, Miss. - Black Boycott;
WASHINGTON - Deaver; WASHINGTON - Pornography Commission; CHICAGO -
Alcohol-Stroke; VANCOUVER, British Columbia - Expo 86; WASHINGTON -
Congress-Personal Lives.
By The Associated Press
MOSCOW - The Soviet Union told a nervous world Thursday that
radiation from the nuclear plant disaster was decreasing, but one of
its diplomats said other countries should not relax because the
''accident is not over.''
Radiation levels continued to drop in Scandinavia and a wind shift
sent the invisible radioactive cloud over the Soviet Union's richest
wheatlands toward Austria.
The Kremlin presented a calm face, rejecting offers of help from the
United States and other countries, but an international bone-marrow
transplant organization said its offer to aid victims had been
accepted.
---
WASHINGTON - A Soviet official, in an extraordinary appearance
before a House subcommittee, said Thursday his country delayed
telling the world about the Chernobyl accident because the Kremlin
wanted to know ''what the consequences were before making an
announcement.''
And Vitaly L. Churkin, a second secretary of the Soviet Embassy,
calmly responding to sometimes testy questions of House members,
insisted: ''We have been very forthcoming.''
Churkin's testimony did not deviate from the official accounts put
out by the Soviet government in the wake of the accident at the
four-reactor Chernobyl nuclear complex, 80 miles north of Kiev. He
did confirm Western intelligence reports that the accident occurred
last Saturday.
---
WASHINGTON - Nuclear industry experts said Thursday the U.S.
government may have been exaggerating the seriousness of the nuclear
reactor accident in Chernobyl even as the Soviet government was
trying to minimize its impact.
They said Soviet claims that only two people died in the accident
are entirely plausible - more so, in fact, than unverified reports
repeated by various government officials that as many as 2,000 may
have died.
The experts, as well as members of a government task force, also
called into question earlier suggestions from unnamed U.S. officials
who were citing intelligence reports a day earlier raising the
possibility that two reactors had been involved in the accident.
---
STOCKHOLM, Sweden - Radiation levels from the Soviet nuclear reactor
accident dropped in Scandinavia on Thursday and Swedish officials
said that even pregnant women shouldn't worry about radiation danger.
Soviet diplomats told the Norwegian and Swedish governments that
Moscow did not need foreign help in dealing with the disaster at the
Chernobyl power station in the Ukraine.
''Fallout of the radioactive material is reduced and the radiation
level in the accident area (Chernobyl) has dropped during the past
days,'' the Soviet Embassy in Oslo said in a statement to Norwegian
Prime Minister Kaare Willoch.
***************
a252 1643 01 May 86
AM-Bone Marrow-Soviets,0197
Soviets to Allow American Specialist to Treat Nuclear Victims
WASHINGTON (AP) - Top Soviet officials have agreed to permit an
American specialist in bone marrow transplants to treat victinms of
the nuclear accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant near Kiev,
four U.S. senators said Thursday.
One of them, Sen. Albert Gore, D-Tenn., said that Dr. Richard Gale,
chairman of the International Bone Marrow Transplant Registry, was
prepared to fly immediately to the Soviet Union.
Gore said Gale is a personal friend of American industrialist Armand
Hammer, who Gore said has agreed to sponsor the trip.
''We have just learned from Oleg M. Sokolov, (the acting Soviet
ambassador) that Dr. Gale's trip to the Soviet Union has been
approved so that he may provide medical assistance to the victims of
the meltdown tragedy,'' Gore said.
''Dr. Gale is considered one of the leading authorities in the world
on bone marrow transplants, and we believe his expertise will be
welcomed by the Soviet medical community,'' Gore said.
''We hope he is the first of many Americans who will be allowed to
help the Soviets recover from this catastrophe,'' he said.
AP-NY-05-01-86 1942EDT
***************
a255 1714 01 May 86
AM-Europe-Radiation,0871
Country-by-Country Breakdown Of Radiation Levels After Soviet
Disaster
FRANKFURT, West Germany (AP) - Following is a breakdown of
Thursday's radiation levels in Europe following last weekend's
nuclear power plant disaster in the Soviet Union. No levels dangerous
to humans were reported in any country, although some nations took
precautionary measures. There were no reports Thursday from Norway or
Finland.
---
AUSTRIA - The Federal Office of the Environment said radiation
levels remained three times higher than normal, ranging between 0.020
and 0.037 millirems. But readings were declining slowly across the
nation Thursday. The highest reading in Vienna on Wednesday was about
0.045 millirems.
(A millirem measures the effect that radiation produces in human
tissue. it is one-thousandths of a rem, a measure used in setting
radiological protection standards. Experts in Frankfurt say an
average West German receives about 110 millirems per year, from
natural sources, such as cosmic rays and geological deposits, and
man-made sources, such as fallout from nuclear tests. Exposure to
about 1,000 millirems in one year is estimated to produce one or two
chances in 10,000 of developing fatal cancer.)
---
BELGIUM - Radioactivity was at 0.006 millirems Thursday, the same
level registered for the past few years, officials said.
---
BRITAIN - A spokesman for the National Radiological Protection Board
said Thursday, ''There has been no increase in background radiation
detected in Great Britain.'' No current millirem reading was
provided.
---
CZECHOSLOVAKIA - The state-run CTK news agency said Wednesday that
''systematic monitoring'' of radioactivity in various regions of the
country turned up no threat to public health. There was no
announcement on Thursday's radioactivity readings.
---
DENMARK - Officials at the Risoe experimental nuclear station said
0.02 millirems were measured Wednesday and Thursday, a level
considered normal.
---
FRANCE - The French Central Service for the Protection Against
Radioactivity said, ''A minor increase in atmospheric radioactivity''
was registered Thursday morning in southeast France, but this had
''no significance for public health.'' A spokesman said the increase
posed a risk equivalent to ''smoking one cigarette in your whole
life.'' The official did not provide a millirem reading.
---
GREECE - The state-run atomic energy institute, Democritos, reported
Thursday there have been no increases in atmospheric radioactivity
around the country. It did not give current millirem readings.
---
HUNGARY - The Budapest newspaper Magyar Nemzet said Thursday there
was no significant increase in radiation, but gave no figures.
---
ITALY - Italian research stations reported Thursday that
radioactivity had increased to up to twice above normal but said
there was no cause for alarm. Health Minister Renato Altissimo said
that when the nuclear cloud reaches Italy over the weekend, the
radioactivity level would increase by 10 times normal levels, but
that no danger would be posed. No millirem readings were released.
---
NETHERLANDS - Officials reported 0.04 millirems radiation both
Wednesday and Thursday, a normal figure. There has been no indication
of abnormal rise in radiation since the Soviet accident, said the
Dutch Health Ministry.
---
POLAND - A Government commission said Thursday that radiation levels
recorded ranged from a maximum of 500 times normal in the small
northern town of Mikolajki to readings of 10 times normal. The
commission said residents of Mikolajki, 100 miles north of Warsaw,
would receive about 7.4 millirems an hour of radiation. Sale of milk
from grass-fed cows has been banned, and government ordered that all
children receive iodine solutions at schools and health clinics. The
government said radiation levels were declining.
---
ROMANIA - State-run radio reported some increase in radioactivity in
the country's northeast Thursday. The government has set up a
commission to coordinate measures against possible ill effects
without saying whether any such problems existed. The government
released no specific millirem reading.
---
SWEDEN - Radiation levels were dispersing in the atmosphere
Thursday, but higher levels were registered in milk. Without giving
figures, the National Radiation Protection Institute said the levels
showing up in milk were not serious, were being monitored, and
farmers may be advised later to keep their cows indoors.
---
SWITZERLAND - Readings in the east were four to 10 times higher than
normal Thursday, at 0.04 millirems, while in the west they were
slightly higher, at about 0.015 millirems. Ten times the normal
amount of radiation was reported in Davos, in eastern Switzerland, on
Wednesday, and three times normal in Zurich. The country's normal
millirem reading is 0.010.
---
WEST GERMANY - Meteorological offices took readings 30 times higher
than normal in southeastern West Germany on Thursday, down from 60
times above normal on Wednesday. Officials said levels of 2,000-3,000
times above normal would endanger humans. They released no specific
millirem reading.
---
YUGOSLAVIA - The state-run Tanjug news agency said radioactive
iodine in the air was three to four times higher than normal in the
northwestern part of the country. It said this was a ''worrisome
increase'' but no threat to humans. But measures such as avoidance of
rainwater consumption have been advised. No millirem readings were
provided.
AP-NY-05-01-86 2013EDT
***************
a256 1721 01 May 86
AM-Hanford Plans,0422
Emergency Preparedness Doesn't Include Chernobyl-Type Accident
With AM-Nuclear Disaster Bjt
By JOHN K. WILEY
Associated Press Writer
RICHLAND, Wash. (AP) - The U.S. Energy Department's emergency
preparedness plan for the Hanford nuclear reservation contains no
provisions for a reactor disaster similar to the one in the Soviet
Union, a department official said Thursday.
Hanford's N Reactor has a graphite block core and other design
features similar to the Chernobyl reactor, which has spewed radiation
over hundreds of miles as far as Western Europe since the accident
late last week.
The Chernobyl accident would be considered a general emergency, the
most severe of four Energy Department classifications, said Don Elle,
chief of radiological and environmental safety monitoring at Hanford
for the Energy Department.
But the scenarios do not include a general emergency at Hanford,
because ''our accident assessments don't foresee anything like that
happening,'' Elle said.
Periodic drills and emergency procedures are geared toward an
accidental release of radiation from the site, in south-central
Washington, and evacuation measures are taken into account, he said.
It is believed, however, that such radiation releases would not
exceed Energy Department guidelines that would call for evacuation of
the 40 or 50 famililes living within a 10-mile radius of the plant,
Elle said.
A computerized telephone dialing system to notify nearby residents
is being implemented and each of the families has been given a Civil
Defense-type radio receiver in the event of a major emergency, he
said.
A spokesman for the environmental group Greenpeace said he was not
surprised that Energy Department officials would not include plans
for a meltdown event.
''That confirms my suspicion,'' Greenpeace spokesman Tom Buchanan
said in a telephone interview from Seattle.
''When they're assuring us that it can't happen here, they haven't
even gone through scenarios that show it could happen,'' he said.
Greenpeace is one of a number of environmental or anti-nuclear
groups in the Northwest that have called for the immediate shutdown
of the N Reactor as a safety hazard.
The 23-year-old N Reactor, operated for military purposes, is the
only graphite core reactor in the United States and has no
containment building, another similarity with the Chernobyl plant.
But Energy Department officials have said the possibility of a
meltdown would be virtually impossible at the N Reactor.
They maintain that differences between the two plants - type of fuel
used, structural design and operating conditions - are sufficient to
make a comparison unwarranted.
AP-NY-05-01-86 2021EDT
***************
a259 1741 01 May 86
AM-Soviet-May Day,0302
Soviets Celebrate May Day, No Mention of Nuclear Accident
With AM-May Day Rdp, Bjt
By ROXINNE ERVASTI
Associated Press Writer
MOSCOW (AP) - The Soviet Union celebrated May Day with parades and
pageantry Thursday and publicly ignored the nuclear disaster in the
Ukraine that spread radiation over large areas of the country.
But in the Red Square parade in the Soviet capital, there were no
posters saluting the nuclear energy industry. It appeared that all
references to nuclear power were removed from the two-hour parade
that features thousands of marchers carrying banners and posters.
A Soviet press report on the May Day parade in Kiev, only 80 miles
from the accident at the Chernobyl nuclear plant, said the Ukranian
capital staged a colorful ceremony. There was no mention of the
nuclear accident.
The Moscow parade had about a dozen posters carried by workers that
criticized the United States for attacks on Libya and for not
agreeing with a Soviet proposal to halt nuclear tests.
Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev and other members of the
Communist Party Politburo viewed the parade from atop the Lenin
mausoleum, occasionally waving at the passing men, women and children
passing through Red Square. Gorbachev's family stood on a viewing
stand with other invited spectators.
In past May Day parades, the placards and floats celebrating Soviet
labor achievements have included specific references to energy
workers, including nuclear power workers.
The party's Central Committee every year publishes a list of about
100 official slogans weeks in advance of May Day. The list this year
was published on April 13, before the Chernobyl accident, and
included calls to meet energy plans.
In Thursday's parade, there were two posters promoting energy
conservation, but there were no specific references to nuclear
energy.
AP-NY-05-01-86 2041EDT
***************
a260 1748 01 May 86
AM-Sweden-Radiation,0372
Swedes Say Radiation Levels Drop
By LARRY THORSON
Associated Press Writer
STOCKHOLM, Sweden (AP) - Radiation levels from the Soviet nuclear
reactor fire dropped in Scandinavia on Thursday and Swedish officials
said that even pregnant women should not worry about radiation
danger.
But radiation has led to higher levels of radiation in milk, which
the authorities will monitor, said Gunnar Bengtsson, head of Sweden's
National Radiation Protection Institute.
Without giving figures, Bengtsson said on Swedish television that
the level in milk was not serious. ''But we may later advise farmers
to keep their livestock indoors,'' he said.
Cows grazing in pastures eat radioactive dust along with grass, and
the radioactive substances tend to concentrate in the milk.
Soviet diplomats told the Norwegian and Swedish governments that
Moscow did not need foreign help in dealing with the disaster at the
Chernobyl power station in the Ukraine.
''Fallout of the radioactive material is reduced and the radiation
level in the accident area (Chernobyl) has dropped during the past
days,'' the Soviet Embassy in Oslo said in a statement to Norwegian
Prime Minister Kaare Willoch.
Sweden on Monday was the first country to raise an alarm when it
detected increased radiation levels from the Soviet Union. Moscow
later announced there had been a nuclear accident in the Ukraine.
When the first radioactive clouds reached Sweden, the Swedes said
radiation was five times greater than normal but did not pose a
health danger.
After complaining that the Soviets had not warned their Scandinavian
neighbors about the approach of radioactive debris, the Nordic
countries appeared to be receiving reassurances from Moscow that the
situation was improving rather than worsening.
Bengtsson told a news conference that measurements in Sweden
indicated that the fallout was dispersing in the atmosphere.
Debris deposited on the ground already was decaying and losing its
radioactivity, he said.
Even pregnant women don't have to worry now, he said, and his agency
advised people there was no need to take iodide tablets.
Some people in northern and eastern Europe were taking the tablets
to prevent a buildup of radioactive iodine in the thyroid gland - an
organ sensitive to radiation.
AP-NY-05-01-86 2048EDT
***************
a267 1833 01 May 86
AM-Weapons Reactors,0328
Energy Department Says Nuclear Accident Not Likely in US
By GUY DARST
Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) - A meltdown of one of the five nuclear reactors
producing weapons materials without high-strength containment
structures could theoretically happen, but it is not a ''credible
event,'' a Energy Department official told Congress on Thursday.
These reactors have other systems designed to capture radioactive
materials before they escape, Delbert Bunch told the energy
conservation and power subcommittee of the House Energy and Commerce
Committee.
One of the reactors is located at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation in
southeastern Washington, and also produces electric power sold
commercially, and the other four are at Savannah River, Ga.
Bunch, who is assistant secretary of energy in charge of reactor
deployment, was pressed by Chairman Edward Markey, D-Mass., on
whether a meltdown is possible at those rectors.
Bunch had said a reactor with a concrete-and-steel dome four feet
thick designed to prevent release of radioactive materials in an
accident was ''not neccessarily'' safer than one without.
But he also said the department had put on ''extra systems as part
of our defense in depth concept,'' in spite of ''the best estimate of
the techical community that you could not get significant core
damage.''
Markey said Bunch was inconsistent and ''absolutely crazy to take
that position.''
Bunch said, ''I said before I did not believe it was a credible
event. You clearly could theorize a set of events in which you would
have melting of some fuel elements in the reactor.''
Only one of the reactors, the electricity and weapons reactor at
Hanford, resembles the design of the Soviet reactor at Chernobyl in
that it is water-cooled and uses graphite to slow down the fission
neutrons.
The other four weapons reactors use so-called heavy water, water in
which the hydrogen atoms contain a neutron as well as a proton, to
slow down the fission neutrons.
AP-NY-05-01-86 2133EDT
***************
a271 1905 01 May 86
AM-Nuclear-Iodine Tablets,0464
Risks Associated With Iodine Tablets, Nobelist Says
By PAUL RAEBURN
AP Science Editor
NEW YORK (AP) - Iodine tablets intended to protect people from some
dangers of radioactive fallout can in rare cases produce severe or
fatal reactions, and if used improperly can increase a person's
radiation dose, says a Nobel-prize-winning physicist who specializes
in nuclear medicine.
The tablets are intended to keep the body from absorbing radioactive
iodine by first saturating the body with non-radioactive iodine.
In Poland, the government has said that because of the Soviet
nuclear disaster radioactive iodine in the air is above normal and
all children have been ordered to take iodine.
In California, druggists are reporting increased demand for
potassium iodide, the form in which iodine is taken to prevent
radiation damage.
Potassium iodide is available only by prescription or through
agencies connected with emergency planning for nuclear accidents.
''There is a small group of people who have shown unusual
sensitivity to iodine,'' Rosalyn Yalow of the Veterans Administration
Medical Center in New York City's Bronx said Thursday. ''It's like
one in 100,000 or one in a million, but if you didn't need it (the
iodine), that would be bad.''
Furthermore, she said, people who take potassium iodide tablets
after they have been exposed to radioactive iodine will discharge the
radioactive iodine more slowly than if they had not taken the
tablets, she said.
That could increase the total dose of radiation they receive.
The body concentrates iodine in the thyroid gland, a tiny gland in
the neck that regulates the body's rate of metabolism, Yalow said.
The thyroid thus receives a larger dose of radiation from the
accumulating radioactive iodine than does the rest of the body.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration, in its official
recommendations on the subject of potassium iodide pills, says the
pills can prevent up to 90 percent of radioactive iodine absorption
if taken a few hours before or immediately after exposure to
radioactive iodine, said David Duarte, an FDA spokesman.
However, the drug is not a panacea, Duarte said. It does not protect
against any of the many other radioactive materials that can be
released in a nuclear plant accident.
''It's very important to evaluate just what the exposure is before
you start treating people for a disease that may not exist,'' said
Yalow. She won the Nobel Prize for development of the
radioimmunoassay, a test that made obsolete the former practice of
using radioactive tracers to diagnose thyroid disease.
In any case, iodine, which can cause thyroid cancer, is much less of
a threat than other radioactive elements, she said. ''Thyroid cancer
has a very low lethality,'' she said. ''It isn't like lung cancer.
AP-NY-05-01-86 2204EDT
***************
a275 1926 01 May 86
AM-US-Soviet Medical,0160
US Wants Experts To Send Doctors, Technicians, To Soviet
WASHINGTON (AP) - The United States has asked the Soviet Union for
permission to send a small team of doctors and technicians to Moscow
and Leningrad to determine whether the Ukranian nuclear accident
poses a health hazard for U.S. diplomats and their families, an
official said Thursday.
The official, who asked not to be identified, said the
administration wants to determine radiation levels at the U.S.
Embassy and to give physical checkups to the diplomats and their
families.
If the visas are approved, the official said State Department
doctors would be sent along with technicians from the Evironmental
Protection Agency.
The official noted that increased radiation levels were detected in
Norway, more than 900 miles from the accident site, while Moscow is
only about half that distance away. He said the Soviets have given no
information about radiation levels in the two cities, where more than
200 U.S. diplomats are stationed.
AP-NY-05-01-86 2226EDT
***************
a279 1942 01 May 86
AM-Nuclear News,0324
Voice of America Says It Is Reaching 29 Million Listeners In USSR
By HENRY GOTTLIEB
Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) - Western news about the Chernobyl nuclear accident,
including reports of more casualties than the Soviets acknowledge,
are reaching up to 29 million radio listeners in the Soviet Union, a
Voice of America spokesman said Thursday.
But the region around Kiev, the biggest city near the disaster, may
be blacked out.
The Soviets have spent huge sums to jam Western broadcast signals
around major cities, according to a VOA report prepared last
November. Kiev, the third largest population center in the Soviet
Union is 80 miles from Chernobyl.
The Soviet jamming program includes ground stations that put a
20-to-25-mile blackout ring around a city, and so-called ''sky-wave''
systems that block an even larger area by sending signals into the
stratosphere to block incoming radio transmissions.
Since reporting on the nuclear reactor accident began Monday, there
has been no noticeable increase in jamming, according to the VOA.
Fred Quinn, a VOA spokesman, said that even with the jamming,the
service's estimated listening audience is 29 million people in the
Soviet Union and 28 million more in Eastern Europe.
What they've been hearing about the accident is basically what
listeners in the United States have been hearing on the radio: Soviet
statements that the situation is not dangerous and under control and
Western reports of a major disaster with global implications.
Soviet listeners to the VOA would have known of the accident before
it was reported by the Soviet media. Quinn said VOA picked up news
agency reports Monday morning that higher-than-normal radiation
levels were measured in Scandinavia and that officials in Sweden
believed there had been a mishap at a nuclear reactor in the Soviet
Union.
The Soviet Union did not disclose the accident until Monday
afternoon and VOA also carried that report, Quinn said.
AP-NY-05-01-86 2242EDT
***************
a281 1955 01 May 86
AM-Soviet-Reactors,0218
Magazine Says Soviets Run Reactors Longer Than Normal
With AM-Nuclear Disaster, Bjt
LONDON (AP) - The Economist magazine said Thursday that the Soviet
Union runs its nuclear power stations far longer than the normal
6,000 hours a year. It added that the total output from Soviet
nuclear power stations has fallen behind planned levels because new
plants were not opened on time.
The article was written over several months by Dr. David Wilson, a
Soviet specialist at Leeds University, and was completed before the
accident Friday at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant 80 miles from
Kiev, The Economist said.
It said existing Soviet nuclear stations are being run for many
hours longer than normal in other nations and that regular service
work was not being carried. It did not specify how many additional
hours the plants were run.
By the end of 1985, the report said, the Soviet Union was operating
18 nuclear power stations with a total capacity of 26,840 megawatts.
The Chernobyl plant was capable of producing 4,000 megawatts, or 15
percent of all nuclear power in the Soviet Union.
Wilson said the Soviets had added 37 percent less capacity than
planned so far in the current five-year plan. Planners subsequently
set a lower target, but the industry still missed that by 12 percent,
he said.
AP-NY-05-01-86 2254EDT
***************
a002 2135 01 May 86
PM-News Digest,1232
PMs AP News Digest
Friday, May 2, 1986
Here are the top stories for PMs. The General Desk supervisor is Ron
Sirak (212) 621-1604. The Laserphoto Desk supervisor is Ed Stephens
(212) 621-1900.
For repeats of AP copy, the Service Desk can be reached at (212)
621-1595 or 1596.
NUCLEAR DISASTER:
Soviets Say Radiation Eases But Foreigners Continue to Leave
MOSCOW - The Soviet government says radiation around the Chernobyl
nuclear accident site has decreased, but in the absence of
information on potential health risks, hundreds of foreign visitors
have left the Soviet Union. Slug PM-Nuclear Disaster.
Developing. LaserPhoto NY4, satellite view of Chernobyl plant. By
Carol J. Williams.
Soviets Use House Hearing to Dispute Stonewall Charges
WASHINGTON - The Soviet Union chose an extraordinary forum - a House
subcommittee hearing - to dispute accusations it is hiding the truth
about the Chernobyl nuclear accident. Slug PM-US-Soviet Accident Rdp.
New material, may stand. 960 words.
LaserPhoto WX6, Churkin at House committee hearing. By Guy Darst.
Soviet Envoy Put on Capitol Hill Hot Seat
WASHINGTON - The second secretary at the Soviet Embassy was playing
tennis with his wife when his superiors called with a most delicate
assignment: He was to rush to Capitol Hill and explain the Soviet
Union's handling of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster. Slug PM-Soviet
Testifies. New, will stand. 600 words.
By Tim Ahern
Analysts and Witness Say Fire Has Died Down
STOCKHOLM, Sweden - A satellite picture received in Sweden shows the
fire at the stricken Chernobyl nuclear power station has died down,
analysts say. A Finnish pilot who flew over the site says nothing
seems to be burning in reactor No. 4. Slug PM-Chernobyl Fire.
Developing.
Most Experts Say the Truth Is Between U.S. and Soviet Version
WASHINGTON - The Reagan administration is moderating its most
dramatic scenario of the Chernobyl disaster as the Soviets continue
to minimize the incident and some U.S. nuclear experts say the truth
lies somewhere in between. Slug PM-Nuclear-Doubts. New material, may
stand. 670 words.
By Jill Lawrence
WASHINGTON TODAY: Even Veteran Diplomats Admit ''Everybody's
Scared''
WASHINGTON - ''Everybody's scared.'' That brief comment by a State
Department official summed up the mood here this week after the
perils of life in the nuclear age shifted from academic theory to
grim reality. Slug PM-Nuclear Tragedy. 750 words.
Moved in advance as a068, a070 of May 1.
Washington Today by George Gedda.
REAGAN TRIP:
President in Japan Today for Summit Overshadowed by Accident
BALI, Indonesia - President Reagan flies to Japan today to meet
other world leaders at an economic summit suddenly overshadowed by
the Soviets' nuclear power plant catastrophe. Slug PM-Reagan. 750
words.
***************
a010 2232 01 May 86
PM-US-Soviet Accident Rdp, Bjt,0866
Soviet Official Makes Rare Congressional Visit
By GUY DARST
Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) - The Soviet Union chose an extraordinary forum - a
House subcommittee hearing - to dispute accusations it is hiding the
truth about the Chernobyl nuclear accident.
But the subcommittee and the world learned nothing the Soviets had
not said before.
''We have nothing to hide,'' said Vitaly L. Churkin, second
secretary of the Soviet Embassy, after his grilling Thursday
afternoon by 11 members of the House.
Churkin, 40, is believed to be only the second Soviet official ever
to appear before a congressional panel. The first was a trade
representative who testified before the Joint Economic Committee four
years ago.
Rep. Edward Markey, D-Mass., chairman of the subcommittee on energy
conservation and power, said after the hearing that he extended the
invitation because, ''I really thought they might have an interest in
testifying. I think they did it because they know they have to answer
the questions the world is asking.''
A State Department official, speaking on condition that his name not
be used, said the Soviets accepted because their public image was
marred in Europe and the United States by the perception that they
are withholding information.
Markey admitted some disappointment: ''I don't think he gave the
answers to many specific questions.'' And the State Department
official said Churkin had nothing new.
At the same time Thursday, the U.S. government task force studying
the accident said:
-There ''definitely'' was no second meltdown at Chernobyl. A second
''hot spot'' on the public Landsat satellite photo of the plant is
either a solar reflection or an industrial facility of some sort,
such as a pipe-heating shop or a forge.
-It is ''plausible'' but unconfirmed that the fire in the reactor is
out, as the Soviets say.
-The bulk of the radiation to be expected probably has been released
by now.
Churkin stuck close to his government's official line on the
accident, starting off by reading - it hardly took five minutes to do
it - all the official statements issued since Monday's initial
disclosure. He referred back to those statements frequently.
In his perfectly fluent and idiomatic English marred only by a
misplaced accent here and there, Churkin made two points over and
over: The casualty figures are correct, and the Soviets did all they
could be expected to do to notify other countries of possible
airborne contamination.
Asked why it took from Saturday, when the accident started, until
Monday to say anything publicly, Churkin replied, ''I would imagine
there was a desire to see what was really happening and what the
consequences were before making an announcement.'' Since then, ''We
have been very forthcoming'' with neighboring countries.
He said he could not say if the Chernobyl site would be opened to
international inspection, but his country would do ''whatever is
necessary'' to prevent a recurrence.
In an interview later on the ''MacNeil-Lehrer NewsHour'' on PBS,
Churkin said, ''We are prepared to cooperate'' in preventing such
accidents.
Under sometimes hostile questioning from the subcommittee - although
the tone never got any hotter than what is heard in a dozen hearing
rooms every day - Churkin said in one of his sometimes testy
responses, ''I reject any implication of untruth'' in his
government's report of two dead and 197 injured, 18 of them
seriously.
''I find it a little offensive that some sources are very intent in
asserting that there were many casualties,'' he said.
To another critical observation he replied, ''If you want to talk to
my country in a commanding tone, forget it.''
Markey asked him to come back next week, but Churkin said he would
be away and Markey should ask the embassy to send someone else.
Markey said he would.
And there were these other developments:
-Los Angeles surgeon Robert P. Gale, a specialist in bone marrow
transplants, left for the Soviet Union to help treat the victims,
saying, ''We have got to act very fast.'' Gale is a friend of Armand
Hammer, the U.S. industrialist who has close ties to the Soviet Union
and who helped persuade the Soviets to accept their first foreign
help. Bone marrow destruction is a primary cause of death from
radiation.
-The Nuclear Regulatory Commission said it had begun a special
review of the only licensed U.S. power reactor with a graphite core
like the one at Chernobyl, even though the two designs are otherwise
quite different. Harold Denton of the commission said the review of
Colorado's Fort St. Vrain plant was ''just to make sure there isn't
something we missed on the first review.''
-Energy Department officials told Markey's subcommittee that their
graphite reactor at Hanford, Wash., though in some ways similar to
the Chernobyl reactor, had systems to confine radioactivity in an
accident.
Like the Chernobyl reactor, both the Hanford and Fort St. Vrain
reactors lack the super-strong containment structure that all other
U.S. power reactors have.
-The House approved a resolution criticizing the Soviet Union for
withholding information about the Chernobyl disaster.
AP-NY-05-02-86 0132EDT
- - - - - -
a025 0103 02 May 86
PM-US-Soviet Accident Rdp, 1st Ld, a010,0207
EDs: Leads with announcement of Cabinet-level review of Soviet
nuclear accident.
By GUY DARST
Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) - President Reagan has asked Vice President George
Bush to convene a Cabinet-level meeting today to review the Soviet
nuclear accident, while on Capitol Hill, the Soviet Union chose the
extraordinary forum of a House subcommittee hearing to dispute
accusations it is hiding the truth.
White House spokesman Larry Speakes, in announcing Reagan's action
as Air Force One flew toward Tokyo, said the United States wants to
assess the information that it has about the disaster and to consider
health and other aspects.
The United States believes the accident was ''of extensive
proportions,'' much worse than the Soviets have indicated, Speakes
said.
The review headed by Bush will consider what the U.S. diplomatic
response to the accident should be and determine what further steps
should be taken for working with the international atomic agencies,
Speakes said.
On Thursday, Vitaly L. Churkin, second secretary of the Soviet
Embassy, went before a House panel to discuss allegations that the
Soviets have not been forthcoming about the accident at Chernobyl.
''We have nothing to hide,'' he said.
Churkin, 40, is, 4th graf
AP-NY-05-02-86 0403EDT
- - - - - -
a100 1012 02 May 86
PM-US-Soviet Accident Rdp, 2nd, a025,1,0165
Soviet Official Makes Rare Congressional Visit
EDs: First 4 grafs new
By GUY DARST
Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) - Top Reagan administration officials reviewed the
Soviet nuclear disaster at a White House meeting today and Secretary
of Defense Caspar Weinberger said the radioactive cloud from the
accident appears to pose no threat to the United States.
''I don't think so; not at this point,'' Weinberger said when asked
if there was any concern about the radioactive cloud causing a
problem when it reaches this country.
The secretary, encountered by a reporter while conducting an
acquaintance on a tour of the White House after the meeting, said the
session was ''just a general review'' of the accident.
President Reagan asked Vice President George Bush Thursday to
convene the Cabinet-level meeting, while on Capitol Hill the Soviet
Union chose the extraordinary forum of a House subcommittee hearing
to dispute accusations it is hiding the truth.
White House: 2nd graf
AP-NY-05-02-86 1311EDT
- - - - - -
a209 1115 02 May 86
PM-US-Soviet Accident Rdp, 3rd Ld, a100,0289
EDs: First 9 grafs new
By GUY DARST
Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) - Top Reagan administration officials reviewed the
Chernobyl nuclear accident at a White House meeting today and said
they do not expect the disaster in the Soviet Union to create a
danger to health in the United States.
Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger, asked whether there was any
concern that the radioactive cloud from the accident might cause a
health problem in the United States, replied, ''I don't think so; not
at this point.''
Weinberger spoke to a reporter after attending the meeting, chaired
by Vice President George Bush. The secretary described the session as
a ''general review'' of the accident.
Bush's press secretary, Marlin Fitzwater, said members of a task
force set up by President Reagan to monitor health and environmental
implications ''advised the vice president that they do not expect the
Soviet accident to result in adverse health consequences in the
United States.''
Fitzwater said Bush would ''make a full report to the president this
afternoon on the status of U.S. government information and
activities.''
He said the report was expected to be in written form and would be
transmitted to Reagan in Tokyo, where the president arrived earlier
in the day for the weekend economic summit meeting.
''Daily monitoring of environmental contamination continues,'' the
spokesman said. ''The U.S. government continues to press the Soviet
Union for additional data on the accident and subsequent radiation
releases.''
Fitzwater's statement said the group met for an hour to review U.S.
activities in response to the accident.
''The vice president commended U.S. agencies for responding rapidly
and effectively,'' the press secretary said.
White House: 5th graf
AP-NY-05-02-86 1415EDT
***************
a012 2255 01 May 86
PM-Reagan, Bjt,0540
Reagan Heads for Tokyo Summit
By MICHAEL PUTZEL
AP White House Correspondent
BALI, Indonesia (AP) - President Reagan flew to Japan today to meet
other world leaders at an economic summit suddenly overshadowed by
the Soviets' nuclear power plant catastrophe.
When Reagan left the United States a week ago for a leisurely
journey across the Pacific, attention already had shifted from
economic issues to terrorism and the U.S. reprisal raid on Libya.
But before the leaders of the world's seven great industrial
democracies gathered, even terrorism had been shoved off center stage
by the explosion and fire in a nuclear reactor in the Ukraine and the
possible consequences for the Soviet Union and its neighbors.
Security surrounding the Tokyo summit and the leaders' separate
meetings leading up to the three-day conference beginning Sunday is
the toughest in Japan's history. Secretary of State George Shultz has
described the gathering as ''a juicy target'' for terrorists.
After a rash of guerrilla attacks on public facilities, some 30,000
police officers, including 4,000 riot policemen, were assembled to
protect Akaska Palace, the government guest house in central Tokyo
where the summit will be held, and other summit-related buildings and
hotels.
Japanese security officials said their unprecedented alert will
involve every member of the country's 250,000-member police ''in one
way or another.''
As Reagan flew to Japan, his wife, Nancy, headed for Malaysia and
Thailand to discuss her anti-drug campaign. The Reagans kissed
goodbye at the airport in Bali, Indonesia, where the president had
stopped for talks with President Suharto and the foreign ministers of
the six members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations
(ASEAN).
Mrs. Reagan will rejoin her husband Monday in Tokyo.
In a toast at an elegant formal dinner given by his host, Suharto,
Reagan ended his visit focusing on the friendship and strong ties
between the two nations ''even though our methods of government
differ.''
It was an indirect reference to Suharto's authoritarian rule, which
the United States accepts as it concentrates on maintaining close
relations with the fifth most populous nation in the world and one
which has enjoyed stupendous economic growth in recent years.
In Bali, Reagan also conferred with Philippine Vice President
Salvador Laurel.
Afterward, Shultz said the United States wishes the government of
Corazon Aquino would stop frustrating efforts to find a new home for
deposed President Ferdinand Marcos, now in exile in Hawaii.
''If he wishes to go to another country, the government of the
Philippines should not discourage that, and he should be provided
with a passport,'' Shultz told reporters.
Shultz also disclosed the United States has sought to dissuade
Marcos from making his frequent phone calls to supporters in the
Philippines and the news media but has had no success.
''He's a free man,'' the secretary said.
Shultz took issue with Laurel's request for greater U.S. help in
recovering the billions of dollars in cash and treasures that it
claims Marcos took out of the country.
The secretary, who will stop in the Philippines on the way home,
said that the administration had taken great pains to demonstrate its
support for the new government.
AP-NY-05-02-86 0154EDT
- - - - - -
a053 0446 02 May 86
PM-Reagan, 1st Ld, a012,0101
Reagan Arrives in Tokyo for Summit
Precede Bali, Indonesia
Eds: Tops with 2 grafs with Reagan arrival
By MICHAEL PUTZEL
AP White House Correspondent
TOKYO (AP) - President Reagan arrived in Japan today to confer with
other world leaders at an economic summit suddenly overshadowed by
the Soviets' nuclear power plant catastrophe.
Reagan emerged from Air Force One at 7:29 a.m. EST (8:29 p.m.) Tokyo
time and was greeted by a host of Japanese dignitaries. The president
made no statements, going quickly to a limousine for a ride to the
Hotel Okura.
When Reagan: 2nd graf
AP-NY-05-02-86 0746EDT
- - - - - -
a063 0604 02 May 86
PM-Reagan, 2nd Ld, a053,0064
Reagan Arrives in Tokyo for Summit
Eds: SUBS lead to note security conditions
By MICHAEL PUTZEL
AP White House Correspondent
TOKYO (AP) - President Reagan arrived in Japan amid extraordinarily
tight security today to confer with other world leaders at an
economic summit suddenly overshadowed by the Soviets' nuclear power
plant catastrophe and surging international terrorism.
Reagan emerged: 2nd graf
AP-NY-05-02-86 0902EDT
- - - - - -
a064 0608 02 May 86
PM-Reagan, 2nd Ld, Insert, a063,0095
TOYKO Insert 1 graf after 7th graf: Jappanese security xxx
anoother.'' with details of security attending Reagan's arrival at
Tokyo airport
A pool of a dozen reporters and photographers who had arrived with
Reagan on Air Force One today were prevented by Tokyo police from
witnessing closely the president's deplaning at the Tokyo
International Airport. Police surrounded the reporters and
photographers as they stepped down from the rear steps of Reagan's
plane and pushed them away from the area amid howls of protests by
the journalists.
As Reagan: 8th graf
AP-NY-05-02-86 0906EDT
- - - - - -
a071 0648 02 May 86
PM-Reagan, 2nd Ld, Insert a063,0162
TOKYO INSERT 1 graf after 4th graf with material with other summit
partners; SUB 6th graf: After a rash xxx and hotels to CORRECT
spelling of Akasaka Palace.
Italian Prime Minister Bettino Craxi arrived here Thursday. West
German Chancellor Helmut Kohl was stopping over in Thailand en route
to Tokyo and British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher arrived in
South Korea today for a visit before going on to Tokyo Sunday.
Security surrounding the Tokyo summit and the leaders' separate
meetings leading up to the three-day conference beginning Sunday is
the toughest in Japan's history. Secretary of State George Shultz has
described the gathering as ''a juicy target'' for terrorists.
After a rash of guerrilla attacks on public facilities, some 30,000
police officers, including 4,000 riot policemen, were assembled to
protect Akasaka Palace, the government guest house in central Tokyo
where the summit will be held, and other summit-related buildings and
hotels.
Japanese security: 8th graf
AP-NY-05-02-86 0948EDT
- - - - - -
a078 0758 02 May 86
PM-Reagan, 2nd Ld, Insert a063-64-71,0047
TOKYO INSERT 1th grafafter 5th graf with material on other summit
leaders
Canadian Prime Minister Brian Mulroney, French President Francois
Mitterrand, European Community President Jacques Delors and EC
co-representative, Dutch Prime Minister Ruud Lubbers, arrive Saturday
and Sunday.
Security surrounding; 6th graf
AP-NY-05-02-86 1057EDT
***************
a013 2305 01 May 86
PM-Soviet Testifies, Bjt,0605
A Most Delicate Diplomatic Assignment
By TIM AHERN
Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) - The second secretary at the Soviet Embassy was
playing tennis with his wife when his superiors called with a most
delicate assignment: He was to rush to Capitol Hill and explain the
Soviet Union's handling of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster.
And so Vitaly L. Churkin went up to the Hill. For more than an hour,
the 40-year-old, silver-haired diplomat, speaking in flawless but
accented English, calmly sparred with members of Congress and
staunchly performed his assignment.
The State Department was taken by surprise. A government official,
speaking anonymously, said he assumed it was attempt to repair the
damage the Soviet image has suffered in world public opinion.
At times, the exchanges with U.S. legislators were testy.
Rep. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., asked Churkin to say in layman's terms how
the accident happened.
''It occurred on April 26,'' replied the Soviet. ''Can you tell me
in those same layman's terms why the Challenger disaster happened?''
''I am not trying to be polemical, but please understand that of
course it is a complicated technical problem,'' Churkin added.
The idea of inviting a Soviet spokesman to answer questions about
Chernobyl occurred Thursday morning to Rep. Edward Markey, D-Mass.,
chairman of the House subcommittee on energy conservation and power.
Markey was meeting with the panel's staff, reviewing plans for a
scheduled 1:30 p.m. subcommittee meeting with administration
officials who were part of an interagency task force set up to
monitor the Chernobyl disaster.
''I really thought they might have an interest in testifying. It was
worth a shot,'' Markey said.
The Soviets have been heavily criticized for providing little
information about the accident to either the world or their own
people. But Markey said, ''I think they understand now that they have
to answer the questions the world is asking.''
Peter Franchot, Markey's administrative assistant, called the Soviet
Embassy about 10:30 a.m. and asked by name for several officials whom
Franchot knew.
''I finally got hold of some guy and passed along the invitation,''
Franchot said later. ''They said immediately that they were
interested and they would get back to me.''
About two hours later, the Soviet official called back and said ''a
Mr. Churkin would be calling me,'' Franchot recalled. ''Apparently,
they said, they had pulled him in off the tennis courts where he was
playing with his wife.''
''Churkin didn't call, but about 12:50 I called back and they said
Churkin was on his way up here,'' said Franchot. ''The whole thing
was really pretty straightforward, pretty cut-and-dried.''
''I realize the extraordinary nature of the appearance,'' said
Markey. ''I've never heard of a Soviet official appearing before a
congressional committee.''
But congressional historians said that on May 20, 1982, Vladislav K.
Navarov, the USSR's deputy trade representative, testified before the
Joint Economic Committee subcommittee on monetary and fiscal policy.
Markey has been highly critical of nuclear power and he and his
subcommittee often have had sharp questions for its advocates.
But they were unsuccessful when they tried to pin down Churkin, who
has been in the embassy for four years. The questions were sometimes
far from friendly, but Churkin never lost his demeanor.
''We have been very forthcoming,'' he insisted.
Markey said later, ''I don't think he gave the answers to many
specific questions. His testimony was a first step, but there are
still many, many questions.''
Said Churkin: ''I came because I was invited. We have nothing to
hide.''
AP-NY-05-02-86 0206EDT
***************
a016 2332 01 May 86
PM-Chernobyl Fire, Bjt,0659
Swedish Analysts Say Fire Easing, But Uncertain Whether It's Out
STOCKHOLM, Sweden (AP) - Analysts say a satellite picture shows a
decrease in the fire at the Soviet Union's Chernobyl nuclear power
station north of Kiev, but they cannot tell whether the fire has been
extinguished.
Officials in Scandinavia also said Thursday that low levels of
fallout from the power station in the Ukraine had continued to
decline and that some safety measures were being eased.
However, Swedes were advised that to be on the safe side they should
avoid eating wild morels, soup made from freshly picked wild nettles
or parsley grown outdoors.
''We cannot see the smoke which we saw Wednesday,'' Lars Bjerkesjo
of Satellitbild, the company which received the satellite picture,
was quoted as saying.
''We can see the structure of the reactor a lot more clearly and the
picture confirms our earlier conclusions that about one-fourth of the
building is damaged,'' the national news agency TT quoted him as
saying.
Christer Larsson of Space Media Network, an agency handling the
rights to photos made by a French-Swedish satellite, said: ''It's
difficult to be 100 percent sure if the fire is extinguished.''
''What's left is enormous heat, and what's the difference between
fire and a thousand degrees?'' he said.
The Soviets, in their sketchy reports on the situation, never have
said there was a fire at Chernobyl.
Kai Bjorkman, pilot of a plane sent to Kiev by Finland to evacuate
Finnish citizens, said he flew his DC-8 over the Chernobyl area,
''but did not see any glow or anything of the stricken nuclear power
plant.''
Aapo Rytomaa, a researcher at Finland's Office of Nuclear Radiation
Safety, said small traces of radioactive iodine were found in all of
the 72 Finns who left Kiev.
He said the Soviets told Finland not to bring Geiger counters along
on the flight, but the jetliner carried one anyway. Rytomaa said the
level of radiation at the Kiev airport was not alarming, but he did
not provide specific figures.
Sweden's prime minister and the head of the country's Communist
Party criticized the Soviet Union during May Day rallies for not
providing enough information on fallout from the Chernobyl disaster.
Prime Minister Ingvar Carlsson, who recently visited Moscow, said:
''A neighboring country must immediately give complete information
after an accident. ... The Soviet Union has not done so in this
case.''
The criticism of Lars Werner, head of the Swedish Communist Party,
was much sharper. ''It's unreasonable, unacceptable and yes, even
cynical that the Soviet Union waited several days to give us
information,'' he said.
The Soviets first reported the problem in Chernobyl on Monday after
Scandinavian countries already had detected and reported increases in
radiation blown their way from the Soviet Ukraine.
Gunnar Bengtsson, head of Sweden's National Radiation Protection
Institute, said on nationwide television late Thursday that although
no serious problems were known to exist, Swedes might want to avoid
morels, nettle soup and garden parsley.
He said that because radiation passing through Swedish dairy cows
was producing higher levels of radiation in milk, ''we may later
advise farmers to keep their livestock indoors.''
But he also advised Swedes that fallout levels had fallen so low
that even pregnant women no longer needed to worry about radiation.
Neighboring Denmark decided to join Sweden in banning at least
temporarily wine, vodka, honey, fruit and other consumer items
imported from the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe.
Danish officials said less than 1 percent of the country's food
imports would be affected and the ban would be lifted if it was
established none of the products contained had been affected by the
nuclear accident at Chernobyl.
World Health Organization officials planned a meeting in Copenhagen
to organize a conference on ways countries affected by Chernobyl
fallout could deal with it.
AP-NY-05-02-86 0232EDT
***************
a020 0014 02 May 86
PM-Nuclear-Doubts, Bjt,0703
Nuclear Experts Cast Doubt On Soviet, U.S. Descriptions of Accident
By JILL LAWRENCE
Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) - The Reagan administration is moderating its most
dramatic scenario of the Chernobyl disaster as the Soviets continue
to minimize the incident and some U.S. nuclear experts say the truth
lies somewhere in between.
''There are a number of factors that suggest that it could be very
serious,'' Tom Cochran, senior staff scientist with the
environmentalist Natural Resources Defense Council, said Thursday.
''But they could be consistent with something much less serious,
given what limited data we have.''
''There are a lot of things that indicate it may not be the worst
case,'' said Frank Graham, vice president of the Atomic Industrial
Forum, an industry trade group. ''If it were still a tremendous
danger and they had another plant going down, I think the Soviets
would be taking additional precautions ... to protect their citizens
in Kiev.''
Kiev, which has 2.4 million inhabitants, is 80 miles south of
Chernobyl.
Graham and Alan Krass, senior arms analyst for the Union of
Concerned Scientists, a nuclear safety watchdog group, said both
sides have reasons for minimizing or dramatizing the accident. And
Krass said U.S. intelligence assessments may take on different
coloration as they are filtered through lawmakers, aides and
administration officials to the press.
''Some people have an incentive for making it worse than it is, just
as the Soviets have an incentive to make it better,'' he said.
''There's no way to keep these things out of the propaganda war.''
Administration officials, speaking on condition they not be named,
strongly suggested Wednesday that two reactors may have experienced
core meltdowns and graphite fires at the four-reactor Chernobyl
complex. But on Thursday, the flow of information stopped and
reporters were referred to an interagency task force set up to
monitor the accident.
The backpedaling followed a conflict within the administration over
exactly what the intelligence information had revealed. One
administration source did stand by the initial theory of damage to a
second reactor, but said, ''There are still questions about how
extensive it was.''
The task force, meanwhile, issued a statement saying it could not
confirm reports of such damage, and said a second hot spot shown in a
satellite photo was not another reactor on fire. In a briefing in
Bali, Indonesia, where he was accompanying President Reagan on his
Far East tour, presidential spokesman Larry Speakes said the spot
could be ''a building or other things burning in the area.''
However, there remained a substantial gap between the U.S. and
Soviet descriptions of what happened at Chernobyl.
U.S. officials, including Secretary of State George Shultz, were
still saying Thursday that the death toll is much higher than the
official Soviet count. And the Soviet account of the accident,
reiterated Thursday by an embassy representative making an
extraordinary appearance before a House panel, is that two people
were killed and 197 injured, 18 seriously, and three of the four
reactors are shut down.
''I find it a little offensive that some sources are very intent in
asserting that there were many casualties,'' Soviet Embassy official
Vitaly L. Churkin told the House subcommittee on energy, conservation
and power.
Graham, Cochran and Krass said they suspect more casualties have
occurred or will occur, but that two deaths is plausible - and not
preposterous as a U.S. official claimed earlier this week.
Krass and Cochran also said the Soviet figure is much less
preposterous than an unconfirmed 2,000-death estimate widely quoted
by various government officials. ''Radioactivity doesn't kill that
fast. It's not an instantaneous killer like at Bhopal with the poison
gas,'' said Krass, referring to the Indian gas leak that killed more
than 2,000 people.
As for the second reactor, Cochran said a photograph of the plant
shown on Soviet television showed no smoke or flames coming from the
reactor building next to the ruined reactor number four. He said
either the photo was doctored or U.S. intelligence was wrong in
concluding there were problems at the second reactor.
''If you want to be optimistic,'' said Graham, ''you could say it
really wasn't so bad at number four, they're forgiving machines, so
probably number three is all right.''
AP-NY-05-02-86 0314EDT
***************
a020 0014 02 May 86
PM-Nuclear-Doubts, Bjt,0703
Nuclear Experts Cast Doubt On Soviet, U.S. Descriptions of Accident
By JILL LAWRENCE
Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) - The Reagan administration is moderating its most
dramatic scenario of the Chernobyl disaster as the Soviets continue
to minimize the incident and some U.S. nuclear experts say the truth
lies somewhere in between.
''There are a number of factors that suggest that it could be very
serious,'' Tom Cochran, senior staff scientist with the
environmentalist Natural Resources Defense Council, said Thursday.
''But they could be consistent with something much less serious,
given what limited data we have.''
''There are a lot of things that indicate it may not be the worst
case,'' said Frank Graham, vice president of the Atomic Industrial
Forum, an industry trade group. ''If it were still a tremendous
danger and they had another plant going down, I think the Soviets
would be taking additional precautions ... to protect their citizens
in Kiev.''
Kiev, which has 2.4 million inhabitants, is 80 miles south of
Chernobyl.
Graham and Alan Krass, senior arms analyst for the Union of
Concerned Scientists, a nuclear safety watchdog group, said both
sides have reasons for minimizing or dramatizing the accident. And
Krass said U.S. intelligence assessments may take on different
coloration as they are filtered through lawmakers, aides and
administration officials to the press.
''Some people have an incentive for making it worse than it is, just
as the Soviets have an incentive to make it better,'' he said.
''There's no way to keep these things out of the propaganda war.''
Administration officials, speaking on condition they not be named,
strongly suggested Wednesday that two reactors may have experienced
core meltdowns and graphite fires at the four-reactor Chernobyl
complex. But on Thursday, the flow of information stopped and
reporters were referred to an interagency task force set up to
monitor the accident.
The backpedaling followed a conflict within the administration over
exactly what the intelligence information had revealed. One
administration source did stand by the initial theory of damage to a
second reactor, but said, ''There are still questions about how
extensive it was.''
The task force, meanwhile, issued a statement saying it could not
confirm reports of such damage, and said a second hot spot shown in a
satellite photo was not another reactor on fire. In a briefing in
Bali, Indonesia, where he was accompanying President Reagan on his
Far East tour, presidential spokesman Larry Speakes said the spot
could be ''a building or other things burning in the area.''
However, there remained a substantial gap between the U.S. and
Soviet descriptions of what happened at Chernobyl.
U.S. officials, including Secretary of State George Shultz, were
still saying Thursday that the death toll is much higher than the
official Soviet count. And the Soviet account of the accident,
reiterated Thursday by an embassy representative making an
extraordinary appearance before a House panel, is that two people
were killed and 197 injured, 18 seriously, and three of the four
reactors are shut down.
''I find it a little offensive that some sources are very intent in
asserting that there were many casualties,'' Soviet Embassy official
Vitaly L. Churkin told the House subcommittee on energy, conservation
and power.
Graham, Cochran and Krass said they suspect more casualties have
occurred or will occur, but that two deaths is plausible - and not
preposterous as a U.S. official claimed earlier this week.
Krass and Cochran also said the Soviet figure is much less
preposterous than an unconfirmed 2,000-death estimate widely quoted
by various government officials. ''Radioactivity doesn't kill that
fast. It's not an instantaneous killer like at Bhopal with the poison
gas,'' said Krass, referring to the Indian gas leak that killed more
than 2,000 people.
As for the second reactor, Cochran said a photograph of the plant
shown on Soviet television showed no smoke or flames coming from the
reactor building next to the ruined reactor number four. He said
either the photo was doctored or U.S. intelligence was wrong in
concluding there were problems at the second reactor.
''If you want to be optimistic,'' said Graham, ''you could say it
really wasn't so bad at number four, they're forgiving machines, so
probably number three is all right.''
AP-NY-05-02-86 0314EDT
***************
a030 0155 02 May 86
PM-Nuclear Disaster, Bjt,0804
Blaze Appears to Lessen, Reports that Soviets Shut Down Other
Reactors
With LaserPhoto NY4
By CAROL J. WILLIAMS
Associated Press Writer
MOSCOW (AP) - The blaze and release of radiation from the site of
the Chernobyl nuclear power plant disaster appeared to be
diminishing, and reports today said the Soviet Union had shut down
similar reactors that supply 5 percent of its electricity.
The Soviet ambassador to Thailand, Valentine Kasatkin, reiterated at
a news conference in Bangkok today that his country has the situation
at the Chernobyl plant, 80 miles north of the Ukrainian capital Kiev,
under control.
''I wish to assure you that on behalf of the government that no need
for outside assistance exists now. The situation is under control,''
he said.
The Kremlin has rejected offers of help from the United States and
other countries, but accepted an offer from a Los Angeles-based
international bone-marrow transplant organization. Bone marrow
destruction is a primary cause of death from radiation.
Dr. Robert Gale, a specialist in bone-marrow transplants, arrives in
Moscow today to help treat victims.
The Soviets have not revealed the cause of the accident, which
Western analysts say started last Friday and involved a meltdown at
one of four reactors at the Chernobyl and a subsequent reactor fire.
Kasatkin said part of the building housing one reactor had been
demolished, and the other three were unaffected. He said they had
been shut down but could be reactivated easily.
A U.S. government task force studying the accident said Thursday in
Washington that the bulk of radiation being spewed from the reactor
fire at the Chernobyl plant had probably been released, and that it
was ''plausible,'' but unconfirmed, that the blaze had been
extinguished.
The task force also said there definitely had not been a second
meltdown at the plant as a public Landsat satellite photo suggested.
NBC Nightly News reported Thursday that intelligence photos showed
Soviet helicopters dumping sand or water on the damaged plant, and
said the photos indicated the fire might be out or almost out.
Swedish analysts said a picture made of the plant Thursday by a
Swedish-French satellite showed that the blaze appeared at least to
have lost intensity.
Christer Larsson, head of the Space Media Network, a Stockholm
agency handling rights to the photo, said: ''It's probably still very
hot there, several thousand degrees. It's difficult to say something
definite on this.''
The Washington Post reported in today' editions that the Soviets may
have closed the nuclear reactors of the same type as the one in
Chernobyl, an action that would, in effect, shut down half of the
country's nuclear power supply and about 5 percent of the total power
supply.
The Post quoted Western diplomatic sources, but said it was unclear
how those sources obtained their information.
Another newspaper, the Financial Times of London, said the Soviets
shut down all 20 nuclear reactors similar to the Chernobyl reactor,
and that this had raised fears of power shortages.
The Soviet government said in a statement Thursday: ''Efforts to
implement a complex of technical measures continued at the Chernobyl
nuclear power station (NPS) in the duration of April 30. The
radioactivity on the territory of the NPS and the NPS' settlement
dropped 1.5-2 times.''
''Work is under way to deactivate the contaminated areas adjacent to
the NPS territory,'' it said. ''Medical assistance is administered to
those affected, of whom 18 people are in serious condition. There are
no foreign citizens among those affected.''
The ''settlement'' is Pripyat, a town of 25,000 built at the plant
site.
Officially, the casualty toll is two dead and 197 injured, but
Secretary of State George P. Shultz said the United States thought it
was much higher.
Radiation levels continued to drop in Scandinavia Thursday and a
wind shift sent the invisible radioactive cloud over the Soviet
Union's richest wheatlands.
The U.S. Agriculture Department said shifting winds were carrying a
radioactive plume from the stricken plant over the farmland of the
western Ukraine and into Romania, Hungary, eastern Czechoslovakia and
Austria. Poland reported less fallout than in previous days, but said
radioactivity levels in water and soil remained high.
The Soviet Union's first public mention of any effect on other
countries came in a report Thursday by the official news agency Tass
on a meeting in New York between U.N. Secretary-General Javier Perez
de Cuellar and Yuri Dubinin, chief Soviet delegate to the United
Nations.
''The Soviet government has informed a group of European states of
the accident and steps undertaken to liquidate its consequences,''
Tass said.
European officials have complained angrily that the Soviets did not
provide them with enough information on the disaster early enough.
AP-NY-05-02-86 0455EDT
- - - - - -
a033 0209 02 May 86
PM-Digest Advisory,0121
All the budgets have moved. Here is a list with Laserphoto numbers:
MOSCOW - PM-Nuclear Disaster, a030. LaserPhoto NY4.
WASHINGTON - PM-US-Soviet Accident Rdp, a010.
WASHINGTON - PM-Soviet Testifies, a013.
STOCKHOLM, Sweden - PM-Chernobyl Fire, a016.
WASHINGTON - PM-Nuclear-Doubts, a020.
BALI, Indonesia - PM-Reagan, a012.
TOKYO - PM-Summit-Security, a019.
TOKYO - PM-Summit-Oil, a021.
MANILA - PM-Philippines, a023.
WASHINGTON - PM-Budget, a024.
TUCSON, Ariz. - PM-Sanctuary Trial, a029. LaserPhoto TC1.
WASHINGTON - PM-Capitol Security,
CHICAGO - PM-Alcohol-Stroke, a011.
INDIANOLA, Miss. - PM-Black Boycott, a014.
NEW YORK - PM-Polar Expedition, a018.
VANCOUVER, British Columbia - PM-Expo Opening, a026.
The AP.
AP-NY-05-02-86 0507EDT
- - - - - -
a048 0417 02 May 86
PM-Digest Briefs,1004
Eds: This package does not contain the following items from the News
Digest:
MOSCOW-Nuclear Disaster, a030; WASHINGTON-Soviet Testifies, a013;
WASHINGTON-Nuclear-Doubts, a020; WASHINGTON-Nuclear Tragedy, a068,
a070; TOKYO-Summit-Oil, a021; MANILA, Philippines-Philippines-Church,
a099; BALI, Indonesia, PM-Reagan, a012; CHICAGO-Alcohol-Stroke, a011;
VANCOUVER, British Columbia-Expo Opening, a026.
By The Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) - President Reagan asked Vice President George Bush
to convene a Cabinet-level meeting today to review the Soviet nuclear
accident, while on Capitol Hill, the Soviet Union chose the
extraordinary forum of a House subcommittee hearing to dispute
accusations it is hiding the truth.
White House spokesman Larry Speakes, in announcing Reagan's action
as Air Force One flew toward Tokyo, said the United States wants to
assess the information that it has about the disaster and to consider
health and other aspects.
The United States believes the accident was ''of extensive
proportions'' and much more disastrous than the Soviets have
indicated, Speakes said.
---
STOCKHOLM, Sweden (AP) - Analysts say a satellite picture shows a
decrease in the fire at the Soviet Union's Chernobyl nuclear power
station north of Kiev, but they cannot tell whether the fire has been
extinguished.
Officials in Scandinavia also said Thursday that low levels of
fallout from the power station in the Ukraine had continued to
decline and that some safety measures were being eased.
However, Swedes were advised that to be on the safe side they should
avoid eating wild morels, soup made from freshly picked wild nettles
or parsley grown outdoors.
---
TOKYO (AP) - The tightest security ever mounted in the Japanese
capital was in effect today as Japan braced for the arrival of
President Reagan and other Western leaders for the international
economic summit.
Forewarned by rocket attacks by Japanese radicals who vowed to
''crush'' the summit, authorities have turned a large area of central
Tokyo into a virtual armed camp.
Italian Premier Bettino Craxi, the first summit leader to arrive,
saw elements of a specially mobilized force of some 30,000 police
Thursday as he reached the New Otani Hotel, headquarters for all but
the U.S. delegation.
---
MANILA, Philippines (AP) - President Corazon Aquino, speaking a day
after the worst street violence since she took office, said today her
tolerance of supporters of Ferdinand E. Marcos proves the strength of
her new government.
Mrs. Aquino spoke at the Villamar Air Base a day after 34 people
were hurt and 77 others were arrested in battles between her
supporters and Marcos loyalists during and after a Labor Day rally.
The two sides threw stones and bottles, broke car windows and
damaged businesses. Riot police used tear gas, fire hoses and finally
gunfire to force Marcos supporters away from the U.S. Embassy.
---
WASHINGTON (AP) - The Republican-controlled Senate early today
passed a trillion-dollar fiscal 1987 budget that challenges President
Reagan's opposition to new taxes and includes $19 billion less in
military spending than the president requested.
Republicans and Democrats alike said strong support for plan,
approved in bipartisan votes of 66-29 and 70-25, should convince
House Democrats and the White House that they should support
something close to what the Senate did.
''This is the best budget vote we've had since we had a budget
process,'' said Sen. Pete V. Domenici, R-N.M., chairman of the Senate
Budget Committee. It ''sends a signal to the U.S. house that
something very close to this is what we ought to do.''
---
TUCSON, Ariz. (AP) - Eight sanctuary movement activists convicted by
a federal jury that heard no evidence on humanitarianism or ethics
say they will continue helping to smuggle Central American aliens
into the United States.
Federal officials hailed the verdict Thursday even though three
other defendants, including a founder of the movement, were acquitted
of all charges.
A Presbyterian minister also considered a founder of the movement, a
Mexican Roman Catholic priest and a nun were among six church workers
convicted in U.S. District Court of conspiracy. Another priest and a
lay worker were convicted of other felony charges.
---
WASHINGTON (AP) - House Speaker Thomas P. O'Neill says ''we have
enough security around here,'' but Senate leaders want to enclose the
U.S. Capitol grounds in a 6-foot, wrought iron fence to protect
against a terrorist attack.
''The Capitol is the pre-eminent symbol of our democracy,'' said
Senate Minority Whip Alan Cranston, D-Calif. ''We have to assume that
some terrorists would view it as an attractive target.''
The proposed fence, which would closely resemble the one surrounding
the White House, is the most important - and most controversial -
provision in a $15.5 million security plan for the Capitol and
adjacent House and Senate office buildings.
---
INDIANOLA, Miss. (AP) - The first black chief of Indianola's mostly
black school system says his appointment should ''pull the community
back together'' after five weeks of protests sparked by the
appointment of a white man.
The Indianola School Board voted 5-0 Thursday to appoint Robert
Merritt superintendent, a day after W.A. Grissom resigned, his
three-year contract for the job bought out by white businessmen for
$90,000, officials said.
Grissom had been appointed March 25 on a 3-2 vote of the board,
which split along racial lines.
---
NEW YORK (AP) - Six explorers trekking across the frozen vastness of
the Arctic ice cap with only a sextant to guide them are within 20
miles of the North Pole today, according to a satellite monitoring
their progress.
The Steger International Polar Expedition, which is re-creating
Robert Peary's 1909 conquest of the pole, began its 500-mile journey
from the tip of Canada almost two months ago.
At 5:45 p.m. EDT Thursday, the team was at 89 degrees, 49 minutes
north latitude, or about 20 miles from the pole, said Jennifer
Kimball, a spokeswoman for Du Pont, the expedition's outfitter.
AP-NY-05-02-86 0717EDT
- - - - - -
a054 0508 02 May 86
PM-Nuclear Disaster, 1st Ld - Writethru, a030,1213
Blaze Appears to Lessen, Reports that Soviets Shut Down Other
Reactors
Eds: LEADS throughout with with Japanese, Swedish, U.S. Embassy
statements in Moscow; visas applied for U.S. State Department
doctors, EPA technicians; Reagan asks Bush to convene Cabinet-level
meeting; UPDATES with Polish and Romanian responses
With LaserPhoto NY4
By CAROL J. WILLIAMS
Associated Press Writer
MOSCOW (AP) - The blaze and release of radiation from the site of
the Chernobyl nuclear power plant disaster appeared to be
diminishing, and reports today said the Soviet Union had shut down
similar reactors that supply 5 percent of its electricity.
The Kremlin insists it has the situation at the Chernobyl nuclear
power station, 80 miles north of Kiev, under control and has rejected
offers of help from the United States and other countries.
However, it accepted an offer from a Los Angeles-based international
bone-marrow transplant organization. Bone marrow destruction is a
primary cause of death from radiation.
Dr. Robert Gale, a specialist in bone marrow transplants, was flying
to Moscow today to help treat victims.
The Japanese Embassy in Moscow, concerned about contamination, said
today it was flying in milk from Sweden for Japanese children, and
the Swedish Embassy planned a weekend meeting of its nationals on
precautions in the wake of the disaster.
But U.S. Ambassador Arthur Hartman said in a statement today that
the consumption of fruit, water, meat, vegetables, and dairy products
purchased in Moscow was considered safe, and that there were no
specific recommendations yet for Americans.
The United States applied for visas for State Department doctors and
Environmental Protection Agency technicians to come to Moscow with
equipment to more closely monitor the situation.
President Reagan today asked Vice President George Bush to convene a
Cabinet-level meeting today to review the Soviet nuclear accident.
Presidential spokesman Larry Speakes said en route to Japan with
Reagan that the United States thinks the accident was of ''extensive
proportions.''
The Bush group will consider the U.S. diplomatic response and how to
proceed with international atomic energy agencies, Speakes said.
The Soviets have not revealed the cause of the accident, which
Western analysts say started last Friday and involved a meltdown at
one of four reactors at the Chernobyl and a subsequent reactor fire.
Valentine Kasatkin, the Soviet ambassador to Thailand, told
reporters in Bangkok today that part of the building housing one
reactor had been demolished, and the other three were unaffected. He
said they had been shut down, but could be reactivated easily.
A U.S. government task force studying the accident said Thursday in
Washington that the bulk of radiation being spewed from the reactor
fire at the Chernobyl plant had probably been released, and that it
was ''plausible,'' but unconfirmed the blaze had been extinguished.
The task force also said there definitely had not been a second
meltdown at the plant as a public Landsat satellite photo suggested.
NBC Nightly News reported Thursday that intelligence photos showed
Soviet helicopters dumping sand or water on the damaged plant, and
said the photos indicated the fire might be out or almost out.
Swedish analysts said a picture made of the plant Thursday by a
Swedish-French satellite showed that the blaze appeared at least to
have lost intensity.
Christer Larsson, head of the Space Media Network, a Stockholm
agency handling rights to the photo, said: ''It's probably still very
hot there, several thousand degrees. It's difficult to say something
definite on this.''
The Washington Post reported in today' editions that the Soviets may
have closed the nuclear reactors of the same type as the one in
Chernobyl, an action that would, in effect, shut down half of the
country's nuclear power supply and about 5 percent of the total power
supply.
The Post quoted Western diplomatic sources, but said it was unclear
how those sources obtained their information.
Another newspaper, the Financial Times of London, said the Soviets
shut down all 20 nuclear reactors similar to the Chernobyl reactor,
and that this had raised fears of power shortages.
A source at the U.S. Embassy, who spoke on condition of anonymity,
said of the newspaper reports, ''I suspect that's accurate.''
However, he said he could provide no further information.
The Soviet government said in a statement Thursday: ''Efforts to
implement a complex of technical measures continued at the Chernobyl
nuclear power station (NPS) in the duration of April 30. The
radioactivity on the territory of the NPS and the NPS' settlement
dropped 1.5-2 times.''
''Work is under way to deactivate the contaminated areas adjacent to
the NPS territory,'' it said. ''Medical assistance is administered to
those affected, of whom 18 people are in serious condition. There are
no foreign citizens among those affected.''
The ''settlement'' is Pripyat, a town of 25,000 built at the plant
site.
Vitaly Churkin, second secretary of the Soviet Embassy in
Washington, testified before a U.S. House of Representatives
subcommittee Thursday and said the accident was not over with. ''That
is clear. We have not told other countries that everything is OK and
they can relax,'' he said.
Officially, the casualty toll is two dead and 197 injured, but
Secretary of State George P. Shultz said the United States thought it
was much higher.
Radiation levels continued to drop in Scandinavia Thursday and a
wind shift sent the invisible radioactive cloud over the Soviet
Union's richest wheatlands.
The U.S. Agriculture Department said shifting winds were carrying a
radioactive plume from the stricken plant over the farmland of the
western Ukraine and into Romania, Hungary, eastern Czechoslovakia and
Austria. Poland reported less fallout than in previous days, but said
radioactivity levels in water and soil remained high.
Mieczyslaw Sowinski, the head of Poland's State Atomic Agency, on
Thursday predicted that radioactive fallout would result in more
thryoid cancer cases ''at the level of a few percent'' over the next
three decades.
In Bucharest, state televsion today warned Romanians to keep their
children indoors, to wash fruits and vegetables, and to not drink
rural water after abnomally high levels of radioactivity were
recorded over much of the country.
The Soviet Union's first public mention of any effect on other
countries came in a report Thursday by the official news agency Tass
on a meeting in New York between U.N. Secretary-General Javier Perez
de Cuellar and Yuri Dubinin, chief Soviet delegate to the United
Nations.
It said: ''The Soviet government has informed a group of European
states of the accident and steps undertaken to liquidate its
consequences, so that the governments of nations that could be
affected could take the necessary measures for securing the health of
the population and to protect the environment.''
European countries have complained angrily that the Soviets did not
provide them with enough information on the disaster early enough.
Hundreds of Western tourists and businessmen also left the Kiev area
because of the lack of specific information on the risk of staying.
Finland sent a special plane to evacuate tour...
(End missing.)
- - - - - -
a059 0542 02 May 86
PM-News Advisory,0070
The General Desk supervisor is John Daniszewski (212) 621-1604. The
Laserphoto Desk supervisor is Rich Kareckas (212) 621-1900.
All times EDT
-PM-Nuclear Disaster, a054. Developing. Updates planned.
-PM-Students-Kiev, a047, will be updated with additional comments by
students today.
-PM-Expo Opening, a026. World's fair in Vancouver opens at 1 p.m.
Update planned.
-PM-Polar Expedition, a018. Uppdate prospects uncertain.
AP-NY-05-02-86 0840EDT
***************
a032 0204 02 May 86
BC-Quotes,0125
Current Quotations
By The Associated Press
''I find it a little offensive that some sources are very intent in
asserting that there were many casualties.'' - Soviet Embassy
official Vitaly L. Churkin on foreign coverage of the Chernobyl
nuclear accident.
---
''It's a shootout at O.K. Corral - that's what's in the making right
now between the administration and the House.'' - Rep. Hal Daub,
R-Neb., after a measure calling for retaliation against free trade
abuses won House Ways and Means Committee approval.
---
''Our new democracy has been criticized because it is tolerant of
agitation. This is regarded by certain ignorant quarters as weakness.
It is not. It is the clearest sign of our concrete confidence in our
strength.'' - Philippines President Corazon Aquino.
AP-NY-05-02-86 0504EDT
***************
a043 0329 02 May 86
PM-Nuclear-Iodine Tablets,0451
Risks Associated With Iodine Tablets, Nobelist Says
By PAUL RAEBURN
AP Science Editor
NEW YORK (AP) - Iodine tablets can protect people from one kind of
radiation-induced cancer but can increase radiation exposure and in
rare cases cause severe or fatal reactions if used improperly,
experts say.
In California, druggists are reporting increased demand for
potassium iodide, the form in which iodine is taken to prevent
radiation damage. Some pharmacists report increased sales of liquid
iodine antiseptic, which is not used to protect against radiation
damage.
The tablets - if taken before or immediately after exposure to
radioactive iodine - can saturate the thyroid with normal iodine so
it does not absorb the radioactive iodine, which can cause cancer.
In Poland, the government has said that because of the Soviet
nuclear disaster radioactive iodine in the air is above normal and
all children have been ordered to take iodine.
Potassium iodide is available only by prescription or through
agencies connected with emergency planning for nuclear accidents.
''There is a small group of people who have shown unusual
sensitivity to iodine,'' Rosalyn Yalow of the Veterans Administration
Medical Center in New York City said Thursday. ''It's like one in
100,000 or one in a million, but if you didn't need it (the iodine),
that would be bad.''
Furthermore, she said, people who take potassium iodide tablets
after they have been exposed to radioactive iodine will discharge the
radioactive iodine more slowly than if they had not taken the
tablets, she said.
That could increase the total dose of radiation they receive.
''It's very important to evaluate just what the exposure is before
you start treating people for a disease that may not exist,'' said
Yalow, who won the Nobel Prize for development of the
radioimmunoassay, a test that made obsolete the practice of using
radioactive tracers to diagnose thyroid disease.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration says potassium iodide pills
can prevent up to 90 percent of radioactive iodine absorption if
taken a few hours before or immediately after exposure to radioactive
iodine, said David Duarte, an FDA spokesman.
However, the drug is not a panacea, Duarte said. It does not protect
against the many other radioactive materials that can be released in
a nuclear plant accident.
Dr. Jacob Robbins, an endocrinologist with the National Institutes
of Health in Bethesda, Md., said, ''The key question is what should
be the cutoff point for when one feels that giving the iodine is a
justifiable thing to do.''
Research has not conclusively established a point at which the
benefits of potassium iodide tablets outweigh their possible risks,
Robbins said.
AP-NY-05-02-86 0629EDT
***************
a047 0359 02 May 86
PM-Students-Kiev,0383
Rockland Students Return From U.S.S.R. to New York
By MARLENE AIG
Associated Press Writer
NEW YORK (AP) - A group of high school students returned home from
the Soviet Union unsure about the effects of a small amount of
radiation found on their shoes, probably debris picked up from the
Chernobyl disaster.
''I've never been radiated before,'' said Kelly Stein, 17, a student
of Ramapo High School. ''I'll probably throw the shoes out.''
The more than 30 Rockland County students arrived at John F. Kennedy
International Airport on Thursday afternoon. Despite the radiation
findings, they were declared to be ''in great shape,'' said Charlie
Meinhold, director of the Safety and Environmental Protection
division of Brookhaven National Laboratories.
''This indicates they had walked where there had been some fallout
of some sort or another,'' he said. ''It constitutes dirty shoes. It
doesn't pose a hazard since children don't eat off the bottom of
their shoes.''
The testing was arranged by Sen. Alfonse D'Amato, R-N.Y., and Rep.
Benjamin Gilman, R-N.Y., whose district includes Rockland County.
The group, consisting of students from Ramapo and Suffern high
schools, toured Moscow and Leningrad and had no plans to go to the
Ukraine, according to tour director Donald Cairns.
Cairns said he first learned of the accident Monday on an English
language broadcast at a Moscow hotel. It was described as minor with
two workers killed.
On Wednesday, the group returned from a tour of Leningrad and Cairns
found three messages, including one from Finnair advising them the
group had a flight to Finland in 90 minutes.
When the group arrived at Kennedy from Hensinki, U.S. Customs agents
insisted their luggage be tested for any contamination, but the tests
proved negative, Meinhold said.
However, he said it could not be determined if the group had picked
up the small amount of radiation in Helsinki, Leningrad or Moscow.
''It's evidence that they were in an area that was contaminated,'' he
added.
The teen-agers themselves were mostly exhausted from all the
traveling they had done in the previous 48 hours, but were happy to
be home.
''We cried when we had to leave,'' said Stacy Altman, 17, a senior
at Ramapo High School. ''But now we're glad.''
AP-NY-05-02-86 0658EDT
- - - - - -
a077 0756 02 May 86
PM-Students-Kiev, 1st Ld-Writethru, a047,0825
Some U.S. Students Return From U.S.S.R., Others Continue Touring
Precede NEW YORK
Eds: UPDATES throughout with new information, quotes from U.S. tour
groups
By The Associated Press
A group of New York high school students returned home from the
Soviet Union with traces of radiation on their shoes, probably debris
from the Chernobyl disaster, but other U.S. groups stayed to finish
their Soviet tours.
''I've never been radiated before,'' said Kelly Stein, 17, a student
at Ramapo High School. ''I'll probably throw the shoes out.''
The group of more than 30 Rockland County students arrived at John
F. Kennedy International Airport on Thursday afternoon. Despite the
radiation findings, they were ''in great shape,'' said Charlie
Meinhold, director of the Safety and Environmental Protection
division of Brookhaven National Laboratories.
''This indicates they had walked where there had been some fallout
of some sort or another,'' he said. ''It constitutes dirty shoes. It
doesn't pose a hazard since children don't eat off the bottom of
their shoes.''
A 16-member Western Michigan University group in Kiev, about 80
miles south of the Chenonbyl nuclear accident site, would continue
its three-city study tour of the Soviet Union, said the tour leader.
''We don't seem to be at any great risk,'' John Cooley, an English
professor and leader of the Kalamazoo, Mich., group, said in a
telephone interview Thursday with the Battle Creek Enquirer.
The group was aware of the emergency and had tried to cut short its
stay in Kiev, but was told by a U.S. State Department representative
that ''we might be doing all right to keep to our itinerary,'' Cooley
said.
The group, which left for the Soviet Union last Friday, was in Kiev
Tuesday night through Thursday and was to leave for Leningrad today,
returning to the United States on Sunday, Cooley said.
The New York students, from Ramapo and Suffern high schools, toured
Moscow and Leningrad and had no plans to go to the Ukraine, where the
accident occurred, according to tour director Donald Cairns.
Cairns said he first learned of the accident Monday on an English
language broadcast at a Moscow hotel. It was described as minor with
two workers killed.
On Wednesday, the group returned from a tour of Leningrad, and
Cairns found three messages, including one from Finnair advising them
the group had a flight to Finland in 90 minutes.
The group arrived at Kennedy on a flight from Helsinki. U.S. Customs
agents insisted their luggage be tested for any contamination, but
those proved negative, Meinhold said.
However, he said it could not be determined if the group had picked
up the small amount of radiation in Helsinki, Leningrad or Moscow.
''It's evidence that they were in an area that was contaminated,'' he
added.
The teen-agers themselves were mostly exhausted from all the
traveling they had done in the previous 48 hours, but were happy to
be home.
''We cried when we had to leave,'' said Stacy Altman, 17, a senior
at Ramapo High School. ''But now we're glad.''
Six American students and 79 British students who had been in Kiev
also cut short their stay in the Soviet Union, arriving in London
Thursday night.
''Everything in Kiev was going on as normal. It was a bit eerie
because of that,'' Hank Birnbaum, of Saco, Idaho, told NBC's ''Today
Show.'' ''We were stuck in the middle of everything going on as
normal in Kiev and hearing reports from the West.''
Karen Weisblatt of Chicago had just started a study course in Kiev,
and told ''CBS Morning News'' she learned of the Chernobyl accident
early Tuesday morning from a friend who called from Paris.
''The American Embassy continued to tell us that the Soviet
information was that Kiev was a safe city, at least initially that's
what they told us,'' she said. ''They didn't give us any advice on
precautionary measures.''
Another group of New York tourists spent three days in Kiev before
the nuclear accident was disclosed by the government. They arrived at
Turku, Finland, Thursday, angered to learn the extent of the
emergency.
''I was amazed at the immensity of the problem,'' tour leader James
Tarrou said in a telephone interview. ''The whole world knew of a
major crisis and we knew very little about it.''
The tourists, 11 adults and 20 students from Garden City and Roslyn
high schools on Long Island, were tested for radiation by the Finnish
Center for Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety.
Finnish officials said the readings on bodies, clothes and luggage
were slightly higher than normal, but well within the safe range and
lower than the streets of Turku.
A group of 18 Long Island residents, including eight high school
students, also stayed in Kiev three days, but decided to continue
their trip and return as planned on Sunday.
AP-NY-05-02-86 1056EDT
***************
a049 0422 02 May 86
PM-Romania-Radiation,0265
Romanians Warned About High Radiation in Water, Fruits and Vegetables
BUCHAREST, Romania (AP) - State television today warned Romanians to
keep their children indoors, to wash fruits and vegetables, and to
not drink rural water after abnormally high levels of radioactivity
were recorded over much of the country.
The report said ''radiation levels much over normal limits,''
fallout from the Soviet nuclear disaster, was reported in the
northeastern counties of Iasi and Suceava, in the Transylvanian
counties of Mures and Cluj and in Bucharest, the capital.
A huge, invisible cloud of radiation has been spewing from a reactor
at the Chernobyl power plant in the Soviet Ukraine, about 80 miles
north of Kiev, since late last week. The plant is about 250 miles
northeast of the Romanian border.
The report warned parents to keep children indoors, and said medical
authorities were preparing to distribute potassium iodide to those
younger than 18.
Romanians were warned to drink bottled water, or tap water from
urban networks, and were told to carefully wash fruits and
vegetables, while farmers were told to cover livestock fodder.
It was not clear whether the measures were to be applied nationwide
or to only the areas named in the report. Both Cluj, in northwest
Romania, and Bucharest, in the far southeast, are more than 430 miles
from Chernobyl.
The warning was issued one day after the formation of a special
commission, led by President Nicolae Ceausescu's wife, Elena, to
monitor the situation. Mrs. Ceausescu is chairman of the National
Council of Science and Education.
AP-NY-05-02-86 0722EDT
***************
a070 0645 02 May 86
PM-Nuke Poll,0208
Poll Finds Majority Opposes More Nuclear Plants
WASHINGTON (AP) - A majority of Americans say they don't think the
United States should build any more nuclear power plants, but they're
not ready to shut down the ones already operating, the newspaper USA
Today reports.
The poll, based on a survey of 726 adults selected at random across
the nation, was published in today's edition of the paper. The poll
was taken in the wake of the accident at the Soviet nuclear power
plant at Chernobyl.
Just over half of those responding, 54 percent, said they do not
think the United States should build any more nuclear plants, while
38 percent said construction should continue. It did not say how the
remainder felt.
Twenty-four percent of those responding wanted to close the plants
already operating in this country. Sixty-four percent said they
favored keeping the plants open. It did not say how the remainder
felt.
Overall, 55 percent of those polled said they considered American
nuclear plants ''safe but could be improved,'' and another 8 percent
consider them ''totally safe.'' Only 12 percent said American nuclear
plants are totally unsafe.
Even so, 58 percent of those responding to the poll said they
believe a nuclear accident could happen anywhere.
AP-NY-05-02-86 0945EDT
***************
a081 0812 02 May 86
PM-Nuclear-Bone Marrow,0618
Soviets Agree to International Effort to Save Radiation Victims
With PM-Nuclear Disaster Bjt
By ROGER GILLOTT
Associate Press Writer
LOS ANGELES (AP) - The Soviet Union's acceptance of help from a U.S.
specialist in bone marrow transplants does not necessarily mean the
nuclear accident there caused widespread radiation sickness, the
doctor said today.
''I don't think the fact that they've asked for us, allowed us, to
assist them indicates anything about the number of people'' stricken,
said Dr. Robert P. Gale. ''I would consider my mission worthwhile
even if it involved a single individual.''
Gale, expected to arrive in Moscow tonight, was interviewed today in
Frankfurt, West Germany, on ABC's ''Good Morning America.''
In addition to his own expertise, Gale will provide the Soviet Union
with the resources of the Bone Marrow Registry, of which he is
chairman. The Milwaukee-based registry keeps computer lists of 50,000
to 100,000 potential bone-marrow donors and maintains ties with 128
medical centers around the world that perform transplants.
The treatments could save 70 percent of victims of serious radiation
sickness, given proper matching of donors and good follow-up care,
said Dr. Robert Ashe, director of the Bone Marrow Transplant Program
at the Medical College in Wisconsin.
''Marrow transplant can be completely corrective for individuals
with severe marrow failure of the sort that might be expected'' in
the Soviet accident, Ashe said in a ''CBS Morning News'' interview
today.
Although the Soviets previously had sought only limited outside
assistance, this help was accepted through the intervention of
Occidental Petroleum Corp. Chairman Armand Hammer, who has strong
ties with Soviet leaders.
''We have got to act very fast,'' Gale said, explaining that
irradiation and destruction of bone marrow are the major consequences
in a nuclear accident and that death from high radiation exposure may
occur in two to four weeks.
Gale, who practices at the University of California at Los Angeles,
said Soviet Embassy officials in Washington called him Thursday
morning to accept his offer of help.
''They said they were anxious for me to come, confer with my
counterparts in the Soviet Union and, if necessary, take whatever
steps are necessary.''
Those steps, he said, would include determining the number of people
exposed to potentially fatal doses of radiation, then overseeing
international efforts to locate marrow donors and perform
transplants.
The Soviet Union doesn't participate in the Bone Marrow Registry,
and the country apparently has limited experience with marrow
transplants, Gale said.
Such transplants have been used for years in the United States to
treat leukemia and a marrow-destroying disease called aplastic
anemia.
''The operation itself isn't that difficult,'' Gale said. ''What
taxes even our resources is keeping the patient alive for the next
three to four weeks while the new bone marrow begins to grow.''
Even UCLA's sophisticated marrow-transplant center is able to handle
only about five transplants a week, he said.
If a large number of Soviets have suffered high radiation exposure,
it will require international pooling of energy and resources to save
them, including flying many to other countries, he said.
Doctors must first match marrow types - a system not unlike matching
blood types but with far worse odds. Outside a person's family, the
odds of matching marrow are one in 10,000, Gale said.
Hammer's initial contact with the Soviet Union was when he took a
surplus U.S. Army hospital to Russia to help fight post-World War I
famine.
''This is the case in which humanitarian concerns transcend
political boundaries, and I pledge to continue to help in any way I
can through appropriate channels,'' Hammer said Thursday.
AP-NY-05-02-86 1112EDT
***************
a085 0839 02 May 86
PM-Nuclear Disaster, 1st Ld, Insert, a54,0064
Moscow Insert after 18th Graf: The Post xxx information
Vladimir Shustov, deputy Soviet U.N. ambassador in Washington,
interviewed today on ABC's ''Good Morning America'' news program,
indirectly confirmed the shutdowns.
Asked why the reactors like Chernobyl were shut down, Shustov said,
''To stop, to diminish and to lower down the level of (possible)
radiation.''
Another newsppaper,: 19th graf
AP-NY-05-02-86 1138EDT
***************
a099 1008 02 May 86
PM-Business Mirror, Adv 05,0656
$adv 05
For Release PMs Mon, May 5
Diasters So Great They Undermine Economic Planning
By JOHN CUNNIFF
AP Business Analyst
NEW YORK (AP) - At the very time that non-communist industrial
nations are praising their economic policies and foresight at a
meeting in Tokyo, non-economic events are showing how tenuous and
fragile those policies are.
The non-economic events include terrorism, which cuts spending on
foreign travel; natural disasters, such as earthquakes and droughts
that can wreck economies; and man-made disasters, such as acid rain
and nuclear fallout.
It is the latter that now draws the attention of the world, not only
because of its immediate impact on lives, but for the possible
lasting damage done to food production, the air and water, and
industrial production.
The economic impact could affect every one of the world's nations to
one degree or another. Not all the impact is likely to be negative -
although that certainly would be so in the Soviet Union. Some might
be positive.
American farmers, for example, might benefit if Soviet food
production falls, a possibility immediately reflected in rising
prices on U.S. commodity markets. Conceivably, precious metals owners
might benefit too.
Earlier, drought affected parts of Ethiopia. An enormously
destructive earthquake hit Mexico City, destroying buildings and
cutting travel income. Acid rain has ruined forests in the United
States and Canada.
Even before the latest man-made disaster in the Soviet Union,
terrorism had caused wholesale cancellations of foreign travel and
forced major corporations to devise additional security systems, and
even consider closing offices.
All such factors can influence the direction and growth rate of
economies, causing the best laid plans to be far off the mark. All
this before still another man-made factor is considered. That factor:
politics.
Political policies in South Africa, Libya, France and certain other
countries have caused American corporations to curtail operations or
consider doing so. Tourism and travel also have been impacted.
In the United States, anger over what several industries consider to
be unfair foreign competition has revived efforts by protectionists,
that is, those who would erect barriers to imports.
Political considerations have also affected U.S.- Soviet
agricultural trade, with the latter publicly proclaiming its intent
to import U.S. grain only if other supplies cannot fill the bill.
Partly for this reason - although far more important factors are
involved - America's grain belt is hurting.
The ultimate non-economic disrupter of economic planning is, of
course, war. But even a cursory listing of factors short of that
suggests how difficult it is to direct or even forecast the future of
an economy.
Politics, for example, helped destroy President Lyndon Johnson's
notions of a Great Society. Unable to live with his own economic
budget, Johnson attempted to spend in defiance of Federal Reserve's
opposition. The Fed wouldn't let him.
But economic planning is not just a game that national leaders play,
as in the 12th annual economic summit meeting of industrial nations
now under way in Tokyo. It is a multibillion dollar-industry also,
one that tries to foretell what might happen in banking, securities,
commodities and the like.
Much of this attempt to peer into the economic future is an
undertaking, understandably, of economists. But economic knowledge,
as events show, is only one dimension of the task, and probably not
the most important one.
Ironically, this inability to see ahead, given the idiosyncracies of
man and nature, has been a spur to the private forecasting industry.
There are enough variables, that is, for each forecaster to claim a
particular insight.
But nobody, it appears - not even the great leaders meeting in Tokyo
- can put all the variables together in one perfectly neat package.
Even before the Chernobyl disaster, failures of the Soviet economy
and elsewhere proved that.
End Adv PMs Mon, May 5
AP-NY-05-02-86 1308EDT
***************
a201 1034 02 May 86
AM-News Digest,1036
AMs AP News Digest
For Saturday AMs
Here are the top stories at this hour from The Associated Press. The
General Desk supervisor is Marty Sutphin (212-621-1602). The
Laserphoto Desk supervisor is Rich Kareckas (212-621-1900).
SOVIET NUCLEAR DISASTER:
Soviets Say Radiation Diminished, Similar Reactors Shut Down
MOSCOW - The release of radiation from the devastated Chernobyl
nuclear power plant reportedly dimimished Friday, and a Soviet
official indicated the government has shut down similar reactors
nationwide as a precaution. Slug AM-Nuclear Disaster. Developing.
900.
By Roxinne Ervasti. LasserPhoto NY20, satellite view of nuclear
plant.
Vice President Bush Calls Cabinet into Session
WASHINGTON - Vice President George Bush meets with Cabinet members
to discuss the U.S. diplomatic response to the Soviet nuclear
accident. Medical experts say radiation increases here will be almost
imperceptible, while a Soviet-born analyst says the main impact in
the Soviet Union will be economic. Slug AM-US-Soviet Accident Rdp.
Developing.
By Jill Lawrence. LaserPhoto WX14, Dr. Reba comments on Soviet
radiation.
Fallout Concern Continues from Yugoslavia to Britain
LONDON - Yugoslavia warns its citizens not to spend too much time
outdoors. A West German weather center gets hundreds of calls from
people worried about radioactivity. Britain orders radiation checks
on food from the Soviet Union. All over Europe, people express
concern about fallout from the Chernobyl nuclear plant. Slug
AM-Chernobyl-Europe Rdp. Developing. 750.
By Robert Glass. LaserPhoto LON8, student returning from Russia
checked for radiation; FRA1, man returning from Kiev checked for
radiation.
THE SUMMIT:
Reagan's Arrival Draws Extraordinary Security
TOKYO - Airtight security, bespeaking Japanese worries about
potential violence, greeted President Reagan on his arrival for a
seven-nation economic summit already somewhat elipsed by the nuclear
reactor catastrophe in the Soviet Union and the recent surge in
international terrorism. Slug AM-Reagan. New material. About 850.
Should stand.
By Tom Raum. LaserPhoto TOK12, president arrives in Tokyo.
Leaders Prepare for 12th Annual Summit
TOKYO - Terror, trade and a new kind of challenge, the problem of
prosperity, are vying for attention with the Soviet nuclear accident
as leaders of the seven major industrial democracies prepare for the
12th annual economic summit. Slug AM-Summit-Diplomacy. New. About
750.
By AP Diplomatic Writer Barry Schweid.
ECONOMY: Unemployment Dips Along With Interest Rates
WASHINGTON - The plunge in interest rates begins showing up in the
job market, helping create 130,000 new jobs in construction, real
estate and finance last month to cut unemployment modestly to 7.1
percent despite the continued ill health of smokestack America. Slug
AM-Unemployment. Should stand. 700 words.
By Labor Writer Matt Yancey. LaserGraphic NY17, 1-col. chart.
BUDGET: Lawmakers Say Senate Spending Plan Sends a Message
WASHINGTON - President Reagan has ''serious reservations'' about a
budget passed by the Senate, but legislators say the overwhelming
bipartisan vote in favor of the $1 trillion package sends a loud and
clear signal about the need for revenue increases and restraint in
Pentagon spending. Slug AM-Budget. Developing.
By Cliff Haas. LaserGraphic upcoming.
PHILIPPINES: Aquino Fires Police Chief over Protest Violence
MANILA, Philippines - President Corazon Aquino fires a police chief
for failing to contain violent protests by supporters of deposed
President Ferdinand E. Marcos, and orders an investigation. Slug
AM-Philippines. New material. 700.
By Steve Le Vine. LaserPhoto MLA1, President Aquino at air base
anniversary.
POPE-CULTS: Vatican Warns of Brainwashing, Sexual Enticements
VATICAN CITY - The Vatican says the rapid proliferation of cults,
some using brainwashing and sexual enticements to recruit followers,
can disrupt families and society and be destructive to those who
join. Slug AM-Vatican-Sects. New material. 500.
By Samuel Koo.
EXPO 86: World's Fair Opens Gates To Thousands
VANCOUVER, British Columbia - Rainy, cool weather Friday didn't stop
thousands from pouring through the gates of Expo 86, eager to get the
first peek at a highly publicized, sometimes controversial world's
exposition. Slug AM-Expo 86. New material. Developing.
By Katia Blackburn. LaserPhoto upcoming.
POLAR EXPEDITION: Explorers Zero In on Unmarked Destination
NEW YORK - As the arctic ice cap continues to shift under their
feet, six explorers within sight of the North Pole try to pinpoint
their unmarked destination using just a sextant, while back on land,
their progress is being monitored via satellite. Slug AM-Polar
Expedition. Developing.
By Marjorie Anders.
ORVAL FAUBUS: Comeback Bid Stirs Up Little Rock High School
LITTLE ROCK, Ark. - An editorial in the Central High School
newspaper has sparked debate about Orval Faubus' 1986 political
comeback and his 1957 decision to block nine black students from
entering the school. A majority of Central High's faculty disagreed
with a student writer's assessment that Faubus may be ''best of the
worst'' among the crop of Democratic candidates for governor. Slug
AM-Central High. Developing.
By Scott Charton. LaserPhoto upcoming.
VIETNAM VETERANS: Women Who Served Want Own Memorial
MINNEAPOLIS - She stands sad-eyed and tired, a stethoscope around
her neck and a helmet in her hands. To Diane Carlson Evans and other
women who served in Vietnam, she is a symbol of something too long
forgotten, and the women have launched a drive to have the statue
placed at the Vietnam memorial in Washington, D.C. AM-Women Vets'
Memorial. New, 650, will stand.
By Jeff Baenen. LaserPhoto MP4, veterans with memorial model.
OREO COOKIES: However We Eat Them, We Eat Them a Lot
NEW YORK - Many people eat them by breaking apart the two chocolate
wafers and scraping off the filling with their two front teeth;
others munch them whole. However they are eaten, Oreo chocolate
sandwich cookies are the world's top selling cookies - more than 100
billion have been sold since Nabisco introduced them 75 years ago.
Slug AM-Oreos. New, will stand. 450 words
By Business Writer Cotten Timberlake. LaserPhoto upcoming.
AP-NY-05-02-86 1333EDT
***************
a211 1127 02 May 86
AM-Cuba-Nuclear,0383
State News Media Play Down Disaster
By DAN SEWELL
Associated Press Writer
MIAMI (AP) - Cuba's state-controlled news media have played down the
Soviet nuclear accident, ignoring their nation's Soviet-directed
reactor project while charging the United States with using the
tragedy for propaganda.
Newspaper and broadcast coverage of the Chernobyl accident has been
limited to dispatches by Tass, the official Soviet news agency,
according to a Western diplomatic source and a Cuban citizen
contacted Friday by telephone in Havana. Both spoke on condition they
not be identified further.
Prensa Latina, the Cuban wire service that claims hundreds of
subscribers worldwide, Thursday charged in a Washington-datelined
dispatch that the United States has ''launched a propaganda campaign
with the objective of diverting the world attention from the arms
race.''
The report said the accident hasn't affected any of the Soviet
Union's neighbors, but ''the United States and its allies are trying
to convert the peaceful use of the atom in the Soviet Union into a
threat to humanity.''
A report on Radio Reloj, a Havana station monitored in Miami, Friday
criticized ''alarmist information from the Western news media,'' and
Friday's Granma, the official organ of the Cuban Communist Party,
printed a Tass dispatch denying ''Western rumors that thousands
died.''
There have been no references to the Soviet-designed nuclear
reactors under construction near Cienfuegos, in southern Cuba.
''That (the reactor project) is not something people would talk
about openly right now, but for certain that is on people's minds,''
said the Cuban man in Havana.
The state organs have carried sporadic updates on the nuclear
reactor project, most recently a television interview in March with
the Soviet director of the project, who said it was on target for a
1989 completion.
President Fidel Castro, who 1 1/2 years ago vowed that Cuba's ''future
must be fundamentally nuclear,'' has said the two reactors being
built at Cienfuegos will be followed by reactors on Cuba's eastern
and western tips.
Western nuclear experts say the Cuba project uses newer, safer
technology than the Chernobyl plant. Cuban-born nuclear physicist
Marcello Alonzo, who lives in Melbourne Beach, Fla., said an accident
like Chernobyl's would be impossible with the Cuba reactors, but he
said ''the Russians are lousy at building (reactors).''
AP-NY-05-02-86 1426EDT
***************
a215 1212 02 May 86
AM-Reagan, Bjt,0804
Reagan Arrives For Summit Amid Airtight Security
By TOM RAUM
Associated Press Writer
TOKYO (AP) - President Reagan arrived amid airtight security Friday
for a seven-nation summit in which economic issues would likely be
eclipsed by worries about terrorism and nuclear reactor safety.
Reagan was greeted on his arrival by U.S. Ambassador Mike Mansfield
and a host of Japanese dignitaries.
Secretary of State George Shultz already had pronounced Tokyo a
''juicy target'' for terrorists. But presidential spokesman Larry
Speakes said Reagan was ''confident of his own security.''
Reagan made no public statement as he arrived at Tokyo International
Airport, moving quickly to his limousine for a short ride to the
Hotel Okura, where the presidential party was to be housed for the
three-day summit commencing at about 4:30 p.m. Tokyo time Sunday
(3:30 a.m. EDT).
Reagan will meet with leaders of Japan, West Germany, France,
Britain, Canada and Italy during the summit, the 12th that has been
held. In other developments Friday, disclosed to reporters
accompanying Reagan here on Air Force One, the president:
- Named a Cabinet-level committee, to be headed by Vice President
George Bush, to study the Soviet nuclear catastrophe and recommend
policy steps the United States might embrace.
- Issued a statement through Speakes criticizing a Senate-passed
budget outline that makes sharp cuts in defense spendidng. However,
Reagan said he supported efforts to bring it to a vote just to ''get
the process moving.''
Reagan said Friday that in his talks with summit partners, he
planned to press for an allied approach to dealing with ''the scourge
of terrorism.''
''Terrorism is a worldwide problem. If we are to defeat it,
sacrifices by all affected nations are necessary,'' Reagan said in a
written question-and-answer exchange with Japanese journalists.
The White House released the text on Friday, even though the
questions had been submitted in Washington before Reagan left for his
13-day Far East visit.
In his responses to questions from the Japanese reporters, Reagan
indicated that if necessary, he would broach the problem of
terrorism.
Even if all U.S. allies don't agree with the April 15 bombing raid
on Libya, in reprisal for a terrorist attack on a West Berlin
discotheque which killed an American serviceman, ''the countries
represented (at the summit) share . . . a revulsion to terrorism,''
he said.
Meanwhile, National Police Agency Commissioner General Hideo Yamada
said: ''At the last Tokyo summit in 1979 the extremists said they
would 'disrupt' the meeting. This time they have vowed to 'blast' it
apart. Our task is thus to provide three-dimensional layers of
security.''
This point wasn't lost on a dozen or so American reporters and
photographers, accompanying Reagan on his flight here from Bali,
Indonesia, who were prevented from watching the president get off the
plane and shake hands with Japanese dignitaries.
Some 40 uniformed officers moved in as soon as the reporters emerged
from the presidential jet, first blocking their view of Reagan and
then pushing and shoving them away from the aircraft. In security
measures unprecedented in Japan's history, uniformed officers
blanketed the city's busiest streets and major hotels were put
off-limits to the public.
Italian Premier Bettino Craxi arrived Thursday. Canadian Prime
Minister Brian Mulroney, West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl, British
Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, French President Francois
Mitterrand, European Community President Jacques Delors and Dutch
Prime Minister Ruud Lubbers, the EC co-representative, were scheduled
to arrive Saturday and Sunday to a city transformed into a virtual
armed camp following attacks by leftist radicals bent on breaking up
the summit.
Reagan administration officials said it was a near-certainty that
the catastrophe at the Chernobyl power station in the Soviet Union
would also come under heavy discussion during the summit. Assistant
Secretary of State Gaston Sigur said the Japanese, in particular, are
interested in seeing the topic discussed.
At the summit, the United States is expected to push for a September
start for a new round of international trade talks - discussions
which would include restraints on free trade of agricultural
products.
Efforts to fine-tune the international exchange rate system,
coordinate action among allies on interest rate reductions and
discussions on protectionism are expected to be the main items on the
economic part of the agenda.
Reagan arrived here at 7:29 a.m. (8:29 p.m. EDT) after a 7 1/2-hour
hour flight from Indonesia, where he had held meetings with U.S.
allies in Southeast Asia. Reagan has been away from Washington since
April 25 on the longest trip of his presidency.
Reagan and his wife Nancy left the airport in Bali in separate
planes - Reagan in Air Force One and the first lady in a backup
aircraft for visits to drug prevention groups in Malaysia and
Thailand.
AP-NY-05-02-86 1512EDT
***************
a218 1245 02 May 86
AM-News Advisory,0255
In addition to the stories listed on the AM-News Digest, we are
planning the following for AMs:
TEL AVIV, Israel - Anatoly Shcharansky greets alleged Nazi war
criminal John Demjanjuk with a handshake and a smile and speaks to
him for 10 minutes during a tour of the prison where Demjanjuk is
held, a prison spokesman says. AM-Shcharansky-Demjanjuk.
STOCKHOLM, Sweden - The government orders five Czechs, including
four diplomats, to leave the country because of alleged spying. A
newspaper says the five were involved in military and industrial
espionage. AM-Sweden-Czechs.
WASHINGTON - Senate Finance Committee Chairman Bob Packwood claims a
majority of the panel now supports his radical tax-overhaul plan,
which would preserve deductions for most state and local taxes.
AM-Tax Overhaul.
WASHINGTON - President Reagan, in Tokyo for the economic summit,
signs emergency legislation extending the depleted authority of two
government agencies that are major sources of home mortgage credit.
AM-FHA.
LOS ANGELES - Only one American, a bone marrow expert, has been
asked by Soviet officials for help in the aftermath of that country's
nuclear disaster. Friends and colleagues describe Dr. Robert P.
Gale's work and philosophies. AM-Bone Marrow Doctor.
TUCSON, Ariz. - A federal judge has scheduled a May 16 hearing on
whether to hear arguments on a defense motion accusing the government
of selective prosecution of eight sanctuary movement activists
convicted of alien-smuggling conspiracy or related charges.
AM-Sanctuary Trial.
AP-NY-05-02-86 1538EDT
***************
a220 1313 02 May 86
AM-Nuclear Disaster, Bjt,0893
Western Experts Say Hazard Abates, Radiation Heads South
By ROXINNE ERVASTI
Associated Press Writer
MOSCOW (AP) - Western experts said the hazard from the week-old
Soviet nuclear disaster had abated Friday, but the huge invisible
cloud of radiation continued its erratic course over Europe, borne
south into the Balkans on changing winds.
Fallout brought down by rain raised radiation levels in Belgrade,
Yugoslavia, to eight times normal. In Romania, between Yugoslavia and
the Soviet Union, state television told people to keep their children
indoors, wash fruits and vegetables and avoid rural water.
Authorities in Scandinavia, over which the cloud passed first, said
radiation levels were expected to remain above normal for weeks. They
said there was no health risk, but urged such precautions as keeping
cows in their barns so their milk would not be contaminated by
pasture grass.
No new information was released by the Soviet government, which says
the Chernobyl power plant accident in the Ukraine is under control.
Most other nations discount the low official casualty toll of two
dead and 197 injured.
Austrian radiation specialists were taking soil samples at a site
about 115 miles from the plant on behalf of an Austrian company
working on a project there. A spokesman for the Austrian Embassy
quoted Andronik Petrosyants, head of the Soviet Atomic Energy
Committee, as saying: ''Just go ahead and you'll see that it is not
dangerous.''
An American doctor who is an expert in bone marrow transplants
arrived, by invitation, to consult with Soviet medical authorities on
treatment of the injured. Destruction of bone marrow is a major
consequence of severe radiation exposure.
Some embassies issued precautionary food advisories to nationals
living in Moscow, but the U.S. Embassy said it saw no immediate
danger in the capital.
Hundreds of foreigners have been evacuated from Kiev, a city of 2.4
million people 80 miles south of the disaster site, and Minsk,
another major Ukranian city 200 miles away.
A task force appointed by the U.S. government to monitor the
disaster said the bulk of radiation to be expected from the stricken
plant probably has been released and it was ''plausible,'' but not
confirmed, that the reactor fire was out.
Although some Reagan administration officials strongly suggested
Wednesday that a core meltdown also had occurred in a second of the
plant's four reactors, the task force said said only one reactor was
involved.
There were reports that the estimated 20 other nuclear reactors of
the same type had been closed down, but the Soviet government did not
confirm this officially.
Belgrade radio reported radiation readings in the Yugoslav capital
Friday of 100 microroentgens per hour, compared to a normal 12, but
said the situation was ''not critical and there is no need for
excessive alarm.''
The official radio said the city had stopped drawing drinking water
from the Sava River, its main source, and was using wells. Warnings
were issued against eating freshly picked vegetables and staying
outdoors for long periods.
Nuclear scientist Pavle Todorovic said in a radio interview that an
overnight rain ''brought down all the radioactive substances.''
Romania's state television indicated wide areas of the country were
affected by higher radiation, but gave no figures. In Bulgaria, just
south of Romania, the official news agency BTA did not respond to an
inquiry about radiation levels and steps being taken.
In northern Europe, the Dutch government announced that radiation
levels were three times normal on Friday.
The World Health Organization said it would convene a meeting
Tuesday in Copenhagen, its headquarters city, for health officials of
European countries in the fallout area. The U.N. agency said it saw
no immediate health risks in those countries.
Soviet officials both in Moscow and abroad have given assurances
that the situation is under control, but offered none of the details
Western experts seek.
The official press carried only the brief government statement
issued Thursday, which said radiation levels around the plant had
decreased.
Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev issued his first public statement
Friday since the accident, reiterating that the Kremlin would agree
to a mutual nuclear test moratorium with the United States.
The statement, transmitted by the official news agency Tass, did not
mention the Chernobyl disaster.
Dr. Armand Hammer, an American industrialist with close ties to the
Soviet Union, arranged the visit by Dr. Robert P. Gale, the
specialist in marrow transplants.
Gale was unreachable in Moscow and the U.S. Embassy said his visit
was private.
During a stop in Frankfurt, he said he hoped to know within 48 hours
how seriously the accident had affected people in the area around
Chernobyl.
The physician is chairman of the 128-member International Bone
Marrow Transplant Registry, which is based in Milwaukee and keeps
computer lists of 50,000 to 100,000 bone marrow donors.
His organization offered to help because no single country has the
capacity to handle a large accident alone, Gale said.
U.S. Ambassador Arthur Hartman advised the American community in a
statement that the embassy saw no need for food precautions at the
moment. He said the available fruits and vegetables are from previous
crops or greenhouses, that milk is from local cows and Moscow's water
supply is not endangered.
AP-NY-05-02-86 1613EDT
- - - - - -
a228 1441 02 May 86
AM-Nuclear Disaster, 1st Ld, a220,0468
Western Experts Say Hazard Abates, Radiation Heads South
Eds: LEADS with 13 grafs on Soviet television, East German comment,
other info
By ROXINNE ERVASTI
Associated Press Writer
MOSCOW (AP) - Western experts said hazards from the week-old Soviet
nuclear disaster had abated Friday, but the huge invisible cloud of
radiation continued its erratic course over Europe, borne south into
the Balkans on changing winds.
Fallout brought down by rain raised radiation levels in Belgrade to
eight times normal. In Romania, between Yugoslavia and the Soviet
Union, state television told people to keep their children indoors,
wash fruits and vegetables and avoid rural water.
Yugoslav authorities said the radiation in Belgrade did not
constitute a health hazard.
No new information was provided by the Soviet government, which says
the Chernobyl power plant accident in the Ukraine is under control.
Most other nations discount the low official casualty toll of two
dead and 197 injured.
Communist authorities in East Germany said radiation reached 100
times normal after the accident, but had declined, and said no
precautions were taken ''because they haven't been necessary.''
The Berlin government criticized ''extraordinarily dramatized''
Western news coverage of the accident at the Chernobyl plant 80 miles
north of Kiev.
Soviet television's nightly news carried filmed reports of May Day
festivities in Kiev and elsewhere in the Ukraine. After a feature on
corn planting in the Chernigov region near Kiev, a commentator said:
''Western news agencies are spreading false reports about the
accident at Chernobyl station.''
Authorities in Scandinavia, over which the cloud passed first, said
radiation levels were expected to remain above normal for weeks. They
said there was no health risk, but urged such precautions as keeping
cows in barns so their milk would not be contaminated by pasture
grass.
Austrian radiation specialists were taking soil samples at a site
about 115 miles from the plant on behalf of an Austrian company
working on a project there. A spokesman for the Austrian Embassy
quoted Andronik Petrosyants, head of the Soviet Atomic Energy
Committee, as saying: ''Just go ahead and you'll see that it is not
dangerous.''
An American doctor who is an expert in bone marrow transplants
arrived, by invitation, to consult on treatment of the injured.
Destruction of bone marrow is a major consequence of severe radiation
exposure.
Some embassies issued precautionary food advisories to nationals
living in Moscow, but the U.S. Embassy said it saw no immediate
danger in the capital.
Japan's embassy said it was flying milk in from Sweden for Japanese
children.
Hundreds of foreigners have been evacuated from Kiev, a city of 2.4
million people, and Minsk, another major Ukranian city 200 miles from
the disaster site.
A task force, 9th graf pvs.
AP-NY-05-02-86 1741EDT
- - - - - -
a235 1523 02 May 86
AM-Digest Advisory,0097
All budgets have moved. Here is a listing.
MOSCOW - Nuclear Disaster, a220,228.
WASHINGTON - US-Soviet Accident Rdp, a224.
LONDON - Chernobyl-Europe Rdp, a227.
TOKYO - Reagan, a215.
TOKYO - Summit Security, a232.
WASHINGTON - Unemployment, a221.
WASHINGTON - Budget, a219.
MANILA, Philippines - a225.
VATICAN CITY - Vatican-Sects, a233.
VANCOUVER, British Columbia - Expo 86, a226.
NEW YORK - Polar Expedition, a231.
LITTLE ROCK, Ark. - Central High, a222.
MINNEAPOLIS - Women Vets' Memorial, a216.
NEW YORK - Oreos, a223.
AP-NY-05-02-86 1822EDT
***************
a224 1358 02 May 86
AM-US-Soviet Accident Rdp, 1st Ld-Writethru, a0657,0648
Bush Calls Soviet Secrecy ''Unconscionable''
By JILL LAWRENCE
Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) - Vice President George Bush challenged the Soviet
Union on Friday to share more information about its nuclear accident,
calling the veil of secrecy around the disaster ''unconscionable.''
Bush, leaving Andrews Air Force Base for Chicago after meeting with
Cabinet officials to review the Chernobyl accident, said the Soviets
have responded to some U.S. requests for information.
''I cannot go into the detail ... but it is sparse at best,'' he
said. ''They have been less than forthcoming, and my strong
conviction is that they ought to open up, even in that closed
society.''
Bush said the United States is not likely to be affected by the
accident at the complex, 80 miles north of Kiev. But he added:
''We're monitoring it very closely. We're using the best technology
in the world to keep a close watch on it.''
Bush said he could not say how many people had been killed in the
accident. The Soviet government has said two people died and 18
others are in serious condition.
Meanwhile, a U.S. interagency task force on the Soviet accident said
new calculations indicate radiation exposures near the Chernobyl
nuclear complex were high enough to cause deaths.
The group, created by President Reagan to monitor the impact of the
accident, used data gathered by Swedish authorities to estimate how
much radiation likely was released in a fire and meltdown at one of
four reactors at the site.
The new calculations suggest that for the two-day period when most
of the radiation probably was released, exposure levels to people in
the area would have ranged from 20 rems to hundreds of rems over
their whole bodies, the task force said.
A dose of 500 rems to the whole body is fatal and 100 rems can cause
radiation sickness, according to medical references.
The task force said radiation doses to the thyroid gland, in which
radiation is concentrated, would have ranged from 200 rems to
thousands of rems for the same period.
''These doses are sufficient to produce severe physical trauma,
including death,'' the task force said.
However, it added, the estimates are ''subject to considerable
uncertainty'' because the Soviet Union has provided no radiation
readings from the site. And the group did not say exactly how far
from the damaged reactor itself the exposure estimates would be
valid.
A chest X-ray involves 20 to 30 millirems of radiation, while
Americans on the average receive 100 to 200 millirems of radiation a
year from natural background sources. A millirem is one-thousandth of
a rem.
The State Department, which has warned Americans to stay out of the
Kiev area, recommended Friday that women of child-bearing age and
children stay out of Poland. Spokesman Charles Redman said conditions
throughout the region were being studied.
According to the task force, the United States is sending experts to
''potentially affected areas'' to gather information needed to
safeguard the health of American citizens.
Chris Rice, a spokesman for the Environmental Protection Agency,
said EPA and Nuclear Regulatory Commission officials have been
dispatched to some U.S. embassies in eastern Europe to monitor the
radiation situation.
The Cabinet-level panel headed by Bush is charged with reviewing the
accident and the health and safety issues it has raised.
Meanwhile, doctors from the American College of Nuclear Physicians
said the accident poses little or no health risk to anyone who was
not at the reactor site when it occurred.
''There's no danger for Americans; I doubt very seriously there is
any danger to any Western Europeans,'' said Dr. Oscar Hunter, a
pathologist specializing in compounds to counter radiation. ''The
only people that are in some danger are those around the center where
the reactor broke down.''
AP-NY-05-02-86 1658EDT
- - - - - -
a234 1521 02 May 86
AM-US-Soviet Accident Rdp, CORRECTION,0041
Eds: The budgeted item, US-Soviet Accident Rdp, which moved as a224,
moved with a 1st Ld-Writethru designation and a Datastream number.
Please ignore the designation and Datastream number. The story is
the budgeted lead.
The AP
AP-NY-05-02-86 1821EDT
***************
a227 1432 02 May 86
AM-Chernobyl-Europe Rdp, Bjt,0692
Europeans Seek Advice On Invisible Risk From Chernobyl Disaster
By ROBERT GLASS
Associated Press Writer
LONDON (AP) - Hundreds of West Germans called a weather center
Friday to ask about the risk of fallout. A Swiss newspaper published
a front-page article warning people not to take iodine tablets as a
precaution against radiation. Yugoslavia warned its citizens not to
spend too much time outdoors.
All over Europe, people worried about the Soviet nuclear reactor
accident have been swamping government offices, hospitals and
pharmacies with medical and travel queries.
Most European governments, however, have assured their citizens that
low-level radiation from the Chernobyl nuclear accident in the
Ukraine poses no health threat.
''We had 400 calls in the last three hours,'' said Helmut
Dommermuth, a spokesman for the West German weather center in
Offenbach, which is coordinating reports on radiation levels
nationwide.
''Most of them say they are worried because you can't see or smell
radiation,'' he said. ''They also ask if they can eat the vegetables
from their gardens, if their children can go out. Many people are
worried.''
There is concern, but no evidence of panic.
''We are naturally quite worried,'' said Mikael Berntson, 31, a
postal clerk in Stockholm, Sweden. ''But we are not struck by panic
or anything like that.''
Since Sweden first detected higher-than-normal radiation levels
Monday, clouds of radioactive dust from the Chernobyl plant in the
southwestern Soviet Union have drifted across much of Europe.
Levels have been dropping in Scandinavia, but shifting winds have
carried the fallout into Romania, Hungary, eastern Czechoslovakia and
Austria.
State-run radio and television stations in East European countries
broadcast a steady stream of calming statements, but warned people to
avoid staying outdoors for long periods and urged them not to eat
unwashed fruit and vegetables.
Belgrade Radio reported Friday that radiation levels were nearly 10
times above normal but still were not dangerous.
''There is no need for excessive alarm,'' said a radio broadcast. It
added that the city had stopped using drinking water from the Sava
River, its main source, and instead was using well water.
On Thursday, a television station in Zagreb, a city of 1 million in
northern Yugoslavia, showed footage of virtually deserted city
streets after health authorities had told people to stay indoors
following a heavy rainfall.
''We never know if the authorities are telling the truth or whether
they are simply trying to avoid panic,'' said Darinka Peric, a
Belgrade housewife. ''I will not go outside my home for a day or
two.''
In Poland, the country closest to the disaster site, authorities
have banned the sale of milk from grass-fed cows and have been
administering iodine to children under 16. The precautions remained
in effect Friday, although levels of radioactivity in the air have
been falling.
Iodine can hinder the body's absorption of radiation.
Increased demand for iodine has been reported in several European
countries. The Royal Dutch Pharmacists Association said it received
120 calls from member pharmacists, who reported heavy demand for
iodine tablets.
Health authorities in the Netherlands and other European countries
warned against the indiscriminate use of iodine, which can produce
side effects such as nausea and rashes and, in long-term use, damage
to the thyroid gland.
One of Switzerland's largest newspapers, Tages-Anzeiger of Zurich,
published a front-page article Friday quoting scientists as saying
iodine tablets should not be taken unless radiation rose to 100 times
the normal level. The current level of radiation in Switzerland is
two to four times the normal amount and is within safe limits, the
newspaper said.
Britain's National Radiological Protection Board detected the first
radiation from Chernobyl over southeastern England on Friday. It said
the level of radiation was very low and posed no health hazard.
Even before the report, callers were jamming the agency's
switchboard all day, said a board spokesman who spoke on condition of
anonymity.
''We even got calls from people saying they hadn't opened letters
from the Soviet Union because of the fear of contamination,'' he
said.
AP-NY-05-02-86 1732EDT
***************
a232 1510 02 May 86
AM-Summit-Diplomacy, Bjt,0589
Terror, Trade and Problems of Terrorism Shadow Summit
By BARRY SCHWEID
AP Diplomatic Writer
TOKYO (AP) - Terror, trade and a new kind of challenge, the problem
of prosperity, are vying for attention with the Soviet nuclear
accident as leaders of the seven major industrial democracies prepare
for the 12th annual economic summit.
The Japanese capital looked like a city under martial law Friday as
security forces in unprecedented strength worked anxiously to guard
against the sort of terrorist incidents which, President Reagan will
tell summit partners, require a united defense.
Prompted by a spate of guerrilla attacks on public facilities, some
30,000 police officers, including 4,000 riot-equipped policemen, were
assembled to protect the Akasaka Palace, the government guest house
in central Tokyo where three days of meetings will be held, and other
summit-related hotels and buildings.
Reagan intends to urge the leaders of Great Britain, Canada, France,
West Germany, Italy and Japan to accelerate the support they have
given the United States on the economic and diplomatic front since
the U.S. bombardment of Libya two weeks ago. That retaliatory action
was carried out only with the cooperation of Britain's Prime Minister
Margaret Thatcher.
''We must look for ways to deter states such as Libya from
supporting, directing and sponsoring terrorism while we concurrently
look for ways to ameliorate the root causes of such activity,''
Reagan said in written replies to pre-summit questions submitted by
Japanese correspondents.
In his trade discussions, the president and his principal aides,
including Treasury Secretary James A. Baker III, will try to open
Japan, Canada and Western Europe to a heavier influx of American
factory and agricultural products.
The seven summit countries are enjoying unprecedented prosperity,
propelled by plunging oil prices, falling interest rates and almost
no inflation. Ironically, the good times correspond with huge
imbalances in trade and investment flows that threaten to spread
protectionism. The United States is operating with a trade deficit in
the range of $150 billion a year.
Reagan's summit partners, especially West German Chancellor Helmut
Kohl and Japan's Prime Minister Yasuhiro Nakasone, may be reluctant
to spur demand for U.S. products for fear it would re-ignite
inflation.
As often happens at summit meetings, however, an issue that is not
on the agenda - a crippled Soviet nuclear power station - is
competing for attention and will play a high profile role in the
formal and informal discussions through Wednesday morning.
Nearly a week after the reactor failed, venting radiation through
the Ukraine, Poland and to Scandinavia, the circumstances and extent
of the accident are still veiled in near-total Kremlin secrecy.
Reagan said an American offer to help the Soviets in fighting the
reported fire at the Chernobyl plant near Kiev included ''expertise
for them in every facet of this kind of accident if they can use
it.''
A White House spokesman said Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev has not
yet responded directly to the offer.
''I'm not going to suggest a timetable for someone faced with this
kind of accident,'' Reagan told reporters at the meeting of foreign
ministers of six Southeast Asian nations in Bali, Indonesia, which
preceded his sessions here.
The little the Soviets have said so far suggests the disaster was
limited and under control. But in this nuclear-nervous age, the
industrial democracies will try to piece together what they have been
able to find out from Soviet reports and their own scientists, and
consider what steps to take next.
AP-NY-05-02-86 1810EDT
***************
a246 1638 02 May 86
AM-Soviet Secrecy,0713
Experts: Soviet Secrecy on Nuclear Disaster Predictable
By R. GREGORY NOKES
AP Diplomatic Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) - Dmitri Simes, a Soviet-born academic, said Friday
Soviet secrecy over the Chernobyl nuclear disaster has its seeds in
Russian history and an unwritten compact that Moscow's duty is to
protect its people from harm.
He said the Soviet people are not surprised by the secrecy, and may
not even want to know more about the accident. ''Soviet people
couldn't handle the lack of knowledge by the government'' about how
to cope with the accident.
Simes predicted the nuclear disaster will be a major blow to the
Soviet economy and will spur anti-nuclear groups who have targeted
nuclear arms and energy in the West.
He said it also may force a delay in a summit conference.
Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev probably would not visit the United
States while in a position of weakness, Simes said. That could mean
putting off the summit with President Reagan until next year,
although he said there probably still is better than ''a 50-50
chance'' of a summit late this year.
Simes said the Kremlin probably fears the impact on its own people
of disclosing the extent of the tragedy, before it knows what to do
about it. ''They are afraid of panic; panic can kill more people than
the disaster itself.''
With Soviet domestic considerations are paramount, the Kremlin
ignores pressures from the West for more information, although Simes
said Kremlin leaders probably ''grossly underestimated'' the impact
in the West and probably are shocked by it.
Simes is a professor of Soviet studies at Johns Hopkins University
and a senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International
Peace. He was born and educated in the Soviet Union before coming to
the United States in 1973.
He told reporters at a National Press Club breakfast that
Gorbachev's standing at home should not be seriously hurt by the
tragedy and ''there may be more negative fall-out from Chernobyl in
the West than in the Soviet Union.''
But he said Gorbvachev's image may never be the same and the
momentum of his leadership could be slowed. Combined with the
collapse in oil prices that has hurt the Soviet economy, ''Rightly or
wrongly, he does not look like such a great winner anymore. ...
Things happen to him.''
Helmut Sonnenfeldt, a German-born senior scholar and specialist on
East-West relations at the Brookings Institution, agreed. ''He's had
two very serious body-blows. He couldn't help the oil prices; he
couldn't help prevent this accident either, but it casts a pall over
his stewardship when he needs all the luck and help he can get to try
to get things moving.''
Sonnenfeldt said in an interview that despite the image of openness
Gorbachev has tried to cultivate in the West, ''the old instincts (of
secrecy) come through in a case like this.''
Simes also said Gorbachev ''handled this incident exactly'' as his
predecessors would have.
He said tha throughout history the Russian government and people
have had an unwritten compact whereby the czar or other leaders would
provide protection and sustenance in exchange for the peoples'
obedience and service to the state.
When the government has failed to keep up its end of the bargain,
upheavals have resulted, such as the 1917 revolution that brought the
communists to power.
The Chernobyl disaster with its undefined dangers is the kind of
event that could suggest the government might not be able to provide
the protection expected of it, Simes said. If it disclosed questions
about the extent of the tragedy, that also would be revealing it
didn't know what to do about it - such as whether to evacuate people
from the region and what to say about the food and water supply.
The response of the United States - perhaps exaggerating the
seriousness even as the Soviets minimize the accident - also has been
predictable, Simes said. In the end, Moscow will be reacting as ''the
injured party'' and may eventually get sympathy in the West, he
predicted.
Within the Soviet Union, he said, ''The public relations failure
will cause more resentment against the West than against Gorbachev.''
AP-NY-05-02-86 1938EDT
***************
a250 1707 02 May 86
AM-Digest Briefs,0827
Eds: This package does not contain the following items from the News
Digest: WASHINGTON - Meltdown Questions; WASHINGTON - Soviet Secrecy;
LONDON - Nuclear-Arms Control; TOKYO - Summit-Diplomacy; TOKYO -
Japan-Summit Logistics; TOKYO - Summit-Trade; WASHINGTON - Budget;
NEW YORK - Polar Expedition; AUSTIN, Texas - Texas Elections; LITTLE
R
BUST BUST BUST
AP-NY-05-02-86 2007EDT
***************
a252 1733 02 May 86
AM-Meltdown Questions,0614
Officials Roll Back Second Meltdown Assertions
By NORMAN BLACK
AP Military Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) - One of the most intriguing, and still unanswered,
questions about the disaster at the Soviet Union's Chernobyl nuclear
power complex is whether the core of a second reactor melted down.
In the space of two days, the assessment of U.S. intelligence
officials went from ''probably'' to ''maybe'' to ''we don't know.''
That change has stood as the most glaring dichotomy in an
intelligence-collection effort that overall has drawn praise from
Capitol Hill and administration officials.
Despite the backpedaling on the fate of the second reactor,
administration sources insisted Friday that the U.S. government
remains convinced the Chernobyl tragedy is much more serious than the
Soviets are saying.
These officials say the first reactor at the complex sustained a
core meltdown Saturday and then, on Sunday, was blown apart by a
chemical explosion.
Administration officials offered a small group of reporters an
unexpected background briefing on Wednesday to say that a second
reactor located in close proximity to the first had either
experienced, or was experiencing, a meltdown.
Almost at the same moment, officials assigned to a special
Interagency Task Force formed to monitor the situation were telling
reporters publicly they knew nothing about a possible second
meltdown.
''We don't have any information that indicates that there is a
problem with a second reactor at this facility,'' Lee Thomas, head of
the Environmental Protection Agency, said that day.
As Wednesday wore on, and as reports from monitoring stations in
Europe failed to show any continuing rise in fallout from the plant,
another administration official - who had played no role in the
original briefings - said he thought the report of a second meltdown
had been overstated.
This official said the evidence was not so clear cut and that it was
simply ''too early'' to reach a conclusion. The official did agree,
however, that U.S. intelligence agencies had detected evidence of
damage to the second reactor building.
By Thursday afternoon, officials throughout the administration
simply cut off reporters and began referring them to the new
interagency task force.
Several previously talkative sources said the change stemmed from a
''bureaucratic decision'' to centralize the U.S. review of the
accident in the hands of the task force. Another source said the
administration also was trying to avoid conflicting accounts on the
scope of the accident.
One of the officials, though, finally acknowledged that the fate of
the second reactor was an issue that had divided intelligence
analysts.
U.S. industry experts, meantime, also were expressing doubts about a
second meltdown by Thursday.
''There are a lot of things that indicate it may not be the worst
case,'' said Frank Graham, vice president of the Atomic Industrial
Forum, an industry trade group. ''If it were still a tremendous
danger and they had another plant going down, I think the Soviets
would be taking additional precautions ... to protect their citizens
in Kiev.''
Kiev, which has 2.4 million inhabitants, is 80 miles south of
Chernobyl.
Graham and Alan Krass, senior arms analyst for the Union of
Concerned Scientists, a nuclear safety watchdog group, said both
sides had reasons for minimizing or dramatizing the accident. And
Krass said U.S. intelligence assessments may take on different
coloration as they are filtered through lawmakers, aides and
administration officials to the press.
''Some people have an incentive for making it worse than it is, just
as the Soviets have an incentive to make it better,'' he said.
''There's no way to keep these things out of the propaganda war.''
AP-NY-05-02-86 2032EDT
***************
a254 1800 02 May 86
AM-Digest Briefs, 1st Ld-Writethru, a9910,0915
Eds: Restores dropped material in 7th item, VATICAN CITY
This package does not contain the following items from the News
Digest: WASHINGTON - Meltdown Questions; WASHINGTON - Soviet Secrecy;
LONDON - Nuclear-Arms Control; TOKYO - Summit-Diplomacy; TOKYO -
Japan-Summit Logistics; TOKYO - Summit-Trade; WASHINGTON - Budget;
NEW YORK - Polar Expedition; AUSTIN, Texas - Texas Elections; LITTLE
ROCK, Ark. - Central High; MINNEAPOLIS - Women Vets' Memorial; NEW
YORK - WJC-Waldheim; NEW YORK - Oreos.
By The Associated Press
MOSCOW - Western experts said hazards from the week-old Soviet
nuclear disaster had abated Friday, but the huge invisible cloud of
radiation continued its erratic course over Europe, borne south into
the Balkans on changing winds.
Fallout brought down by rain raised radiation levels in Belgrade to
eight times normal. In Romania, between Yugoslavia and the Soviet
Union, state television told people to keep their children indoors,
wash fruits and vegetables and avoid rural water.
Yugoslav authorities said the radiation in Belgrade did not
constitute a health hazard.
---
WASHINGTON - Vice President George Bush challenged the Soviet Union
on Friday to share more information about its nuclear accident,
calling the veil of secrecy around the disaster ''unconscionable.''
Bush, leaving Andrews Air Force Base for Chicago after meeting with
Cabinet officials to review the Chernobyl accident, said the Soviets
have responded to some U.S. requests for information.
''I cannot go into the detail ... but it is sparse at best,'' he
said. ''They have been less than forthcoming, and my strong
conviction is that they ought to open up, even in that closed
society.''
---
LONDON - Hundreds of West Germans called a weather center Friday to
ask about the risk of fallout. A Swiss newspaper published a
front-page article warning people not to take iodine tablets as a
precaution against radiation. Yugoslavia warned its citizens not to
spend too much time outdoors.
All over Europe, people worried about the Soviet nuclear reactor
accident have been swamping government offices, hospitals and
pharmacies with medical and travel queries.
Most European governments, however, have assured their citizens that
low-level radiation from the Chernobyl nuclear accident in the
Ukraine poses no health threat.
---
TOKYO - President Reagan arrived amid airtight security Friday for a
seven-nation summit in which economic issues would likely be eclipsed
by worries about terrorism and nuclear reactor safety.
Reagan was greeted on his arrival by U.S. Ambassador Mike Mansfield
and a host of Japanese dignitaries.
Secretary of State George Shultz already had pronounced Tokyo a
''juicy target'' for terrorists. But presidential spokesman Larry
Speakes said Reagan was ''confident of his own security.''
---
WASHINGTON - Plunging interest rates and oil prices began showing up
favorably in the job market last month, helping create 205,000 new
jobs to offset the continuing ill health of smokestack industries and
modestly reduce unemployment to 7.1 percent, the government reported
Friday.
Despite the loss of the 60,000 jobs in manufacturing and oil and gas
industries, a housing boom triggered by the lowest mortgage rates
this decade raised construction, real estate and finance employment
by 130,000 in April, the Bureau of Labor Statistics said.
With 8.3 million people still seeking work - about the same level as
a year ago - officials said the one-tenth of a percentage point drop
from the March civilian jobless rate of 7.2 percent represents little
change in the overall labor market.
---
MANILA, Philippines - President Corazon Aquino fired the Manila
police chief Friday for failing to contain violent protests by
supporters of deposed President Ferdinand E. Marcos, and promised
national elections would be held by next March.
Mrs. Aquino dismissed police chief Gen. Narciso Cabrera one day
after thousands of Marcos loyalists battled riot police in downtown
Manila in the worst street violence since she took office Feb. 25. At
least 34 people were injured and 77 were arrested.
The president asked Brig. Gen. Alfredo Lim to temporarily assume
Cabrera's post. Lim heads one of four districts in the Metropolitan
Manila police department, which covers several cities.
---
VATICAN CITY - The Vatican on Friday exhorted Roman Catholic priests
worldwide to work against the proliferation of religious sects and
cults that win and keep converts through brainwashing, sexual
enticement and separation from family and society.
In its first comprehensive analysis on the subject, the Vatican said
local Roman Catholic churches around the world view as a serious
matter the inroads made by such groups, including some with Christian
roots.
The 17-page study said sects and cults are ''too diverse'' to be
defined simply and clearly.But a Vatican official told The Associated
Press that the Rev. Sun Myung Moon's Unification Church and
fundamentalist evangelical denominations active in the United States
and Latin America are among those winning converts from Catholics.
---
VANCOUVER, British Columbia - Expo 86 opened in a light rain Friday
with thousands of visitors, including a few dozen who were stranded
on a monorail just long enough to contemplate the fair's
transportation theme.
There were exhibits from 47 countries, and food, music and dance
from the ends of the earth.
Thousands of people, including a few who lined up overnight, waited
for the gates to open Friday morning. Robot Expo Ernie and musicians,
actors, jugglers and mimes entertained them.
AP-NY-05-02-86 2100EDT
***************
a255 1810 02 May 86
AM-Bone Marrow Doctor,0554
Doctor Aiding USSR Was Reprimanded By U.S. For Unauthorized
Transplants
Laserphoto LA6
By LEE SIEGEL
AP Science Writer
LOS ANGELES (AP) - The stubborn dedication that sent Dr. Robert Gale
to the Soviet Union to help victims of the Chernobyl nuclear plant
disaster once got him in trouble for trying to save dying cancer
patients.
''Nothing can stop this man,'' Gale's wife, Tamar, said Friday after
her husband arrived in Moscow. ''As long as there is life, there is
hope, he says. ... If somebody has leukemia, he will be the very last
person to give up. He's very stubborn.''
She added: ''Always, when a patient dies, he cries.''
Friends and colleagues said such concern, coupled with a great deal
of ambition and brilliance, spurred Gale in 1978 and 1979 to perform
unauthorized, experimental bone-marrow transplants on patients whose
marrow was destroyed by leukemia. The operations hadn't been approved
by an internal review committee at the University of California at
Los Angeles, but the panel later approved the transplants.
After a long controversy over the transplants - which some
colleagues say was triggered by professional jealousy and Gale's
somewhat grating personality - he was reprimanded last year by the
National Institutes of Health, which funds his research.
Because of Gale's expertise in marrow transplantation, Dr. Armand
Hammer, the Occidental Petroleum Corp. chairman who has close ties to
Soviet leaders, arranged for Gale to travel to the Soviet Union to
aid any people whose marrow was damaged or destroyed by radiation
from the reactor disaster.
Gale remains widely respected despite controversy over the
unauthorized transplants.
''Nobody who has been involved in the NIH review had any negative
impressions of Dr. Gale as a scientist or a physician,'' said Mary L.
Miers, a staff member in the NIH director's office who helped
investigate Gale. ''It was never suggested that he didn't have the
welfare of his patients at heart.''
Gale, a 40-year-old New York native, ''is willing to take
responsibility for making decisions,'' said Dr. John A. Hansen, a
friend who is a member of the bone marrow transplant team at the
University of Washington's Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in
Seattle. ''He got reprimanded on some technicalities.''
Hansen said some of Gale's critics at UCLA were motivated by
jealousy, and that those who complained about the unauthorized
transplants ''don't appreciate the pressure that desperate patients
bring to these decisions.''
Dr. David Golde, UCLA's chief of hematology and oncology, said Gale
''perhaps has been a little grating at times. He's not beloved by
everyone, that's for sure.
''He's a very ambitious guy, but we like ambitious people. Would you
hire someone who wasn't?''
Gale is chairman of the advisory committee to the International Bone
Marrow Transplant Registry in Milwaukee, which collects data from 80
percent of the world's bone marrow transplant centers to analyze how
well the procedure works for leukemia patients.
The registry's scientific director, Dr. Mortimer Bortin, said Gale
might help the Soviets find relatives of injured people so they could
serve as marrow donors. Or he may call the registry to arrange for
bone marrow and transplant surgeons to travel to the Soviet Union or
for radiation victims to be transported to nearby nations to receive
transplants.
AP-NY-05-02-86 2110EDT
***************
a260 1839 02 May 86
AM-Nuclear-Yeltsin,0278
URGENT
Moscow Party Boss: Reactor Area too Dangerous, Accident Was Human
Error
With AM-Nuclear Disaster
HAMBURG, West Germany (AP) - Water reservoirs near the crippled
Soviet nuclear power plant at Chernobyl are contaminated and the
region remains too radioactive for evacuated residents to return, a
top Soviet Communist Party official said Friday night.
The accident a week ago was caused by human error said Boris
Yeltsin, who is a close associate of Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev.
In the first detailed Soviet description of the Chernobyl disaster
and its aftermath, Yeltsin, the Moscow Communist Party chief, told
the ARD national television network, ''The cause lies apparently in
the subjective realm, in human error. We are undertaking measures to
make sure that this doesn't happen again.''
He said damage-control workers were using helicopters to drop sacks
of sand, lead and boron to cut down emissions of radioactivity from
the crippled plant.
Yeltsin, who spoke in Russian with a German translation, was
interviewed while attending a West German Communist Party congress in
Hamburg.
He said water reservoirs around the Ukrainian city of Chernobyl were
contaminated by the reactor accident, but he did not elaborate on how
the local population was dealing with that.
He said residents of four ''settlements'' in the vicinity of the
reactors were immediately evacuated, and none of them were directly
exposed to the radiation from the damaged reactor.
He did not say how many people were evacuated, nor did he mention
casualty figures or other related details.
The Soviet government's official casualty toll in the reactor
disaster as of Friday remained two dead and 197 injured.
AP-NY-05-02-86 2139EDT
***************
a261 1851 02 May 86
BC-Week's Business, Adv 03-04-1st Add,0616
$adv 03
$adv 04
For Release Weekend Editions May 3-4
NEW YORK: long-term survival.
''Obviously, the overall fare structure they have is not enough to
make a profit,'' he said. ''This is a very radical change for them.
They have seen the necessity to get some new marketing tricks.''
Thomas Canning, airline analyst for the New York-based credit
reporting agency Standard & Poor's Corp., said People Express was
compelled to attract business travelers for long-term survival.
''Obviously, the overall fare structure they have is not enough to
make a profit,'' he said. ''This is a very radical change for them.
They have seen the necessity to get some new marketing tricks.''
In other business and economic developments this past week:
-The Labor Department reported that civilian unemployment declined
0.1 percentage point to 7.1 percent in April because the service and
construction industries created 270,000 jobs, offsetting layoffs in
manufacturing and the energy industry.
-The Commerce Department said leading economic indicators rose 0.5
percent in March, while new home sales soared 27.4 percent to a
record level. But other reports for March showed signs of persistent
economic weakness: Construction spending fell 1.2 percent, the trade
deficit widened to a record $14.52 billion, and factory orders
tumbled by 2.3 percent.
-The United States and its major trading partners prepared for the
Tokyo economic summit, which coincides with considerable trade
stress, despite the dollar's declining value and other recent
developments that may help ease the U.S. trade deficit.
Japan was expected to complain that the dollar's depreciation had
hurt Japanese export sales. Another divisive issue was the
U.S.-European conflict over agricultural products, which Treasury
Secretary James A. Baker III called ''the biggest threat to the
world's free trading system.''
-The House Ways and Means Committee approved legislation intended to
force the president to retaliate against nations that violate trade
agreements. The Democrat-backed bill reflects increasing concern over
the trade deficit, which has been aggravated by a steep plunge in
U.S. agricultural exports, once the biggest single contributor to the
trade balance.
-Stock prices plunged because of concern over the economy and
uncertain consequences of the Soviet nuclear-reactor disaster. The
Dow Jones industrial average fell 41.91 points Wednesday, the worst
single-day point drop in history. Analysts said they had been
expecting a drop for some time because the index had risen more than
500 points since autumn, and investors were looking for a good excuse
to take some profits.
-Commodity prices swung wildly because of the Chernobyl
nuclear-plant disaster in the Soviet Union. Agricultural futures
soared initially on speculation that the accident would imperil
Soviet grain crops and create the need for massive imports by that
country. But prices dropped sharply on reports that radiation at the
crippled plant was easing.
-The Federal Housing Administration halted its popular
mortgage-insurance program after exhausting its $57.2 billion credit
limit for the current fiscal year, raising the prospect that home
purchases for thousands of Americans might be jeopardized. But
Congress quickly passed a measure that would restore the FHA program.
-Three advertising agencies agreed to merge, creating a company with
combined annual billings of $5 billion. BBDO International Inc.,
Doyle Dane Bernbach Group Inc. and Needham Harper Worldwide will
become the world's largest ad agency.
In other merger and acquisition developments, apparel maker Warnaco
Inc. approved a $487 million takeover bid by W. Acquisition Corp., a
group of private investors; Beatrice Cos. agreed to sell its Avis
Inc. car rental unit to Wesray Capital Corp., a New Jersey investment
firm, for about $250 million; and Chemical New York Corp. agreed to
buy Horizon Bancorp. of New Jersey for about $465 million, when state
banking laws permit it.
End Adv Weekend Editions May 3-4
AP-NY-05-02-86 2150EDT
***************
a262 1904 02 May 86
BC-Weekly Wall Street, Adv 03-04,0721
$adv 03
$adv 04
For Release Weekend Editions May 3-4
Stock Market Reining Itself In
Eds: also on financial wires.
By MARYBETH NIBLEY
AP Business Writer
NEW YORK (AP) - It had to happen. Many Wall Street watchers have
been predicting it for months as stock prices bounded forward and the
Dow Jones industrial average raced past centennial marks almost
routinely.
The stock market reined itself in this past week.
''We've put our feet back down on the ground and we're facing
reality,'' said Dennis Jarrett, a technical analyst with Kidder,
Peabody & Co.
Optimism about the economy and interest rates had spurred the market
on since last autumn, but the hopes may have been a bit unrealistic.
It was widely assumed that the economy would strengthen and
corporate fortunes would improve because of lower oil prices, lower
interest rates and the declining value of the dollar against other
major currencies, which presumably makes U.S. exports more
competitive with foreign goods.
Reports released during the past week indicated otherwise.
The U.S. merchandise trade deficit worsened in March as manufactured
imports reached a record level, and orders to U.S. factories for
manufactured goods slumped for the second month in a row, the
Commerce Department reported.
The government's main forecasting gauge rose 0.5 percent in March
and seemed to be pointing to solid economic growth. But the gain in
the Index of Leading Indicators came mainly from a rise in stock
prices and masked some weak spots in the economy.
The first glimpse of April's economic performance suggested
sluggishness, particularly in manufacturing. The civilian
unemployment rate decreased a barely perceptible 0.1 percentage point
to 7.1 percent, the Labor Department said.
Meanwhile, the Treasury served up an unpleasant reminder that the
federal budget deficit hasn't gone away and that government borrowing
needs remain vast. It announced plans to auction $27 billion in notes
and bonds in the coming week.
The nuclear disaster in the Soviet Union unsettled the market and
may have provided the catalyst for a record plunge at mid-week in the
Dow Jones industrial average of 41.91 points.
The market was unable to snap out of its slump, and the average
ended the week at 1,774.68, a retreat of 60.89 points from the
previous Friday - the second biggest ever.
The composite index of all issues listed on the New York Stock
Exchange fell 4.13 points to 135.39. Volume on the Big Board averaged
138.57 million million shares, compared with 147.32 million shares
the previous week.
Analysts had been expecting a significant drop because the market's
rebound from the first full week in April - when the Dow Jones
industrial average suffered a record weekly drop of 82.50 points -
lacked conviction.
Hugh A. Johnson, a senior vice president at First Albany Corp., said
there was ''a big cloud hanging over the market.''
Investors, who had gleefully watched the Dow industrials rise from
under the 1,300 level last September, got edgy and decided to sell in
case Wall Street went on a major retreat.
''People got sort of restless. When you have amassed such handsome
profits, the one thing you don't want to do is give them all back,''
Johnson said. ''I don't think there's ever been a period in which
I've received more calls from people asking, 'Where are we going
next?'''
Technology stocks stumbled, a disappointment to analysts who have
been saying the industry would set the tone for the rest of the
market.
Investors reacted to the striken Chernobyl plant by dumping
utilities.
Some of the selling was triggered by fears that the accident would
recharge foes of nuclear power, causing delays and added costs in the
construction of U.S. projects. The sell-off snowballed as
disenchanted investors decided to lighten their holdings of an
industry that has an uncertain outlook.
Other stocks also suffered from the fallout. Food processors, for
instance, were sold as traders speculated that the companies' costs
would rise if radiation damage to Soviet crops increased that
country's demand and pushed grain prices higher.
Most analysts thought the market overreacted to the nuclear
accident.
George Dahlman, an analyst with Piper Jafray & Hopwood Inc. in
Minneapolis, said the setback created opportunities for investors to
buy certain stocks at lower levels.
''The packaged food group looks like a buy,'' he said.
End Adv Weekend Editions May 3-4
AP-NY-05-02-86 2204EDT
***************
a265 1952 02 May 86
BC-Chernobyl's Message, Adv 04 - 2 takes,1135
$adv04
For Release Sun, May 4, or Thereafter
A Miniature Sun Frighteningly Out of Control
An AP Extra
By CHARLES J. HANLEY
Associated Press Writer
In Kiev, among the chestnut trees of Kreshchatik Boulevard, a spring
sun warmed the Sunday strollers. But in Sweden it was raining last
Sunday, a sinister shower.
The chill raindrops pelting the forests and spotless little towns of
the Swedish coast bore unseen molecules - cesium-137, radioactive
iodine. And in the days to come, down through the Baltic, to the Alps
and the Balkans, the winds would spread the particles across Europe,
silent messengers of the perils of the nuclear age.
Like most such disasters, Chernobyl wasn't supposed to happen.
''A serious ... accident is practically impossible,'' Soviet nuclear
scientist Boris Semenov wrote confidently of his nation's atomic
power reactors three years ago.
But on this weekend, just upriver from Kiev's relaxed parks and
avenues, one of those miniature suns had gone frighteningly out of
control, burning itself up, spilling radioactivity out over the
Ukrainian countryside and into the atmosphere, finally touching off
an explosion that ripped apart the reactor building.
In terms of spread of radioactivity - the insidious elements that
take years to kill through cancer - the Chernobyl nuclear power plant
disaster was the equivalent of a small atom bomb explosion, a Swedish
expert concluded.
And the political impact on the Soviet Union may have an even longer
half-life.
Although Western scientists, by week's end, were cautioning against
some of the most terrifying reports emanating from Washington and
elsewhere, international anger against the secretive Soviets did not
subside.
Sweden's energy minister, Birgitta Dahl, summed up the feelings of
tens of millions: ''They should ... have warned us.''
Some kind of mishap apparently occurred at the Chernobyl plant
Friday, April 25, led to a reactor fire Saturday, and to an explosion
Sunday, Western specialists said. But on those three days, the
Soviets kept it to themselves.
Then, early Monday, the Swedes detected the rise in radioactivity.
Thirteen hours later, after being confronted by the Stockholm
government, Moscow finally, though tersely, acknowledged an
''accident'' had occurred and people had been ''affected.''
By Tuesday morning, nervous Soviet envoys were calling on nuclear
experts in West Germany and Sweden, looking for advice in fighting a
reactor fire. Then, that night, the Soviets made their first casualty
report - two dead - and called it a ''disaster.'' And on Wednesday,
they told more: 197 hospitalized.
But other casualty estimates ranged higher and, throughout the
crisis, the Kremlin withheld details of how the disaster occurred and
how it was being handled - critical information for the outside world
to assess the threat.
The Soviets' efforts to reassure the world were not always
reassuring. As Soviet diplomat Vitaly Churkin matter-of-factly told a
U.S. congressional panel Thursday, ''We are still trying to manage
the situation.''
Much of the story may never be told. But American nuclear-energy and
intelligence officials, relying on 500-mile-high satellite eyes,
knowledgable speculation and other, undisclosed sources, pieced
together this outline of what probably happened at the Chernobyl
site, a four-reactor complex 80 miles northwest of Kiev:
On April 25, something happened that caused a malfunction in one of
the reactors, whose design, utilizing graphite to moderate the
heat-producing chain reaction of the uranium fuel, is unique to the
Soviet Union.
Some say the reactor's water-cooling system may have been blocked.
Others suggest that Soviet technicians mishandled an operation in
which excess heat is drawn off from the graphite. In any event, by
Saturday a nuclear fire was raging, burning up graphite and melting
uranium oxide in the 1,900-ton, 47-foot-diameter reactor core.
As it disintegrated, the core spewed out radioactivity that escaped
easily from the unshielded reactor building. Filters supposed to
catch the cesium failed. Then, on Sunday, some kind of chemical
explosion blew the roof off the boxy structure.
The fire was unimaginably hot, at least 3,000 degrees Fahrenheit.
''They probably can't get into the installation,'' Austrian nuclear
safety expert Walter Binner said after the Soviets sought Western
firefighting advice.
The searing heat continued at least until Wednesday, when U.S.
intelligence officials said a second reactor apparently had become
involved, a contention specialists later discounted. By Thursday,
satellite reconnaissance showed the heat to have lost intensity, and
the Soviet government said the reactor was ''in a smothered state.''
Outside experts concluded, however, that most of the core's radiation
had been released.
Soviet authorities may have begun evacuations as early as Friday,
foreign analysts said. The government eventually reported four towns
in the Chernobyl vicinity were abandoned, including the nuclear
plant's ''company town,'' Pripyat, a community of 25,000.
Truck convoys were said to be streaming out of the stricken area,
and international radio operators reported hearing amateur
broadcasts, apparently from the Chernobyl area, that spoke
emotionally of ''all the death and fire,'' and of ''many hundreds''
dead and injured.
Those reports were otherwise unconfirmed, although an American
professor touring Kiev said her Soviet guide spoke of some 300
casualties.
In the Ukrainian capital, a city of 2.4 million people, some foreign
visitors were told the water system was switched to alternative
supplies - out of apparent fear that Dnepr River sources had been
contaminated. But travelers later reported that life otherwise
proceeded normally. In Moscow, 450 miles to the northeast, Soviet
citizens showed little anxiety.
Beyond Soviet borders, however, fear and indignation rose as the
week wore on.
Last weekend's southerly winds swept the first bursts of
radioactivity out over the rolling countryside of the Soviet west and
across the Baltic Sea. On Monday, radioactivity levels peaked at 100
times normal in some spots in Scandinavia. Then the winds shifted,
bearing the radionuclides down across central Europe.
It reached the slopes of the Swiss Alps, France's Mediterranean
coast and southern Austria. But the heaviest readings were reported
in the pasturelands, lakes and cities of the Soviets' own East
European allies.
In Romania, the government warned people to keep their children
indoors. In Poland, where readings up to 500 times normal were
reported, the government ordered anti-radioactivity thyroid
treatments for children.
Health officials said over and over the fallout posed no serious
danger to health. But one Polish nuclear agency official predicted
thyroid cancer cases in his country would increase by a ''few
percent'' in years to come.
Anger welled up on both sides of the East-West divide.
''I'm outraged at what happened. ... My wife is pregnant and I don't
know what future consequences this may have,'' said a bitter young
Polish engineer as he waited to have his 5-year-old son treated.
The head of Sweden's small Communist Party, Lars Werner, told a
rally it was ''unreasonable, unacceptable and yes, even cynical'' for
Moscow not to have warned ...
(End missing.)
***************
n999 1952 02 May 86
. . .the world.
West European governments jointly demanded a full accounting from
the Soviets.
MORE
AP-NY-05-02-86 2252EDT
***************
a266 2003 02 May 86
BC-Chernobyl's Message, Adv 04, 1st Add,0563
$adv04
For Release Sun May 4 or Thereafter
MOSCOW: the Soviets.
The Kremlin leadership traditionally reports little on domestic
industrial or natural disasters - news that might imply failures of
the Soviet system.
As officials told Western governments in declining almost all offers
of aid last week, the Soviet Union has ''sufficient resources'' to
deal with its problems.
But for Mikhail Gorbachev, Chernobyl happened at an awkward moment,
just when the new Soviet leader has proclaimed a new attitude of
openness, when he is trying to win new trust among the West
Europeans, and to dispel the old American distrust in nuclear arms
talks.
Damage done by Chernobyl to Soviet-East European relations cannot
yet be gauged. Even less measurable is its effect on Soviet internal
politics: Will the chain reaction at Chernobyl ultimately activate a
dissident environmentalist movement, or a Communist Party purge?
Outside the Soviet Union, shock waves were already felt. Shares in
nuclear utilities plummeted on New York stock exchanges. Anti-nuclear
energy groups in the West seized on the accident as a real-life
example of their dark scenarios.
The disaster was ''just the type of thing nuclear opponents have
been looking for,'' commented Georgetown University energy specialist
Charles K. Ebinger.
Inevitably, the pro- and anti-nuclear debate combined with East-West
polemics to color the assessments of Chernobyl's danger.
Kenneth Adelman, an unbending protagonist of the Soviets as U.S.
arms control administrator, described Moscow's report of only two
dead as ''frankly preposterous.'' Some U.S. officials repeated
unverified press reports of huge death tolls, only to be repudiated
by American scientists who said such large numbers of immediate
casualties were impossible.
For their part, the Soviets - at the same time they were withholding
essential information from a worried world - accused the Western news
media of exaggeration.
Downwind, the ultimate question remained unanswered: What will
Chernobyl's radioactivity do to the millions of people exposed?
West German specialists said radioactivity levels would have to
reach 2,000 times normal - quadruple the highest levels registered in
Poland - to endanger humans.
But one American nuclear physicist, ex-bomb designer Theodore
Taylor, said a radiation release like Chernobyl's had the potential -
depending on weather patterns, precautionary measures taken, and
other factors - to produce more cancer deaths over the coming decades
than the minimum 70,000 dead attributed to the U.S. atomic-bombing of
Hiroshima, Japan.
Greenpeace, the anti-nuclear environmental group, projected 10,000
cancer deaths in the Soviet Union and 4,000 in Sweden over 20-30
years.
At the other extreme, radiation expert Pavel Ramzaev, in the only
specific Soviet comment on exposure, told an American reporter that
even around the damaged plant it was ''below lethal dose'' - though
that did not necessarily address long-term health problems.
But many said the ultimate effects simply were unknowable. Emigrant
Soviet environmental scientist Zeev Wolfson said in Israel, for
example, that the radioactive outflow might contaminate the broad,
blue Dnepr for 500 miles downriver, to the Black Sea.
As the weekend approached, and the fallout rode the unpredictable
northern winds toward the Arctic and eventually the United States,
the World Health Organization sought to bring Soviet and Western
experts together in Denmark to map out an international strategy.
''The accident is not over with,'' Churkin said in Washington
Thursday. ''That is clear. We have not told other countries that
everything is OK and they can relax.''
End Adv Sun May 4
AP-NY-05-02-86 2303EDT
***************
a267 2018 02 May 86
BC-Hanford Fears, Adv 04,0884
$Adv04
For Release Sunday, May 4, and Thereafter
Hanford Neighbors Have Mixed Feelings About N Reactor
LaserPhoto scheduled
By JOHN K. WILEY
Associated Press Writer
OTHELLO, Wash. (AP) - Jack Koelzer and his neighbors began
reclaiming their farms from arid sagebrush atop a bluff overlooking
the Columbia River about the same time the N Reactor went on line at
the Hanford nuclear reservation in 1963.
Both Koelzer and neighbor Melvin McLane are uncomfortable living
less than 10 miles downwind of the graphite core reactor.
But like many people in the region, they differ on whether the
plant, similar in design to the troubled Chernobyl reactor in the
Ukraine, should continue to operate.
''They ought to shut the damn thing down,'' Koelzer fumed over a
breakfast table shared with sons Rick, 28, and Brian, 26.
''I always figured it was safe before,'' Koelzer said. ''Now, I'm
not so sure.''
Koelzer's farm is 35 miles north of Pasco, one of three cities
heavily dependent on Hanford's annual $1 billion budget.
A random poll by telephone by the Tri-City Herald in Kennewick found
that many Tri-City residents favored the idea of a study of the N
Reactor's design and safety, although few called for shutting it
down. U.S. Energy Secretary John Herrington has ordered such a study
to begin Monday.
Koelzer began farming his 400-acre spread in Block 23 of the
Columbia Basin irrigation project in 1966, three years after the
weapons production N reactor went on line.
His property shares a boundary with the reservation, about a mile
from his well-kept ranch house. From a field behind the house, he can
see some of the eight reactors the government began shutting down in
1964.
A little more than a mile south, and closer to the river, Melvin
McLane tinkers with a hay baler in a work area of Greenfield Farms, a
640-acre hay and wheat concern shared with his father and brother.
The family knew the reactors were operating 22 years ago when they
began scraping sagebrush from the light brown sandy soil and began
irrigating with Columbia River water, and McLane said he's not too
bothered by his nuclear neighbor across the river.
''We think about it from time to time,'' he said. ''There's an
uneasy feeling in the back of your mind.''
But neither McLane, nor his mother, Minnie, would call for the
reactor to be shut down.
''Right now, it just doesn't bother me,'' Mrs. McLane said. ''The
scientists came and took some tests about 20 years ago. They told me
it was safe.
''I lived in Los Angeles and the earthquakes. I guess what's coming
is coming.''
That prospect doesn't sit well with Koelzer and his sons, who help
on the farm and live in trailers less than a mile north and south of
his place.
Koelzer said he was surprised to learn this week that the N Reactor,
which produces plutonium for weapons and steam for electricity, does
not have a thick containment building around its core.
''How much plutonium do you need? We've already got enough to blow
up everything 20 times over,'' Koelzer said.
''About once is all you need,'' added Rick.
Although the U.S. Department of Energy has established a warning
zone for the 40 to 50 families who live within 10 miles of the N
Reactor, Koelzer said he'd heard nothing from department officials
about evacuation procedures.
Koelzer said he'd been too busy before to worry about the
neighboring nuclear plants but had changed his mind and begun
worrying when he discovered the N Reactor had similar design features
to the Chernobyl reactor, near Kiev.
He also was disturbed by recent reports on 19,000 pages of
environmental monitoring reports at Hanford, Koelzer said.
The reports said that in its first few years of operation, Hanford
released hundreds of thousands of curies of radiation into the
atmosphere. In one still-classified 1949 experiment, more than 5,000
curies of gaseous radioactive iodine were released intentionally. By
comparison, about 14 curies of radioactive material were released in
the 43-day emergency at Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania in 1979.
''People are upset that the Russians aren't telling the truth,'' he
said. ''I'm wondering how truthful they have been here.''
McLane said he, too, felt the Energy Department hadn't been
forthcoming with information about the reactors across the river from
his farms. But he said nuclear power was needed.
''I don't believe we're told the truth,'' he said. ''But there's an
energy problem in this country.
''I can't say I'm real comfortable with that in my own backyard, but
where are they going to put it? It's a good location.''
Plutonium produced by the reactors and electricity produced by
Columbia River hydroelectric dams helped win World War II, McLane
said.
McLane expressed confidence that U.S. technology was superior to
Soviet technology; he said he hadn't made any plans for evacuation in
the event of an accident at the N Reactor.
''I'm a Christian. I've already made my plans,'' he said. ''Besides,
if anything happened, we'd be close enough that it wouldn't matter
anymore.''
End Adv for Sunday, May 4
AP-NY-05-02-86 2318EDT
***************
a269 2048 02 May 86
BC-Summit Expectations, adv 04,0751
$Adv04
Advance for Sunday, May 4, and Thereafter
Reactor Incident Adds New Dimension To Summit
By MICHAEL PUTZEL
AP White House Correspondent
TOKYO (AP) - U.S. officials expect Soviet behavior following the
nuclear catastrophe in the Ukraine to strengthen President Reagan's
hand in dealing with the allies at this week's summit of
industrialized democracies.
The accident is sure to be a central topic of discussion, despite
the economic issues that are the ostensible reason for the seven
leaders to gather each year for three days of formal meetings.
Terrorism, which the United States had expected to make the primary
focus of its informal discussions, still is likely to capture
considerable attention.
And while East-West relations already were on everyone's informal
agenda, U.S. officials say the Soviets' handling of the disastrous
explosion at the Chernobyl power plant gives the issue a new urgency
and reinforces Reagan's long-held contention that the Kremlin
leadership can't be trusted to live up to its international
obligations.
As one official put it, ''We'll be talking about what we can do to
bring the Russian bear out of the woods on this (nuclear) matter.''
Another administration official, also speaking on condition he not
be named, said the Soviets' reluctance to share information or accept
help from the outside ''just reinforces the president's own belief
that we've got to get on with the job of controlling the nuclear
environment,'' both in the military and civilian contexts.
But the official added, ''This will be a factor in how we proceed in
dealing with the questions of Soviet intentions and their
unwillingness to permit independent verification'' of arms control
agreements.
The accident itself and the Soviet response ''will be very much in
the minds of our European partners, who've felt very directly
threatened'' by the radioactive fallout and uncertainty about the
scope of the disaster, another American source noted.
''The secrecy shown by the Soviet authorities, the inclination of
the government to draw in on itself and particularly the inability of
the new leadership to show change, were very disappointing,'' an
administration official said.
The same source said the matter is seen in Washington as a
demonstration of Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev's failure ''to break
with past practice and accept international responsibilities.''
''Gorbachev's challenge is to show that he brings more than just
style'' to his position of power, the analyst suggested. ''In this
case, we saw little style and no substance.''
Asked what the summit might accomplish on the subject, the official
pointed out that French President Francois Mitterrand, Italian
Premier Bettino Craxi and Reagan all expect to be talking to
Gorbachev this year, and they and the other leaders are likely to
compare notes on what message they would like to get across to him
and what they still hope to learn about Soviet intentions.
Reagan has said he is less interested in getting a new condemnation
of international terrorism than in gaining allied support for
counter-terrorist activities, particularly those aimed at heading off
- rather than punishing - terrorist attacks.
U.S. officials say they don't expect a unified, collective approach
to the issue to come out of the summit, in part because the French
prefer to preserve their own freedom of action rather than bind
themselves to some new compact. But the administration hopes it can
raise the level of consciousness and help identify some areas in
which cooperation is possible.
On economic issues, agreement on a new round of multinational trade
talks is assured, but sources say it remains to be seen whether the
leaders will agree to begin preparations in September for broad,
open-ended talks or whether some matters will be left vague or some
trade categories excluded.
Japan, according to U.S. officials, appears to have effectively
defused the potentially devisive issue of its huge export surplus.
The government has announced an ambitious long-range plan to
restructure Japanese society, creating a consumer-oriented population
by raising salaries, discouraging unnecessary saving, improving
housing and shortening the average work week from six days to five.
Recent declines in the value of the dollar against the yen are
regarded by U.S. economists as a necessary first step toward
correcting giant trade imbalances that have spawned strong
protectionist sentiments in the United States and elsewhere.
No agreement is expected on the issue of agricultural subsidies,
although the United States and other non-Common Market countries are
increasing pressure on the Europeans to phase out their support of
farmers who could not otherwise claim such a substantial share of
world markets.
End Advance
AP-NY-05-02-86 2347EDT
***************
a270 2106 02 May 86
BC-Summit Overview, Adv 04,0976
$adv04
For Release Sunday, May 4
Summit Brightened by Falling Oil Prices and Interest Rates
EDs: Following may be topped with spot developments
By TOM RAUM
AP Economics Writer
TOKYO (AP) - Leaders of the industrialized democracies are meeting
here to discuss a world economic picture brightened by declines in
oil prices and interest rates, but the image is sure to be
overshadowed by a preoccupation with terrorism and nuclear reactor
safety.
Some analysts also say growing trade friction between the United
States and Western Europe could hamper the three days of talks
beginning Sunday.
President Reagan says he intends to bring the issue of terrorism
squarely before the seven-nation summit, citing a link between
combating terrorism and continued economic well-being.
Undeflected terrorism, Reagan says, could have numerous economic
repercussions and ''dampen the joy of travel, the flow of trade, the
exchange of ideas.''
However, while forging a consensus on dealing with Libya may be a
top U.S. priority, the administration has a full economic agenda for
this week's meetings with Canada, France, West Germany, Britain,
Italy and Japan.
In general, U.S. officials say they expect summit partners to agree
to focus on translating the economic benefits of collapsing world oil
prices into domestic policies that stimulate growth and employment.
From the American vantage point, that means moves toward lower taxes
and unemployment rates in Europe, particularly West Germany; and in
Japan, a follow-through on efforts to increase imports and trim that
nation's huge trade surplus.
And for the United States itself, it means continuing efforts to get
deficit government spending under control. The U.S. budget deficit
was a major issue at last year's economic summit in Bonn, West
Germany.
In ways summit partners could not have anticipated in the planning
of the seven-nation economic meeting, a catastrophic nuclear reactor
accident some 80 miles from the populous city of Kiev in the Soviet
Union has presented yet another issue for high-level discussion and
official worry.
Vice President George Bush, who was asked by President Reagan to
oversee a special White House study group on the repercussions of the
accident at Chernobyl, on Friday accused the Soviet Union of hiding
the truth about the accident's consequences.
Bush said he wished the Soviets had been more ''forthcoming'' about
the accident, but that he did not think it would have a significant
environmental impact on the United States. Still, the United States
and its allies are sure to talk about the accident during their
meetings here.
Among specific economic issues expected to be raised by the United
States at the Tokyo meeting is a September start for a new round of
international trade talks under the auspices of the General Agreement
on Tarrifs and Trade.
''We want an early trade round, we want it to include services. We
don't want things taken off the table like agriculture,'' Treasury
Secretary James A. Baker III said in a pre-summit interview.
The GATT rules - the basic ground rules for trade in much of the
non-communist world - generally forbid unfair or predatory trading
practices, discourage trade barriers and provide a judicial process
for settling trade disputes between nations. However, the rules apply
mostly to manufactured goods.
The United States wants GATT expanded to include foreign investment,
trade related to services and intellectual property rights - all
areas not previously covered. It also wants tighter restrictions on
agricultural subsidies, quotas and tariffs.
The 12-nation European Economic Community and the United States have
been engaging in an escalating trade war in recent months over
restrictions on sales there of U.S. farm goods, a conflict that has
intensified with the recent admission of Spain and Portugal to the
trading bloc.
Entry of these two countries has resulted in lost U.S. sales there
under a system of trade preferences throughout the community - also
called the Common Market - that favors farmers in member nations,
U.S. trade officials have charged.
The conflict has produced some actual trade retaliation in the form
of new U.S. barriers on European goods and new European barriers on
U.S. goods, and threats of even sharper actions and counter-actions
in the coming months.
This disagreement could sound the only sour note at what is expected
to be an otherwise harmonious summit, says Fred Bergsten, a former
Treasury Department official who is director of the Institute for
International Economics in Washington.
''I think there's a good chance the summit partners will come out
with a strong push for a new trade round. But the question is whether
they can overcome the current obstacles with Europe over
agriculture,'' Bergsten said.
Sir Roy Denman, the European Community's representative in
Washington, said he doubts the issue will jeopardize summit accord.
''Will it derail the trade negotiations? I don't think so. But it
won't be absent from the minds of some of those there,'' he said.
The economic mood in Tokyo is much less tense than it was a year ago
in Bonn, summit analysts say. This is largely because of the sharp
drop in oil prices and an accompanying fall in inflation and interest
rates throughout much of the world.
Also brightening the outlook is a realignment of major currencies
that saw the dollar drop some 30 percent from its peak last February
against other major currencies, promising to restore some order to
trade imbalances.
The realignment followed concerted action last September by the five
largest industrial powers - the United States, Britain, Japan, West
Germany and France - to intervene in currency exchanges to drive down
the value of the dollar.
Other positive economic developments cited by analysts and U.S.
officials include a reduction in the U.S. budget deficit - in part
due to a first $11.7 billion installment of spending cuts under a new
budget-balancing law - and the so-called Baker initiative to help
ease the debt crisis of developing nations.
End Advance
AP-NY-05-03-86 0005EDT
- - - - - -
a201 0922 03 May 86
AM-News Digest, 2 Takes,1062
AMs AP News Digest
Sunday, May 4, 1986
Here are the top stories at this hour from The Associated Press. The
General Desk supervisor is Mary MacVean (212-621-1602). The
Laserphoto Desk supervisor is Rich Kareckas (212-621-1900).
NUCLEAR DISASTER:
Top Soviets Visit Ukraine, Four U.S. Experts Head To Moscow
MOSCOW - The No. 2 man at the Kremlin and Premier Nikolai I. Ryzhkov
visit the Chernobyl nuclear disaster area in the first public gesture
of concern about the accident from Soviet leaders, and four U.S.
experts head to Moscow to measure radiation levels. Slug AM-Nuclear
Disaster. Developing.
By Alison Smale.
Chernobyl Shows the Perils of the Nuclear Age
UNDATED - In Kiev, a spring sun warmed strollers. But in Sweden it
rained, a sinister shower. The chill drops pelted the forests and
spotless little towns with unseen molecules of cesium and radioactive
iodine, silent messengers of the perils of the nuclear age. Slug
AM-Chernobyl's Message.
An AP Extra by Charles J. Hanley. Moved in advance as a265-266.
Soviet Secrecy Is Tradition
MOSCOW - Secrecy in the Soviet Union is not just an official policy
of censorship, but a culturally embedded tradition that dates to the
Czarist days. Slug AM-Soviet Secrecy. New, will stand. 900 words.
By Roxinne Ervasti.
How the Swedes Blew the Whistle
STOCKHOLM, Sweden - At 7 a.m. Monday in a Swedish nuclear power
plant an alarm sounded. ''Where on earth can it be coming from?'' an
official wondered. Neither the plant nor anything in Sweden could be
identified as the source of the radiation. Slug AM-Nuclear
Detectives. New, will stand. 800 words.
By Lars Foyen. LaserGraphic NY38 of May 3, chronology of nuclear
accident.
In Poland, Protecting People Without Offending USSR
WARSAW, Poland - After radiation levels soared throughout Poland
following the Soviet nuclear accident, the Communist government found
itself confronting the problem of how to protect the population
without triggering panic or anti-Soviet sentiments. Slug
AM-Poland-Radiation Reaction. New, will stand. 750 words.
By Charles J. Gans.
World Turned to U.S. for Information
WASHINGTON - Shortly after Swedish officials announced that
unusually high levels of radiation had been detected, U.S. officials
got busy trying to figure out what had happened. America reacted with
expressions of sympathy and offers of help for the Soviets, and
American intelligence quickly became the world's foremost source of
information. Slug AM-US-Nuclear Disaster. New, should stand. 1,000
words.
By Tim Ahern.
Almost A Week Later, Details Still Scarce
WASHINGTON - The Soviet nuclear accident appeared to be winding down
at week's end, but details were almost as sparse as the day the world
learned a disaster was under way in the Ukraine. Slug AM-Nuclear
Questions. Developing. By Jill Lawrence.
Citizens Group Lists Atomic Safety Breaches
WASHINGTON - An anti-nuclear citizens group alleging increasing
safety problems in the nuclear industry calls for the rapid phase-out
of all U.S. reactors, as a congressman releases a list of the 10
worst atomic safety power breaches of 1985. Slug AM-Nuclear
Accidents. New, should stand. 900 words.
By James Rowley.
SUMMIT 1986:
Reagan Prods Allies on Terrorism, Soviets on Accident
TOKYO - President Reagan, setting the tone for two issues likely to
dominate the seven-nation economic summit, castigates the Soviet
Union for its handling of the Chernobyl nuclear accident and prods
U.S. allies to do more to combat terrorism. Slug AM-Reagan. New
material. Should stand.
By Tom Raum. LaserPhotos TOK21, Reagan applauded after speech;
TOK11, security in Tokyo.
Reactor Incident Adds New Dimension To Summit
TOKYO - U.S. officials expect Soviet behavior following the nuclear
catastrophe in the Ukraine to strengthen President Reagan's hand in
dealing with the allies at this week's summit of industrialized
democracies. Slug AM-Summit Expectations.
By White House Correspondent Michael Putzel. Moved in advance as
a269, May 2.
Reagan's Asian Talks Marred By Friction With Philippines
TOKYO - President Reagan's trek to Asia has tripped over the
Philippine government's resentment over what it sees as an uncertain
American embrace and lingering U.S. concerns for exiled leader
Ferdinand Marcos. Slug AM-US-Philippines. New, 800 words.
News Analysis by Diplomatic Writer Barry Schweid.
Third World Debt Looms As Summit Issue
TOKYO - U.S. summit allies will likely reaffirm their support for a
plan by Treasury Secretary James A. Baker III for increased lending
to Third World countries, but so far the plan is rich with
endorsements and cash-short. Slug AM-Summit-Debt. New. 550 words.
By Economics Writer Tom Raum.
Summit Brightened by Falling Oil Prices and Interest Rates
TOKYO - Leaders of the industrialized democracies are meeting here
to discuss a world economic picture brightened by declines in oil
prices and interest rates, but the image is sure to be overshadowed
by a preoccupation with terrorism and nuclear reactor safety. Slug
AM-Summit Overview.
By Economics Writer Tom Raum. Moved in advance as a270, May 2.
Economies Coasting, But Nations Challenged by Terrorism
UNDATED - The summit of 1986 has brought Western leaders to Tokyo
for a round of self-congratulation and fine-tuning of economies
coasting along on cheap oil and cheap money. But the challenge of
terrorism might just wreck the harmony. Slug AM-Summit 1986.
By Charles J. Hanley. Mmoved in advance as a259, April 30. TOK8,
Shultz with Japanese finance minister.
Wife of Japanese Prime Minster Flaunts Tradition
TOKYO - Japanese premiers' wives have rarely been seen and even more
rarely heard, but Prime Minister Yasuhiro Nakasone's wife, Tsutako,
seems bent on bucking such tradition at the international economic
summit. Slug AM-Japan-First Ladies. New, should stand. 750 words.
By Leslie Brody. LaserPhoto KL1, Nancy Reagan with students in Kuala
Lumpur.
With AM-Summit Chronology from WASHINGTON, A look at previous
summits. Also moved in advance as a258; AM-Summit Palace from TOKYO,
moved in advance as a264; AM-Summit-Tokyo Profile, moved as a263,
April 29.
MORE
AP-NY-05-03-86 1221EDT
***************
a002 2121 02 May 86
PM-News Digest,0766
PMs AP News Digest
Saturday, May 3, 1986
Here are the top stories for PMs. The General Desk supervisor is
Mark Berns (212) 621-1604. The LaserPhoto Desk supervisor is Mike
Musielski 621-1900.
For repeats, the Service Desk can be reached at 212-621-1595 or
1596.
NUCLEAR DISASTER:
Soviet Official Says Water Tainted, Region Uninhabitable
UNDATED - Water reservoirs near the crippled Soviet nuclear power
plant at Chernobyl are contaminated and the region remains too
radioactive for evacuated residents to return, according to a top
Soviet Communist Party official who blamed the accident on human
error. Slug PM-Nuclear Disaster. 800 words.
Developing.
U.S. Officials Say Radioactive Cloud Later Than Expected
WASHINGTON - The radioactive cloud from the Soviet nuclear accident,
which has been drifting over parts of Europe, will reach the United
States later than originally expected, U.S. analysts believe. Slug
PM-US-Soviet Accident Rdp. New material, may stand. 700 words.
By Guy Darst.
TOKYO SUMMIT: Reagan Opens Japan Visit Amid Nuclear Concerns
TOKYO - President Reagan opens his visit to Japan for the
seven-nation economic summit expressing concern about the
implications of the nuclear accident in the Ukraine and Soviet
refusal to provide details of the catastrophe to other countries.
Slug PM-Reagan.
Developing. LaserPhoto covering. By White House Correspondent
Michael Putzel.
LaROUCHE: Oilman Buys Estate To Be Extremist's Landlord
CUSHING, Okla. - An Oklahoma oilman who admits he is troubled by
some descriptions of Lyndon H. LaRouche's background has put up
hundreds of thousands of dollars to purchase a Virginia estate and
become the political extremist's landlord. Slug PM-LaRouche's
Landlord. New material, will stand. 1420 words. 2 Takes.
LaserPhotos WX11,12 of May 2. By William Welch.
POLAR ODYSSEY: Six Adventurers Re-Create Peary's Conquest of Arctic
NEW YORK - Six explorers have reached the North Pole after slogging
across 500 miles of the frozen Arctic Ocean aided only by a sextant
and a chronometer on a six-month journey from the northern tip of
Canada to re-create Robert Peary's 1909 conquest. Slug PM-Polar
Expedition. New material, may stand. 700 words.
By Marjorie Anders.
TAXING TIMES: Dole Says Packwood Plan Merely A Good Start
WASHINGTON - Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole says the new
tax-overhaul plan drafted by Finance Committee Chairman Bob Packwood
is a good start, but he withheld his complete endorsement until
several unidentified problems are solved. Slug PM-Tax Overhaul. 730
words. Will stand.
By AP Tax Writer Jim Luther.
PHILIPPINES: Enrile Says He'd Arrest Marcos Upon Return
MANILA, Philippines - Defense Minister Juan Ponce Enrile says he
will arrest Ferdinand E. Marcos if the former president returns to
the Philippines, and that it would be difficult to guarantee Marcos'
safety. Slug PM-Philippines. 600 words.
Developing.
SOUTH AFRICA: Blacks Return To Work After Massive Strike
JOHANNESBURG, South Africa - Millions of blacks return to their jobs
and schools after a day-long general strike against apartheid, the
largest single protest in South Africa denouncing the government's
policy of race segregation. Slug PM-South Africa. 600 words.
Developing.
TEXAS ELECTIONS: Record Turnout Of Voters Expected
AUSTIN, Texas - A record turnout was expected today as Texans cast
primary election ballots, with polls showing a former governor with
strong Republican support and Democratic Gov. Mark White hobbled by
plunging oil prices, angry teachers and unhappy state employees. Slug
PM-Texas Elections. 650 words.
Developing. Polls open 8 a.m. EDT. By Michael Holmes.
ALL THE FUN OF THE FAIR: Thousands Stream Mingle With Royals
VANCOUVER, British Columbia - Thousands streamed through the gates
of the world's latest world's fair on opening day to rub shoulders
with Prince Charles and Princess Diana, and Prime Minister Brian
Mulroney, and see wonders like the world's largest hockey stick. Slug
PM-Expo 86. New material, should stand. 650 words.
By Katia Blackburn.
DOLLYWOOD: Pigeon Forge Gets A Taste Of The Big Time
PIGEON FORGE, Tenn. - When Dolly Parton left the Smoky Mountain
hollows where she was born, the most exciting ride in town was the
family horse. Things have changed. Officials estimate her new theme
park, Dollywood, may draw up to 1 million visitors a year. Slug
PM-Dollywood. New, should stand. 550 words.
By Kristi Umbreit.
AP-NY-05-03-86 0021EDT
***************
a005 2135 02 May 86
PM-News Shows, Advisory,0157
Here is the lineup of Sunday's TV news shows:
ABC's ''This Week With David Brinkley'': Secretary of State George
Shultz on the Tokyo economic summit and Reps. Edward Markey, D-Mass.,
and Don Young, R-Alaska, on the Soviet nuclear accident.
CBS' ''Face the Nation'': Treasury Secretary James A. Baker III on
the Tokyo summit and Environmental Protection Agency chief Lee Thomas
on the Soviet nuclear accident.
NBC's ''Meet the Press'': White House chief of staff Donald Regan
and Harold Denton, director, nuclear reactor regulations division,
Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
---
CBS' ''60 Minutes'':
''Michelle'' - Michelle Duvalier, wife of the former Haitian
dictator whose outlandish lifestyle helped fuel the revolution and
downfall of the regime.
''Not Again Mr. Agnew'' - 79-year-old Robert Agnew, whose penchant
for fighting back has resulted in some 200 lawsuits in the past 40
years.
''The Beeb'' - A day in the life of the BBC radio (repeat).
The AP
AP-NY-05-03-86 0035EDT
***************
a007 2149 02 May 86
PM-Bone Marrow Doctor,0607
Doctor Aiding USSR Was Reprimanded By U.S. For Unauthorized
Transplants
By LEE SIEGEL
AP Science Writer
LOS ANGELES (AP) - The physican who went to the Soviet Union to help
victims of the Chernobyl nuclear plant disaster was once reprimanded
by a federal health agency for making unauthorized bone marrow
transplants.
But friends and associates of Dr. Robert Gale said the disciplinary
action by the National Institutes of Health stemmed from his
dedication to saving lives of cancer victims.
''Nothing can stop this man,'' Gale's wife, Tamar, said Friday after
her husband arrived in Moscow. ''As long as there is life, there is
hope, he says. ... If somebody has leukemia, he will be the very last
person to give up. He's very stubborn.''
In 1978 and 1979, Gale performed unauthorized, experimental bone
marrow transplants on patients whose marrow was destroyed by
leukemia. The operations hand not been approved by an internal review
committee at the University of California at Los Angeles.
After a long controversy over the transplants - which some
colleagues say was triggered by professional jealousy and Gale's
somewhat grating personality - Gale was reprimanded last year by NIH,
which provides his research funding.
Because of Gale's expertise in marrow transplantation, Dr. Armand
Hammer, the Occidental Petroleum Corp. chairman who has close ties to
Soviet leaders, arranged for him to travel to the Soviet Union to aid
any people whose marrow was damaged or destroyed by radiation from
the reactor disaster.
Gale remains widely respected despite controversy over the
unauthorized transplants.
''Nobody who has been involved in the NIH review had any negative
impressions of Dr. Gale as a scientist or a physician,'' said Mary L.
Miers, a staff member in the NIH director's office who helped
investigate Gale. ''It was never suggested that he didn't have the
welfare of his patients at heart.''
But Gale's judgment was wrong when he decided to perform the
transplants without approval of the UCLA committee responsible for
protecting human subjects of research, she added.
The committee later approved further transplants, and the NIH
continued Gale's funding on the condition his activities will be
monitored until March 1988.
Gale, a 40-year-old New York native, ''is willing to take
responsibility for making decisions,'' said Dr. John A. Hansen, a
friend who is a member of the bone marrow transplant team at the
University of Washington's Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in
Seattle. ''He got reprimanded on some technicalities.''
Hansen said some of Gale's critics at UCLA were motivated by
jealousy, and that those who complained about the unauthorized
transplants ''don't appreciate the pressure that desperate patients
bring to these decisions.''
Dr. David Golde, UCLA's chief of hematology and oncology (cancer
treatment), called Gale's reprimand ''a slap on the wrist.''
Gale is chairman of the advisory committee to the International Bone
Marrow Transplant Registry in Milwaukee, Wis., which collects data
from 80 percent of the world's bone marrow transplant centers to
analyze how well the procedure works for leukemia patients.
The registry's scientific director, Dr. Mortimer Bortin, said Gale
may help the Soviets find relatives of injured people so they could
serve as marrow donors. Or he may call the registry to arrange for
bone marrow and transplant surgeons to travel to the Soviet Union or
for radiation victims to be transported to nearby nations to receive
transplants.
Bortin described Gale as ''a superb scientist, very dedicated to his
patients. The best word to characterize him is brilliant. ... He
certainly is one of the foremost bone marrow transplanters in the
world.''
AP-NY-05-03-86 0049EDT
***************
a010 2210 02 May 86
PM-Tax Overhaul, Bjt,0769
Dole Says Senate Committee's Tax Overhaul Plan Is Good Start
By JIM LUTHER
AP Tax Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) - Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole says the new
tax-overhaul plan drafted by Finance Committee Chairman Bob Packwood
is a good start, but he withheld his complete endorsement until
several unidentified problems are solved.
If ''a number of items that merit attention ... can be worked out,''
Dole, R-Kan., said Friday, ''then the chairman will have my full
support.'' In the meantime, the majority leader said, ''I am solidly
behind tax reform and Chairman Packwood's efforts to produce a
package.''
Dole's statement indicated the breadth of committee members'
concerns about the new bill, which Packwood, R-Ore., said he thinks
has the support of a majority of the panel. Six members stood with
Packwood when he made the announcement, and he said he was authorized
to say that Dole also supported the bill.
Neither Packwood nor any of the six members would declare absolutely
that the new bill has enough votes for approval. And some staff
members who work with the committee said the measure is likely to
undergo considerable change before it can pass.
''I hope there is a majority for it,'' Packwood said, calling it a
major improvement over present law in terms of simplicity, fairness
and investment decisionmaking.
The bill - the third plan Packwood has offered in two months - would
cut taxes for most Americans, raise taxes on corporations by about
$100 billion over five years, and retain full deductions for home
mortgages, charitable contributions and most state and local taxes.
Packwood said the committee - which met in private all week to
resolve some major differences - will take up the new plan in a
public session Monday.
MORE
AP-NY-05-03-86 0110EDT
- - - - - -
a012 2221 02 May 86
PM-Tax Overhaul, Bjt-1st Add, a010,0474
WASHINGTON, session Monday.
Major features of the plan would:
- Remove 6 million lower-income people from the income-tax rolls
altogether. A family of four would pay no income tax until earnings
exceed about $12,470.
- Cut the 50 percent top individual tax rate to 27 percent. The only
other rate in the new plan, 15 percent, would apply to about 80
percent of all taxpayers. The 27 percent rate would apply to a
family's taxable income (after deductions and exemptions) above about
$28,000.
- Raise the $1,080-per-person exemption to $2,000 for all but the
wealthiest taxpayers.
- Increase the standard deductions, to about $5,000 for joint
returns and about $3,100 for singles.
- Repeal the deduction permitted for state and local sales taxes
paid.
- Allow deduction of mortgage interest on two homes. The deduction
for consumer interest, such as for a car or a college loan, would be
limited to an amount equal to investment income. For example, if a
family savings account paid $500 interest, the family's consumer
interest deduction would be limited to $500.
- Continue the deduction for charitable contributions by itemizers
but repeal the special charitable writeoff for those who don't
itemize.
- Restrict tax-deferred Individual Retirement Accounts to workers
not covered by a company pension plan.
- Remove the tax advantage for individual capital gains.
A key provision, supporters agreed, would take away some of the
incentive that upper-income people have for investing in tax shelters
- ventures aimed more at reducing their tax burden than at making a
profit.
One section would strictly limit the use of ''passive'' investment
losses - from ventures in which the taxpayer does not have a
management role - to shield wages from taxation. That provision is
still being worked on, and Sen. Lloyd Bentsen, D-Texas, said he could
not support the bill unless some changes are made.
Sen. John C. Danforth, R-Mo., said Packwood's plan ''represents the
most significant step taken to date toward achieving true tax
reform,'' and proposes ''a classic swap in tax terms - tax
preferences will be traded in for lower tax rates.''
That also is the major thrust of the tax plan that President Reagan
recommended last year and billed as the top legislative initiative of
his second term. The House approved a version that critics say would
reduce incentives for saving and business investment. The president
has counted on the Republican-controlled Finance Committee to shape
the bill more to his liking.
Packwood's new plan would preserve many of the special business tax
breaks now in the law, including those for the oil and timber
industries. Businesses would lose the investment tax credit but get a
depreciation system that is more generous than present law and a top
tax rate of 33 percent, compared with 46 percent now.
AP-NY-05-03-86 0121EDT
- - - - - -
a047 0257 03 May 86
PM-Digest Advisory,0090
All the budgets have moved. Here is a list with Laserphoto numbers:
WASHINGTON - PM-Tax Overhaul, a010, a012
PIGEON FORGE - PM-Dollywood, a015
WASHINGTON - PM-US-Soviet Accident Rdp, a020
CUSHING - PM-LaRouche's Landlord, a022, a023. LaserPhotos WX11,12 of
May 2.
AUSTIN - PM-Texas Elections, a025
NEW YORK - PM-Polar Expedition, a027
MANILA - PM-Philippines, a031
VANCOUVER - PM-Expo 86, a032
UNDATED - PM-Nuclear Disaster, a033
TOKYO - PM-Reagan, a037
JOHANNESBURG - PM-South Africa, a045
The AP
AP-NY-05-03-86 0556EDT
***************
a020 2309 02 May 86
PM-US-Soviet Accident Rdp, Bjt,0731
U.S. Should Be Spared Chernobyl Radioactivity Longer Than Expected
By GUY DARST
Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) - The radioactivity that has spewed from the
crippled Soviet nuclear reactor in the Ukraine should reach the
United States later than originally expected, U.S. analysts now say.
The cloud from Chernobyl, originally expected to arrive late Sunday
or Monday, will be ''later than that and maybe significantly later,''
Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee M. Thomas told
reporters Friday.
Despite that assessment, President Reagan was told today that the
fire at the power plant was still burning. But spokesman Larry
Speakes, with the president in Tokyo for the economic summit, said
Reagan received a report on the accident from Vice President George
Bush that said, ''We have every reason to think that the fire has
diminished, but there is evidence that the reactor or associated
equipment with the reactor continues to smolder.''
Thomas, who leads the interagency task force keeping track of the
accident for the U.S. government, said - as officials have said
before - ''There is no public health or environmental consequence
predicted for the United States as a result of this accident.''
''It's very unlikely that we would have any substantial fallout of
radioactivity within the United States,'' said Dr. Frank Young,
commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration. ''We do not at this
moment, with the primitive data that we have, expect very significant
effects in any portion of Western Europe.''
There were these other U.S. developments Friday:
- Speakes said it would be worthwhile to work toward on-site
inspections of Soviet nuclear power facilities by outside technical
experts.
- Speakes also said U.S. medical and technical teams have been sent
to Moscow and Eastern European countries to offer assistance and
assess the damage from radioactive fallout. And he added that the
''hot spot'' a U.S. satellite had detected near the burning reactor
was not a meltdown at a second reactor.
- Bush, appointed by Reagan to head a Cabinet-level committee to
monitor the accident, said the Soviet Union had responded to some
requests for data ''but it is sparse at best.'' He said the secrecy
around the accident was ''unconscionable.''
- Bush's comments came as the Soviets released their most detailed
account of the disaster to date. In Hamburg, West Germany, Moscow
Communist Party Chief Boris Yeltsin told the ARD national television
network that the accident was caused by human error, and the region
around it remains too radioactive for evacuated residents to return.
- Dimitri Simes, Soviet-born professor at Johns Hopkins University,
said secrecy may be preferred by the Soviet population, who
''couldn't handle the lack of knowledge by the government'' on how to
deal with the situation.
- Sen. Richard Lugar, R-Ind., chairman of the Foreign Relations
Committee, said the accident would make it more difficult for Soviet
leader Mikhail Gorbachev to consolidate his power and could lead to
major political trouble if the Ukraine were so contaminated that it
became uninhabitable.
- Energy Department scientists and public relations officers said
they had been told not to discuss specifics of the accident with
reporters. Higher officials denied that any gag order had been put
on, but admitted they had ''asked'' employees not to speculate.
Swedish weather and radiation data have led the U.S. task force to
calculate, ''subject to considerable uncertainty,'' that the
radiation dose two or three miles from the plant could have been
''hundreds of rem whole-body,'' enough to kill, according to a task
force statement.
Harold Denton, director of nuclear reactor regulation for the
Nuclear Regulatory Commission, said he wouldn't be surprised if the
Soviet initial announcement of a death toll of two - challenged by
U.S. officials from Secretary of State George Shultz on down as
ridiculously low - turned out to be correct.
But that is still not the whole story because radiation sickness
takes its toll up to three weeks after exposure, officials noted.
''We have no information relating to what evacuation there may have
been before the incident or after the incident itself,'' Thomas said.
''Therefore, you can't draw any kinds of conclusions about what
exposure there might have been.''
Denton noted that the number of injured reported by the Soviets,
197, was about the number that could be expected to be working in the
Chernobyl plant.
AP-NY-05-03-86 0209EDT
***************
a021 2318 02 May 86
PM-Bonner,0518
Dissident Yelena Bonner Blasts Soviet Handling Of Disaster
By CAROLYN LUMSDEN
Associated Press Writer
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. (AP) - Soviet dissident Yelena Bonner criticized
the way her nation has dealt with the Chernobyl nuclear disaster and
said future Soviet reports on her health when she returns home may be
equally fraudulent.
''What kind of state power must this be to participate in such a
deliberate fraud when so near to Kiev there is a nuclear disaster and
they show a picture of a woman celebrating?'' Mrs. Bonner, who is in
this country for medical treatment, said Friday.
She said the photograph released this week of a Kiev festival while
radiation leaked from the nuclear power plant, 60 miles away, was
proof of Soviet duplicity.
Speaking through an interpreter, Mrs. Bonner tearfully implored
Americans not to believe official reports about her or her husband,
fellow dissident Andrei Sakharov, when she rejoins him in exile in
the Soviet Union later this month.
''I have the feeling that we could die and for the next five years
they (Soviet authorities) would be showing films showing that we were
OK,'' she said.
She spoke to about 50 people at a lunch sponsored by the
International Parliamentary Group for Human Rights in the Soviet
Union. The group is pressing President Reagan to meet with Mrs.
Bonner before she leaves the United States.
Sakharov, a physicist, won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1975 for his
human rights work. He was banished to Gorky 250 miles west of Moscow
in 1980 for critizing the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.
''Sakharov's life is in danger. ... That's why I am afraid of our
life in Gorky,'' Mrs. Bonner said.
''They (KGB agents) can break into our apartment and suffocate him
with a pillow and say, 'That's the way things happen.'''
Mrs. Bonner, who is in the United States on a six-month Soviet exit
visa, has said that the only condition of her visa was that she not
talk with reporters, but she said the ban ''doesn't mean I can't go
to lunch with friends.
''My situation was never very good and it never will be good,'' she
said with a shrug when asked if she feared returning.
Her daughter, Tatiana Yankelevich, with whom she is staying in this
country, said in an interview that she believes Soviet authorities
will allow Mrs. Bonner back in the country to reunite with her
husband.
''It is the one subject they are sensitive to,'' she said. ''While
there have been no other improvements on human rights issues, this
situation of separating couples has improved.''
Mrs. Bonner said the couple lives cut off from any contact with
others, and they were cut off from each other for the 10 months
Sakharov spent in the hospital last year to win her release.
''I was so isolated I used to read poetry aloud just to keep
speaking, to hear a voice. But when we are together, we are quite
happy, despite all this,'' she said, brushing tears away.
AP-NY-05-03-86 0217EDT
***************
a033 0115 03 May 86
PM-Nuclear Disaster, Bjt,0802
Moscow Official Says Water Contaminated, Human Error Caused Accident
By The Associated Press
A top Soviet official said the area ringing the disaster-stricken
Chernobyl nuclear power plant is now dangerously radioactive and has
been sealed off, and implied that the atomic reactor fire had been
triggered by human error.
Moscow Communist Party chief Boris Yeltsin, in the first detailed
description by a Soviet leader of the situation at the Ukrainian
plant, also said in a Friday night interview in Hamburg, West
Germany, that water reservoirs near the facility were contaminated.
In the interview with West Germany's ARD national television
network, Yeltsin, an alternate member of the Soviet Union's ruling
Politburo, said damage-control workers were using helicopters to drop
sacks of sand, lead and boron on the fire-swept reactor to block
further radioactive emissions.
In Tokyo, President Reagan was told today that the reactor at the
power plant 80 miles north of the Ukrainian capital of Kiev still
appeared to be smoldering, and Secretary of State George P. Shultz
said casualities appeared worse than the Soviets were acknowledging.
Shultz, who accompanied Reagan to Japan for a seven-nation economic
summit, told reporters that the Kremlin's account of two dead and 197
wounded, 18 of them seriously, ''looks very low from information we
have from a variety of sources.''
He said the sources include sightings of ''emergency equipment that
came there (and) is still there.''
The disaster at the four-reactor facility one week ago sent a cloud
of radiation over much of Europe, and many governments were nervously
monitoring fallout and ordering precautions against possible
contamination.
Although many European countries reported abnormally high radiation
levels, none indicated any danger to life, according to government
officials.
Western experts said hazards from the disaster had abated Friday,
but a southerly wind was blowing the radiation into a new area, the
Balkans.
Yeltsin, in Hamburg to attend a West German Communist Party
congress, said the cause of the disaster ''lies apparently in the
subjective realm, in human error. We are undertaking measures to make
sure that this doesn't happen again.''
Yeltsin, a close associate of Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev,
said water reservoirs around the city of Chernobyl were contaminated,
but did not elaborate on how the local population was dealing with
that.
The plant is near the junction of two rivers, the Pripyat and the
Dniepr, which feed into rivers and reservoirs that may be connected
to the water supply for Kiev, a city of 2.4 million in the Soviet
Union's winter wheat-growing heartland.
Yeltsin repeated the Soviets' earlier report that residents of four
''settlements'' in the vicinity of the reactors were immediately
evacuated. ''No one was exposed to radiation,'' he said.
The Soviets have never said which four ''settlements'' were
evacuated, but it has been presumed that one of them was Pripyat, the
town that grew up around the plant site in the 1970s, and that a
second was probably Chernobyl, which is nearby.
ARD provided a full tape of the interview with Yeltsin to news
agencies after the evening telecast. He spoke in Russian, and his
comments were dubbed in German.
Reagan's spokesman Larry Speakes said the president had received a
report from Vice President George Bush providing the government's
latest information about the accident collected by a special task
force in Washington and reviewed by Bush's special Cabinet-level
committee.
Bush's report, Speakes said, told Reagan that ''we have every reason
to think that the fire has diminished, but there is evidence that the
reactor or associated equipment with the reactor continues to
smolder.''
Yeltsin said the three other nuclear reactors at the Chernobyl
complex were shut down after the accident, but that the area
surrounding the plant remained dangerously radioactive.
''People may not go back (at this time),'' he said.
Yeltsin, in separate comments to the West German Communist Party,
complained of Western media reports that said thousands were killed.
He said the reports were aimed at stirring more ''anti-Soviet
hysteria in the hope of driving a wedge in the Soviet Union's
relations with other countries.''
Moscow Radio broadcast a report Friday saying that residents of the
area were boating and engaging in water sports on the Dniepr, and
Soviet television's nightly news carried filmed reports of May Day
festivities in Kiev and elsewhere in the Ukraine.
Fallout brought down by rain raised radiation levels in Belgrade,
Yugoslavia, to eight times the norm. In Romania, between Yugoslavia
and the Soviet Union, state television told people to keep their
children indoors, wash fruits and vegetables and avoid rural water.
In Scandinavia, the area the cloud passed over first, authorities
said radiation levels were expected to remain above normal for weeks.
AP-NY-05-03-86 0414EDT
- - - - - -
a051 0327 03 May 86
PM-Digest Briefs,0847
Eds: This package does not contain the following items from the News
Digest: UNDATED-Nuclear Disaster, a033; WASHINGTON-US-Soviet Accident
Rdp, a020; TOKYO-Reagan, a037; CUSHING-LaRouche's Landlord, a022-23
---
By The Associated Press
NEW YORK (AP) - Six adventurers waited on the Arctic ice cap today
to be picked up for a flight back to civilization after a grueling
500-mile, 56-day dog-sled voyage to the top of the world.
The six slogged their way from the northern tip of Canada to the
North Pole to become the first entirely self-sufficient expedition to
re-create Robert Peary's 1909 conquest of the pole.
First word of the feat came from a bush pilot shuttling supplies to
a remote mining camp who picked up a radio transmission Friday from
the Steger International Polar Expedition and relayed it to the base
camp in Resolute Bay, Canada.
---
WASHINGTON (AP) - Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole says the new
tax-overhaul plan drafted by Finance Committee Chairman Bob Packwood
is a good start, but he withheld his complete endorsement until
several unidentified problems are solved.
If ''a number of items that merit attention ... can be worked out,''
Dole said Friday, ''then the chairman will have my full support.'' In
the meantime, the majority leader said, ''I am solidly behind tax
reform and Chairman Packwood's efforts to produce a package.''
Dole's statement indicated the breadth of committee members'
individual concerns about the new bill, which Packwood said Friday he
thinks has the support of a majority of the panel. Six members stood
with Packwood when he made the announcement, and he said he was
authorized to say that Dole also supported the bill.
---
MANILA, Philippines (AP) - Defense Minister Juan Ponce Enrile said
he will arrest Ferdinand E. Marcos if he ever returns to the
Philippines, and said ensuring the deposed ruler's safety in his
homeland would be a difficult task.
Enrile's statements came as President Corazon Aquino fired the
Manila police chief on Friday for failing to contain violent protests
by diehard Marcos loyalists who are demanding that Marcos come home.
Marcos was ousted from Malacanang Palace on Feb. 25 by a joint
civilian-military revolt following fraud-tainted elections earlier
that month that both Marcos and Mrs. Aquino claimed to have won.
---
JOHANNESBURG, South Africa (AP) - Millions of blacks returned to
their jobs and studies following a one-day strike against apartheid,
and police reported seven people killed in overnight unrest in two
dozen black townships.
The victims included four black men shot by riot police, two police
officers killed by black demonstrators, and a woman, accused of being
a police informant, who was burned to death by other blacks.
Police said they arrested more than 70 people in the violence that
began Thursday night, and spread to 24 townships.
---
AUSTIN, Texas (AP) - A rematch of the 1982 gubernatorial race was in
the making today with opinion polls giving Gov. Mark White and former
GOP Gov. Bill Clements the best chances of emerging from Democratic
and Republican primaries.
Texans were voting today for candidates for Congress and state
offices, and Secretary of State Myra McDaniel said the three-way
battle for the Republican gubernatorial nomination was expected to
draw record numbers of GOP voters.
According to recent polls, Clements, who lost to White four years
ago, was running well ahead of his Republican rivals, U.S. Rep. Tom
Loeffler of Hunt and former Democratic congressman Kent Hance.
---
VANCOUVER, British Columbia (AP) - Thousands of people streamed
through the gates of the latest world's fair on opening day to rub
shoulders with Prince Charles and Princess Diana and see wonders like
the world's largest hockey stick.
Gray skies and rain were also a part of the recipe for the grand
opening Friday, but they didn't seem to dampen the spirits of
visitors.
Charles and Diana were joined by 48,000 other people in B.C. Place
Stadium, including Prime Minister Brian Mulroney and British Columbia
Premier Bill Bennett, for opening ceremonies of the 5 1/2-month fair.
---
PIGEON FORGE, Tenn. (AP) - When Dolly Parton left the Smoky Mountain
hollows where she was born, the most exciting ride in town was the
family horse.
That was more than 20 years ago and times have changed - for East
Tennessee and for Miss Parton, who is marking her homecoming with the
opening today of the ''Dollywood'' theme park in the foothills she
once called home.
Miss Parton, 40, is a partner in Dollywood, a $5.5 million expansion
of an earlier theme park known as Silver Dollar City. The new park
features 400 acres of attractions, including ''River Rampage'' - an
artificial version of white-water rafting - and a steam locomotive
that chugs through surrounding hills.
''East Tennessee gave me life, enthusiasm and inspiration. And it's
good if you can give something back,'' the flashy actress, singer and
songwriter said Friday at a news conference.
AP-NY-05-03-86 0626EDT
- - - - - -
a081 0729 03 May 86
PM-Airliner-Explosion, 2nd Ld - Writethru, a051,0634
URGENT
Sri Lankan Airliner Explodes Before Takeoff, 20 People Said Killed
Eds: LEADS to UPDATE with comments from AirLanka official in Dubai,
edit throughout
By MANIK DE SILVA
Associated Press Writer
COLOMBO, Sri Lanka (AP) - An explosion tore through an AirLanka
L-1011 jetliner today as passengers boarded for a flight to the
Maldive Islands in the Indian Ocean, and state radio said 20 people
were killed and 41 injured.
The United News of India quoted unidentifed officials as saying the
death toll was at least 26. The dead were not immediately identified,
but local news reports said most of the passengers were Europeans.
Witnesses said the Lockheed TriStar plane was virtually broken in
two by the blast. The Colombo international airport was immediately
closed.
The national news agency, Lankapuvath, said a time bomb caused the
blast, but the government made no statement on its cause. There was
no immediate claim of responsibility.
It was not clear how many people were aboard the plane at the time
of the blast.
The state radio said passengers were boarding the plane at 9:10
a.m., 20 minutes before the plane's scheduled departure, when the
explosion occurred, sending plumes of black smoke skyward and
shattering glass panels in the main terminal building.
It said 12 of the injured were in critical condition.
The United News of India said unidentified sources at the airport
reported suspicions of sabotage by militants of the Tamil minority
seeking a separate homeland in northeastern Sri Lanka.
The Lankapuvath news agency, quoting unidentified security sources,
said a time bomb had been planted in the tail of the aircraft.
None of the victims were identified immediately by the Sri Lanka
government or the state-owned airline. However, news reports said
most of the passengers were Europeans taking vacation trips to Male
in the Maldive Islands, an hour's flight from Colombo.
The British High Commissioner in Sri Lanka, contacted by the British
television station TV-AM from London, said one Briton was among the
injured.
Senior Sri Lankan government officials, including the defense
secretary and senior military chiefs, rushed to the airport, 18 miles
north of Colombo. AirLanka Chairman Rakhitha Wikramanayake also was
at the scene.
The plane had arrived earlier from London via Zurich, Switzerland,
and Dubai in the United Arab Emirates. An AirLanka office manager in
Dubai, P.U.K. Menon, said the flight was numbered 512 as far as
Colombo and changed to Flight 101 in Colombo for the next leg of the
trip.
Menon said most of the passengers who boarded in Dubai were Sri
Lankans who worked in the Persian Gulf region, and said they all got
off in Colombo.
One of the injured, who identified himself only as Redato and said
he was a member of the French navy, told state radio he had not yet
taken his seat when the blast occurred.
''I was lucky to escape alive,'' he said.
Tamils, most of whom are Hindus, make up 18 percent of Sri Lanka's
15 million people. They claim discrimination by the majority
Sinhalese Buddhists.
Tamil guerrillas have been fighting for three years to establish a
separate homeland in northeastern Sri Lanka, where most of the
nation's Tamils live. Moderate Tamils seek autonomy for the region
but not independence.
In August 1984, a bomb exploded in a suitcase as it was about to be
loaded aboard an AirLanka passenger jet at Madras in southeastern
India, and 31 people were killed. Police sought a Tamil for
questioning, but no arrests were announced.
After that explosion, Prime Minister Ranasinghe Premdasa renewed
charges that Tamil separatists were operating from the Indian state
of Tamil Nadu, where Madras is located. India has repeatedly denied
such charges.
AP-NY-05-03-86 1029EDT
***************
a037 0150 03 May 86
PM-Reagan, Bjt,0760
Reagan Demands Soviets Share Information on Accident
By MICHAEL PUTZEL
AP White House Correspondent
TOKYO (AP) - The Reagan administration today demanded that the
Kremlin share more information about the nuclear accident in the
Ukraine and called for independent inspection of Soviet power plants
to prevent another catastrophe.
President Reagan, opening his visit to Japan for the seven-nation
economic summit, made the issue his first priority.
Reagan's spokesman said the implications of the nuclear accident
probably would be taken up as the first item when the world leaders
convene on Sunday.
In remarks to a U.S. Chamber of Commerce group here, Reagan did not
mention the issue, stressing instead the trade topics that will be
before the summit when the leaders take up economic subects Monday
morning.
Secretary of State George P. Shultz, speaking to reporters in Tokyo,
said the accident at the Chernobyl power plant ''shows the importance
of inspections and reviews of procedures.''
''Just how this accident took place we don't know,'' Shultz said,
adding that inspection might reveal what happened and what safeguards
could be used to prevent another disaster.
Dismissing the Soviets' contention that only two people were killed
and fewer than 200 injured in the explosion and fire, Shultz said he
stands by his earlier assessment that casualties far exceed the
official figures.
''I think that the information they provided about the number of
killed and others who are in some way incapacitated looks very low
compared to information we have from a variety of sources who take
pictures, who see what's on the ground, who see the immobility of
emergency equipment that came there - is still there,'' the secretary
said.
''All of it suggests that the impact on individual lives is much
more than the statement that they have made.''
Presidential spokesman Larry Speakes called for on-site inspection
of Soviet nuclear power plants, complaining that information about
the disaster is still sketchy.
Reagan, on his way to a meeting with Japanese Prime Minister
Yasuhiro Nakasone, told reporters, ''We hope they're going to rectify
that by giving us more information.''
Asked to comment on Soviet charges that the United States is
exaggerating the damage caused by the accident, Reagan told reporters
at the start of a separate meeting with Italian Prime Minister
Bettino Craxi there wouldn't be a problem ''if they would come
forward and tell everybody exactly what happened.''
When a reporter suggested the U.S. criticism amounted to
''Soviet-bashing,'' the president replied, ''No, but ... you can
hardly call this kind of an accident an internal affair when other
countries are threatened with the fallout and radioactivity.''
Asked why the Soviets haven't been more forthcoming, Reagan said,
''They're a little mistrustful of all of us.''
On-site inspections of nuclear power facilities by outside technical
experts would be a ''practical and worthwhile goal'' toward which to
work, Speakes said.
The International Atomic Energy Agency now inspects U.S. and Soviet
reactors to ensure they are not producing materials for nuclear
weapons, but the inspections are not conducted to ensure compliance
with safety standards.
''Inspection of nuclear power plants under IAEA safeguards is
something that has been going on as part of the process, and it's
been a long struggle to get the nuclear weapons states to agree to
have their power plants inspected,'' Shultz said. ''I think that's
something that needs to be stimulated and encouraged.''
Speakes said Reagan had received a written report from Vice
President George Bush providing the government's latest information
about the accident collected by a special task force in Washington
and reviewed by Bush's special Cabinet-level committee.
Bush told Reagan ''We have every reason to think that the fire has
diminished, but there is evidence that the reactor or associated
equipment with the reactor continues to smolder,'' Speakes said.
The spokesman added that U.S. medical and technical teams have been
dispatched to Moscow and Eastern European countries to offer
assistance and assess the damage from radioactive fallout, which is
serious enough in some parts of Eastern Europe to prompt a ban on
drinking milk.
Asked what information the United States is still seeking from the
Soviets, Speakes said, ''We would like to have the extent of the
accident, the measurements in the specific area, the efforts and the
success or lack thereof regarding the controlling of the fire in the
area, and we'd certainly like to know about the safeguards that they
have for their nuclear reactors.''
AP-NY-05-03-86 0450EDT
- - - - - -
a052 0335 03 May 86
PM-Reagan, 1st Ld, a037,0455
EDS: UPDATES, Soviet accident and terrorism put on summit agenda;
lack of progress on yen-dollar upheaval; Reagan-Craxi on buying
Libyan oil
By MICHAEL PUTZEL
AP White House Correspondent
TOKYO (AP) - The Reagan administration today demanded that the
Kremlin share more information about the nuclear accident in the
Ukraine and called for independent inspection of Soviet power plants
to prevent another catastrophe.
President Reagan, opening his visit to Japan for the seven-nation
economic summit that convenes on Sunday, made the nuclear mishap his
first priority, saying it could hardly be called an internal Soviet
affair because the radioactive fallout threatens the world community.
When Reagan called on Prime Minister Yasuhiro Nakasone, the summit
host and chairman, the two leaders agreed it was essential to
continue pressing the Soviets for more information about the
disaster, U.S. and Japanese officials said.
The officials, speaking on condition they not be identified, said
Nakasone agreed to put the Soviet accident, as well as the subject of
terrorism, on the agenda for discussion when the summit opens on
Sunday.
In remarks to a U.S. Chamber of Commerce group here, Reagan did not
mention the Soviet disaster, stressing instead the trade issues that
will be before the summit when the leaders take up economic matters
Monday morning.
Japanese officials, speaking privately, said Reagan and Nakasone
made no headway in their talks on the yen-dollar upheaval that is
battering Japan's export market.
The officials said Nakasone told Reagan that Japanese business has
been hurt by the 40 percent appreciation of the yen against the
dollar in the past six months and stressed the importance of
stability in currency markets.
Reagan said he understood the difficulties created by the strong yen
but also noted that currency fluctuations must also make an impact on
''external balances,'' referring to Japan's huge trade surplus with
the United States.
On the issue of terrorism, Reagan suggested to Prime Minister
Bettino Craxi that Italy and other nations which buy oil from Libya
take advantage of the world oil glut and consider switching to other
suppliers to punish Col. Moammar Khadafy's regime.
A senior American official, who discussed the meeting on condition
of anonymity, said Craxi didn't give a ''yes or no to the notion''
but ''talked about how complicated the oil relationship is.''
Italy is the leading importer of Libyan oil and has the most
extensive trade with Libya of all the European Common Market
countries.
Craxi, the official said, made a point of reminding Reagan that
despite broad U.S. sanctions against working in or doing business
with Libya, a number of American oil companies are still operating
there.
Secretary of, 5th graf
AP-NY-05-03-86 0635EDT
- - - - - -
a064 0501 03 May 86
PM-Reagan, 2nd Ld, a052,0247
Top 6 grafs for Release at 12:06 p.m. EDT
Reagan Blasts Soviets on Nuclear Accident
By MICHAEL PUTZEL
AP White House Correspondent
TOKYO (AP) - President Reagan today accused the Soviet Union of
''stubborn refusal'' to tell the world about the common danger posed
by the nuclear catastrophe in the Ukraine, and demanded ''a full
accounting of what happened.''
In a harshly worded report to the American people in his weekly
radio address, Reagan expressed sympathy for those affected by the
accident at the Chernobyl power plant.
''The Soviets owe the world an explanation; a full accounting of
what happened at Chernobyl and what is happening now is the least the
world community has a right to expect,'' he said.
''The Soviets' handling of this incident manifests a disregard for
the legitimate concerns of people everywhere,'' Reagan charged.
Comparing the Kremlin's reluctance to discuss details of the
accident with the seven-nation summit he came to Tokyo to attend,
Reagan said he and his fellow democratic leaders are meeting ''to
deal openly with common concerns'' in contrast to ''the Soviet
government with its secrecy and stubborn refusal to inform the
international community of the common danger from this disaster.''
Reagan made the Soviet accident his top priority, telling Americans
in the pre-recorded radio address that the accident could hardly be
called an internal affair of the Soviets because the radioactive
fallout threatened the world community.
When Reagan: 3rd graf
AP-NY-05-03-86 0801EDT
- - - - - -
a213 1103 03 May 86
PM-Reagan, 2nd Ld, Insert, a064,0068
TOKYO INSERT after 12th graf: Reagan said xxx United States with
Democratic response
In the Democratic response to Reagan today, Sen. Jeff Bingaman of
New Mexico said the president must make clear to Nakasone ''that a
yearly trade deficit of $50 billion with Japan is totally
unacceptable. Americans favor free trade but we also expect a two-way
trade.''
On the issue: 13th graf
AP-NY-05-03-86 1403EDT
***************
a046 0255 03 May 86
PM-Chernobyl-Ryzhkov,0063
URGENT
Official Said to Visit Site of Power Plant Disaster
MOSCOW (AP) - Soviet Premier Nikolai Ryzhkov visited the area of the
Chernobyl nuclear power plant, the official Tass news agency reported
today.
It was not immediately known how close the high Kremlin official had
come to the site of the disaster, which the Soviets have said killed
two people and injured 197.
AP-NY-05-03-86 0551EDT
- - - - - -
a048 0259 03 May 86
PM-Chernobyl-Ryzhkov, 1st Ld - Writethru, a046,0126
Eds: NEW throughout with Ligachev also making visit
MOSCOW (AP) - Two top Kremlin officials, Soviet Premier Nikolai
Ryzhkov and Politburo member Yegor Ligachev, visited the area of the
Chernobyl nuclear power plant, the official Tass news agency reported
today.
It was not immediately known how close the Kremlin officials had
come to the site of the disaster, which the Soviets have said killed
two people and injured 197.
Tass said Ryzhkov and Ligachev, a member of the ruling Politburo and
a secretary of the Communist Party's Central Committee, made their
visit on Friday.
Tass said the leaders talked with party and government officials of
the Ukraine about the accident, and also met with evacuees from the
power plant's settlement.
AP-NY-05-03-86 0559EDT
- - - - - -
a053 0341 03 May 86
PM-Chernobyl-Ryzhkov, 2nd Ld - Writethru, a048,0331
Eds: New throughout with Tass saying officials on fact-finding trip,
Shcherbitsky accompanying them, Yeltsin's comment on radiation
levels.
MOSCOW (AP) - Soviet Premier Nikolai Ryzhkov and Politburo member
Yegor Ligachev personally toured the area of the Chernobyl nuclear
power plant to gauge the extent of the disaster, the official Tass
news agency said today.
It was not immediately known how close the Kremlin officials had
come during their Friday visit to the site of the atomic reactor
fire, which the Soviets have said killed two people and injured 197.
In Hamburg, West Germany, where he was attending a West German
Communist Party congress, another Soviet leader, Moscow party boss
Boris Yeltsin, said in a television interview Friday night that
radiation levels around Chernobyl were dangerous and that those
evacuated ''may not go back (at this time).''
Tass said Ryzhkov and Ligachev talked with party and government
officials of the Ukraine about the week-old accident, and also met
with evacuees from the four-reactor plant's adjoining settlement.
Tass said Vladimir Shcherbitsky, the Politburo member who is head of
the Communist Party in the Ukraine, accompanied the Moscow-based
Ryzhkov and Ligachev, who is a member of the ruling Politburo and a
secretary of the Communist Party's Central Committee.
The Soviet have said settlements in the vicinity of the four-reactor
complex 80 miles north of Kiev have been evacuated, but there have
been no figures on how many people were affected or their condition.
Tass said the officials ''acquainted themselves with the situation
in the area of the power plant'' and discussed ''measures which are
being undertaken for elimination of ... the accident at the fourth
power block'' as well as steps being taken to assist the local
population.
Tass said they ''visited temporary settlements'' for evacuees and
discussed medical services, care for children and other services.
It said work to ''eliminate the accident and its consequences'' was
being fulfilled ''in an organized manner.''
AP-NY-05-03-86 0641EDT
- - - - - -
a058 0402 03 May 86
PM-Chernobyl-Ryzhkov, 2nd Ld - SUB, a053,0048
MOSCOW,to CORRECT that officials visited populated areas, rather than
''temporary settlements'' SUB for penulimate graf: Tass said...other
services.
Tass said they ''visited populated areas'' where evacuees were being
housed temporarily and discussed medical services, care for children
and other services.
It said, last graf
AP-NY-05-03-86 0700EDT
***************
a054 0343 03 May 86
BC-Quotes,0097
Current Quotations
By The Associated Press
''You can hardly call this kind of an accident an internal affair
when other countries are threatened with the fallout and
radioactivity.'' - President Reagan, on the Soviet nuclear accident.
---
''There is no public health or environmental consequence predicted
for the United States as a result of this accident.'' - EPA
Administrator Lee M. Thomas, on the Soviet nuclear accident.
---
''If Marcos ever sets foot on this land, we'll arrest him.'' -
Philippine Defense Minister Juan Ponce Enrile, as some supporters of
Ferdinand E. Marcos demonstrated for his return.
AP-NY-05-03-86 0643EDT
***************
a060 0420 03 May 86
PM-World Nuclear Reax,0550
Europe Eyes Radioactivity; Precautions Taken Against Possible
Contamination
With PM-Nuclear Disaster, Bjt
By The Associated Press
As shifting winds continued to sow radioactivity from the fire-swept
Soviet nuclear reactor over much of Europe, unsettled governments
monitored the fallout and some ordered steps taken to deal with
possible contamination.
In communist Romania, between Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union, state
television told people to keep their children indoors, wash fruits
and vegetables and avoid rural water.
In West Germany, some fresh Bavarian milk was found to be
contaminated and ordered destroyed. The government recommended that
farmers not put their cows to pasture.
Swedish dairy farmers also were advised to hold cows in their winter
barns to prevent contamination of milk by radiation-dusted pasture
grass. Finns and Norwegians were told not to travel to affected areas
of Eastern Europe and to take other low-scale precautions.
In Copenhagen, the World Health Organization's European office said
no special precautions appeared needed for pregnant women, children
or infants outside the Soviet Union.
However, Canada urged all of its citizens to avoid eastern Poland
and eastern Romania as well as the western Soviet Union because of
radiation levels boosted by the disaster.
Most European governments have assured their citizens that low-level
radiation spawned by the nuclear reactor fire at Chernobyl in the
Ukraine posed no health threat.
''We had 400 calls in the last three hours,'' said Helmut
Dommermuth, a spokesman for the West German weather center in
Offenbach, which is coordinating reports on radiation levels
nationwide.
''Most of them say they are worried because you can't see or smell
radiation,'' he said on Friday. ''They also ask if they can eat the
vegetables from their gardens, if their children can go out. Many
people are worried.''
There is concern, but no evidence of panic.
''We are naturally quite worried,'' said Mikael Berntson, 31, a
postal clerk in Stockholm, Sweden. ''But we are not struck by panic
or anything like that.''
Since Sweden first detected higher-than-normal radiation levels
Monday, clouds of radioactive dust from the Chernobyl plant in the
southwestern Soviet Union have drifted across much of Europe.
Levels have been dropping in Scandinavia, but shifting winds which
carried the fallout into Romania, Hungary, eastern Czechoslovakia and
Austria was expected to push it back toward the nordic nations this
weekend.
In London, the government's radiation monitoring center said
remnants of the radioactive cloud passed over southeast England
Friday, but did not boost radiation levels to health-threatening
heights.
State-run radio and television stations in East European countries
broadcast a steady stream of calming statements, but warned people to
avoid staying outdoors for long periods and urged them not to eat
unwashed fruit and vegetables.
Belgrade Radio reported Friday that radiation levels were nearly 10
times above normal but still were not dangerous.
''There is no need for excessive alarm,'' said a radio broadcast. It
added that the city had stopped using drinking water from the Sava
River, its main source, and instead was using well water.
In Poland, the country closest to the disaster site, authorities
have banned the sale of milk from grass-fed cows and have been
administering iodine to children under 16. The precautions remained
in effect Friday, although levels of radioactivity in the air have
been falling.
Iodine can hinder the body's absorption of radiation.
AP-NY-05-03-86 0720EDT
***************
a066 0510 03 May 86
PM-Nuclear-Coverage,0257
Soviet Officials Criticize American Press
By RAYNER PIKE
Associated Press Writer
NEW YORK (AP) - Soviet officials say the American press has been
tactless, sensation-seeking and gloating in its coverage of the
nuclear accident at the Chernobyl plant.
But a U.S. network television news chief responded that Americans
took no pleasure in the Soviet disaster and that if some coverage
went overboard, it was encouraged by Soviet silence about details of
the story.
The exchange was part of a news conference and panel discussion of
the Alerdinck East-West Media Conference on how the U.S. and Soviet
press picture each other.
''We have a different tradition as regards death in a family,'' said
Vladimir Lomeiko, head of the Soviet Foreign Ministry press
department. ''We don't open the door and scream, 'Run up here and
look at this.'
''There is such a thing as tact,'' Lomeiko said. ''The lack of tact
of the U.S. media is not done for freedom of information but passion
for sensation.''
Leonid Kravchenko, first deputy chairman of the Soviet television
organization Gostelradio, said the Soviet tradition of covering
tragedies was to ''wait a little and make sure the information is
reliable. If not, it will cause panic.''
Lawrence Grossman, president of NBC News, said there was ''no
question that some of the media exaggerated and went too far too
fast.''
But he said he monitored the two major Soviet television news
broadcasts on Thursday and ''there was not a single mention of this
accident.''
AP-NY-05-03-86 0810EDT
***************
a070 0549 03 May 86
PM-Meltdown Questions,0655
Officials Roll Back Second Meltdown Assertions
With PM-US-Soviet Accident Rdp Bjt
WASHINGTON (AP) - The government has backpedaled in recent days on
whether there was a second meltdown at the Chernobyl nuclear plant in
the Soviet Union, but U.S. officials say they stand by their
assessment that the accident was more serious than the Soviets are
admitting.
In Tokyo today, where he was accompanying President Reagan on his
Far East trip, presidential spokesman Larry Speakes said it was
apparent that the ''hot spot'' near the crippled reactor detected
earlier by a satellite was not a meltdown. But on Wednesday,
administration officials said they believed a second meltdown had
occurred or was occurring.
The most detailed accounting of the disaster by the Soviets
themselves came Friday from Moscow Communist Party chief Boris
Yeltsin, who said in an interview in West Germany that the accident
was caused by human error, and he described the area around the plant
as uninhabitable because of high radiation levels.
The differing versions of whether a second meltdown had occurred
have stood as the most glaring dichotomy in a U.S.
intelligence-collection effort that otherwise has drawn praise from
Capitol Hill and administration officials.
U.S. officials said the first reactor at the complex sustained a
core meltdown Saturday and then, on Sunday, was blown apart by a
chemical explosion.
Administration officials offered a small group of reporters an
unexpected background briefing on Wednesday to say that a second
reactor near the first had either experienced, or was experiencing, a
meltdown.
Almost at the same moment, officials assigned to a special
Interagency Task Force formed to monitor the situation were telling
reporters publicly they knew nothing about a possible second
meltdown.
''We don't have any information that indicates that there is a
problem with a second reactor at this facility,'' Lee Thomas, head of
the Environmental Protection Agency, said that day.
As Wednesday wore on, and as reports from monitoring stations in
Europe failed to show any continuing rise in fallout from the plant,
another administration official - who had played no role in the
original briefings - said he thought the report of a second meltdown
had been overstated.
This official said the evidence was not so clear cut and that it was
simply ''too early'' to reach a conclusion. The official did agree,
however, that U.S. intelligence agencies had detected evidence of
damage to the second reactor building.
By Thursday afternoon, officials throughout the administration
simply cut off reporters and began referring them to the new
interagency task force.
Several previously talkative sources said the change stemmed from a
''bureaucratic decision'' to centralize the U.S. review of the
accident in the hands of the task force. Another source said the
administration also was trying to avoid conflicting accounts on the
scope of the accident.
One of the officials, though, finally acknowledged that the fate of
the second reactor was an issue that had divided intelligence
analysts.
''That briefing on Wednesday didn't come out of thin air,'' the
source said. ''There was, in fact, a serious belief among some of the
intelligence types that the second reactor could have melted after
the first one on Saturday.
''But it's a dynamic process,'' the source added. ''You keep
gathering information. And there are others (analysts) who are still
trying to piece this together who aren't so sure. There was damage at
the second reactor, but there are still questions about how extensive
it was.''
Dave Cohen, the Environmental Protection Agency official in charge
of coordinating press information on the accident, said problems had
been created by the Pentagon's assertion that a second reactor
meltdown had occurred.
''Intelligence information is a little bit tricky,'' Cohen said.
''Therein lies the problem. . . . I'm just trying to make some small
effort to get out the best information we can.''
AP-NY-05-03-86 0848EDT
***************
a204 0937 03 May 86
AM-Chernobyl's Message, Insert,0104
UNDATED Insert 1 graf after 14th graf: The Soviets' efforts xxx
situation.'' UPDATING with Soviet official saying reservoirs and
immediate area are contaminated and accident was caused by human
error. Original moved in advance May 2 as a265-266
Then on Friday night, Boris Yeltsin, head of the Moscow city
Communist Party and a close associate of Soviet leader Mikhail S.
Gorbachev, said on West German television that water reservoirs near
the nuclear plant are contaminated and the region is too radioactive
for evacuated residents to return. He said the accident was caused by
human error.
Much of: 15th graf
AP-NY-05-03-86 1237EDT
***************
a209 1010 03 May 86
AM-Nuclear Detectives, Bjt,1046
Sweden Detects Soviet Nuclear Accident
An AP Extra
EDITOR'S NOTE - At 7 a.m. Monday a worker walked through radiation
detection equipment at a Swedish nuclear power plant and an alarm
rang that soon was heard worldwide. Here is a reconstruction of how
Swedish scientists determined in less than 12 hours that radiation
contamination was coming from the Soviet Union, before Moscow
acknowledged that a reactor had gone terribly wrong.
---
By LARS FOYEN
Associated Press Writer
STOCKHOLM, Sweden (AP) - On a gray, quiet Sunday, April 27, with
snow falling in the north of Sweden and showers in the south,
automatic scientific monitors around the country silently noted a
change.
The devices, whose records would not be read until the following
day, showed that radiation levels were minutely edging upward.
Across the Baltic Sea in Finland, at 9:40 p.m. that night, an army
radar station at Kajaani detected radiation up to six times normal.
Lt. Col. Markku Hamalainen, head of army radiation safety, alerted
nine other stations to measure radiation during the night.
But no warning was issued. Northern Europe went to bed unaware of
soundless, invisible changes.
Sweden's four nuclear power stations are equipped with warning
systems in high-security areas designed to signal any sign of
radiation above normal background levels.
The idea is to prevent the outside world from suffering if a silent
accident leaks invisible radioactive particles within the
hermetically sealed reactor buildings.
At 7 a.m. Monday, April 28, at the three-reactor, 2,850-megawatt,
Forsmark nuclear power station on Sweden's east coast 100 miles north
of Stockholm, an alarm sounds.
A morning-shift worker, kept anonymous in accordance with Swedish
nuclear industry rules, sets off the alarm while leaving a
high-security area to go to the washroom.
A radiation-protection worker discovers increased but harmless
radiation on the man's shoes and similar readings are made on workers
at the other two Forsmark reactors. The workers hadn't been checked
when they arrived for work, so no one suspects that they carried the
radiation in from outside.
''Our first thought was that the radiation came from inside the
reactor buildings. One doesn't think there can be more contamination
outside a nuclear reactor than inside it,'' recalls Forsmark
information chief Lennart Franzon, looking at a diary he kept.
That the alarm would eventually point to a nuclear disaster 1,000
miles away in a Soviet reactor doesn't occur to anyone.
About 40 radiation-protection workers are ordered to go check the
reactor buildings. They are declared clean.
The crews start to check outdoors, and find radiation four to five
times higher than the normal atmospheric radiation on the plant
grounds and in the woods nearby.
At 10:15 a.m., about 600 non-essential personnel are evacuated for
checkups. The regional government and the local radio station are
alerted.
An hour earlier in Finland, army headquarters has advised the office
of Nuclear Radiation Safety of increased radiation, but a search for
its source is not started. A public employees strike has closed the
meteorological institute's computers.
The Finns do not inform the Swedes of any signs of trouble and the
Swedes are busy trying to figure out if anything is wrong at
Forsmark, which supplies 15 percent of the country's electricity.
At 10:10 a.m., Curt Bergman, a section head at the Radiation
Protection Institute, receives the first call from Forsmark.
''Something fishy is going on,'' he is told.
During a later interview at the institute's headquarters on the
northern outskirts of Stockholm, Bergman shows the note he made after
the conversation: ''Forsmark does not know the reason for the
contamination.''
A working group is formed at the institute, joined by experts from
the State Nuclear Power Inspection Board.
At about 11:30 a.m., officials at the state-owned Studsvik nuclear
research facility report increased radioactivity outside the plant,
leading to speculation Studsvik was the source.
Bergman says later that readings in the following hour from military
and civilian monitoring stations led the working group to the theory
that they were dealing with an outside source.
Swedish investigators consider the possibility of an unannounced
nuclear test, a nuclear submarine in trouble in the Baltic Sea or
even the crash of a space satellite. But analysis begins to indicate
something else.
''Shortly after noon the task force at the radiation institute
started discussing the analysis,'' says Robert Finck, a senior
research officer at Sweden's Defense Research Agency. ''We soon
understood the fallout must have been from a reactor.''
The main clue is dust caught in a filter at the agency's monitoring
station in Stockholm. Analyzed in just 30 minutes on rush priority,
it contains twice as much cesium 134 as cesium 137.
''In a bomb test there is much less 134 than 137,'' Finck says.
The task force begins looking at wind trajectories. And the wind
directs suspicions to the east.
Swedish checks at around 2 p.m. with colleagues in Finland, who
report radiation levels six times above normal. Readings in Denmark
and Norway of more modest increases confirm suspicions.
''I was both relieved and quite frightened,'' says Bengt Pettersson,
one of the Nuclear Power Inspection Board's representatives in the
working group.
''I was relieved because it hadn't happened at Forsmark and
frightened because a serious accident appeared to have happened,
probably close to us on the other side of the Baltic.''
Sweden's Foreign Ministry instructs its embassy in Moscow to make
inquiries with the Soviet Union's nuclear power inspection agency.
The agency later advises the embassy that it has no knowledge of any
Soviet nuclear accident.
At 4 p.m. Energy Minister Birgitta Dahl opens a news conference at
which she officially confirms the leak was not from Forsmark.
''We are going to request complete information if there is proof
pointing towards a certain country,'' she says, stopping short of
naming the Soviet Union.
At 7 p.m., the Soviet government, in its first ever acknowledgement
of a nuclear power accident, reports an incident at the Chernobyl
plant in the Ukraine. The announcement does not say when the accident
occurred, but information later released in Washington indicates the
accident was Friday.
AP-NY-05-03-86 1309EDT
***************
a210 1023 03 May 86
AM-Poland-Radiation Reaction, Bjt,0708
Soviet Nuclear Accident Also Poses Political Problems For Poles
AP Extra
By CHARLES J. GANS
Associated Press Writer
WARSAW, Poland (AP) - The communist government is confronting the
twin problems of protecting people from radiation originating in the
Soviet Union and being candid about the issue without offending the
Kremlin.
Poland's eastern border is only 300 miles from the Chernobyl nuclear
plant in the Soviet Ukraine that spewed clouds of radiation.
And in contrast to efforts by the Soviet Union to play down the
disaster and limit information about possible dangers, the Polish
government moved quickly to inform the public and take measures to
reduce health hazards.
Most Soviet bloc countries took the Soviet position and provided
little news about the nuclear accident. But Poland was more open, an
approach that in part reflected an effort by the government to give
the public more information following the 1980-81 Solidarity labor
upheaval.
Government spokesman Jerzy Urban said that once it was confirmed
part of Poland was contaminated by radiation the government decided
''the event has such a character that Polish public opinion should
know about it.''
Solidarity drew support throughout the country with its call for
more human rights, more candor from government and economic reforms.
Solidarity became the first independent labor union in the Soviet
bloc and challenged the communist leadership until martial law was
declared in 1981 to crush the union.
Some Western diplomats said they were impressed by the government's
quick response. Poland set up a special commission to monitor
radiation, banned the sale of milk from grass-fed cows, and ordered
protective iodine solutions be given to children.
Members of a government commission appeared on a special television
call-in program Wednesday to reassure people and answer viewers'
questions.
''This is the fastest I've seen the government react to anything
except for imposing martial law in 1981,'' said one Western diplomat,
who spoke on condition he not be identified.
''The authorities have acted in a very natural way with one
exception - while everyone in Western Europe is yelling and screaming
at the Soviets, they are not,'' said the diplomat. ''The government
is trying to protect its citizens without offending or condemning the
source of the problem.''
The Polish government has not publicly blamed the Soviets and Urban
has delicately sidestepped questions about the sensitive issue of
when the Soviet Union notified its ally about the accident.
The state-run media has not mentioned complaints by West European
countries about the Soviets' delay in reporting the accident nor has
it questioned the safety of Soviet nuclear facilities. Poland is
building its first nuclear power station on the Baltic coast with
Soviet help.
On Friday night, about 200 people demonstrated in the southern
Polish city of Wroclaw to demand more information on radiation. It
was the only demonstration reported in the Soviet bloc on the issue.
Western diplomats and some opposition activists have also criticized
the government for failing to provide complete data on radiation
levels.
The British, Canadian and Australian embassies evacuated more than
50 dependents and children from Warsaw because they felt there was
not full information on possible dangers.
Members of the government commission said Thursday that they took
great care in releasing information to avoid creating the ''mass
hysteria'' they said occurred following the 1979 Three Mile Island
nuclear plant accident in Pennsylvania.
At a news conference, commission members disclosed that maximum
recorded radiation levels were 500 times above normal in the town of
Mikolajki, 100 miles north of Warsaw. Polish newspapers did not
report the figure.
Zbigniew Romaszewski, a senior Solidarity adviser and a physicist,
said the limited information released on radiation levels had itself
caused panic among many people, but he doubted the government could
hide data for long.
''People are really worried and there is a problem of a lack of
information,'' he said. ''But it's only a question of a week or two
before the measurement figures will leak somehow to the society.''
Romaszewski said, ''There have been deep changes here and it is is
not a situation of a totalitarian society as elsewhere, those figures
cannot be hidden.''
AP-NY-05-03-86 1323EDT
- - - - - -
a254 1653 03 May 86
AM-Poland-Radiation, 1st Ld, a210,0228
Soviet Nuclear Accident Poses Political Problems For Poles
Eds: LEADS with six grafs with U.S. expert arrives, report radiation
levels down.
By CHARLES J. GANS
Associated Press Writer
WARSAW, Poland (AP) - The Communist government of Poland is
confronting the twin problems of protecting people from radiation
originating in the Soviet Union and being candid about the issue
without offending the Kremlin.
Poland's eastern border is only 300 miles from the Chernobyl nuclear
plant in the Soviet Ukraine that last week spewed clouds of
radiation.
But an American environmental expert who arrived here Saturday said
his initial radiation readings showed no measurable contamination or
evidence of a health hazard.
Richard Hopper, a specialist in the Environmental Protection
Agency's Office of Radiation Programs, said background radiation
levels were ''very, very slightly elevated,'' or about two times
above normal. He added he had not yet checked soil and water
contamination.
The state-run news agency PAP said radiation levels had dropped to a
point where ''only normal, routine measurements of the air'' would
now be conducted instead of the widespread, continuous monitoring
conducted last week.
In contrast to efforts by the Soviet Union to play down the disaster
and limit information about possible dangers, the Polish government
moved quickly to inform the public and reduce health hazards.
Most Soviet, 4th graf pvs.
AP-NY-05-03-86 1953EDT
***************
a211 1041 03 May 86
AM-Reagan, Bjt,0981
Reagan Assails Soviets on Accident; Prods Allies on Terrorism
By TOM RAUM
Associated Press Writer
TOKYO (AP) - President Reagan, setting new tones for the
seven-nation economic summit, insisted on Saturday the Soviets owe
the world an explanation of the Chernobyl nuclear accident and
prodded U.S. allies to work harder to combat terrorism.
On the eve of the 12th annual Summit of Industrialized Democracies,
Reagan and Japanese Prime Minister Yasuhiro Nakasone, the summit host
and chairman, agreed that the nuclear accident and terrorism should
be on the agenda for the talks, U.S. and Japanese officials said.
In his weekly radio address to the American people, Reagan, alluding
to the ''Winds of Freedom'' theme the administration set for his Far
Eastern tour, said efforts by non-communist powers to find common
ground on major problems contrast sharply with the ''stubborn
refusal'' of the Soviet Union to share information on the power plant
catastrophe.
Reagan indicated that the nuclear accident along with the problem of
terrorism could be the top items for discussion at an economic summit
expected to be dominated by non-economic items.
On terrorism, Reagan, in the radio message he pre-recorded for
broadcast in the United States, said he would press for unified
action by the West against Libya and other ''enemies of
civilization.''
In a meeting with Italian Prime Minister Bettino Craxi, Reagan gave
the first clear indication of one specific action European allies
could take in putting the economic squeeze on Libya: find another
supplier of oil.
But his harshest words were reserved for the Soviets and their
failure to provide the rest of the world with more information on the
nuclear power plant accident.
''The Soviets' handling of this incident manifests a disregard for
the legitimate concerns of people everywhere,'' Reagan said. ''A
nuclear accident that results in contaminating a number of countries
with radioactive material is not simply an internal matter.''
Reagan reiterated U.S. offers of help and expressed symphathy for
victims of the accident, but added: ''The Soviets owe the world an
explanation, a full accounting of what happened at Chernobyl and what
is happening right now is the least the world community has a right
to expect.''
Earlier Saturday, Secretary of State George Shultz, claiming it
still remains unclear whether the Soviet reactor fire had been
extinguished, called for a strong program of on-site inspections of
nuclear power plants to prevent another accident.
Reagan's radio address came as he held a series of meetings in
preparation for the three-day summit opening Sunday, including
separate sessions with Nakasone and Craxi and an appearance before
U.S. business executives based in Japan.
In his speech to the Asian chapter of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce,
Reagan vowed to press summit partners - especially Japan - for an
easing of trade restrictions on U.S. products.
''There are encouraging signs,'' Reagan said. ''Currencies are
adjusting, some barriers are being lifted, and Japan is considering
steps to increase domestic demand and bring more balance to its
export-oriented economy.''
One non-American in the audience, Akio Morita, chairman and chief
executive officer of Sony Corp., said he had ''great faith'' in
Reagan's support for free trade. But Morita expressed concerns with
the recent steep devaluation of the U.S. dollar against the Japanese
yen, which he called a case of ''overshoot.''
The dollar has fallen about 35 percent since September, when the
United States, Japan, West Germany, Britain and France decided to act
in concert in an effort to drive down the value of the then-high
dollar. A strong dollar was good for Japanese exporters, making their
products cheaper in U.S. markets, but a source of distress for
import-battered U.S. manufacturers.
Japanese officials have suggested that the United State help put the
breaks on the falling dollar by intervening in currency markets.
Nakasone said Saturday the ''almost unbearable'' rise in the
exchange value of the yen could push Japan into a recession.
Nakasone told the European Economic Community's chief executive,
Jacques Delors, that the recent severe swings of international
exchange rates would be a major topic at the summit, according to a
Japanese Foreign Ministry spokesman who briefed reporters on the
condition he not be identified.
But Treasury Secretary James A. Baker III suggested to reporters
that the United States, instead of further intervention in currency
markets, would prefer to concentrate on finding ways to enhance
economic cooperation among nations.
The summit was taking place amid the tightest security ever in
Japan, with uniformed police and armored riot control squads
stretched throughout central Tokyo and streets cordoned off for
blocks around the hotels housing delegations to the summit.
In his meeting with Craxi, Reagan suggested that Italy ''review''
its purchases of Libyan oil and look for another supplier, Craxi said
after the session. Italy is Libya's major oil customer in Western
Europe.
A Reagan administration official, who briefed U.S. reporters on the
condition of anonymity, said that Reagan brought up the Libyan oil
boycott as ''an array of things that can be done.''
But Craxi said that if the Italian-controlled oil company that
operates in Libya ceased its operations there, Italy would have to
buy oil more expensively on the spot market in Amsterdam - and might
wind up purchasing Libyan oil indirectly anyway.
In Reagan's session with Nakasone, Libya and terrorism also were
discussed, according to a senior administration official present
during the session, who briefed reporters on the condition of
anonymity.
Nakasone said terrorism would be the ''most important subject to be
addressed at the summit,'' according to another U.S. official who
also spoke on grounds of anonymity. The official, who sat in on the
meeting, said Nakasone also expressed ''sympathetic understanding''
of the events leading up to the U.S. bombing raid on Libya last
month.
AP-NY-05-03-86 1340EDT
- - - - - -
a214 1106 03 May 86
AM-Reagan, Insert a211,0139
TOKYO INSERT 2 grafs after 19th graf: But treasury xxx among nations
with Demo response, leaders arriving
In the Democratic response to Reagan, New Mexico Sen. Jeff Bingaman
said the president must tell Nakasone ''that a yearly trade deficit
of $50 billion with Japan is totally unacceptable. Americans favor
free trade but we also expect a two-way trade. He needs to make it
clear that while we are a patient people, there does come a time when
talk about opening Japanese markets to U.S. goods must be replaced by
action.''
West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl and Canadian Prime Minister Brian
Mulroney arrived late Saturday, and British Prime Minister Margaret
Thatcher and French President Francois Mitterrand were scheduled to
join them Sunday to start the three-day summit of industrialized
democracies.
The summit: 20th graf
AP-NY-05-03-86 1406EDT
- - - - - -
a224 1232 03 May 86
AM-Reagan, Insert a211,0123
TOKYO INSERT 2 grafs after 10th graf: Earlier Saturday, xxx accident
to UPDATE with EPA statement of U.S. effects of accident
In Washington, meantime, a spokesman for the interagency task force
Reagan named to monitor the accident said that in the absence of
information from the Soviets, the United States was continuing to
gather data through its embassies in Eastern and Western Europe.
The spokesman, Chris Rice, said monitoring Saturday indicated there
were no increases in normal background radiation levels anywhere in
the United States or Canada. He said the radioactive cloud was not
expected to enter the United States for several days and was not
expecte to threaten health or the environment.
Reagan's radio: 11th graf
AP-NY-05-03-86 1532EDT
- - - - - -
a274 1916 03 May 86
AM-Reagan, 1st Ld, a211,0248
URGENT
Reagan Demands Accounting from Soviets in Nuclear Disaster
EDs: LEDEs with six new grafs, updating with Romania request for U.S.
aid
By TOM RAUM
Associated Press Writer
TOKYO (AP) - President Reagan publicly demanded on Saturday a full
accounting of the Soviet nuclear accident at Chernobyl and U.S.
sources said the European allies privately insisted that Moscow share
details of the catastrophe with them.
The sources also disclosed that Romania, an Eastern Bloc nation on
the Soviet border, requested and quickly was promised U.S. technical
help in assessing the damage from radioactive fallout from the
accident in the Ukraine.
Individually, but with a unity NATO sometimes lacks, each of the
West Europeans filed diplomatic demands through their embassies in
Moscow for details they claim the Kremlin has withheld, according to
the sources who disclosed the developments with the understanding
they would not be identified.
The allies shared their concerns as leaders of the major industrial
democracies convened in Tokyo for an economic summit dominated by
talk of the nuclear accident and a U.S. campaign for support of its
antiterrorism policy.
While there has been some resistance to Reagan's stand on terrorism,
the sources said Reagan administration officials were gratified by
the show of strength on the nuclear issue.
Reagan said the Soviets ''owe the world an explanation'' of the
Chernobyl nuclear accident and prodded U.S. allies to work harder to
combat terrorism.
On the eve, 2nd graf pvs.
AP-NY-05-03-86 2215EDT
***************
a212 1101 03 May 86
AM-Nuclear Accidents, Bjt,1160
Group Alleges Nuclear Safety Declining; NRC Lists 10 Worst 1985
Breaches
Eds: For Release at 6:30 p.m. EDT; time set by sources
By JAMES ROWLEY
Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) - A congressman and an anti-nuclear citizens group
released separate reports on nuclear safety Saturday and charged that
1985 was the worst year ever for atomic power accidents.
The Critical Mass Energy Project, a Ralph Nader group, released a
study of safety violations reported to the Nuclear Regulatory
Commission since 1979. The group said problems have been on the rise
since and called for a phase-out of all U.S. reactors.
Rep. Edward Markey, D-Mass., released a list of the 10 worst atomic
power safety breaches provided to his subcomittee on energy
conservation and power by the NRC. He said 1985 was the worst year
for safety since the Three Mile Island accident in 1979.
''The number and severity of accidents during the past year is
simply too close for comfort,'' Markey said. ''The list of close
calls strongly suggests that a major U.S. nuclear accident could be
lurking around the corner.''
Critical Mass said nuclear mishaps reported to the NRC rose from
2,310 in 1979 to 5,060 in 1983. Under a new reporting system
instituted in 1984, the group said, plant operators filed 2,417
''licensee event reports'' on mishaps in 1984 and 2,974 in 1985.
The group also said the NRC levied 38 fines totaling nearly $3.8
million against utilities in 1985, $1.7 million higher than in 1984.
''The Soviet accident has provided the United States and the rest of
the world a stark reminder that nuclear power is a dangerous
technology and that the consequences of an accident are enormous,''
said Joshua Gordon, author of the Critical Mass report.
He said the United States should re-evaluate its nuclear policy and
''begin planning for the orderly phase-out of nuclear power.''
In its report to the Markey subcommittee, the NRC cited the failure
of cooling systems at the Davis-Besse reactor near Toledo, Ohio, as
the most serious safety breach of 1985.
NRC spokesman John Kopeck said the commission ''is not pleased with
any abnormal occurrences, particularly those in 1985.''
Another NRC spokesman, Bob Newlin, said the Critical Mass numbers
sounded accurate but noted: ''These licensee event reports are any
unplanned operational event that happens and they range all the way
from very minor to more significant things.''
He said abnormal occurrences, the most significant events, did rise
from five in 1981 to 10 in 1984 and nine last year. But he added,
''at the same time, there are more reactors in operation.'' There
were 68 nuclear plants in 1979. Currently 100 plants hold operating
licenses.
In calling for a phase-out of nuclear generators, Critical Mass
cited NRC testimony that there is a 45 percent chance of a major core
meltdown at a commercial U.S. reactor before the year 2000.
Newlin said the testimony, given last year before a congressional
panel, referred to a TMI-type accident in which most radioactive
releases are confined to the containment building surrounding the
reactor.
Quoting NRC Chairman Nunzio Palladino, he said the chance of harm to
individuals would be lower than the chance of a meltdown ''by several
orders of magnitude'' because containment structures would prevent
offsite consequences in all but a fraction of core-melt accidents.
In its report to the Markey subcommittee, the NRC said the June 9,
1985, Davis-Besse accident involved the breakdown of the main and
auxiliary feedwater pumps necessary to cool the nuclear core and
could have resulted in ''fuel damage, break of primary system,
significant release of radioactivity.''
Before an emergency water pump could be started at the Davis-Besse
reactor, ''the plant's two steam generators had essentially boiled
dry before feedwater from any source became available to them,'' the
report said.
In 1980, the NRC had directed Toledo Edison, the plant's operator,
to replace one of the two steam-driven engines that ran the two
auxiliary feedwater pumps with an engine powered by another energy
source. The order had not been carried out when the accident
occurred.
The NRC report also included accounts of:
- The loss of electrical power and a ''severe water hammer'' or
shuddering water pipes that caused a steam leak and damaged equipment
at the San Onofre Unit 1 plant near San Clemente, Calif., on Nov. 21,
1985. Steam generator feedwater was lost for three minutes.
The commission said five safety-related feedwater system check
valves degraded to the point of inoperability during a period of less
than a year, without detection. The plant is closed temporarily.
- An unusual power surge at the Virgil C. Summer Nuclear Station
Unit 1 in Broad River, S.C., that caused the plant to automatically
shut down while it was being started up by operators. Human error and
procedure deficiencies were responsible for the Feb. 28, 1985, event,
the NRC said.
- The failure of nine of 12 pressure transmitters that was
discovered Aug. 7, 1985, at the Maine Yankee atomic power plant near
Bath, Maine. The transmitters that monitor the pressure of three
steam generators were inoperable because root valves had apparently
been closed for more than a year.
- The failure of three main steam isolation valves to close quickly
at the Brunswick Unit 2 on Sept. 27, 1985. There was no danger
because the plant near Southport, N.C., had been shut down. But the
NRC noted the incident indicated ''a common mode failure'' of the
system that prevents the escape of radiation.
The report also cited poor operating performance resulting from
''ineffective management'' at Tennesse Valley Authority reactors in
Alabama and Tennessee. Both the Browns Ferry plant in Alabama and the
Sequoyah facility in Tennessee have been suspended while TVA
undertakes ''reorganization at its sites to effect more timely
resolution of potential safety issues,'' the report said.
The commission also listed ''repeated equipment problems and
personnel errors'' and improper installation of equipment at the
LaSalle nuclear plant near Ottawa, Ill., and a ''significant
deficiency'' in the operator training program at the Grand Gulf
atomic facility near Vicksburg, Miss.
Management deficiencies causing ''numerous personnel errors and
violations of technical requirements'' were cited at the Fermi
Nuclear Power Station near Detroit. The plant's operation was
severely restricted following a July 1, 1985, incident when fission
began inadvertantly during an improper startup.
Design ''weaknesses and vulnerabilities'' probably led to the
overcooling of the Rancho Seco reactor near Sacramento, Calif. on
Dec. 26, 1985, the NRC said.
In addition to the incidents in 1985, the NRC report recounted the
Jan. 4, 1986 release of uranium hexfloride at the Sequoyah Fuel
Conversion Facility that killed a worker in Gore, Okla. The report
also mentioned the Dec. 28, 1984, failure of all three safety
injection pumps at the Indian Point 2 plant in Buchanon, N.Y.
AP-NY-05-03-86 1401EDT
- - - - - -
a221 1208 03 May 86
AM-Nuclear Accidents, Sub, a212,0306
EDs: Recasts lede; subs grafs 5-6 to explain new reporting system,
add plant event frequency
For Release at 6:30 p.m. EDT, time set by sources
By JAMES ROWLEY
Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) - A congressman and an anti-nuclear citizens group
released separate reports on nuclear safety Saturday and charged that
the industry's safety record is getting worse instead of better.
The Critical Mass Energy Project, a Ralph Nader group, released a
study of safety violations reported to the Nuclear Regulatory
Commission since 1979. The group said problems have been on the rise
since then and called for a phase-out of all U.S. reactors.
Rep. Edward Markey, D-Mass., released a list of the 10 worst atomic
power safety breaches provided to his subcomittee on energy
conservation and power by the NRC. He said 1985 was the worst year
for safety since the Three Mile Island accident in 1979.
''The number and severity of accidents during the past year is
simply too close for comfort,'' Markey said. ''The list of close
calls strongly suggests that a major U.S. nuclear accident could be
lurking around the corner.''
Critical Mass said nuclear mishaps reported to the NRC rose from
2,310 in 1979 to 5,060 in 1983.
In 1984 the NRC instituted a new reporting system that yields about
half as many mishap reports as the old one, the group said. Under the
new system, it said, plant operators filed 2,417 ''licensee event
reports'' on mishaps in 1984 and 2,974 in 1985.
The group also said the NRC levied 38 fines totaling nearly $3.8
million against utilities in 1985, $1.7 million higher than in 1984.
And it said each nuclear plant experienced an average of 33 events in
1985 - 13 percent higher than in 1984.
''The Soviet: 7th graf
AP-NY-05-03-86 1508EDT
***************
a218 1131 03 May 86
AM-What Went Wrong,0473
U.S. Experts Advance Theories of Chernobyl Accident
With AM-US-Nuclear Disaster
By GUY DARST
Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) - U.S. experts believe interruption of a vital flow
of cooling water to the Chernobyl nuclear reactor triggered last
week's meltdown, and they have several theories on how the flow could
have been cut off.
A leading theory is loss of electrical power to run pumps,
instruments and other equipment, but scientists also say water flow
could have been cut off if a portion of the 1,661 three-inch pipes
running through the reactor became clogged or by a chemical
explosion.
The Soviets have implied the accident was triggered by human error.
In an interview Friday night with West Germany's ARD national
television network, Moscow Communist Party chief Boris Yeltsin, said
the cause of the disaster ''lies apparently in the subjective realm,
in human error.''
Thomas Cochran, scientist on the staff of the Natural Resources
Defense Council, said the electrical theory is the most likely.
''To get a whole-core accident, it seems the most probable way is to
lose coolant flow before the manifold, which means pump failure,
which means loss of power to the pumps,'' he said.
Ed Zebroski, chief nuclear scientist for the Electric Power Research
Institute, agreed, saying that with about 1,000 workers at the
four-reactor Chernobyl site, ''the chance that someone knocked down
part of the (electrical) switchyard . . . is at least one of the
plausible scenarios.''
John Auxier, nuclear engineer and director of the Oak Ridge, Tenn.,
Radiological Sciences Laboratory of IT Corp., said ''A piece of
something that got loose,'' perhaps part of a pump blade, could clog
cooling tubes. ''Unlikely - but it's possible.''
James N. Landis, senior vice president of Stone & Webster, the
Boston-based construction company that has built several nuclear
plants, theorized ''maybe they didn't have instrumentation to
detect'' small blockages.
''The radiochemical and nuclear people I talk to are looking toward
a chemical explosion that disabled the cooling system and perhaps the
control system, too,'' Auxier said. Such an explosion could come from
improperly vented hydrogen from batteries, or from a solvent spilled
in the wrong place.
The post-accident photo of the reactor building released by the
Soviets shows the high bay section with about 30 feet of the top
missing, Zebroski said. ''A steam rupture could do it'' and
simultaneously cut the water flow, he said.
If a simple power loss caused the accident, ''the shocking thing is
. . . you still have an hour or two before things go to hell, and you
ought to be able to run a line in'' to run pumps, valves and
instruments, Zebroski said.
''After all, you've got four reactors on the site generating power.
Why they weren't able to do that is mystifying.''
AP-NY-05-03-86 1430EDT
***************
a219 1151 03 May 86
AM-US-Nuclear Disaster, Bjt,1133
Soviet Disaster Speeds Up Slow Week In Washington
By TIM AHERN
Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) - Shortly after workers at a Swedish nuclear power
plant found unusually high levels of radiation on their shoes but no
problem at their plant, U.S. officials mobilized to find out what had
happened.
''The Swedish statement Monday morning tipped everyone off that
there was a serious problem and that given the way the winds had been
blowing, it was probably from something that had gone wrong in the
Soviet Union,'' said Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., vice chairman of the
Senate Intelligence Committee.
Indeed, something had gone terribly wrong in the Soviet Union - an
explosion and meltdown at one of the four reactors at the Chernobyl
nuclear power plant 80 miles north of Kiev. It soon developed that
the accident was the worst ever for the world's nuclear power
industry.
In Washington, the pace of what had been expected to be a slow week,
as is normally the case when the president is out of the country,
quickly speeded up.
American officials reacted with expressions of sympathy and offers
of help for the Soviet Union, but criticized the Soviet government
for not being more forthcoming about what happened.
American intelligence officials stepped in and quickly became the
world's foremost source of information about the accident.
Meanwhile, industry critics warned that the accident showed again
the dangers of nuclear power while defenders repeatedly pointed out
the differences between the U.S. reactors and those in the Soviet
Union. On Wall Street, energy and utility stock prices dropped
sharply, particularly for companies closely tied to nuclear power.
Shortly after Sweden announced that the radioactivity found on its
workers must have come from the Soviet Union, the Soviets themselves
admitted there had been an accident. But the brief announcement gave
few details.
''One of the first things we thought about was that such a large
release of radiation might mean a meltdown,'' said Harold Denton,
director of reactor regulation for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission
and the man best known for overseeing the federal government's
response to the 1979 accident at the Three Mile Island plant in
Pennsylvania.
A meltdown, the worst type of power plant accident, occurs when the
nuclear fuel overheats and cannot be controlled.
By Tuesday, White House officials traveling with President Reagan in
Indonesia on the way to the Tokyo economic summit announced that an
interagency team had been set up to monitor the situation and
coordinate response.
Those officials, and others here, assured a jittery American public
that any airborne fallout was likely to be so dispersed when it
finally rained down on the United States that it wouldn't pose health
problems. Plans were announced to monitor the radioactive cloud in
all 50 states.
By Tuesday, when the Soviets said two people had died in the
accident, U.S officials were painting a much grimmer picture.
Kennth Adelman, director of the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency,
told a Senate committee that the Soviet death toll figure was
''preposterous'' and he said the damaged reactor was still burning
''at a fantastic temperature.''
The death toll was a major question. The Soviets stuck by their
statement that only two persons died and 197 were injured, but U.S.
officials such as Adelman and Leahy asserted the figures had to be
higher,.
But by week's end, Denton and some nuclear experts conceded that the
Soviet figures could turn out to be accurate, or least closer to the
truth than some reports of more than 2,000 dead.
American officials, speaking anonymously after viewing spy satellite
pictures beamed back to Earth, said Tuesday that the Chernobyl
reactor had been all but destroyed by an explosion. It was still
burning and spewing out radioactive smoke and was likely to continue
to burn for weeks, those officials suggested.
They said something began going wrong last weekend and that a
meltdown may have occurred April 26. The plant was torn apart by a
chemical explosion on April 27 but the Soviets didn't announce the
accident until the higher radiation levels were detected in Sweden a
day later, the officials concluded.
Meanwhile, the Soviet government generally provided little
information.
Vitaly Churkin, second secretary at the Soviet Embassy here, made an
extraordinary appearance before a House subcommittee - the first time
in four years a Soviet official had testified before a congressional
committee. He admitted the accident began last weekend, but refused
to say how. Another official, Moscow party chief Boris Yeltsin, said
Friday that human error appeared to play a role, but did not give
specifics.
Except for one mistake, U.S. intelligence officials won praise from
Congress and the administration for providing information about the
disaster.
That mistake came Wednesday when administration officials, speaking
anonymously, suggested that a second reactor had experienced a
meltdown.
Denton and Lee Thomas, administrator of the Environmental Protection
Agency, both of them members of the interagency team, said they
couldn't confirm a second meltdown was under way. The Soviets also
denied it and the administration backed off the assertion later in
the week.
The U.S. government offered to provide the Soviets with technical
and humanitarian aid, but the Soviets rejected that, saying they
could handle the situation.
However, Dr. Robert Gale, an American specialist in the type of bone
marrow transplants which might be required by radiation victims, flew
from Los Angeles to Moscow late last week in a visit arranged
privately through industrialist Armand Hammer. And a team of medical
and technical experts was dispatched to Moscow and other places,
including Eastern European capitals, to help protect U.S. Embassy
personnel and their families.
As the American government tried to figure out what happened, a
coalition of American anti-nuclear groups said the United States was
risking accidents just as bad as long as U.S. plants were permitted
to operate.
''We call upon all nations to begin planning for the orderly
phase-out of nuclear power worldwide,'' said a statement issued by
the 17 groups.
Of particular concern were five reactors operated by the U.S.
government to produce material for the U.S. nuclear weapons arsenal.
Four of those were at the Savannah River plant in South Carolina and
the fifth was at Hanford, Wash.
All five lack the thick containment structures which surround
American commercial power plants and the Hanford reactor used
graphite, although in a different fashion that the Chernobyl plant.
The destroyed Soviet plant lacked a containment building and while
Energy Department officials said the U.S facilities were safe,
congressional critics like Rep. Ed Markey, D-Mass., called for new
checks of those structures and said they should be shut down.
AP-NY-05-03-86 1450EDT
***************
a226 1259 03 May 86
AM-Nuclear Questions, Bjt,0725
Nuclear Disaster: A Week Later, Details Still Sparse
By JILL LAWRENCE
Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) - The Soviet nuclear accident appeared to be winding
down at week's end, but details were nearly as sparse as the day the
world learned a disaster was under way in the Ukraine.
In the absence of hard facts and first-hand observation, officials
and experts could do little more than conjecture about radiation
levels, casualties and environmental damage. The status of the
crippled reactor and plants like it across the Soviet Union remained
unclear. And exactly how the accident happened, said some, may never
be known.
''It could be years before we know what really happened inside that
reactor, assuming the Soviets will tell us even then,'' said Alan
Krass, senior arms analyst with the Union of Concerned Scientists, a
nuclear watchdog group.
''There's no indication they'll be open,'' said Frank Graham, vice
president of the Atomic Industrial Forum, an industry trade group.
Graham said U.S. and Soviet scientists exchange information about
fusion technology on a fairly regular basis but ''there's apparently
no information (on the accident) that they're willing to talk
about.''
The Soviet account of casualties in the accident, which U.S.
officials believe began April 25 and resulted in a meltdown the next
day, remains consistent: two people died, 49 were treated at
hospitals and 146 remained hospitalized - 18 of them in serious
condition.
Soviet officials are now saying the situation is under control, the
three other reactors at the site are unaffected, and radiation levels
in the area, while still lethal, have decreased.
But the continuing dearth of specifics has frustrated officials all
over the globe.
''The Soviets owe the world a full explanation,'' President Reagan
said in his Saturday radio address, charging that their handling of
the incident ''manifests a disregard for the legitimate concerns of
people everywhere.''
U.S. scenarios of the nuclear accident evolved throughout the week,
based largely on intelligence information subject to various
interpretations and severely limited in scope.
The equipment used by U.S. intelligence agencies ''can't estimate
the fatalities or the injuries. It can't estimate the amount of
radioactivity that has been released. All of that has to be done by
trying to guess what went wrong in there. And most Americans know
very little about the graphite-moderated reactors that the Soviets
have built,'' said Krass.
Though a Soviet official said the accident probably was triggered by
human error, U.S. experts could offer only theories about the
sequence of mechanical events inside the reactor. Clogged pipes,
chemical explosion or loss of electrical power could have cut off
coolant to the reactor core, they said.
''There's no easy way to pin that down,'' said Harold Denton,
director of nuclear reactor regulation for the Nuclear Regulatory
Commission. ''I don't have a hypothesis that I've adopted yet.''
The U.S. interagency task force monitoring the accident has issued
dosage estimates in the Chernobyl plant area based on Swedish
radiation measurements. But the group cautioned its estimates were
subject to ''considerable uncertainty'' because the Soviets had
provided no details about radiation releases or evacuations.
Speculation on casualties also continued, with Secretary of State
George Shultz standing by his assessment that fatalities were
''higher by a good measure'' than the Soviet tally. But Denton and
several non-government experts said two deaths was a plausible
number, at least initially, before other deaths from radiation
sickness.
U.S. officials said they believed the fire at the damaged reactor
was still smoldering Saturday. The task force said it could not
confirm reports that 20 other graphite-moderated reactors in the
Soviet Union had been closed in the wake of the accident. It did
shoot down earlier U.S. hypotheses that a second Chernobyl reactor
had melted down or caught fire. But other administration sources
maintained there was some damage to a second reactor.
The environmental and agricultural consequences of the accident also
were subject to wide-ranging speculation. The Soviets have said water
reservoirs in the area were contaminated but made no comment on
farms.
Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont, ranking Democrat on the Senate
Intelligence Committee, predicted damage to Soviet agriculture would
be ''almost incalculable'' while Agriculture Secretary Richard Lyng
said he had too little information to assess the long-term effect on
crops.
AP-NY-05-03-86 1558EDT
***************
a230 1348 03 May 86
AM-Soviet Secrecy, Bjt,0950
Tradition Of Secrecy In Soviet Union Long And Firmly Rooted
An AP Extra
By ROXINNE ERVASTI
Associated Press Writer
MOSCOW (AP) - Secrecy in the Soviet Union is not just an official
policy of censorship, but a tradition that goes to czarist days and
is embedded in the culture.
Its basic tenets are to mask the bad and glorify the good, and to
zealously guard information which the state considers
security-related - from grain harvest figures to a nuclear accident
at a power plant.
A reluctance to disclose bad news, as has been the case with the
Chernobyl nuclear plant accident, is not exclusive to the Soviet
Union. But in the Soviet Union playing down bad news is considered an
affair of state.
Because of the international concern the accident aroused, the world
is asking why the Soviet Union waited three days to announce the
disaster and, more than a week later, still has not provided details.
It is not known when Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev was informed
of the accident or its severity.
The information released by the Soviets - on casualties,
evacuations, and a bit about what happened - dribbled out in
government statements. The situation was similar in September 1983,
when the Soviets shot down a South Korean airliner that strayed into
Soviet airspace.
The Soviets, reacting to Western reports, first said an unidentified
plane had intruded, that fighter jets tried to direct it to land,
that the intruder ignored its warnings and ''continued its flight in
the direction of the Sea of Japan.''
The report did not technically lie, it just failed to state that
Soviet missiles sent the plane plummeting into the sea, killing all
269 people aboard. The Soviets later said they shot the plane down,
claiming it was on a spy mission.
The Marquis de Custine, a French traveler in Russia in 1839, wrote
in his journal that hundreds of people and perhaps up to 2,000 died
when boats carrying them to the czar's reception capsized in a sudden
squall. The disaster was concealed to avoid disrupting the palace
gala and later mentioned without detail in two sentences in a
newspaper.
''Can you imagine the thousands of stories, the discussions, the
gossip of all kinds, the conjectures, the shouts to which such events
would give rise in any country other than this one?'' he wrote.
''Up to now, I believed that man could no more do without truth for
the spirit than air and sun for the body,'' he said. ''My journey to
Russia disabuses me. Here, to lie is to protect the social order, to
speak the truth is to destroy the state.''
In Washington, Soviet-born academic Dmitri Simes told the AP that
Soviet secrecy has its seeds in an unwritten compact that the state's
duty is to protect the people from harm. He said the people are not
surprised about secrecy, but would be surprised if the government did
not know how to cope with the accident.
Information is not only withheld from the general public in the
Soviet Union, but also from officials, who have degrees of access.
Even high rank is not a guarantee of being well informed.
Arkady Shevchenko, a U.N. offical who defected to the United States,
wrote in his memoirs how the Soviet delegation at the United Nations
had no communications from Moscow during the 1962 Cuban missile
crisis.
''For 13 days, we and the rest of the world held our breath. .. .
The members of the delegation sat in ignorance of Moscow's
thinking,'' he said.
Deception is also an ancient practice that remains today.
One of the best known examples from the past concerns Catherine the
Great, who ruled from 1762 to 1796 after arranging a coup to
overthrow and murder her husband, Czar Peter III.
According to some historical accounts, her lover Grigory Potemkin
set up wooden facades of villages for her triumphant 1787 tour of the
Crimea after Russia annexed it. The illusion was to show her the
region was blossoming under her welcome rule.
Today, nearly 100 percent of the eligible population votes - they
are required to under law even though there are no opposition
candidates. Votes at sessions of the 1,500-member Parliament are
always unaninmous.
Gorbachev has called for more self-criticism and honesty in
admitting failures. But that has not removed the barrier of secrecy,
especially around foreign eyes and ears.
It is illegal to take pictures at airports or railway stations or of
people in uniform. Telephone directories are difficult to find. They
are not printed annually and the listings are selective. Detailed
city maps are not available.
Police told correspondents to leave railway stations last week when
they sought to interview passengers arriving from Kiev.
Information about a leader's health has been tightly controlled
since panic swept the country when it was announced March 5, 1953,
that Josef Stalin was dead. There were mass casualties when people
were trampled to death in the crowds of mourners that filled the
streets.
Kremlin officials said party leader Yuri V. Andropov had a cold when
he was fatally ill with kidney disease.
The Defense Ministry, when asked in December 1984 whether it was
true that Defense Minister Dmitri F. Ustinov had died, said it had no
information. Could the ministry confirm he was alive? No, there is no
information, was the reply.
Ustinov's death was disclosed when a scrubwoman at the building
where he was to lie in state confirmed mourning arrangements for him
were being made at the building.
AP-NY-05-03-86 1647EDT
***************
a233 1430 03 May 86
AM-Nuclear Disaster, Bjt,1095
Politburo Members Visit Chernobyl Area
By ALISON SMALE
Associated Press Writer
MOSCOW (AP) - Two top Kremlin leaders were reported Saturday to have
visited the area of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant disaster in the
first public gesture of Politburo concern about the accident.
Another Communist Party official, however, said that the Chernobyl
plant area was dangerously radioactive, and it was not clear how
close Premier Nikolai I. Ryzhkov and the Kremlin's No. 2 man, Yegor
K. Ligachev, came to the destroyed reactor, 80 miles north of Kiev in
the Ukraine.
The other official, Moscow party chief Boris N. Yeltsin, said human
error likely caused the accident, in which the government said two
people died and 197 were injured. He said steps were being taken to
prevent a recurrence.
Four U.S. experts arrived in Moscow on Saturday to measure
radioactivity with American equipment set up at several spots around
the city. The first results were not expected until Monday.
Radioactive dust from the disaster, already detected in much of
central and Eastern Europe, spread Saturday into Greece and Turkey,
officials there said, adding that it did not reach dangerous levels.
Thousands of people demanding the shutdown of nuclear reactors
protested in several West German cities. Italian officials, who
forbade the sale of leafy vegetables for two weeks, seized tons of
greens on Saturday.
The official news agency Tass said Politburo members Ligachev,
Ryzhkov, Ukrainian Communist Party chief Vladimir V. Shcherbitsky and
other officials went Friday to the Chernobyl area in the Ukraine.
They met evacuees and decided on unspecified ''additional measures''
to deal with the disaster, Tass said.
The report seemed intended to show Soviets both that it was safe to
travel in the Chernobyl region and that their leaders - last publicly
seen waving gaily to the Red Square May Day parade - are concerned
about the nuclear accident, one of the worst ever.
Tass did not say how close the officials went to the Chernobyl
plant, nor did it add to the sketchy information already released by
the government about the accident. Among other things, the Kremlin
has failed to disclose what happened at the plant or the amount of
radiation released.
Western experts have said they believe the accident began April 25
and that a fire raged at the reactor for several days. White House
spokesman Larry Speakes, in Tokyo with President Reagan for the
economic summit, said Saturday there was evidence that the reactor or
associated equipment continued to smolder.
In his weekly radio address, Reagan expressed sympathy for those
affected by the accident and said, ''The Soviets owe the world an
explanation.''
But Tass said in a commentary Saturday, ''Demanding 'more news' and
'more facts' from Chernobyl, losing all sense of shame and
conscience, the politicians are waiting only for bad news. ... And
it's unlikely that the reports that the situation in the area of the
atomic station is normalizing will sober them up.''
Tass claimed that ''the White House and its allies need this
witchdance to cast a shadow on the Soviet Union and its peaceful
initiatives ...''
The uncertainty about radiation levels reportedly has caused growing
concern among some of the 2.4 million residents of Kiev. It also
prompted an exodus of foreign students, tourists and workers from the
area.
The U.S. specialists who arrived in Moscow, a radiologist and three
health physics experts, refused to answer reporters' questions at
Sheremetyevo Airport. U.S. Embassy spokesman Jaroslav Verner refused
to disclose what tests the group would conduct or if they would work
only in Moscow.
Yeltsin, who was in Hamburg, West Germany, told the West German
television network ARD that water reservoirs around Chernobyl were
contaminated, and that helicopters dropped sacks of sand, lead and
boron to cut emissions of radioactivity to a minimum.
He said residents of four settlements around the reactor were
evacuated quickly and were not exposed to radiation. But the area
remains dangerously radioactive, and evacuees have not been allowed
to return home, he said.
The Kremlin said Thursday that radioactivity in the Chernobyl area
was declining, but did not give figures or any indication of how high
it reached.
Soviet television Friday branded the evacuation of foreigners from
the Kiev area a Western provocation. Today's Tass commentary
specifically attacked the United States and Britain for encouraging
their citizens to leave the area.
The news agency also reiterated condemnation of an unconfirmed
Western news agency report that thousands died in the disaster.
Although U.S. officials at first expressed skepticism about the low
Soviet casualty toll, Harold Denton, director of nuclear radiation
for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, said Friday in Washington that
he wouldn't be surprised if it turned out to be correct.
The official Cuban news agency, Prensa Latina, said Saturday that
official Soviet sources said the two people killed were reactor
workers.
An American bone marrow expert, the only foreign expert so far known
to have been called on to help with the aftermath of the Chernobyl
accident, arrived Friday in Moscow.
Dr. Robert Gale could not be reached at his hotel room Saturday. His
visit was arranged by Armand Hammer, the Occidental Petroleum
chairman whose ties to the Kremlin stretch back more than 60 years.
The Soviet government said Thursday that 18 of the 197 people
hospitalized after the accident were in serious condition, and 49
were discharged.
The Tass report on Ligachev and Ryhzkov's visit to the Ukraine did
not mention that they visited victims of the accident, suggesting
either that this was considered unsafe or that the injured were
hospitalized elsewhere.
Tass said they ''visited populated localities where they met with
people who had been temporarily evacuated from the area of the atomic
power station and inquired about arrangements for their life, trade
and medical sevices, provision of employment, and the functioning of
schools and pre-school institutions.''
The reference to jobs for the evacuees suggested that they might not
be allowed home for a long time.
Exiled Soviet scientists who reported in the mid-1970s that a
nuclear catastrophe contaminated a large area of the Ural Mountains
in 1958 said that area was closed off and that settlements and most
vegetation were razed.
There has been no indication such action is planned in the Ukraine.
But it has been impossible for foreigners to assess the situation
independently since the government has not allowed Western
correspondents into the area.
AP-NY-05-03-86 1730EDT
- - - - - -
a237 1505 03 May 86
AM-0Digest Advisory,0186
All budgets have cleared. Here is a listing.
MOSCOW - Nuclear Disasters, a233.
UNDATED - Chernobyl's Message, moved in advance as a265-266, May 2.
MOSCOW - Soviet Secrecy, a230.
STOCKHOLM, Sweden - Nuclear Detectives, a209.
WARSAW, Poland - Poland-Radiation, a210.
WASHINGTON - US-Nuclear Disaster, a219.
WASHINGTON - Nuclear Questions - a226.
WASHINGTON - Nuclear Accidents, a212.
TOKYO - Reagan, a211.
TOKYO - Summit Expectations, moved in advance as a269, May 2.
TOKYO - US-Philippines, a222.
TOKYO - Summit-Debt, a235.
TOKYO - Summit Overview, moved in advance as a270, May 2.
UNDATED - Summit 1986, moved in advance as a259, April 30.
TOKYO - Japan-First Ladies, a236.
COLOMBO, Sri Lanka - Airliner Explosion, a231.
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. - Satellite Launch, a234.
VIENNA, Austria - Austrian Election, a229.
DALLAS - Texas Elections, a227.
WASHINGTON - Reagan's Freshmen, moved in advance as a287, May 1.
LOS ANGELES - FBI Spy-Svetlana, a228.
CHICAGO - Washington in Control, a232.
PROVIDENCE, R.I. - Rhode Island Anniversary, a220.
AP-NY-05-03-86 1804EDT
***************
a249 1629 03 May 86
AM-Digest Briefs,0713
Eds: This package does not contain the following items from the News
Digest: MOSCOW - Soviet Secrecy; STOCKHOLM, Sweden - Nuclear
Detectives; WARSAW, Poland - Poland-Radiation; WASHINGTON -
US-Nuclear Disaster; TOKYO - Summit Expectations; TOKYO -
US-Philippines; TOKYO - Summit Debt; TOKYO - Japan-First Ladies; CAPE
CANAVERAL - Satellite Launch; VIENNA, Austria - Austrian Election;
DALLAS - Texas Elections; LOS ANGELES - FBI Spy-Svetlana; CHICAGO -
Washington in Control; PROVIDENCE, R.I. - Rhode Island Anniversary.
By The Associated Press
MOSCOW (AP) - Two top Kremlin leaders were reported Saturday to have
visited the area of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant disaster in the
first public gesture of Politburo concern about the accident.
Another Communist Party official, however, said that the Chernobyl
plant area was dangerously radioactive, and it was not clear how
close Premier Nikolai I. Ryzhkov and the Kremlin's No. 2 man, Yegor
K. Ligachev, came to the destroyed reactor, 80 miles north of Kiev in
the Ukraine.
The other official, Moscow party chief Boris N. Yeltsin, said human
error likely caused the accident, in which the government said two
people died and 197 were injured. He said steps were being taken to
prevent a recurrence.
---
WASHINGTON (AP) - The Soviet nuclear accident appeared to be winding
down at week's end, but details were nearly as sparse as the day the
world learned a disaster was under way in the Ukraine.
In the absence of hard facts and first-hand observation, officials
and experts could do little more than conjecture about radiation
levels, casualties and environmental damage. The status of the
crippled reactor and graphite plants like it across the Soviet Union
remained unclear. And exactly how the accident happened, said some,
may never be known.
''It could be years before we know what really happened inside that
reactor, assuming the Soviets will tell us even then,'' said Alan
Krass, senior arms analyst with the Union of Concerned Scientists, a
nuclear watchdog group.
---
WASHINGTON (AP) - A congressman and an anti-nuclear citizens group
released separate reports on nuclear safety Saturday and charged that
the industry's safety record is getting worse instead of better.
The Critical Mass Energy Project, a Ralph Nader group, released a
study of safety violations reported to the Nuclear Regulatory
Commission since 1979. The group said problems have been on the rise
since then and called for a phase-out of all U.S. reactors.
Rep. Edward Markey, D-Mass., released a list of the 10 worst atomic
power safety breaches provided to his subcomittee on energy
conservation and power by the NRC. He said 1985 was the worst year
for safety since the Three Mile Island accident in 1979.
---
TOKYO (AP) - President Reagan, setting new tones for the
seven-nation economic summit, insisted Saturday the Soviets ''owe the
world an explanation'' of the Chernobyl nuclear accident and prodded
U.S. allies to work harder to combat terrorism.
On the eve of the 12th annual Summit of Industrialized Democracies,
Reagan and Japanese Prime Minister Yasuhiro Nakasone, the summit host
and chairman, agreed that the nuclear accident and terrorism should
be on the agenda for the talks, said U.S. and Japanese officials who
declined to be named.
In his weekly radio address to the American people, Reagan, alluding
to the ''Winds of Freedom'' theme the administration set for his Far
Eastern tour, said efforts by non-communist powers to find common
ground on major problems contrast sharply with the ''stubborn
refusal'' of the Soviet Union to share information on the power plant
catastrophe.
---
COLOMBO, Sri Lanka (AP) - An explosion blamed on a time bomb tore
through a Sri Lankan jetliner at the Colombo airport as passengers
were boarding Saturday morning, and government officials said 21
people were killed and dozens injured.
The government said in a statement that most of the dead were
European, but their identities were not immediately known.
The official Sri Lankan news agency said the blast was caused by a
time bomb in the rear of the plane. The explosion broke the plane in
two, sent plumes of black smoke skyward and shattered glass panels in
the main terminal building, witnesses said.
AP-NY-05-03-86 1929EDT
***************
a253 1649 03 May 86
AM-Nuclear-Vegetables,0569
Italian Government Warns Against Drinking Milk, Vegetables Seized
By GODFREY DEENY
Associated Press Writer
ROME (AP) - Police seized tons of salad greens at markets throughout
Italy on Saturday and the government warned children and pregnant
women not to drink fresh milk because of radiation from the Soviet
nuclear accident.
In Vienna, the Austrian Health Ministry banned imports of milk,
fruit and vegetables from East bloc countries for fear of radioactive
contamination, the official APA news agency reported. It gave no
duration for the ban.
And in London, officials said traces of radiation were found
Saturday in British milk, but there was no immediate health hazard.
The National Radiological Protection Board said earlier that remnants
of the radioactive cloud detected Friday in southeastern England had
spread ''right across the United Kingdom.'' It also said there was no
risk to health.
Italy's Health Ministry, while acknowledging that radioactive levels
were returning to normal levels, issued a decree Friday forbidding
the sale of leafy vegetables for 15 days.
But the ministry did not specify which vegetables were forbidden,
and police, vendors and farmers were uncertain about what was covered
by the decree.
Police permitted zucchini to be sold, but only if the vegetable's
yellow flowers were removed. The flower, now in season, is a popular
appetizer on restaurant menus.
Another debate arose over the sale of carrots at Rome's main
wholesale market. Although carrots have leaves, officials finally
decided to allow vendors to sell them because the vegetable itself
grows underground.
Rome police seized 440 tons of basil, lettuce and artichokes, while
in Milan, officials carted off tons of salad greens that were to be
examined for radioactivity before being destroyed.
Meanwhile, some politicians urged the government to demand
compensation from the Soviet Union.
''Italy must immediately advise, protect and compensate anyone who
has been harmed in the country ... and get the Soviet Union to accept
all the consequences of the explosion,'' the news agency ANSA quoted
Christian Democrat Sen. Publio Piori as saying.
Opposition politicians held rallies outside nuclear reactors
throughout the country and staged a symbolic ''occupation'' of one
power station, while a group of Radical Party members led a protest
outside the Soviet Embassy in Rome, leaving behind baskets of
vegetables and cartons of milk.
Others attacked the Italian government's handling of the problem.
The Environmental League assailed ''the shameful lack of information
and the tardiness and uncertain manner in which preventive measures
were taken.'' It also criticized the ''absolute lack of information
on the level of radioactivity ... which appears to be far superior to
the figures provided by the Civil Defense Ministry.''
The Health Ministry said feeding fresh milk to children under age 10
or to pregnant women was forbidden for 15 days, although a ministry
spokeswoman acknowledged there was no way to enforce the measure.
Minister of Civil Defense Giuseppe Zamberletti told a news
conference Friday that the levels of fallout recorded in Italy were
higher than first expected because of weather patterns.
Zamberletti said levels of radioactivity ranged from two times to
four times normal levels, with higher readings in northern Italy. He
declined to say what the normal levels were.
The minister said weather forecasts indicated the levels of
radioactivity in the air and soil could be back to normal within 15
days.
AP-NY-05-03-86 1949EDT
***************
a260 1741 03 May 86
AM-Radiation Levels,0859
With AM-Nuclear Disaster, Bjt
By The Associated Press
Here is a breakdown of Saturday's radiation levels in European
nations following the Soviet nuclear reactor accident a week ago. No
country reported levels dangerous to humans, although some nations
took precautionary measures.
There were no reports Saturday from France, Finland, Norway,
Portugal and most East European nations.
Some countries provided measurements in millirems, which measures
the effect that radiation produces in human tissue.
A millirem is one-thousandth of a rem, a measure used in setting
radiological protection standards. Experts in Frankfurt, West
Germany, say an average West German receives about 110 millirems per
year from natural sources, such as cosmic rays and geological
deposits, and man-made sources, such as fallout from nuclear tests.
Exposure to about 1,000 millirems a year is estimated to create one
or two chances in 10,000 of developing fatal cancer.
AUSTRIA - Radiation levels continued to fall Saturday but no figures
were given. The Federal Office of the Environment said Friday that
radiation was above normal, at about 0.05 millirems. The Health
Ministry said milk would be tested at dairies through May 10, and
farmers were forbidden to feed cows pasture fodder or sell milk
directly to consumers.
BRITAIN - The National Radiological Protection Board said Saturday
that radioactivity readings were ''very low'' but gave no figures.
BELGIUM - Environment authorities said the radioactivity reading
Saturday was 0.008 millirems, down from its post-accident peak of
0.010 Friday. Normal is 0.006.
DENMARK - Researchers at the nuclear research station at Risoe said
Saturday they had not detected above-normal radiation since
Wednesday.
GREECE - Panayotis Kritides, a scientist with the state-run atomic
energy institute Democritos, said Saturday that radiation levels had
risen ''in the past 24 hours'' but gave no details. Monitoring has
been stepped up in northern Greece, near the Yugoslavian and
Bulgarian borders. The Health Ministry advised careful washing of
fruits and vegetables.
HUNGARY - The state-run news agency MTI said Saturday that air
radiation in the Budapest area had declined ''and there is no
significant change elsewhere in the country. The level of radiation
is far from the degree harmful to health throughout the country.''
MTI continued to recommend that children be given only milk
controlled by the offcial dairy industry and that vegetables be
washed several times under running water.
ITALY - ENEA, Italy's nuclear regulatory agency, said Saturday that
radiation levels had risen slightly in the past few days. Readings
were about 50 percent higher than normal in Rome. No millirem figures
were provided.
LUXEMBOURG - Radioactivity stood at 0.012 millirems Saturday, down
from a peak Friday of 0.018 millirems. Normal level is 0.011.
NETHERLANDS - Radioactivity measured Saturday was at 0.03 millirems
in Amsterdam, down from 0.06 on Friday. The normal level is 0.018.
The government recommended that cows be kept in barns to avoid
contamination of their milk and that vegetables be carefully washed.
POLAND - The state-run PAP news agency said radioactivity had
dropped Saturday to virtually normal levels. Higher concentrations
Monday through Friday had prompted strict measures, such as a ban on
the sale of milk from grass-fed cows and distribution of iodine
solution to children to hinder absorption of radiation.
ROMANIA - The state-run news agency Agerpres and official radio said
Saturday radiation had dropped, but was still above normal. No
official figures were given. Some Romanian experts estimated
privately that radiation Friday was up to 100 times normal.
SPAIN - Scientists in the eastern city of Valencia, in Seville in
the south and Caceres in the west reported slight increases in
radiation late Friday. But the Nuclear Security Council said the
scientists's reports were not valid, and said radiation levels
remained within the normal range for Spain, from 0.01 to 0.025
millirems.
SWITZERLAND - Officials reported a slight increase in radioactivity
Saturday, with levels ranging from .018 millirems (1.8 times normal)
in the west to .10 (10 times normal, and the highest reading since
the Soviet accident) in the south near the Italian border, where
there was heavy rainfall overnight. Other parts of Switzerland showed
.034 millirems.
SWEDEN - Gunnar Bengtsson, head of Sweden's Radiation Protection
Institute, said Saturday air and ground radiation continued to fall
steadily. No millirem figures were provided.
TURKEY - Radiation levels in some areas rose above normal Saturday,
the state-run Turkish Atomic Institute said. It said radiation in the
Black Sea coastal province of Zonguldak was seven times higher than
normal but was not dangerous.
WEST GERMANY - Radiation levels remained 10 to 12 times above normal
Saturday in parts of Bavaria state in the southeast, while readings
of six times above normal were measured in some southwestern cities,
meteorological authorities said. But the general trend nationwide was
down, and readings in most areas were normal or near-normal.
YUGOSLAVIA - Environment officials reported Saturday that radiation
had dropped by one third from Friday's levels but remained about six
times higher than normal. The government advised children not to play
on the grass and said vegetables should be washed well.
AP-NY-05-03-86 2040EDT
***************
a233 0614 04 May 86
BC-Summit Rdp,0420
Missiles Fly Over Summit Site, But Show Goes On
By SUSAN ESSOYAN
Associated Press Writer
TOKYO (AP) - Trumpets were welcoming seven world leaders to their
annual summit Sunday when missiles whizzed over the palace grounds.
The projectiles missed their apparent target, and the show went on.
The missiles, which police speculated were launched by radicals from
an apartment building 1 1/2 miles away, flew beyond the State Guest
House and landed near the Canadian Embassy.
One gouged a hole in the road but no one was hurt, and Prime
Minister Yasuhiro Nakasone didn't let the event disrupt his party. As
fire engine sirens wailed outside, the Japanese leader warmly greeted
President Reagan, the last in the line of leaders to arrive for the
red-carpet ceremony.
Reagan, who is expected to take the lead in urging the summit
nations to get tough on terrorism, was asked later by reporters if he
was concerned about the attack. ''No,'' he called back. ''They
missed.''
The leaders of the summit nations mingled for the first time Sunday
evening at a reception held by Nakasone and his wife, Tsutako.
In a series of bilateral sessions before the formal gathering,
summit leaders agreed to discuss the Chernobyl nuclear disaster in
the Soviet Union, expressing concern about the lack of details from
Moscow.
Fallout from the accident reached across the world to the summit
site Sunday when Japanese authorities noted unusual levels of
radioactivity in rain that has slicked the city over the weekend. The
government set up a special panel to evaluate the health risks.
The nuclear-sensitive Japanese, the only people to suffer the
devastation of atomic attack, were warned not to drink rainwater and
told to wash vegetables thoroughly.
Political issues threatened to overshadow the avowed economic focus
of the summit.
In a meeting with Nakasone, French Prime Minister Francois
Mitterrand stressed that the gathering was called to address
economics and urged consideration of global economic problems.
The summit nations share a generally upbeat economic outlook,
including low inflation and interest rates, but they are at odds over
the monetary upheaval that has seen the dollar drop more than 35
percent against the Japanese yen in seven months.
Before the summit began with a working dinner at Nakasone's
residence, West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl told the Japanese
premier in a private session that he would support Japan's call for a
halt to the dollar's decline, according to Kohl spokesman Friedhelm
Ost.
AP-NY-05-04-86 0915EDT
***************
a234 0639 04 May 86
BC-Yeltsin-Chernobyl,0256
Nearly 50,000 People Were Evacuated
HAMBURG, West Germany (AP) - A top Soviet official said Sunday that
about 49,000 people had been evacuated from the area around the
crippled Chernobyl nuclear reactor and up to 25 people were still in
serious condition.
Boris Yeltsin, Moscow Communist Party chief, also said radiation
emissions around the plant in the Soviet Ukraine, 80 miles north of
Kiev, had decreased from 200 roentgens per hour on Friday to 150 on
Sunday.
A roentgen is a measurement of radiation, and a reading of 150
roentgens per hour is considered very high.
Yeltsin made the comments in an interview with The Associated Press
in Hamburg where he is attending a West German Communist Party
meeting.
''The residents of about four housing areas in a zone roughly 30
kilometers (18 miles) around the Chernobyl nuclear reactor were
evacuated,'' Yeltsin told the AP. ''All together, that was 49,000
people. It's difficult to say when these people will return.''
Yeltsin was asked about the number of people still in serious
condition.
''As far as the number of 20 to 25 people is concerned, these people
are in serious condition, according to the doctors. But this
condition is not ranked as being life-threatening,'' he said.
The Soviet government has said two people were killed and 197
injured in the disaster that reportedly began April 25. U.S.
government officials have expressed skepticism about the official
Soviet reports.
Yeltsin, in a series of interviews during his stay in Hamburg, has
been releasing details of the nuclear plant disaster.
AP-NY-05-04-86 0920EDT
***************
a201 0845 04 May 86
AM-News Digest,0979
AMs AP News Digest
Monday, May 5, 1986
Here are the top stories at this hour from The Associated Press. The
General Desk supervisor is Mary MacVean (212-621-1602). The
Laserphoto Desk supervisor is Jerry Mosey (212-621-1900).
ROCKET EXPLODES: Engineers Search For Cause Of Explosion
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. - Engineers look for clues to determine the
reason for the failure of a Delta unmanned rocket while NASA
officials ponder the immediate future of the nation's space program
in the face of the latest launch disaster. Slug AM-Rocket Blowup.
Developing.
By Ike Flores. LaserPhoto covering.
SUMMIT:
Reagan Pushes Hard on Terrorism; Unfazed By Firing of Missiles
TOKYO - President Reagan wins expressions of support for heightened
action against terrorism, his point underscored by the firing of
primitive missiles intended for the arrival ceremony for participants
in the seven-nation economic summit. The primitive projectiles missed
their mark. Slug AM-Reagan-Summit. Developing.
By Tom Raum. Full LaserPhoto coverage.
Prospects of US-Soviet Summit Raised Anew
TOKYO - Prospects for a U.S.-Soviet summit meeting are raised in a
message relayed by Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev through British
Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher as she joined Reagan for the
economic summit in Tokyo. Slug AM-Gorbachev Summit. Developing.
By Diplomatic Correspondent Barry Schweid.
Summit Marred By Apparent Sabotage Attempt
TOKYO - Japan's most extensive security operation was pierced by the
firing of primitive missiles over the State Guest House minutes
before President Reagan arrived for welcoming ceremonies at the Tokyo
Summit of industrialized democracies. No one was hurt. Slug AM-Summit
Security. Developing.
By Jim Abrams. LaserPhotos upcoming.
Currency Dispute Lies Beneath Outward Show of Harmony
TOKYO - Aside from mounting conflict over the U.S. dollar's steep
decline, the summit of major industrial powers opened Sunday in an
atmosphere of public harmony on other major economic issues. Slug
AM-Summit-Economy. New. About 700.
By Robert Burns.
Chernobyl Accident Presenting Diplomatic Fall-Out
TOKYO - The Soviet nuclear disaster has propelled the United States
and its allies into a special unity that could make it more difficult
for Mikhail Gorbachev to drive a wedge between them on East-West
issues. Slug AM-US-Soviet Criticism. New, will stand. 800 words.
News Analysis by Diplomatic Correspondent Barry Schweid.
NUCLEAR DISASTER:
Soviet Press Keeps Up Attacks On Western Media Coverage
MOSCOW - The Soviet press keeps up its attacks on Western media
coverage of the Chernobyl disaster, which a top Soviet official said
led to the evacuation of 49,000 people in the vicinity of the
crippled nuclear reactor. Slug AM-Nuclear Disaster. Developing.
By Roxinne Ervasti.
Soviet Official Says 49,000 People Evacuated Around Plant
HAMBURG, West Germany - A close associate of Soviet leader Mikhail
S. Gorbachev said Sunday officials had evacuated 49,000 people and
banned agriculture in the vicinity of the Chernobyl nuclear reactor
disaster. Slug AM- Yeltsin-Nuke Disaster. Developing.
By Herbert Spiess.
AUSTRIAN ELECTIONS: Campaign Focused On Waldheim's War Record
VIENNA - Austrians vote for a new president, climaxing a bitter
campaign marred by allegations that Kurt Waldheim, the leading
candidate, hid a Nazi past. Slug AM-Waldheim-Election. Developing.
By Larry Gerber. LaserPhoto VIE4, Waldheim votes.
TEXAS ELECTIONS: White, Clements Will Have Rematch For Governor
DALLAS - Texas voters set up a November bout between Gov. Mark White
and the man he knocked out of office, ousted an 18-year Supreme Court
justice and overwhelmingly rejected candidates linked to extremist
Lyndon LaRouche. Slug AM-Texas Election. New material, should stand.
800 words.
By Paul Simon.
AIDS: Study Finds Health Workers at Low Risk of Getting Deadly
Disease
WASHINGTON - A study at the National Institutes of Health's hospital
offers new evidence that health workers have only an extremely low
risk of getting AIDS from patients, scientists say. Slug
AM-AIDS-Workers. New, will stand. 490 words.
By Warren E. Leary.
CONTADORA: New Peace Effort in Central America
WASHINGTON - With the United States playing the role of interested
bystander, a large continent of Latin American presidents will
assemble in Costa Rica this week in hopes of keeping alive the faint
hopes for reaching a Central America peace agreement. Slug
AM-US-Central America. New, will stand. 820 words.
By George Gedda.
OCEAN GEYSERS: Scientists to Study Hot Vents on Atlantic Seafloor
WASHINGTON - A team of scientists is preparing to dive more than two
miles into the Atlantic Ocean to make the first studies of minerals
and life forms around recently discovered hot geysers. Slug
AM-Seafloor Study. New, will stand. 680 words.
By Randolph E. Schmid. For release at 6:30 p.m. EDT.
MOUNTAIN MAN SEARCH: A Month After Killer's Escape, No Solid Clues
BOISE, Idaho - Authorities have posted thousands of wanted posters
offering up to $25,000 for a mountain man who cut his way out of
prison while doing time for killing two game wardens. A national hot
line has been set up, and tipsters keep calling. But authorities have
no solid clues on the whereabouts of Claude Dallas a month after his
escape. Slug AM-Mountain Man. New, will stand. 550 words.
By Marilyn Hauk Essex.
STUNTWOMAN LAWSUIT: Action Scenes Could Be Cut After Trial
LOS ANGELES - Heidi Von Beltz, a onetime stuntwoman left paralyzed
after a 1980 movie-set crash, wants $42.5 million in damages in a
lawsuit that may chill the film industry's enthusiasm for action
movies. Slug AM-Stuntwoman Trial. New, will stand. 600 words.
By Richard De Atley.
AP-NY-05-04-86 1146EDT
***************
a209 0945 04 May 86
AM-US-Soviet Criticism, Bjt,0836
An AP News Analysis
By BARRY SCHWEID
AP Diplomatic Writer
TOKYO (AP) - The Soviet nuclear disaster has propelled the United
States and its allies into a special unity that could make it more
difficult for Mikhail Gorbachev to drive a wedge between them on
East-West issues.
President Reagan's demand for more information on the reactor
accident in the Ukraine was reflected in Moscow, where all the West
European governments filed formal complaints at the Kremlin, said a
U.S. official here.
The actions were taken individually, but they expressed a shared
concern that safety precautions and verification procedures must be
strengthened, said the official, who demanded anonymity.
The net effect, the official said, is likely to be a setback for
Soviet leader Gorbachev in his efforts to project a new openness and
to persuade the West Europeans to follow his lead in disarmament
disputes with the United States.
In what could be an embarrassment to Moscow, a Soviet ally, Romania,
requested and received help from the United States as a technical
team was sent to the East European country to assess possible damage.
Reagan dramatized the Soviet reticence about Chernobyl - and gave it
a special place on the agenda of this 12th economic summit meeting -
by insisting publicly in his weekly radio broadcast Saturday that the
Soviets ''owe the world an explanation'' for what happened in the
Ukraine.
Then, on Sunday, as the conference was set to begin, the Japanese
government appointed a special panel to evaluate the fallout that has
now reached this country and is showing up as iodine in milk.
The nuclear-sensitive Japanese - the only people to suffer the
devastation of a nuclear attack - were cautioned not to drink
rainwater and to wash fresh vegetables before eating them.
Apart from the diplomatic effect, Reagan had two reasons for taking
on the Soviet Union at the summit for failing to disclose the details
of what happened at Chernobyl.
The radioactive particles are spreading to areas where they could
impair the well-being of Americans. ''It is a responsibility of the
American government to look after the health and welfare of U.S.
citizens,'' Secretary of State George P. Shultz said.
Besides, by focusing world attention on the paucity of information
about the accident, Reagan is able to embellish his case for tighter
verification of any arms control agreement with the Soviets.
In two reports to Congress, he has accused the Soviets of violating
provisions of a number of accords and placed high priority on
improving methods of checking up on compliance in the future.
The Chernobyl accident has prompted new U.S. demands for more
on-site inspection of nuclear power plants to make sure safety
procedures are followed. ''The Soviet Union has begun to do that and
I think that's something that needs to be stimulated and
encouraged,'' Shultz said on Saturday.
Reagan, meanwhile, in his weekly radio address, saw in the way the
Soviets have dealt with the accident a sharp contrast between the
openness of the West and the ''secrecy and stubborn refusal'' of
Moscow to inform the international community of a common danger.
Initially, the Reagan administration tried quiet diplomacy to get
the Soviets to divulge more about the causes of the accident and the
extent of the damage.
According to Moscow, there were two deaths and 197 people injured,
18 of them seriously. Shultz said at the start he was certain the
actual toll exceeded this count ''by a large measure.''
Standing by his assertion, Shultz told reporters on Saturday: ''I
can't give you a number, but the number of two dead, I will bet you
$10, is very low.''
He hastened to add he didn't mean to be jocular about the disaster,
but said a variety of sources supported his assertion.
Concern over terror, and Reagan's campaign for support against
Libya, had pushed economic and trade issues into the background even
before the leaders of the seven industrial countries began assembling
here.
Now, the Soviet nuclear accident shares top billing with
anti-terrorism. And the Reagan administration is not displeased with
the turn of events.
At a press briefing, Larry Speakes, the White House spokesman, was
asked if he was concerned that economic issues were going to be
rolled over by Chernobyl and terorrism.
''If they are, so be it,'' Speakes said. ''I mean you've got seven
world leaders, and what better time to have seven world leaders join
in a face-to-face meeting and several hours of conversation than when
you have clearly something that is of interest to all the nations,
such as the Soviet nuclear accident, on the agenda?
''What better time to have these people meeting than now? What
better time to have them meeting when you have a world confronted
with terrorism?'' he said.
---
EDITOR'S NOTE: Barry Schweid has covered diplomatic affairs for The
Associated Press since 1973.
AP-NY-05-04-86 1246EDT
***************
a218 1136 04 May 86
AM-Reagan-Summit, Bjt,0999
Allies Supportive of Reagan on Terrorism, Nuclear Safety
By TOM RAUM
Associated Press Writer
TOKYO (AP) - President Reagan won agreement from several U.S. allies
Sunday that ''a united front'' is needed to combat terrorism, hours
after primitive missiles fired by would-be summit saboteurs missed
their mark.
A morning rainfall laced with radiation from the nuclear accident in
the Soviet Union underscored a second top Reagan priority in his
talks with U.S. summit partners - the need for greater vigilance on
nuclear reactor safety.
During a three-hour working dinner Sunday night, White House
spokesman Larry Speakes told reporters, Reagan and the other summit
participants discussed only two topics - terrorism and the nuclear
accident at Chernobyl in the Soviet Union.
On the question of terrorism, he said, the leaders ''stand unanimous
on the need for strong, concerted action. ... The leaders believe
that cooperation and a united front are essential in the war against
international terrorism.''
Speakes revealed that the leaders of Canada, Great Britain, France,
Japan, Italy and West Germany agreed to draft statements on both
terrorism and nuclear safety for presentation to the summit Monday.
''On the Chernobyl nuclear accident, the leaders agreed on the need
to strengthen the safety procedures and to improve accident reporting
procedures,'' Speakes said, briefing reporters late Sunday (Tokyo
time).
''They agreed on the need for timely notification of accidents that
occur involving nuclear materials,'' he said. ''This would include
immediate notification to affected nations in case of a nuclear
accident that could affect the safety and health of citizens.''
Japanese officials earlier had reported that rain falling in Tokyo
and nearby areas over the past 24 hours contained higher than normal
levels of radioactivity. Attributing it to the Soviet nuclear plant
accident, they urged Japanese to filter rain water for drinking or
washing vegetables.
In another development, renewed prospects for a U.S.-Soviet summit
were raised in a message relayed to Reagan from Soviet leader Mikhail
S. Gorbachev.
The bearer was Margaret Thatcher, the British prime minister, and it
was warmly received by U.S. officials. They said Reagan's invitiation
to Gorbachev to visit him in Washington this year still stands.
It was ''the first message of any kind'' sent to Reagan since the
Soviets broke off planning for the summit in retaliation for the U.S.
bombardment of Libya nearly three weeks ago, said an official who
demanded anonymity.
Reagan assured Mrs. Thatcher that he remains interested in a summit
with Gorbachev this year, the official said.
''I invited him,'' Reagan told reporters at a reception later. ''The
invitation is still good.''
Gorbachev launched the diplomatic initiatve through London as
criticism grew over the Soviets' handling of the nuclear accident in
the Ukraine. U.S. officials suggested he was trying to burnish an
image clouded by Soviet reluctance to provide much information about
the disaster.
Several hours before Reagan gathered for dinner with Mrs. Thatcher,
Canadian Prime Minister Brian Mulroney, French President Francois
Mitterrand, Italian Premier Bettino Craxi, Japanese Prime Minister
Yasuhiro Nakasone and West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl, several
primitive missiles, or projectiles, were launched in the direction of
the State Guest House.
The assault came not long before Reagan arrived for welcoming
ceremonies there officially opening the 12th Summit of Industrialized
Democracies. Police said five missiles were fired from an apartment
building about a mile and a half north of the guest house, also
called the Akasaka Palace.
Fragments of the projectiles were found around the Canadian Embassy,
about 700 yards south of the palace building where Nakasone welcomed
Reagan and other Western leaders.
Tokyo Metropolitan Police official Masaru Kato said there was no
damage or injuries from the ''metallic flying objects,'' although
earlier reports said one of the projectiles started a fire in an
apartment block near the embassy.
No one immediately claimed responsibility for the attack, but
police, who had blanketed the city with the tightest security ever
witnessed here, speculated that it was staged by leftist radicals.
Reagan shrugged off the incident when he was greeted by reporters as
he stepped from his limousine.
Asked if he was upset by the incident, Reagan replied, ''No, they
missed.''
During his briefing late Sunday, Speakes said, ''Certainly, we
consider this matter (the attempted sabotage) serious. It is
something that is not new ... .''
Of Reagan's dinner talks, Speakes said Reagan did not ask his
counterparts for specific actions against Libya, but that he did
''outline to them a number of concerted steps that could be
considered.''
Speakes refused to elaborate, except to say that the Reagan
administration ''feels that any economic squeeze that can be put on
Libya will send a message'' to Libyan leader Moammar Khadafy.
But he also said the administration did not consider it important
that Libya be mentioned specifically in any anti-terrorist statements
drafted by the allies.
''I think what we sought when we came here was an opportunity for an
open, frank discussion, and the president characterized it as just
that,'' he said. ''This has been a theme that has run through every
bilateral meeting the president has had.''
At the same time, Speakes said that American oil companies, which
have continued to operate in Libya well beyond the time Reagan signed
an executive order directing all but journalists to leave the
country, may soon be winding down their operations.
''We're working with them (the oil companies) toward the goal of
terminating their operations in Libya,'' he said, but Speakes
stressed that the United States remains concerned that such
too-speedy closure could provide Khadafy with a windfall in assets.
Treasury Secretary James A. Baker III, appearing on CBS' ''Face the
Nation,'' said, ''I think that you could reasonably anticipate they
would be leaving in the near term. It's not something I am free to
speculate on in terms of putting a date on it.''
AP-NY-05-04-86 1437EDT
- - - - - -
a284 2014 04 May 86
AM-Reagan-Summit, 1st Ld, a218,0349
Allies Supportive of Reagan on Terrorism, Nuclear Safety
EDs: LEADS with 9 grafs TO UPDATE with today's meetings underway,
comments concerning summit statements on terrorism and nuclear.
By TOM RAUM
Associated Press Writer
TOKYO (AP) - President Reagan and six allied leaders weighed a
summit statement Monday calling for ''concerted'' action against
terrorism, but allowing for nations to take ''unilateral action''
when necessary. They met as Japanese authorities investigated the
misfiring of home-made missiles by anti-summit saboteurs.
During their first meetings together, the western leaders' 12th
economic summit was dominated by non-economic concerns - terrorism
and nuclear safety.
Aides drafted and agreed on a terrorism statement, said Reagan's
spokesman, Larry Speakes. Such a statement was no foregone conclusion
considering the opposition some European leaders expressed after last
month's U.S. raid into Libya.
Another summit statement, concerning the Soviet handling of the
Cherbonyl nuclear accident last week, was in the draft stage at the
Akasaka Palace.
Aides worked overnight on the terrorism and nuclear statements as
the leaders began their first full day of the 12th summit of western
industrial nations. Concerning the terrorism statement, Speakes said:
''I think the tone would be ... addressing the issue of terrorism in
a very direct manner. It would give the opportunity for the allies to
work in a concerted manner to combat terorrism and at the same time
it would not preclude unilateral action to comabat terrorism. so it's
a balanced statement, it's a good approach.
''We're very pleased with it.''
The question of unlilateral action has long been a sticking point as
the United States attempted to organize concerted action against
terrorist targets such as Libya. French leaders, in particular, have
been leery of agreements that tied their hands.
A morning rainfall laced with radiation from the nuclear accident in
the Soviet Union underscored the second top Reagan priority in his
talks with U.S. summit partners - the need for greater vigilance on
the part of the world's nations on nuclear reactor safety.
During a: 3rd graf pvs.
AP-NY-05-04-86 2314EDT
***************
a220 1159 04 May 86
AM-Yeltsin-Nuke Disaster, Bjt,0763
49,000 Evacuated, Livestock Slaughtered, Farming Halted
By FRITZ SPIESS
Associated Press Writer
HAMBURG, West Germany (AP) - A top Soviet official said Sunday that
49,000 people were evacuated from areas around the burned Chernobyl
nuclear reactor, and that radioactive fallout forced the slaughter of
livestock within 12 miles of the plant.
Boris N. Yeltsin, the Moscow Communist Party chief and a close
associate of Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev, told The Associated
Press that radiation emissions at the site 80 miles north of Kiev
were 150 roentgens per hour. Scientists say that is dangerously high.
But he said the ''danger zone,'' initially an 18-mile radius around
the plant, has shrunk to an area within 12 miles of it.
''The livestock that were there have been killed,'' he said. ''Also,
naturally, no farm work is going on there.
''But in other areas of the Ukraine, farm work is still going
forward. Cows are being grazed, drinking water is being consumed, as
well as milk, vegetables and other produce - without restrictions and
without limits,'' Yeltsin said.
He also said that 154 people remained hospitalized as a result of
the accident, including 20 to 25 in serious condition. The Kremlin
has said only two people died, a figure Yeltsin repeated.
Yeltsin spoke to the AP in an interview in this northern port city,
where he was leading the Soviet delegation to a conference of the
small West German Communist Party. He spoke in Russian and his
remarks were translated into English by the AP.
He said the accident occurred April 26, and that there were
differing versions of what caused it.
''The residents of about four housing areas in a zone roughly 18
miles in diameter around the Chernobyl nuclear reactor were
evacuated. All together, that was 49,000 people,'' Yeltsin said.
Official Soviet statements issued last week had said only that four
settlements were evacuated but gave no population figures.
''It's difficult to say when these people will return,'' Yeltsin
said.
Kiev, the capital of the Ukraine with about 2.4 million people, was
not evacuated and Westerners who were there at the time of the
accident said they saw no signs of panic.
He said those hospitalized in serious condition were not expected to
die, but added, ''You can't exclude the possibility that another 10
to 15 people will be added to those already diagnosed as being in
serious condition.''
Yeltsin's statement could mean that more people were hospitalized in
recent days. The last Kremlin statement on casualties, issued
Wednesday, said only 148 people remained hospitalized out of 197
injured.
High-ranking U.S. government officials said last week they believed
casualties were substantially higher than the Soviets have said.
However, Harold Denton, director of radiation for the U.S. Nuclear
Regulatory Commission, said Friday he would not be surprised if the
Soviet figures turned out to be correct.
Yeltsin, a candidate member of the Soviet Union's ruling Politburo,
reacted angrily to Western reports of widespread destruction and
contamination.
''This propaganda campaign can only arouse indignation,'' he said.
U.S. intelligence sources in Washington have said they believe a
problem began at the reactor April 25 and evolved the next day into a
meltdown of the reactor's nuclear core. The sources said a
non-nuclear explosion ripped apart the reactor building April 26,
apparently touched off by workers trying to deal with the meltdown.
Official Soviet statements have not said exactly what happened and
Soviet officials have confirmed only that a fire broke out. Yeltsin
said no nuclear explosion occurred.
''As for the causes, there are differing versions. Humans cannot
enter the accident zone. Therefore, we can't specify the causes of
the accident at this time,'' he said.
But he added, ''One thing certainly is hard to believe, and that is
that it had anything to do with the quality of the equipment.''
In an interview Friday night with West Germany's ARD television
network, Yeltsin said that human error likely caused the accident.
Yelstin repeated assertions that the Soviets are taking steps to cut
down radiation emissions from the damaged reactor.
''Sacks loaded with sand, boron and lead are now being dropped from
helicopters,'' he said. ''The goal of this measure is to give a kind
of protective shield over the accident area.''
The three other reactors at the Chernobyl site have been turned off
as a precaution, but Yeltsin said officials hope to put them back in
operation as soon as possible.
AP-NY-05-04-86 1500EDT
- - - - - -
a244 1514 04 May 86
AM-Yeltsin-Nuke Disaster, 1st Ld, SUB, a220,0356
Eds: LEADS with 3 new grafs for 3rd, 'But he said...,' to explain
roentgen, give fatal doseages. RECASTS 16th pvs, Yeltsin, a
candidate..., to clarify he is a non-voting member of Politburo. SUBS
2 grafs for 23rd pvs, Yeltsin repeated..., with fire out.
By FRITZ SPIESS
Associated Press Writer
HAMBURG, West Germany (AP) - A top Soviet official said Sunday that
49,000 people were evacuated from areas around the burned Chernobyl
nuclear reactor, and radioactive fallout forced the slaughter of
livestock within 12 miles of the plant.
Boris N. Yeltsin, the Moscow Communist Party chief and a close
associate of Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev, told The Associated
Press that radiation emissions at the site 80 miles north of Kiev
were 150 roentgens per hour. Scientists say that is dangerously high.
A roentgen is a unit of quantity used in measuring ionizing
radiation, such as X-rays or gamma rays. According to Chris Rice, a
radiation specialist with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in
Washington, a total absorption of 300 to 500 roentgens can cause
death in three to eight weeks, 500 to 1,000 roentgens in a few days,
and over 5,000 roentgens in a few hours.
He said anyone exposed to more than 90 minutes of radiation at the
rate of 200 roentgens an hour could die within two months.
Yeltsin said the ''danger zone'' initially was an 18-mile radius
around the plant, but it has shrunk to an area within 12 miles of it.
''The livestock, 4th graf pvs.
... be correct, 15th graf.
Yeltsin, a candidate member (non-voting member) of the Soviet
Union's ruling Politburo, reacted angrily to Western reports of
widespread destruction and contamination.
''This propaganda, 17th graf.
... the accident, 22nd graf.
Yeltsin said Sunday that, ''the fire (at the reactor) has been
completely put out. The radioactive emissions are there as they have
been, but the level is constantly sinking.''
He repeated assertions that the Soviets are taking steps to further
reduce radiation emissions from the damaged reactor.
''Sacks loaded, 24th graf.
AP-NY-05-04-86 1815EDT
***************
a221 1209 04 May 86
AM-Gorbachev-Summit, Bjt,0590
Reagan Gets New Signal From Gorbachev
By BARRY SCHWEID
AP Diplomatic Correspondent
TOKYO (AP) - Prospects for a U.S.-Soviet summit were raised Sunday
in a message relayed to President Reagan from Soviet leader Mikhail
S. Gorbachev.
The bearer was Margaret Thatcher, the British prime minister, and it
was warmly received by U.S. officials. They said Reagan's invitiation
to Gorbachev to visit him in Washington this year still stands.
''We're ready,'' said Larry Speakes, the president's spokesman. But
he also stressed ''we don't have any word'' from Moscow on a date.
It was ''the first message of any kind'' sent to Reagan since the
Soviets broke off planning for the summit in retaliation for the U.S.
bombardment of Libya nearly three weeks ago, an official, who
demanded anonymity, said.
Reagan assured Mrs. Thatcher, who is participating with him here in
a seven-nation economic conference, that he remains interested in a
summit this year, the official said.
''I invited him,'' Reagan told reporters at a reception later. ''The
invitation is still good.''
Gorbachev launched the diplomatic initiatve through London as
criticism grew over Soviet handling of the nuclear reactor accident
in the Ukraine. U.S. officials suggested he was trying to burnish an
image clouded by Soviet reluctance to provide much information about
the disaster.
His move took the form of a letter handed to Mrs. Thatcher last
Wednesday by the new Soviet ambassador, Leonid Zamyatin, as he
presented his credentials in the British capital.
Mrs. Thatcher summarized the contents during a 75-minute discussion
with Reagan on East-West and economic issues, a British official
said.
''Her clear impression was that Mr. Gorbachev wishes to continue a
dialgoue with the West and that the implication of that is that he's
still in the summit business, as it were,'' said the official, who
briefed reporters on condition of anonymity.
Last week, a U.S. official disclosed the two sides were discussing
through diplomatic channels a rescheduling of a May 14-16 summit
planning trip to Washington by Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard A.
Shevardnadze. That trip had been called off by the Soviets in a
gesture of support for Col. Moammar Khadafy, the Libyan leader.
The official said late May or early June were under consideration
for Shevardnadze to call on Secretary of State George P. Shultz to
work on an agenda for the summit.
There would still be time to make arrangements for a Gorbachev visit
in July, but that might depend on Shevardnadze and Shultz ironing out
lingering differences over the emphasis to be put on arms control at
the summit meeting.
Gorbachev has stressed as his goal advancing the slow-moving
negotiations to curb U.S. and Soviet nuclear weapons, while Reagan
has sought to put the emphasis on a broader range of issues.
Since Reagan has ruled out the three months leading up to the
congressional elections for his meeting with Gorbachev, the earliest
the two leaders apparently might meet is toward the end of November.
Reagan and Gorbachev had decided at their first meeting in Geneva
last November to hold a second summit in Washington in 1986 and a
third in Moscow in 1987. But planning bogged down with a slump in
U.S.-Soviet negotiations to curb nuclear weapons and collapsed after
the U.S. raid on Libya.
''We've not yet received a date from the Soviets for the meeting,''
Speakes said. ''It is not the U.S. side that has postponed this
meeting, but it's the Soviets. ...''
AP-NY-05-04-86 1510EDT
***************
a224 1253 04 May 86
AM-Rocket Blowup, Bjt,1021
NASA Investigate Rocket Blowup, Plots Future of Space Program
By IKE FLORES
Associated Press Writer
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) - Investigators Sunday analyzed data for
clues to the failure of an unmanned Delta rocket that was blown up
when it careened out of control, the third disastrous NASA launch
this year.
''Everybody is hard at work today, trying to resolve the problems in
some form or another,'' said Hugh Harris, spokesman for the National
Aeronautics and Space Administration.
Acting NASA Administrator William Graham flew to the Cape on Sunday
but did not talk to reporters.
Saturday's loss of the three-stage $30 million Delta rocket, NASA's
most used and most dependable launcher, and a $57.5 million
storm-tracking satellite aboard, created deep concern about the
future of the nation's space program in the wake of the loss of three
types of space vehicles.
The rocket's destruction came after the Jan. 28 explosion of the
space shuttle Challenger with seven astronauts aboard and the April
18 loss of an Air Force Titan 34D rocket. The Air Force successfully
launched an Atlas-Centaur rocket with a classified payload in
February.
Director Richard G. Smith of the Kennedy Space Center conferred
Sunday with managers of the Delta project and the expendable rockets
program preparatory to announcing a failure review board to conduct a
formal investigation.
In immediate jeopardy were at least two Cape Canaveral launches of
one-time-use rockets: a May 22 Atlas-Centaur supposed to boost a Navy
communications satellite into orbit and an Aug. 14 Delta flight to
carry a military spacecraft.
NASA's director of expendable vehicles, Charles Gay, said it was too
early to tell what impact Saturday's failure would have on either
flight. However, other officials noted that an investigation could
take months and ground any launch efforts temporarily.
Also in question is a Delta flight scheduled Oct. 9 to take up
another weather satellite, a sister spacecraft to the GOES-7
destroyed Saturday.
The GOES orbiters - Geostationary Operational Environmental
Satellite - are considered vital to the nation's weather-monitoring
capabilities since only one is currently in orbit and its five-year
life cycle is approaching an end, said Gerald Longanecker, manager of
NASA's meteorological satellite program.
The GOES-7 was built to replace a similar satellite which went
silent two years ago over the Atlantic. It was to have been parked in
a permanent 22,300 mile-high orbit above the equator over Colombia,
and would have been particularly useful during the coming hurricane
season in detecting storms brewing in the Caribbean and lower
Atlantic. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration paid
NASA $42.5 million to launch it.
NASA's Delta project manager, Bill Russell, said Saturday the
rocket's main engine stopped operating abruptly and mysteriously 71
seconds after the 6:18 p.m. liftoff. The last three of nine
solid-fuel boosters still operating ''were burning very well,'' he
said.
When the main engine shut down, the vehicle continued to fly but
began careening violently for another 12 seconds or so, Russell said.
''It fell over on its side, turned around, and the nose (containing
the satellite) broke off.''
At 91 seconds, a range safety officer detonated explosives aboard by
radio command to destroy the rocket.
The debris from the rocket landed in the Atlantic about 30 miles off
Cape Canaveral, said Air Force Col. Albert M. Thomas. There were no
immediate plans to try to recover the debris, he said.
The last 43 Delta launches, dating to September 1977, had been
successful, and Russell said he had never before seen an engine
shutdown like Saturday's.
The launch had been postponed from Thursday, when leaking fuel was
discovered in the rocket's main engine three hours before launch.
Engineers reported no sign of this problem Saturday, and Russell said
a fuel leak was not the cause of the engine shutdown.
Space program observers said that even if the Delta problem is found
to be easily traceable and correctible, NASA has suffered tremendous
damage to its once-proud image of efficiency.
U.S. Rep. Manuel Lujan Jr., R-N.M., the senior Republican on the
House Science and Technology Committee, said after the failure that
there should be a temporary halt to all launches pending an
investigation.
''The space program is losing credibility. This places us further
back,'' Lujan said. ''It looks as if we have no capability of any
launch and it's a cause of real concern that our last three attempts
at launch have been failures.''
''For all practical purposes, the U.S. is grounded,'' said Brad
Meslin, executive vice president of the Center for Space Policy, a
private consulting firm in Cambridge, Mass.
But others, from President Reagan on down, expressed optimism.
''It's not the first time that we've had mishaps of this kind and
with this particular rocket,'' the president said in Tokyo, where he
is attending an international economic summit. He noted that along
with the Delta's 12 failures, there had been 166 successful Delta
missions.
Reagan acknowledged, however, that ''it could have picked better
timing.''
Rebecca Simmons, an analyst with the Center for Space Policy, said:
''In the long run, I think people are going to look back on this as
one of those times when no one wanted to be in the industry. But we
will recover.''
Russell and Gay absolved the rocket's boosters of blame. They are
made by Morton Thiokol Inc., the company that makes the
solid-propellant rocket boosters for the shuttle and Titan 34D. The
nine strap-on boosters on the Delta are much smaller and made in one
piece, not in segmented sections like the others.
Investigators believe the explosions of Challenger and the Titan 34D
at Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif., were triggered by leaky seams
where the booster segments are fitted together.
Jeff Fister, a spokesman for the rocket's manufacturer, McDonnell
Douglas Astronautics Co., defended the Delta's record and said the
company was ''very disappointed. ... We certainly didn't expect
anything like this.''
Russell and Fister discounted the possibility of sabotage brought up
by reporters' questions.
AP-NY-05-04-86 1554EDT
- - - - - -
a230 1340 04 May 86
AM-Digest Advisory,0104
Eds: All budgeted items have moved. Here is a list:
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. - Rocket Blowup, a224.
TOKYO - Reagan Summit, a218.
TOKYO - Gorbachev-Summit, a221.
TOKYO - Summit Security, a210.
TOKYO - Summit-Economy, a205.
TOKYO - US-Soviet Criticism, a209.
MOSCOW - Nuclear Disaster, a227.
HAMBURG, West Germany - Yeltsin-Nuke Disaster, a220.
VIENNA - Austrian Election, a222.
DALLAS - Texas Elections, a217.
WASHINGTON - AIDS-Workers, a219.
WASHINGTON - US-Central America, a211.
WASHINGTON - Seafloor Study, a213.
BOISE, Idaho - Mountain Man, a214.
LOS ANGELES - Stuntwoman Trial, a225.
AP-NY-05-04-86 1641EDT
- - - - - -
a242 1450 04 May 86
AM-Rocket Blowup, 1st Ld, a224,0200
NASA Investigate Rocket Blowup, Plots Future of Space Program
Eds: LEADS with 7 grafs to UPDATE with panel named to investigate
failure. By IKE FLORES
Associated Press Writer
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) - Investigators Sunday analyzed data for
clues to the failure of an unmanned Delta rocket that was blown up
when it careened out of control, the third disastrous NASA launch
this year.
Richard H. Truly, the space agency's associate administrator for
space flight, appointed an investigation board headed by Lawrence J.
Ross of NASA's Lewis Research Center in Cleveland, Ohio.
The panel will report its findings and recommendations to NASA
officials by July 2, he said.
In a written statement, Truly said that although all eight board
members had ''extensive experience in the area of expendable launch
vehicles, none was involved in the preparation or launch of this
particular mission.''
''Everybody is hard at work today, trying to resolve the problems in
some form or another,'' said Hugh Harris, spokesman for the National
Aeronautics and Space Administration.
Acting NASA Administrator William Graham flew to the Cape on Sunday
but did not talk to reporters.
Saturday's loss, 4th graf pvs.
AP-NY-05-04-86 1751EDT
- - - - - -
a254 1659 04 May 86
AM-Rocket Blowup, 2nd Ld, a224,a242,0399
Rocket Blowup Could Delay For Months Expendable Rocket Launches
Eds: LEADS with 10 grafs to RECAST to focus on possible delay in
expendable rocket launches, CORRECT that incident was America's, sted
NASA's, third disaster this year.
By IKE FLORES
Associated Press Writer
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) - The destruction of an unmanned Delta
rocket shortly after liftoff could halt all U.S. rocket launches for
months as investigators analyze America's third disastrous attempt to
reach space this year, officials said Sunday.
Richard H. Truly, the space agency's associate administrator for
space flight, on Sunday appointed a board to examine the loss of the
three-stage $30 million Delta rocket and a $57.5 million
storm-tracking satellite aboard.
The panel will be headed by Lawrence J. Ross of NASA's Lewis
Research Center in Cleveland, Ohio, and will report its findings by
July 2, Truly said.
The Delta had been NASA's most used and dependable launcher, but on
Saturday the rocket's main engine mysteriously shut down a little
more than a minute after it took off. The rocket was destroyed from
the ground after as it tumbled out of control over the Atlantic
Ocean.
The rocket's loss came after the Jan. 28 explosion of the space
shuttle Challenger with seven astronauts aboard and an April 18 blast
that destroyed an Air Force Titan 34D rocket. The Air Force
successfully launched an Atlas-Centaur rocket with a classified
payload in February.
Richard G. Smith, director of the Kennedy Space Center, conferred
Sunday with acting NASA Administrator William Graham and managers of
the Delta project and the expendable rockets program to discuss ''the
options for the immediate future,'' said a source at the center.
In immediate jeopardy were at least two Cape Canaveral launches of
one-time-use rockets: a May 22 Atlas-Centaur supposed to boost a Navy
communications satellite into orbit and an Aug. 14 Delta flight to
carry a military spacecraft.
Also in question is a Delta flight scheduled Oct. 9 to take up
another weather satellite, a sister spacecraft to the GOES-7
destroyed Saturday.
NASA's director of expendable vehicles, Charles Gay, said it was too
early to tell what impact Saturday's failure would have on either
flight.
Other NASA officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said an
investigation could take months, grounding all launches in the
meantime.
The GOES, 10th graf pvs.
AP-NY-05-04-86 2000EDT
***************
a227 1331 04 May 86
AM-Nuclear Disaster, Bjt,1008
Soviets React Angrily to Charges of Cover-Up
By ROXINNE ERVASTI
Associated Press Writer
MOSCOW (AP) - The Soviet Union responded angrily Sunday to Western
charges it withheld essential information on the nuclear reactor
disaster, and one top Kremlin official said that although the plant
still was leaking radiation there was no danger outside a 12-mile
radius.
The official media claimed the United States was trying to poison
world opinion against the Soviet Union and draw attention away from
its own nuclear test program.
Boris Yeltsin, the Moscow Communist Party chief and a non-voting
member of the ruling Politburo, told The Associated Press in an
interview in Hamburg, West Germany, that 49,000 residents of four
settlements near the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in the Ukraine had
been evacuated.
He said it was ''difficult to say'' when they could return home, and
said farming had been halted and livestock slaughtered within a
12-mile radius of the plant because of radioactive fallout.
Yeltsin said the accident at the reactor 80 miles north of Kiev
occurred April 26. Another Soviet official, Georgi A. Arbatov,
speaking from Moscow over the British Broadcasting Corp. radio, said
it occurred late April 26 or the next day.
Atmospheric radiation levels soared throughout Europe immediately
after the accident, but by Sunday had returned to normal or
near-normal in most places. However, increases in ground-level
radioactivity were recorded in Austria and parts of central West
Germany, where readings reached five times normal.
West German authorities stressed that there still was no health
hazard but advised against swimming outdoors or eating leafy
vegetables.
In Japan, where President Reagan was attending a summit with leaders
of six other industrialized nations, an early morning rain was
tainted with non-hazardous levels of radiation, experts said. Reagan
told reporters the situation was ''not alarming.''
White House spokesman Larry Speakes said the leaders ''agreed on the
need to strengthen the safety procedures and to improve accident
recording procedures'' at nuclear plants.
Both Yeltsin and Arbatov, who is director of the Institute of U.S.
and Canadian Studies, stressed that no nuclear explosion occurred.
''The fire has been completely put out,'' Yeltsin said. ''The
radioactive emissions are there as they have been, but the level is
constantly sinking.''
He said sand, boron and lead were being dropped from helicopters
over the reactor to create ''a kind of protective shield'' against
the emissions.
Arbatov, a frequent spokesman for the Kremlin, said the Soviets
would release all information on the accident to the director of the
Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency, Hans Blix, who is to
arrive in Moscow on Monday.
The Kremlin has never said exactly what happened at the reactor. It
did not tell the world about the accident until April 28, after
fallout in Scandinavia had signaled something was wrong.
The delay prompted criticism from Reagan and other Western leaders.
But Arbatov said the delay was because the Soviets' initial concern
was to save lives and ''not to think about how to please the American
government or some other government.''
Arbatov, Yeltsin and the state-run media joined Sunday in harsh
rebuttals of Western reports of widespread devastation and
contamination from the accident.
The official news agency Tass issued a commentary charging that
''attempts are being made by definite circles to use what has
happened for unseemly political ends.''
''Rumors and fabrications which are at conflict with fundamental
norms of morality were put to use for propaganda purposes,'' it said.
''For instance, faked reports are spread on a death toll running into
thousands, panic among the population, etc.''
The Communist Party daily, Pravda, said Western propagandists were
trying ''to draw world attention from the barbarity and disgraces of
recent U.S. aggression against Libya, from the nuclear blasts in
Nevada which have outraged all mankind and from the militarist Star
Wars program.'' Star Wars is the U.S. program to develop a
space-based missile defense system.
Yeltsin repeated that only two people died, and said 154 were
hospitalized - up from the 148 the Kremlin said were hospitalized
Wednesday. He said 20 to 25 of the injured were in serious condition.
The government said Wednesday that a total of 197 were injured but
that some did not require hospitalization.
He said that although radiation reached 150 roentgens per hour at
the reactor site, conditions were normal outside the 12-mile ''danger
zone'' around the plant.
Roentgens are the unit used to measure ionizing radiation, such as
X-rays or gamma rays. Levels above 50 are dangerous, and 400
roentgens or higher can be fatal.
The Tass commentary said the Soviet government was grateful for
foreign offers of help in dealing with the disaster, but that none
was immediately needed.
It noted that a U.S. bone marrow specialist, Dr. Robert P. Gale,
arrived Saturday to consult with Soviet doctors on treating the
injured. Gale's visit was arranged by American industrialist Armand
Hammer, who has had contacts with the Kremlin for decades.
Gale refused Sunday to discuss his consultations with Soviet
doctors.
Reagan offered U.S. assistance and the Soviets reportedly asked
Sweden and West Germany for advice on fighting the reactor fire early
last week.
The U.S. Embassy brought in four American experts with equipment to
check radioactivity levels in Moscow. Embassy spokesman Jaroslav
Verner said first results might be known Monday.
Soviet television Sunday night showed footage of what was described
as the plant area, including the damaged building housing the burned
reactor. No people were in sight.
The film also showed buildings identified as part of a nearby
''worker settlement,'' also deserted.
Moscow residents interviewed by the AP in the city's Gorky Park said
they were concerned for residents in the plant area, which is about
450 miles southwest of Moscow.
None of the nearly 20 people questioned claimed that the West was
using the accident for propaganda purposes. Some did not want to give
their names.
AP-NY-05-04-86 1632EDT
***************
a243 1508 04 May 86
AM-Radiation-Levels,0970
Breakdown of Radiation Levels in Europe, Turkey and Israel
With AM-Nuclear Disaster, Bjt
By The Associated Press
Here is a breakdown of radiation levels in European nations, Turkey
and Israel on Sunday. No levels dangerous to humans were reported as
a result of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant accident, although some
nations took precautionary measures.
There were no reports Sunday from Czecholsovakia, Spain, Portugal,
Italy, Greece, Hungary and East Germany. In previous statements, all
eight countries reported no threat to public health.
Some countries provided measurements in millirems, which is a
measurement of the effect that radiation produces in human tissue. It
is one-thousandth of a rem, a measure used in setting radiological
protection standards.
Experts in Frankfurt, West Germany, say an average West German
receives about 110 millirems per year from natural sources, such as
cosmic rays and geological deposits, and man-made sources, such as
fallout from nuclear tests. Exposure to about 1,000 millirems a year
is estimated to create one or two chances in 10,000 of developing
fatal cancer.
AUSTRIA - The Health Ministry said Sunday that air radiation
retreated to the point where it posed no danger at all. But there was
increased ground radiation. Parents were told to keep their children
out of pools, sandboxes and off the ground, and to wash them after
they played outside. Fruit and vegetables were to be specially washed
and farmers were told to keep their cows in stables.
BELGIUM - Environment authorities said ground-level radioactivity
went up slightly following rainfall, but was still close to normal.
No precautionary measures were advised.
BRITAIN - The National Radiological Institute said Sunday that
readings in the air dropped considerably since Saturday but that
readings on the ground resulting from rain remained significant and
were being watched. No millirem figures were provided.
BULGARIA - The state-run news agency BTA said measurements ''of the
last 24 hours show that the level of the radiation does not place any
danger for the population or the environment.''
DENMARK - Researchers at the Danish nuclear research station Risoe
said radiation levels remained normal. No abnormally high readings
have been measured since Wednesday.
FINLAND - The Office of Nuclear Radiation Safety reported Sunday
that the southern coast region had readings of 0.028 millirems per
hour, slightly greater than twice normal. Measurements early last
week at the peak of the fallout from the Soviet Union were 4-6 times
normal.
FRANCE - Radioactivity declined Sunday over 75 percent of the
country to a fifth of the levels reached at the peak following the
Soviet accident. It remained steady in the southeast. No millirem
figures were given. Government officials said previously the peak
levels were not near the danger point.
ISRAEL - Health officials Sunday reported the first traces of
radioactive fallout from the nuclear accident in the Ukraine, but
said the amounts were insignificant. No warnings were needed,
officials said.
LUXEMBOURG - Levels of radioactive iodine at ground level rose
Sunday after a spell of rainfall, and Health Ministry officials
warned people who were out in the rain to take showers and wash
clothes thoroughly as precautionary measures. Farmers were told to
keep their cattle in barns. Air radioactivity had returned to nearly
normal levels Sunday.
NETHERLANDS - Air radiation levels were back to normal as of Sunday
morning, environment authorities said. However, overnight rain caused
a slight increase in soil radiation to 0.04 millirems, twice the
normal measure. Authorities said there was no danger to health, but
farmers were told to keep cattle in barns.
NORWAY - Environment officials said Sunday radiation levels had
returned so close to normal that authorities scaled back checks for
contamination.
POLAND - The government said radioactivity had dissipated to
virtually average levels Sunday, although radioactive contamination
had been found in milk in the northeast.
ROMANIA - The government said health precautions remained in effect
Sunday, but radiation conditions were not updated. State authorities
issued their last warning Saturday night, saying radioactivity from
the Soviet plant accident had declined in some areas, but remained
high in others.
SWEDEN - The National Radiation Institute monitoring station at
Erken outside Stockholm reported 0.017 millirems per hour of
radiation, fractionally lower than Saturday. Normal background
radiation is 0.011 millirems per hour. The institute said there was a
''weak but steady trend of decrease'' that could bring radiation
levels back to normal in about a week.
SWITZERLAND - Radiation levels remained 10 times above normal Sunday
in the southern canton (province) of Ticino. Authorities reiterated
that there was no danger to public health, but kept precautionary
measures in effect. They included warnings not to drink rainwater
and, in the case of pregnant women and children under 2 years old,
fresh milk.
TURKEY - The governor of Edirne province in the west urged people
not to use rainwater after winds from neighboring Bulgaria blew in
air carrying high levels of radioactivity during a period of heavy
rainfall.
WEST GERMANY - Ground-level radioactivity increased markedly Sunday
in central West Germany and health authorities advised against
outdoor recreational swimming and consumption of leafy greens. The
National Weather Service said air radiation had returned to virtually
normal levels by Sunday except in West Berlin, with readings of up to
twice normal, and Essen, up to five times normal. The special
Interior Ministry commission formed in response to the accident again
emphasized that radiation levels posed ''no acute health hazard.''
YUGOSLAVIA - Environment officials reported radiation levels
continued to diminish Sunday but gave no figures in millirems.
Readings were up to six times normal on Saturday. Pregnant women and
infants were advised to stay indoors during morning hours, and people
were advised not to consume leafy vegetables and rainwater.
AP-NY-05-04-86 1809EDT
***************
a248 1549 04 May 86
AM-Soviet Environment,0853
Nuclear Accident Likely to Heighten Environmental Concern
By ALISON SMALE
Associated Press Writer
MOSCOW (AP) - The Chernobyl nuclear disaster and its still unknown
consequences for Ukrainian farmland and rivers likely will heighten
the Soviets' gradually emerging concern for the environment.
The accident also may lend weight to calls by Soviet scientists to
build nuclear power stations farther from population centers and to
cut back on the atomic power plants planned for the crowded
industrialized west of this vast nation.
For 40 years, beginning with the industrialization and
collectivization of the 1930s, Soviet planners built giant factories,
plants and irrigation schemes with seemingly little thought for
ecology.
In the last decade, however, there has been an increasingly public
debate about the environmental cost of pursuing gigantic projects.
Writers and other intellectuals have been vocal in advocating care,
and scored a victory in March when the Kremlin dropped controversial
plans to divert rivers in Siberia to arid Central Asia and rivers in
northern Russia to the Caspian Sea.
Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev said in his keynote address to
the Communist Party Congress on Feb. 25 that, in several regions,
''the state of the environment is alarming.''
''The public, notably our writers, are quite right in calling for a
more careful treatment of land, its bowels, lakes and rivers, and the
plant and animal world,'' he said.
The environmental debate here is muted compared with that in the
West, where citizens have far more say than their Soviet counterparts
in planning projects such as the Chernobyl nuclear plant, which is 80
miles north of Kiev.
The controversy about nuclear power in the West has made most people
there aware of the dangers of radiation, and has prompted governments
to mandate safety measures that have forced up the cost of what once
was considered cheap energy.
Soviet planners are under no similar constraints. Nuclear energy has
stayed cheap and is key to plans for boosting power output,
particularly in the country's western portions, where fossil fuels
are running out but industrial demand for electricity is high.
Soviets do not appear nearly as aware as Westerners of the potential
dangers of nuclear power, although newspapers occasionally publish
articles on the subject.
In September 1982, for instance, a radiation expert answered
questions from readers of the trade union daily Trud about the
dangers of radiation exposure for nuclear power workers, and the
chances for a recurrence of the 1979 accident at Three Mile Island in
Pennsylvania.
The expert, identified as P.V. Ramzayev, said that all Soviet plants
are supposed to have a security zone extending nearly two miles and
be located at least 15.6 miles from any population center.
''Nevertheless, research shows that the plants' existing equipment
and procedures for localizing an accidental emission are far more
effective from a safety standpoint than are their remote locations,''
he said.
The February issue of Soviet Life, a magazine printed in English for
distribution in the United States, included a passage on the town of
Pripyat, which grew up around the Chernobyl nuclear plant complex.
Residents could see the complex's four reactors from their apartment
windows, the writer said.
The town's population was not given but Western reference books
indicate it is about 2,000.
Soviet officials have not said what safety mechanisms should have
operated at Chernobyl, where the No. 4 reactor apparently developed
problems that Western experts believe later caused a chemical
explosion.
Moscow Communist Party chief Boris N. Yeltsin said in Hamburg, West
Germany, on Friday that human error likely caused the accident. He
said in an interview with The Associated Press on Sunday that it was
''hard to believe'' the accident was caused by an equipment defect.
However, the Soviet media in the past has criticized construction
standards at the plant.
Literaturnaya Ukraina, the official publication of the Ukrainian
union of writers, on March 27 criticized construction and morale
problems at the Chernobyl facility.
In 1982, a Ukrainian official writing in the Communist Party daily
Pravda attacked the Ministry of Power for a six-month delay in
delivery of Chernobyl's No. 3 reactor.
The accident at Chernobyl, coupled with the growing concern for the
environment, may ensure that such reprimands are not ignored in the
future.
Several recently published articles have shown that it can take
decades to get action on ecological matters.
In 1959, for example, intellectuals in Siberia protested plans to
build a paper processing and cellulose manufacturing plant on the
shores of Lake Baikal in Siberia, the world's deepest lake. Planners
and scientists also protested, but the plant was built.
A damning article last February in the writers' weekly Literaturnaya
Gazeta said the plant has not turned out the high-quality cellulose
it was built to produce, and is causing environmental damage.
''Killing Baikal, a pearl of the planet, we are discrediting
ourselves as masters of beautiful Earth, as sons of the fatherland,''
wrote Andrei A. Trofimuk, a leading scientist who heads a commission
on Lake Baikal.
AP-NY-05-04-86 1850EDT
***************
a255 1711 04 May 86
AM-US-Nuclear Disaster,0611
U.S. Officials Discount Soviet Claims Chernobyl Accident Overblown
By BRYAN BRUMLEY
Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) - U.S. officials Sunday disputed Soviet charges that
they have sensationalized the Chernobyl nuclear accident to gain a
propaganda edge over Moscow, and repeated calls for the Soviets to
release more details about the accident.
''We haven't been trying to beat them over the head,'' Secretary of
State George Shultz said on ABC's ''This Week With David Brinkley.''
Shultz contrasted the behavior of Soviet officials, who have said
little about accident, with that of Polish authorities, who broadcast
warnings and treated children with iodine to protect against
radiation contamination.
''It's interesting that Poland has treated this in a sharply
different way than the Soviet Union has,'' Shultz said. ''Poland has
kept people informed of all the information they have. They've issued
warnings about drinking milk'' and advised of other precautions, he
said.
However, a Soviet spokesman, Mikhail Bruk of the semi-official
Novosti news agency, said the reactor disaster is ''really not the
great danger which is being portrayed or painted by the news media
around the world.''
''I am sure that information of a scientific nature is being fed to
the scientific agencies around the world and the accident is now
under control,'' Bruk said on the CBS program ''Face the Nation.''
While acknowleding that he had no technical expertise, Bruk
suggested that radiation levels were higher in Poland than in the
area around Chernobyl, where he said Soviet Premier Nikolai Ryzhkov
and Politburo member Igor Yegor Ligachev had visited and drunk the
water.
''In Warsaw, you never know, maybe the cloud blew over Poland in
such a way that probably there was some contamination,'' Bruk said.
Lee Thomas, administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency,
disputed the Kremlin claim that the West was inflating the issue and
said Western scientists were receiving little data from Soviet
authorities.
''I don't think I would characterize anything I have seen as an
overreaction,'' said Thomas, who is also head of the U.S. interagency
task force monitoring the disaster.
''The information that we have gotten from the Soviet Union ... (is)
consistent with the kinds of predictions that our experts have made,
which leads you to conclude that you have the worst nuclear accident
in history has taken place,'' Thomas said on the CBS program.
Newsweek magazine reported Sunday that communications between
Chernobyl and Moscow intercepted by U.S. surveillance indicated that
emergency action was being taken as early as Friday - three days
before Moscow acknowledged the accident publicly. The magazine said
tapes of infrared images taken Saturday showed a sudden flash in the
vicinity of Kiev - apparently the explosion that shattered the
reactor.
Shultz, who was interviewed in Tokyo where President Reagan is
attending a seven-nation economic summit, said that U.S. intelligence
data showed that ''radiation levels and the heat in the vicinity of
the plant have been and still are, for that matter, intense.''
Harold Denton, director of reactor regulation for the Nuclear
Regulatory Commission, said on ''Meet the Press'' that U.S. analysts
have ''established that three towns to the north of the plant have
been evacuated, so apparently they were evacuating out to about 30
kilometers,'' which is about 18 miles.
A radioactive air mass has spread across Europe, Scandanavia and
Asia, but lethal levels appear restricted to three miles downwind of
the reactor site, Thomas said.
Thomas appealed to Soviet officials to answer urgent Western calls
for more information about the accident, which was first detected by
Swedish technicians last Monday and later acknowledged by Moscow.
AP-NY-05-04-86 2011EDT
***************
a259 1734 04 May 86
AM-Polar Expedition,0360
Polar Expedition Members Return To Minnesota For Welcoming Rally
ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) - Six arctic adventurers, out of touch with
civilization for 56 days on their 500-mile dogsled trek to the North
Pole, returned home Sunday to friends, families and a heroes'
welcome.
The adventurers, who were airlifted back to base camp Saturday after
nearly two months without news from the outside world, were shocked
to learn of the U.S. bombing of Libya and the nuclear accident in the
Soviet Union.
AP-NY-05-04-86 2035EDT
a268 1823 04 May 86
AM-Nuclear-Arbatov,0582
Soviet Official Says Chernobyl Disaster Size of A-Bomb Blast
By EDITH M. LEDERER
Associated Press Writer
LONDON (AP) - A Soviet official accused the United States of using
the Chernobyl nuclear reactor disaster as a pretext to wreck arms
talks, and compared the accident ''to one explosion in the atmosphere
of a nuclear bomb.''
''The American government has tried its best to discredit the Soviet
Union ... and this was a very dirty trick ... on the part of
Secretary (of State George P.) Shultz and others and even President
Reagan,'' said Georgi A. Arbatov, a leading specialist on East-West
relations.
He made the comments in an interview in Moscow broadcast on the
British Broadcasting Corp.'s ''World This Weekend.''
Arbatov said of Reagan, ''He says we owe him explanations.
''I think he owes the world a lot of explanations about why does he
go on with nuclear testing,'' he said. ''Why does he misbehave . ..
against Nicaragua and Libya and other countries? Why does he take
into his hands the right to punish everybody in the world? What is
he? He is not the international law.''
Arbatov, director of the Institute of U.S. and Canadian Studies,
also spoke from Moscow on the BBC's ''It's Your World'' international
radio phone-in program, and insisted that only the area immediately
around the reactor was affected.
He said the accident took place late April 26 or the following day,
and that there never was any danger of a nuclear explosion.
''It was a fire. ... There was no chain reaction, no explosion, so
the danger was for those in the immediate vicinity who got really
serious doses of radiation. They are in hospital,'' he said.
The impact of the accident ''was comparable to one - maybe less,
maybe more, I don't know - to one explosion in the atmosphere of a
nuclear bomb,'' he said.
The United States and several other countries have signed treaties
banning nuclear tests in the atmosphere.
''There were few workers in the plant,'' Arbatov said. ''Of course
you know it is highly automatized work and especially in the evening
shifts, there are only people who control the equipment, what the
readings are on different pieces of equipment.''
The Soviet government said Wednesday that two people were killed and
197 were hospitalized. Moscow party chief Boris N. Yeltsin told The
Associated Press in Hamburg, West Germany, Sunday that 20 to 25 of
the injured were in serious condition.
Yeltsin also said that 49,000 people were evacuated from neighboring
areas. He said the ''danger area'' around the plant had shrunk from
18 miles to 12 miles.
Arbatov said, ''Other countries didn't suffer. It was really a bad
accident and information should be given and was given, not maybe as
quick as some people wanted. Maybe there were some technical delays,
I don't know.''
Several Western governments, including the United States, Britain,
France and West Germany, have said Soviet secrecy about the Chernobyl
disaster raised questions about Soviet willingness to allow on-site
verification of any new arms control agreement.
''We feel that this Chernobyl accident was taken as a pretext to
avoid any serious talks on arms control and disarmanent,'' Arbotov
said. ''It is a false pretext to mislead people, to lead away from a
really serious goal to avoid the catastrophe which will be millions
times worse than 10 Chernobyls - from nuclear war.''
AP-NY-05-04-86 2124EDT
***************
a273 1848 04 May 86
AM-BRF--Chernobyl-Airlift,0206
Relief Agency Plans Aid for Polish Fallout Victims
WASHINGTON (AP) - A private American relief agency said Sunday it
plans to send a planeload of supplies to Poland to aid in coping with
radioactive fallout from the Soviet nuclear accident at Chernobyl.
Americares, based in New Canaan, Conn., said it planned to send
100,000 pounds of protein-enriched dried milk, 100,000 pounds of
sterilized milk, 1.2 million multi-vitamin tablets, and an
undetermined amount of potassium iodine.
Poles have been warned against drinking milk from cows that have
eaten contaminated grass. Children have been given iodine solution to
protect the thyroid gland from absorbing radioactivity.
The supplies, valued at more than $1 million, are scheduled to flown
from New York on Friday, Americares said.
Zbigniew Brzezinski, National Security adviser under former
President Carter, is honorary chairman of the group.
At a dinner in Chicago marking the 195th anniversary of Poland's
constitution, Brzezinski on Saturday called on the Soviet Union to
send Poland $1 billion ''for shortened lives, the ill, and for the
destroyed agriculture'' caused by fallout.
Sen. Paul Simon, D-Ill., told the dinner he and other senators would
pass a resolution ''authorizing the Department of Agriculture to
release up to 50,000 tons of dried milk to Poland.''
AP-NY-05-04-86 2149EDT
***************
a274 1904 04 May 86
AM-BRF--Billy Graham,0178
Billy Graham Says Nuclear Accident May Bring Soviets to God
WASHINGTON (AP) - Evangelist Billy Graham, winding up an eight-day
crusade Sunday, said he hoped that God might bring many Soviet
citizens to faith as a result of last week's disaster at the
Chernobyl nuclear power plant in the Soviet Union.
''Throughout the week I have been in continual prayer for those
people that are going to suffer, that God might bring many to faith
as a result of this disaster,'' Graham told 36,000 people at Robert
F. Kennedy Stadium.
Graham, who has toured the Soviet Union three times, said he found
thousands of Soviet citizens ''are hungry to know about Christ and
about God.''
''I find that those people are like us - with the same fears, the
same desires, the same anxieties and the same joys,'' he said.
Graham, 67, said more than 630 area churches participated in
bringing the Graham tour to the nation's capital, his first here
since 1960. An average of about 16,000 people attended each of the
crusade's nightly events, he said.
AP-NY-05-04-86 2153EDT
***************
a004 2135 04 May 86
PM-News Digest - 2 Takes,0713
PMs AP News Digest
Monday, May 5, 1986
Here are the top stories for PMs. The General Desk supervisor is Ron
TOKYO SUMMIT:
Reagan Wins Unity on Terrorism and Nuclear Safety
TOKYO - Leaders at the seven-nation summit of industrial democracies
agree at the outset on concerted steps to combat terrorism and
propose international safety measures to help prevent another nuclear
accident like Chernobyl, rewarding President Reagan with the unity he
sought on the two issues he put at the top of his Tokyo agenda. Slug
PM-Summit Rdp.
LaserPhoto staffing. By White House Correspondent Michael Putzel
NUCLEAR DISASTER:
Soviet TV Shows Film of Charred Remains of Reactor Building
MOSCOW - Soviet television has aired film of the Chernobyl nuclear
accident area showing a deserted community once home to thousands and
the charred remains of a reactor building. Slug PM-Nuclear Disaster.
New material, should stand.
By Carol J. Williams.
Chernobyl Accident a Setback for Kremlin Political Strategy
MOSCOW - The Chernobyl nuclear accident disrupted the Kremlin's
courting of Western support on arms control, and the Soviets now seem
anxious to mitigate damage to their international credibility and
prestige. Slug PM-Disaster Diplomacy. New, will stand.
AP Analysis by Andrew Rosenthal.
U.S. Denies Trying to Gain Propaganda Victory over Accident
WASHINGTON - U.S. officials said they weren't trying to gain a
propaganda victory from the Chernobyl nuclear accident as Western
leaders at the Tokyo economic summit drafted a statement of concern
over Soviet handling of the accident last week. Slug PM-US-Nuclear
Disaster. New material, may stand.
a010 2234 04 May 86
PM-Disaster-Diplomacy, Bjt,0783
Soviets Anxious to Ward off Chernobyl Political Fallout
AP News Analysis
By ANDREW ROSENTHAL
Associated Press Writer
MOSCOW (AP) - The Chernobyl nuclear accident disrupted the Kremlin's
courting of Western support for arms control, and the Soviets now
seem anxious to mitigate damage to their international credibility.
Beset by Western protests over the paucity of data on the accident,
Soviet officials have been giving out more information abroad than at
home, including an unusual series of interviews in West Germany.
The Soviets also are seeking to deflect Western criticism about how
they handled the crisis by accusing the West of creating a propaganda
show to deflect attention from Kremlin arms proposals and U.S.
nuclear tests.
For months, Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev has been leading a
public relations campaign to eliminate nuclear weapons, ban nuclear
tests, convene regional security conferences and establish
nuclear-free zones. The Soviets have insisted they were open to
on-site verification plans.
At the same time, they peppered the United States with charges of
militarism, especially after the bombing raid on Libya, and portrayed
themselves as the champion of small nations victimized by a
superpower.
A key ingredient in the campaign was the assertion that the Soviet
Union stands for peace and can be trusted, while the United States
spurs the arms race and cannot be trusted.
Then came Chernobyl. The Kremlin clamped down its secrecy curtain
and after months of taking the public relations offensive, Moscow was
back in the spotlight of international criticism.
Neighboring states protested that they weren't informed until
radiation was already over their territories, and Western governments
continue to object to the lack of data on the accident.
For some Western politicians like British Prime Minister Margaret
Thatcher, the Soviet handling of Chernobyl raised questions about
whether the Kremlin could be trusted to be open to Western observance
of arms control agreements or a test ban.
Ulrich Hundt, a spokesman for the West German Defense Ministry,
added: ''It's a very bad signal of what the Soviets are willing to
share.''
The Soviets, who have insisted their reactors are practically
accident-proof, could find themselves the focus of new anti-nuclear
protests.
Political damage from Chernobyl could be particularly acute in
Scandinavia, where radioactive fallout hit first and where the
Kremlin has been seeking support for its proposals for arms control
and a nuclear-free zone in northern Europe.
''A neighboring country must immediately give information after an
accident,'' complained Swedish Prime Minister Ingvar Carlsson, who
just two weeks before the accident was warmly received at the
Kremlin.
So far, Gorbachev has avoided public involvement in the discussion
of what happened at Chernobyl. He has made no statement on what
happened at the plant about 80 miles north of Kiev.
But he sent his two chief lieutenants, ideology secretary Yegor K.
Ligachev and Premier Nikolai I. Ryzhkov, to the Chernobyl area in a
sign of the importance he attaches to the crisis.
Soviet officials abroad have been slightly more forthcoming on the
accident.
Moscow Communist Party chief Boris N. Yeltsin gave several Western
reporters interviews in Hamburg where he attended a West German
Communist Party Congress.
U.S. affairs adviser Georgi Arbatov gave an interview from Moscow
during a British Broadcasting Corp. call-in show conducted in London,
a Soviet diplomat in Washington made an unprecedented appearance
before a congressional committee, Foreign Ministry spokesman Vladimir
B. Lomeiko gave a television interview in New York, and Soviet
ambassadors in Western nations made statements.
None of these remarks have been relayed to the Soviet public by the
official media, however, indicating they were strictly for foreign
consumption and part of an effort to calm Western protests.
The press coverage of the accident itself has been restricted to
government statements and Tass news agency reports sparse in detail.
But media response to foreign criticism of the Soviet handling of
the crisis reveals how sensitive the Soviets are to Western
complaints.
It took three days for the Soviet Union to report the accident
itself. But its response to outside press coverage was immediate and
that reporting instead of the accident itself has become the media's
focus.
''By artificially turning up an outcry, (U.S. officials) are clearly
out to draw world attention from the barbarity and disgraces of
recent U.S. aggression against Libya, from the nuclear blasts in
Nevada which have outraged all mankind and from the militarist Star
Wars program,'' the Communist Party daily Pravda said Sunday.
---
EDITOR'S NOTE - Andrew Rosenthal, a Moscow-based correspondent for
The AP, has been reporting on the Soviet Union since 1983.
AP-NY-05-05-86 0134EDT
- - - - - -
a032 0233 05 May 86
PM-News Digest, Advisory,0124
All the budgets have moved. Here is a list with Laserphoto numbers:
MOSCOW - Disaster Diplomacy, a010
RALEIGH, N.C. - NC Primary, a011
WASHINGTON - Seafloor Study, a012
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. - Rocket Blowup, a013
VIENNA, Austria - Austrian Election, a015, LaserPhoto NY4
WASHINGTON - Tax Overhaul, a016
WASHINGTON - Foreign Aid, a017
ST. PAUL, Minn. - Polar Expedition, a018, LaserPhoto MP1
TOKYO - Summit Security, a020
WASHINGTON - US-Contadora, a021
WASHINGTON - US-Nuclear Disaster, a022
MOSCOW - Nuclear Disaster, a023
TOKYO - Summit-Currency, a024
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - Afghanistan, a025
MANILA, Philippines - Philippines-Marcos, a026
TOKYO - Summit Rdp, a029, a030
The AP
AP-NY-05-05-86 0534EDT
***************
a014 2317 04 May 86
AM-Reagan-Summit, 2nd Ld, a218, a284,0295
EDs: New material on summit statements. Picks up 8th graf pvs.
By TOM RAUM
Associated Press Writer
TOKYO (AP) - President Reagan and six allied leaders gave tentative
approval Monday to summit statements that pledge the industrialized
nations to seek concerted action against terrorism - with specific
mention of Libya - and urge increased surveillance of nuclear reactor
plants.
The leaders met as police investigated the firing of home-made
missiles by anti-summit saboteurs and as Japanese authorities advised
citizens to wash their vegetables as a precaution against radiation
drifting here from the Chernobyl reactor site in the Soviet Union.
The first day of summit deliberations was fixated upon the terrorism
and radiation issues, far overshadowing deliberations on the economic
issues that brought the leaders to Tokyo for the 12th summit of
industrialized nations.
White House spokesman Larry Speakes said a ''strong, specific''
anti-terrorist statement had been approved by the leaders before they
broke for lunch. He said the leaders ''wanted a final look'' after
lunch, and declined to provide details. But he said the leaders did
make ''adjustments'' more to Reagan's liking when they huddled over
the statement on terrorism.
Japanese Foreign Minister Shintaro Abe told reporters the leaders
would mention Libya in the statement on combatting international
terrorism; he said a dispute over wording held up final approval of
the statement.
Abe also read off a ''Tokyo Declaration'' on political issues,
calling on the Soviet Union to negotiate arms reductions
''positively,'' and urging strong defenses and a ''more stable and
constructive relationship between East and West.''
With economic issues pushed into the background, finance ministers
met to discuss an arcane but important proposal on stabilizing world
currency exchange rates.
Aides worked, 5th graf
AP-NY-05-05-86 0218EDT
***************
a022 0051 05 May 86
PM-US-Nuclear Disaster, Bjt,0749
U.S. Denies Propaganda Move In Chernobyl Statements; Urges Soviet
Openness
WASHINGTON (AP) - U.S. officials said they weren't trying to gain a
propaganda victory from the Chernobyl nuclear accident as Western
leaders at the Tokyo economic summit prepared a statement of concern
over Soviet handling of the accident last week.
White House Chief of Staff Donald T. Regan, in Tokyo on Sunday with
President Reagan for the economic summit, lashed the Soviets for not
meeting demands from neighboring nations for more information on the
nature and status of the accident.
''Frankly the way they've handled it is an outrage,'' Regan said on
NBC's ''Meet the Press.'' ''We think that with over a third of the
world's population directly affected by this accident, they have a
moral obligation to tell the world what is going on.
''And to try to stonewall it, keep the information to themselves and
let the rest of the world try to figure out whether they are in
danger or not, is beyond what civilized nations should do,'' Regan
said.
Regan said specialists have been sent to the U.S. Embassy in Moscow
to monitor radiation levels.
Asked whether Americans would be evacuated from the Soviet Union,
Regan said, ''It's too early to say that. We have not told our people
to come out. We are warning people against travel in Poland, travel
in a few other countries, but apart from that we have not told our
people to leave.''
Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Thomas disputed
the Kremlin claim the West was inflating the issue and said Western
scientists were receiving little data from Soviet authorities.
''I don't think I would characterize anything I have seen as an
overreaction,'' said Thomas, who is also head of the U.S. interagency
task force monitoring the disaster.
''The information that we have gotten from the Soviet Union ... (is)
consistent with the kinds of predictions that our experts have made,
which leads you to conclude that you have the worst nuclear accident
in history has taken place,'' Thomas said on the CBS program ''Face
the Nation.''
Secretary of State George Shultz, interviewed from Tokyo on ABC's
''This Week With David Brinkley,'' contrasted the behavior of Soviet
officials, who have said little about accident, with that of Polish
authorities, who broadcast warnings and treated children with iodine
to protect against radiation contamination.
Boris Yeltsin, the Moscow Communist Party chief and a non-voting
member of the ruling Politburo, told The Associated Press in an
interview in Hamburg, West Germany, that 49,000 residents of four
settlements near the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in the Ukraine had
been evacuated.
He said it was ''difficult to say'' when they could return home, and
said farming had been halted and livestock slaughtered within a
12-mile radius of the plant because of radioactive fallout.
A Soviet spokesman, Mikhail Bruk of the semi-official Novosti news
agency, said the reactor disaster is ''really not the great danger
which is being portrayed or painted by the news media around the
world.''
''I am sure that information of a scientific nature is being fed to
the scientific agencies around the world and the accident is now
under control,'' Bruk said on ''Face the Nation.''
While acknowleding that he had no technical expertise, Bruk
suggested that radiation levels were higher in Poland than in the
area around Chernobyl.
In Cincinnati, Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole, R-Kan., said the
response of Soviet officials suggests they might withhold information
pertaining to an arms control agreeement.
Harold Denton, director of reactor regulation for the Nuclear
Regulatory Commission, said on ''Meet the Press'' that U.S. analysts
have ''established that three towns north of the plant have been
evacuated, so apparently they were evacuating out to about 30
kilometers,'' which is about 18 miles.
A radioactive air mass has spread across Europe, Scandanavia and
Asia, but lethal levels appear restricted to three miles downwind of
the reactor site, Thomas said.
Newsweek magazine reported Sunday that communications between
Chernobyl and Moscow intercepted by U.S. surveillance indicated that
emergency action was being taken as early as Friday - three days
before Moscow acknowledged the accident publicly. The magazine said
tapes of infrared images taken Saturday showed a sudden flash in the
vicinity of Kiev - apparently the explosion that shattered the
reactor.
The accident was first detected by Swedish technicians last Monday
and later acknowledged by Moscow.
AP-NY-05-05-86 0352EDT
***************
a023 0105 05 May 86
PM-Nuclear Disaster, Bjt,0761
Soviet Television Shows Chernobyl Site; Yeltsin Says Area Is 'Danger
Zone'
By CAROL J. WILLIAMS
Associated Press Writer
MOSCOW (AP) - Soviet television showed scenes of the Chernobyl
nuclear disaster area and assured viewers there had been no massive
destruction, but a top Kremlin official on a visit abroad said the
site was radiation-saturated and dangerous.
Boris Yeltsin, the Communist Party chief for Moscow, said in
Hamburg, West Germany, on Sunday that 49,000 people had been
evacuated from four communities around the Ukrainian power plant
since fire swept through one of its atomic reactors on April 26.
Speaking to The Associated Press, Yeltsin also said radioactive
emissions at the site 80 miles north of the Ukrainian capital of Kiev
had dropped, but were at 150 roentgens per hour - an amount Western
scientists call still dangerously high.
Atmospheric radiation levels soared throughout Europe immediately
after the accident, but had returned to normal or near-normal in most
places by Sunday.
However, increases in ground-level radioactivity were recorded in
Austria and parts of central West Germany, where readings were five
times higher than normal.
In Japan, where President Reagan was attending a summit with leaders
of six other industrialized Western nations, an early morning rain
was tainted with non-hazardous levels of radiation. Reagan told
reporters the situation was ''not alarming.''
About two minutes of footage showing the Chernobyl site, shot from a
helicopter, were broadcast on the Soviet Union's main national news
program Vremya, or Time, on Sunday night. The program is customarily
viewed by millions of Soviets.
No people or signs of activity were visible in the film, which
showed the undamaged building housing Chernobyl's reactor No. 3, what
appeared to be an adjacent smokestack or cooling tower, and the
wreckage of the building housing fire-swept reactor No. 4.
As in a still photograph shown on the news four nights earlier, no
smoke or fire could be seen.
Film also was shown of a huge, deserted housing area. Dozens of
giant, prefabricated high-rises could be seen in the city that had
apparently housed tens of thousands of people.
It was not clear, however, how far the evacuated area was from the
power station.
The announcer did not specify when the footage was shot, but told
viewers, ''As you can see, there is no vast destruction such as the
Western mass media have talked about incessantly.''
However, blackened walls and chunks of twisted metal were visible in
the film of the damaged reactor housing, indicating there had been a
fire, explosion, or both.
In his interview in Hamburg, where he was attending a meeting of
West German Communists, Yeltsin indicated that the gravity of some
peoples' injuries suffered in the Chernobyl disaster had worsened.
Earlier official Soviet reports said two people were killed and 197
injured. Of the latter, 49 were reported released from hospitals and
18 were said to be in serious condition.
Yeltsin said Sunday that 20 to 25 people were in serious condition
from unspecified injuries, and that another 10 to 15 may be added to
that list. He said 154 people remained hospitalized.
The Moscow party leader said the danger area around the stricken
plant had shrunk from an 18-mile radius to a 12-mile radius, but said
livestock there had been slaughtered and farming halted.
The 150-roentgens-per-hour figure cited by Yeltsin was described as
dangerously high by Western scientists.
A roentgen is a unit of quantity used in measuring ionizing
radiation, such as X-rays or gamma rays.
On Sunday, the official Tass news agency issued a government
statement thanking nations, individuals and businesses that offered
assistance and condolences to the Soviet Union since the accident.
The Soviets specifically expressed their gratitude to American
bone-marrow specialist Dr. Robert Gale, who arrived in Moscow on
Friday to help treat accident victims, and the head of the
Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency, Hans Blix, expected
to arrive today.
Soviet state-run media and official representatives, however,
continued accusating the West of blowing the disaster out of
proportion and using it for political ends.
The Communist Party newspaper Pravda claimed Sunday that the West
had exaggerated the accident's severity to draw the world's attention
away from ''the barbarity and disgraces'' of U.S. foreign policy.
Georgy Arbatov, a specialist in U.S.-Soviet relations, also charged
during an interview with the British Broadcasting Corp. that
President Reagan and other U.S. officials were using the accident to
discredit the Soviet Union.
AP-NY-05-05-86 0406EDT
- - - - - -
a058 0640 05 May 86
PM-Nuclear Disaster, 1st Ld, a023,0370
Soviet Television Shows Chernobyl Site; Yeltsin Says Area Is 'Danger
Zone'
Eds: UPDATES with International Atomic Energy Agency chief departing
for Moscow, Tokyo summit criticizing Soviet Union for releasing
little information, other details.
By CAROL J. WILLIAMS
Associated Press Writer
MOSCOW (AP) - Soviet television showed scenes of the Chernobyl
nuclear disaster area and assured viewers there had been no massive
destruction, but a top Kremlin official on a visit abroad said the
site was dangerously saturated with radiation.
Boris Yeltsin, Communist Party chief for Moscow, said in Hamburg,
West Germany, on Sunday that 49,000 people have been evacuated from
four communities around the Ukrainian power plant since a fire broke
out in one of its atomic reactors April 26.
Yeltsin also told The Associated Press that radioactive emissions at
the site 80 miles north of the Ukrainian capital of Kiev have
dropped, but were at 150 roentgens per hour - an amount Western
scientists call dangerously high.
Atmospheric radiation levels soared throughout Europe after the
accident, but returned to normal or near-normal in most places by
Sunday.
However, increases in ground-level radioactivity were recorded in
Austria and parts of central West Germany, where readings were five
times higher than normal.
In Japan, where President Reagan was attending a summit with leaders
of six other industrialized Western nations, an early morning rain
was tainted with non-hazardous levels of radiation. Reagan told
reporters the situation was ''not alarming.''
At their session today, the seven leaders expressed sympathy with
the Soviet Union in a statement, but criticized the Kremlin for
releasing too little information about the tragedy and called
urgently for more.
The statement from the United States, Japan, Britain, Canada,
France, Italy and West Germany offered medical and technical help to
the Soviets, and called for an international agreement in accord with
International Atomic Energy Agency guidelines to ensure information
exchanges in nuclear emergencies.
The head of the Vienna-based international agency, Hans Blix, left
Austria for Moscow today to discuss the Chernobyl accident. Blix, a
Swede, was accompanied by two safety specialists for the agency,
Leonard Kosntaninov of the Soviet Union and Morris Rosen, an
American.
About two, 7th graf
AP-NY-05-05-86 0941EDT
- - - - - -
a069 0756 05 May 86
PM-Nuclear Disaster, 2nd Ld, a058,0687
Eds: UPDATES with Blix arriving, quotes, American doctor doing bone
marrow surgery.
By CAROL J. WILLIAMS
Associated Press Writer
MOSCOW (AP) - The head of an international nuclear power watchdog
agency arrived in the Soviet capital today to question Soviet
officials about the Cheronobyl nuclear catastrophe.
Hans Blix, director of the International Atomic Energy Authority,
told reporters before he left Austria that he did not plan to visit
the site of the devastated nuclear power plant. In Moscow, however,
he would not say whether or not he would go to the Ukrainian plant.
''I have come to continue the contacts directly with the Soviet
authorities that we have and through the Soviet mission in Vienna
during the past week,'' Blix said.
''I am confident that we will discuss questions related to
information'' and measures being take to alleviate the consequences
of the accident, he said.
The Soviet Union has come under widespread attack for giving few
details of the Chernobyl accident. The Vienna-based International
Atomic Energy Agency had sought information, but had been given
basically the same reports as those carried by Soviet media.
The Soviets say the accident occurred April 26 and that it killed
two people and injured 197. U.S. officials say many more people died.
The accident sent a cloud of radiation over much of Europe, but
experts said there was no immediate danger to public health.
Radiation levels recorded in most areas of Europe today were below
those of last week.
Blix, a Swede, arrived in Moscow with agency officials Leonid
Konstantinov, a Soviet who is a senior officer with the international
agency's nuclear safety and environmental protection department, and
Morris Rosen, an American who also works for the agency.
They were welcomed by Boris Semyonov, a leading Soviet nuclear
scientist who has served as the International Atomic Energy Agency's
nuclear power and reactors division.
Blix said he does not know how long he will be in Moscow, but said,
''We'll discuss all the matters on the agenda.''
The official Tass news agency issued a government statement Sunday
thanking nations, individuals and businesses for offering assistance
and condolences to the Soviet Union since the accident. The statement
singled out Blix and Dr. Robert Gale, a bone-marrow specialist who
arrived Friday to help treat accident victims.
In an interview published in today's Los Angeles Times, Gale was
quoted as saying he had begun performing surgery on people who had
been brought to Moscow after being exposed to radiation from the
Chernobyl accident. Radiation can destroy bone marrow.
''I am actually at work,'' Gale was quoted as saying. The newspaper
said he declined to provide details in the Sunday interview.
In Japan, where President Reagan was attending a summit with leaders
of six other industrialized Western nations, an early morning rain
was tainted with non-hazardous levels of radiation. Reagan told
reporters the situation was ''not alarming.''
At their session today, the seven leaders expressed sympathy with
the Soviet Union in a statement, but criticized the Kremlin for
releasing too little information about the tragedy and called
urgently for more.
The statement from the United States, Japan, Britain, Canada,
France, Italy and West Germany offered medical and technical help to
the Soviets, and called for an international agreement in accord with
International Atomic Energy Agency guidelines to ensure information
exchanges in nuclear emergencies.
On Sunday, Soviet television showed footage of the nuclear plant
area and assured viewers there had been no massive destruction. A top
Kremlin official, however, said the site was dangerously saturated
with radiation.
Boris Yeltsin, Communist Party chief for Moscow, said in Hamburg,
West Germany, on Sunday that 49,000 people have been evacuated from
four communities around the plant since a fire broke out in one of
its atomic reactors April 26.
He told The Associated Press that radioactive emissions at the site
80 miles north of the Ukrainian capital of Kiev have dropped, but
were at 150 roentgens per hour - an amount Western scientists call
dangerously high.
About two, 10th graf
AP-NY-05-05-86 1057EDT
- - - - - -
a202 1042 05 May 86
PM-Nuclear Disaster, 3rd Ld, a069,0526
URGENT
Eds: UPDATES with new Soviet statement on contamination reaching
Byelorussia.
By CAROL J. WILLIAMS
Associated Press Writer
MOSCOW (AP) - The Soviet Union acknowledged today for the first time
that radiation from the devastated Chernobyl nuclear power station
extended beyond the immediate area of the plant.
The statement from the Council of Ministers was issued a few hours
after the head of an international nuclear power watchdog agency
arrived in Moscow to investigate the nuclear catastrophe, which sent
a radioactive cloud over much of Europe.
A four-paragraph statement carried by the official Tass news agency
said radiation from the accident reached Byelorussia, the Soviet
republic north of the Ukrainian nuclear power plant. Previously, the
Soviets contended the accident affected only an 18-mile area around
the devastated plant.
The statement said a clean-up operation was under way at the plant's
damaged reactor No. 4.
''The emission of radioactive substances continues to decrease,''
the statement said.
''The radiation situation on the territory of the Ukraine and
Byelorussia is stabilizing with a tendency toward its improvement,''
the statement said. It did not elaborate.
Hans Blix, director of the International Atomic Energy Authority,
told reporters before he left Austria for Moscow that he did not plan
to visit the Chernobyl plant. After arriving today, he would not say
whether or not he would go there.
''I have come to continue the contacts directly with the Soviet
authorities that we have and through the Soviet mission in Vienna
during the past week,'' Blix said.
''I am confident that we will discuss questions related to
information'' and measures being take to alleviate the consequences
of the accident, he said.
The Soviet Union has come under widespread attack for giving few
details of the Chernobyl accident. The Vienna-based International
Atomic Energy Agency had sought information, but had been given
basically the same reports as those carried by Soviet media.
The Soviets say the accident occurred April 26 and that it killed
two people and injured 197. U.S. officials say many more people died.
The accident sent a cloud of radiation over much of Europe, but
experts said there was no immediate danger to public health.
Radiation levels recorded in most areas of Europe today were below
those of last week.
Blix, a Swede, arrived in Moscow with agency officials Leonid
Konstantinov, a Soviet who is a senior officer with the international
agency's nuclear safety and environmental protection department, and
Morris Rosen, an American who also works for the agency.
They were welcomed by Boris Semyonov, a leading Soviet nuclear
scientist who has served as the International Atomic Energy Agency's
nuclear power and reactors division.
Blix said he does not know how long he will be in Moscow, but said,
''We'll discuss all the matters on the agenda.''
Tass issued a government statement Sunday thanking nations,
individuals and businesses for offering assistance and condolences to
the Soviet Union since the accident. The statement singled out Blix
and Dr. Robert Gale, a bone-marrow specialist who arrived Friday to
help treat accident victims.
In an interview, 11th graf
AP-NY-05-05-86 1343EDT
- - - - - -
a212 1207 05 May 86
PM-Nuclear Disaster, 4th Ld, a202,0496
Soviets Acknowlege Radiation Extended Into Byelorussia
Eds: UPDATES with border six miles from plant, new comments by Soviet
official
By CAROL J. WILLIAMS
Associated Press Writer
MOSCOW (AP) - The Soviet Union acknowledged today for the first time
that radiation from the devastated Chernobyl nuclear power station
extended beyond the immediate area of the plant.
The statement from the Council of Ministers was issued a few hours
after the head of an international nuclear power watchdog agency
arrived in Moscow to investigate the nuclear catastrophe, which sent
a radioactive cloud over much of Europe.
The four-paragraph statement carried by the official Tass news
agency said radiation from the accident reached into Byelorussia, the
Soviet republic north of the Ukrainian nuclear power plant.
Previously, the Soviets contended the accident affected only an
18-mile area that had been evacuated around the plant. The
Byelorussian border is about six miles from the plant, meaning some
Byelorussian territory likely was evacuated, but today's statement
was the first time the Soviets said both the Ukraine and Byelorussia
were affected by radiation.
The statement said a clean-up operation was under way at the plant's
damaged reactor No. 4.
''The emission of radioactive substances continues to decrease,''
the statement said.
''The radiation situation on the territory of the Ukraine and
Byelorussia is stabilizing with a tendency toward its improvement,''
the statement said. It did not elaborate.
The Soviet Union has come under widespread attack for releasing few
details of the Chernobyl accident.
The Soviets say the accident occurred April 26 and that it killed
two people and injured 197, while U.S. officials contend many more
people died. The accident spread radioactive fallout over much of
Europe, but experts said there was no danger to public health.
Hans Blix, director of the International Atomic Energy Authority,
said before leaving Austria that he did not plan to visit the
Chernobyl plant. After arriving in Moscow today, he would not say
whether or not he would go there.
''I have come to continue the contacts directly with the Soviet
authorities that we have and through the Soviet mission in Vienna
during the past week,'' Blix said.
''I am confident that we will discuss questions related to
information'' and measures being take to alleviate the consequences
of the accident, he said.
Blix, a Swede, arrived in Moscow with agency officials Leonid
Konstantinov, a Soviet who is a senior officer with the international
agency's nuclear safety and environmental protection department, and
Morris Rosen, an American who also works for the agency.
In Hanover, West Gemany, a high-ranking Soviet official said today
Kremlin officials will allow foreign experts to inspect the damaged
plant.
Boris Yeltsin, Communist Party chief for Moscow, said the Soviet
Union ''will allow experts to inspect the site of the accident as
soon as the radioactivity has decreased to a point where this is
possible.''
Tass issued, 15th graf
AP-NY-05-05-86 1508EDT
***************
a029 0213 05 May 86
PM-Summit Rdp, Bjt,0726
Summit Agrees on Steps to Combat Terrorism
Eds: Will be topped when summit texts become available, timing
uncertain.
By MICHAEL PUTZEL
AP White House Correspondent
TOKYO (AP) - Leaders of the seven industrial democracies today
agreed on concerted steps to combat terrorism, naming Libya as a
terrorist state and rewarding President Reagan with the unity he
sought on the issue at the top of his summit agenda.
Formal statements on terrorism and proposals for international steps
to prevent another nuclear catastrope like Chernobyl were delayed
briefly as the leaders rewrote language worked out by their aides.
leaders worked first on the terrorism statement and a hastily drawn
proposal on what Speakes called ''the need to strengthen the safety
procedures and to improve accident reporting procedures'' following
the Soviet nuclear power plant disaster in the Ukraine.
AP-NY-05-05-86 0514EDT
- - - - - -
The formal statement on terrorism, as well as one criticizing the
Soviet Union and calling for international sharing of information
about nuclear castastrophes such as the Chernobyl accident, were
delayed several hours as the leaders toughened language worked out by
their aides.
By MICHAEL PUTZEL
AP White House Correspondent
TOKYO (AP) - Leaders of the seven industrial democracies today
branded Libya a terrorist state, agreed to steps making it harder for
terrorists to travel or operate in their countries and prodded the
Kremlin to reveal details immediately about the Chernobyl nuclear
accident.
The statement on the Soviet nuclear catastrophe pointedly noted that
Moscow did not alert other nations about the accident and called on
the Soviets urgently to provide information.
a040 0357 05 May 86
PM-Digest Briefs,1232
Eds: This package does not contain the following items from the News
Digest: TOKYO-Summit Rdp, TOKYO-Summit-Currency;
MOSCOW-Disaster-Diplomacy; WASHINGTON-US-Nuclear Disaster; RALEIGH,
N.C.-NC Primary; BOISE, WASHINGTON-US-Contadora; NASHVILLE,
Tenn.-Another Look-Record Labeling.
By The Associated Press
TOKYO (AP) - Police blamed Japan's most notorious radical leftist
group today for a brazen missile attack during welcoming ceremonies
for the Tokyo summit, and authorities distributed 100,000 leaflets
asking citizens' cooperation in identifying ''suspicious persons.''
Five missiles were fired from an apartment building Sunday and arced
more than two miles over Tokyo neighborhoods, falling about 700 yards
from Akasaka Palace, the state guest house, just minutes before
President Reagan arrived there for an outdoor welcoming ceremony.
All of the metal objects landed near the Canadian embassy and
exploded on building walls or in the street. Police said there was
some minor panic among pedestrians but no injuries.
---
MOSCOW (AP) - Soviet television showed scenes of the Chernobyl
nuclear disaster area and assured viewers there had been no massive
destruction, but a top Kremlin official on a visit abroad said the
site was radiation-saturated and dangerous.
Boris Yeltsin, the Communist Party chief for Moscow, said in
Hamburg, West Germany, on Sunday that 49,000 people had been
evacuated from four communities around the Ukrainian power plant
since fire swept through one of its atomic reactors on April 26.
Speaking to The Associated Press, Yeltsin also said radioactive
emissions at the site 80 miles north of the Ukrainian capital of Kiev
had dropped, but were at 150 roentgens per hour - an amount Western
scientists call still dangerously high.
---
VIENNA, Austria (AP) - Voters narrowly denied Kurt Waldheim an
absolute majority in an election dominated by charges that he covered
up a Nazi past, forcing the former U.N. chief into a runoff election
for the Austrian presidency.
Waldheim received 49.64 percent of the votes Sunday, just 16,746
ballots short of absolute majority he needed. He will face socialist
Kurt Steyrer in the June 8 runoff, Austria's first such election
since 1951.
Of the 5,436,726 eligible voters, 89.5 percent cast ballots.
Waldheim, who was U.N. secretary-general from 1972 to 1981, received
2,343,387 votes. Steyrer received 2,061,162.
---
a046 0442 05 May 86
PM-Washington In Brief,0402
WASHINGTON (AP) - A private American relief agency says it plans to
send a planeload of supplies to Poland to aid in coping with
radioactive fallout from the Soviet nuclear accident at Chernobyl.
Americares, based in New Canaan, Conn., said Sunday it planned to
send 100,000 pounds of protein-enriched dried milk, 100,000 pounds of
sterilized milk, 1.2 million multi-vitamin tablets, and an
undetermined amount of potassium iodine.
Poles have been warned against drinking milk from cows that have
eaten contaminated grass. Children have been given iodine solution to
protect the thyroid gland from absorbing radioactivity.
The supplies, valued at more than $1 million, are scheduled to be
flown from New York on Friday, Americares said.
---
WASHINGTON (AP) - Evangelist Billy Graham says he hopes that God
might bring many Soviet citizens to faith as a result of last week's
disaster at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in the Ukraine.
Graham, winding up an eight-day crusade Sunday, told 36,000 people
at Robert F. Kennedy Stadium, ''Throughout the week I have been in
continual prayer for those people that are going to suffer, that God
might bring many to faith as a result of this disaster.''
Graham, who has toured the Soviet Union three times, said he found
thousands of Soviet citizens ''are hungry to know about Christ and
about God.''
Graham, 67, said more than 630 area churches participated in
bringing the Graham tour to the nation's capital, his first here
since 1960. A total of 150,550 people attended the crusade's nightly
events, said Larry Ross, a spokesman for the event.
---
WASHINGTON (AP) - A study at the National Institutes of Health's
hospital offers new evidence that health workers have only an
extremely low risk of getting AIDS from patients, scientists say.
In a report published in the May issue of the Annals of Internal
Medicine, researchers say none of 531 health care workers in contact
with patients showed any evidence of developing acquired immune
deficiency syndrome or infection by the virus that causes it.
This also was true for 150 of these workers who were exposed
directly to the blood and bodily fluids of patients through cuts and
punctures of their skin or other bodily contact.
The report is the second in recent weeks to indicate that infection
of hospital workers is very rare following needle punctures and other
accidental exposure to the blood and fluids of AIDS patients.
AP-NY-05-05-86 0743EDT
***************
a050 0512 05 May 86
BC-Quotes,0179
Current Quotations
By The Associated Press
''You've had it, pal. You're isolated. You are recognized as a
terrorist and as far as terrorists are concerned, more and more the
message is - no place to hide.'' - U.S. Secretary of State George P.
Shultz, referring to Libyan leader Col. Moammar Khadafy, after the
leaders of the seven industrial democracies meeting in Tokyo branded
Libya a terrorist state and agreed to act to make it more difficult
for terrorists to travel or operate in their nations.
---
''The residents of about four housing areas in a zone roughly 30
kilometers (18 miles) in diameter around the Chernobyl nuclear
reactor were evacuated. All together, that was 49,000 people.'' -
Soviet Politburo member Boris Yeltsin, in an interview with The
Associated Press.
---
''What a fantastic, miserable and wonderful trip.'' - Geoff Carroll,
one of six men and women who trekked 500 miles to the North Pole, to
a crowd of 600 people who turned out in St. Paul, Minn., to welcome
the adventurers back.
AP-NY-05-05-86 0811EDT
***************
a060 0657 05 May 86
PM-Soviet Fallout,0313
Officials Uncertain When and Where Fallout Will Hit West Coast
SEATTLE (AP) - Radioactive fallout from the Soviet nuclear disaster
could reach the West Coast today or Tuesday, but it's also possible
the cloud may miss the United States altogether, an expert said.
Air pollution readings over the weekend from more than five dozen
monitoring stations nationwide showed no change in background levels
of radioactivity in the United States despite large amounts measured
over Western Europe soon after the nuclear power plant accident at
Chernobyl, in the Ukraine.
''There's nothing, virtually, over the United States at all,'' said
Charles Porter, director of the Environmental Protection Agency
radiation laboratory at Montgomery, Ala.
Jim Kneeland, spokesman for Gov. Booth Gardner, said Sunday that the
radiation levels in Washington state remained at normal levels during
the weekend.
Chris Rice, a radiation specialist with the EPA in Washington, D.C.,
said radiation readings conducted from aircraft showed part of the
cloud had spread eastward from Chernobyl to a point 100 miles
east-northeast of Tokyo.
The cloud could continue moving along the Asian mainland if the
fallout remained at altitudes of less than 15,000 feet, he said, but
it could be picked up by faster winds if it moved to higher levels.
That could bring the fallout, containing radioactive iodine, to
northern California and southern Oregon by today or Tuesday, Rice
said.
But ''if it stays down (at lower elevations) it could continue
northeast and miss the U.S.,'' he said.
Even if the cloud reaches the United States, the health risks are
minimal, experts said.
''The chances are very slim that there will be significant amounts
of radioactive iodine in the rain that falls over the Western
seaboard,'' said Dr. Herbert Abrams, professor of radiology at
Stanford University. ''There's not really too much to be worried
about.''
AP-NY-05-05-86 0958EDT
***************
a082 1002 05 May 86
PM-Business Mirror, Adv 06,0509
$adv 06
For Release Tues PMs, May 6
Market Vacillates
Eds: Also moving on financial wire
By JOHN CUNNIFF
AP Business Analyst
NEW YORK (AP) - If the stock market is vacillating, it probably
isn't for some of the reasons you may have heard in the past few
days.
Reasons proliferate in the stock market. Like the bread on the
retailer's shelf they change from day to day, the notion being that
customers desire and expect fresh goods.
But it probably cannot be proved that the market rose or fell
because of the Soviet Union's nuclear accident or the economic summit
in Tokyo, or because investors were on the sidelines or tired or
optimistic.
Those possibilities exist, of course, but proving it would be as
difficult as scanning a rogue's gallery of a thousand photos and
picking out the culprit just minutes after the crime was committed in
poor light.
But when the market vacillates or drifts over a week or so, as it
has, analysts maintain they can see a clear correlation with
uncertainty over the state of the economy six months into the future.
While the consensus forecast seems to be for an upturn later this
year, a lot of investors thought it already would be here. And adding
to their concern is the almost daily publication of rather weak
economic indicators.
There is uncertainty, too, about what Congress will do with a tax
bill, if anything. And how do you determine whether tax cuts, in the
minds of investors, will offset the elimination of tax breaks?
Where are interest rates headed?
Many analysts say rates will continue to fall because the Federal
Reserve intends to maintain liquidity. But others call attention to
Fed Chairman Paul Volcker's recent statement that rates have fallen
enough.
Attention is given to a recent report by purchasing agents that
spoke of declines in production and employment. Bad news, some say.
Others disagree, commenting that the agents merely repeated the
obvious. The real news, say these interpreters, is that the agents
found orders ''relatively strong,'' suggesting an upturn to come.
Are lower oil prices good for the economy? A lot of theories say
they are, but a near-term rise in unemployment and lower earnings for
oil-related companies is causing some would-be investors to keep
their pocketbooks closed.
What happened to the clearcut perspective that existed a few weeks
ago, when investors were talking about a market that couldn't be
stopped? Nothing much, except that it has run up against a bit of
uncertainty.
Until the uncertainty clears, say a good many of those who claim to
know, the market isn't likely to break out of its trading range,
which seems to be on either side of 1,800 points on the Dow Jones
Industrial Average.
Meanwhile, those who think the economy is going to get better will
be banging heads with those who are losing the faith.
End Adv For Tues PMs May 6
AP-NY-05-05-86 1303EDT
***************
a083 1009 05 May 86
BC-Nuclear Accident,0353
URGENT
Soviets Acknowledge Nuclear Accident Affected Area Outside Evacuated
Zone
MOSCOW (AP) - The Soviet government on Monday acknowledged for the
first time that radioactivity from the Chernobyl nuclear plant
accident has spread beyond the evacuated 18-mile zone around the
devastated facility.
The April 26 accident - which the Soviets say killed two people, but
U.S. officials say caused many more fatalities - sent a cloud of
radiation over much of Europe.
In a four-paragraph statement distributed by the official news
agency Tass, the Council of Ministers said a clean-up operation was
under way at the No. 4 reactor and that there was radiation in both
the Ukrainian and Byelorrussian republics.
''The emission of radioactive substances continues to decrease,''
the statement said, adding that workers were building up the banks of
the adjacent Pripyat River ''to prevent its possible contamination.''
The plant is near the confluence of the Pripyat and Uzh rivers,
which flow together with two other rivers into a reservoir that
empties into the Dnepr River just north of the Ukrainian capital of
Kiev. The city is about 80 miles south of the plant.
''The radiation situation on the territory of the Ukraine and
Byelorussia is stabilizing with a tendency toward its improvement,''
the statement said.
The government report did not provide any statistics on the
radiation levels or say what it meant by saying the situation was
''stabilizing.''
The statement was the government's most wide-ranging description of
the area affected by the April 26 nuclear plant disaster.
Earlier reports talked only of the area immediately around the
plant, which Moscow Communist Party chief Boris N. Yeltsin described
in an interview in West Germany as a ''danger area'' from which
49,000 residents were evacuated.
The Chernobyl plant is near the border of Byelorussia, a republic to
the north of the Ukraine. The statement did not say how much of the
two republics' territories were affected by the accident.
The statement said that in the two republics, ''the necessary
sanitation, hygienic, treatment and preventive measures are being
carried out.''
AP-NY-05-05-86 1310EDT
***************
a201 1032 05 May 86
AM-News Digest,1141
AMs AP News Digest
For Tuesday AMs
Here are the top stories at this hour from The Associated Press. The
General Desk supervisor is Marty Sutphin (212-621-1602). The
Laserphoto Desk supervisor is Jerry Mosey (212-621-1900).
For repeats of AP copy, the Service Desk can be reached at
212-621-1595 or 1596.
SUMMIT IN TOKYO:
Demorcratic Partners Issue Declaration To Fight Terrorism
TOKYO - Summit leaders endorse a six-point campaign against
terrorists and their accomplices, including specific steps to make it
more difficult for terrorists to travel and obtain arms. The
declaration against terrorism pleases Reagan administration
officials. Slug AM-Summit Rdp. New material.
By Tom Raum.
LaserPhotos TOK2, heads of state sit down to first meeting; TOK4,
Reagan and Mitterrand; TOK16, dignitaries arrrive at palace; TOK17,
Reagan with Thatcher, Mulroney and Nakasone; TOK27, leaders chat
during photo session; TOK5, Mulroney and Craxi chat; TOK30, police
checkpoint; TOK205A, leaders sit on floor at Japanese-style meal, and
TOK37, police remove rocket launcher. LaserColor TOK203, leaders pose
for formal portrait.
Shultz Says Message to Khadafy Is, 'You've Had It, Pal'
TOKYO - President Reagan steered the leaders of six other
industrialized democracies into adopting a hard-hitting statement
against terrorism - one that Secretary of State George P. Shultz said
was a message to Libya's Col. Moammar Khadafy that ''you've had it,
pal.'' Slug AM-Summit-Terrorism.
An AP News Analysis by Barry Schweid.
Group Begins Major Modification of Exchange Rate System
TOKYO - Summit partners launch the first major modification in the
international exchange rate system in more than a decade, agreeing to
apply management techniques to keep the world's major currencies in
rough alignment. Slug AM-Reagan-Currency. Developing. About 650.
By AP Economics Writer Tom Raum.
Reagan Sets Deadline for Pullout of U.S. Oilmen from Libya
TOKYO - Amid indications that the number of Americans in Libya is
increasing, the Reagan administration serves notice at the economic
summit that it has set a June 30 deadline for the pullout of American
oil companies operating in Moammar Khadafy's country. Slug AM-Libya
Oil. Developing.
By AP Diplomatic Writer Barry Schweid.
SUPREME COURT: Rules Death Penalty Foes Can Be Barred from Juries
WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court says capital punishment opponents may
be barred from serving as jurors to determine guilt or innocence in
cases in which death is a possible punishment. Slug AM-Scotus Rdp.
Should stand. 800 words.
By Richard Carelli.
INCOME-TAXES:
Personal Income Up 5.3 Percent Last Year
WASHINGTON - Americans' personal income rose 5.3 percent last year,
with residents in New England making the biggest gains while Western
energy states lagged behind the national average, the government
reports. Slug AM-State Incomes. Should stand. 650 words.
By Martin Crutsinger. For release at 6:30 p.m. EDT.
Senate Committee Takes Up Radical New Tax Plan
WASHINGTON - Senate tax-writers begin considering a radical new
tax-overhaul proposal that would significantly chop tax rates for
individuals and business, paying for the change by dropping an array
of popular tax breaks. Slug AM-Tax Overhaul. Developing.
By Tax Writer Jim Luther.
CHERNOBYL DISASTER: Soviets Say It's Too Soon for Assessment
MOSCOW - The head of an international nuclear power watchdog agency
arrives for talks with Soviet officials on the Chernobyl nuclear
accident, and seven world leaders meeting in Tokyo urge the Soviet
Union to provide a full report on the disaster. But a leading Soviet
newspaper says it's too soon to assess the accident fully. Slug
AM-Nuclear Disaster. Developing.
By Andrew Rosenthal.
PHILIPPINES: Aquino Aide Says Reagan Sought Passport for Marcos
MANILA, Philippines - A top government official confirms that
President Reagan asked him to reissue a passport to Ferdinand E.
Marcos, whose lawyer says the deposed ruler would return home if he
received the document. Slug AM-Philippines-Marcos. About 650 words.
By Steve Le Vine. LaserPhoto MLA2, Foreign Minister Laurel meets
with President Aquino.
NASA CRISIS: Agency Pressed To Explain Latest Rocket Blowup
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. - The chief of an investigative board and the
manager of NASA's Delta rocket project meet with reporters as the
space agency comes under pressure for answers to the breakup of its
most reliable launch vehicle. AM-Rocket Blowup. Developing.
By Ike Flores.
AFGHANISTAN: New Leadership Offers Little Hope for Peace
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - The appointment of a tough new Communist
leader in Afghanistan who is determined to smash anti-government
Moslem guerrillas leaves little hope of a quick end to the
eight-year-old war that has shattered the country. Slug
AM-Afghanistan. 750.
An AP News Analsyis by Barry Renfrew.
SAUDI ARMS: Congressional Opponents of Sale Optimistic of Victory
WASHINGTON - Opponents of the Reagan administration's proposal to
sell missiles to Saudi Arabia say they have strong support as the
Congress prepares to take up the controversial issue. The Senate may
consider the sale as early as Tuesday and the House on Wednesday,
with the deadline for action coming Thursday. Slug AM-US-Saudi Arms.
Should stand. 600 words.
By Tim Ahern.
PRIMARIES '86: Ohio, North Carolina, Indiana Vote Tuesday
UNDATED - Ohio, North Carolina and Indiana hold primaries Tuesday,
with former Ohio Gov. James A. Rhodes favored to win the chance for a
record fifth term, while in North Carolina, a Jesse Helms
conservative battles a moderate congressman for the Republican
nomination for Senate. Backers of extremist Lyndon LaRouche are
seeking Democratic Senate nominations in Indiana and Ohio. Slug
AM-Primaries Rdp. New material. 600 words.
By Mike Silverman.
MODERN PIRATES: Many Shipping Routes Are Still Dangerous
MINNEAPOLIS - Pirates still lurk many of the same shipping routes
where the skull and crossbones struck terror in the hearts of
shippers 2,000 years ago, and a change in international law extending
territorial sea limits may be helping them, a State Department
geographer says. Slug AM-Modern-Day Pirates. New, should stand. 550
words.
By Karren Mills.
DOGGONE THIEVES: Missouri Sheriff Says They Went Too Far
HILLSBORO, Mo. - The thieves who have been stealing dogs from
Jefferson County residents for the past several months made a big
mistake when they took Emma and Squeaky. They belonger to Sheriff
Walter ''Buck'' Buerger and now, on the walls of his office,
alongside the usual wanted posters and pictures of missing children
there's another list - one with the names of missing or stolen dogs.
Slug AM-Dog Thefts. New, will stand. 600 words.
By Ed Schafer.
AP-NY-05-05-86 1332EDT
***************
a210 1148 05 May 86
AM-News Advisory,0210
In addition to the stories listed on the AM-News Digest, we are
planning the following for AMs:
NEW YORK - Michael Frayn's ''Benefactors'' and ''The Mystery of
Edwin Drood,'' a musical version of the Charles Dickens novel, are
among top contenders for Tony Award nominations honoring the best of
the 1985-86 Broadway season. AM-Tonys.
DETROIT - Domestic automakers, after dueling all April long with
sales incentives, get to see Monday how import car companies fared as
all U.S. automakers and major importers report monthly car sales.
AM-Auto Sales.
WASHINGTON - Nearly three decades ago, something happened at
Kyshtym, in the Soviet Union, that is a far greater secret than the
nuclear meltdown in Chernobyl. The mystery of Kyshtym has a lingering
halflife. AM-Soviet Nuclear Mystery.
SWAMPSCOTT, Mass. - Some employees of this seaside town believe
Swampscott should take a gamble instead of seeing its tight budget
face a deficit of $450,000 next year. ''We're short money - it's as
simple as that,'' said Carl Reardon, who came up with the idea of
spending $100 in town money on a season ticket for the Massachusetts
Megabucks lottery game. AM-Town's Gamble.
The AP
AP-NY-05-05-86 1443EDT
***************
a213 1212 05 May 86
BC-US-Radioactivity,0254
Small Amounts of Radioactivity From Chernobyl Detected Over Pacific
Northwest
WASHINGTON (AP) - Small amounts of radioactivity from the Chernobyl
nuclear accident have been detected by aircraft off the Pacific
Northwest coast, an interagency task force said Monday, and patches
of it are moving across the continent at high altitudes.
The initial detections were made on samples taken over the weekend,
the special task force monitoring the accident said.
No radioactivity has been detected at ground level yet. ''The most
likely source of early detection near the ground will be in
rainwater, particularly from thunderstorms reaching altitudes of
20,000 to 30,000 feet or more,'' the task force said.
Officials at the task force said they ''continue to believe there
will be no public health risk'' in the United States.
The State Department's advisory against travel to Kiev and adjacent
areas remains in effect, but the task force said people who have
visited affected areas and left them need not automatically get a
medical exam.
The task force statement advised potential travelers to ''carefully
monitor press reports.''
''The situation at the (Chernobyl) plant appears to remain stable
with damage at reactor 4 only,'' the task force said.
The statement said the U.S. government was pleased that the Soviets
had invited a delegation from the International Atomic Energy Agency
and ''hoped that this indicates that the Soviets are now willing to
make available the important information the world community requires
to safeguard international health and safety.''
AP-NY-05-05-86 1513EDT
***************
a222 1341 05 May 86
AM-Nuclear Disaster, Bjt,0689
Acknowledge Nuclear Accident Affected Area Outside Evacuated Zone
By ANDREW ROSENTHAL
Associated Press Writer
MOSCOW (AP) - The government indicated Monday that radiation had
spread beyond the evacuated zone around Chernobyl, and an official
said foreigners would be allowed to visit the stricken nuclear plant
when it is safe to do so.
A government statement also indicated that contamination threatened
a river that feeds a major reservoir near Kiev, the Ukrainian capital
of 2.4 million people 80 miles south of the disaster site.
The head of the International Atomic Energy Agency arrived for talks
with Soviet officials about the April 26 accident.
An invisible cloud of radiation spread over much of Europe after a
reactor caught fire in the Chernobyl plant. The Kremlin's official
reports say two people were killed and 197 injured, but other
governments believe the toll is higher.
No health-threatening radiation levels were reported outside the
Soviet Union on Monday, but precautionary measures remained in effect
in some European countries.
In a four-paragraph statement distributed Monday by the official
news agency Tass, the Council of Ministers said a cleanup was under
way at the Chernobyl plant and radiation was found in both the
Ukrainian and Byelorussian republics.
It was the Soviet's broadest description of the area affected and
the first indication from the Kremlin that radioactivity had spread
beyond the 18-mile evacuation zone.
Earlier reports mentioned only the immediate plant vicinity, which
Moscow Communist Party chief Boris N. Yeltsin described Sunday in
West Germany as a ''danger area'' from which 49,000 residents were
evacuated.
The Chernobyl plant is about six miles from the border of
Byelorussia, which lies north of the Ukraine. The statement did not
specify how much of the two republics' territory was affected by the
accident, but said ''the necessary sanitation, hygienic, treatment
and preventive measures are being carried out.''
''The emission of radioactive substances continues to decrease,''
the statement said, and workers were building up the banks of the
adjacent Pripyat River ''to prevent its possible contamination.''
The plant is near the confluence of the Pripyat and Uzh rivers,
which feed a reservoir that empties into the Dnepr River just north
of Kiev.
''The radiation situation on the territory of the Ukraine and
Byelorussia is stabilizing with a tendency toward its improvement,''
the statement said.
The government report did not give radiation levels or clarify what
was meant by ''stabilizing.''
Yeltsin, a confidant of Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev, said
Monday in Hanover, West Germany, that the Soviet Union ''will allow
foreign experts to inspect the site of the accident as soon as the
radioactivity has decreased to a point where this is possible ...
even though Moscow does not have the obligation to let them do so.''
He said the reactor was not leaking radiation, but ''sediments'' in
the vicinity were causing radioactivity readings of 100 roentgens an
hour. On Sunday, Yeltsin said 150 roentgens an hour were found near
the plant.
West German experts say exposure to 0.2 roentgens a year is normal
while 50 roentgens is the approximate danger point and 400 usually is
fatal.
Yeltsin said Sunday in Hamburg that 154 people remained in
hospitals, 20 to 25 were in serious condition and another 10 to 15
might be added to the serious list. He was attending a weekend
meeting of West Germany's small Communist Party.
Hans Blix of the International Atomic Energy Agency would not say
when he arrived Monday evening whether he planned to visit the
evacuated area around the Chernobyl plant.
Leaders of Japan and six Western industrial nations, including the
United States, issued a statement at their economic summit in Tokyo
saying countries with nuclear power stations are responsible for
''prompt provision of detailed and complete information on nuclear
emergencies and accidents, in particular those with potential
trans-boundary consequences.''
The Soviets have been criticized for not telling neighboring
countries about the accident until high levels of radioactivity were
detected in Scandinavia two days after the disaster, and for not
providing detailed information.
AP-NY-05-05-86 1639EDT
- - - - - -
a246 1632 05 May 86
AM-Nuclear Disaster, 1st Ld, a222,0183
Acknowledge Affects Outside Evacuated Zone, Fire Still Burns
Eds: LEADS with Pravda report. Picks up 3rd graf pvs 'The head...'
By ANDREW ROSENTHAL
Associated Press Writer
MOSCOW (AP) - The government acknowledged Monday that radiation had
spread beyond the evacuated zone at the Chernobyl nuclear plant, and
a Pravda article said the reactor fire continued 10 days after it was
begun by an explosion.
An official said foreign experts would be allowed to inspect the
stricken nuclear plant when it is safe to do so.
A government statement indicated contamination threatened a river
that feeds a major reservoir near Kiev, the Ukrainian capital of 2.4
million people 80 miles south of the disaster site.
Pravda, the Communist Party newspaper, gave the first detailed
report on the April 26 accident - a dramatic account that said an
explosion blew apart the building housing the reactor and an ensuing
fire sent flames nearly 100 feet into the air. It said the reactor
still was burning, but the situation was under control
The head ... 3rd graf pvs
AP-NY-05-05-86 1930EDT
***************
a228 1442 05 May 86
AM-Summit Rdp, Bjt,0709
Summit Partners Talking Tough on Terrorism; Few New Steps Taken
By TOM RAUM
Associated Press Writer
TOKYO (AP) - The United States' major Western allies, denouncing
''blatant and cynical'' government use of terrorism, Monday outlined
several steps giving the Reagan administration the condemnation of
Libya it sought, but without endorsing the U.S. bombing raid or an
oil boycott.
French Foreign Minister Jean-Bernard Raimond, for example, said
France stands by its policy of not allowing U.S. warplanes to fly
over its territory en route to military strikes against Libya, and
neither Italy nor West German, two large importers of Libyan oil,
would go along with a boycott.
Still, Secretary of State George P. Shultz said the statement
adopted at the economic summit sends Libyan leader Moammar Khadafy a
blunt message: ''You've had it pal; you're isolated.''
The leaders of the United States, Britain, Canada, France, Japan,
Italy and West Germany only dabbled in trade, currency and other
financial issues during the second day of the summit as concern about
surging terrorism and nuclear safety continued to dominate
conversation.
The anti-terrorism statement, adopted unanimously by the seven
summit partners, would make it harder for those accused of terrorist
activity - including diplomats - to cross borders.
It also would ban the export of arms to terrorist states, advocate
closing or limiting diplomatic missions of nations that support
terrorism and impose tighter immigration and visa requirements.
The statement expands upon measures adopted earlier by the 12-nation
European Community, sometimes called the Common Market.
Among measures not included in that earlier gesture are improved
extradition procredures for bringing terrorists to trial and denying
entry into a country of anyone even suspected of terrorism, according
to U.S. officials.
And, while the measure does not specifically mention the use of
force, U.S. officials said it doesn't preclude that either.
But by far the most important victory for the Reagan administration
was the inclusion in the draft of a section stating that the
sanctions would apply ''particularly'' to Libya. An earlier draft of
the proposal did not name Khadafy's country.
U.S. sources, declining to be named publicly, said British Prime
Minister Margaret Thatcher led the move to toughen the draft as the
summit partners returned to the Akasaka Palace for talks.
But the Reagan administration did not get all it wanted.
Raimond told a news conference that ''the policy of France has not
changed'' with respect to the overflights, insisting that ''France
has been neither anti-American or pro-Libyan.''
The French government refused to allow U.S. F-111 jet fighters based
in Britain to fly over French territory for the air raid on Libya - a
decision that brought severe criticism from both Reagan and Shultz.
''Obviously Libya is not the only country that spreads terrorism,
but the terrorist acts that have been the most calculated, carried
out with the most inspiration, were carried out by Libya,'' Raimond
said.
But he also said that France and its West European partners were
reluctant to take specific steps against Khadafy's regime. ''It was
the Americans who wanted to take economic sanctions,'' he said. ''The
Europeans were more reticent.''
The seven summit partners also issued a joint statement offering
mild criticism of the Soviet Union for its delay in reporting
information on the recent Chernobyl nuclear accident.
The statement urged tighter reporting procedures for nuclear
emergencies and accidents and expressed symphathy for the Chernobyl
victims while endorsing the continued use of nuclear power ''properly
managed.''
Although non-economic items have tended to capture most of the
attention at this year's economic summit, the leaders did launch the
first major revision in world monetry policy in 13 years.
The new plan, engineered by Treasury Secretary James A. Baker III,
would seek to stabilize exchange rates of the major currencies -
including the U.S. dollar, the Japanese yen, the West German mark and
the British pound - through a system of economic checks and balances.
On the final day of the summit, the Western leaders are expected to
take up proposals for a new round of world trade talks, the question
of agricultural export subsidies and problems of Third World debt.
AP-NY-05-05-86 1740EDT
***************
a229 1454 05 May 86
AM-Soviet Nuclear Mystery,0631
Chernobyl's Predecessor: The Mystery of Kyshtym
By DAVID GOELLER
Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) - Nearly three decades ago, something happened at
Kyshtym, in the Soviet Union, that is a far greater secret than the
nuclear meltdown in Chernobyl. The mystery of Kyshtym has a lingering
halflife.
The Soviet silence about Kyshtym is an enduring one and American
analysts are divided over what happened to cause 30 rural villages to
vanish from Soviet maps and to turn an area some 1,500 miles northest
of Chernobyl into a vast radioactive wasteland in the Ural Mountains.
''I'm not going to comment on speculation,'' said Soviet spokesman
Boris Malakhov, giving his government's standard statement about
events around Kyshtym.
But Soviet exiles and U.S. government studies paint a grim picture
of the Kyshtym region and the nearby Chelyabinsk-40, the Soviet's
first nuclear production facility, which turned out plutonium for
weapons.
They say that by the late 1950s, an area of up to 400 square miles -
about one-third the size of Rhode Island - was poisoned by
radioactivity greater than that produced by the U.S. atomic bombing
of Japan, the Three Mile Island accident and perhaps the
still-unmeasured Chernobyl meltdown.
The names of some 30 Soviet villages simply disappeared from maps,
indicating a resettlement program.
Agriculture became a memory. Lakes were declared off limits for
fishing. Dams were built to contain radioactive waterways. Rivers
were diverted with a series of canals.
Zhores Medvedev, a biologist who fled the Soviet Union in 1973,
maintains that hundreds of people died and tens of thousands more
were affected by the Kyshtym fallout.
A 1977 Central Intelligence Agency report quoted Soviet sources as
saying ''hundreds of people perished'' in late 1957 or early 1958.
Another emigre scientist, Lev Tumerman, wrote about a car trip he
made through the area in the early 1960s:
''A road sign warned drivers not to stop for the next 30 kilometers
and to drive through at maximum speed. On both sides of the road, as
far as one could see, the land was dead: no villages, no towns, only
the chimneys of destroyed houses; no cultivated fields or pastures,
no herds, no people. Nothing.''
Two U.S. research teams - one from the Oak Ridge, Tenn., National
Laboratory and the other from the National Laboratory at Los Alamos,
N.M. - concluded that major devastation had occurred, but they
disagreed on its cause.
The Oak Ridge team, in a 1979 report, agreed with Medvedev's
scenario: liquid and gaseous radioactivity was spread when a chemical
explosion - not a nuclear blast - occurred in a huge underground tank
holding high-level nuclear wastes.
The Los Alamos researchers said in 1982 they thought the radioactive
wasteland was created by a decade or more of sloppy waste handling
and disposal practices at the plant.
It is a clash between two theories: big bang vs. slow leak.
Using classified intelligence materials not available to the Oak
Ridge team, the Los Alamos scientists blamed discharges of polluted
reactor water, above-ground waste storage and chronic and possibly
radioactive ''acid rain'' from the facility.
The Los Alamos report cited classified Soviet references to ''the
leaky reactor at Kyshtym'' and said existence of a ''chronic,
waterborne source of radioactive contamination'' proved the Techa
River valley was poisoned as early as 1954.
The researchers did not rule out that a chemical explosion also
could have spewed radioactive material over the area. They speculated
that the government may have burned the houses there to prevent
people from returning.
The dispute between the two U.S. research teams continues. ''We
disagree completely with their hypothesis and their interpretation,''
says Dr. Stanley Auerbach, one of the Oak Ridge researchers.
AP-NY-05-05-86 1752EDT
***************
a231 1505 05 May 86
AM-US-Soviet Accident,0455
Minor Radiation From Chernobyl Spotted Off Northwest Coast
By GUY DARST
Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) - Some radioactive fallout from the Chernobyl
nuclear disaster passed over the United States and Canada on Monday
and probably fell in rain on the Pacific Coast and in the Midwest,
U.S. officials said.
Although there was no detection of extra radioactivity at ground
level, officials of the inter-agency task force monitoring Chernobyl
developments said they believed those rains were contaminated to some
extent because radioactivity was detected at ''barely above
background'' levels high in the atmosphere off the West Coast over
the weekend.
A plane made one finding about 400 miles off Canada in the Gulf of
Alaska at 18,000 feet on Saturday and another plane found
radioactivity about 150 miles off the California-Washington coast at
30,000 feet during the day Sunday.
Activity in the two samples was quite small, and leads to no change
in the task force's often-repeated statement that it sees no
environmental or health consequences in the United States from the
Chernobyl fallout, officials said.
''It is raining now on the West Coast,'' said Lester Machta, head of
the division of the Air Resources Laboratory of the National Oceanic
and Atmospheric Administration and a member of the task force,
shortly after 3 p.m., EDT. ''It's conceivable that if you've got
sophisticated equipment you could detect something'' (in the rain).
He also noted that there were scattered thunderstorms in the
Midwest, with tops to 45,000 feet. ''My guess is that radioactivity
will be detected there,'' he added.
But Lee M. Thomas, EPA administrator and coordinator of the group,
said it was impossible to predict where radioactivity would fall and
where it would not.
Other radioactivity, carried by slower moving winds at lower
altitudes, can be expected to reach North America as the days go by,
the task force said.
It won't be known just which radioactive isotopes were found until
the samples can be analyzed, the officials said.
Asked if he expected to issue any advisories on avoiding certain
foods, as some European countries have done with milk and some
vegetables, Thomas said, ''We don't anticipate having to do any of
that.''
The Gulf of Alaska sample was 15 picocuries per cubic meter and the
Oregon-Washington sample was 2.5 picocuries. Machta said normal
background at high altitudes off the U.S. Pacific Northwest coast is
probably ''zero or one'' picocurie. Off Norway recently, a reading of
600 picocuries was obtained from the Chernobyl emissions.
A curie is 37 billion radioactive disintegrations per second and a
picocurie is about two disintegrations per minute. EPA permits
drinking water to contain 15 picocuries per liter.
AP-NY-05-05-86 1804EDT
- - - - - -
a233 1516 05 May 86
AM-Digest Advisory,0112
Eds:
All budgets have cleared. Here is a listing:
TOKYO - Summit Rdp, a231
TOKYO - Summit-Terrorism, a220
TOKYO - Reagan-Currency, a221
TOKYO - Libya Oil, a225
WASHINGTON - Tax Overhaul, a227
WASHINGTON - Scotus Rdp, a218
WASHINGTON - State Incomes, a224
MOSCOW - Nuclear Disaster, a222
MANILA, Philippines - Philippines-Marcos, a232
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. - Rocket Blowup, a223
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - Afghanistan, a209.
WASHINGTON - US-Saudi Arms, a219
UNDATED - Primaries Rdp, a215.
MINNEAPOLIS - Modern-Day Pirates, a217
HILLSBORO, Mo. - Dog Thefts, a216
The AP
AP-NY-05-05-86 1815EDT
- - - - - -
a274 1947 05 May 86
AM-Summit Rdp, 2nd Ld, a231,0331
Summit Partners Talking Tough on Terrorism; Few New Steps Taken
Eds: LEADS to UPDATE with subway bombs, economic activities. Picks up
6th graf pvs ''The leaders...'
By TOM RAUM
Associated Press Writer
TOKYO (AP) - The United States' major allies, denouncing blatant
government use of terrorism, gave President Reagan the condemnation
of Libya he sought, but without endorsing the U.S. bombing raid or an
oil boycott.
Early Tuesday, crude smoke bombs - ''designed to disrupt things'' -
exploded in at least 19 rail stations.
With a statement on terrorism in place, the leaders met at Akasaka
Palace to work out a final summit declaration.
''It is economic day here,'' White House spokesman Larry Speakes
said.
The leaders were expected to detail a plan designed to stabilize the
wild fluctuation in the value of the dollar and other currencies.
While U.S. officials hailed summit unity on terrorism, Foreign
Minister Jean-Bernard Raimond said France stood by its policy of not
allowing U.S. warplanes to fly over France en route to military
strikes against Libya.
Neither Italy nor West Germany, two large importers of Libyan oil,
would go along with a U.S.-suggested boycott.
Still, Secretary of State George P. Shultz said the statement
adopted at the economic summit sends Libyan leader Moammar Khadafy a
blunt message: ''You've had it pal; you're isolated.''
As summit leaders gathered for a Tuesday morning session, small
bombs went off simultaneously in at least 19 subway or train
stations.
The timed devices, apparently smoke bombs filled with Chinese
firecrackers, were in little plastic containers, within paper bags,
disguised as disgarded lunch boxes, police said.
Officials said no injuries were reported, and said no one had
claimed responsibility for the explosions. However, local news
reports said police suspect members of an extreme leftist group.
''We believe they were designed to disrupt things in Tokyo,'' said
Speakes.
The leaders ... 6th graf pvs
AP-NY-05-05-86 2245EDT
***************
a236 1547 05 May 86
AM-Pravda-Accident,0563
URGENT
Pravda Tells What Happened at Chernobyl
With AM-Nuclear Disaster, Bjt
MOSCOW (AP) - An explosion ripped apart the building that housed
Chernobyl's No. 4 nuclear reactor and the resulting fire shot flames
nearly 100 feet into the air, the official Communist Party newspaper
said in its Tuesday edition, the Soviet's first detailed report of
the accident.
The Pravda article was distributed in advance in English by the
official Tass news agency, and was the first detailed Soviet report
on what happened at the Ukrainian nuclear power plant April 26.
The accident sent an invisible cloud of radioactivity over most of
Europe.
Pravda said the fire ''is extremely difficult'' to extinguish,
because chemicals and water cannot be used, but insisted the crisis
at the plant was under control.
Pravda said residents of the plant area were evacuated within four
hours after the accident began. It did not say when the accident
occurred, but previous reports have said the fire began April 26.
Tass said the Pravda article was written by correspondents from the
newspaper who visited the plant and its settlement of Pripyat, which
once housed 25,000 energy, construction, chemical industry and river
port workers.
It said Pripyat was empty, and ''only a specialized radiation
monitoring vehicle appears on the streets from time to time.''
Pravda said workers, presumably wearing protective suits, still
manned the three undamaged reactors at the plant, which have been
shut down but must be monitored.
In its dramatic depiction of the accident, Pravda said at the
beginning ''an explosion destroyed structural elements of the
building housing the reactor and a fire broke out.''
Television footage and one black-and-white photograph made public by
the official media have shown the explosion ripped a wall and the
roof off the reactor building, which is separated by a tower from a
''twinned'' reactor in an attached structure.
''After the explosion, the engine room coating took fire,'' Pravda
said. ''The firemen were fighting the blaze at a height of 30 meters
(nearly 100 feet). Their boots stuck in bitumen that melted because
of high temperature. Soot and smoke made it difficult to breathe, but
the brave, bold men kept fighting the blaze courageously.''
Despite the firefighters' efforts, Pravda said, ''radioactivity was
partially discharged upwards and then a fire started inside (the
reactor).''
The article did not say how much radioactivity was released at the
beginning, or later in the accident. Official reports to the Soviet
people have not given radiation figures at the plant or elsewhere in
the affected area.
Moscow Communist Party chief Boris N. Yeltsin, on a trip to West
Germany, reported a level near the plant that Western experts
described as very dangerous.
Talking about the fire, Pravda said: ''It should be noted that it is
extremely difficult to put it out, as it is impossible to use water
or any chemicals to extinguish it.''
Those materials, it said, would evaporate instantly and carry more
radiation into the atmosphere.
The situation at the plant remains ''complicated,'' the paper said.
Some residents of the area panicked, but others managed to restore
order so the evacuation could take place, it said.
Pravda's reprot said those evacuated were taken to safe areas by
volunteer drivers from Kiev, 80 miles south of Chernobyl.
AP-NY-05-05-86 1845EDT
***************
a272 1922 05 May 86
AM-Britain-Nuclear,0196
Radioactive Dust Dusts Scotland
LONDON (AP) - Winds blew a cloud of radioactive dust from the site
of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster toward Scotland Monday, but the
government's radiation monitoring service said there no health risk
so far.
Traces of radiation have been found in milk, and experts are
scanning vegetables with radiation-detecting equipment to see if they
are tainted by the dust from the reactor fire in the Soviet Ukraine.
Radiation traces first drifted over Britain Friday and then headed
out to the North Sea.
''The cloud will be hovering over Europe for a long time to come and
at the moment it appears to be heading for Scotland,'' said Matthew
Gaines, a spokesman for the National Radiological Protection Board.
He said levels of radiation in the ground were two to 10 times
higher than normal but that levels detected in the air were ''pretty
near normal.''
Gaines said the highest levels of radiation, mainly from radioactive
iodine, were detected in Scotland, northern England and northern
Wales.
The board and the Department of the Environment on Monday advised
people in Scotland, northwest England and northern Wales to avoid
drinking fresh rainwater for the next week.
AP-NY-05-05-86 2220EDT
***************
a275 1955 05 May 86
AM-Nuclear Reax,0388
No Radiation on West Coast Ground; Reactions Vary
With AM-US-Soviet Accident
By The Associated Press
West Coast officials said Monday the low levels of radioactivity
from the Soviet nuclear accident that began to pass over the Pacific
Northwest had not been detected on the ground.
In Washington, officials said they would continue daily air sampling
begun after word reached the West on the accident at Chernobyl. In
California, the state health director said air monitoring stations
were being operated around the clock.
Meanwhile, residents showed varying reactions to the announcement
from federal officials that some fallout from Chernobyl passed over
the United States and probably fell in rain on the Pacific Coast and
in the Midwest.
''I assume any amount that comes down won't be more than twice the
background level. It doesn't bother me,'' said Paul Richard, 55, of
Seattle, an unemployed electronics technician who has worked around
several nuclear plants.
''I felt fear, personal fear, when I heard about this,'' said Susan
Mikkelsen of Bellevue, Wash.
Radiation levels remained normal at lower altitudes over Washington
state Gov. Booth Gardner's office reported.
Air monitoring stations at Olympia and Spokane collected rain
samples for forwarding to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency at
Montgomery, Ala., said Jani Gilbert, a spokeswoman for the state
Department of Emergency Management. The sampling had been conducted
weekly until last week.
The Washington governor's office also reported that the U.S. Food
and Drug Administration has asked the state to send milk samples to
Montgomery on Tuesday and Friday.
FDA Acting Director Ray Mlecko said in Seattle that the decision to
step up milk sampling for once a month to twice a week is a
precautionary measure requested by the EPA.
''There's no reason that people should stop drinking milk,'' said
Mlecko.
In California, the state's director of health services said there
was no cause for alarm.
''The bottom line at this point is there have been no increased
levels of radioactivity,'' said Dr. Kenneth W. Kizer. ''We don't
expect anything. People don't need to do anything special.''
Kizer held a news conference on the roof of the state Health
Services Department building in Berkeley, where radioactivity
monitoring equipment is installed. He said the department's
monitoring equipment at 18 sites was being operated around the clock
to detect even the most minute amounts of radioactivity.
AP-NY-05-05-86 2253EDT
***************
a002 2131 05 May 86
PM-News Digest,1064
PMs AP News Digest
Tuesday, May 6, 1986
Here are the top stories for PMs. The General Desk supervisor is Ron
Sirak (212) 621-1604. The Laserphoto Desk supervisor is Mike
Musielski (212) 621-1900.
For repeats of AP copy, the Service Desk can be reached at (212)
621-1595 or 1596.
SUMMIT:
Leaders Revise Monetary Policy Triggering Market Flurry
TOKYO - Leaders of the world's most powerful democracies wind up
their three-day annual summit agreeing to the first major revision in
world monetary policy in 13 years and a new round of world trade
talks, spurring market uncertainty that plunges the dollar to a new
post-World War II low against the Japanese yen. Slug PM-Summit Rdp.
800 words. Developing.
LaserPhoto staffing. By White House Correspondent Michael Putzel
New Attacks Mar Summit, Disrupt Rush-Hour Commuter Service
TOKYO - Smoke bombs packed with firecrackers explode in rail
stations around Tokyo, apparently set by radicals who had threatened
to ''blow up'' the Tokyo summit meeting. Rush-hour commuter service
was disrupted but there were no injuries. Slug PM-Summit-Security.
600 words.
Developing.
NUCLEAR DISASTER:
Plant Still Burns But Is Under Control, Moscow Says
MOSCOW - The Chernobyl nuclear reactor is still burning but the
situation after an explosion more than a week ago that caused flames
10 stories high is now under control, the Communist daily newspaper
Pravda reported today. Slug PM-Nuclear Disaster.
Developing. By Roxinne Ervasti.
Stepped-up Monitoring in U.S. Ordered to Look for Chernobyl Fallout
WASHINGTON - Stepped-up monitoring has been ordered to look for
radioactive rain from the Chernobyl nuclear accident, which has
probably fallen on the United States already, officials say. Slug
PM-US-Soviet Accident. New material, may stand. 600 words.
By Guy Darst
Radiation Emissions Constant From Ground, Buildings, Air
BOSTON - Radiation falls from the sky and rises from the ground.
Granite buildings emit it, and so do the elements in people's own
bodies. Like the wind and the rain, radiation is an inescapable part
of our environment. Slug PM-Radiation. New, will stand. 750 words.
By Science Writer Daniel Q. Haney.
DELTA BLAST: Short Circuit is Possible Cause of Rocket Failure
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. - The preliminary culprit in the failure of a
Delta rocket over the weekend appears to be an electrical short
circuit that shut off the main engine and led to the launch vehicle's
destruction, NASA officials say. Slug PM-Rocket Blowup. New material,
may stand. 700 words.
By Ike Flores.
PRIMARY ELECTIONS: Voting Today In Ohio, North Carolina, Indiana
COLUMBUS, Ohio - James A. Rhodes faces his first hurdle today in a
bid for a historic fifth term as Ohio governor, opposed by two
Republican challengers who believe his place is in the history books
- not the Statehouse. Slug PM-Ohio Primary. 700 words.
Developing. Polls open 6:30 a.m. EDT in Ohio and North Carolina, 7
a.m. in Indiana. By Dale Leach.
MIDEAST: Israelis Focus on Improving Gaza, A Cauldron of Social
Unrest
BEACH CAMP, Occupied Gaza Strip - The Israeli government is pursuing
a plan that would give Palestinians self-rule in the Gaza Strip where
overcrowding and economic hardship have become potentially explosive
social issues. Slug PM-Gaza First. 670 words.
Moved in advance as a077.
An AP Extra by Nicolas B. Tatro.
VITAMINS: FDA Again Considers Regulating ''Super Vitamins''
WASHINGTON - More than 10 years after being battered on the issue,
the Food and Drug Administration is cautiously looking again at the
question of whether ''super vitamins'' should be regulated as drugs.
Slug PM-Vitamin Overdose. New material, will stand. 730 words.
LaserPhoto WX5, FDA nutritionist talks about vitamin overdose. By
William Kronholm
TAXES OVERHAUL: Senate Panel Ready to Consider Major Changes in Bill
WASHINGTON - The Senate Finance Committee, making quick work of a
flurry of minor amendments, is ready to consider some major changes
that could determine whether Congress overhauls the income tax this
year. Slug PM-Tax Overhaul. New material, may stand. 600 words.
By Tax Writer Jim Luther
INCOME: New England Records Fastest Personal Income Growth
WASHINGTON - New England, enjoying a boom in high-tech industry, had
the fastest personal income growth of any region last year, with the
poorest performance coming in states dependent on energy production,
the government reports. Slug PM-State Incomes. New material, will
stand. 540 words.
By Martin Crutsinger
SEEKING PEOPLE: City Folks Respond To Small Town's Ad For Residents
CONDON, Ore. - From Japan to Virginia, city folks responding to this
rural town's advertisements for ''a few good residents'' are filling
the mailboxes at City Hall, the chamber of commerce and the local
newspaper. Slug PM-Seeking People. New, will stand. 750 words.
LaserPhoto PD1, elderly woman crosses Main Street.
HOT AIR: Navy Board OKs Returning Blimps to Active Duty
WASHINGTON - A Navy board has given its blessing to returning the
blimp to active duty, a move that would harness updated versions of a
World War II standby and pit it against the latest in Soviet missile
technology. Slug PM-Navy Blimps. New, should stand. 620 words.
By Military Writer Norman Black
CHINA: Rare Dolphin Threatened by Propellers and Nets
WUHAN, China - One of the world's rarest mammals, China's river
dolphin, is being mutilated by boat propellers churning through the
Yangtze River and trapped by nets meant for sturgeon. Officials fear
the dolphin may be wiped out before protection efforts are fully
implemented. Slug PM-China-River Dolphin. 750. Will stand.
An AP Extra by Ina Chang.
GONE FISHIN': Even The Phones Don't Work In Seymour On Annual Holiday
SEYMOUR, Texas - Don't look for anyone in this west Texas town of
4,000 people on Gone Fishin' Day - that's where they've all gone.
Even the telephones don't work on the annual holiday. Slug PM-Gone
Fishin'. New, will stand. 600 words.
By Mike Cochran.
AP-NY-05-06-86 0029EDT
***************
a010 2237 05 May 86
PM-US-Soviet Accident, Bjt,0872
U.S. Monitors Increase Watch For Radioactive Rain
By GUY DARST
Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) - Government officials have ordered stepped-up
monitoring to watch for radioactive rain from the Chernobyl nuclear
accident, some of which has probably fallen on the United States
already, officials say.
The discovery of radioactivity barely above normal background levels
in the air off the Pacific Northwest coast over the weekend means -
since it was carried by the west-to-east jet stream - that rain in
the Midwest and on the West Coast likely carried at least some
particles to the ground.
But in briefing reporters Monday, officials were careful to note
they had no ground-level measurements of extra radioactivity.
Referring to the Midwest storms, Lester Machta, director of the air
resources laboratory of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration, told reporters, ''My guess is that radioactivity will
be detected there.''
Sophisticated equipment might be needed to detect it in the West
Coast rainfall, he said.
Machta, a member of the interagency task force keeping track of the
aftermath of the Soviet nuclear plant accident, said background
radiation in the atmosphere where instrument-laden planes flew was
probably ''zero or one'' picocurie per cubic meter. But 2.5
picocuries were found at 30,000 feet about 150 miles off the Pacific
Northwest coast and 12 picocuries were found at 18,000 feet in the
Gulf of Alaska about 400 miles off Canada.
A picocurie is about two atomic disintegrations per minute. It
wasn't immediately known just what isotopes were disintegrating or
what doses humans would get at those altitudes, said Machta and
Sheldon Meyers, head of radiation programs at the Environmental
Protection Agency and another member of the task force.
In drinking water, EPA permits 15 picocuries per liter, about a
quart, of alpha-particle radioactivity.
Other radioactivity, carried by slower winds at lower altitudes, can
be expected to reach North America as the days go by, the task force
said.
In Moscow, meanwhile, the Communist Party newspaper Pravda issued
the first detailed Soviet report on what happened at Chernobyl.
The report, due for publication today, said an explosion ripped
apart the building that housed the plant's No. 4 nuclear reactor and
the resulting fire shot flames nearly 100 feet into the air.
The article said the fire is extremely difficult to extinguish,
since chemicals and water cannot be used, but insisted the crisis at
the plant was under control.
Pravda said residents of the plant area were evacuated within four
hours after the accident began. It said said workers, presumably
wearing protective suits, still manned the three undamaged reactors
at the plant, which have been shut down but must be monitored.
In anticipation of finding radioactivity in the United States, the
EPA's Meyers instructed the agency's 68 radioactivity monitoring
stations to take daily samples of rainfall, if it rains, instead of
the monthly samples previously scheduled.
Asked what doses could be expected in rainfall, Lee M. Thomas, EPA
administrator and head of the task force, said that could not be
predicted until measurements turned up radioactivity in the water.
Also, the stations will step up milk sampling from monthly to twice
a week.
Asked if he expected to issue any advisories on avoiding certain
foods, as some European countries have done with milk and some
vegetables, Thomas said, as he has before, ''We don't anticipate
having to do any of that.''
In other developments Monday:
-The disaster could mean loss of 10 percent of the grain crop in the
Soviet Union, about the same as a year of bad weather, said John
Urbanchuk of Wharton Econometrics, a consulting firm, told the Joint
Economic Committee.
The U.S. affiliate of the International Physicians for the
Prevention of Nuclear War called on the Soviet Union to give
''immediate and full information'' on the accident and to convene an
international panel of scientists to evaluate it.
The organization, Physicians for Social Responsibility, also said
the Energy Department should close its reactors without special
confinement structures until they meet civilian standards.
-The Energy Department announced a special outside review of one of
those uncontained reactors, the N reactor at Hanford, Wash. That is
the only large reactor in the country with a design at all similar to
the ill-fated Chernobyl reactor.
The review will proceed along with a special Energy Department study
announced last week.
-The government said hopes a visit to the Soviet Union by a
delegation from the International Atomic Energy Agency indicates the
Soviets are willing to make more information available on the
accident.
-State Department spokesman Charles Redman said U.S. experts believe
there is no reason for significant health concern for official
American personnel in Moscow and Warsaw. He said this was a
preliminary assessment based on the findings of American medical and
technical personnel.
He said there are no indications that Americans traveling in Europe
would face health risks as a result of the Chernobyl incident.
Exceptions are the Kiev area and travel by women of child-bearing age
and children in certain areas of Poland. Travel advisories for both
areas were announced last week.
AP-NY-05-06-86 0135EDT
- - - - - -
a091 0907 06 May 86
PM-US-Soviet Accident, 1st Ld, a010,0469
Eds: Top 13 grafs new with Energy Department accelerating safety
evaluation; Delete grafs: 22-23: The Energy Department xxx last week
as redundant.
By GUY DARST
Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) - The Department of Energy is accelerating a safety
evaluation of five U.S. nuclear reactors that do not have containment
buildings in response to the Chernobyl nuclear disaster, an official
said today.
Undersecretary Joseph Salgado said a review of one of the five, the
graphite moderated N-Reactor in Hanford, Wash., began Monday and will
be finished in a week to 10 days.
Under questioning by members of the House Appropriations
subcommittee on energy and water development, Salgado said he does
not believe it is necessary to close the Hanford facility, the only
one in the United States that uses graphite to slow the nuclear
process in the reactor.
He said the graphite is the only similarity between the Hanford and
Chernobyl reactors, while there are numerous differences between the
two.
''We are extremely confident in our safety features,'' he said. ''I
see no reason based on any evidence that our reactor is unsafe . . .
to shut it down.''
Salgado declined to disclose exactly what the government knows about
the Chernobyl accident, saying he would brief subcommittee members at
a classified session.
He did say, however, that many of the causes and effects of the
accident are still matters of speculation and opinion. ''There is so
much uncertainty and lack of communication from the Soviet Union
itself that it will be a long time before we as a government will be
able to ascertain fact from fiction,'' he said.
Safety reviews of the other DOE reactors, located on the Savannah
River, are expected to start in September and be completed within two
months, Salgado said. Operations and emergency planning are among the
topics to be studied.
The 101 commercial plants licensed by the Nuclear Regulatory
Commission are required to have containments.
Salgado said he saw no need for steel and concrete containment
buildings at the five DOE reactors, which are enclosed in confinement
buildings three to five feet thick.
Asked if it would be too costly, he replied, ''To enclose a
confinement building within a containment building would be
impractical in a financial sense.''
Salgado said the confinement buildings combined with other safety
systems have made the DOE reactor safety record ''outstanding and
excellent.'' He added later, ''We do not think that our facilities
are operating in a less safe manner because we do not have
containments over them.''
In another development, government officials have ordered stepped-up
monitoring to watch for radioactive rain from the Chernobyl nuclear
accident, some of which probably has fallen on the United States
already, officials say.
The discovery: 2nd graf
AP-NY-05-06-86 1202EDT
- - - - - -
a097 0942 06 May 86
PM-US-Soviet Accident, 1st Ld, Sub a091,0124
WASHINGTON Sub graf 3 to CORRECT that two reactors in United States
use graphite. Insert new graf
Under questioning by members of the House Appropriations
subcommittee on energy and water development, Salgado said he does
not believe it is necessary to close the Hanford facility, one of
only two in the United States that uses graphite to slow the nuclear
process in the reactor.
The other is the Fort St. Vrain generating plant near Platteville,
Colo., which is owned by Public Service Co. of Colorado, and uses an
entirely different design.
Salgado said the graphite is the only similarity between the Hanford
and Chernobyl reactors, while there are numerous differences between
the two.
''We are: 5th graf
AP-NY-05-06-86 1240EDT
- - - - - -
a204 1051 06 May 86
PM-US-Soviet Accident, 1st Ld, CORRECTION, a091-97,0053
WASHINGTON Sub graf 10:, The 101 xxx containments to CORRECT
statement that all 101 have containments. There is no containment at
Fort St. Vrain
The 101 commercial plants licensed by the Nuclear Regulatory
Commission are required to have containments, except for Fort St.
Vrain.
Salgado said: 11th graf
AP-NY-05-06-86 1349EDT
***************
a013 2320 05 May 86
PM-Radiation, Bjt,0737
Radiation Is In Air, Ground, Buildings
By DANIEL Q. HANEY
AP Science Writer
BOSTON (AP) - Radiation falls from the sky and rises from the
ground. Granite buildings emit it, as do the elements in human
bodies. Like the wind and the rain, radiation is an inescapable part
of our environment.
On Monday, fallout from the Soviet nuclear power plant disaster was
believed to have hit the West Coast and Midwest during rainfall, said
Lester Machta, head of the division of the Air Resources Laboratory
of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and a member
of an interagency task force dealing with the Chernobyl reactor fire.
He said there was no detection of extra radioactivity at ground
level.
During a typical year, most people receive as much radiation from
natural sources as from things like nuclear reactors and X-rays. Even
extra radiation that fell in West Europe after the Chernobyl disaster
was relatively small.
One common source is cosmic rays from space. The atmosphere protects
people from most cosmic radiation, but exposure increases with
elevation. Residents of mile-high Denver, for example, soak up more
than New Yorkers do.
''I would like to tell people that as they flew back from Europe,
they received more radiation exposure than probably anybody outside
the Kiev area close to the reactor received,'' said Nobel laureate
Rosalyn Yalow of the Bronx Veterans Administration Hospital in New
York City.
Yalow, who won the Nobel Prize in medicine in 1977 for development
of the radioimmunoassay, which uses radioactive isotopes to measure
hormone levels, said people flying at 39,000 feet get one millirem of
radiation an hour - assuming there are no sunspots, which increase
it.
''Airline crews who fly across the ocean on the average receive as
much or more radiation exposure as do nuclear power workers,'' she
said.
Absorbed radiation is measured in units called rem and millirem. A
millirem is one-thousandth of a rem.
Generally, people receive about 100 millirem of radiation a year
from natural sources. U.S. guidelines for employees at muclear power
plants limit radiation exposure to 3,000 millirem per three-month
period.
The sources are divided about equally between cosmic rays, material
in the soil and rocks and radioactive elements like potassium-40 in
the body.
However, the exposure differs from place to place, depending on the
altitude and variations in the natural sources of radiation in the
Earth. For instance, people living on the Atlantic seaboard get about
65 millirem a year from natural sources, while in Denver they receive
about 150.
Another source of radiation is diagnostic X-rays. The average annual
dose from medical X-rays is 77 millirem, while dental X-rays add one
more.
Some radiation is left over from nuclear weapons tests in the
atmosphere in the 1950s. This adds four or five millirem a year.
Power plants and other nuclear operations contribute less than 1
millirem a year for the average American.
Machines like luminous-dial watches, airport X-ray scanners, smoke
detectors, electron microscopes and cardiac pacemakers, and building
materials such as granite and concrete can release tiny amounts of
radioactivity, which add up to about 4 or 5 millirem a year.
Three-quarters of this comes from building materials.
If radiation exposure is high enough, it can cause cancer and
genetic damage. But cancer takes time. Thirty or 40 years may elapse
before a high dose of radiation causes this disease. No one knows
whether ubiquitous low-level radiation does any harm.
''We can't be sure it doesn't have some effect,'' said Dr. Warren K.
Sinclair, president of the National Council on Radiation Protection
and Measurement. ''But we've lived with it for a long time, and it's
certain that we can't see its effects if, indeed, it has any.''
Last year, the American College of Radiology issued a report
estimating that the risk of harm to an average patient from a
diagnostic X-ray is about the same as traveling 300 miles by car,
working for 10 days at a typical blue-collar job or drinking a bottle
of wine.
Because the increased risk - if any exists - is so small, thousands
of people would have to be studied for years to find a statistical
link between low-level radiation and cancer.
For instance, to learn whether breast X-rays do any damage, the
radiology college said scientists would have to follow at least 60
million women from age 35 until death. Such a study would be far too
expensive to undertake.
AP-NY-05-06-86 0218EDT
***************
a025 0110 06 May 86
PM-Nuclear Disaster, Bjt,0730
Pravda Says Non-Nuclear Explosion Caused Chernobyl Accident
By ROXINNE ERVASTI
Associated Press Writer
MOSCOW (AP) - The Communist Party newspaper Pravda today gave
Soviets their first detailed account of the Chernobyl disaster,
saying a non-nuclear explosion 10 days ago blew apart the building
housing a reactor and shot flames nearly 100 feet high.
Pravda said the situation remained ''complicated'' because water and
chemicals were useless in extinguishing the fire, but did not say
specifically whether the reactor fire 80 miles north of Kiev still
was burning.
Western scientists have said the reactors' graphite cores, each
about 20 feet long and totaling about 1,000 tons per reactor, are
like pieces of charcoal that can smolder for a long time.
The reactor fire created a huge, invisible cloud of radioactivity
that has been blown over much of Europe by shifting winds. On Monday,
U.S. officials said some radioactive fallout passed over the United
States and Canada, and probably fell in rain over the Pacific Coast
and Midwest.
The Pravda account was the first detailed report on the accident to
the Soviet public. Some officials traveling abroad have provided
additional information but domestically the government has issued
only brief reports.
It followed a government statement Monday that gave the broadest
description of the affected area and the first indication from the
Kremlin that radioactivity had spread beyond an 18-mile evacuation
zone.
The statement also indicated contamination threatened a river that
feeds a major reservoir north of Kiev, the Ukrainian capital of 2.4
million people.
Pravda said there was a partial discharge of radioactivity in the
accident, but did not report the level or current emission readings.
It did not explain the cause of the explosion, but said it was not a
nuclear one.
''An explosion destroyed structural elements of the building housing
the reactor and a fire broke out,'' it said. ''That happened at
night. After the explosion the engine room coating took fire. The
firemen were fighting the blaze at a height of 30 meters (100
feet).''
''Their boots stuck in bitumen that melted because of high
temperature, soot and smoke made it difficult to breathe, but the
brave, bold men kept fighting the blaze courageously,'' it said.
It did not say whether firemen were among those reported injured in
the disaster.
Boris Yeltsin, the Moscow Communist Party chief, said in West
Germany on Monday that foreign experts will be allowed to inspect the
nuclear plant when it is safe to do so.
No health-threatening radiation levels have been reported outside
the Soviet Union, but precautionary measures remain in effect in some
European countries.
Two U.S. bone marrow specialists, Dr. Robert P. Gale and Dr. Richard
Champline of the University of California at Los Angeles, and a
tissue-typing expert, Dr. Paul Terasaki, are in Moscow to help care
for patients transferred from Chernobyl.
Gale and Tarasaki today declined to discuss their work, saying they
had agreed with the Soviets not to say anything to reporters.
The government says two people were killed and 197 injured in the
accident, but other governments believe the toll is higher. Yeltsin
said Sunday that about 20 of those injured are in serious condition
and up to 20 more could be added to the serious list.
The head of the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency,
Hans Blix, arrived Monday for talks with Soviet officials about the
accident.
In a four-paragraph government statement distributed by the official
news agency Tass, the Council of Ministers said a cleanup was under
way at the plant and radiation was found in both the Ukraine and in
Byelorussia to the north.
Earlier reports mentioned only the immediate plant vicinity, which
Yeltsin described Sunday in West Germany as a ''danger area'' from
which 49,000 residents were evacuated.
The Chernobyl plant is about six miles from the border of
Byelorussia. The government statement did not specify how much of the
two republics' territory was affected by the accident, but said ''the
necessary sanitation, hygienic, treatment and preventive measures are
being carried out.''
''The emission of radioactive substances continues to decrease,''
the statement said.
A report on the evening television news Monday said radiation checks
at farms in the Chernobyl area ''have not registered any excess of
permissible norms'' in food.
AP-NY-05-06-86 0408EDT
- - - - - -
a060 0542 06 May 86
PM-News Advisory,0060
The General Desk supervisor is John Daniszewski (212) 621-1604. The
Laserphoto Desk supervisor is Rich Kareckas (212) 621-1900.
All times EDT
-PM-Nuclear Disaster, a025. Soviets are holding news conference at
this hour in Moscow. Update planned.
-PM-Summit Rdp, a0525. Morning lead expected to update with Thatcher
news conference remarks.
AP-NY-05-06-86 0841EDT
- - - - - -
a063 0600 06 May 86
PM-Nuclear Disaster, Sub, a025,0054
MOSCOW Sub 176th graf: The head xxx the accident with Blix meeting
with Soviet officials.
The head of the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency,
Hans Blix, met today with first deputy foreign minister Anatoly G.
Kovalev to discuss the accident, the officials news agency Tass said.
In a:18th graf
AP-NY-05-06-86 0858EDT
***************
a030 0201 06 May 86
PM-Summit Rdp, Bjt,0653
Summit Ends with Accord on Trade and Monetary Policy
By MICHAEL PUTZEL
AP White House Correspondent
TOKYO (AP) - Leaders of the world's most powerful democracies ended
their three-day summit meeting today, agreeing to hold a new round of
world trade talks and adopting a major revision in world monetary
policy.
As the annual session closed, the dollar plunged to another
post-World War II low against the yen, a disappointment to Japanese
businessmen whose exports become less competitive against a falling
dollar.
In the final communique of their 12th economic summit, the leaders
of the seven industrial democracies failed to resolve a continuing
dispute over European agricultural subsidies but patted themselves on
the back for the recent decline in oil prices while recognizing the
need for long-term stability in the market.
The final day's meeting was marred by the explosion of smoke bombs
packed with firecrackers in subway and train stations around Tokyo.
The incident was interpreted as a harassing tactic by Japanese
radicals intent on embarrassing the largest, most intensive security
force ever assembled to protect a summit.
No one was injured, and no serious damage was reported, but
rush-hour traffic and mass transit were snarled for a time in this
city of 11 million as people returned to work at the end of a
three-day holiday.
The issue of terrorism, which has dominated the summit, was
underscored by a threat from Palestinian radical Abu Abbas, in a
broadcast report, to target America for terrorist attacks.
''Let him try,'' President Reagan declared, responding to reporters'
questions.
The Reagan administration won an important victory in getting its
summit partners to back a September start for a new round of
international trade talks - talks aimed at lowering barriers that
restrict U.S. sales abroad.
Administration officials have seen the new round as crucial in their
efforts to head off building protectionist pressures in Congress. The
new round marks a change from last year's economic summit in Bonn,
when the U.S. effort to launch the trade talks was torpedoed by
France.
This year, continued skepticism toward the new round on the part of
France and an increasingly bitter trade war between the United States
and the European Community nations over agricultural products seemed
as recently as Monday as likely to kill chances of the new round.
However, at the last minute, France and other Western European
nations signalled their approval to the new round, said sources, who
spoke on the condition of anonymity.
In a shift in monetary policy engineered by Treasury Secretary James
A. Baker III, the leaders agreed to try to stabilize currency
exchange rates through a system of economic checks and balances.
While welcoming recent coordination of monetary policy by the
so-called Group of Five finance ministers and central bankers,
Japanese Prime Minister Yasuhiro Nakasone read a statement saying the
leaders agreed ''that additional measures should be taken to ensure
that procedures for effective coordination of international economic
policy are strengthened further.''
The plan, designed to avoid wild fluctuations on currency markets,
would affect the U.S. dollar, the yen, the West German mark, French
franc and the British pound.
Italy and Canada, the two summit partners not now included in the
Group of Five, or ''G-5,'' monetary powers, were granted limited
membership in order to coordinate overall monetary and economic
policies among the seven summit partners.
Each nation would provide the others with a set of economic
forecasts and expectations that would be used as economic
''indicators'' of stable performance. The new Group of Seven is to
meet at least once a year and, when actual performance misses the
mark by a wide margin, will jointly review strategy.
The leaders welcomed the so-called ''Baker Plan'' to help developing
countries deal with their burgeoning debts and called for ''building
on the United States initiative.''
AP-NY-05-06-86 0459EDT
- - - - - -
a031 0204 06 May 86
PM-Digest Advisory,0109
All the budgets have moved. Here is a list with LaserPhoto numbers:
TOKYO - PM-Summit Rdp, a030.
TOKYO - PM-Summit-Security, a024.
MOSCOW - PM-Nuclear Disaster, a025.
WASHINGTON - PM-US-Soviet Accident, a010.
BOSTON - PM-Radiation, a013.
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. - PM-Rocket Blowup, a017.
COLUMBUS, Ohio - PM-Ohio Primary, a018.
WASHINGTON - PM-Vitamin Overdose, a004.
WASHINGTON - PM-Tax Overhaul, a005.
WASHINGTON - PM-State Incomes, a006.
CONDON, Ore. - PM-Seeking People, a023. LaserPhoto PD1.
WASHINGTON - PM-Navy Blimps, a016.
WUHAN, China - PM-China-River Dolphin, a015.
SEYMOUR, Texas - PM-Gone Fishin', a014.
The AP.
AP-NY-05-06-86 0501EDT
- - - - - -
a036 0231 06 May 86
PM-Summit Rdp, Bjt, 1st Add, a030,0261
TOKYO: States initiative.
In calling for a new round of multinational trade talks, the leaders
proposed to expand the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade from
its current emphasis on reducing barriers that limit international
product sales to include the sale of services, protection of
intellectual property rights, such as copyrights, and dismantling
restrictions on foreign investment.
The United States in particular has pressed for wider protection of
copyright materials ranging from books and songs to computer
software.
Although no date was set for the start of the new trade round, the
leaders pledged to work at their September finance ministers' meeting
to begin preparations for the talks.
On the touchy agricultural issue that divides the summit partners,
the communique expressed concern about global agricultural surpluses
that it blamed in part on ''long-standing policies of domestic
subsidy and protection of agriculture in all our countries.''
''This harms the economies of certain developing countries and is
likely to aggravate the risk of wider protectionist measures,'' the
summit concluded. ''This is a problem which we all share and can be
dealt with only in cooperation with each other.''
However, while acknowledging that ''action is needed to redirect
policies,'' the leaders did not prescribe what that action should be.
Observing that famine in Africa has been alleviated, the leaders
observed that ''a number of African countries continue to need
emergency aid, and we stand ready to assist.''
''Assistance should focus in particular on the medium- and long-term
economic development of these countries,'' the document said.
AP-NY-05-06-86 0529EDT
- - - - - -
a045 0350 06 May 86
PM-Digest Briefs,1069
Eds: This package does not contain the following items from the News
Digest:
TOKYO-Summit Rdp, a030; BOSTON-Radiation, a013; BEACH CAMP-Occupied
Gaza Strip-Gaza First, a077; CONDON-Seeking People, a023;
WUHAN-China-River Dolphin, a015; SEYMOUR-Gone Fishin', a014.
---
By The Associated Press
TOKYO (AP) - A string of noisy smoke bombs, possibly set by radicals
trying to disrupt the Tokyo summit, exploded in nearly a score of
railroad and subway stations today. No injuries were reported but
some 350,000 commuters were delayed getting to work.
A police spokesman said the crude bombs were ''possibly the work of
radicals'' who have vowed to ''crush'' the 12th annual gathering of
seven industrial democracies on grounds it was an imperialist scheme
to start world war.
At least 17 of the devices exploded, including one planted near a
subway kiosk five minutes' walk from the Akasaka Palace, the main
summit meeting place, and another outside a hotel serving as
headquarters for all of the delegations except the Americans.
---
MOSCOW (AP) - The Communist Party newspaper Pravda today gave
Soviets their first detailed account of the Chernobyl disaster,
saying a non-nuclear explosion 10 days ago blew apart the building
housing a reactor and shot flames nearly 100 feet high.
Pravda said the situation remained ''complicated'' because water and
chemicals were useless in extinguishing the fire, but did not say
specifically whether the reactor fire 80 miles north of Kiev still
was burning.
Western scientists have said the reactors' graphite cores, each
about 20 feet long and totaling about 1,000 tons per reactor, are
like pieces of charcoal that can smolder for a long time.
---
WASHINGTON (AP) - Government officials have ordered stepped-up
monitoring to watch for radioactive rain from the Chernobyl nuclear
accident, some of which has probably fallen on the United States
already, officials say.
The discovery of radioactivity ''barely above'' normal background
levels in the air off the Pacific Northwest coast over the weekend
means - since it was carried by the west-to-east jet stream - that
rain in the Midwest and on the West Coast likely carried at least
some particles to the ground.
But in briefing reporters Monday, officials were careful to note
they had no ground-level measurements of extra radioactivity.
---
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) - Three scheduled launchings powered by
Delta rockets have been scrubbed until NASA has corrected whatever
caused a Delta engine to fail, leading to the destruction of an
unmanned spacecraft.
Saturday's Delta failure appears to have been an electrical short
circuit that shut off the main engine, investigators for the National
Aeronautics and Space Administration said Monday.
The origin of two ''large-amplitude spikes,'' or power surges, into
the main engine battery system is unknown. Officials said they were
not ruling out sabotage although it was unlikely.
---
COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) - James A. Rhodes faces his first hurdle today
in a bid for a historic fifth term as governor, opposed by two
Republican challengers who believe his place is in the history books,
not the Statehouse.
If Rhodes wins the primary and ousts Democratic Gov. Richard Celeste
in November, he will be 77 when he takes the oath of office in
January, the oldest person to do so in Ohio history. But Rhodes
dismisses the age issue and, asked why he is running again, gives a
sense that politics is almost an addiction.
Primaries are also being held in Indiana and North Carolina.
---
WASHINGTON (AP) - More than 10 years after being battered on the
issue, the Food and Drug Administration is cautiously looking again
at the question of whether ''super vitamins'' should be regulated as
drugs.
An FDA official said Monday the agency is encouraging doctors to
record their patients' vitamin use and to report overdoses and side
effects on the forms they use to report dangerous reactions to drugs.
''We're looking for clear documentation of toxicity associated with
vitamin and mineral use to help us with the regulatory process,''
said Dr. Allan Forbes, the FDA's nutrition and food sciences
director. ''We urge physicians across the United States to join with
us in this important effort.''
---
WASHINGTON (AP) - The Senate Finance Committee, making quick work of
a flurry of minor amendments, is ready to consider some major changes
that could determine whether Congress overhauls the income tax this
year.
''I find the committee enthused about the bill,'' Chairman Bob
Packwood, R-Ore., told reporters at the end of a long session Monday
night. He declined to say whether he has the necessary 11 votes to
get the bill through the committee, although success seemed clearly
within reach.
Packwood also refused to set a deadline for completing committee
action on the issue, an important one for President Reagan. But he
was aiming for a final vote today or Wednesday.
---
WASHINGTON (AP) - New England, enjoying a boom in high-tech
industry, had the fastest personal income growth of any region last
year, with the poorest performance coming in states dependent on
energy production, the government reports.
Nationwide, Americans' personal income climbed 5.3 percent to an
average of $13,451 for every person in the country last year, the
Commerce Department said Monday.
The increase was substantially below the giant 9.3 percent rise
enjoyed in 1984 and reflected the fact that the economy performed
much more sluggishly last year. Still, the advance kept incomes
growing faster than the inflation rate, which was 3.8 percent in
1985.
---
WASHINGTON (AP) - A Navy board has given its blessing to returning
the blimp to active duty, a move that would harness updated versions
of a World War II standby and pit it against the latest in Soviet
missile technology, Navy sources say.
The Chief of Naval Operations' executive board has recommended to
Navy Secretary John F. Lehman that he seek funds to begin building a
new fleet of airships in fiscal 1988, said Navy officials who asked
not to be named.
The board, during a meeting a week ago, concluded a newly designed,
modern blimp could serve as a useful and relatively cheap ''radar
platform'' that could travel with surface ships and warn them against
low-flying cruise missiles, the sources said.
AP-NY-05-06-86 0649EDT
- - - - - -
a071 0628 06 May 86
PM-Summit Rdp, Sub a030-36,0052
EDs: Sub 6th graf: The issue xxx attacks to Correct spelling to
'Abul' sted 'Abu';
The issue of terrorism, which has dominated the summit, was
underscored by a threat from Palestinian radical Abul Abbas, in a
broadcast report, to target America for terrorist attacks.
''Let him: 7th graf
AP-NY-05-06-86 0926EDT
- - - - - -
a082 0730 06 May 86
PM-Summit Rdp, 1st, a030,0071
Summit Ends with Accord on Trade and Monetary Policy
EDs: New lead to highlight farm subsidy dispute
By MICHAEL PUTZEL
AP White House Correspondent
TOKYO (AP) - Leaders of the world's most powerful democracies ended
a three-day ''smooth summit'' today, calling for a new round of trade
talks, adopting a major revision in monetary policy and dodging the
touchy subject of agricultural subsidies.
As the: 2nd graf
AP-NY-05-06-86 1028EDT
- - - - - -
a083 0739 06 May 86
PM-Summit Rdp, 1st Ld, Sub, a082,0124
TOKYO Sub 6th graf: The final day's xxx summit to update with quote
One of the most notable and unresolved disputes involved farm
subsidies. The Reagan administration has been cutting subsidies at
home and would like to see a commitment from European nations to do
the same. The Europeans are cool to the proposal and the leaders
agreed only to study the issue.
The ''smooth summit'' was marred somewhat by the audacity of
Japanese saboteurs. Smoke bombs packed with firecrackers exploded in
subway and train stations around Tokyo. The incident was interpreted
as a harassing tactic by Japanese radicals intent on embarrassing the
largest, most intensive security force ever assembled to protect a
summit.
No one: 7th graf
AP-NY-05-06-86 1036EDT
***************
a033 0214 06 May 86
BC-Quotes,0116
Current Quotations
By The Associated Press
''Let him try.'' - President Reagan on threat by terrorist Abu Abbas
to target the United States for more terrorist attacks.
---
''Their boots stuck in bitumen that melted because of high
temperature; soot and smoke made it difficult to breathe, but the
brave, bold men kept fighting the blaze courageously.'' - The Soviet
newspaper Pravda, in its first detailed account of the Chernobyl
nuclear plant fire.
---
''It definitely was a project that united the grandparents and their
grandchildren of this city.'' - Kid Leo, music director of a
Cleveland radio station, on the naming of his city as the site for
the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
AP-NY-05-06-86 0511EDT
***************
a040 0308 06 May 86
PM-Nuclear-Reax,0583
No Radiation on West Coast Ground; Reactions Vary
With PM-Radiation Bjt
By The Associated Press
People reacting fearfully to reports that radioactivity from the
Soviet nuclear accident had drifted over the Pacific Northwest were
urged not to panic by officials who said the radiation remained high
in the atmosphere.
Federal and state officials said Monday that the radiation from the
Chernobyl reactor in the Uraine, found by aircraft, could be carried
to earth by rain but had not been detected on the ground and posed no
threat to health.
''I felt fear, personal fear, when I heard about this,'' said Susan
Mikkelsen of Bellevue, Wash.
''It sounds OK to me,'' said Russ Johnson of Seattle.
In California, there were reports of people buying bottled water and
gas masks, as well as iodine tablets to protect themselves from
radioactive iodine, said Dr. Kenneth W. Kizer, director of the state
Department of Health Services. ''There is no reason to go out and do
any of these things,'' Kizer told a news conference in Berkeley.
''Please, people, stop going out and panicking.
''The bottom line at this point is there have been no increased
levels of radioactivity. We don't expect anything.''
A special U.S. interagency task force monitoring the accident said
small amounts of radioactivity had been detected by aircraft off the
Northwest coast, and that radioactive patches were moving across
North America at high altitudes.
''The most likely sources of early detection near the ground will be
in rainwater, particularly from thunderstorms reaching altitudes of
20,000 to 30,000 feet or more,'' a task force statement said.
Officials said they continued to believe there would be no risk to
health.
Radiation levels remained normal at lower altitudes in Washington on
Monday, Gov. Booth Gardner's office reported.
In Oregon, results were not in from samples of air and water taken
around the state Monday, said state Health Division spokesman Art
Keil.
''I assume any amount that comes down won't be more than twice the
background level. It doesn't bother me,'' said Paul Richard, 55, of
Seattle, an unemployed electronics technician who has worked around
several nuclear plants.
''I figure it's no worse than when they used to test nuclear bombs
above ground, and it hasn't killed me yet,'' said Carol Spafford, a
waitress at a downtown Seattle restaurant.
''You'd be crazy not to be concerned,'' said Martin Rossman of
Huntington Beach, Calif. Reminded that the radioactivity was expected
to be low level, he said, ''I don't think you can necessarily take
the government's word for it.''
Ms. Mikkelson said, ''I let my daughter off at school this morning,
and she walked through the rain to her class. Was there radiation in
this rain? Should I go get her (after school) to have her avoid
running in track this afternoon?''
Monitoring stations at Olympia and Spokane collected rain samples
for forwarding to a U.S. Environmental Protection Agency laboratory
at Montgomery, Ala., said state Department of Emergency Management
spokeswoman Jani Gilbert. The Washington governor's office also
reported that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has asked the
state to send milk samples to Montgomery on Tuesday and Friday.
Kizer, who held his news conference on the roof of a Health Services
Department where equipment for monitoring radioactivity is installed,
said detection devices at 18 locations are operating around the clock
to pick up even the most minute amounts of radioactivity.
AP-NY-05-06-86 0607EDT
***************
a050 0420 06 May 86
PM-Marrow Doctors,0419
Specialist Operates on Soviet Nuclear Victims
With PM-Nuclear Disaster Bjt
By ROGER GILLOTT
Associated Press Writer
LOS ANGELES (AP) - Three more bone-marrow transplant specialists and
thousands of pounds of medical supplies and equipment have been flown
to Moscow to assist in treating victims of the Soviet nuclear plant
disaster.
Occidental Petroleum Corp., whose chairman, Armand Hammer, helped
arrange the assistance, said the three specialists will meet with Dr.
Robert Gale, the UCLA physician who has begun operating on the
Chernobyl victims.
''Dr. Gale is receiving full cooperation from the Soviet doctors and
the Ministry of Health,'' Hammer said Monday, adding that he has been
in touch with Gale by telephone daily since Gale left last week.
Gale and the other bone-marrow specialists are expected to play an
important role in saving radiation victims. Heavy doses of radiation
destroys bone marrow, reducing the bodies disease-fighting system and
production of healthy blood, ultimately causing death.
Bone marrow transplants were developed primarily to help victims
with such diseases as leukemia.
The decision by the Soviet government to admit Gale, head of the
International Bone Marrow Registry, was that country's first major
acceptance of outside help in coping with the radiation leak from its
Chernobyl nuclear power plant. It has steadfastly refused offers of
help from foreign governments including the United States.
The cost of Gale's mission is being underwritten by Occidental,
although the Los Angeles-based oil company said Moscow plans to repay
it.
Occidental gave no indication of the number of radiation victims,
and spokesman Frank Ashley said he couldn't elaborate.
Gale began operating on Soviet patients over the weekend, the
company said.
The 40-year-old Gale is an associate professor of medicine at the
University of California at Los Angeles. The international registry
he heads has close ties to 128 bone marrow transplant centers around
the world and through them has access to lists of up to 100,000
potential donors.
Occidental said two of Gale's colleagues from UCLA have joined him
in Moscow, Dr. Paul Terasaki, a tissue-typing expert, and Dr. Richard
Champline, a longtime associate at UCLA's bone marrow transplant
laboratory.
The other medical specialist, who is en route to Moscow, is Dr. Yair
Reisner of Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York.
Occidental said medical equipment manufacturers and suppliers from
around the world have loaned or donated equipment to the mission.
Doctors must find genetically compatible bone-marrow donors before
they can perform transplants.
AP-NY-05-06-86 0718EDT
***************
a056 0515 06 May 86
PM-Reagan-Summit,0965
Reagan Heading Home With Most of What He Sought in Summit
An AP News Analysis
By TOM RAUM
AP Economics Writer
TOKYO (AP) - President Reagan is heading home from the seven-nation
Tokyo economic summit with most of what he came for, and with a lot
more than he took away from last year's summit in Bonn.
But then the world economic climate is far improved from a year ago,
with the collapse in oil prices, lower interest rates and almost
negligible inflation in most of the summit nations. ''It was a smooth
summit,'' asserted Treasury Secretary James A. Baker III.
Reagan's biggest trophy among non-economic issues was the statement
singling out Libya for condemnation for acts of international
terrorism.
He didn't get all he wanted on this - for instance, there was no
mention of support for the April 15 U.S. air strike on Libya or for
the a U.S. proposal for a boycott of Libyan oil.
It was France, after all, that prohibited U.S. warplanes from flying
over on their way to Tripoli. And the United States itself tripped
over U.S. oil companies remaining in Libya as it sought to persuade
other nations to stop the flow of Libyan oil.
But administration officials said that the fact that the summit
could agree on any statement mentioning Libya by name - and listing a
set of proposed sanctions against terrorists and the nations which
harbor them - was a major achievement.
Reagan also got the statement on the Chernobyl nuclear accident he
wanted, although it was mild in its criticism of the Soviet Union for
its delay of reporting by contrast to Reagan's own rhetoric. The
statement generally called for beefed up safety and inspection
procedures and expressed sympathy for victims of the accident while
endorsing continued support for nuclear power.
A top item on the administration's economic agenda was winning
support for a new round of international trade talks, a round
administration officials have contended is crucial in banking
protectionist fires in Congress.
And, in general terms, the administration got support for such a
round - if not for beginning them in September as the administration
had also sought.
The final joint communique issued on Tuesday said summit leaders
were ''fully committed'' to preparatory talks for such a round and
called for and ''early launching'' of the talks themselves.
Last year, France vetoed U.S. efforts calling for planning for a new
round of the talks, under the auspices of the General Agreement on
Tariffs and Trade (GATT), the basic set of rules that govern trade
throughout most of the non-communist world.
U.S. officials said that getting the summit partners to call for a
new round of talks this time was a breakthrough - even though the
failure to win a commitment for a September start for the talks
seemed likely to generate some criticism among administration critics
back on Capitol Hill.
In addition to spelling out what constitutes fair and unfair trading
practices, the GATT oversees a court-like forum in Geneva that
adjudicates complaints by one nation against another.
Currently, GATT rules apply mainly to manufactured products. The
United States at the Tokyo summit prevailed upon its allies to expand
GATT jurisdiction in the next round of trade talks to include banking
and other services, foreign investments and so-called ''intellectual
property rights.''
This category includes patents, trademarks and copyrights. U.S.
officials said the summit agreement could lead to an international
code against pirating of books, records and tapes, computer programs,
movies, and a host of other items.
However, the administration failed to get its summit partners to go
along with its propsal to also add agricultural products to the
agenda for the next trade round.
France and the European Community generally oppose such inclusion -
at a time of growing friction between Western Europe and the United
States over agricultural subsidies which favor homegrown products.
Still, summit partners in their final statement noted that
agricultural subsidies can ''aggravate the risk of wider
protectionist pressures.'' They vowed to work closely on resolving
the problem, if not in the GATT talks then in some other forum.
Of the whole trade package, Baker said: ''I don't know if it's
enough to blunt the protectionist mood up there (on Capitol Hill).
But it's a lot more than we had before we came to the summit.,''
The Tokyo summit also repeated earlier summit denunciations of
protectionism while saying that industrialized nations should take
advantage of the breathing space offered by the drop in oil prices to
build up their own economies - relatively uncontroverisal positions
favored by all summit members.
Perhaps the administration's biggest victory in the economic arena
was the full support it won for its plan for a new monitoring system
designed to prevent wild fluctuations in monetary exchange rates.
The plan, the first overhaul in the international monetary system in
13 years, is designed to prevent the kind of up-and-down movement of
the dollar against other major currencies that has aggravated the
U.S. trade deficit.
Reagan had given a high priority in his State of the Union address
last February to a search for improvements in the exchange-rate
system. A senior administration official, who spoke only on the
condition of anonymity, said the monetary plan endorsed by summit
leaders should fill this bill.
Under the plan, the seven summit nations would meet frequently to
fine tune exchange rates, through buying and selling currencies when
necessary. The group of nations will use economic indicators like
inflation rates and trade figures to guide them.
---
Editor's Note: Tom Raum is The Associated Press' chief economics
writer based in Washington.
AP-NY-05-06-86 0813EDT
***************
a065 0607 06 May 86
PM-Nuclear Disaster, Insert, a02524,0106
MOSCOW Insert 2 grafs after 4th graf with Soviets holding news
conference
In Moscow, a news conference got under way today with Deputy Premier
Boris Shcherbina, head of the government commission investigating the
accident.
The news conference was opened by Deputy Foreign Minister Anatoly
Kovalev, who made a long statement defending the Soviet handling of
the disaster and saying that it pointed up the importance of halting
the nuclear arms race.
Soviet officials traveling abroad have provided some information on
the accident, but the Pravda account was the first detailed report to
the Soviet public.
It followed: 6th graf
AP-NY-05-06-86 0906EDT
***************
a067 0613 06 May 86
PM-Soviet Conference,0168
URGENT
Chernobyl Disaster Underestimated At First, Soviet Official Says
MOSCOW (AP) - Soviet officials at first underestimated the scope of
the Chernobyl nuclear accident, a top Kremlin official said today. He
said 100 people were initially contaminated by radiation, and that
the accident likely was caused by a chemical explosion.
Boris N. Shcherbina, a deputy prime minister and head of the
government inquiry into the nuclear power plant catastrophe in the
Ukraine, spoke to reporters at a news conference.
The initial chemical explosion occurred at 1:23 a.m. April 26, as
the plant was going into a planned shutdown, Shcherbina said.
Earlier, Soviet statements said two people died and 197 were injured
in the accident.
First Deputy Health Minister Yevgeny I. Vorobyev told reporters
today a total of 204 people were hospitalized for radiation
poisoning, and that 18 were in serious condition.
He said one of the two workers killed had burns over 80 percent of
his body, and the second died after being hit by a falling object.
AP-NY-05-06-86 0911EDT
- - - - - -
a068 0616 06 May 86
PM-Soviet Conference, 1st add, a067,0110
URGENT
MOSCOW: falling object
Shcherbina and Vorobyev read opening statements at the news
conference before answering questions.
Shcherbina said the scope of the accident was underestimated at
first but that a government commission named to investigate arrived
''within hours.'' He said authorities had not yet concluded what
happened.
''We need some time, some careful calculations. There is too high a
price to be mistaken here,'' Shcherbina said.
But he said that ''the most probable cause was the reactor
experienced a chemical explosion.''
He said in the Ukraine and neighboring republics of Byelorussia and
Moldavia, radiation has not surpassed Soviet Health Ministry norms.
AP-NY-05-06-86 0914EDT
- - - - - -
a073 0639 06 May 86
PM-Soviet Conference, Sub, a067-68,0063
URGENT
MOSCOW SUB 3rd graf to say evacuation began more than 12 hours after
explosion.
The initial chemical explosion occurred at 1:23 a.m. April 26, as
the plant was going into a planned shutdown, Shcherbina said. An
evacuation of the nearby residents did not begin until more than 12
hours later, he said.
Earlier Soviet: 4th graf
AP-NY-05-06-86 0937EDT
- - - - - -
a074 0643 06 May 86
PM-Soviet Conference, 2nd add, a067-68,0142
URGENT
MOSCOW: Ministry norms
In response to questions, Shcherbina said the evacuation of Pripyat,
a town of 25,000 people adjoining the Chernobyl power plant, began at
2 p.m. April 26. The evacuation was completed two hours and 20
minutes later, he said.
Initially, some municipal workers were kept in the city to keep it
running, Shcherbina said. When radiation levels reached their highest
point on April 27, he said, those workers also were evacuated.
Shcherbina said 150 workers were taking part in the effort to deal
with the disaster at the plant. Some 4,000 tons of sand have been
used, he said.
Candidate Politburo member Boris N. Yeltsin has said in interviews
in West Germany that sacks of sand, lead, and boron were being
dropped from helicopters on the crippled reactor to reduce
radioactive emissions.
AP-NY-05-06-86 0941EDT
- - - - - -
a076 0654 06 May 86
PM-Soviet Conference, CORRECTION, a067,68,730,0064
URGENT
MOSCOW Sub 3rd graf to CORRECTs that evacuation occurred 36 hours
after accident sted 12
The initial chemical explosion occurred at 1:23 a.m. April 26, as
the plant was going into a planned shutdown, Shcherbina said. An
evacuation of the nearby residents did not begin until more than 36
hours later, he said.
Earlier Soviet: 4trh graf
AP-NY-05-06-86 0950EDT
- - - - - -
a077 0704 06 May 86
PM-Soviet Conference, Sub, a067,68,73,740,0092
URGENT
MOSCOWSub grafs 12 and 13: In response xxx were evacuated to CORRECT
timing of evacution began.
In response to questions, Shcherbina said the evacuation of Pripyat,
a town of 25,000 people adjoining the Chernobyl power plant, began at
2 p.m. April 27. The evacuation was completed two hours and 20
minutes later, he said.
Initially, some municipal workers were kept in the city to keep it
running, Shcherbina said. When radiation levels increased, he said,
those workers also were evacuated.
Shcherbina said: 14th graf
AP-NY-05-06-86 0954EDT
- - - - - -
a078 0718 06 May 86
PM-Nuclear Disaster, 1st Ld - Writethru, a0525,0804
URGENT
Soviets Delayed Evacuation For 36 Hours After Nuclear Plant Accident
Eds: Updates to incorporate material from news conference, as
reported in a067
By ROXINNE ERVASTI
Associated Press Writer
MOSCOW (AP) - Soviet authorities initially underestimated the
Chernobyl nuclear disaster, and failed to evacuate nearby residents
for more than 36 hours, a top Kremlin official said today. He said
the accident likely was triggered by a chemical explosion.
The blast occurred at 1:23 a.m. on April 26 as the plant was going
into a scheduled shutdown, said Deputy Prime Minister Boris N.
Shcherbina, a deputy prime minister who is heading the government
inquiry into the accident.
Shcherbina said the evacuation of Pripyat, a town of 25,000 near the
plant, did not get under way until 2 p.m. April 27, more than 36
hours after the accident. The evacuation was completed two hours and
20 minutes later, he said. Earlier, Soviet officials said four
communities - some 49,000 people - were evacuated.
About 100 people were initially contaminated with radiation,
Shcherbina told a news conference in Moscow.
A total of 204 people were hospitalized with radiation poisoning, 18
of them in serious condition, said First Deputy Health Minister
Yevgeny I. Vorobyev.
Echoing earlier Soviet statements, Vorobyev said two people were
killed in the accident. One worker died after being burned over 80
percent of his body and another died after being hit by a falling
object, the deputy health minister said.
Some municipal workers stayed in Pripyat after the accident to keep
the city running, but when radiation levels increased, those workers
also were evacuated, Shcherbina said.
He said the scope of the accident was underestimated at first, but
that the government named an investigative commission ''within
hours.''
Shcherbina said the panel had not reached a final conclusion on what
had happened at Chernobyl.
''We need some time, some careful calculations. There is too high a
price to be mistaken here,'' he said, adding, ''the most probable
cause was the reactor experienced a chemical explosion.''
The reactor is some 80 miles north of the Ukrainian capital of Kiev,
a city of 2.4 million people. Shcherbina said radiation in the
Ukraine and the neighboring republics of Byelorussia and Moldavia did
not exceed Soviet Health Ministry norms.
In a statement Monday, the government indicated for the first time
that radioactivity had spread beyond the 18-mile evacuation zone. The
government also indicated radiation threatened a river that feeds a
major reservoir north of Kiev.
The Communist Party newspaper Pravda said today that an explosion
blew apart the building housing an atomic reactor and flames shot
nearly 100 feet high.
Pravda said the situation remained ''complicated'' because water and
chemicals were useless in extinguishing the fire, but did not say
whether the fire was still burning.
Western scientists have said reactor graphite cores, each about 20
feet long and weighing about 1,000 tons, are like pieces of charcoal
that can smolder for a long time.
The reactor fire created a cloud of radioactivity that has been
blown over much of Europe by shifting winds and has reached the
western United States, Canada and Japan.
No dangerous radiation levels have been reported outside the Soviet
Union, but precautionary measures remain in effect in some European
countries.
The head of the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency,
Hans Blix, met today with first deputy foreign minister Anatoly G.
Kovalev to discuss the accident, the officials news agency Tass said.
Pravda did not discuss how much radioactivity was released in the
accident or give current emission readings.
''An explosion destroyed structural elements of the building housing
the reactor and a fire broke out,'' Pravda said. ''That happened at
night. After the explosion the engine room coating took fire. The
firemen were fighting the blaze at a height of 30 meters (100
feet).''
''Their boots stuck in bitumen that melted because of high
temperature, soot and smoke made it difficult to breathe, but the
brave, bold men kept fighting the blaze courageously,'' it said.
It did not say whether firefighters were among those injured in the
disaster.
The youth newspaper Komsomolskaya Pravda said today that all
evacuees were taken to Kiev. Boris Yeltsin, the Moscow Communist
Party chief, has said about 49,000 people had been evacuated from
around the plant.
In a four-paragraph government statement distributed by Tass, the
Council of Ministers said a cleanup was under way at the plant.
The statement also said workers were building up the banks of the
adjacent Pripyat River ''to prevent its possible contamination.'' The
plant is near the confluence of the Pripyat and Uzh rivers, which
feed a reservoir that empties into the Dnepr River just north of
Kiev.
AP-NY-05-06-86 1016EDT
- - - - - -
a092 0913 06 May 86
PM-Nuclear Disaster, 2nd Ld, a078,0342
URGENT
Soviets Delayed Evacuation For 36 Hours After Nuclear Plant Accident
Eds: Leads with 9 grafs to reflect that Shcherbina said local
authorities mishandled the accident, add that questions taken only
from reporters for communist papers, other details
By ROXINNE ERVASTI
Associated Press Writer
MOSCOW (AP) - Authorities at the Chernobyl nuclear plant initially
underestimated the danger from a fiery explosion, a Kremlin official
said today, and failed to evacuate nearby residents for more than 36
hours.
He said the accident, which spewed radiation into the atmosphere,
likely was triggered by a chemical explosion.
The blast occurred at 1:23 a.m. on April 26 as the power plant was
going into a scheduled shutdown, said Deputy Prime Minister Boris N.
Shcherbina, who is heading the government inquiry into the accident.
Shcherbina said the evacuation of Pripyat, a town of 25,000 near the
Ukrainian plant, did not begin until 2 p.m. April 27, more than 36
hours after the explosion. The evacuation was completed two hours and
20 minutes later, he said. Earlier, Soviet officials said four
communities - some 49,000 people - were evacuated.
About 100 people were initially contaminated with radiation,
Shcherbina told a news conference in Moscow.
A total of 204 people were hospitalized for radiation poisoning, 18
of them in serious condition, said First Deputy Health Minister
Yevgeny I. Vorobyev.
Echoing earlier Soviet statements, Vorobyev said two people were
killed in the accident. One worker died after being burned over 80
percent of his body and another died after being hit by a falling
object, the deputy health minister said.
Some municipal workers stayed in Pripyat after the accident to keep
the city running, but when radiation levels increased, those workers
also were evacuated, Shcherbina said.
He said an investigative government commission was formed and some
of its members arrived near the plant within hours of the accident.
They found that ''those on the spot did not give necessary evaluation
to what took place.''
Shcherbina said: 9th graf
AP-NY-05-06-86 1212EDT
***************
a201 1036 06 May 86
AM-News Digest,1079
AMs AP News Digest
For Wednesday AMs
Here are the top stories at this hour from The Associated Press. The
General Desk supervisor is Marty Sutphin (212-621-1602). The
Laserphoto Desk supervisor is Jerry Mosey (212-621-1900).
'SMOOTH SUMMIT':
Democratic Partners Voice Pleasure with Achievements
TOKYO - Leaders of the world's industrial democracies conclude a
three-day ''smooth summit,'' voicing satisfaction that they dealt
head-on with terrorism and nuclear safety while tackling most
economic problems they came to confront. Summit partners pledged to
work together to coordinate monetary policy and take steps toward a
new round of trade talks. Slug AM-Summit Rdp. New material. About
1,200.
By Tom Raum.
LaserPhotos TOK41, Reagan and Shultz search for something dropped on
floor; TOK39, combo heads of leaders' expressions at meeting table;
TOK26, Nancy Reagan sips tea; TOK37, Reagan and Shultz listen to
communique being read; TOK14, Mrs. Reagan receives wreath from
schoolchild; TOK13, police guard Akasaka palace; TOK28, Reagan with
French leaders Mitterrand and Chirac; TOK20, wide view of final
summit session; TOK18, view of police roadblocks in Tokyo; TOK19,
French leaders Mitterrand and Chirac confer; TOK15, Reagan greets
Japanese Prime Minister Nakasone at morning session; TOK9, police
remove subway smoke bomb and TOK12, Mrs. Reagan sings with Japanese
children.
Reagan Administration Wins Some Point, Loses Others
TOKYO - President Reagan emerges from a terrorism-shadowed summit
with gains in his trade and monetary policies and a general
declaration of unity against terrorism. But the administration also
suffered some setbacks. Slug AM-Reagan Scorecard. 600.
An AP News Analysis by AP Diplomatic Writer Barry Schweid.
Meeting Long on Pledges of Economic Good Will, Short on Action
TOKYO - The three-day economic summit was long on pledges of
economic good will but short on action that could resolve
farm-subsidy fights and other trade problems. Slug AM-Summit-Farm
Trade. New. About 600.
An AP News Analysis by Robert Burns.
Host Nakasone Gets High Marks from Other World Leaders
TOKYO - Japan's Prime Minister Yasuhiro Nakasone got high marks from
other world leaders for guiding the Tokyo summit to a smooth
conclusion. But Nakasone's handling of the seven-nation conference
does not necessarily bode well for his political future. Slug
AM-Summit-Nakasone. About 750. An AP News Analysis.
By Jim Abrams.
NUCLEAR DISASTER:
Soviets Say Accident Was Underestimated, Evacution Slow
MOSCOW - Soviet officials say workers at the Chernobyl nuclear plant
underestimated the disaster and that authorities failed to evacuate
nearby residents for more than 36 hours. The officials also brush off
Western complaints about limited information and slow reporting on
the accident. Slug AM-Nuclear Disaster. Developing.
By Andrew Rosenthal. LaserPhoto MOS16, Soviet news conference.
U.S. Makes Special Check of Reactors without Containment
WASHINGTON - The Department of Energy is accelerating a safety
evaluation of five U.S. nuclear reactors that do not have containment
buildings in response to the Chernobyl nuclear disaster, an official
tells Congress. Slug AM-US-Soviet Accident Rdp. Developing.
By Jill Lawrence.
TERRORISM: West Berlin Police Arrest Two in Disco Bombing
BERLIN - West Berlin police say they have arrested two
Jordanian-born men on suspicion of taking part in the La Belle
discotheque bombing that sparked last month's U.S. raids on Libya.
Slug AM-Disco-Arrests. About 600.
By Nesha Starcevic. LaserPhoto BER3, headshots of suspects.
PRIMARIES '86: Spotlight on North Carolina, Ohio and Indiana
UNDATED - North Carolina Republicans choose between a moderate and
an archconservative as their nominee for the Senate, while Democrats
pick from a field of 10 candidates headed by former Gov. Terry
Sanford. Another ex-governor, James A. Rhodes, is on the comeback
trail in Ohio. Slug AM-Primary Rdp. Developing.
By Mike Silverman.
TAXES: Votes Set on Key Provisions of New Overhaul Plan
WASHINGTON - Senate tax-writers look toward make-or-break votes on a
tax-overhaul plan that would slash the 50 percent top individual tax
rate to 27 percent. Slug AM-Tax Overhaul. Developing.
By Tax Writer Jim Luther.
EARNINGS: Wife Earns More in One-Fifth of Two-Income Families
WASHINGTON - In families where both spouses work, nearly one wife in
five earns more than her husband, the Census Bureau reports. The
situation occurs most often in the 25-to-34 age group, where about
one-third of working wives bring home more than their spouses, the
report found. Slug AM-Wife's Earnings. Should stand. 700 words.
By Randolph E. Schmid. For release at 6:30 p.m. EDT.
SENATE-MEDIA: Power, Not Looks, Attracts Reporters, Study Finds
WASHINGTON - Reporters who cover the Senate are far more attracted
by power than by glamor says the author of a study of which senators
appeared most often in the news. Slug AM-Senate-Coverage. Should
stand. 500 words.
By Donald M. Rothberg.
FOURTH NETWORK: 20th Century Fox Unveils TV Plans
LOS ANGELES - 20th Century-Fox announces its long-awaited plans to
form television's ''fourth network,'' including announcement of a
''major star'' to challenge late-night heavyweight Johnny Carson.
Slug AM-Fourth Network. Developing.
By Television Writer Jerry Buck.
COSMIC MASS: Astronomers Discover Huge Mystery Object
NEW YORK - Astronomers have found evidence of a mysterious object
that appears to be the most massive known in the universe, but so far
they can only guess what it is. Slug AM-Massive Object. 600 words.
By Science Writer Malcolm Ritter.
ROAD HOGS: Despite Cheap Gas, Americans Say No to Big Cars
DETROIT - Gasoline prices have fallen dramatically this year, so
Americans are rushing to buy traditional large cars, right? Wrong,
say the latest car sales figures, and the reasons are many. Slug
AM-Motown Monsters. New, about 500 words. Will stand.
By Auto Writer Edward Miller.
HOW WE WALK: Women Go Farther, Faster; Kids Pick Complex Routes
MINNEAPOLIS - Women walk farther and faster than men during the
course of a day, a Duluth geographer said Tuesday in presenting the
findings of his study to the Association of American Geographers.
Also, schoolchildren choose more complex routes than adults,
presumably to explore their surroundings, according to the study.
Slug AM-Women Walk. About 550 words.
By Tony Kennedy.
AP-NY-05-06-86 1334EDT
***************
a211 1157 06 May 86
AM-Summit Rdp, Bjt,0961
Summit Concludes on High Note; Leaders Say They're Pleased
By TOM RAUM
Associated Press Writer
TOKYO (AP) - Leaders of the industrialized democracies ended a
''smooth summit'' Tuesday, voicing satisfaction that they confronted
terrorism while moving toward new trade talks and a revamped world
monetary policy - two principal goals of the economic conference.
Although the United States, Britain, Canada, France, Japan, Italy
and West Germany failed to come to grips with the divisive and
volatile issue of farm export subsidies, they did agree to a host of
other initiatives, including coordinated efforts to improve nuclear
safety in the wake of the Chernobyl reactor accident in the Soviet
Union.
But for world leaders newly committed to fighting terrorism, the
summit closed on the same raucous note that marred its opening:
Japanese radicals seeking to sabotage the proceedings descended on
subway and train stations with smoke bombs packed with firecrackers,
crippling rush-hour traffic, but claiming no casualties, in a city
turning weary under a welter of unprecedented security restrictions.
And for President Reagan, there came a threat from Palestinian
radical Abul Abbas, in a broadcast report, to target America for
terrorist attacks.
''Let him try,'' Reagan declared, responding to reporters'
questions.
The president's top aides declared that the Reagan administration
had come away from the summit with much of what it had sought,
including a statement of unity against terrorism, which singled out
Moammar Khadafy's Libya ''in particular.''
Britain's Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher declared ''mission
accomplished.'' U.S. Treasury Secretary James A. Baker said, ''It was
a smooth summit.'' West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl proclaimed:
''We were able to achieve good results.'' And Italian Prime Minister
Bettino Craxi said he came away from the summit gathering with ''with
full satisfaction.''
The final summit gathering was a state banquet given by Emperor
Hirohito at the Imperial Palace. For many of the leaders, it was
their first opportunity to meet his eldest son and eventual
successor, Crown Prince Akihito.
In saying the summit was a success for Reagan, the president's top
aides cited acceptance of Baker's plan to try to stabilize currency
exchange rates through a system of economic checks and balances and
an agreement by the other summit partners to back preliminary talks
in September aimed at lowering barriers that restrict U.S. sales
abroad.
Reagan was to return to Washington on Wednesday, with only a
refueling stop in Anchorage, Alaska, concluding the more than
22,000-mile, 13-day Far Eastern tour, the longest out-of-town trip in
his more than five-year presidency.
Officials revealed that as a follow-up to the talks here, Reagan
will send several of his top aides across Asia to report to other
governments on his economic talks here. Secretary of State George P.
Shultz, for instance, will fly to Seoul to see President Chun
Doo-hwan of South Korea and go from there to Manila for further
discussions with President Corazon Aquino.
But on the question of how specifically to cope with terrorism,
Reagan acknowledged that the three-day summit did not bring all he'd
hoped for.
Following a meeting between summit sessions with French President
Francois Mitterrand, a Socialist, and Jacques Chirac, the new
Gaullist French premier, Reagan was asked about France's refusal to
permit U.S. warplanes to fly over French territory en route to the
April 15 bombardment of Libya.
After suggesting it was a ''tactless question,'' Reagan went on to
say, ''In every happy marriage there are disagreements.''
Said Mitterrand: ''France's friendly relations with the United
States for 200 years have never ceased.''
Still, lingering differences among the summit nations over
counterterrorist strategy surfaced on the conference's final day.
While the summit leaders earlier had approved a tough anti-terrorist
statement singling out Libya as a state which sponsors terrorism,
Japanese Prime Minister Yasuhiro Nakasone emphasized there was no
mention of sanctions.
''This (summit) statement is intended to defend us from terrorism
and does not mean we would adopt economic and other sanctions,'' he
said.
Craxi said the leaders agreed there would be consultations among
allies before any new U.S. air strikes against Libya. Mrs. Thatcher
said she felt the measures adopted ''will be a considerable deterrent
to state-sponsored terrorism.''
If Reagan came away with less than he wanted, so, too did Italy's
Craxi and Canada's Prime Minister Brian Mulroney. Both had come here
seeking admission of their countries to the Group of Five finance
ministers and central bankers, the five countries being the United
States, Britain, France, West Germany and Japan.
But the best Canada and Italy could get was acceptance of limited
membership in the monetary group, so that overall monetary and
economic policies among the seven summit partners can be better
coordinated.
Early in the three-day meeting, Craxi reportedly threatened to pull
out of summit economic talks if Italy and Canada were not allowed to
join the Group of Five, a supersecret group comprised of the finance
ministers who make decisions that influence global monetary policy.
But the summit partners reached a compromise that gives the two
nations partial membership, including the right to take part in
important discussions, particularly when the talks would directly
affect their countries' currencies.
One of the most notable and unresolved disputes involved farm
subsidies. The Reagan administration has been cutting subsidies at
home and would like to see a commitment from European nations to do
the same. The Europeans are cool to the proposal and the leaders
agreed only to study the issue.
But the United States did persuade summit partners to back
preliminary talks in September aimed at a new round of international
trade talks - talks aimed at lowering barriers that restrict U.S.
sales abroad.
AP-NY-05-06-86 1455EDT
- - - - - -
a277 2055 06 May 86
AM-Summit, SUB, a211,0064
Eds: Subs for 10th graf pvs, ''Reagan was to...'' to UPDATE with him
en route home.
Reagan left Tokyo Wednesday morning with only a refueling stop in
Anchorage, Alaska, planned between there and Washington, concluding
the more than 22,000-mile, 13-day Far Eastern tour. It was the
longest out-of-town trip in his more than five-year presidency.
Officials revealed, 11th graf...
AP-NY-05-06-86 2354EDT
***************
a212 1206 06 May 86
AM-Fat Man,0560
Fat Man Loses One Fridge; 360 Pounds To Go
LaserPhoto NY29
By JERRY SCHWARTZ
Associated Press Writer
NEW YORK (AP) - In just nine months, Ron High has lost 300 pounds -
the equivalent of one William ''Refrigerator'' Perry - but he says he
can't see the difference, or even his toes. He still weighs 550
pounds.
''I'm going to make it, I know I'm going to make it,'' said the
32-year-old, 5-foot-10-inch Brooklyn man, at a news conference
Tuesday called by comedian Dick Gregory, High's mentor in fat
fighting.
Since December, High has lived at Gregory's International Health
Institute in the Bahamas, constantly monitored as he eats fruits and
vegetables, swills down Gregory's diet potion, walks, swims and
attends classes.
High remains an enormous man - the kind of man, according to
Gregory, who attracts stares from children who ask, ''Oh Mama, isn't
that a nice truck. How come it doesn't have wheels on it?''
But in September, when he first contacted Gregory, High was even
High-er. On a scale of fat, fatter and fattest, High broke the scale.
Doctors told him that he would not see his next birthday unless he
lost weight.
As long as he could remember, High - a worker in a job-training
program - had been about 100 pounds overweight. The serious pigging
out, however, started when his marriage failed after two months.
Diets didn't help. ''I've tried numerous diets. Grapefruit diets,
other diets . . . my own doughnuts-and-soda diet. That one doesn't
work,'' he said.
Gregory, who has long been interested in nutrition, had marketed his
Slim-Safe Bahamian Diet - a mixture of vitamins, minerals, protein,
and flower pollen. When he opened his Bahamian institute, High was
the first patient.
Gregory said the first problem was building a bed for High. Welders
were called in; ''it looked like they were building a battleship,''
Gregory said.
High was not allowed a television, for fear of being diverted by
commercials for food. When he pleaded that he needed to watch the
news to keep tabs on fallout from the Chernobyl nuclear power plant
disaster, Gregory told him he need only worry when Bahamians ''put
their food in their microwaves to cool it off.''
High's waistline has shrunk from 86 inches to 68 inches. Where
before he would pant after a few steps, he now walks a mile and a
half in the morning.
The diet has not been too difficult, he said, and it was made easier
by letters of support from people who had read about his plight. A
Brooklyn public school class wrote him letters, and he even received
marriage proposals in the mail.
He was promised a 24-hour trip home when he lost 300 pounds. High
still needed two seats on the airplane, but when his mother saw him,
she cried.
''To me, he really looked thin,'' she said.
High said he really couldn't trust his mother's perception - ''She
wouldn't tell me, 'Yo, fella, you're getting too big' when I was
850'' - and he said he will only be fully satisfied when he reaches
190.
But he did show just how far he'd come. He touched his toes five
times.
''I can't see them yet, but I know they're there,'' he said.
AP-NY-05-06-86 1504EDT
***************
a219 1259 06 May 86
PM-US-Soviet Accident,0338
URGENT
Eds: UPDATES with ground-level radioactivity picked up
By GUY DARST
Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) - The United States has picked up its first
ground-level radioactivity from the Chernobyl nuclear accicent, the
special interagency task force monitoring accident developments said
today.
A rainwater sample collected at 4:30 p.m. PDT Monday at Richland,
Wash., measured 500 picocuries per liter of iodine-131, according to
a report from Pacific Northwest Laboratories, the task force said in
a statement.
The actual level could be anywhere between 250 to 1,000 picocuries
per liter because of uncertainty in the measurement, the task force
said.
''This level poses no danger to residents in the area,'' the
statement said. ''The radiation dose to an individual drinking one
liter of rainwater (about a quart) at this level would be less than 1
percent of the average annual background radiation dose and is
comparable to less than half the radiation dose received from a
single chest X-ray.''
The dose would be even lower from simple physical contact with the
rainwater.
Iodine-131 has a half-life of 8.1 days - which means that every 8.1
days the radioactivity it gives off has been reduced by 50 percent.
All other groundwater radiation measurements in the United States
and Canada showed no increase over normal background radiation, the
task force said.
Government officials have ordered stepped-up monitoring to watch for
radioactive rain from the Chernobyl nuclear accident.
Radioactivity levels ''barely above'' normal background levels were
discovered in the air off the Pacific Northwest coast over the
weekend. Officials said since it was carried by the west-to-east jet
stream, that meant rain in the Midwest and on the West Coast likely
would carry at least some particles to the ground.
In another development, the Department of Energy is accelerating a
safety evaluation of five U.S. nuclear reactors that do not have
containment buildings in response to the Chernobyl nuclear disaster,
an official said today.
Undersecretary, 2nd graf
AP-NY-05-06-86 1557EDT
- - - - - -
a224 1340 06 May 86
PM-US-Soviet Accident, Advisory,0022
Eds: Please note that a219, should have been slugged 2nd Ld, to
a091.
The AP
AP-NY-05-06-86 1639EDT
***************
a226 1407 06 May 86
AM-Nucler Disaster, Bjt,0911
Officials Reveal More Details of Accident
LaserPhoto MOS16
By ANDREW ROSENTHAL
Associated Press Writer
MOSCOW (AP) - A chemical explosion probably caused the Chernobyl
nuclear disaster, and evacuation was delayed 36 hours because the
plant staff did not realize the seriousness of the accident, Soviet
officials said Tuesday.
They brushed off Western complaints about slow reporting of limited
information on the April 26 accident at the Ukrainian plant, which
spewed an invisible cloud of radiation over Europe.
None of the officials said whether the fire was extinguished in the
graphite reactor core. A report in the Communist Party daily Pravda
earlier Tuesday suggested it was still burning or smoldering.
The six men, including the top nuclear energy official and the head
of a government investigation, spoke at the first official news
conference on the disaster.
Little new information was offered at the session, which was
carefully controlled, beyond the probable cause and the revelation
about delayed evacuation.
They answered a half-dozen written questions, giving conflicting
data on radiation emitted at the plant. The only four oral queries
accepted were from Soviet reporters and journalists from other
communist countries.
The cloud of radioactivity still hung over Europe on Tuesday and
radiation was detected in the western United States, Canada and
Japan. China said its monitors had found nothing abnormal.
None of the radiation was described as life-threatening, but many
precautions still are in effect. Greece and several other governments
continue warning their people against consuming fresh milk or leafy
vegetables.
In Bonn, West German Interior Ministry sources said Soviet officials
had asked to buy or rent remote-controlled earth-moving machines for
use in cleanup work at the Chernobyl plant 80 miles north of Kiev, a
city of 2.4 million people that is capital of the Ukraine.
One official at the Moscow news conference insisted the
International Atomic Energy Agency was told of the accident three
days before the agency said it got the report.
Soviet authorities publicly acknowledged the accident two days after
it happened, following reports of abnormally high radiation levels in
Scandinavia.
According to figures given at the news conference, 204 people were
hospitalized, a slight increase from previous official reports of
197. The government said last week that two people were killed and 49
of those hospitalized had been discharged.
Of the initial casualties, 100 were flown to Moscow from the
accident site, the officials said Tuesday. One worker died after
being burned over 80 percent of his body and another died after being
hit by a falling object, they said.
Anatoly G. Kovalev, first deputy foreign minister, and Deputy
Premier Boris Y. Shcherbina, chief of the government investigation,
read opening statements that consumed about half the 70 minutes
allowed for the news conference.
The first deputy health minister, Yevgeny I. Vorobyev, read from a
prepared text in answering one of the four questions accepted from
the audience.
Shcherbina said the accident began at 1:23 a.m. on April 26, the
first official mention of a precise time. He said a government
commission was named immediately and its members began arriving at
Chernobyl ''within a few hours.''
They found that ''those on the spot did not give the necessary
evaluation to what took place,'' he said.
Authorities have not determined the accident's cause, he said, but a
chemical explosion was ''most probable.''
The deputy premier attributed the disaster to ''the coincidence of
several highly improbable and therefore unforeseen failures.''
Shcherbina confirmed the reactor vessel was breached and radiation
sent into the atmosphere. He said evacuation began at 2 p.m. on April
27.
A government official has said about 49,000 people were evacuated,
including the 25,000 in the plant town of Pripyat.
The Pravda report said the accident began with an explosion and
fire, and that the reactor core also caught fire.
It said the situation remained ''complicated'' because water and
chemicals were useless in extinguishing the fire, but did not say
specifically whether it was out.
Andranik M. Petrosyants, head of the state Atomic Energy Committee,
told the journalists ''the fire was put out within an hour and a
half'' but did not say which fire he meant.
The officials gave few details of the attempt to control emissions.
Petrosyants said a shield that included 4,000 tons of sand was thrown
over the reactor.
Petrosyants said radiation in neighboring countries increased
''about five times'' because of the accident.
Readings of hundreds of times normal were reported for brief periods
in some countries as the radioactivity spread over Europe.
James Dagleish, spokesman for the International Atomic Energy
Agency, said the U.N. organization was told of the accident by
telephone April 29 and got a written report the next day.
Petrosyants said that ''is not true, to put it mildly. We sent a
cable literally immediately after we learned of the accident to the
general director, Hans Blix, and he was grateful for our timely
notification.''
Blix was in Moscow on Tuesday, but the desk at his hotel said he had
asked not to be disturbed.
Shcherbina accused Western media of ignoring Soviet reports, which
Kovalev claimed were issued quickly and included ''the real facts.''
Four official statements have been released, all but one of them
very brief, and the first came April 28, two days after the accident.
AP-NY-05-06-86 1705EDT
***************
a229 1429 06 May 86
AM-Nuclear-Italy,0190
Angry Farmers Throw Artichokes Over Highway in Protest
With AM-Nuclear Disaster Bjt
FOGGIA, Italy (AP) - More than 300 farmers protesting the government
ban on the sale of leafy vegetables hurled thousands of cases of
artichokes onto highways, blocking traffic outside this southern
Italian city for nearly three hours, police reported.
The Health Ministry Friday banned the sale of leafy vegetables for
15 days for fear of possible radiation contamination following the
Chernobyl nuclear accident in the Soviet Union.
Police said about 300 artichoke producers and farmhands blocked two
roads leading to Foggia before marching to the city hall for a
meeting with Mayor Arcangelo Sannicandro.
In Rome, the National Consumers' Union demanded that the decree be
revoked. The group claimed the level of radioactivity in the banned
products does not pose any health hazard.
The Health Ministry decree said pregnant women and children under 10
should not drink fresh milk. It also barred a variety of products
from northern and eastern Europe.
Shipments of 150 Polish oxen and 650 Hungarian sheep were stopped at
the Yugoslav border Tuesday, customs officials said.
AP-NY-05-06-86 1727EDT
***************
a235 1529 06 May 86
AM-US-Soviet Accident Rdp, Bjt,0921
Northwest Gets Radiation From Chernobyl, Officials Say Levels Safe
By JILL LAWRENCE
Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) - The first radiation from the Soviet nuclear
accident has rained down on the Pacific Northwest, but in
concentrations that U.S. officials insisted Tuesday are too small to
constitute a health threat.
While members of an interagency task force were reporting on
radiation from the Chernobyl accident, other government officials
were telling Congress that all U. S. reactors - including
plutonium-producing facilities that don't have thick
steel-and-concrete containment builidings - are safe.
The task force said a government contractor in Richland, Wash., had
found 500 picocuries per liter of radioactive iodine-131 in rain
water Monday afternoon and that an Environmental Protection Agency
lab in Portland, Ore., reported a concentration of 630 picocuries at
about the same time.
Although the samples were taken Monday, the rest results were not
available until Tuesday.
''This level poses no danger to residents in the area,'' the task
force said. ''The radiation dose to an individual drinking one liter
of rainwater (about a quart) at this level would be less than 1
percent of the average annual background radiation dose and is
comparable to less than half the radiation dose received from a
single chest X-ray.''
Lee M. Thomas, EPA administrator and task force head, told
reporters, ''We are way, way below anything that would trigger any
kind of action.''
EPA's overall drinking water standard permits only 3 picocuries per
liter on grounds this would translate to an annual dosage of 4
millirems per year for anyone drinking two liters of water - nearly
half a gallon - every day for a year.
Short-term, however, much higher concentrations are permitted. For
example, Food and Drug Administration guidelines permit 15,000
picocuries per liter of milk in fallout episodes that occur no more
frequently than once a year.
Even though officials of the Energy Department and Nuclear
Regulatory Commission insisted that U.S. reactors were safe, they
stopped short of ruling out the possibility of a Chernobyl-type
disaster in the United States.
Asked point-blank at a House hearing whether such a thing could
happen here, acting assistant energy secretary James Vaughan replied
that U.S. and Soviet reactors are designed differently.
''Obviously we will continue to evaluate whatever information comes
forth,'' he added.
Harold Denton, director of reactor regulation at the Nuclear
Regulatory Commission, was asked whether U.S. reactors are safe.
''I don't feel our reactors are unsafe. But we have so little
information about the causes of this accident,'' he said. ''I'd like
the opportunity to re-examine that question when the facts are in.''
Undersecretary of Energy Joseph Salgado said he could not disclose
exactly what the government knows about the Chernobyl accident,
adding he would brief subcommittee members at a classified session.
Salgado did say, however, that many of the causes and effects of the
accident remained matters of speculation and opinion.
Denton said the United States already had learned one lesson: Its
water-cooled reactors ''have the capability to recover from very
severe accidents,'' unlike those in the Soviet Union.
At Three Mile Island, near Harrisburg, Pa., Denton said the core
partially melted in 1979 when coolant was cut off - but operators
were able to get water flowing back over the core and eventually to
vent radioactive gases into the atmosphere.
Under questioning by the House Appropriations subcommittee on energy
and water development, NRC and Energy Department officials said there
are 245 reactors operating worldwide. They said the United States has
good cooperation and knowledge of plants in ''free world'' countries,
but not elsewhere.
Much of the hearing centered on worst-case scenarios at plants in
the United States. The NRC has estimated there is a 45 percent chance
of a meltdown or partial meltdown at a U.S. commercial plant in the
next 20 years. Commissioner Lando Zech said there is only a 0.5
percent chance that radiation from such an accident would escape.
Commissioner James Asselstine said Chernobyl should provoke
regulators to ask whether they are really satisfied with a 45 percent
chance of a meltdown.
''We ought to be doing some more to drive down that risk - even more
than we're doing now,'' he said.
In other developments Tuesday
-The Food and Drug Administration said its inspectors started Monday
to test samples of food imported from eastern and northern Europe to
determine whether any carry radiation from Chernobyl. No results are
yet available.
The inspectors, stationed at U.S. ports of entry, are taking samples
of foods from the Soviet Union, Austria, Czechoslovakia, Denmark,
East Germany, Finland, Hungary, Norway, Poland, Sweden and West
Germany.
Foods subject to the tests are fresh fruits, vegetables and dairy
products and fresh or frozen fish.
-A House subcommittee staff said the Department of Energy has shut
out federal, state and local authorities in planning for emergencies
at the nuclear facilities it operates for weapons production.
''Our key finding is that DOE has taken action to establish
exclusive domain over offsite emergency preparedness for DOE-DOD
(Department of Defense) nuclear facilities,'' said the 6 memo to Rep.
Edward Markey, chairman of the House subcommittee on energy
conservation and power.
The memo said the department's motives were ''essentially
political'' and that it was unclear whether national security
concerns would justify treating public health and safety around the
defense facilities differently from around commercial plants.
AP-NY-05-06-86 1827EDT
***************
a239 1549 06 May 86
AM-Reagan Scorecard, Bjt,0616
Reagan Wins Some, Loses Some, At Tokyo Summit
An AP News Analysis
By BARRY SCHWEID
AP Diplomatic Writer
TOKYO (AP) - President Reagan emerged from the seven-nation economic
summit with some gains in his trade and monetary policies and a
declaration of unity against state-sponsored terrorism.
The satisfaction of Reagan's two principal aides here, Secretary of
State George P. Shultz and Treasury Secretary James A. Baker III,
reflected their conclusions that Reagan achieved several things here.
''I can't tell you how pleased I am,'' Shultz said Monday after
Reagan, with an assist from Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher,
persuaded the industrial allies to condemn Libya and approve a
six-point program to contain and punish terrorists.
Among the measures the allies agreed to consider when they return
home were banning the export of weapons to countries that support
terrorism and improving extradition procedures to bring accused
terrorists to trial. Shultz claimed other countries would take the
cue and isolate Khadafy.
On the other hand, Reagan did not get all he wanted.
There was no commitment from Italian Prime Minister Bettino Craxi or
West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl to stop buying Libyan oil. And
Reagan's summit partners steered clear of anything resembling an
endorsement of military retaliation along the lines of the U.S. air
bombardment of Libya on April 15.
France held firm on its resistance to any use of its airspace by
U.S. warplanes en route to Libya, and Craxi maintained he'd received
assurances that America's allies would be notified in advance of any
such military reprisal in the future.
On nuclear safety policy, Reagan got the other leaders to agree to a
joint statment urging the Soviet Union to release more information
about the reactor accidents in the Ukraine. But the statement
referred only vaguely to improving international safety standards,
and its language was significantly more restrained than the words
Reagan used to condemn the accident.
On the economic front, Baker was a bit more restrained, but just as
pleased. ''Overall,'' he said, ''it is our view that this was a very
successful economic summit.''
The main reasons: A commitment to use interest rates and trade
balances to help the major currency powers to adjust exchange rates
and a decision to hold a multinational meeting in September to pave
the way for a new round of international trade talks.
But the administration officials had gone to Tokyo hoping that
September would mark the actual start-up of trade talks, rather than
preliminary planning sessions for them.
Winning a point long urged by U.S. manufacturers, however, the
administration did coax the other leaders that the talks should
include finding ways to protect trademarks, copyrights and patents,
all areas of American strength.
But Reagan and his aides evidently did not nudge France and other
protectionist countries to lower their barriers to American
agricultural products. Reagan made a personal pitch to President
Francois Mitterrand and Premier Jacques Chirac. They agreed to
discuss the problem, but did not say when or where.
Still, the overall gains were obvious.
Last year at Bonn, for instance, France vetoed U.S. efforts to begin
planning for a new round of trade talks, under the auspices of the
General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), the basic set of rules
that govern trade throughout most of the non-communist world.
And five years ago, Baker noted, Reagan's free market,
growth-oriented policies represented a minority view. By contrast, he
said, they ''are for the most part now embraced by the summit
countries.''
---
EDITOR'S NOTE: Barry Schweid has covered diplomatic affairs for The
Associated Press since 1973.
AP-NY-05-06-86 1848EDT
***************
a247 1651 06 May 86
AM-Abbas Interview, Sub,0183
State Department Rips NBC for Airing Abul Abbas Interview
WASH: to UPDATE with NBC comment, SUB 7th graf ''The NBC''
At NBC, Mary Lou O'Callaghan, director of news information, said the
State Department's attack was ''very disappointing'' and that the
network had no regrets about airing the interview.
''We're not here to hinder or enhance anybody's case; it's simply to
report all aspects of a major story - terrorism,'' she said. ''We
have a free flow of information in this country, fortunately.''
She said she doubted viewers would be inclinded to accept Abbas'
version of events aboard the Achille Lauro, but had a right to hear
all aspects of the story.
''The American people aren't stupid,'' the spokeswoman said. ''I
think it's important for people to see what he (Abbas) stands for.''
At a time when the United States is criticizing the Soviet Union for
withholding information about the Chernobyl nuclear disaster, U.S.
officials shouldn't be criticizing open discussion of terrorism,
''which affects all our lives, too,'' she said.
Abbas is, 8th graf
AP-NY-05-06-86 1949EDT
***************
a262 1832 06 May 86
AM-Reagan,0142
URGENT
By MICHAEL PUTZEL
AP White House Correspondent
TOKYO (AP) - President Reagan declared Tuesday night that the annual
economic summit was a ''triumph'' that will lead to concerted action
against terrorism.
At a news conference summing up his three days of meetings with the
leaders of six other allied nations, Reagan said that as a result of
the sessions, ''we are going to treat with it (terrorism) on a united
front.''
Even though the joint statement made no mention of specific
anti-terrorism steps, the president said the leaders discussed all
''possible tools or weapons.''
Reagan refused to divulge whether any specific counter-terrorist
steps had been discussed by him and his summit partners but said that
even if they had it would have been inappropriate to list them in the
communique on terrorism.
MORE
AP-NY-05-06-86 2130EDT
- - - - - -
a264 1851 06 May 86
AM-Reagan, 1st add, a262,0270
URGENT
TOKYO: on terrorism.
Addressing a large contingent of reporters in a the Okura Hotel in
Tokyo, Reagan said the summit meeting had produced a ''strong measure
of allied unity'' in economic, agricultural and other areas. ''All
that we sought at the summit was achieved,'' he said.
On an issue that hovered in the background at the summit, the
president also said that in recent days, the Soviet Union has been
more forthcoming in providing information about the nuclear accident
at Chernobyl.
Responding to a question on whether the United States has been
''bashing'' the Soviet Union for propaganda purposes, Reagan replied,
''We're not bashing at all.''
The president had harshly criticized the Soviets earlier for failing
to provide information about the aftermath of the accident, saying
they ''owe the world an explanation.''
He said no nation can deal with a nuclear accident that sends
radiation spewing across international frontiers as ''simply an
internal problem.''
Contrary to reports, the president also said he had not received a
''direct message'' from Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev expressing
renewed interest in a summit meeting this year.
But Reagan quickly added he has not received a message that
Gorbachev had lost interest in the summit, which was tentatively set
when the two superpower leaders met last year in Geneva.
Reagan spoke to reporters shortly before boarding the presidential
jet for a long flight home. His news conference was held at 10 a.m.
Wednesday morning in Tokyo, but the 13-hour time difference made it
available to a live prime time audience in the United States.
AP-NY-05-06-86 2149EDT
***************
a002 2146 06 May 86
PM-News Digest,1281
PMs AP News Digest
Wednesday, May 7, 1986
Here are the top stories for PMs. The General Desk supervisor is Ron
Sirak (212) 621-1604. The Laserphoto Desk supervisor is Ed Stephens
(212) 621-1900.
For repeats of AP copy, the Service Desk can be reached at (212)
621-1595 or 1596.
SUMMIT:
Reagan Says Allied Leaders Explored Tactics Against Terrorism
TOKYO - President Reagan says he and six allied leaders privately
explored all possible tactics against terrorism, even though a formal
communique they issued at the economic summit made no mention of
them. Slug PM-Reagan. 800 words.
Developing. With LaserPhotos.
By White House Correspondent Michael Putzel
Top Reagan Aides Fan Out Across Asia to Brief Leaders On Summit
TOKYO - As President Reagan heads for home, his top aides are
fanning out across Asia to report to other governments on the results
of the seven-nation economic summit meeting. Secretary of State
George Shultz draws tense Korea as his assignment. Slug
PM-Reagan-Emissaries.
Devloping.
By Diplomatic Correspondent Barry Schweid
The Summit Was Not All Peaches and Cream; Some Tensions Surfaced
TOKYO - President Reagan and Britain's Margaret Thatcher coaxed
their summit partners into an unequivocal statement condemning Libyan
terrorism, while Italy and Canada negotiated their way into an
exclusive macro-monetary club. But the Tokyo summit also papered over
differences, forced some nations into uncomfortable compromises and
left a few delegates unmistakable angry. Slug PM-Summit-Winners and
Losers. New material, should stand. 800 words.
By Jeff Bradley
WASHINGTON TODAY: Will Tough Action Follow Tough Words on Terrorism?
WASHINGTON - President Reagan got the tough words on terrorism he
wanted from the Tokyo summit, but whether effective action will
follow remains an unanswered question. Slug PM-Terrorism Statement.
780 words.
Moved in advance as a098.
Washington Today. Analysis by Political Writer Donald M. Rothberg
LIBYA: Say Body Believed to be that of U.S. Airman Washes Ashore
LONDON - Libyan television reports the body of a man in a military
uniform has washed up on the shores near Tripoli. The report says the
body, carrying U.S. currency, is believed to be that of a missing
U.S. captain from an F-111 warplane that participated in the April 15
air raids. Slug PM-Libya-Airman.
Developing.
NUCLEAR ACCIDENT:
Soviets Go Public and Accuse West of Distorting Accident
MOSCOW - Soviet officers used their first news conference on the
Chernobyl nuclear accident to defend their response and to accuse the
West of distorting the scope of the accident to discredit the Soviet
Union. Slug PM-Nuclear Accident. New material, should stand. 750
words.
By Carol J. Williams.
Media Seek to Reassure Citizens that Government Cares for Them
MOSCOW - Soviet media are beginning to describe life in the area
stricken by the Chernobyl nuclear accident in reports designed to
reassure citizens at home that the government cares for them. Slug
PM-Soviet Response. New material, should stand. 700 words.
By Alison Smale.
Radiation Hits U.S.; Washington Debates U.S. Nuclear Safety
WASHINGTON - As radiation from the Chernobyl nuclear disaster was
measured on American soil for the first time, federal officials on
Capitol Hill debated the safety of U.S. commercial and weapons
production reactors. Slug PM-US-Soviet Accident Rdp. 900 words.
House subcommittee hearing begins 9:30 a.m. EDT
By Jill Lawrence
PRIMARIES: Ohio, North Carolina, Indiana Nominate Candidates
UNDATED - Moderate Rep. James Broyhill soundly defeated
arch-conservative David Funderburk in North Carolina's Republican
Senate primary, and former Gov. Terry Sanford captured the Democratic
nomination by crushing nine rivals with surprising ease. Slug
PM-Primary Rdp. New material, may stand. 750 words.
With LaserPhotos. By Mike Silverman.
ARMS SALES: House Likely to Follow Senate and Ax Sale to Saudis
WASHINGTON - The House appears virtually certain to follow the lead
of the Senate in rejecting President Reagan's planned $344 million
sale of air, ground and ship-based missiles to Saudi Arabia. Slug
PM-Congress-Saudi Arms. New material, may stand. 690 words.
By Lawrence L. Knutson
COSTA RICA: Presidential Ceremony Takes on Regional Peace Flavor
SAN JOSE, Costa Rica - Oscar Arias Sanchez will be sworn in this
week as Costa Rica's president in an inauguration that has taken on
the look of a Central American peace summit. Slug PM-Costa Rica. New,
will stand. 740 words.
An AP Extra by Reid G. Miller.
SPACE AGENCY: Fletcher Seeks to Lift Deflated NASA
WASHINGTON - James C. Fletcher is taking over NASA at a time when
the space agency is grounded, in low esteem, and uncertain about how
to soar again. Slug PM-NASA-Future. New material, should stand. 780
words.
By Harry F. Rosenthal
GUN BILL: Senate Gives Nod to Bill Easing Federal Firearms Controls
WASHINGTON - The Senate has approved a bill that will ease federal
firearms controls and allow millions of gun owners to buy rifles and
shotguns anywhere in the country, and the chief Senate sponsor says
President Reagan will sign the measure. Slug PM-Gun Bill. New, may
stand. 690 words.
By Larry Margasak
EARNINGS: Women Still Trail Men, But Many Wives Make More than
Husbands
WASHINGTON - Women still trail men in pay, but they're doing more
than just supplementing family income in a growing share of cases,
with nearly one in five working wives earning more than their
husbands, the Census Bureau says. Slug PM-Wife's Earnings. New
material, will stand. 790 words.
By Randolph E. Schmid
STRIKE IT RICH?: Vietnam Says It Has Found Oil but Needs Western Help
HANOI, Vietnam - After years of dashed hopes, Vietnam says it
finally has found commercially exploitable oil in its territorial
waters and needs the help of Western oil companies and their
technology to get it to market. Slug PM-Vietnam-Oil. 740 words.
Moved in advance as a067.
By Peter Eng.
NEW NETWORK: Fourth Network To Open With Joan Rivers Late Night Show
LOS ANGELES - Comedian Joan Rivers is taking on former boss Johnny
Carson next fall in the opening assault of Fox Broadcasting Co.'s new
fourth network, and NBC immediately canceled her remaining scheduled
appearances on ''The Tonight Show.'' Slug PM-Fourth Network. New
material, may stand. 750 words.
By Television Writer Jerry Buck.
COCA-COLA: Soft-Drink Giant Celebrates Centennial
ATLANTA - The Coca-Cola Co. begins its five-day centennial
celebration today, capping a 100th year in which consumers
overwhelmingly and angrily told the soft-drink giant not to mess with
the flavored-water concoction first served, according to one version,
on May 8, 1886. Slug PM-Coke Centennial. New, should stand. 700
words.
By Karen Bennett.
MOVIE MAKERS: New Game Let's Players Change Famous Films' Endings
CHICAGO - Imagine what might happen if tomorrow wasn't another day
for Scarlett O'Hara, if Rocky got suspended for throwing a fight, or
if the sled at the end of ''Citizen Kane'' had been named just
''Flexible Fl...
(End missing.)
***************
a009 2251 06 May 86
PM-US-Soviet Accident Rdp, Bjt,0826
Chernobyl Causes Radioactive Fallout In West, Political Fallout In
Capital
EDs: House subcommittee hearing begins 9:30 a.m. EDT; top planned
By JILL LAWRENCE
Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) - As radiation from the Chernobyl nuclear disaster
was measured on American soil for the first time, federal officials
on Capitol Hill debated the safety of U.S. commercial and weapons
production reactors.
The first radioactive rain from the April 26 Soviet nuclear accident
detectable in the United States fell in the Pacific Northwest on
Monday, officials said Tuesday. They said the concentrations
discovered in Richland, Wash., and Portland, Ore., were far too small
to require precautions.
Additional areas of the northern United States should receive small
amounts of the radioactive rain, but the fallout would cause no
health problems, officials said.
Preparing for a safety hearing today, the staff of the House
subcommittee on energy conservation and power told Chairman Edward
Markey that for political reasons, the Department of Energy has shut
out federal, state and local authorities from emergency planning near
its nuclear plants.
''Our key finding is that DOE has taken action to establish
exclusive domain over offsite emergency preparedness for DOE-DOD
(Department of Defense) nuclear facilities,'' the staff said Tuesday
in a memo to the Massachusetts Democrat.
The memo, based on a study of reports and internal DOE documents,
said the department's motives in excluding the Federal Emergency
Management Agency and state and local governments were ''essentially
political.''
The subcommittee staff said it was unclear if national security
concerns would warrant treating public health and safety around the
defense facilities differently from around commercial plants. It also
questioned DOE's expertise and objectivity in evaluating the public
safety risk near its plants.
According to the subcommittee staff, FEMA officials say they do not
know the level of offsite preparedness at most DOE-DOD facilities.
Among the DOE plants are five large plutonium-producing reactors
surrounded by confinements that are weaker and designed to withstand
less pressure than commercial reactor containment buildings. Four are
located at Savannah River, Ga., and a fifth - the graphite-moderated
N-Reactor - is near Richland, Wash.
DOE officials told the House Appropriations subcommittee on energy
and water development Tuesday they had calculated that worst-case
accidents at the five reactors would not cause dangerous high-level
radioactive emissions.
Undersecretary Joseph Salgado rejected one congressman's suggestion
that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission oversee DOE reactors, saying
''there is no need to question the Department of Energy's ability to
regulate government-owned facilities. ... We are responsive and we
have a good safety record.''
NRC commissioners at the same hearing said they knew little about
safety features at DOE reactors, with one saying he was surprised at
the lack of communication between the two agencies.
In other developments Tuesday:
-President Reagan, in a news conference in Tokyo where the economic
summit was ending, again criticized the Soviets for withholding early
information about the disaster, but admitted the Soviets have been
more forthcoming in recent days.
The early Soviet effort ''to cover up and confuse the issue, we
think, was the wrong way to go,'' Reagan told a news conference.
''But I am pleased to say that in the last few days, there has been
a change and the Soviet Union has been more forthcoming about this
with regard to giving information and so forth,'' he said.
-The Food and Drug Administration said that since Monday its
inspectors have been testing samples of food imported from Eastern
and Northern Europe to determine if any carry radiation from the
Chernobyl disaster. Foods subject to the tests are fresh fruits,
vegetables and dairy products and fresh or frozen fish.
-U.S. experts said the Soviet Union's sketchy outline of events at
Chernobyl was entirely credible and consistent with a hydrogen
explosion at the reactor - but that they still need more information.
The dearth of hard facts prompted two high-level U.S. officials to
hedge a little when asked at the hearing if American reactors were
safe and if a Chernobyl-type accident could happen here.
''I don't feel our reactors are unsafe. But we have so little
information about the causes of this accident,'' said Harold Denton,
director of reactor regulation for the NRC. ''I'd like the
opportunity to re-examine that question when the facts are in.''
And acting assistant energy secretary James Vaughan, asked whether
it could happen here, answered that U.S. and Soviet reactors are
designed differently. ''Obviously we will continue to evaluate
whatever information comes forth,'' he added.
The NRC has estimated there is a 45 percent chance of a meltdown or
partial meltdown at a U.S. commercial plant in the next 20 years.
Commissioner Lando Zech said there is only a 0.5 percent chance that
radiation from such an accident would escape the steel and concrete
containment structures that surround the nation's reactors with NRC
operating licenses.
AP-NY-05-07-86 0149EDT
- - - - - -
a062 0546 07 May 86
PM-News Advisory,0074
The General Desk supervisor is John Daniszewski (212) 621-1604. The
Laserphoto Desk supervisor is Rich Kareckas (212) 621-1900.
All times EDT
-PM-US-Soviet Accident Rdp, a009, will be updated based on a 9:30
a.m. hearing.
-PM-Reagan, a016. Reagan arrives White House 2:05 p.m.
-PM-Tehran Raid, a045. Update coming with reports indicating raid
was extensive.
-PM-Lebanon-Kidnap, a050, update coming with details of abduction.
AP-NY-05-07-86 0845EDT
- - - - - -
a086 0903 07 May 86
PM-US-Soviet Accident Rdp, 1st Ld, a009,0479
EDs: New material, first 11 grafs
By JILL LAWRENCE
Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) - A congressman and a physicist called today for
tighter and more independent federal regulation of the
weapons-production nuclear reactors operated by the Energy
Department.
''DOE regulates itself, free from public scrutiny or even the
scrutiny of sister agencies such as the Nuclear Regulatory Commission
and the Federal Emergency Management Agency,'' Rep. Edward Markey,
D-Mass., said in opening a hearing on the implications of the
Chernobyl nuclear disaster on DOE plants.
The department runs on ''the honor system,'' said Markey, chairman
of the House subcommittee on energy conservation and power and a
frequent critic of the nuclear industry.
He said that system hasn't worked and cited a 1985 internal review
that concluded the department's environment, safety and health
division was a ''toothless watchdog guarding the safety and
environmental integrity of one of the most hazardous undertakings in
the world.''
Mary L. Walker, assistant energy secretary for environment, safety
and health, said the department has an excellent safety record. She
stressed that department personnel and five outside experts are
conducting safety evaluations of the department's five large
reactors.
But Markey said the chairman of the team is a former chief executive
officer of Consolidated Edison, a New York utility, and past chairman
of the Atomic Industrial Forum, an industry lobbying group. He said
the vice chairman works for Brookhaven, an Energy Department
laboratory.
Ms. Walker said the panel is independent of the department, which is
not controlling its review. But Markey rejoined, ''You can't have the
foxes watching the chicken coop. You've got to have some impartial,
objective observers.''
He suggested adding to the review team concerned citizens and Thomas
Cochran, a physicist and senior scientist at the Natural Resources
Defense Council. Cochran, in testimony for today's hearing, called
for NRC regulation of the Energy Department plants.
''DOE's persistent claims as to the safety of its facilities are
never really tested,'' Cochran said. NRC licensing ''would help to
assure the American public that all large nuclear reactors in this
country are subject to the same outside scrutiny and control.''
Markey also alleged that the Energy Department has shut the
emergency management agency and state and local governments out of
its planning process. Ms. Walker said her department does coordinate
with the federal agency and with local authorities, but Markey said
emergency management agency officials had told the subcommittee they
were not involved.
''Your agency has iced out FEMA,'' he charged. ''DOE has told FEMA
to get lost. That's the bottom line. You are self-regulated. You
don't want anyone else in.''
Earlier, the committee staff said that, for political reasons, the
Energy Department has shut out federal, state and local authorities
from emergency planning near its nuclear plants.
''Our key: 5th graf
AP-NY-05-07-86 1202EDT
***************
a011 2317 06 May 86
PM-Summit-Winners and Losers, Bjt,0773
Reagan and Thatcher Emerge Winners, Host Nakasone the Loser
An AP News Analysis
By JEFF BRADLEY
Associated Press Writer
TOKYO (AP) - President Reagan and Britain's Margaret Thatcher coaxed
their summit partners into an unequivocal statement condemning Libyan
terrorism, while Italy and Canada negotiated their way into an
exclusive macro-monetary club.
But like the 11 previous annual gatherings of heads of state and
government from the major industrial democracies, the Tokyo summit
that ended Tuesday papered over differences, forced some nations into
uncomfortable compromises and left a few delegates unmistakably
angry.
European Economic Community officials were ''miffed, to say the
least,'' as one EEC delegate put it, over the Common Market's
exclusion from the new Group of Seven finance ministers that was
expanded to give Italy and Canada limited membership. The group will
meet annually to coordinate monetary policies.
French President Francois Mitterrand, whose country is a linchpin of
the EEC, abstained from voting on the Group of Seven issue because
the Common Market was not included.
Even so, EEC President Jacques Delors said it was the best of the
six summits he had attended. British Prime Minister Thatcher, a
veteran of eight of the conferences, called it the ''most fruitful''
of all summits.
Reagan was rewarded not only with the Libyan condemnation, but with
a summit blast at the Soviet Union for not disclosing more details
about the Chernobyl nuclear power plant accident.
Normally deadpan Secretary of State George P. Shultz beamed after
the terrorism document was hammered out: ''It's terrific. I can't
tell you how pleased I am at how strong this statement is.''
Even so, the statement did not endorse the U.S. bombing raid on
Libya or call for an oil boycott of Libya, as Reagan had suggested.
Despite the special relationship between Reagan and Japanese Prime
Minister Yasuhiro Nakasone - dubbed the ''Ron-Yasu'' partnership -
Nakasone emerged with the worst political fallout from a summit that
began with a dose of radioactive rain from Chernobyl.
Although a Japanese Foreign Ministry official claimed the three-day
gathering gave each leader ''his or her share of success,'' the
68-year-old Nakasone's only success was in avoiding direct attack
about his country's $50 billion global trade surplus.
He was shot down in attempts to persuade fellow leaders to constrain
the recent sharp rise in the value of the Japanese yen, and as a
result, the yen hit a post-World War II high against the dollar
Tuesday.
One dollar was worth less than 166 yen, compared with 242 last
September, and one trader forecast a 150-yen dollar before long.
''Nakasone was faced with other nations that simply didn't think the
yen was too high at all,'' said Koji Kidokoro of Mitsui Bussan
trading company.
Leader of a nation totally dependent on imported oil, Nakasone also
was embarrassed by the summit statement labeling Libya a sponsor of
terrorism and committing Japan for the first time to collective
anti-terrorist measures.
''It was a no-win situation for Nakasone,'' commented Kenichi
Miyata, a political writer for the nationwide daily Asahi Shimbun.
''He was defeated on the currency issue and left the impression of
being sucked in by the United States and others on the Libya
question.''
Nakasone nevertheless shepherded to a smooth conclusion an economic
summit that devoted two of its three days to political issues.
''The summits have become a stage that all world leaders want to use
to get some exposure,'' said one European delegate. ''It's a vantage
point from which to talk to public opinion at home.''
Mrs. Thatcher and West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl said they took
satisfaction from the summit's reaffirmation of their conservative
tight-money policies, endorsed at the 1985 summit in Bonn.
Kohl, whose country is most at risk from Chernobyl radioactivity,
said he had suggested the wording of the nuclear accident statement.
Mrs. Thatcher said she achieved four aims: ''firm'' statements on
terrorism and Chernobyl, backing for her economic beliefs and
discussion of farm and trade policies.
''I might be the senior summiteer because I am more right, more
often, than my opponents,'' she told reporters.
Subsidies and trade barriers preventing free trade in farm produce
were a priority for Canadian Prime Minister Brian Mulroney, but it
got short shrift in the final communique, which merely backed
discussions on the issue within the Paris-based Organization for
Economic Cooperation and Development.
---
EDITOR'S NOTE: Jeff Bradley has been The Associated Press bureau
chief in Peking since 1983 and previously worked as the AP's news
editor in London.
AP-NY-05-07-86 0215EDT
***************
a016 0006 07 May 86
PM-Reagan, Bjt,0691
Reagan Says Allies Reviewed Joint Actions to Battle Terrorism
By MICHAEL PUTZEL
AP White House Correspondent
TOKYO (AP) - President Reagan said today that he and his summit
allies privately explored all ''possible tools or weapons'' for
waging a joint battle against terrorism but decided it would not be
helpful to publicly reveal what steps might be taken.
Reagan denied he was planning another military strike against
Libya's Col. Moammar Khadafy, saying of a published report to that
effect: ''No one was more surprised to hear that I was planning that
than I was, because I'm not planning that.''
He insisted, however, despite less supportive statements from his
summit colleagues, that the allies now have formed ''a united front''
and ''will act together with regard to opposing terrorism, to isolate
those states that provide support for terrorism, to isolate them and
make them pariahs on the world scene and even, if possible, isolate
them from their own people.''
Reagan summed up the Tokyo summit at a news conference before
heading home after a 13-day, 22,000 mile journey through the Far
East, the longest of his presidency. The time difference made it
available for live broadcast in prime time on American television
Tuesday night.
He called the seven-nation summit of industrial democracies a
''triumph in Tokyo'' and predicted it will lead to concerted action
against terrorism and closer coordination of international economic
policy.
Asked about legislative setbacks in Washington to his tax overhaul
package and planned sale of missiles to Saudi Arabia, Reagan replied,
''Well, let them just wait till the old man gets home.''
But he said the Senate Finance Committee's tax plan, despite some
faults in it, is ''far superior'' to one passed by the House last
year with his qualified endorsement. The Senate measure would repeal
deductions allowed for state and local sales taxes and most
Individual Retirement Accounts but would preserve the writeoff for
home mortgage interest and state and local income and property taxes.
White House spokesman Edward Djerejian said Reagan ''is definitely
going to veto'' the Saudi arms sale rejection, predicting Congress
could not muster the necessary votes to override a presidential veto.
Pressed repeatedly to explain what specific counter-terrorism
measures the summit leaders had agreed upon, Reagan said, ''We
discussed at great length specific actions and all.
''But the (public) statement was one to simply say that we together
will decide upon what is appropriate, depending on the acts, what is
the most effective thing to do in the instance of further terror
incidents, and we didn't think that it was perhaps useful to put all
of that into a public statement telling the terrorists exactly what
it was we intended to do.''
Asked if there were ''secret agreements'' on economic sanctions or
military actions, Reagan said, ''We are going to treat with it on a
united front. ... We discussed all the things that could be seen as
possible tools or weapons in this war against terrorism, but we
didn't feel that this was something that you put down in a plan.''
Asked to comment on French and Japanese statements that the summit
communique on terrorism is not binding on the individual partners,
Reagan said, ''As far as I know, seven heads of state agreed ... that
we're in this all together.''
That doesn't mean, he said, that any country is precluded from
taking unilateral action, as the United States did in its April 15
reprisal raid against Libya for the fatal bombing of a Berlin
nightclub.
And confirming the administration will grant no further delays to
U.S. oil firms still operating in Libya nearly six months after he
first imposed a ban on U.S. companies doing business there, Reagan
said, ''They are to dispose of their holdings by June 30,'' the date
their current operating licenses expire.
Reagan added, ''I don't think any of us would have shed tears'' if
Khadafy had been killed in the air strikes. But he insisted the
purpose of the raid was to cripple Libya's ability to order terrorist
attacks abroad.
AP-NY-05-07-86 0304EDT
- - - - - -
a029 0212 07 May 86
PM-Digest Advisory,0121
All the budgets have moved. Here is a list with LaserPhoto numbers:
TOKYO - PM-Reagan, a016.
TOKYO - PM-Reagan-Emissaries, a028.
TOKYO - PM-Summit-Winners and Losers, a011.
LONDON - PM-Libya-Airman, a014.
MOSCOW - PM-Nuclear Accident, a027.
MOSCOW - PM-Soviet Response, a022.
WASHINGTON - PM-US-Soviet Accident Rdp, a009.
UNDATED - PM-Primary Rdp, a019. LaserPhoto NA2.
WASHINGTON - PM-Congress-Saudi Arms, a015.
SAN JOSE, Costa Rica - PM-Costa Rica, a018.
WASHINGTON - PM-NASA-Future, a005.
WASHINGTON - PM-Gun Bill, a021.
WASHINGTON - PM-Wife's Earnings, a020.
LOS ANGELES - PM-Fourth Network, a010.
ATLANTA - PM-Coke Centennial, a012.
CHICAGO - PM-Movie Makers, a025.
The AP.
AP-NY-05-07-86 0510EDT
- - - - - -
a053 0452 07 May 86
PM-Digest Briefs,0957
Eds: This package does not contain the following items from the News
Digest:
TOKYO-PM-Reagan, a016; TOKYO-PM-Summit-Winners and Losers, a011;
WASHINGTON-PM-Terrorism Statement, a098; MOSCOW-PM-Soviet Response,
a022; WASHINGTON-PM-US-Soviet Accident Rdp, a009; SAN JOSE, Costa
Rica-PM-Costa Rica, a018; UNDATED-PM-Primary Rdp, a019;
WASHINGTON-PM-Wife's Earnings, a020; CHICAGO-PM-Movie Makers, a025;
PM-Vietnam Oil, a067.
By The Associated Press
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) - The two most prominent critics of the
South Korean government were excluded from a meeting with Secretary
of State George Shultz, who came here today with a ringing
endorsement of President Chun Doo-hwan and criticism of ''violent
confrontations'' with the government.
Kim Dae-Jung, the opposition candidate in the last free and open
election, in 1971, and Kim Young-Sam, the permament adviser to the
opposition New Korea Democratic party, were not invited to have
breakfast with Shultz on Thursday.
''The Kims are not leaders of their party,'' Shultz said on the way
here from Tokyo, where he attended the seven-nation summit meeting of
industrial democracies. However, Shultz said they were invited to
meet with Assistant Secretary of State Gaston Sigur but had declined.
---
LONDON (AP) - Libyan television showed film a corpse in a military
uniform that it said had washed ashore, and suggested it was the body
of a U.S. airman whose jet was lost in the April 15 bombing raid on
Libya.
A commentator on the Tuesday night broadcast said the body washed
ashore at Al-Zawiyah, 25 miles west of Tripoli, the Libyan capital,
earlier in the day. He said the body could be that of a man called
''Lorence, whose helmet you have already seen.''
The Defense Department said in Washington that it had no knowledge
of the matter, and that it would have no immediate comment.
---
MOSCOW (AP) - The Soviet Union says the situation around the
Chernobyl power plant is ''disquieting'' more than a week and a half
after a nuclear disaster, and reportedly has asked West Germany for
specialized earth-moving equipment to clean up the site.
Soviet officials held their first news conference on the April 26
nuclear disaster Tuesday, but they offered little new information.
They gave conflicting figures on casualties and the amount of
radiation emitted by the crippled reactor 80 miles north of Kiev.
The six senior Soviet officials brushed off Western complaints about
slow reporting of limited information on the accident at the
Ukrainian plant, which spewed an invisible cloud of radiation over
Europe.
---
WASHINGTON (AP) - The House appears virtually certain to follow the
lead of the Senate in rejecting President Reagan's planned $354
million sale of air, ground and ship-based missiles to Saudi Arabia.
The 73-22 vote against the sale in the Republican-controlled Senate
Tuesday night was six votes more than the 67 votes that would be
needed to override an expected presidential veto if all 100 senators
voted.
The Democratic-controlled House was to vote today on a resolution
disapproving the sale. House members opposed to selling Saudi Arabia
more U.S. weapons were hoping for an equally strong showing.
---
WASHINGTON (AP) - James C. Fletcher is taking over NASA at a time
when the space agency is grounded, in low esteem, and uncertain about
how to soar again.
He returns to the job he held from 1971 to 1977 with an 89-9 vote of
confidence from the Senate, but also with carping from one senator
that ''he is a NASA retread who ... is not the man for this job.''
Fletcher, who was confirmed Tuesday but has no swearing-in date yet,
takes over from William Graham, acting administrator of the National
Aeronautics and Space Administration, while the United States finds
itself with little capability to launch anything other than weapons
of war.
---
WASHINGTON (AP) - The Senate approved a bill that will ease federal
firearms controls and allow millions of gun owners to buy rifles and
shotguns anywhere in the country, and the chief Senate sponsor said
President Reagan would sign the measure.
Sen. James McClure, R-Idaho, said ''there is no doubt'' Reagan will
approve the bill that was sent to the White House by a unanimous
Senate vote Tuesday night.
The vote masked a furious lobbying effort that pitted the gun lobby
against police and handgun control organizations. Smooth passage came
only after a three-hour meeting in the office of Sen. Strom Thurmond,
R-S.C., during which an agreement was hammered out to modify the bill
to satisfy gun control advocates.
---
LOS ANGELES (AP) - Joan Rivers is taking on former boss Johnny
Carson next fall in the opening assault of Fox Broadcasting Co.'s new
fourth network. NBC immediately canceled her remaining scheduled
appearances as his substitute.
The caustic comedian, whose show, ''Late Night Starring Joan
Rivers,'' will make its debut in the fall, had been permament
substitute host for Carson's ''The Tonight Show'' on NBC for the past
three years.
She was to be host two more weeks before her NBC contract expires
July 19.
---
ATLANTA (AP) - The Coca-Cola Co. today begins its five-day
centennial celebration, marking a century that was capped by a
consumer revolution as Coke drinkers complained that the soft-drink
giant altered The Real Thing.
The celebrations honor the first time the sweet, flavored-water
drink concocted by chemist John S. Pemberton in a kettle in his
backyard was served in Atlanta - on May 8, 1886, in Jacobs' Pharmacy.
Guided by the marketing wizardry of Robert Woodruff - whose
conservative fiscal philosophy saved the company during the Great
Depression - Coca-Cola became the world's leading soft drink
supplier.
AP-NY-05-07-86 0751EDT
- - - - - -
a211 1112 07 May 86
PM-Reagan, 1stld, a016,0251
Precede TOKYO
EDs: First 7 grafs new with Reagan's return
By MICHAEL PUTZEL
AP White House Correspondent
WASHINGTON (AP) - President Reagan, returning to the White House
after a 13-day Far East journey, said today that terrorists will find
''it is going to be tougher from now on'' because of agreements
reached at the Tokyo economic summit.
''We agreed the time has come to move beyond words and rhetoric,''
Reagan said in remarks at a welcoming ceremony at the Executive
Mansion that followed a 15-minute helicopter flight from nearby
Andrews Air Force Base.
The president's plane, Air Force One, refueled at Elmendorf Air
Force Base, Alaska, on its way from Tokyo.
''Terrorism, as expected, was high on the agenda,'' Reagan told the
welcoming ceremony. ''I am more than pleased by the commitments made
in Tokyo by our summit partners in this regard.''
''Terrorists and those who support them - especially governments -
have been put on notice,'' he said. ''It is going to be tougher from
now on.''
Turning to the economic issues of the summit, Reagan said the seven
participating nations produced ''a new framework for strengthening
effective coordination of international economic policy.''
In a news conference before leaving Tokyo, Reagan said he and his
summit allies privately explored all ''possible tools or weapons''
for waging a joint battle against terrorism but decided it would not
be helpful to publicly reveal what steps might be taken.
Reagan denied: 2nd graf
AP-NY-05-07-86 1411EDT
***************
a016 0006 07 May 86
PM-Reagan, Bjt,0691
Reagan Says Allies Reviewed Joint Actions to Battle Terrorism
By MICHAEL PUTZEL
AP White House Correspondent
TOKYO (AP) - President Reagan said today that he and his summit
allies privately explored all ''possible tools or weapons'' for
waging a joint battle against terrorism but decided it would not be
helpful to publicly reveal what steps might be taken.
Reagan denied he was planning another military strike against
Libya's Col. Moammar Khadafy, saying of a published report to that
effect: ''No one was more surprised to hear that I was planning that
than I was, because I'm not planning that.''
He insisted, however, despite less supportive statements from his
summit colleagues, that the allies now have formed ''a united front''
and ''will act together with regard to opposing terrorism, to isolate
those states that provide support for terrorism, to isolate them and
make them pariahs on the world scene and even, if possible, isolate
them from their own people.''
Reagan summed up the Tokyo summit at a news conference before
heading home after a 13-day, 22,000 mile journey through the Far
East, the longest of his presidency. The time difference made it
available for live broadcast in prime time on American television
Tuesday night.
He called the seven-nation summit of industrial democracies a
''triumph in Tokyo'' and predicted it will lead to concerted action
against terrorism and closer coordination of international economic
policy.
Asked about legislative setbacks in Washington to his tax overhaul
package and planned sale of missiles to Saudi Arabia, Reagan replied,
''Well, let them just wait till the old man gets home.''
But he said the Senate Finance Committee's tax plan, despite some
faults in it, is ''far superior'' to one passed by the House last
year with his qualified endorsement. The Senate measure would repeal
deductions allowed for state and local sales taxes and most
Individual Retirement Accounts but would preserve the writeoff for
home mortgage interest and state and local income and property taxes.
White House spokesman Edward Djerejian said Reagan ''is definitely
going to veto'' the Saudi arms sale rejection, predicting Congress
could not muster the necessary votes to override a presidential veto.
Pressed repeatedly to explain what specific counter-terrorism
measures the summit leaders had agreed upon, Reagan said, ''We
discussed at great length specific actions and all.
''But the (public) statement was one to simply say that we together
will decide upon what is appropriate, depending on the acts, what is
the most effective thing to do in the instance of further terror
incidents, and we didn't think that it was perhaps useful to put all
of that into a public statement telling the terrorists exactly what
it was we intended to do.''
Asked if there were ''secret agreements'' on economic sanctions or
military actions, Reagan said, ''We are going to treat with it on a
united front. ... We discussed all the things that could be seen as
possible tools or weapons in this war against terrorism, but we
didn't feel that this was something that you put down in a plan.''
Asked to comment on French and Japanese statements that the summit
communique on terrorism is not binding on the individual partners,
Reagan said, ''As far as I know, seven heads of state agreed ... that
we're in this all together.''
That doesn't mean, he said, that any country is precluded from
taking unilateral action, as the United States did in its April 15
reprisal raid against Libya for the fatal bombing of a Berlin
nightclub.
And confirming the administration will grant no further delays to
U.S. oil firms still operating in Libya nearly six months after he
first imposed a ban on U.S. companies doing business there, Reagan
said, ''They are to dispose of their holdings by June 30,'' the date
their current operating licenses expire.
Reagan added, ''I don't think any of us would have shed tears'' if
Khadafy had been killed in the air strikes. But he insisted the
purpose of the raid was to cripple Libya's ability to order terrorist
attacks abroad.
AP-NY-05-07-86 0304EDT
- - - - - -
a029 0212 07 May 86
PM-Digest Advisory,0121
All the budgets have moved. Here is a list with LaserPhoto numbers:
TOKYO - PM-Reagan, a016.
TOKYO - PM-Reagan-Emissaries, a028.
TOKYO - PM-Summit-Winners and Losers, a011.
LONDON - PM-Libya-Airman, a014.
MOSCOW - PM-Nuclear Accident, a027.
MOSCOW - PM-Soviet Response, a022.
WASHINGTON - PM-US-Soviet Accident Rdp, a009.
UNDATED - PM-Primary Rdp, a019. LaserPhoto NA2.
WASHINGTON - PM-Congress-Saudi Arms, a015.
SAN JOSE, Costa Rica - PM-Costa Rica, a018.
WASHINGTON - PM-NASA-Future, a005.
WASHINGTON - PM-Gun Bill, a021.
WASHINGTON - PM-Wife's Earnings, a020.
LOS ANGELES - PM-Fourth Network, a010.
ATLANTA - PM-Coke Centennial, a012.
CHICAGO - PM-Movie Makers, a025.
The AP.
AP-NY-05-07-86 0510EDT
- - - - - -
a053 0452 07 May 86
PM-Digest Briefs,0957
Eds: This package does not contain the following items from the News
Digest:
TOKYO-PM-Reagan, a016; TOKYO-PM-Summit-Winners and Losers, a011;
WASHINGTON-PM-Terrorism Statement, a098; MOSCOW-PM-Soviet Response,
a022; WASHINGTON-PM-US-Soviet Accident Rdp, a009; SAN JOSE, Costa
Rica-PM-Costa Rica, a018; UNDATED-PM-Primary Rdp, a019;
WASHINGTON-PM-Wife's Earnings, a020; CHICAGO-PM-Movie Makers, a025;
PM-Vietnam Oil, a067.
By The Associated Press
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) - The two most prominent critics of the
South Korean government were excluded from a meeting with Secretary
of State George Shultz, who came here today with a ringing
endorsement of President Chun Doo-hwan and criticism of ''violent
confrontations'' with the government.
Kim Dae-Jung, the opposition candidate in the last free and open
election, in 1971, and Kim Young-Sam, the permament adviser to the
opposition New Korea Democratic party, were not invited to have
breakfast with Shultz on Thursday.
''The Kims are not leaders of their party,'' Shultz said on the way
here from Tokyo, where he attended the seven-nation summit meeting of
industrial democracies. However, Shultz said they were invited to
meet with Assistant Secretary of State Gaston Sigur but had declined.
---
LONDON (AP) - Libyan television showed film a corpse in a military
uniform that it said had washed ashore, and suggested it was the body
of a U.S. airman whose jet was lost in the April 15 bombing raid on
Libya.
A commentator on the Tuesday night broadcast said the body washed
ashore at Al-Zawiyah, 25 miles west of Tripoli, the Libyan capital,
earlier in the day. He said the body could be that of a man called
''Lorence, whose helmet you have already seen.''
The Defense Department said in Washington that it had no knowledge
of the matter, and that it would have no immediate comment.
---
MOSCOW (AP) - The Soviet Union says the situation around the
Chernobyl power plant is ''disquieting'' more than a week and a half
after a nuclear disaster, and reportedly has asked West Germany for
specialized earth-moving equipment to clean up the site.
Soviet officials held their first news conference on the April 26
nuclear disaster Tuesday, but they offered little new information.
They gave conflicting figures on casualties and the amount of
radiation emitted by the crippled reactor 80 miles north of Kiev.
The six senior Soviet officials brushed off Western complaints about
slow reporting of limited information on the accident at the
Ukrainian plant, which spewed an invisible cloud of radiation over
Europe.
---
WASHINGTON (AP) - The House appears virtually certain to follow the
lead of the Senate in rejecting President Reagan's planned $354
million sale of air, ground and ship-based missiles to Saudi Arabia.
The 73-22 vote against the sale in the Republican-controlled Senate
Tuesday night was six votes more than the 67 votes that would be
needed to override an expected presidential veto if all 100 senators
voted.
The Democratic-controlled House was to vote today on a resolution
disapproving the sale. House members opposed to selling Saudi Arabia
more U.S. weapons were hoping for an equally strong showing.
---
WASHINGTON (AP) - James C. Fletcher is taking over NASA at a time
when the space agency is grounded, in low esteem, and uncertain about
how to soar again.
He returns to the job he held from 1971 to 1977 with an 89-9 vote of
confidence from the Senate, but also with carping from one senator
that ''he is a NASA retread who ... is not the man for this job.''
Fletcher, who was confirmed Tuesday but has no swearing-in date yet,
takes over from William Graham, acting administrator of the National
Aeronautics and Space Administration, while the United States finds
itself with little capability to launch anything other than weapons
of war.
---
WASHINGTON (AP) - The Senate approved a bill that will ease federal
firearms controls and allow millions of gun owners to buy rifles and
shotguns anywhere in the country, and the chief Senate sponsor said
President Reagan would sign the measure.
Sen. James McClure, R-Idaho, said ''there is no doubt'' Reagan will
approve the bill that was sent to the White House by a unanimous
Senate vote Tuesday night.
The vote masked a furious lobbying effort that pitted the gun lobby
against police and handgun control organizations. Smooth passage came
only after a three-hour meeting in the office of Sen. Strom Thurmond,
R-S.C., during which an agreement was hammered out to modify the bill
to satisfy gun control advocates.
---
LOS ANGELES (AP) - Joan Rivers is taking on former boss Johnny
Carson next fall in the opening assault of Fox Broadcasting Co.'s new
fourth network. NBC immediately canceled her remaining scheduled
appearances as his substitute.
The caustic comedian, whose show, ''Late Night Starring Joan
Rivers,'' will make its debut in the fall, had been permament
substitute host for Carson's ''The Tonight Show'' on NBC for the past
three years.
She was to be host two more weeks before her NBC contract expires
July 19.
---
ATLANTA (AP) - The Coca-Cola Co. today begins its five-day
centennial celebration, marking a century that was capped by a
consumer revolution as Coke drinkers complained that the soft-drink
giant altered The Real Thing.
The celebrations honor the first time the sweet, flavored-water
drink concocted by chemist John S. Pemberton in a kettle in his
backyard was served in Atlanta - on May 8, 1886, in Jacobs' Pharmacy.
Guided by the marketing wizardry of Robert Woodruff - whose
conservative fiscal philosophy saved the company during the Great
Depression - Coca-Cola became the world's leading soft drink
supplier.
AP-NY-05-07-86 0751EDT
- - - - - -
a211 1112 07 May 86
PM-Reagan, 1stld, a016,0251
Precede TOKYO
EDs: First 7 grafs new with Reagan's return
By MICHAEL PUTZEL
AP White House Correspondent
WASHINGTON (AP) - President Reagan, returning to the White House
after a 13-day Far East journey, said today that terrorists will find
''it is going to be tougher from now on'' because of agreements
reached at the Tokyo economic summit.
''We agreed the time has come to move beyond words and rhetoric,''
Reagan said in remarks at a welcoming ceremony at the Executive
Mansion that followed a 15-minute helicopter flight from nearby
Andrews Air Force Base.
The president's plane, Air Force One, refueled at Elmendorf Air
Force Base, Alaska, on its way from Tokyo.
''Terrorism, as expected, was high on the agenda,'' Reagan told the
welcoming ceremony. ''I am more than pleased by the commitments made
in Tokyo by our summit partners in this regard.''
''Terrorists and those who support them - especially governments -
have been put on notice,'' he said. ''It is going to be tougher from
now on.''
Turning to the economic issues of the summit, Reagan said the seven
participating nations produced ''a new framework for strengthening
effective coordination of international economic policy.''
In a news conference before leaving Tokyo, Reagan said he and his
summit allies privately explored all ''possible tools or weapons''
for waging a joint battle against terrorism but decided it would not
be helpful to publicly reveal what steps might be taken.
Reagan denied: 2nd graf
AP-NY-05-07-86 1411EDT
***************
a022 0114 07 May 86
PM-Soviet Response, Bjt,0718
Official Picture of Soviet Accident Area Emerging
By ALISON SMALE
Associated Press Writer
MOSCOW (AP) - The picture of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster emerging
through details provided by the official Soviet media is of a rescue
effort that spared most people serious illness, and of a life that
goes on largely unaffected in nearby population centers.
But the reports have not answered lingering questions about exact
radiation levels in the accident area, the condition of casualties,
or whether a fire still burns at the Chernobyl power plant's crippled
No. 4 reactor.
The Soviets, by tradition secretive about their disasters, first
reported the April 26 accident in a four-sentence statement two days
later after increased levels of radiation were detected in
Scandinavia.
Since then they have met pressure for details with guarded
government statements.
On Tuesday, the Communist Party newspaper Pravda gave a vivid
account of how workers battled the fire, senior officials held a news
conference and the news agency Tass issued a report on life in the
Kiev area after the accident.
''Although the situation remains disquieting, there are no grounds
for unwarranted skepticism,'' Tass said.
Soviet officials told a news conference Tuesday that the plant staff
did not realize immediately how serious the accident was.
They said it was not until 36 hours after the initial explosion
ripped through the reactor that Pripyat, a town of 25,000 surrounding
the power plant, was evacuated.
A 12-mile-long convoy of 1,100 buses took two hours and 20 minutes
to carry people from the area April 27, Tass reported Tuesday.
Tass said people eventually were evacuated from an 18-mile zone
around the plant and were ''subjected to special decontamination
treatment,'' adding, ''According to official medical information,
there are no health risks for the absolute majority of evacuees.''
The Soviets say two people died in the accident, one from burns and
another from falling debris.
A Soviet official said over the weekend that 49,000 residents were
moved out, including 25,000 from Pripyat, located 80 miles north of
the Ukrainian capital of Kiev.
A correspondent for the Soviet's No. 2 news agency Novosti, Vladimir
Kolinko, in a report telexed to The Associated Press on Tuesday, said
he visited Chernobyl and Pripyat three days after the explosion.
Kolinko said Pripyat was deserted, except for emergency headquarters
set up in the towns' Communist Party committee building where ''the
ground floor was full of crates with rubber protective suits and
masks.''
He later returned to the town of Chernobyl, where he said citizens
went to work the next morning, April 30, and patrol cars roamed the
streets ''taking measurements.''
Tass correspondents emphasized the impression, which the official
media have given for the past week, that life is normal in Kiev, a
city of 2.4 million. The agency said people there were living ''a
calm, confident and full-blooded life.''
However, Grigory Revenko, Communist Party chief in the Kiev region,
told the news agency that specialists were testing crops, soil, water
and air around the Ukrainian capital city. The report did not say
that the tests were to determine radiation levels or if citizens had
been advised about health precautions.
Revenko said vegetables supplied to Kiev and neighboring cities were
checked before they left the farms and again when they arrived at
stores. He also told the agency all roads in the region were being
washed regularly.
Two Kiev doctors interviewed on the national evening television news
Tuesday said evacuees who were examined had suffered no ill effects.
One man who said he was a Pripyat resident was shown being declared
in good health. He told a television interviewer he wanted to get
back to work as soon as possible.
Pravda said Tuesday the accident was caused by a non-nuclear
explosion that blew apart the building housing a reactor and shot
flames nearly 100 feet high. It said the situation remained
''complicated'' because water and chemicals were useless in
extinguishing the fire, but did not say specifically whether the
reactor fire still was burning.
Government statements for the past week have said radiation levels
are decreasing in affected areas, which on Monday were said for the
first time to include the Ukraine and Byelorussia.
AP-NY-05-07-86 0412EDT
***************
a027 0156 07 May 86
PM-Nuclear Accident, Bjt,0789
Officials Defend Accident Response, Reveal Few More Details
By CAROL J. WILLIAMS
Associated Press Writer
MOSCOW (AP) - The Soviet Union says the situation around the
Chernobyl power plant is ''disquieting'' more than a week and a half
after a nuclear disaster, and reportedly has asked West Germany for
specialized earth-moving equipment to clean up the site.
Soviet officials held their first news conference on the April 26
nuclear disaster Tuesday, but they offered little new information.
They gave conflicting figures on casualties and the amount of
radiation emitted by the crippled reactor 80 miles north of Kiev.
The six senior Soviet officials brushed off Western complaints about
slow reporting of limited information on the accident at the
Ukrainian plant, which spewed an invisible cloud of radiation over
Europe.
Small amounts of the radiation also have reached the United States,
Canada, and Japan.
None of officials, including the top nuclear energy official and the
head of a government inquiry, said whether the fire was extinguished
in the reactor's graphite core. A report in the Communist Party daily
Pravda earlier Tuesday suggested it was still burning or smoldering.
Boris Y. Shcherbina, a deputy premier heading the inquiry, said
authorities have not determined the accident's cause, but a chemical
explosion was ''most probable.''
Shcherbina said the accident occurred at 1:23 a.m. on April 26, the
first official mention of a precise time, but that those living near
the plant were not evacuated for another 36 hours because plant
workers underestimated the severity of the incident.
Tass, the official news agency, filed a dispatch from the Kiev
region Tuesday, saying, ''Although the situation remains disquieting,
there are no grounds for unwarranted skepticism.''
Everyone evacuated from an 18-mile zone around the plant were given
''special decontamination treatment,'' it said. ''According to
official medical information, there are no health risks for the
absolute majority of evacuees.''
The Soviets say two people died during the accident, one from burns
and one who has hit by falling debris.
In Bonn, West German Interior Ministry sources said Soviet officials
had asked to buy or rent remote-controlled earth-moving machines for
use in cleanup work at the Chernobyl plant.
The sources said the Soviet trade mission in Cologne asked a West
German firm, Nuclear Technical Aid Service in Karlsruhe, to provide a
special earth-moving vehicle that could be steered by radio signals
and equipped with video cameras.
Interior Minister Friedrich Zimmermann advised the company to
provide the technologically sensitive equipment ''on humanitarian
grounds,'' one source said.
Grigory Revenko, the Communist Party chief in the Kiev region, told
Tass that many farmers did not want to leave the Chernobyl area, and
that officials had to persuade several of them.
Revenko said specialists were testing crops, soil, water and air
around Kiev, a city of 2.4 million people.
The Tass report did not say whether citizens had been advised about
health precautions. But a Canadian diplomat in Moscow said two
Canadian students who arrived Monday from Kiev had heard radio
warnings against bathing or fishing in the Dnieper River, which
passes through the city and is fed by the Pripyat and Uzh rivers that
run close to the Chernobyl plant.
Two Kiev doctors interviewed on the national evening television news
Tuesday said evacuees who were examined had suffered no ill effects.
A government official has said about 49,000 people were evacuated,
including the 25,000 in the plant town of Pripyat.
Revenko said 1,100 buses in a column 12 miles long took people out
of the danger area. He said Pripyat was evacuated in two hours and 20
minutes.
Andranik M. Petrosyants, head of the state Atomic Energy Committee,
said at the news conference that a shield including 4,000 tons of
sand was thrown over the reactor.
Petrosyants said radiation in neighboring countries increased about
five times because of the accident.
None of the radiation was described as life-threatening, but many
precautions still are in effect. Greece and several other governments
continue warning their people against consuming fresh milk or leafy
vegetables.
Shcherbina said about 100 people were contaminated in the accident,
but Deputy Health Minister Yevgeny Vorobyev said 204 people had been
hospitalized.
Of the initial casualties, 100 were flown to Moscow, the officials
said.
Petrosyants said the International Atomic Energy Agency was informed
''immediately after we learned about the accident.''
However, an IAEA spokesman in Vienna, James Dagleish, said the
agency received its first word of the Chernobyl disaster in a phone
call on the night of April 29 and did not receive a written
communique from the Soviets until the 30th.
AP-NY-05-07-86 0454EDT
***************
a061 0540 07 May 86
PM-Sweden-Nuclear,0223
Three Unexplained Emissions Noted Since 1983
STOCKHOLM, Sweden (AP) - The Swedish defense agency has recorded
three unexplained radioactive emissions from the Soviet Union since
1983, an agency physicist said today.
Lars Eric de Geer said that although the readings, in December 1983,
February 1984 and February 1985, were extremely low they were of
radioactive matter normally created inside nuclear reactors.
''It is not what you normally see outside,'' he said. ''We can only
speculate about the reasons.''
De Geer said the emissions were 1,000 million times smaller than
those recorded after the April 26 accident at the Chernobyl nuclear
power plant in the Soviet Ukraine, and it would be ''to exaggerate''
to describe them as resulting from accidents.
De Geer is a scientist with the Swedish Defense Research
Institution, which operates devices intended to detect nuclear tests
outside Sweden.
De Geer said the three incidents of emissions could have come from
the Chernobyl plant 80 miles north of the Ukrainian capital of Kiev,
but it was difficult to pinpoint the source.
''We have also been looking at a reactor in Lithuania,'' he said,
adding that the emissions might have come from one of several in the
eastern Soviet Union.
De Geer said Swedish officials determined the emissions were from
the Soviet Union by examining weather conditions at the time of the
readings.
AP-NY-05-07-86 0838EDT
***************
a069 0654 07 May 86
PM-Reactor Explosion,0455
U.S. Let Reactor Explode in 1965 Test
LOS ANGELES (AP) - A small U.S. nuclear reactor was allowed to
explode in 1965 as part of a test of what would happen during a
runaway chain reaction, according to a scientist involved in the
experiment.
Fallout was measured at non-dangerous levels in three Southern
California communities 200 to 250 miles from the blast, but very
little was found nearby, radiation biologist Stewart Black told The
Los Angeles Times in an interview published today.
Black, chief of the dose assessment branch of the Environmental
Protection Agency's Environmental Monitoring Systems Laboratory in
Las Vegas, Nev., was with the U.S. Public Health Service at the time
of the test.
The experiment showed that in an accident like the one in the Soviet
Union, radioactive fallout can be carried far from the site while
nearby areas are spared, Stewart said.
Discovery of small amounts of radiation in milk from cows fed hay
left near the test explosion showed such an accident can release
radiation that travels up the food chain, he said.
The test in January 1985 at Jackass Flats, northwest of Las Vegas,
was part of a program by the old Atomic Energy Commission to develop
nuclear rockets for use in space, an idea abandoned in the 1970s.
Scientists removed the reactor's control rods to let the reaction in
the small research reactor speed up, Black said. The rods absorb
neutrons emitted by splitting atoms, thereby slowing fission of other
atoms.
As scientists had expected, it exploded, Black said.
Cows fed hay that had been set out 1 1/2 miles from the reactor
produced slightly contaminated milk, Black said. Cows at two ranches
16 miles from the site did not show detectable levels of radiation,
according to a Public Health Service report dated Aug. 6, 1965.
Some radiation was found at three of 14 spots tested in Southern
California downwind of the blast, he said. They were Saticoy,
Fillmore and Newhall, communities 30 miles and more northwest of Los
Angeles.
Those were the only areas tested that showed radiation in natural
vegetation, and the amounts were only slightly above normal, Black
said.
Black said a radioactive cloud from the explosion may have traveled
through the atmosphere until it was stopped by hills around Newhall
and Fillmore.
The amount and type of radiation released was far less dangerous
than what would come from a similar blast at a modern power plant
such as the one at Chernobyl, Black said. Because the small reactor
had been running only a few hours, such dangerous byproducts as
cesium and strontium had not been produced in significant quantities,
he said.
AP-NY-05-07-86 0953EDT
- - - - - -
a074 0720 07 May 86
PM-Reactor Explosion, CORRECTION, a069,0060
LOS ANGELES SUB 6th graf: The test xxx 1970s to CORRECT 1985 to 1965
The test in January 1965 at Jackass Flats, northwest of Las Vegas,
was part of a program by the old Atomic Energy Commission to develop
nuclear rockets for use in space, an idea abandoned in the 1970s.
Scientists removed: 7th geaf
AP-NY-05-07-86 1018EDT
***************
a201 1014 07 May 86
AM-News Digest,1011
AMs AP News Digest
For Thursday AMs
Here are the top stories at this hour from The Associated Press. The
General Desk supervisor is Marty Sutphin (212-621-1602). The
Laserphoto Desk supervisor is Jerry Mosey (212-621-1900).
REAGAN: President Returns, Happy with Anti-Terrorism Mission
ELMENDORF AIR FORCE BASE, Alaska - A buoyant President Reagan,
convinced he accomplished his anti-terrorism mission in Tokyo,
returns to U.S. soil to be greeted at the White House by a triumphal
welcoming ceremony featuring Cabinet members, staff aides and a
marching band. Slug AM-Reagan. Developing.
By Tom Raum. LaserPhoto staffing. Reagan arrives at White House
about 1:55 p.m. EDT.
NUCLEAR RISKS:
Soviets Attack Western Media Coverage of Chernobyl Disaster
MOSCOW - The official media renews attacks on Western news coverage
of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster but remains silent on questions
still unanswered 12 days after the accident. Slug AM-Nuclear
Disaster. Developing. 750.
By Carol J. Williams.
Congress Urged To Tighten Regulation of Weapons Reactors
WASHINGTON - Studying lessons of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster in
the Soviet Union, a congressional panel hears calls for tighter and
more independent federal regulation of the weapons production
reactors that one lawmaker says now are run on ''the honor system''
by the Energy Department. Slug AM-US-Soviet Accident Rdp. Developing.
By Jill Lawrence.
TAXES: Dole Predicts Overhaul Plan Will Sail Through Senate
WASHINGTON - Majority Leader Bob Dole predicts easy Senate passage
of a Finance Committee tax-overhaul plan, endorsed by President
Reagan, that would affect virtually every American, sharply reducing
tax rates while wiping out some prize deductions. Slug AM-Tax
Overhaul. Developing.
By Tax Writer Jim Luther.
TRAIN CRASH: 200 Hurt as Boston Commuter Line Hits Freight
BOSTON - As many as 200 people were reported injured Wednesday after
a train packed with a standing-room-only crowd of commuters struck
the rear of a freight train. Officials said about 50 people were
taken away on stretchers but that most of the injuries appeared to be
minor. Slug AM-Train Crash. Developing.
By Carolyn Lumsden. LaserPhotos BX16, view of collision scene; BX14,
injured wait for treatment; BX13, injured passenger carried from
train and BX15, rescuers remove victims.
DROUGHT: Southeast Farmers Face Driest Planting Season Ever
ATLANTA - Some farmers who have weathered low prices and tight
credit may not be able to sweat out this planting season, the driest
ever recorded in parts of the South. Slug AM-Southeast Drought. New
material, may stand. 650 words.
By David Simpson.
ELECTIONS '86: Both Parties Hail Tuesday's Primary Results
UNDATED - Strategists for both major parties hail results of the
latest round of primary elections, with Democrats optimistic about
Terry Sanford's chances of winning the North Carolina Senate race and
Republicans hoping James A. Rhodes can regain the Ohio statehouse.
Slug AM-Primary Rdp. New material. 700 words.
By Mike Silverman.
SAUDI ARMS: House Votes on Scuttling Missile Sale
WASHINGTON - The House, following in the footsteps of the Senate,
prepares to pass a resolution disapproving President Reagan's plans
to sell $354 million worth of missiles to Saudi Arabia. Reagan has
promised to veto the resolutions, but opponents of the sale say they
can override his veto. Slug AM-US-Saudi Arms. Developing.
By Tim Ahern. Vote likely between 3 p.m. and 5 p.m. EDT.
MARRIAGE IN AMERICA: Not As Many Knots Being Tied
WASHINGTON - The number of marriages in America has dipped slightly,
with the marriage rate for single women in their most eligible years
dropping to an all-time low, new government statistics show. Slug
AM-Marriage. Should stand. 650 words.
By Randolph E. Schmid
LEBANON: Kidnappers Strike Twice in West Beirut
BEIRUT, Lebanon - Kidnappers strike twice in Moslem west Beirut,
seizing an 85-year-old Frenchman at a crowded seaside boulevard and a
Lebanese Christian professor at the terrorist-plagued American
University, police say. Slug AM-Lebanon-Kidnap. New material. 600.
By Rodeina Kenaan. LaserPhoto covering.
GULF WAR: Iraq Bombs Tehran Oil Refinery, Hits Two Other Cities
NICOSIA, Cyprus - Waves of Iraqi warplanes bomb an oil refinery
outside Iran's capital, Tehran, and raid at least two other Iranian
cities. Iran says four people are dead and at least 17 are wounded.
Slug AM-Iran-Raids. Developing. 600.
CANCER: Americans Are Losing the War as Odds of Dying Increase
BOSTON - Americans are losing the war against cancer, because the
odds of dying from this disease have actually increased during the
past three decades, a controversial new report concludes. AM-Cancer
War. New, should stand. 700 words.
By Science Writer Daniel Q. Haney. For release at 6 p.m. EDT.
COKE AT 100:
Birthday Celebration Revolves Around Secret Formula
ATLANTA - Coca-Cola's not-so-secret celebration of its 100th
birthday revolves around one of the best kept secrets in the world:
the formula for the world's most famous soft drink. Slug AM-Coke
Centennial. New, should stand. 650 words.
By Karen Bennett.
US-SOVIET COUPLES: Coping with Daily Life after Public Reunions
UNDATED - Most of the eight couples whose reunions were granted as a
good-will gesture before the U.S.-Soviet summit meeting in Geneva
last year have retreated from the public eye, working to append the
traditional ''happily ever after'' to stories which had mostly been
about separation and red tape. Slug AM-US-Soviet Couples. New, will
stand. 900 words.
MOTHER'S MEMORIES: Memorabilia of Dead Son Returned after 36 Years
TWENTYNINE PALMS, Calif. - A blind, 85-year-old widow gets back a
reminder of the son she lost in World War II, thanks to the Marines
and a man who found a box filled with medals and citations in a New
York City trash can. Slug AM-Memory Box. Developing.
AP-NY-05-07-86 1312EDT
***************
a213 1123 07 May 86
AM-US-Saudi Arms, Bjt,0471
House Expected To Follow Senate Lead In Rejecting Missile Sale
EDS: Vote expected by 5 p.m. EDT
By TIM AHERN
Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) - The House was expected to follow the Senate on
Wednesday and reject President Reagan's plan to sell missiles to
Saudi Arabia, but it remained uncertain whether opponents would have
enough strength to preserve their victories by overriding a veto.
The Senate voted 73-22 late Wednesday against the sale and White
House spokesman Edward Djerejian said afterwards that Reagan
definitely would veto the resolution.
Proponents and opponents agreed that the House also would endorse a
disapproval resolution, which was sponsored by 233 legislators, more
than half the members.
House Minority Leader Bob Michel, R-Ill., said: ''I think it's quite
obvious that we're going to lose on final passage on the issue. But
it would be good if there would be a sufficient number of votes to
sustain a presidential veto.''
Michel said he was ''not all that confident yet'' that Reagan will
win a veto fight.
Sen. Alan Cranston, D-Calif., predicted on Wednesday that ''by day's
end, both houses of Congress will have voted down this sale.''
It would require a two-thirds vote in each chamber to override a
presidential veto. If all members able to vote do so, that would mean
67 votes in the Senate and 289 in the House. Just one house
overriding a veto would not be sufficient to block the sale.
Congress has never rejected a weapons sale. The closest previous
fight was in 1981, when Congress narrowly approved the sale of AWACS
radar planes to the Saudis. Those planes are to be delivered next
month.
The $354 million package includes Stinger shoulder-fired
ground-to-air missiles, Harpoon ship-to-ship missiles, and Sidewinder
air-to-air missiles. Delivery would begin in 1989.
The White House and its supporters in Congress have argued that a
continued U.S. military relationship with Saudi Arabia is necessary
to maintain American influence among moderate Arab states.
Supporters have also argued that if the Saudis are turned down, they
will simply go elsewhere to buy the weapons they need. They point to
the Saudis' recent promise to purchase British Tornado fighters after
the United States refused to sell any more high performance jets to
the desert kingdom.
But opponents maintain the Saudis have supported nations such as
Libya, which Reagan has branded as a major sponsor of international
terrorism. The Saudis criticized last month's raid by American
bombers on Libya, a mission Reagan ordered to punish Libyan strongman
Moammar Khadafy for supporting terrorism.
Opponents also note that the Saudis are still technically in a state
of war with Israel and they say the Saudis have not been helpful to
American efforts to broker a Mideast peace pact.
AP-NY-05-07-86 1420EDT
- - - - - -
a222 1239 07 May 86
AM-US-Saudi Arms, 1st Ld, a213,0249
URGENT
House Follows Senate In Voting To Reject Saudi Arms Sale; Veto Fight
Looms
Eds: UPDATES with House rejecting missile sale
By TIM AHERN
Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) - The House followed the Senate on Wednesday and
voted 356-62 to reject President Reagan's plan to sell missiles to
Saudi Arabia, a strong vote that suggested enough strength to
override a presidential veto in the House.
It would take 289 votes in the Democratic-controlled House to
override Reagan's promised veto of the ''disapproval resolution.''
The Senate voted 73-22 late Wednesday against the sale, six more
votes than the 67 needed to override a veto.
Even though votes on veto override efforts frequently are closer
than the original vote, House Minority Leader Bob Michel, R-Ill., had
acknowledged before the vote that he was ''not all that confident''
Reagan could win a veto fight in the House.
And the chief House opponent of the sale, Rep. Mel Levine, D-Calif.,
said: ''I think when it comes down to the override, we'll have the
votes to win. We're pretty close to having enough votes locked up.''
However, both houses - not just one - would have to override
Reagan's veto to block the sale, raising the likelihood that the
final showdown on the issue will be fought in the
Republican-controlled Senate where Reagan would have to sway only a
handful of opponents to win eventual approval for the sale.
Congress has, 8th graf
AP-NY-05-07-86 1538EDT
- - - - - -
a236 1512 07 May 86
AM-digest Advisory,0115
The budgets have cleared. Here is a listing, with LaserPhoto
numbers:
WASH - US-Saudi Arms, a213, a222.
BOSTON - Cancer War, a215.
BEIRUT, Lebanon - Lebanon-Kidnap, a217.
UNDATED - Primary Rdp, a220.
UNDATED - Southeast Drought, a221.
WASH - Marriages, a223.
UNDATED - Soviet Couples, a224.
TWENTYNINE PALMS, Calif. - Memory Box, a225.
WASH - Reagan, a227.
NICOSIA, Cyprus - Iran-Raids, a228.
BOSTON - Train Crash, a229. BX13,14,15,16.
WASH - Tax Overhaul, a230.
MOSCOW - Nuclear Disaster, a232.
ATLANTA - Coke Centennial, a233.
WASH - US-Soviet Accident Rdp, a235.
The AP
AP-NY-05-07-86 1810EDT
***************
a232 1437 07 May 86
AM-Nuclear Disaster, Bjt,0808
Radiation Decreasing; Foreign Journalists To Visit Kiev
By CAROL J. WILLIAMS
Associated Press Writer
MOSCOW (AP) - Tass said Wednesday that some Ukrainians were
hospitalized because they panicked after the Chernobyl nuclear plant
accident and poisoned themselves with medicine they thought would
prevent radiation sickness.
It was the first official reference to panic after the explosion,
fire and reactor core meltdown April 26 that spewed an invisible
cloud of radiation over Europe.
An American bone-marrow specialist who came here to treat radiation
victims told The Associated Press he and other experts probably would
be in Moscow for at least a month. Dr. Robert Gale would not say how
many marrow transplants he had performed.
The government said radiation was declining around the disaster site
and a small group of foreign journalists would be taken to Kiev, the
Ukranian capital 80 miles away.
Tass, the official news ageny, carried a report from Kiev on a
television appearance by Anatoly Romanenko, the Ukrainian health
minister. He said radiation levels in Kiev were slightly above normal
but posed no health risks and did not require preventive measures.
Tass quoted Romanenko as saying of those who took the medicine,
''Such is life and there are panic-prone people. They followed some
hasty advice, taking medicines that were alleged to protect them from
radiation, and there were cases of poisoning. They are now being
treated in hospitals.''
Romanenko did not say how many people were poisoned or what they had
taken.
Like other Soviet reports on life in Kiev, the Tass dispatch said
the situation was under control and consequences of the accident were
being dealt with appropriately.
A Foreign Ministry official advised several Western news agencies
Wednesday evening of the tour to Kiev and said it would leave late
Thursday. He did not say who would be invited or whether they would
be allowed near the site of the accident that spewed an invisible
cloud of radiation over Europe.
He said the trip was organized in response to requests to visit the
area. Such requests have been denied routinely.
No radiation levels dangerous to health were reported in Europe.
A U.S. Embassy statement said tests so far show no cause for concern
in the Moscow. American diplomats set up equipment in several
locations to monitor radiation in the air and soil.
A government statement issued through Tass said that, although
radiation around the reactor had lessened, it remained above normal.
It said work was continuing to shore up the Pripyat River near the
plant and protect it from contamination, but contained little new
information about the April 26 disaster, which the government says
killed two people and injured 204.
Five official statements have been issued since the accident. The
first was issued April 28, two days after the accident, when
unusually high levels of radiation were detected in Scandinavia.
The latest statement was read on a national television news program,
which also showed footage of a few evacuees at a collective farm. The
program said the evacuees were working at the farm while their own
settlements were being decontaminated.
An official of the affected area said tests were being conducted on
water from the Pripyat, but that so far only insignificant amounts of
radiation had been found.
A government official in Bonn said a West German company that
specializes in nuclear cleanups had sent two remote-controlled earth
moving machines to the Soviet Union on Wednesday for use at the
Chernobyl plant. The Soviet government asked earlier in the week to
buy or rent the equipment.
Officials of a French-Soviet company acting as intermediary said in
Paris that a manufacturer had supplied tons of anti-radiation paint
to the Soviet Union.
In Italy, Premier Bettino Craxi's office said Soviet leader Mikhail
S. Gorbachev had pledged to keep the world informed on the aftermath
of the disaster.
A spokesman quoted Gorbachev's message to Craxi as saying in part:
''We will inform ... in the future Italy, as we will other countries
and world public opinion, on the progress of the work to clear up the
consequences of the damage.''
Gale arrived last Friday to help Soviet doctors treat the people
most seriously injured at Chernobyl. Bone marrow transplants are
considered the only effective treatment for severe radiation
exposure.
He said by telephone Wednesday that he has been operating on
victims, and ''we expect to be here for at least a month.''
Two other American specialists, Dr. Paul Terasaki and Dr. Richard
Champline, are here to assist with treatment and Dr. Yair Reisner of
Israel arrived Wednesday, Gale said.
Official government statements have said 18 of those injured were in
serious condition, but have not disclosed the degree of exposure.
AP-NY-05-07-86 1735EDT
***************
a235 1509 07 May 86
AM-US-Soviet Accident Rdp, Bjt,0731
DOE Reactors Should Be Held To Stricter Standards, Says Congressman
By JILL LAWRENCE
Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) - Nuclear facilities run by the Department of Energy
for research and weapons production should be held to the same strict
safety standards applied to commercial plants, a congressman and a
scientist said Wednesday.
Rep. Edward Markey said the department regulates itself and ''runs
on the honor system'' but has a track record that ''does not reflect
honor on the agency.''
''DOE often compromises on its safety issues to achieve economic and
production goals,'' added Thomas Cochran, a physicist. ''I believe
there would be less of that if DOE facilities were regulated by the
NRC (Nuclear Regulatory Commission).'' Cochran is senior staff
scientist with the Natural Resources Defense Council, an
environmental group.
Markey, D-Mass., convened a hearing by the House subcommittee on
energy conservation and power to examine implications of the
Chernobyl nuclear disaster on DOE reactors.
He said an internal review last year concluded the department's
environment, safety and health division was a ''toothless watchdog
guarding the safety and environmental integrity of one of the most
hazardous undertakings in the world.''
Meanwhile, the Environmental Protection Agency said Wednesday that
traces of radiation from the Soviet accident have been monitored in
rain falling on two additional U.S. cities, but that no health threat
was posed in either case.
Olympia, Wash., showed radioactivity totaling 170 picocuries per
liter in rainfall Monday, and Bismarck, N.D., showed an almost
unmeasureable 6.7 picocuries per liter in rainfall Tuesday, the
agency said on behalf of an interagency task force monitoring
Chernobyl accident developments.
On Tuesday, the agency had announced radioactivity concentrations of
500 picocuries per liter at Richland, Wash., and 630 at Portland,
Ore.
The Olympia exposure would mean the radiation dose in one liter of
the contaminated water - about a quart - would be equivalent to about
one-ninth of that caused by a chest X-ray.
In all cases, the radiation was from iodine-131, whose radioactivity
declines by 50 percent every eight days.
''Iodine-131 at these concentrations poses no danger to area
residents,'' The EPA said.
Markey, chairman of the House panel examining safety at Department
of Energy reactors, said DOE recently has ''reorganized, revamped,
restructured, reshuffled and re-evaluated. But the central question
... is whether it is proper and wise for Congress to acquiesce in
DOE's call to 'trust us.'''
The department operates five large plutonium-producing reactors -
the N-Reactor near Richland, Wash. and four others at the Savannah
River site near Aiken, S.C. - along with smaller research and
demonstration facilities around the country.
The N-Reactor uses graphite to slow its fuel reaction, as did the
Chernobyl reactor involved in the Soviet accident. Also like the
Chernobyl plant, the five large DOE plants are not surrounded by
steel and concrete containment buildings designed to keep
radioactivity from escaping during a meltdown or other accident.
Containments are required at NRC-licensed plants.
Mary L. Walker, assistant energy secretary for environment, safety
and health, said Wednesday the department has an excellent safety
record and has been ''open and forthright'' in reviews of its own
facilities.
She and other DOE officials maintain their industrial-strength
confinement buildings, combined with multiple safety systems, offer
the same protection as more bulky containment structures.
They also assert that worst-case accidents would cause one-third of
the N-Reactor core to melt and a 3 percent meltdown at Savannah
River. The scenarios assume at least one cooling system would keep
working, and project no radiation releases in dangerous amounts.
But Cochran and subcommittee members questioned those projections.
Markey noted that core-melt accidents accompanied by radioactive
releases have occurred at five reactors so far, each of a different
design: at Chernobyl, at a British reactor, at a Canadian reactor and
at two U.S. reactors. ''Whatever can melt down might melt down,'' he
said.
Added Cochran: ''It (core melt) can happen anywhere, anytime, in any
large operating reactor in the U.S. or abroad. ... If these reactors
are to operate at all, they must have robust containment.''
If the NRC regulated the DOE plants, Cochran said, the department
would be told to analyze a full meltdown situation and would conclude
the reactors needed containment buildings. Confinement filters cannot
trap radioactive xenon and krypton gases, he said.
AP-NY-05-07-86 1808EDT
***************
a249 1635 07 May 86
AM-Nuclear Cattle,0243
Italians Ship Back Radiation-Contaminated Polish Cattle
PONTEBBA, Italy (AP) - Italian customs officials on Wednesday said
970 Polish cattle held five days at the Italian-Austrian border were
shipped back to Poland because they were contaminated by radiation.
Customs officials at the Pontebba crossing point said 28 freight
cars containing the animals left for Poland Tuesday night, after
Austrian and Czechoslovak officials authorized the train to cross
their countries.
The border authorities also told The Associated Press that about 30
Polish calves died during their holdover in Pontebba because of
exhaustion and a heat wave in the area.
Health officials in Pontebba said there was no evidence the calves
died of radiation poisoning.
Italy's Health Ministry banned imports of live cattle, meat, milk,
fish and vegetables from Eastern Europe and Scandinavia last Friday
because of radiation from the April 26 disaster at the Soviet Union's
Chernobyl nuclear power plant.
The Polish cattle were already en route to Italy when the ban was
issued.
Polish officials said atmospheric radiation reached up to 100 times
normal in parts of the country after the Chenobyl accident. The
government banned sale of milk from grass-fed cows because of danger
they had ingested radioactive fallout.
The Italian customs officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity,
said checks made on the animals over the weekend found the
contamination. They said they did not know what the radiation levels
were.
AP-NY-05-07-86 1933EDT
***************
a256 1726 07 May 86
AM-Reactor Explosion,0454
U.S. Let Reactor Explode in 1965 Test
By ROBERT MACY
Associated Press Writer
LAS VEGAS, Nev. (AP) - Scientists testing the use of nuclear-powered
rockets allowed a nuclear reactor to explode in 1965, and small
amounts of radiation were detected more than 200 miles away, a
federal official who took part in the test said Wednesday.
The intentional blast was designed to determine what would happen if
a nuclear-powered spacecraft engine were to explode, said radiation
biologist Stewart Black.
''The radioactive fallout was minuscule by comparison to some of the
major atmospheric nuclear tests,'' said Black, chief of the dose
assessment branch of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's
environmental monitoring systems laboratory in Las Vegas. He was with
the U.S. Public Health Service at the time of the January 1965 test.
The test, dubbed TNT for Transient Nuclear Test, was part of the
Plowshares program, a series of experiments at the Nevada Test Site
designed to determine ways of using nuclear power for peaceful
purposes. The detonation took place about 110 miles northwest of Las
Vegas.
The rocket tests were dropped in 1973 after the government spent
$225 million on the project.
Black said the test was designed to determine what would happen if a
nuclear-powered spacecraft rocket blew up. Control rods were removed
from the reactor too quickly, touching off the planned explosion.
''We figured it would blow the reactor up, and sure enough, it
did,'' Black said. ''We knew about what would happen if it did
explode. We were just not sure it would explode.''
Black said his job following the blast was to measure radiation
samples.
''We found a little radioactivity in the Lathrop Wells area,'' a
tiny community 85 miles northwest of Las Vegas. ''We did find some
fresh fission products in mountains (north of Los Angeles) but we
didn't find any in food products in California. Basically, the
radiation was confined to Nevada and the Lathrop Wells area.''
There were no health concerns, Black said. He said the highest
readings in Lathrop Wells were only 1 percent of the level that would
have been considered a problem.
Non-dangerous levels of radiation were measured at Saticoy, Fillmore
and Newhall, communities 30 miles northwest of Los Angeles and more
than 200 miles from the explosion.
Black said the reactor, named Kewi, had operated only a few hours
and was not like the power reactor in Russia (at Chernobyl) that had
operated for a number of years and had a large inventory of fission
products. The length of time a reactor has been operating determines
how much fission is built up to blow out into the atmosphere.
AP-NY-05-07-86 2024EDT
***************
a269 1932 07 May 86
BC-America Travels-Poll, Adv 11,0540
$Adv11
For Release Sunday, May 11, and Thereafter
Most Americans Consider Vacation a Luxury, But One They Can Afford
With BC-America Travels
With LaserGraphic
By LAWRENCE KILMAN
Associated Press Writer
NEW YORK (AP) - A majority of Americans believe a yearly vacation
trip is a luxury and not a necessity, but it is a luxury that most
people plan to enjoy this summer, according to a Media
General-Associated Press poll.
Fifty-six percent of the 1,473 adult Americans in the nationwide
telephone poll said they were planning vacation trips for the coming
summer. Most of them - 84 percent - said they would be traveling
outside their home states.
Eight in 10 travelers said they planned to vacation in the United
States and two in 10 said they planned overseas trips, but the poll
was conducted before the U.S. bombing raid on Libya and the Soviet
nuclear accident, which have caused some travelers to reconsider
their plans.
Four in 10 respondents said they were not taking vacation trips this
summer, and 4 percent had not yet made summer plans when the poll was
conducted April 3-11. Forty-four percent of those not taking
vacations said they didn't have the money. Others cited a lack of
time, or plans to take vacations in other seasons.
For purposes of the poll, a vacation trip was defined as a trip of
four days or longer.
Fifty-three percent of the respondents said a yearly vacation trip
was a luxury and not a necessity, while 39 percent said they needed
to take yearly trips. Eight percent said they were unsure.
The poll found that many Americans - 54 percent - planned to visit
new vacation spots this summer. Forty-five percent were returning to
their favorite spots, and 1 percent were unsure.
Americans are diverse in their vacation plans. About two in 10 said
they planned to visit relatives, and two in 10 said they were going
to the beach. One-quarter planned sightseeing trips, eight percent
were going to visit friends, and 6 percent planned trips to the
mountains.
Respondents in the Media General-Associated Press poll included a
random, scientific sampling of 1,473 adults across the country April
3-11. As with all sample surveys, the results of Media General-AP
telephone polls can vary from the opinions of all Americans because
of chance variation in the sample.
For a poll based on about 1,400 interviews, the results are subject
to an error margin of 3 percentage points either way because of
chance variations in the sample. That is, if one could have
questioned all Americans with telephones, there is only 1 chance in
20 that the findings would vary from the results of polls such as
this one by more than 3 percentage points.
Of course, the results could differ from other polls for several
reasons. Differences in exact wording of questions, in the timing of
interviews and in the interview methods could also cause variations.
Media General Inc., a communications company based in Richmond, Va.,
publishes the Richmond Times-Dispatch and the Richmond News Leader;
the Tampa (Fla.) Tribune, and the Winston-Salem Journal in North
Carolina. The company's television stations are WXFL in Tampa, WCBD
in Charleston, S.C., and WJKS in Jacksonville, Fla.
End Adv for Sunday, May 11
AP-NY-05-07-86 2230EDT
***************
a002 2150 07 May 86
PM-News Digest,1175
PMs AP News Digest
Thursday, May 8, 1986
Here are the top stories for PMs. The General Desk supervisor is Ron
Sirak (212) 621-1604. The Laserphoto Desk supervisor is Mike
Musielski (212) 621-1900.
For repeats of AP copy, the Service Desk can be reached at (212)
621-1595 or 1596.
EARTHQUAKES AND TIDAL WAVES:
Quake Spawns Wave; Evacuations Urged On West Coast
UNDATED - A series of earthquakes rattled the Aleutian Islands and
the strongest of the tremblors, measuring 7.7 on the Richter scale,
triggered a tsunami that send people scrambling for higher ground in
Hawaii and on the West Coast as far south as California. Slug
PM-Tsunami.
Developing. LaserPhoto covering. By Mark Berns.
SHULTZ: Secretary of State Praises South Korean Leader, Shuns
Opposition
SEOUL, South Korea - Secretary of State George P. Shultz snubbed two
opposition leaders and had words of praise for South Korean President
Chun Doo-hwan, who he said is moving the country toward democracy.
Later today, Shultz heads for the Philippines. Slug PM-Shultz.
Developing. By AP Diplomatic Writer Barry Schweid.
NUCLEAR ACCIDENT:
Soviets Say Panic Caused Some to be Hospitalized
MOSCOW - A Ukrainian official says some people panicked after the
Chernobyl nuclear accident and ended up in hospitals after taking
medicines they thought would prevent radiation sickness. Slug
PM-Nuclear Accident.
Developing. By Carol J. Williams.
Congress, Eying Nuclear Safety, Zeroes In on Energy Department
WASHINGTON - Congressional concern over nuclear safety in the wake
of the Chernobyl catastrophe is homing in on the Department of
Energy's self-regulated reactors and international problems caused by
serious nuclear accidents. Slug PM-US-Soviet Accident Rdp. New
material, may stand. 990 words.
By Jill Lawrence
Soviet Secrecy Over Accident Clouds Arms Control Talks
WASHINGTON - Soviet secrecy about the accident at its Chernobyl
nuclear plant is casting a shadow over arms control talks that resume
today in Geneva, U.S. officials say. Slug PM-US-Soviet-Arms. New
material, may stand. 590 words.
By W. Dale Nelson
TAX OVERHAUL:
Congressional Leaders Look For Reagan's Clout to Push Plan
WASHINGTON - Congressional leaders are looking to President Reagan
to provide the clout that may be needed to win Senate approval of a
radical tax-overhaul plan of low rates and few deductions. Slug
PM-Tax Overhaul. New material, may stand. 650 words.
Laserphoto WX5, Packwood talks about overhaul plan. By Tax Writer
Jim Luther
Business and Consumer Groups Square Off Over Tax Plan
WASHINGTON - Business forces led by the severely disgruntled housing
industry are branding as unfair the Senate's newly minted tax
overhaul plan while consumer groups applaud its loophole-closing
features. Slug PM-Tax Reaction. New material, should stand. 690
words.
By Mike Robinson
THE WHITE HOUSE: Reagan Summit Trip Left Behind Some Bruised Feelings
WASHINGTON - President Reagan returned from the longest trip of his
presidency proclaiming it a ''triumph,'' but he had a bumpy ride
through Asia that left some bruised feelings which may take time to
heal. Slug PM-The White House. 900 words.
News analysis by White House Correspondent Michael Putzel
TERRORISM: Israeli Defense Minister Backs Reagan on Libya Rap
WASHINGTON - Israeli Defense Minister Yitzhak Rabin says President
Reagan is right to aim his anti-terrorist campaign against Libyan
leader of Col. Moammar Khadafy, although Israel is more concerned
with Syrian-sponsored attacks. Slug PM-US-Terrorism. New material,
may stand. 470 words.
By Bryan Brumley
MILITARY SPENDING: Launch Probe of B-1 Contract
WASHINGTON - The U.S. attorney's office in Los Angeles has launched
an investigation of a California company and its performance on a
contract to produce a braking sensor on the B-1 bomber, Justice
Department sources said. Slug PM-B-1 Probe. New material, may stand.
940 words.
By Military Writer Norman Black
CANCER WAR: Study Says Americans Are Losing the Fight
BOSTON - A status report today from the war on cancer says Americans
are losing the fight. But defenders of the nation's cancer effort
maintain that death statistics alone cannot tell the whole story.
Slug PM-Cancer War. New. Should stand. 600 words.
By Science Writer Daniel Q. Haney.
MARRIAGE: Eligible Young Women Tying the Knot at Slower Rate
WASHINGTON - Eligible young women are marrying at a slower rate than
ever before in the United States, new government statistics show.
Slug PM-Marriage. New material, will stand. 740 words.
By Randolph E. Schmid
FENDER-BENDERS: Insurance Survey Details the Cost of Collisions
WASHINGTON - Ford Escort owners are least likely to have to pay a
bundle to fix fender-bender damage, while drivers of the new
Yugoslavian import, the Yugo, have the greatest chance of being
handed a repair bill that will make them wince, according to an
insurance survey of small cars. Slug PM-Costly Fender-Benders. New
material, will stand. 550 words.
By H. Josef Hebert
NIGERIA: Rocked by Seven Coups in 25 Years, Seeks Lasting Political
System
LAGOS, Nigeria - From villages to cities, a year-long national
debate has begun among citizens to find a lasting political system
for Nigeria, which has had seven military coups and a bloody civil
war in its quarter century of independence from Britain. Slug
PM-Nigerian Politics. 900 words.
Moved in advance as a089.
An AP Extra by Robert Weller.
AFTERMATH: Town Hopes Time Will Heal Wounds of Racial Picketing
INDIANOLA, Miss. - Protesters have left the framed storefronts of
this Mississippi Delta town and businessmen are hoping time will heal
the wounds opened by more than a month of racially-spurred picketing.
Slug PM-Black Boycott-Aftermath. New. Should stand. 600 words.
Laserphoto JX2, showing hardware store employee, also a black
minister. By Michelle Perron.
SURE SIGN OF SPRING: Breakup of Alaska's Tanana River Rivals
Capistrano
NENANA, Alaska - Capistrano's swallows have been back since March.
Washington's cherry blossoms wilted weeks ago. But Alaska still
waited this week for its most celebrated sign of spring - the moment
the muddy Tanana River's ice breaks up and flushes downstream. Slug
PM-Ice Classic. New. Will stand. 550 words.
Laserphoto AG1. By David Foster.
WAR OF WORDS: Oxford Dictionary Adds Yuppies, Yabbas and Yetis
LONDON - Yetis, yuppies, yabbas and wimmin, spiel, uppity, touchdown
and tandoori - they're all in the fourth and final supplement of the
Oxford English Dictionary whose publication today marks the end of a
29-year, 60,000-word task to bring the English language up to date.
Slug PM-Oxford Dictionary. New, will stand. 600 words.
By Michael West.
AP-NY-05-08-86 0051EDT
***************
a003 2202 07 May 86
PM-Cancer War, Bjt,0650
Study Says Americans Losing War Against Cancer
By DANIEL Q. HANEY
AP Science Writer
BOSTON (AP) - Americans are losing the war against cancer, according
to a report that was immediately attacked by leaders of the U.S.
anti-cancer effort, who labeled the report misleading and said
progress is being made.
''The main conclusion we draw is that some 35 years of intense
effort focused largely on improving treatment must be judged a
qualified failure,'' the study's authors wrote in today's New England
Journal of Medicine.
The study concludes that the odds of dying of cancer have actually
increased over the past three decades, and recommends that new
research be aimed at preventing the disease instead of treating it.
''We're not saying treatment is no good,'' said Dr. John C. Bailar
III, who directed the study. ''We're convinced that every cancer
patient should get a diagnosis as early as possible and the best
possible treatment. What we're saying is that cancer treatment is not
getting a whole lot better.''
His conclusion is based on a comparison of cancer death statistics.
In 1950, 170 of every 100,000 Americans died of cancer. In 1982,
after the figures were adjusted to reflect the aging population,
there were 185 deaths per 100,000, an 8 percent increase.
''Age-adjusted mortality rates have shown a slow and steady increase
over several decades, and there is no evidence of a recent downward
trend,'' the report said. ''In this clinical sense, we are losing the
war against cancer.''
However, Dr. Peter Greenwald, head of the National Cancer
Institute's Division of Cancer Prevention and Control, said the
mortality rate is slow to reflect advances in treatment and
prevention. A decline in smoking is only now beginning to show up in
reduced lung cancer deaths among white men, he said.
''We have made a lot of progress,'' Greenwald said. ''We do have a
major research emphasis in prevention as well as treatment and basic
research. We still have a long way to go.''
The report said the cancer institute's goal of cutting cancer deaths
in half by the year 2000 would require ''a precipitous and
unprecedented decline'' in the death rate.
However, Greenwald said, ''The goal is something that we think is
achievable. We think we can provide the leadership and a lot of the
research to accomplish it.''
Bailar, a researcher at the Harvard School of Public Health,
produced the study with Dr. Elaine M. Smith of the University of Iowa
Medical Center.
Over the 32-year period they studied, the cancer death rate varied
between races and sexes. Mortality rose steadily among white men. It
fell slightly, hit a plateau and recently began to rise again among
white females. It rose rapidly and steadily among non-white males. It
declined slightly and recently reached a plateau among non-white
women.
At the American Cancer Society, Dr. Lawrence Garfinkel said,
''There's no doubt that the reason the overall death rate continues
to go up is because of lung cancer. If you take away lung cancer,
instead of having an 8 percent increase, you have a 13 percent
decrease.''
Many men have given up cigarette smoking, and lung cancer deaths
have already begun to drop among younger men, Garfinkel said. ''What
I foretell over the next five years or so is a leveling off and then
a decrease in the male lung cancer death rate.''
He noted that several potential therapies, including interleuken-2
and interferon, have showed promise in early studies, and said, ''I
think it would be shame to withdraw money from that kind of treatment
research.''
Bailar said the only real progress in treatment has come in curing a
few rare forms of cancer, such as childhood leukemia, that account
for only a tiny fraction of cancer cases.
''Those efforts have not paid off,'' he said. ''I'm not convinced
they ever will, and I think it's time to start getting serious about
prevention.''
AP-NY-05-08-86 0102EDT
- - - - - -
a027 0147 08 May 86
PM-Digest Advisory,0119
All the budgets have moved. Here is a list with Laserphoto numbers:
BOSTON - PM-Cancer War, a003
WASHINGTON - PM-Tax Overhaul, a006. LaserPhoto WX5.
WASHINGTON - PM-Tax Reaction, a007
NENANA - PM-Ice Classic, a008. LaserPhoto AG1.
WASHINGTON - PM-US-Soviet Accident Rdp, a009
WASHINGTON - PM-US-Terrorism, a011
WASHINGTON - PM-The White House, a012
WASHINGTON - PM-B-1 Probe, a014
WASHINGTON - PM-US-Soviet-Arms, a015
INDIANOLA - PM-Black Boycott-Aftermath, a016. LaserPhoto JX2.
WASHINGTON - PM-Costly Fender-Benders, a017
WASHINGTON - PM-Marriage, a018
UNDATED - PM-Tsunami, a023. LaserPhotos PAB2, NY21.
LONDON - PM-Oxford Dictionary, a024
SEOUL - PM-Shultz, a025
MOSCOW - PM-Nuclear Accident, a026
The AP
AP-NY-05-08-86 0447EDT
***************
a009 2307 07 May 86
PM-US-Soviet Accident Rdp, Bjt,0897
Lawmakers, After Chernobyl, Focusing On U.S. Energy Department
Reactors
By JILL LAWRENCE
Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) - Congress is focusing on the Department of Energy's
self-regulated nuclear reactors and international problems caused by
serious atomic accidents such as the Chernobyl catastrophe.
A Senate Governmental Affairs subcommittee said Wednesday it would
cross-examine the author of a congressional report on international
nuclear safety at a hearing today.
The General Accounting Office report released last week said there
were 151 safety-related nuclear incidents in 14 countries between
1971 and 1984. It concluded many countries might not have the ability
to respond effectively to accidents.
Traces of radiation from the April 26 Chernobyl accident were being
measured in two more U.S. cities, Olympia, Wash., and Bismarck, N.D.,
the Environmental Protection Agency said Wednesday.
The agency, in the daily report of an interagency task force
monitoring Chernobyl accident developments, said the radiation posed
no health threat in either city. A day earlier, the task force had
announced slightly higher than normal readings in Richland, Wash.,
and Portland, Ore.
All of the radiation was from iodine-131, whose radioactivity
declines by 50 percent every eight days.
The Olympia exposure of 170 picocuries per liter of rainfall would
mean the radiation dose in one liter of the contaminated water -
about a quart - would equal about one-ninth of the dose caused by a
chest X-ray.
In another development Wednesday, National Public Radio reported
that scientists were beginning to conclude that the Chernobyl
reactor's molten fuel core had burned through the plant's floor and
into the earth, threatening local ground water.
NPR said West German nuclear scientists reached that conclusion
after a Soviet diplomat sought their advice on such an event. The
diplomat asked them how long molten fuel would take to burn through
the plant's floor, and how long it would take for radioactive
particles to enter the ground water.
In an interview on the ''MacNeil-Lehrer NewsHour'' on the Public
Broadcasting Service, Thomas Roser, secretary-general of the German
Atomic Forum, said the Soviets previously had been asking how to
extinquish graphite fires.
The core of the Chernobyl contained graphite, which was used to
contain the fuel temperatures.
''We didn't have the impression that this (a melt-through) had
already happened, but we had the impression that the Soviet Union is
fearing this as a possible consequence of the present status of the
reactor. ... They don't know exactly what is happening in the
(reactor) now,'' Roser said.
On Capitol Hill, eight Democratic senators asked Sen. James McClure,
R-Idaho, chairman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources
Committee, to hold extensive hearings ''to thoroughly analyze the
implications of the Chernobyl accident.''
They said the hearings should address public health and safety in
the United States, Soviet Union and Eastern Europe; management and
regulation of U.S. reactors; U.S. plans to reform the reactor
licensing process and revise the nuclear liability law; the foreign
reactor market; and future energy supplies.
After trying to reassure one House subcommittee Tuesday that its
reactors were safe, DOE was on the defensive again Wednesday before
another panel - the House subcommittee on energy conservation and
power chaired by Rep. Edward Markey, a well-known critic of nuclear
safety.
The Massachusetts Democrat, several other lawmakers and a physicist
complained that the large reactors DOE operates to produce plutonium
for weapons are not regulated as strictly as commercial plants
overseen by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and may be less safe.
Markey, characterizing DOE's environmental division as a shambles in
1985, said the department recently has ''reorganized, revamped,
restructured, reshuffled and re-evaluated. But the central question
... is whether it is proper and wise for Congress to acquiesce in
DOE's call to 'trust us.'''
Thomas Cochran, senior staff scientist with the Natural Resources
Defense Council, an environmental group, said DOE ''often compromises
on its safety issues to achieve economic and production goals. I
believe there would be less of that if DOE facilities were regulated
by the NRC.''
The department operates five large plutonium-producing reactors -
the N-Reactor near Richland, Wash., and four others at the Savannah
River site near Aiken, S.C. - along with smaller research and
demonstration facilities around the country.
Like Chernobyl, the five large DOE plants do not have the steel and
concrete containment buildings required at NRC-licensed commercial
power plants to contain radioactive releases from an accident. One
facility, the N-Reactor, uses graphite to slow its fuel reaction, as
did the Chernobyl reactor.
Mary L. Walker, assistant energy secretary for environment, safety
and health, said Wednesday the department has an excellent safety
record.
She and other DOE officials maintain their industrial-strength
confinement buildings, combined with multiple safety systems, offer
the same protection as the stronger, sealed containment structures.
Cochran and subcommittee members challenged that assertion and DOE
projections that worst-case accidents would not cause full meltdowns
at the N-Reactor or Savannah River. The scenario depicts at least one
cooling system still working and no radiation releases to the
atmosphere in dangerous amounts.
Core melt ''can happen anywhere, anytime, in any large operating
reactor in the U.S. or abroad. ... If these reactors are to operate
at all, they must have robust containment,'' Cochran said, adding
confinement filters cannot trap radioactive xenon and krypton gas.
AP-NY-05-08-86 0207EDT
- - - - - -
a082 0905 08 May 86
PM-Soviet Accident Rdp, 1st Ld, a009,0287
Eds: Top 7 grafs new with subcommittee testimony
By JILL LAWRENCE
Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) - The Chernobyl accident could revive interest in an
international agreement requiring countries to report nuclear
emergencies to the rest of the world, a congressional investigator
said today.
''It's clear that Chernobyl has changed the game,'' Allan
Mendelowitz, author of a study on international nuclear safety, told
the Senate Governmental Affairs subcommittee on energy, nuclear
proliferation and government processes.
Mendelowitz, who wrote a General Accounting Office study, said the
United States pushed for mandatory verification and other legal
obligations in 1981, but ran into opposition from other countries.
Guidelines were adopted instead in 1984.
''How do you take sovereign nations who jealously guard their
sovereign prerogatives and impose upon them international obligations
that are legally binding?'' Mendelowitz asked.
''Such a convention can and will be successful if the major nuclear
powers determine that it is in everyone's mutual interest to do this.
We can only hope that the Chernobyl accident will serve as the
impetus for that assessment,'' he added.
Sen. John Glenn, D-Ohio, said the United States should not wait for
''some great international conclave'' to try to improve safety
reporting. He said the United States and other reactor exporters
should pursue agreements with reactor buyers to forestall problems in
developing countries. ''I think we can move and move now,'' he said.
The GAO report released last week said there were 151 safety-related
nuclear incidents in 14 countries between 1971 and 1984. The study,
which did not include information from some Soviet-bloc countries,
concluded many countries might not have the ability to respond
effectively to accidents.
Traces of: 4th graf
AP-NY-05-08-86 1202EDT
***************
a015 0009 08 May 86
PM-US-Soviet-Arms, Bjt,0599
Soviet Secrecy Over Chernobyl Will Affect Arms Control Talks
By W. DALE NELSON
Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) - Soviet secrecy about the accident at its Chernobyl
nuclear plant is casting a shadow over arms control talks that resume
today in Geneva, U.S. officials say.
One official, who briefed reporters Wednesday in advance of the
talks, echoed President Reagan's statement earlier in the day that
Chernobyl clearly had demonstrated the need for effective arms
control verification measures.
''Imagine what they do to priority national security items if they
handle themselves like this with just a civilian power plant,'' said
the official, who spoke only on condition of anonymity.
Reagan and other U.S. officials have complained that the Soviet
Union did not do enough to warn neighboring countries of the threat
of radioactivity that was spread beyond its borders by the April 26
accident.
The president renewed this criticism as he pressed U.S. demands that
any arms control agreement contain strong provisions for verification
to assure compliance, and urged the Soviets to ''get down to
business'' at the negotiating table.
''After resisting for years U.S. proposals for verification, the
Soviet Union recently has professed in its public statements that it
now shares our interest in effective verification,'' he said.
''We are seeking to put these Soviet pronouncements to the test at
the negotiating table,'' Reagan said. ''In light of the unfortunate
events of the past week, moreover, the need for effective
verification measures has become clearer than ever.''
Meanwhile, Kenneth L. Adelman, the director of the Arms Control and
Disarmament Agency, said in a written statement that although the
Soviets ''appear interested in projecting a more innovative image,
their general approach to arms control has not shifted in any
fundamental way.''
Adelman argued that events since the superpower summit last November
point to a continued - ''perhaps even heightened - Soviet tendency to
regard arms control more as a propaganda tool than as a means to
enhance mutual security.''
Reagan said the instructions he has given U.S. negotiators ''provide
them with the flexibility they need to explore all promising
approaches for agreement.''
''It is high time now for the Soviet Union to get down to business
by addressing seriously with us in Geneva the practical
implementation of the mutual commitments which Mr. Gorbachev and I
made'' at last November's U.S.-Soviet summit, he said. ''If the
Soviets truly join us in this vital effort, real progress in nuclear
arms reductions is clearly within our reach.''
The chief Soviet negotiator, Victor P. Karpov, on the other hand,
said on arrival in Geneva on Tuesday that the United States has done
''virtually nothing'' to carry out the summit pledge to speed up the
pace of the talks.
The official who briefed reporters said the United States would go
into the negotiations prepared to focus on four areas it considers to
be highest priority.
He said the objectives would be deeply reducing offensive weapons,
blocking the Soviets from achieving a first strike capability,
putting an end to Soviet violations and beginning a shift from
offensive to defensive weapons under the administration's proposed
Strategic Defense Initiative, or ''Star Wars,'' program.
Reagan touched on the same objectives in his statement and said,
''Unfortunately, little progress was made during the most recent
round of the negotiations, largely due to the failure of the Soviet
Union to act on the commitments it undertook in the Nov. 21 joint
statement'' issued at the Geneva summit.
The U.S. official declined to predict whether the new round will
lead to progress, saying, ''I can't predict what's in their (the
Soviets') briefcase.''
AP-NY-05-08-86 0310EDT
***************
a026 0144 08 May 86
PM-Nuclear Accident, Bjt,0795
Official Says Panic Drove Some to Take Wrong Medicine
By ALISON SMALE
Associated Press Writer
MOSCOW (AP) - Specialists struggling to contain radioactivity at the
Chernobyl nuclear plant are working close to and even under the
fire-swept atomic reactor, but are confronted by problems never faced
before, a Soviet newspaper reported today.
Soviet physicist Yevgeny Velikhov told the Communist Party newspaper
Pravda, ''The unusual situation calls for the solution of problems
with which neither scientists, nor specialists had ever dealt
before.''
The April 26 explosion, fire and reactor core meltdown at the
Ukrainian power plant 80 miles north of Kiev killed two people and
injured 197 by Soviet count, and spewed an invisible cloud of
radiation over much of Europe.
The Ukraine's health minister, Anatoly Romanenko, told the official
news agency Tass that radiation had increased in the area of Kiev,
the Soviet Union's third-largest city, in recent days because of wind
shifts from Chernobyl.
Romanenko said Wednesday that some Ukrainians had been hospitalized
for poisoning after they panicked and took what they thought would be
remedies against radiation.
Trains arriving in Moscow from Kiev this morning were packed,
apparently because of this weekend's national Victory Day holiday
marking the defeat of Nazi Germany in World War II.
One passenger said a recommendation had been made to evacuate
children from Kiev, but she hurried off without elaborating. Others
said they had heard of no such advice.
In its report today, Pravda said Velikhov had gone to the area of
the Chernobyl complex, which Soviet reports have said has been
bombarded with sacks of sand and other materials dropped from
helicopters to form a screen against radiation.
''We are working not only close to it, but also under it,'' Velikhov
said. ''The task is to neutralize it, to bury it, as they used to
say.''
Tass said Romanenko told Ukrainians in a local television broadcast
on Wednesday that ''unflagging control'' is being exercised to assure
their health. He said radiation levels had increased because of the
wind shifts, but that ''the present radiation situation in Kiev does
not require the population to take preventive medicines.''
In the first public reference by a Soviet official to fears
generated by the accident, Romanenko said, ''there are panic-prone
people. ... They followed some hasty advice, taking medicines that
were alleged to protect them from radiation, and there were cases of
poisoning.''
Romanenko did not say how many people were harmed or what kind of
medicine they took, but said they were being treated. He also said
those most seriously injured in the reactor disaster had been taken
to Moscow, where they were being given care with the help of foreign
medical specialists.
American bone-marrow specialist Dr. Robert Gale, who arrived in
Moscow last Friday, said in a telephone interview that he has been
performing operations on Chernobyl victims and that he expected to
remain for at least a month to assist with treatment.
Heavy doses of radiation destroy bone marrow, causing death.
Two other U.S. specialists, Dr. Paul Terasaki and Dr. Richard
Champline, are also in Moscow to assist with treatment, and an
Israeli bone-marrow specialist, Dr. Yair Reisner, arrived on
Wednesday, Gale said.
Tass issued a government statement Wednesday night that said
radiation levels around Chernobyl were continuing to decline,
although they had not yet reached normal levels.
''Work to decontaminate the terrain in the area of the station,
where the radiation level has substantially decreased, is nearing
completion,'' the government statement said.
''The radiation level of the territory beyond the zone directly
adjoining the station is somewhat higher than the natural background
but does not pose a danger to the health of people,'' it said.
The statement also said work was continuing to shore up the banks of
the Pripyat River, which flows near the nuclear plant, to prevent
contamination of the water.
The nightly national television news program ''Vremya'' (Time)
included the government announcement toward the end of its broadcast
and also showed several evacuees in a nearby rural region where they
are being housed.
Recent Soviet reports on life in Kiev appear aimed at creating a
picture or normalcy, and most have been critical of Western reaction
to the accident.
Tass said Romanenko reported that ''normal, calm life continues in
the capital of the Ukraine and adjacent areas,'' but it said ''there
is also anxiety.''
The agency said there are long lines at railway and air booking
offices, but said those were caused by citizens planning their summer
vacations or parents preparing to send their children to summer
camps.
The U.S. Embassy released a statement Wednesday telling Americans in
Moscow that independent tests of radiation levels in the soil and air
show there is no cause for concern about health risks in the Soviet
capital.
AP-NY-05-08-86 0444EDT
- - - - - -
a047 0440 08 May 86
PM-Nuclear Accident, 1st Ld, a026,0636
EDS: UPDATES with Pravda reporting thousands working at reactor site,
17 firemen reported injured in initial accident, reports from
passengers arriving from Kiev
By ALISON SMALE
Associated Press Writer
MOSCOW (AP) - Thousands of workers are struggling to contain
radioactivity at the Chernobyl nuclear plant, including some working
under the fire-swept reactor as they confront technical problems
never faced before, a Soviet newspaper reported today.
Top Soviet physicist Yevgeny Velikhov told the Communist Party
newspaper Pravda, ''The unusual situation calls for the solution of
problems with which neither scientists, nor specialists had ever
dealt before.''
The April 26 explosion, fire and reactor core meltdown at the
Ukrainian power plant 80 miles north of Kiev killed two people and
injured 197 by Soviet count, and spewed an invisible cloud of
radiation over much of Europe.
Today, 12 days after what was apparently the worst disaster in the
history of nuclear power, Pravda said, ''Unfortunately, the struggle
with it (the radioactivity) is not over. And thousands of people are
conducting it with even more fury than before.''
The Ukraine's health minister, Anatoly Romanenko, told the official
news agency Tass that radiation had increased in recent days in the
vicinity of Kiev, the Soviet Union's third-largest city, because of
wind shifts from Chernobyl.
Romanenko also said Wednesday that some Ukrainians had been
hospitalized for poisoning after they panicked and took what they
thought would be remedies against radiation.
Trains arriving in Moscow from Kiev this morning were packed,
apparently because of Friday's national Victory Day holiday marking
the defeat of Nazi Germany in World War II.
One passenger with two young children said a recommendation had been
made that families with children leave Kiev, but she hurried off
without elaborating.
Other mothers arriving with their sons or daughters said they had
not been told to evacaute, but some passengers said many Kievans were
trying to get out. One man arriving in Moscow said he had worked at
the Chernobyl site since 1975.
Asked if the fire at reactor No. 4 was out, he said, ''There is
nothing terrible happening there now.'' He said he had been given
indefinite leave after helping cope with the accident's aftermath.
Canadian diplomat Hector Cowan, who had been in Kiev since last week
to maintain contacts with Canadian students, said he detected no
panic there. However, he said Kievans seemed glad to be leaving any
danger of radiation, and that the railway station there was crowded.
In its report today, Pravda said Velikhov, who as a nuclear
physicist and an expert on space weapons has accompanied Soviet
leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev abroad, had gone to the area of the
Chernobyl complex. Pravda said helicopters were dumping sacks of
sand, clay, lead and boron ''on the reactor womb to make people even
safer against its radioactive poison.''
Velikhov told Pravda, ''We are working not only close to it, but
also under it.'' He did not elaborate, but said, ''the task is to
neutralize it, to bury it, as they used to say.''
Another daily, Sovietskaya Rossiya, confirmed for the first time
that the blaze that engulfed the reactor after a non-nuclear
explosion on April 26 had spread to the roof of the building housing
the No. 3 reactor.
Sovietskaya Rossiya did not say when the flames spread, or give any
other details beyond saying that firemen were able to extinguish the
blaze on the roof. According to the newspaper, 17 firemen were
injured as they worked in intense heat.
Tass quoted Romanenko as saying Wednesday that radiation levels had
increased because of the wind shifts, but that ''the present
radiation situation in Kiev does not require the population to take
preventive medicines.''
In the, 11th graf
AP-NY-05-08-86 0739EDT
- - - - - -
a049 0501 08 May 86
PM-Digest Briefs,1047
Eds: This package does not contain the following items from the News
Digest: MOSCOW-Nuclear Accident, a026; WASHINGTON-Tax Reaction, a007;
UNDATED-Tsunami, a023; WASHINGTON-The White House, a012;
WASHINGTON-B-1 Probe, a014; BOSTON-Cancer War, a003; LAGOS-Nigerian
Politics, a089; INDIANOLA-Black Boycott-Aftermath, a016.
---
By The Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) - Congress is focusing on the Department of Energy's
self-regulated nuclear reactors and international problems caused by
serious atomic accidents such as the Chernobyl catastrophe.
A Senate Governmental Affairs subcommittee said Wednesday it would
cross-examine the author of a congressional report on international
nuclear safety at a hearing today.
The General Accounting Office report released last week said there
were 151 safety-related nuclear incidents in 14 countries between
1971 and 1984. It concluded many countries might not have the ability
to respond effectively to accidents.
---
WASHINGTON (AP) - Soviet secrecy about the accident at its Chernobyl
nuclear plant is casting a shadow over arms control talks that resume
today in Geneva, U.S. officials say.
One official, who briefed reporters Wednesday in advance of the
talks, echoed President Reagan's statement earlier in the day that
Chernobyl clearly had demonstrated the need for effective arms
control verification measures.
''Imagine what they do to priority national security items if they
handle themselves like this with just a civilian power plant,'' said
the official, who spoke only on condition of anonymity.
---
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) - Secretary of State George P. Shultz said
today that despite some differences of opinion, he found South Korean
opposition leaders generally satisfied with the pace of evolution
toward democracy.
Shultz also assured President Chun Doo-hwan's government of
continuing U.S. support.
Shultz, who arrived Wednesday for a 24-hour visit to brief South
Korean leaders on the seven-nation economic summit in Tokyo, left at
mid-afternoon for the Philippines where he is to hold talks with
President Corazon Aquino and Vice President Salvador Laurel.
---
WASHINGTON (AP) - Congressional leaders are looking to President
Reagan to provide the clout that may be needed to win Senate approval
of a radical tax-overhaul plan of low rates and few deductions.
''With President Reagan's firm support ... I believe true tax reform
can triumph,'' Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole, R-Kan., said
Wednesday after the Finance Committee unanimously approved the bill.
''We've got to get the president out of the White House to
participate'' in the tax debate, said Rep. Dan Rostenkowski, D-Ill.,
chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee. ''No bill will ever
become law without the high visibility of the president of the United
States.''
---
WASHINGTON (AP) - Israeli Defense Minister Yitzhak Rabin says that
President Reagan is right to aim his anti-terrorist campaign against
Libyan leader Col. Moammar Khadafy, although Israel is more concerned
with Syrian-sponsored attacks.
''For us, Syria is the first and the foremost problem, but we know
that Libya is leading as a country that encourages, preaches,
supports, initiates terrorism,'' Rabin said in a speech Wednesday at
the conservative American Enterprise Institute.
Rabin said ''there was involvement of Libya and Syria'' in the
attacks on the Rome and Vienna airports last Dec. 27 and the bombing
of a West Berlin night spot on April 5, and that Syrian intelligence
had sponsored the April 17 attempt to bomb an El AL airliner bound
from London to Tel Aviv with 388 people aboard.
---
WASHINGTON (AP) - Eligible young women are marrying at a slower rate
than ever before in the United States, new government statistics
show.
For the first time, the marriage rate for single women aged 15-to-44
- the group most likely to wed - fell below 100 marriages per 1,000
women, according to figures for 1983, the most recent detailed
statistics available.
The marriage rate for that group dropped to 99.3 per 1,000, down
from 101.9 the year before, according to figures made public
Wednesday by the National Center for Health Statistics.
---
WASHINGTON (AP) - Ford Escort owners are least likely to pay a
bundle to fix damage caused in fender benders, while drivers of the
new Yugoslavian import, the Yugo, have the best chance of receiving a
repair bill that will make them wince, says an insurance industry
survey of small cars.
The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety subjected 23 cars to
several 5 mph crashes and found that results varied widely by the
type of car and the angle of the crash. The cars tested all had
sticker prices under $10,000.
Nine of the vehicles sustained no damage in straight-on frontal and
rear crashes into a barrier. All of the cars sustained damage in
angle barrier crashes and rear crashes into a pole.
---
NENANA, Alaska (AP) - Capistrano's swallows have been back since
March and Washington's cherry blossoms wilted weeks ago. But Alaska
still waits for its most celebrated sign of spring - when the Tanana
River's ice breaks up and flushes downstream.
The wait has not been easy for Bob Coghill Jr. This is his first
year as manager of the Nenana Ice Classic, an annual guessing game in
which Alaskans bet on the precise minute the Tanana's ice will go
out. ''I've been a nervous wreck for days,'' said Coghill, 33.
Workers building the Alaska Railroad started the contest in this
central Alaska town southwest of Fairbanks 69 years ago. They pooled
$800 to be won by the best guess of the Tanana's breakup.
This year, 144,000 bets, each costing $2, were placed for a $115,000
jackpot.
---
LONDON (AP) - Yetis, yuppies, yabbas and wimmin, spiel, uppity,
touchdown and tandoori - they're all in the fourth and final
supplement of the Oxford English Dictionary published today, marking
the end of a 29-year, 60,000-word effort to bring the English
language up to date.
''To finish is both a relief and a release from a kind of
extraordinarily pleasant prison,'' said editor Robert Burchfield.
A Supplement to the Oxford English Dictionary, Volume IV, Se to Z,
contains 1,480 pages, weighs around 14 pounds, is nearly four inches
thick, and costs 90 pounds - $137.70.
AP-NY-05-08-86 0800EDT
- - - - - -
a054 0533 08 May 86
PM-News Advisory,0054
The General Desk supervisor is John Daniszewski (212) 621-1604. The
Laserphoto Desk supervisor is Rich Kareckas (212) 621-1900.
-PM-Nuclear Accident, a047. Midmorning update lead likely with
latest reports from Soviet Union.
-PM-Shultz, a041. Update upcoming with Shultz arrival in Manila.
-PM-Budget, a034. Prenoon update likely.
AP-NY-05-08-86 0831EDT
- - - - - -
a065 0654 08 May 86
PM-Nuclear Accident, 2nd Ld, a047,0402
Third Death Reported From Chernobyl Accident
URGENT
Eds: Leads with 12 grafs to include new report of third death, edit
for transition
By ALISON SMALE
Associated Press Writer
MOSCOW (AP) - A Soviet bloc news agency reported today that a third
person has died as a result of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster. The
report came as a Soviet newspaper said thousands of workers were
struggling to contain radioactivity at the devastated plant.
The official Yugoslavian news agency Tanjug said a Soviet citizen
died this morning in a Kiev hospital. Soviet officials have
maintained two people died and 204 were injured in the April 26
explosion, fire and reactor core meltdown at the Ukrainian plant.
Trains arriving in Moscow today from Kiev, 80 miles south of the
Chernobyl plant, were crowded with passengers. Some of those arriving
said a recommendation had been made that families with children leave
the city of 2.4 million. However, there were other indications trains
were crowded because Friday is a holiday marking the defeat of Nazi
Germany.
The Tanjug report, datelined Moscow, said 200 people have been
transported to Moscow hospitals for treatment. It said six patients
were in critical condition and had received transplants of bone
marrow donated by their parents.
Several foreign doctors are in Moscow to perform bone-marrow
transplants. Such transplants are considered the only effective
treatment for severe radiation exposure.
In an interview published today in the Communist Party newspaper
Pravda, top Soviet physicist Yevgeny Velikhov discussed conditions at
the Chernobyl plant.
''The unusual situation calls for the solution of problems with
which neither scientists, nor specialists had ever dealt before,'' he
said.
Pravda said: ''Unfortunately, the struggle with it (the
radioactivity) is not over. And thousands of people are conducting it
with even more fury than before.''
The Ukraine's health minister, Anatoly Romanenko, told the official
Soviet news agency Tass that radiation has increased in recent days
in the vicinity of Kiev because of wind shifts.
Romanenko said Wednesday that some Ukrainians had been hospitalized
for poisoning after they panicked and took what they thought would be
remedies against radiation.
Trains arriving in Moscow from Kiev this morning were packed.
One passenger with two young children said a recommendation had been
made that families with children leave Kiev, but she hurried off
without elaborating.
Other mothers: 9th graf
AP-NY-05-08-86 0954EDT
- - - - - -
a072 0802 08 May 86
PM-Nuclear Accident, 2nd Ld, Insert, a065,0129
MOSCOW Insert after 17th graf: Velikhov said xxx to say.'' Soviets
asked West Germans for advice on how to stop core from burning
through the ground.
In a related development, Thomas Roser, head of the West German
Atomic Forum said a Soviet representative had sought information on
how to prevent a ''hot molten mass'' from melting through the
concrete foundation of a reactor building.
West German nuclear scientists said they believe the radioactive
core may be melting through the plant's floor.
The daily newspaper Sovietskaya Rossiya confirmed for the first time
that the blaze that engulfed the reactor after a non-nuclear
explosion on April 26 had spread to the roof of the building housing
the No. 3 reactor.
Another daily,: 18th graf
AP-NY-05-08-86 1101EDT
- - - - - -
a079 0852 08 May 86
PM-Nuclear Accident, 2nd Ld, a065,0366
Third Death Reported From Chernobyl Accident; Fire Still Burning
URGENT
Eds: UPDATES in 8 grafs with fire still burning, Chernobyl not being
evacuated for days after the disaster
By ALISON SMALE
Associated Press Writer
MOSCOW (AP) - A Soviet newspaper acknowledged today that a fire
still was smoldering at the Chernobyl nuclear plant, 12 days after an
explosion triggered a devastating accident. The official Yugoslav
news agency said a third person died this morning as a result of the
disaster.
In an editorial today, the government newspaper Izvestia lauded the
bravery of those who ''in conditions of risk are eliminating the
consequences of the accident, who are extinguishing the still
smoldering embers of this fire.''
Until the Izvestia report, Soviet officials had not said whether the
plant was still burning. Authorities have said a chemical explosion
was probably responsible for the April 26 fire and resulting reactor
core meltdown at the plant 80 miles north of Kiev.
A senior Western diplomat in Moscow said today the town of Chernobyl
apparently was not evacuated until at least seven days after the
explosion. The town, which is about 12 miles from the power plant,
has an estimated 30,000 residents.
''I don't think evacuation was ordered until after the premier
(Nikolai I. Ryzhkov) visited'' the plant on May 2, said the diplomat,
who spoke on the condition of anonymity. ''Our information is that at
least in that town the evacuation was still going on two days ago.''
Soviet authorities have said about 49,000 people from four
settlements around the plant were evacuated. Officials said Tuesday
that some 25,000 residents were removed from Pripyat more than 36
hours after the disaster. They have not identified the other
communities from which people were evacuated.
The Yugoslavian news agency Tanjug said a Soviet citizen died this
morning in a Kiev hospital. Soviet officials have said two people
died and 204 were injured.
The Tanjug report from Moscow said 200 people have been transported
to Moscow hospitals for treatment. It said six patients were in
critical condition and have received transplants of bone marrow
donated by their parents.
Several foreign: 5th graf
AP-NY-05-08-86 1151EDT
- - - - - -
a081 0856 08 May 86
PM-Nuclear Accident Advisory,0016
Eds: Nuclear Accident a079 should have been sluggedc3rd ld a065csted
2nd
The AP
AP-NY-05-08-86 1156EDT
***************
a046 0428 08 May 86
PM-Arms Talks,0504
Talks Resume With Both Sides Saying No Progress So Far
By BRENDA WATSON
Associated Press Writer
GENEVA (AP) - The superpower arms talks entered their fifth round
today with the chief Soviet negotiator saying it was up to the United
States, not the Soviet Union, to come up with new proposals.
''It is for our partners now to make steps,'' Viktor P. Karpov told
reporters as he waited for the U.S. delegation, headed by Max M.
Kampelman, to arrive at the Soviet mission to begin the talks.
He said the Soviets had made proposals covering all three areas in
the talks - medium-range nuclear forces, long-range nuclear weapons
and space and defense weapons.
''We don't feel there are new proposals needed on our side,'' he
said.
Despite remarks by Kampelman and President Reagan that the Chernobyl
nuclear plant disaster in the Soviet Ukraine has emphasized the need
for verification of arms control agreements, Karpov said he did not
see any connection between the two topics.
''The Chernobyl incident is something that is a complication of the
uses of peaceful atomic energy,'' he said.
After a nine-week break, the talks resumed with a plenary session of
all three top negotiators and aides from each side. The Soviets used
the meeting to announce a reorganization of their delegation.
Karpov, who has headed the Soviet team negotiating on long-range
nuclear weapons, will move to the group on space and defense weapons,
opposite Kampelman.
Taking over for Karpov is Alexei A. Obukhov, who had headed the
talks on medium-range missiles. He will face the one new U.S.
negotiator, Ronald F. Lehman, who replaces John Tower.
Replacing Obukhov is his former deputy, Lem A. Masterkov, who faces
Maynard Glitman.
Karpov said the Soviets reorganized their team because Yuli
Kvitsinsky, who headed the space and defense group, had been named
ambassador to West Germany.
Kampelman said he hoped the reorganization of the Soviet team would
reinvigorate the talks, but that he wished the Soviets had notified
the U.S. side of the changes earlier.
Both sides have reported no progress in the talks, despite a pledge
at the November summit meeting to speed up the negotiations.
Karpov on Tuesday accused the United States of doing almost nothing
to live up to the commitment made in November by President Reagan and
Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev.
Kampelman called for more energetic talks, and said he hoped the
Soviets would be ready to engage in serious bargaining.
When the talks recessed in March the two sides had agreed in
principle to the idea of an interim agreement on limiting
intermediate-range nuclear arms, but had not worked out the details.
Progress in the other two areas continues to be hindered by the
disagreement over the United States' Strategic Defense Initiative, or
Star Wars, program. The Soviet Union says development of the Star
Wars program, a space-based anti-missile system, will expand the arms
race to space.
AP-NY-05-08-86 0728EDT
***************
a060 0601 08 May 86
PM-Chernobyl Death,0128
Third Death Reported From Chernobyl Nuclear Accident
BELGRADE, Yugoslavia (AP) - The official Yugoslavian news agency
reported today that a third Soviet citizen has died as a result of
the Chernobyl nuclear plant disaster.
The Tanjug news agency report from Moscow said the patient died this
morning in a Kiev hospital.
Soviet officials have said two people died in the April 26 accident.
U.S. officials have said the accident, which released radioactivity
into the atmosphere, likely caused many more fatalities.
Tanjug, quoting what it said was an official announcement, reported
another 200 people have been transported to Moscow hospitals. It said
six patients were reported in critical condition and had been given
bone-marrow transplants.
The bone-marrow donors were the patients' parents, Tanjug said. It
gave no other details.
AP-NY-05-08-86 0900EDT
***************
a066 0701 08 May 86
PM-Chernobyl-Food,0390
Soviets Said To Ask Europe For Huge Food Sale After Chernobyl
LONDON (AP) - The Soviet Union has asked the Common Market to sell
it a huge amount of food because radiation has contaminated crops and
cattle in the Ukraine, a British member of the European Parliament
said today.
Richard Cottrell, a Conservative member of the European body, said
in an interview with British Broadcasting Corp. radio the request was
related to the nuclear disaster at Chernobyl.
Cottrell said the Soviets went through diplomatic channels to the
Common Market headquarters in Brussels asking to buy ''substantial
quantities of surplus community (Common Market) food, including
grain, butter, beef and skimmed milk powder.
''All these commodities would be purchased far in excess of the
relatively modest amounts, in comparison, which we've sold to the
Soviet Union in recent years,'' he said.
Cottrell did not disclose the source of his information. The British
Foreign Office said it had no word about the reported Soviet request.
''The Ukraine is the breadbasket of the Soviet Union,'' Cottrell
said. ''There's no doubt that crops and indeed cattle have been
contaminated by radioactive fallout.
''This now poses tme Russians with a prom whif ;nā4
considerable severity this winter: how to feed - not only their own
people - but those in other Comecon (East European) countries who
also depend on the Ukraine for their food supplies.''
Cottrell said the Soviets normally do not approach the Common Market
headquarters in Brussels about buying food surpluses, and instead
deal with food brokers in Paris.
The Soviet Communist Party newspaper Pravda today quoted a top
Soviet physicist as saying workers are still struggling to contain
radioactivity at the Chernobyl nuclear plant following the April 26
disaster.
The accident already has caused prices to rise on world commodity
markets in anticipation of agricultural problems in the Soviet Union.
Cottrell said he hoped the 12-nation Common Market would insist that
Moscow agree to an exchange of nuclear information in order to
receive food from the West.
''Unless the Russians are prepared to come up with that, then we
should politely say no,'' he said.
Western governments have complained that Moscow has withheld
information about the Chernobyl disaster, which spread a cloud of
radiation across Europe.
AP-NY-05-08-86 1001EDT
- - - - - -
a071 0759 08 May 86
PM-Chernobyl-Food, Insert, a066,0073
LONDON INSERT 1 graf after 4th graf UPDATING with Common Market
spokesman saying he does not know of reported Soviet request for food
aid
But in Brussels, a Common Market spokesman said he had checked and
was unable to confirm Cottrell's statement. ''So far as I can
establish we have had no such request,'' said the trading bloc
source, speaking on condition of anonymity.
Cottrell did: 5th graf
AP-NY-05-08-86 1046EDT
***************
a093 1009 08 May 86
PM-Business Mirror, Adv 09,0794
$adv 09
For Release PMs Fri May 9
Non-Explosive Warfare A Threat
By JOHN CUNNIFF
AP Business Analyst
NEW YORK (AP) - The Chernobyl nuclear disaster has reminded people
that the Soviet Union and the United States, among other nations,
have enough nuclear warheads to reduce the civilized world to ashes.
But there are non-explosive weapons that in their own way can wreak
havoc, and the Western world is vulnerable to them. They are economic
weapons, which, of course, can be employed much more subtly than can
bombs.
Fidel Castro this week provided an example, suggesting again that
Latin American nations default on their huge debts to international
commercial banks, and backing up his idea with plans to defer Cuban
interest payments.
While a cartel to default on loans could boomerang on Cuba and its
allies, it might also cause chaos for international banks, and U.S.
banks particularly, some of which already are weakened by domestic
and foreign problem loans.
Dependence on foreign investments - as opposed to loans to
foreigners - creates another vulenerable area for the U.S. economy.
If the United States cannot continue to attract those investments,
or if foreigners for any reason withdraw investments suddenly, the
consequences could be serious, affecting stocks, bonds, banks,
construction and more.
Fears are frequently voiced by economists and government officials
that the United States is risking that very threat now in pursuing a
lower value for the dollar in relation to other currencies.
As the dollar's exchange rate falls, investments in the United
States are less attractive to foreign interests, particularly the
Japanese. Already, therefore, that vulnerability affects American
policy toward that country.
Among other potential affects, according to some financial analysts,
is a tighter Federal Reserve monetary policy in order to force
interest rates higher. As some of them view the scenario, that would
mean more inflation too.
While many Americans rejoice in lower oil prices, the possiblity
exists that good news could become bad news. It is a real
possibility, one that President Reagan explained to reporters in his
lastest news conference.
It is possible, said the president, that ''somebody would think of
driving it (the price of oil) down to the point that they get rid of
a lot of competition . . .''
What might happen then, he continued, is ''what comes naturally to a
monopolist - the price would start going up again, as it once did
when others had a very dominant voice and hold on the oil market.''
Meanwhile, as a consequence of lower oil prices, much domestic
exploration has ceased, and many organizations that were relied upon
to seek and develop new supplies are out of business. And the United
States is more vulnerable.
Most people probably thought Reagan referred to Saudi Arabia and the
Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries. But, says economist
Sam Nakagama, ''it seems more likely that he was actually speaking of
the Soviet Union.''
One reason for concern is that in late April the Soviets seem to
have abandoned fixed prices in favor of a flexible-pricing system
aimed at getting a larger share of the market. For the most part,
their prices will fall.
Says Nakagama, who advises many corporations and financial
institutions, the Soviets could ''flood the world oil markets and so
be in a position to knock out a large portion of U.S. oil production
capacity.''
Such an event, he adds, could ''destabilize the Mexican economic and
political system, and seriously undermine the American banking
system.''
Questions have been raised, however, about the Soviet's ability to
keep up with current export agreements, especially if reduced nuclear
plant operations raise domestic consumption of oil.
Soviet-U.S. competition in arms spending could be another area of
economic warfare. Although most economic analysts might give the
winner's edge to the United States, some Soviet goals might be
achieved in the process.
Still another area of potential problems exists whenever nations
trade. Just as big borrowers can damage lenders, big buyers can have
a negative affect on sellers, and nobody knows this more than the
American farmer. Once a big supplier to the Soviets, he is now out of
favor - and feeling it.
Whether it was the intention of the Soviets to do their bit to
worsen the American farming industry is debatable. From one
perspective, in fact, it was Americans who tried to hurt the Soviets
(for intervening in Afghanistan).
Such situations, however, illustrate the potential for economic
warfare - a devious sort of aggression that can be practiced so
quietly, relatively speaking, that suddenly it can have the
unsuspecting victim by the throat.
End Adv PMs Friday May 9.
AP-NY-05-08-86 1308EDT
***************
a201 1038 08 May 86
AM-News Digest,1064
AMs AP News Digest
For Friday AMs
Here are the top stories at this hour from The Associated Press. The
General Desk supervisor is Marty Sutphin (212-621-1602). The
Laserphoto Desk supervisor is Rich Kareckas (212-621-1900).
CHERNOBYL FALLOUT:
Soviets Struggle To Contain Radioactivity from Smoldering Fire
MOSCOW - Soviet reports say thousands of workers are struggling to
contain radioactivity from a smoldering fire at the Chernobyl nuclear
reactor, and the official Yugoslavia news agency reports a third
person has died as a result of the accident. Slug AM-Nuclear
Disaster. Developing. 900.
By Roxinne Ervasti. LaserPhoto MOS6, children evacuated from Kiev.
Accident Seen Spurring Move on Reporting Pact
WASHINGTON - The nuclear accident in the Soviet Union could spur
interest in an international agreement, long sought by the United
States, requiring countries to report reactor accidents to the rest
of the world, a congressional panel is told. Slug AM-US-Nuclear Rdp.
Developing.
By Jill Lawrence. LaserPhoto staffing.
PHILIPPINES: Shultz Rules Out Additional U.S. Aid for Aquino
MANILA, Philippines - Secretary of State George P. Shultz rules out
additional U.S. aid for the Philippines, where the debt-ridden
government of President Corazon Aquino has said help is needed to
restore economic and political stability. Slug AM-Shultz-Philippines.
New material. 600.
By Barry Schweid.
TIDAL WAVE: Warning Stirs Thousands To Flee, Others To Watch
UNDATED - Sirens sounded, Coast Guard ships sailed and
loudspeaker-equipped cars rolled through neighborhoods to warn
Pacific Coast residents that a tidal wave triggered by a series of
earthquakes was about to strike. While thousands of evacuees jammed
highways to flee, many others packed beaches and seaside restaurants
to watch what turned out to be the Halley's comet of tidal waves.
AM-Tidal Wave. New material.
By Brian Friedman. LaserPhoto AU2, people waiting to watch tsunami.
BUDGET: House Leader Offers Spending Plan for 1987
WASHINGTON - House Budget Committee Chairman William Gray proposes a
fiscal 1987 budget that would cut military spending far below the
level proposed by the Senate and embrace a tax increase for reducing
the deficit. Slug AM-Budget. Developing. About 650.
By Steven Komarow. LaserPhoto staffing.
DEAVER: Biden Angry Over FBI Bid To Interview Senators
WASHINGTON - The ranking Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee
writes FBI Director William H. Webster, complaining about a plan by
the bureau to interview senators who called for a special prosecutor
to investigate former deputy White House chief of staff Michael
Deaver. Slug AM-Deaver. Developing.
By Joan Mower.
ACHILLE LAURO: One Conviction Overtuned, Other Sentences Cut
GENOA, Italy - An appeals court overturns the conviction of the
youngest gunman in the Achille Lauro hijacking on the grounds that he
was a minor at the time, and orders he be retried in juvenile court.
Sentences for two other gunmen and a convicted accomplice are
reduced. Slug AM-Achille Lauro. New material. 600.
By Samuel Koo. LaserPhoto upcoming.
LIBERTY'S FACELIFT: Renovation Won't Clear All Blemishes
NEW YORK - Officials in charge of the Statue of Liberty's renovation
say the black blemishes on her skin, however unsightly, will remain
because they are merely part of the patina that protects the statue's
thin copper from the elements. Slug AM-Liberty-Skin. New material.
By Rick Hampson. LaserPhoto NY36, stained statue.
OLD PEOPLE: Family Support Systems Help Elderly, Study Says
WASHINGTON - More than nine-tenths of elderly people living alone
have telephone chats with family or friends, social support which may
help them feel better and live longer, says a study by the National
Center for Health Statistics. Slug AM-Elderly Alone. New, should
stand.
By Randolph E. Schmid. For Release at 6:30 p.m. EDT.
ID CARDS: Postal Service To Probe Mail Solicitation
WASHINGTON - The Social Security Administration, irked by a private
company's ''misleading'' but apparently legal campaign to charge
people $10 to obtain Social Security numbers of newborn infants, is
asking the U.S. Postal Service if it can act against the company's
nationwide mail solicitations. Slug AM-Unsocial Security. New
material. About 600.
By William Kronholm.
HEART DRUG: Government Trying To Prevent Overdosing of Digoxin
WASHINGTON - The Food and Drug Administration approves an antidote
to digoxin, one of the nation's oldest heart drugs and still used by
about 4 million people, hoping to prevent overdose deaths that
account for half of all accidental poisonings among the elderly. Slug
AM-Heart Drug. New material. About 550.
By William Kronholm.
MEATPACKERS: Union Puts Hormel Local in Trusteeship
AUSTIN, Minn. - Officials of the United Food and Commercial Workers
union place Local P-9 in trusteeship for failing to obey an order to
end a strike against the Hormel meatpacking company. Slug AM-Hormel
Strike. Developing.
LIBYA: Khadafy Gets Maximum Exposure at Libya Airport
TRIPOLI, Libya - The traveler passing through Tripoli airport can
purchase the hottest-selling item in the duty free shop - a
full-color poster of headless corpses. If that's too strong for the
taste, there are posters of Col. Moammar Khadafy and commentaries on
the political thoughts of the man President Reagan dubbed ''the mad
dog of the Middle East.'' Slug AM-Libya Airport. New, will stand.
650.
An AP Extra by Robert H. Reid.
TEEN PARAMEDICS: High School Kids Run Town's Ambulance Service
DARIEN, Conn. - Broken bones, accidents and heart attacks are the
routine for a select group of high school students in this affluent
community, where the town's sole ambulance service is operated and
manned around the clock by teen-agers. Slug AM-Teen Paramedics. New,
should stand. 550 words.
By Linda Stowell.
GI MOM: Army Enlistee Takes His Mother Along
PITTSBURGH - A 34-year-old mother of three who decided to join her
18-year-old son in enlisting in the Army may be joined as well by her
husband if an Army recruiter has his way. ''I'm going to get her
whole family if I have anything to do with it,'' says Sgt. Stanley
Smith. AM-Army Mom. Developing.
By Tara Bradley-Steck. LaserPhoto upcoming.
AP-NY-05-08-86 1336EDT
***************
a203 1054 08 May 86
PM-Kiev Scene,0428
Report From Kiev: Police Checking For Radiation, Warnings About Salad
EDITOR'S NOTE - The following story is base on a pool report filed
by the first Western reporters allowed to go to Kiev since the
Chernobyl nuclear power plant accident. The English-language press
was represented in the pool by Reuters correspondent Charles Bremner.
---
KIEV, U.S.S.R. (AP) - Police patrols checked cars today - apparently
to monitor radiation levels - on roads leading to this Ukrainian
capital south of the devastated Chernobyl nuclear plant.
One resident said Kiev, which is 80 miles south of the plant, was
swept by rumors after power plant accident. But today, 12 days later,
people strolled in the park and fished in the Dnieper River on a
sunny evening with temperatures at 72 degrees Fahrenheit.
The Ukrainian capital appeared quiet as a group of journalists on a
tour arranged by the Foreign Ministry arrived from Moscow, the first
visit by foreign reporters since the April 26 explosion and fire at
the plant.
The accident released radiation that spread over much of Europe and
a wide area of the Soviet Union. Soviet officials say two people died
and more than 200 were injured. The Yugoslavian news agency reported
today that a third Soviet had died.
As their bus approached Kiev, reporters saw police stopping cars on
the edge of the city, apparently to check for radiation. Residents
later said the police have been conducting spot radiation checks.
In the city, water trucks washed the streets as part of an official
effort to combat dust that may carry radioactive particles from the
Chernobyl accident.
The government officially reported the nuclear plant accident to the
Soviet public on Monday, April 28.
But Nina, a guide for the Intourist state travel agency, said most
Kiev residents heard about the accident before the official report.
She did not give her last name.
''People were worried on the first day, we heard about it on Sunday,
through friends,'' said Nina. ''Now the people are calm.''
She said officials warned residents not to eat salad and to keep
their windows closed. They also suggested floors be washed every day
and that residents keep dust off everything, she said.
Tap water is said to be pure, she added.
''People are talking a lot,'' Nina said. ''There were a lot of
rumors, especially at the time they were trying to close down the
reactor. Everybody became a physicist.''
The guide said Kiev residents ''thought in the first days that the
authorities did not act fast enough. Now we have all the
information.''
AP-NY-05-08-86 1348EDT
***************
a221 1244 08 May 86
BC-Radioactive Air,0230
First airborne radioactivity at ground level detected at three
western cities
WASHINGTON (AP) - The first airborne radioactivity at ground level
from the Soviet nuclear accident has been detected in tiny
concentrations at three Western cities, the Environmental Protection
Agency said Thursday.
The EPA said its monitoring stations detected 0.012 picocuries per
cubic meter of iodine-131 in a sample taken on Tuesday in Cheyenne,
Wyo.
At Denver, sampling showed 0.0057 picocuries per cubic meter of
iodine-131 and 0.0002 picocuries per cubic meter of cesium-134.
At Richland, Wash., on Monday and Tuesday four samples taken by the
Energy Department showed iodine-131 in concentrations ranging from
0.003 picocuries per cubic meter to 0.015 picocuries per cubic meter.
''These levels are barely detectable and represent no danger to area
residents,'' the EPA said in a statement on behalf of the interagency
task force monitoring Chernobyl developments.
EPA added a fifth city to the list of those where small amounts of
radiation had been detected in rain water - Idaho Falls, Idaho.
On Tuesday, Energy Department sampling at Idaho Falls detected 62
picocuries of iodine-131 per cubic liter in rainwater.
The agency has said that drinking a liter of water - about a quart -
contaminated at 500 picocuries per liter produces radiation levels
comparable to about one-third those produced by a chest X-ray.
AP-NY-05-08-86 1543EDT
a228 1359 08 May 86
AM-US-Nuclear Rdp, Bjt,0773
More International Cooperation Expected By Experts In Wake Of Chernobyl
By JILL LAWRENCE
WASHINGTON (AP) - International nuclear safety experts said Thursday
they expect a renewed drive for worldwide cooperation, including
mandatory notification of nuclear emergencies, in light of the
Chernobyl disaster and its far-reaching radioactive cloud.
''Circumstances are changing because of Chernobyl,'' said Allan
Mendelowitz, author of a General Accounting Office study on
international nuclear safety. ''It's a propitious time to raise the
issue of a convention again.''
There is no international agreement governing the reporting of
nuclear accidents now, nor provisions for mutual emergency assistance
among nations. Neither are there requirements for preventive measures
such as reactor inspections and information sharing.
The United States led a campaign for such an agreement in 1981, but
ran into opposition from other countries. Guidelines on reporting
events, information exchanges and mutual assistance were adopted
instead.
''How do you take sovereign nations who jealously guard their
sovereign prerogatives and impose upon them international obligations
that are legally binding?'' Mendelowitz asked the Senate Government
Affairs subcommittee on energy, nuclear proliferation and government
affairs.
''Such a convention can and will be successful if the major nuclear
powers determine that it is in everyone's mutual interest to do this.
We can only hope that the Chernobyl accident will serve as the
impetus for that assessment,'' he added.
The GAO study, a review of Nuclear Regulatory Commission records,
found there were 151 significant or potentially significant safety
incidents at reactors in 14 countries between 1971 and 1984. The
study, which did not include plants in the Soviet Union or
Soviet-bloc countries, concluded many nations might not be able to
cope with accidents.
Meanwhile, a founder of a volunteer organization that coordinates
information sharing among U.S. utilities that use nuclear energy to
generate electricity said Thursday the group wants the Soviet Union
to join ''so we can learn from each other.''
William Lee, who helped organize the Institute of Nuclear Power
Operations, told reporters, ''We would like to invite the Soviets to
become members of INPO, if they would like to, subject to our
government's approval.''
He said he had asked Energy Secretary John S. Herrington how to
proceed, but had received no response. The Soviets, he said, probably
have not had time to consider the matter.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has bilateral nuclear safety
arrangements with 21 countries and also participates in a reporting
system run by the 23-member Nuclear Energy Agency, a Paris-based
division of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and
Development. However, the Soviet Union and Soviet bloc countries do
not belong.
Those nations and all others with nuclear plants are members of a
similar reporting system recently begun by the International Atomic
Energy Agency in Vienna, said James R. Shea, director of
international programs at the NRC.
But he noted that neither reporting system is set up to function in
an emergency. He said the two agencies were formed to assess lessons
learned from accidents, and typically reach their conclusions three
to four months after the fact.
Shea said the IAEA conducts nuclear plant inspections if a country
requests them, and provides its evaluations on a confidential basis.
Subcommittee chairman Thad Cochran, R-Miss., said IAEA should be
expanded and authorized to conduct mandatory inspections, but Shea
said the international community probably would not agree to that.
''There would have to be negotiation. There could well be concerns
about sovereignty and costs,'' Shea said. ''Many may feel their
safety is quite adequate and there is no need to upgrade their
systems.''
The NRC staff was working on a draft agreement on nuclear safety
cooperation with the Soviet Union when the Soviets invaded
Afghanistan in 1979, Shea said.
He said all work came to a halt as part of the U.S. government
protest against the invasion. The draft remained dormant until shorly
before the Chernobyl accident when the NRC proposed a 10-day trip to
the Soviet Union to discuss nuclear safety and visit Soviet plants,
he said.
The NRC is still awaiting a response, Shea said, adding that he
remains optimistic the visit will occur eventually.
''I would hope that once the emergency problems are dealt with and
the accident is better understood that the Soviets would accept our
proposal,'' he said.
Mendelowitz and Sen. John Glenn, D-Ohio, said the United States and
other reactor exporters, such as France and the Soviet Union, should
start imposing notification and other requirements on the countries
that buy their reactors.
Glenn noted that most reactors now are being bought by developing
countries without much nuclear expertise - a situation that could be
dangerou if a serious accident occurred.
AP-NY-05-08-86 1659EDT
a235 1524 08 May 86
AM-Nuclear Disaster, Bjt,1101
Premier Says Evacuation Was Delayed, Fire Still Smoldering
KIEV, U.S.S.R. (AP) - No one was evacuated immediately from the
Chernobyl nuclear plant area because initial radiation checks after
the reactor explosion and fire showed ''nothing to fear,'' the
Ukrainian premier said Thursday.
Alexander Lyashko said the evacuation order for the immediate area
was given April 27, the day after the accident, and that people more
than six miles away were not told to leave until a week after the
disaster.
Reports Thursday said changing winds had carried higher levels of
radiation to Kiev, the Ukrainian capital of 2.4 million people 80
miles south of the Chernobyl plant.
Health precautions were imposed in the city and thousands of people
were reported fleeing.
Lyashko told a visiting group of Western reporters, the first
allowed into the Ukraine since the accident, that the reactor fire
was ''practically stopped'' and radiation was ''stable with a
tendency downward.''
The reactor core meltdown at Chernobyl spewed a cloud of invisible
radioactivity over Europe, but the Soviet Union did not report it
until high levels of radiation were reported in Scandinavia two days
after it happened.
Trains arriving in Moscow from Kiev were packed. Transport officials
said they added more trains and flights because of Victory Day on
Friday, celebrating the end of World War II in Europe, and
approaching summer holidays.
Lyashko said the explosion that caused the fire resulted in a
''small radioactive emission'' and ''the measurements at first showed
that there was nothing to fear.''
An order was issued April 27 to evacuate people within 6.2 miles of
the plant, he said, but the zone was not broadened to 18 miles until
six days later. Evacuation ''was completed by May 4'' - last Sunday,
he said.
The town of Chernobyl, in which about 30,000 people lived, is 12
miles from the plant but a senior Western diplomat in Moscow said
Thursday: ''Our information is that at least in that town, the
evacuation was still going on two days ago.'' He did not give the
source of his information.
Soviet officials said earlier this week that evacuation of the
25,000 people in the plant town of Pripyat did not begin until 36
hours after the accident because Chernobyl personnel did not realize
how serious it was.
Boris N. Yeltsin, chief of the Moscow Communist Party, said Monday
that the original ''danger area'' was 18 miles, later reduced to 12.
He said livestock in the zone were slaughtered.
The order for additional evacuations and other steps apparently
resulted from a visit to the area May 2, six days after the accident,
by Soviet Premier Nikolai I. Ryzhkov and Yegor Ligachev, No. 2 man in
the Kremlin.
Lyashko said officials in Moscow were advised of the explosion when
it happened, but the full gravity of the situation was not relayed
until Monday, April 28, because the situation ''was constantly
developing.'' The Soviet Union acknowledged the accident that Monday
after Sweden demanded information.
According to Lyashko, 84,000 people have been evacuated and the 204
people officially reported injured were workers at the power station,
not members of the general public.
Officially the death toll is two, but the official Yugoslav news
agency Tanjug said in a dispatch from Moscow that a third person died
in a Kiev hospital.
The Ukranian premier said the temperature in the burning No. 4
reactor had gone down to 572 degrees Farenheit.
Western experts have said for days that the graphite core of the
reactor was probably afire and would burn itself out slowly.
Helicopters and ground workers have dumped thousands of tons of sand,
lead, and boron on the reactor to reduce emissions.
The journalists, who provided a pool report, arrived Thursday on a
visit organized by the Foreign Ministry. There has been no indication
that independent travel will be permitted soon by other reporters who
have sought permission.
Officials escorted the reporters everywhere and many uniformed
police were on the streets.
It was difficult to talk with residents of the city, which appeared
calm. People strolled in the park in temperatures of about 72 degrees
on a sunny late afternoon, and fished in the Dnieper River.
In a report on Kiev, the government newspaper Izvestia said Thursday
that children were ordered not to play outside, the school term may
be dismissed early and children evacuated from ''danger areas'' near
the reactor were given priority for summer camps.
Street sales of ice cream, pastries and juices is prohibited, food
in farmers' markets is checked for radiation, and food and clothing
of passengers is scanned at railroad stations, airports and bus
depots, Izvestia said.
The visiting journalists saw water trucks washing the streets to
combat radioactive dust. They said people were told to wash their
floors and keep dust out of their homes for the same reason, and not
to eat green, leafy vegetables.
Police checked vehicles on the edge of the city 450 miles from
Moscow, apparently for radiation.
Izvestia said some sanitary and medical teams did not respond
quickly enough after the accident and the team serving the nuclear
plant had no regular contacts with those in the adjacent territory.
''We'll be frank: individual workers have been found who in extreme
conditions didn't show enough firmness and readiness to take
decisions,'' it said without elaborating.
A British member of the European Parliament said in London that the
Soviet government had asked the European Common Market to sell it
huge amounts of food because of contaminated crops and cattle in the
Ukraine.
Soviet television showed film on the evening news of Hans Blix,
director-general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, visiting
the Ukraine.
''We saw the site from the air. There was a little smoke coming from
the damaged plant and a lot of activity to contain the reactor and
keep it under control,'' Blix said. ''They evidently have done a lot
of heavy work in the past two weeks and they have been successful.''
No radiation levels dangerous to health were reported over Europe on
Thursday.
The Hamburg newspaper Bild quoted the deputy chief of the West
German Agriculture Ministry as saying his government would ask the
Soviets for damages of ''millions, if not billions'' of marks to
compensate farmers whose crops were contaminated.
Wolfgang von Geldern said West Germany would sue in the World Court
if the Kremlin refused to pay, according to the Bild report.
AP-NY-05-08-86 1824EDT
- - - - - -
a236 1527 08 May 86
AM-Digest Advisory,0107
All budgets have cleared. Here is a listing.
KIEV, U.S.S.R. - Nuclear Disaster, a235. Stands for MOSCOW-datelined
item in News Digest.
WASHINGTON - US-Nuclear Rdp, a228.
MANILA, Shultz-Philippines, a223.
UNDATED - Tidal Wave, a230.
WASHINGTON - Budget, a227.
WASHINGTON - Deaver, a231.
GENOA, Italy - Achille Lauro, a225.
NEW YORK - Liberty-Skin, a229.
WASHINGTON - Elderly Alone, a234.
WASHINGTON - Unsocial Security, a226.
WASHINGTON - Heart Drug, a232.
AUSTIN, Minn. - Hormel Strike, a233.
TRIPOLI, Libya - Libya-Airport, a220.
DARIEN, Conn. - Teen Paramedics, a224.
PITTSBURGH - Army Mom, a217.
AP-NY-05-08-86 1826EDT
a252 1730 08 May 86
AM-Chernobyl, Advisory,0138
MANAGING EDITORS:
PHOTO EDITORS:
Informatively, an AP staff photographer has accompanied Western
journalists now in Kiev. On Friday they will be permitted to visit
''areas of damage'' resulting from the nuclear accident at Chernobyl.
Here is the best advisory we can give you regarding pictures.
It is expected that photos will be available for transmission from
Moscow late in the afternoon Friday, U. S. Eastern Daylight Time.
Exact time is not now known because of transportation arrangements.
We hope to have information Friday morning.
It is not known as yet what the pictures will show, or what access
the group of journalists will have to worthy picture situations. That
information also will be available by Friday mid-day in the U.S.
Color is planned, and transmissions will be expedited to the
network.
The AP
AP-NY-05-08-86 2030EDT
a002 2125 08 May 86
PM-News Digest,1080
Friday, May 9, 1986
Here are the top stories for PMs. The General Desk supervisor is
NUCLEAR TRAGEDY: Evacuations, Notification Of Moscow Late
KIEV, U.S.S.R - The first account by a local official of the
Chernobyl nuclear accident reveals authorities didn't order the
largest part of the evacuation for a week and waited two days to tell
Moscow the full scope of the disaster. Slug PM-Nuclear Accident.
With LaserPhoto. Developing.
US-LIBYA:
MONEY MATTERS:
PHILIPPINES: Shultz Meets With President Aquino
BRITISH ELECTIONS: Thatcher's Party Hammered In Municipal Votes
ASBESTOS: Reagan Administration Advised Canada On Weakening Rules
STATE OF SIEGE: Church Blasts Police Searches In Slums
EASTERN FINE: FAA Says It Will Seek To Force Airline Payment
NIGHT STALKER: Defendant Bragged That He Loves to Kill
SCHOOL DAYS:
EDWARDS TRIAL: Bribery Case Goes To Jury For Second Time
CHINA: Model Workers Remain Key Part of Chinese Propaganda Effort
AP-NY-05-09-86 0023EDT
a031 0217 09 May 86
PM-Digest Advisory,0105
All the budgets have moved. Here is a list with Laserphoto numbers:
WASHINGTON - PM-US-Libya, a005
MALVERN - PM-No Pay-No Play, a006
WASHINGTON - PM-FAA-Eastern, a007
WASHINGTON - PM-Budget, a009
KINGSTON - PM-Boring Books, a010
LOS ANGELES - PM-Night Stalker, a011
WASHINGTON - PM-Asbestos-Canada, a012
WASHINGTON - PM-Tax Overhaul, a013. Laserphoto WX5.
WASHINGTON - PM-Tax Winners-Losers, a014
WASHINGTON - PM-Libya-Raid, a015
NEW ORLEANS - PM-Edwards Trial, a017
LONDON - PM-British Elections, a019
SANTIAGO - PM-Chile-Church, a020
MANILA - PM-Shultz-Philippines, a024
KIEV - PM-Nuclear Accident, a030
The AP
AP-NY-05-09-86 0517EDT
a030 0215 09 May 86
PM-Nuclear Accident, Bjt,0930
Chernobyl Still Burning; Minister Says Children Will Be Sent Away
KIEV, U.S.S.R. (AP) - The mayor said today that a quarter-million
children will leave school early this year because of the Chernobyl
nuclear accident, but that the decision was not an emergency measure.
''We are simply advancing the normal school holiday a little bit,''
Kiev Mayor Valentin Sgursky told a small group of foreign reporters
during a visit arranged by the Soviet Foreign Ministry.
Meanwhile, Ukrainian Health Minister Anatoly Romanenko warned in an
article in today's issue of the newspaper Pravda Ukrainy that people
should wash well, water down streets and yards, and keep children
indoors as much as possible.
''The situation has markedly improved since my last address. The
level of bqckground radiation is gradually falling. At present it is
in the limit of the norms recommended by national and international
organizations and does not represent a danger to the health of the
population, including children,'' he wrote.
However, it was not clear whether he was referring to radiation
levels in the accident area, or in Kiev itself, located 80 miles to
the south.
On Thursday, Ukrainian Premier Alexander Lyashko told the Western
journalists that work crews still were trying to put out the fire in
the smoldering reactor.
He also said authorities had not ordered the major part of the
evacuation until six days after the accident, and had waited for two
days to inform Moscow of the full scope of what is now believed to be
the worst disaster in the history of nuclear power.
In all, Lyashko said 84,000 people were evacuated from settlements
around the power plant in the northern Ukraine after an explosion,
fire and meltdown in Chernobyl's reactor No. 4 spewed a radioactive
cloud over much of Europe.
''The temperature of the reactor has gone down to 300 degrees
Celsius (572 degrees Fahrenheit),'' Lyashko told the reporters.
''This means that the burning has practically stopped. The radiation
is stable with the tendency downward.''
British Broadcasting Corp. monitors in London quoted Romanenko as
saying on Kiev radio Thursday that the first seven grades of school
in Kiev and in the evacuation zone will close May 15. The school year
normally runs until the end of May or early June.
The children will be taken to ''work and leisure camps and Pioneer
camps'' in the south of the Ukraine, one of the 15 Soviet republics,
he was quoted as saying. Meanwhile, he said, children must be kept
indoors as much as possible.
''Although today there is virtually no direct danger of their being
irradiated, let's look after them first and foremost,'' the health
minister was quoted as saying.
Lyashko said roads leading into the evacuation zone were closely
guarded, and the visiting reporters saw police checking cars on
highways leading into Kiev, presumably to verify radiation levels.
In Kiev, the Soviet Union's third-largest city, the sale of food and
drink on streets was banned as a precaution, radiation checks were
being made at farmers' markets and all those leaving the city were
being checked with geiger counters, Soviet media said.
Hans Blix, director-general of the Vienna-based International Atomic
Energy Agency, flew over the crippled reactor on Thursday and said on
Soviet television that a little smoke was still coming from the
plant. However, he said clean-up efforts so far appeared successful.
Lyashko cited the official casualty toll for the accident of two
killed and 204 hospitalized. But Polish television quoted a Soviet
deputy health minister, Yevgeny Vorobyev, as saying a third victim
had died in a Moscow hospital. Yugoslavia's Tanjug news agency
carried a similar report.
Hundreds of people thronged Kiev's railway station late Thursday to
take overnight trains, some leaving with their children for the early
summer holidays. However, there was no sign of any mass exodus.
In his meeting with Western reporters, Lyashko defended the actions
of local officials, who have been criticized by Soviet Deputy Premier
Boris Y. Shcherbina for not realizing the scope of the disaster
earlier.
''It was an evolving situation,'' Lyashko said.
But he said that although officials in Moscow were informed within
hours of the April 26 explosion and fire at the power plant, he said
they were not told of the full seriousness of the accident until two
days later.
This appeared to contradict Shcherbina's statement at a news
conference in Moscow on Tuesday that the commission of inquiry into
the accident he heads was appointed within hours and immediately
began heading for the scene.
Shcherbina said the actions of local officials were being
investigated, but Lyashko told the reporters, ''It is difficult to
say whether someone is guilty or not.''
The Ukrainian prime minister said the accident ''developed in an
unusual way, not as scientific knowledge would have predicted. First,
there was small explosion and a small radioactive emission.''
Initial measurements ''showed there was nothing to fear'' Lyashko
said, and officials decided to evacuate only people within 10
kilometers, or 6.2 miles, of the reactor.
That operation was completed on April 27, he said. He said it was
not until May 2, six days later, that evacuation began of those
living within 30 kilometers, or 18 miles of the plant.
Lyashko said the decision to evacuate the larger zone came after
Soviet Premier Nikolai I. Ryzhkov and Kremlin ideologist Yegor K.
Ligachev were dispatched from Moscow and ordered ''additional
measures'' taken.
A brief report on the first publicly announced Politburo meeting
since the accident said the Soviet Union's ruling body had ordered
compensation paid to Chernobyl victims, and praised the
''self-control and bravery'' of those involved.
AP-NY-05-09-86 0514EDT
- - - - - -
a056 0524 09 May 86
PM-Digest Briefs,1164
Eds: This package does not contain the following items from the News
Digest: KIEV-Nuclear Accident, a030; WASHINGTON-Tax Winners-Losers,
a014; NEW ORLEANS-Edwards Trial, a017; WASHINGTON-Asbestos-Canada,
a012; HONGSHAN-Model Communists, a075.
---
WASHINGTON (AP) - The Pentagon for the first time acknowledged that
WASHINGTON (AP) - In another jab at Libya's economy, the Reagan
MANILA, Philippines (AP) - Secretary of State George P. Shultz met
WASHINGTON (AP) - The House Budget Committee approved a fiscal 1987
WASHINGTON (AP) - Individual Retirement Accounts, that new-found but
LONDON (AP) - Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher's Conservatives
SANTIAGO, Chile (AP) - The Roman Catholic Church has urged the army
WASHINGTON (AP) - Eastern Airlines is refusing to pay a $9.5 million
LOS ANGELES (AP) - A drifter accused in 15 ''Night Stalker''
KINGSTON, Mass. (AP) - ''Tom Sawyer'' is boring no longer. ''A Tale
MALVERN, Ark. (AP) - The financially strapped Malvern school board
AP-NY-05-09-86 0824EDT
- - - - - -
a060 0553 09 May 86
PM-News Advisory,0061
The General Desk supervisor is John Daniszewski (212) 621-1604. The
-PM-Nuclear Accident, a030. Moving shortly will be an update with
report that fire out.
-PM-Edwards Trial, a017. Jury deliberations begin 10:30 a.m. Update
planned.
-PM-Shultz-Philippines, a024. Developing. Update planned.
AP-NY-05-09-86 0853EDT
- - - - - -
a062 0613 09 May 86
PM-Nuclear Accident, 1st LD a030,0756
URGENT
Expert Says Fire Is Out At Chernobyl, 250,000 Children Leaving School
Early
Eds: LEADS with 20 grafs to UPDATE with IAEA official saying fire at
reactor is out, no danger from second reactor, other details
KIEV, U.S.S.R. (AP) - An International Atomic Energy Agency official
said today that the fire at the Chernobyl nuclear reactor has been
put out. The mayor of Kiev said a quarter-million children will leave
school early this year because of the devastating accident.
The agency official, Morris Rosen, told a news conference in Moscow
that an adjacent reactor at the Ukrainian facility suffered some fire
damage but its cooling system was working and there was no danger the
second reactor would release radiation.
Kiev Mayor Valentin Sgursky said schools attended by a
quarter-million of the city's children will close early this year
because of the power plant accident. He said the move was not an
emergency measure.
''We are simply advancing the normal school holiday a little bit,''
Sgursky told a group of foreign reporters during a visit arranged by
the Soviet Foreign Ministry.
Ukrainian Health Minister Anatoly Romanenko was quoted earlier as
saying on Kiev radio that school children would be moved out of the
area as a precaution. Kiev, the nation's third-largest city, is 80
miles south of the damaged reactor.
At the Moscow news conference, Rosen said workers were trying to
seal off the No. 4 reactor at the Chernobyl facility where a chemical
explosion occurred April 26, setting off a fire and spewing a
radioactive cloud over Europe.
''The aim is to encase the whole fourth unit in concrete and work
has begun to place a concrete foundation under the reactor,'' he
said.
Ukrainian Premier Alexander Lyashko had told Western journalists in
Kiev on Thursday that crews still were trying to put out the reactor
fire. The director of the U.N.-affiliated International Atomic Energy
Agency, Hans Blix, flew over the reactor Thursday and said on Soviet
television that smoke was coming from the facility.
But Rosen said today, ''The fire is out.'' He said his information
came from Soviet officials and observations of a team from the
Vienna, Austria-based nuclear watchdog agency.
He did not specify what observations led to the conclusion that the
fire was out. There was no indication whether the release of
radioactivity had stopped, or whether the reactor core meltdown had
been halted.
Blix said at today's news conference that the Soviets have agreed to
release daily radiation levels beginning today from a monitoring
station 37 1/2 miles from the reactor and from six other stations along
the country's western border.
Rosen said most of the 204 people injured in the accident were
firefighters and that all had been sent to Moscow for treatment.
Romanenko warned in an article in today's issue of the newspaper
Pravda Ukrainy that people should wash well, water down streets and
yards, and keep children indoors as much as possible.
''The situation has markedly improved since my last address. The
level of background radiation is gradually falling. At present it is
in the limit of the norms recommended by national and international
organizations and does not represent a danger to the health of the
population, including children,'' he wrote.
However, it was not clear whether he was referring to radiation
levels in the accident area, or in Kiev itself.
Lyashko also told Western reporters Thursday that authorities had
not ordered the major part of the evacuation until six days after the
accident, and had waited for two days to inform Moscow of the full
scope of what is now believed to be the worst disaster in the history
of nuclear power.
Today, the Communist Party daily Pravda said in Moscow that Kiev
residents may not have been kept informed in a timely fashion.
''This provided grounds for all kinds of rumors which, incidentally,
were quite actively disseminated by various 'voices' in the West,''
said Pravda, referring to foreign radio broadcasts reaching the
Ukraine.
Pravda said the Ukrainian media now was helping present a more
accurate picture of the accident and its consequences.
In all, Lyashko said 84,000 people were evacuated from settlements
around the power plant.
He said Thursday, ''The temperature of the reactor has gone down to
300 degrees Celsius (572 degrees Fahrenheit). This means that the
burning has practically stopped. The radiation is stable with the
tendency downward.''
British Broadcasting: 11th graf
AP-NY-05-09-86 0911EDT
- - - - - -
a068 0707 09 May 86
PM-Nuclear Accident, Advisory, a062,0023
Moving shortly will be an update with IAEA official Rosen saying
there was no meltdown.
The AP
AP-NY-05-09-86 1006EDT
- - - - - -
a071 0736 09 May 86
PM-Nuclear Accident, 2nd, a062,0605
URGENT
Expert Says Chernobyl Fire Is Out, 250,000 Children Leaving School
Early
Eds: LEADS with 18 grafs with Rosen saying no meltdown occurred,
CORRECTS that he said adjacent reactor was not damaged
KIEV, U.S.S.R. (AP) - An International Atomic Energy Agency official
said today that the fire at the Chernobyl nuclear reactor has been
put out. The mayor of Kiev said a quarter-million children will leave
school early this year because of the devastating accident.
The agency official, Morris Rosen, told a news conference in Moscow
that an adjacent reactor at the Ukrainian facility was not damaged by
the fire and was not in danger of releasing radiation.
Kiev Mayor Valentin Sgursky said schools attended by a
quarter-million of the city's children will close May 15, several
weeks early, because of the power plant accident. He said the move
was not an emergency measure.
''We are simply advancing the normal school holiday a little bit,''
Sgursky told a group of foreign reporters.
Ukrainian Health Minister Anatoly Romanenko was quoted earlier as
saying on Kiev radio that school children would be moved out of the
area as a precaution. Kiev, the nation's third-largest city, is 80
miles south of the nuclear plant.
Ukrainian Premier Alexander Lyashko told reporters Thursday that
authorities did not order the major part of the evacuation until six
days after the accident, and waited for two days to inform Moscow of
the full scope of the worst disaster in the history of nuclear power.
At the Moscow news conference, Rosen said workers were trying to
seal off the No. 4 reactor at the Chernobyl facility where a chemical
explosion occurred April 26, setting off a fire and spewing a
radioactive cloud over Europe.
''The aim is to encase the whole fourth unit in concrete and work
has begun to place a concrete foundation under the reactor,'' he
said.
Lyashko had said Thursday that crews still were trying to put out
the reactor fire. The director of the U.N.-affiliated International
Atomic Energy Agency, Hans Blix, flew over the reactor Thursday and
said on Soviet television that smoke was coming from it.
But Rosen said today, ''The fire is out.''
He said the smoke seen Thursday was light gray and appeared to come
from smoldering sand, lead, boron and dolomite thrown over the
reactor to smother the fire. He said smoke was thicker and darker
when the fire was burning.
Rosen also said Soviet officials reported the reactor core
temperature had fallen to a degree that indicated the fire was out.
Lyashko had said Thursday that the reactor temperature had fallen to
300 degrees Celsius, 572 degrees Fahrenheit. ''This means that the
burning has practically stopped,'' he said.
Rosen said a meltdown never occurred, but a statement by his agency
said the reactor core was extensively damaged. Rosen said workers
were trying to build a concrete shield under the reactor in case a
nuclear reaction should resume, sending radioactivity into the earth.
Western scientists have said they believe a meltdown did occur.
And Blix said at today's news conference, ''It is clear the
radioactive consequences of this accident are far more serious than
in any acident so far.''
He said the Soviets have agreed to release daily radiation levels
beginning today from a monitoring station 37 1/2 miles from the reactor
and from six other stations along the country's western border.
Blix also said the Soviets never shut down their 11 other
Chernobyl-type nuclear reactors, as some reports indicated earlier.
Rosen said: 12th graf
AP-NY-05-09-86 1036EDT
- - - - - -
a086 0916 09 May 86
PM-Nuclear Accident, 2nd, Insert a071,0480
KIEV, U.S.S.R. Insert after 2nd graf to UPDATE with Swedish official
saying satellite picture shows no smoke from reactor
KIEV, U.S.S.R. (AP) - An International Atomic Energy Agency official
said today that the fire at the Chernobyl nuclear reactor has been
put out. The mayor of Kiev said a quarter-million children will leave
school early this year because of the devastating accident.
The agency official, Morris Rosen, told a news conference in Moscow
that an adjacent reactor at the Ukrainian facility was not damaged by
the fire and was not in danger of releasing radiation.
In Stockholm, a Swedish official said satellite photos taken today
showed no smoke coming from the damaged reactor.
Kiev Mayor Valentin Sgursky said schools attended by a
quarter-million of the city's children will close May 15, several
weeks early, because of the power plant accident. He said the move
was not an emergency measure.
''We are simply advancing the normal school holiday a little bit,''
Sgursky told a group of foreign reporters.
Ukrainian Health Minister Anatoly Romanenko was quoted earlier as
saying on Kiev radio that school children would be moved out of the
area as a precaution. Kiev, the nation's third-largest city, is 80
mil
BUST BUST BUST
AP-NY-05-09-86 1216EDT
- - - - - -
a088 0924 09 May 86
PM-Nuclear Accident, 2nd, Insert a071,0046
KIEV, U.S.S.R. Insert after 2nd graf to UPDATE with Swedish official
saying satellite picture shows no smoke from reactor
In Stockholm, a Swedish official said satellite photos taken today
showed no smoke coming from the damaged reactor.
Kiev Mayor: 3rd graf
AP-NY-05-09-86 1223EDT
- - - - - -
a090 0928 09 May 86
PM-Nuclear Accident, 2nd Ld, Sub a071,0125
KIEV, U.S.S.R. Sub 11 and 12th grafs: But Rosen xxx burning to
update
But Rosen, an American who is director of the agency's division of
nuclear safety, said today that the smoke was light gray and appeared
to come from smoldering sand, lead, boron and dolomite thrown over
the reactor to smother the fire. He said smoke was thicker and darker
when the fire was burning.
''The fire is out,'' he said, specifying that he referred to a fire
in graphite in the reactor core. The Chernobyl reactor uses graphite
to slow nuclear reactions.
Goeran Mandeus, information chief of the Swedish Nuclear Inspection
Board, said today's satellite pictures showed no smoke from the
reactor.
Rosen also: 13th graf
AP-NY-05-09-86 1228EDT
- - - - - -
a204 1011 09 May 86
PM-Nuclear Accident, 2nd Ld,, Sub a071,0213
URGENT
KIEV, U.S.S.R. SUB grafs 18-19: And Blix xxx western border with 5
grafs with American scientist saying meltdown must have occurred,
Rosen saying radiation at reactor was 36 millirems per hour.
Robert Avery, a senior scientist at Argonne National Laboratory in
Illinois, said in an interview today, ''It would be unreasonable to
imagine a huge amount of (radioactive) material getting out - as it
apparently did - without there being a meltdown.''
Blix said today: ''It is clear the radioactive consequences of this
accident are far more serious than in any acident so far.''
He said the Soviets have agreed to release daily radiation levels
beginning today from a monitoring station 37 1/2 miles from the reactor
and from six other stations along the country's western border.
In the first disclosure of specific radiation levels, Rosen said
radiation at the reactor site reached 36 millirems per hour shortly
after the accident. The agency statement said radiation had dropped
Thursday to 0.15 millirems about 18 miles from the reactor.
Millirems measure the the effect of radiation on human tissue.
Experts estimate that exposure to 1,000 millirems in a year can
create one or two chances in 10,000 of developing cancer.
Blix also: 20th graf
AP-NY-05-09-86 1311EDT
a044 0357 09 May 86
PM-Sweden-Nuclear,0299
Concern for Another Reactor, Swedish Official Says
STOCKHOLM, Sweden (AP) - Nuclear experts are concerned that a second
reactor at the stricken Soviet Chernobyl nuclear plant was damaged in
the explosion nearly two weeks ago, Swedish officials said today.
Sven Gustafsson of the Swedish Nuclear Inspection Board said that
concern centered on Chernobyl's No. 3 reactor, the partner reactor to
the one whose destruction continues to send radioactivity into the
air.
Gustafsson said that ''judging from the information gathered, it
seems that the third reactor is under control.'' But he said that it
was felt the possibility of damage could not be excluded because the
stricken No. 4 reactor was nearby and ''what was happening there was
of a very violent nature.''
Soviet officials have denied earlier speculation by Western experts
that a second reactor was damaged in the April 26 explosion and fire
at the Chernobyl power plant 80 miles north of the Ukrainian capital
of Kiev.
However, Gustafsson said that Swedish experts had studied Soviet
statements and exchanged information with American, British and West
German nuclear experts in the course of concluding there could be a
problem with the second Chernobyl reactor.
Lars Hogberg, deputy head of Sweden's Nuclear Power Inspection
Board, was quoted as saying in an interview with Sweden's largest
morning newspaper, Dagens Nyheter, that radiation protection experts
and nuclear power inspectors meeting in Paris today would discuss the
risk of another reactor breakdown at Chernobyl.
The Paris meeting will involve officials and experts from countries
within the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.
Hogberg was quoted as saying there was speculation that the No. 3
reactor might not have sufficiently cooled after the Chernobyl
facility was shut down following the accident at No. 4.
AP-NY-05-09-86 0656EDT
- - - - - -
a080 0838 09 May 86
PM-Sweden-Nuclear, 1st Ld-Writethru, a044,0610
Officials Say Risk of Dangerous Radiation Increase Apparently Over
Eds: LEADS throughout with Swedish officials saying satellite photos
today show no smoke from reactor, no new radioactive threat to Sweden
By CECILIA LONNELL
Associated Press Writer
STOCKHOLM, Sweden (AP) - Swedish officials said satellite photos
taken today showed no smoke coming from the damaged Soviet nuclear
reactor, and that the threat of dangerously radioactive air hitting
Sweden was over.
''The latest information is that the situation is quiet,'' Olof
Hoermander, general director of the Swedish Nuclear Inspection Board,
said at a news conference.
''But we cannot exclude a new puff (of radiation), as the situation
is so difficult (at the plant) and we must look at it to have early
warning if anything happens,'' he said.
The board's information chief, Goeran Mandeus, said the satellite
pictures taken today showed no smoke from the No. 4 reactor at
Chernobyl in the Ukraine, where an explosion and fire occurred April
26.
His report supported an announcement today in Moscow by an official
of the International Atomic Energy Agency that the fire at the
reactor was out.
The official, Morris Rosen, said he based that conclusion on
observations of an agency team that flew over the reactor in a
helicopter Thursday and on Soviet officials' reports that the reactor
temperature had fallen.
He said the team saw light gray smoke from the reactor, and that
this appeared to come from smoldering sand, lead, boron and dolomite
thrown over the reactor to smother the fire.
The agency is affiliated with the United Nations and based in
Vienna, Austria. Its team was invited to the Soviet Union by the
Kremlin.
The reactor accident sent a radioactive cloud over Europe, and
officials in most countries recommended low-level precautions but
said the radiation was too low to pose a health risk.
Radiation levels in southern Sweden rose today because of rain that
brought down fallout from the atmosphere, but officials said the
readings were still well below those registered immediately after the
accident.
Meteorologist Raoul Iseborg said the air mass crossing Sweden today
had passed Chernobyl three days earlier.
Ragnar Boge, deputy head of the Swedish Radiation Protection Board,
said, ''From the composition of the fallout we can exclude that it is
from new emissions.''
''The danger of inflow of dangerous air is over,'' Iseborg said.
Swedish officials said earlier today that there was concern among
Western experts about possible damage to Chernobyl's No. 3 reactor,
the one paired with the reactor destroyed in the accident.
However, Rosen said in Moscow that the No. 3 reactor was not damaged
and was not in danger of releasing radiation.
Hoermander said that even if the No. 3 reactor were to give off new
radiation, the levels would be much lower than from the initial
accident.
Sven Gustafsson of the inspection board said in a telephone
interview earlier today that ''judging from the information gathered,
it seems that the third reactor is under control.''
But he said the possibility of damage could not be excluded because
the stricken No. 4 reactor was nearby and ''what was happening there
was of a very violent nature.''
Lars Hogberg, deputy head of Sweden's Nuclear Power Inspection
Board, was quoted as saying in an interview with Sweden's largest
morning newspaper, Dagens Nyheter, that radiation protection experts
and nuclear power inspectors meeting in Paris today would discuss the
risk of another reactor breakdown at Chernobyl.
The Paris meeting will involve officials and experts from countries
within the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.
AP-NY-05-09-86 1138EDT
a053 0457 09 May 86
PM-Chernobyl Fire,0370
URGENT
Fire Reported Out at Chernobyl
MOSCOW (AP) - An International Atomic Energy Agency official today
said the fire at Chernobyl nuclear power plant's No. 4 reactor had
been extinguished, and said the reactor was being encased in
concrete.
Morris Rosen, director of the U.N.-affiliated agency's division of
nuclear safety, also said there was some fire damage to the plant's
adjacent No. 3 reactor, but that its cooling system was working well.
He said the damage posed no environmental or health threats.
Rosen said his summary of the accident at the Ukrainian nuclear
power plant 80 miles north of Kiev, which he gave to reporters during
a news conference, was based on talks with Soviet officials as well
as an agency team's observations.
IAEA director Hans Blix told the news conference at the Soviet
Foreign Ministry's press center that he and the other agency
officials looking into the April 26 accident had formed a
''preliminary picture'' based on talks with Soviet officials.
Blix said the Soviets have agreed to provide daily readings of
radiation levels beginning today from a monitoring station 37 1/2 miles
from the power station, as well as from six other stations along the
Soviet Union's western border, from Leningrad to the Black Sea.
Blix said on Soviet television Thursday night after flying over the
plant site that smoke was still coming from the no. 4 reactor.
''The fire is out,'' Rosen said today.
He said investigating officials had ''only hypotheses'' on how the
accident occurred. He said records recovered from the reactor control
room were under study.
Rosen said all 204 people injured in the accident had been sent to
Moscow for treatment, and that most of the victims were firefighters.
Rosen said injuries have been classified in four categories, with 18
people in serious condition after suffering ''fourth-degree radiation
exposure.'' He did not provide figures for the amount of radiation to
which each group was exposed.
The Soviets are trying to seal the reactor in concrete, he said.
''The aim is to encase the whole fourth unit in concrete and work
has begun to place a concrete foundation under the reactor,'' he
said.
AP-NY-05-09-86 0757EDT
a202 1003 09 May 86
AM-News Digest,0777
For Saturday AMs
Here are the top stories at this hour from The Associated Press. The
CHERNOBYL DISASTER:
Fire Out, Soviets Work To Entomb Ruined Reactor in Cement
MOSCOW - International Atomic Energy Agency officials say Soviet
crews are ''entombing'' the ruined Chernobyl nuclear reactor in
cement and the fire is out in the graphite core. They say the area
will be habitable again, but the reactor itself wil not cool for
years. Slug AM-Nuclear Accident. Developing.
By Andrew Rosenthal.
US-PHILIPPINES: Aquino Tells Shultz American Aid Falls Short
MIDEAST: Israel Denies Any Intention of Attacking Syria
BUDGET: Defense Money Looms as Biggest Issue in Compromise
PRESSER: Witness Says FBI Told Him To Stonewall Labor Probe
ECONOMY: Business Leaders See Upswing for Next Two Years
HEALTH:
Researchers Say 'Trojan Horse' Cells May Carry AIDS Virus
CHURCH EXEMPTIONS:
'COUNCIL WARS': Chicago Mayor Scores Major Victory
TENZING NORGAY: Sherpa Guide Inspired Generation of Mountaineers
MALL HERO: Worker Who Halted Shooting Becomes State Trooper
AP-NY-05-09-86 1302EDT
a239 1417 09 May 86
AM-Nuclear Disaster, Bjt,1022
Radiation Still Leaks But Fire Said To Be Out
By ANDREW ROSENTHAL
MOSCOW (AP) - Officials of the U.N. atomic energy agency said Friday
that the Chernobyl disaster is by far the worst nuclear accident in
history, but Soviet experts are getting it under control.
They said radiation still leaks slowly from the nuclear power
plant's stricken No. 4 reactor, but the fire in its graphite core has
been stopped and the Soviets will ''entomb'' it in concrete for a
years-long cooling process.
Based on their observations and Soviet data, ''It's clear ... that
the radioactive consequences of this accident are far more serious
than in any accident so far, also that the radioactive releases to
the environment are much more serious,'' Hans Blix, chief of the
International Atomic Energy Agency, told a news conference.
Blix and his deputies said temperatures in the graphite core were
dropping and uncontrolled downward burning of the nuclear fuel,
commonly called the ''China syndrome,'' is not an immediate threat.
An explosion and fire in the reactor at the Ukrainian plant April 26
spewed an invisible radioactive cloud over Europe that gradually has
been working its way around the world.
No other governments reported health-threatening levels of radiation
Friday.
About 84,000 residents within an 18-mile radius of the plant were
evacuated beginning 36 hours after the disaster. About 250,000
children are being let out of school early so they can leave Kiev,
the Ukrainian capital of 2.4 million people 80 miles south of
Chernobyl.
Journalists from Eastern Europe said a Soviet official told them a
third person had died as a result of the accident. Official reports
have said two people were killed and 204 hospitalized, 18 in serious
condition.
An American bone-marrow specialist is leading a team of doctors
performing marrow transplants in Moscow on victims of severe
radiation exposure.
The Kremlin made its sixth official statement on the disaster Friday
evening, which consisted of three paragraphs and gave no new
information.
All but one statement have been brief. The first, reporting the
accident, was issued two days after it occurred, when high radiation
levels had been detected in Scandinavia and Sweden demanded
information.
Western governments have criticized the Soviet government for slow
and incomplete reports on the disaster.
The first foreign journalists allowed to visit the Ukraine were
escorted to a farm 31 miles west of Kiev where 1,000 evacuees are
housed. They were shown medical checks being given and allowed to
speak with a few evacuees, all of whom appeared to be in good health.
''I took some things, two or three little blankets and pillows,''
said Marina Ilchenko, 80. She began to weep as she related that she
and her children had just moved into a new house.
The people evacuated took their livestock along.
Blix and his associates spoke to reporters after five days of
meetings with Soviet officials. They returned to Geneva after the
news conference.
Asked if he was satisfied with information the Soviets provided,
Blix replied: ''Emphatically, yes.''
Morris Rosen, an American who is the U.N. agency's nuclear safety
director, described the Soviets coordinating the cleanup as
''competent and well-qualified.''
Blix, Rosen and the U.N. agency's Soviet deputy director, Leonard
Konstantinov, flew half a mile from the damaged reactor Thursday.
''There are relatively little radioactivity releases now and the
temperatures (in the No. 4 reactor) are decreasing. The situation
appears to be stabilizing,'' Rosen said.
He said there had been no meltdown in the reactor's core, which
contradicts the view of many American nuclear authorities.
Robert Avery, a senior scientist at Argonne National Laboratory in
Illinois, said in an interview Friday: ''It would be unreasonable to
imagine a huge amount of (radioactive) material getting out - as it
apparently did - without there being a meltdown.''
Rosen said his view that a meltdown had not occurred was based in
part on an analysis of the radioactive materials released.
He said the conclusion that the core fire was out was based in part
on declining temperatures reported by Soviets after infrared
measurements.
During the flight Thursday, he said, they saw a small amount of
light grey smoke coming from the tons of sand, boron, lead and
dolomite now covering the reactor.
A Soviet videotape of the plant made a few days after the accident
showed dense, black smoke coming from the graphite fire, Rosen said,
and the lighter smoke appeared to come from smoldering material in
the ''shield'' dumped by helicopters.
Soviet engineers are working under the reactor, pouring concrete
that ''eventually will form a foundation to entomb the structure,''
he said.
The agency's safety director was asked repeatedly whether there was
danger of a meltdown or uncontrolled downward burning.
''As a matter of physics, it is not completely excluded,'' he said.
''However, the chain reaction (in the reactor) stopped immediately
after the accident and never started again.''
Possible resumption of the chain reaction ''is not considered a
problem,'' he said.
He would not speculate on what caused the accident, and said he did
not have enough data to say how much of the reactor's radioactivity
was released.
Rosen did say, however, that most of the radioactive particles had
short half-lives, the period required for half of a radioactive
substance's atoms to disintegrate and make it less dangerous.
Soviet reports say 50 percent of the radioactive substance vented
was iodine 131, which has a half-life of eight days, Rosen said. He
added that ''the accident area will be habitable again,'' but did not
predict when.
According to Rosen, the Soviets did not give complete information on
radiation monitored, but said that ''on the night of the accident''
it was put at 36 millirems an hour at the plant, a dangerous level.
He said most residents of Pripyat, the reactor settlement of 25,000
people, were indoors and their exposure was 10 times less, which he
described as not ''of immediate concern.''
AP-NY-05-09-86 1716EDT
- - - - - -
a246 1517 09 May 86
AM-Digest Advisory,0084
All budgets have cleared. Here is a listing.
MOSCOW - Nuclear Accident, a239.
MANILA, Philippines - Philippines-Shultz, a234.
TEL AVIV, Israel - Israel-Syria, a231.
WASHINGTON - Budget, a233.
WASHINGTON - Presser, a235.
HOT SPRINGS, Va. - Economic Forecast, a237.
LOS ANGELES - Hamburger Chemicals, a229.
BOSTON - AIDS, a232.
NEW YORK - Catholics-Exemption, a245.
CHICAGO - Council Shakeup, a240.
DARJEELING, India - Obit-Tenzing, a227.
MEDIA, Pa. - Mall Hero, a238.
AP-NY-05-09-86 1816EDT
a251 1552 09 May 86
AM-Reactor Floor,0430
Reactor Core May Have Burned Through Concrete Floor, Expert Says
With AM-Nuclear Accident, Bjt
KARLSRUHE, West Germany (AP) - The Chernobyl nuclear reactor core
may have burned through the concrete floor of the power plant to
reach the underground water, a West German nuclear research spokesman
said Friday.
Klaus Koerting said his industry-financed group, the Nuclear
Research Center in Karlsruhe, has been indirectly consulting with the
Soviets on the April 26 accident through contacts in Bonn.
The spokesman, in a telephone interview with The Associated Press,
emphasized that the center's experts have been hampered by a lack of
complete information from the Soviets.
''We are not sure, but we think the floor of the plant is only one
or two meters (one or two yards) thick,'' Koerting said. ''If that's
the case, then it's probable the fission process, which is self-heat
generating, has penetrated the concrete cellar and into the ground.''
Koerting said the molten mass may have reached the underground
water. But he emphasized that his group had not run specific tests on
such a possibility.
West German experts were approached by the Soviets on Wednesday for
advice on calculating the effects of the molten mass of the core on a
concrete floor, Koerting said.
''We can calculate this easily enough. Just two months ago we ran a
non-radioactive simulated test in our facility here in Karlsruhe, to
check the effects of a meltdown on six meters (six yards) of
concrete,'' Koerting said.
''But the Soviets have not provided exact details on the composition
of their concrete floor. They may have more limestone in their
concrete,'' making it more vulnerable to the heat, Koerting said.
''The composition and thickness of the floor is vital.''
Asked how long it would take the core to melt through one or two
yards of concrete, Koerting said: ''Just a few days, not very long.''
Many American scientists think a meltdown must have occurred at the
Chernobyl reactor. But some nuclear engineers think Chernobyl's
nuclear core is unlikely to contaminate groundwater even if it melts
through the floor of the reactor.
''The potential of contamination through material that got out into
the atmosphere is always vastly greater than for stuff fighting its
way through the ground,'' said Robert Avery, a nuclear reactor expert
at Argonne National Laboratory in Illinois.
If the core does melt through its concrete floor, it would probably
not travel very far into the ground before beginning to cool and
harden, Avery said in an interview.
AP-NY-05-09-86 1851EDT
a084 0838 10 May 86
PM-Food-Nuclear,0524
France Bars Imports Of Food From Eastern Europe
With PM-Nuclear Accident, Bjt
PARIS (AP) - France has barred all food imports from Eastern Europe,
citing possible contamination from radioactivity released by the
nuclear accident in the Ukraine.
Meanwhile, the 12-nation Common Market, to which France belongs,
remained at odds today over a proposal to widen the group's ban on
selected food imports from seven East European countries, a market
official said in Brussels, Belgium.
The organization already has banned imports of fresh meat, cattle
and pigs from the seven countries until the end of the month. The
official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the 12 countries
agreed the ban should be expanded but were unable to agree on the
terms.
A statement Friday by the French Agriculture Ministry said it
imposed its unilateral ban because the Common Market was moving so
slowly.
The French ban includes all meat, milk products, freshwater fish,
frogs, snails and fresh fruit and vegetables from the Soviet Union,
Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary, Poland, Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia,
the ministry said.
The seven East European countries are the same ones affected by the
limited Common Market food import ban.
The Common Market official said Italy was objecting that the
radioactivity levels set for milk imported from Eastern Europe were
too low. The officials said West Germany later joined Italy in asking
for stricter limits on milk imports.
France, Greece and Portugal also have not given final approval to
the proposal, which would ban imports of fruits, vegetables, poultry
and freshwater fish in addition to certain milk products, the
official said.
In other developments Friday, West German and Austrian officials
said they may seek reparations from the Soviets for the effects of
the Chernobyl nuclear power plant disaster.
Many European nations were dusted with radioactive fallout from the
April 26 explosion and fire at the plant 80 miles north of Kiev.
European governments said radioactivity from the damaged nuclear
reactor never reached dangerous levels. But several governments
temporarily banned sales of leafy vegetables and restricted sales of
fresh milk to guard against possible radiation poisoning.
Farmers in many countries have been told to keep their cows in barns
to prevent them from eating contaminated grass.
The only Soviet reference to possible reparations was made by Georgi
A. Arbatov, director of the Moscow-based Institute of U.S. and
Canadian Studies, who said last Sunday that his government would
compensate Poland for any crop losses and for anti-radiation medicine
distributed to children.
In Italy, farmers' groups have called for compensation from the
Soviet Union, but no official action has been taken. Italy imposed a
two-week ban on sales of leafy vegetables a week ago and farmers say
it is costing them $3.3 million a day.
Danish radio said the country's milk producers were discussing
seeking compensation from the Danish government for its ban on cows
grazing. However, the report was denied by the farmers' association
and the Agriculture Ministry.
Sweden, Norway, Belgium, the Netherlands and France said they had no
plans to seek compensation from the Soviets.
AP-NY-05-10-86 1138EDT
a002 2132 09 May 86
PM-News Digest,0791
Saturday, May 10, 1986
Here are the top stories for PMs. The General Desk supervisor is
CHERNOBYL: Reactor Fire Out, Plant To Be Entombed In Concrete
MOSCOW - Anxious parents are sending their children out of Kiev
following the Chernobyl nuclear disaster, but there are no signs of
alarm among the 2.4 million residents of the Ukrainian capital,
returning travelers say. Slug PM-Nuclear Accident. 600 words.
Developing. LaserGraphic NY10, possible means of containing fallout;
LaserPhotos NY12, file photo of a technician at a nuclear plant
simulator; ROM1, a farmer in Italy stands in field of artichokes. By
Alison Smale.
FOREST FIRES: More Than 3,000 Families Flee Path of Flames
ROCKET TROUBLE: Fourth U.S. Space Failure This Year Comes To Light
TEAMSTERS: Investigators Say FBI Undermined Presser Probe
LIVER TOT: Surgery Planned After Father's Appeal For Ailing Baby
CHURCH CONTEMPT: Experts See Possible Threat To Religious Liberty
SOUTH AFRICA:
ORDEAL: Octogenarians Spend Three Days Trapped In Crashed Car
HOME SALES: Boston Resale Value Gained Most In Nation Last Year
CLUMSY CRIMINALS: Most Robbers Even Botch Getaway, Researchers Say
BARRISTER WARS: Dispute On Between England's Barristers, Solicitors
AP-NY-05-10-86 0032EDT
a032 0158 10 May 86
PM-Digest Advisory,0091
All the budgets have moved. Here is a list with Laserphoto numbers:
SOUTH BEND - PM-Robbery Research, a007
WASHINGTON - PM-Space Rdp, a009
JOHANNESBURG - PM-South Africa, a010
WASHINGTON - PM-Home Sales, a012
NEW YORK - PM-Church-Contempt, a013
WASHINGTON - PM-Presser, a018
SAN FRANCISCO - PM-Elderly Survivors, a022
HAMPSTEAD - PM-Forest Fire, a027. Laserphoto JAK1.
MOSCOW - PM-Nuclear Accident, a028. LaserGraphic NY10; LaserPhotos
NY10,12; ROM1.
BOSTON - PM-Liver Tot, a029
LONDON - PM-Bar Wars, a031
The AP
AP-NY-05-10-86 0458EDT
a014 2321 09 May 86
PM-Nitze-Arms Talks,0330
Nitze Says Chernobyl May Affect Soviet Stance At Arms Talks
By JANET STAIHAR
HOT SPRINGS, Va. (AP) - Paul H. Nitze, special adviser to the Reagan
administration on arms control, expects the Ukranian nuclear accident
to lead the Soviet Union to ''hunch up'' in the initial stages of the
arms control talks.
But Nitze said Friday that in the long run, the disaster at
Chernobyl may yet encourage Soviet negotiators to get down to serious
talks at the table in Geneva.
Nitze drew that conclusion in remarks to reporters following a
speech at a closed-door meeting of the Business Council, an advisory
organization to major corporations.
He was asked at the news conference if the nuclear incident at
Chernobyl will force the Soviets to do some posturing so they won't
appear weak to the world.
''In the short run, it might cause them to draw back and to hunch up
and not move very far,'' Nitze said. ''But in the long run, it might
have a more favorable impact ... to negotiate seriously.''
U.S. negotiators are ''hopeful that the Soviet Union will make it
possible to make progress during this new round of the arms control
negotiation,'' Nitze said.
''So far, we've seen no indication that will happen,'' he said.
''But we continue to be hopeful.''
Nitze also said he does not believe last month's U.S. bombing of
Libya will have much bearing on the arms control talks.
''In the past,'' he said, ''the Soviets have joined us in trying to
isolate serious arms control talks from incidents such as Libya.
...''
He said ''both sides try to concentrate on the serious matters at
hand, and try to exclude day-to-day disturbing things outside the
negotiations, but you can't always do that.''
Asked if the Libyan air raid might be the exception, Nitze said, ''I
do not.''
The Geneva talks began Thursday.
Nitze is special adviser to President Reagan and Secretary of State
George Shultz on arms control.
AP-NY-05-10-86 0221EDT
- - - - - -
a021 0020 10 May 86
PM-Nitze-Arms Talks, 1st Ld, a014,0061
EDs: Corrects spelling of Ukrainian in lead
By JANET STAIHAR
Associated Press Writer
HOT SPRINGS, Va. (AP) - Paul H. Nitze, special adviser to the Reagan
administration on arms control, expects the Ukrainian nuclear
accident to lead the Soviet Union to ''hunch up'' in the initial
stages of the arms control talks.
But Nitze, 2nd graf
AP-NY-05-10-86 0320EDT
a017 2344 09 May 86
PM-Concerned Scientists,0583
Soviet Reactor Accident Brings Exposure for Science Group
By MALCOLM RITTER AP Science Writer
NEW YORK (AP) - The Union of Concerned Scientists, which one atomic
industry spokesman calls ''the highest level of opposition we have in
terms of knowledgeability,'' has gained widespread public exposure
from the Soviet nuclear power plant accident.
The group, which is critical of federal and industry performance on
nuclear power, has answered probably several hundred press inquiries
and been represented on the major television networks since the
accident, said executive director Howard Ris.
Nuclear power safety and arms control are two major focuses for UCS,
which was founded in 1969. It occupies a headquarters in Cambridge,
Mass., and a second office in Washington, D.C. Its staff of 31 and
its $3 million annual budget are supported by contributions from
sponsors, foundations and wealthy givers, Ris said.
The organization's name has stuck from the early days, although most
of its backers nowadays are not scientists, Ris said. Some 15,000 to
17,500 of its 100,000 sponsors are scientists, with the rest citizens
''just interested in what we do,'' he said.
Nonetheless, the group's policy work is carried out by scientists,
through panels that examine science-related policy questions, he
said.
Besides answering media inquiries, UCS publishes books and briefing
papers, maintains a ''scientist action network'' of about 7,000
scientists for lobbying and speaking, sponsors satellite-relayed
television programs for discussion groups, and maintains three
lobbyists on Capitol Hill.
The action network is part of a local organizing effort aimed at 50
congressional districts of congressmen who sit on key committees. The
purpose is to organize local scientists and others to lobby the
congressmen on key votes and encourage public discussion on issues of
concern to the UCS, Ris said.
The group opposes President Reagan's program for a ''Star Wars''
defense system but supports what Ris called ''a modest level of
laboratory research ... if for no other reason, to keep abreast of
what the Soviets are doing.''
UCS also favors a 50 percent reduction in nuclear arms by the
superpowers, Ris said in a telephone interview.
As for the safety of atomic power, ''the technology involved in
nuclear power is not inherently unsafe,'' Ris said. But UCS maintains
the Nuclear Regulatory Commission is not properly enforcing its own
regulations, and utilities could do more to ensure quality control,
operation and maintenance, he said.
Others say the UCS agenda goes beyond suggesting improvements.
''I think their bottom line is opposition to nuclear power,'' said
Patricia Bryant, public affairs director for the Atomic Industrial
Forum, a group of nuclear equipment manufacturers, utilities, labor
unions and others.
She also said UCS is ''among a handful of those opposed to nuclear
development in this country who are well-known among the news media,
so they're frequently called for comment.''
Don Winston, the atomic forum's director of media relations, said
the UCS is ''probably the highest level of opposition we have in
terms of knowledgeability, as far as knowing the science, and they
have generally, in my opinion, been fairly reponsible.''
Following the Soviet accident, UCS pointed out that the Soviet
reactor, unlike American reactors, lacked a containment structure
designed to hold in any radiation leaking from a reactor, he said.
But ''they reverted to form and took the position that the American
reactors are nevertheless not good enough.''
At that point, Winston said, ''we part company with them.''
AP-NY-05-10-86 0243EDT
a024 0044 10 May 86
PM-US-Nuclear Rdp,0577
US Will Check Imported Japanese Food For Radioactivity
WASHINGTON (AP) - The government has added imported Japanese food to
the list of those being checked for radiation from the crippled
Soviet nuclear reactor.
Amid reports from an international panel of scientists that the fire
at the Chernobyl reactor had finally been contained, the Food and
Drug Administration on Friday made Japan the 12th country whose food
exports to the United States are being checked for unsafe levels of
radiation. So far, no contaminated products have been discovered
since sampling began Monday at a laboratory near Boston.
FDA inspectors are testing imports of fresh fruits, vegetables,
dairy products and fish for radiation in excess of safety levels.
Those exceeding the standards will be impounded, the FDA said.
Countries already on the list are the Soviet Union, Austria,
Czechoslovakia, Denmark, Finland, Hungary, Norway, Poland and Sweden
as well as East and West Germany.
The State Department, meanwhile, said it is no longer warning
against travel to Poland by children and women of child-bearing age.
An Environmental Protection Agency official who traveled to Poland
measured airborne radiation and found no danger, EPA said.
The Public Health Service was still advising people to avoid fresh
milk and other dairy products, especially soft cheeses, from the
region nearest the Ukranian power plant - Eastern Europe and the
Western Soviet Union, said a statement by the Environmental
Protection Agency on behalf of the inter-agency group monitoring
Chernobyl developments.
At the State Department, an official, who spoke on condition he not
be identified, said that for the duration of the travel advisory,
none of the children or women of child-bearing age associated with
the U.S. Embassy in Warsaw took advantage of an offer of medical
evacuation out of the country.
Meantime, the task force said airborne radioactivity over and
approaching the United States was ''so dispersed that exact
forecasting is not possible,'' and it could not predict where
radioactive rain might fall or where radioactive particles might be
swept down to ground level.
The first results of milk samples across the United States show no
contamination with Chernobyl radioactivity yet, but new isotopes from
Chernobyl have appeared in ground-level air for the first time,
according to the daily statement from the EPA.
Most radioactivity so far in rain and air samples has been of
iodine-131, an isotope with a half-life of little more than eight
days - the time it takes for half the radioactivity to disappear.
At Richland, Wash., on Thursday, an Energy Department air sample
showed these isotopes and radioactivity concentrations in picocuries
per cubic meter: iodine-131, 0.165; cesium-137, 0.028; tellurium-132,
0.02; and ruthenium-103, 0.02. The EPA has said in the past that
concentrations of 0.02 picocuries per cubic meter for those
substances is close to being undetectable.
Radioactivity reported from Wednesday samples in air at Denver and
Cheyenne, Wyo., has disappeared, EPA said.
The only new rainfall radioactivity was in Energy Department samples
from Idaho Falls, Idaho, on Thursday, and two samples from
unspecified places in New York state on Wednesday.
The Idaho Falls sample contained 113 picocuries per liter of
iodine-131 and 620 picocuries per liter of molybdinum-99, an isotope
with a half-life of 67 hours.
The New York samples contained 36 and 90 picocuries per liter of
iodine-131.
None of these concentrations represented any danger to the public,
the statement said.
AP-NY-05-10-86 0344EDT
a028 0119 10 May 86
PM-Nuclear Accident, Bjt,0860
Underlying Concern, No Alarm Visible In Kiev
LaserGraphic NY10; LaserPhotos NY10,12; ROM1
By ALISON SMALE
MOSCOW (AP) - The Kremlin reported sharply decreased radioactive
emissions from the Chernobyl atomic reactor, but trains arriving from
Kiev were packed today as uneasy parents brought their children
farther from the disaster site.
In its latest statement on the atomic power plant accident, issued
Friday, the Soviet government said work continued ''to eliminate the
consequences'' of the April 26 non-nuclear explosion and fire at the
plant 80 miles north of Kiev.
''An intensive cooling of the reactor has been under way in order to
lower the temperature of the active zone and has helped sharply to
reduce the emission of radioactive substances,'' said the statement,
distributed by the official Tass news agency.
Officials of the International Atomic Energy Agency on Friday said
the accident at the four-reactor plant was by far the worst in the
history of nuclear power, but said Soviet specialists were getting it
under control.
The officials from the Vienna-based U.N. agency said small amounts
of radiation were still emanating from the plant despite a
many-tonned ''shield'' of sand and other materials dumped by
helicopters on the stricken reactor. The fire in the reactor's
graphite core, however, has been smothered, they said.
The Soviets will ''entomb'' the reactor in concrete for a years-long
cooling process, the atomic energy agency officials told a news
conference in Moscow.
Soviet officials have said two people were killed in the accident
and 204 hospitalized, 18 in serious condition. However, East European
journalists said Friday that a Soviet official had told them a third
person had died from radiation exposure.
U.S. bone marrow specialist Dr. Robert Gale told The Associated
Press he had heard nothing about a person dying of radiation
sickness. The doctor, who has been in Moscow for a week, said he was
continuing to care for victims of the Chernobyl disaster.
About 84,000 residents living within 18 miles of the pladtuwere
evacuated ,4rning 36 hours after the accident. About 250,000
children are also being let out of school early so they can leave
Kiev.
In the past four days, women with young children have poured off
special trains coming to the capital from Kiev, the Soviet Union's
third-largest city with 2.4 million people.
Moscow's Kievsky railway station was thronged again this morning
with arriving Ukrainians, many of them mothers and young children.
One woman in her 50s who had just arrived said many Kievans were
trying to leave with their children.
''They say on the radio that everything is fine, but people with
children still want to get them out,'' she said. Travelers reported
no signs of alarm in the Ukrainian capital, located 450 miles
southeast of Moscow, but many were visible uneasy.
Reuters correspondent Charles Bremner, who was the pool reporter for
English-language news agencies in a group of foreign journalists
taken to Kiev on a 24-hour trip arranged by the Foreign Ministry,
said Kiev did not ''have the feeling of a city in crisis.''
''There is underlying concern, but no alarm,'' he said Friday.
Bremner and other correspondents returning from Kiev said they saw
children playing on city streets, which were crowded for Friday's
Victory Day holiday celebrating the Nazi defeat in World War II.
A red flag was raised over the Chernobyl plant to mark the holiday,
according to a Moscow radio Russian-language report monitored by the
British Broadcasting Corp. in London.
The International Atomic Energy Agency officials said on Friday that
temperatures were dropping in the reactor's core, and dismissed the
possibility of a meltdown.
However, that contradicted the view of other nuclear authorities,
including Robert Avery, a senior scientist at Argonne National
Laboratory in Illinois.
In an interview Friday, Avery said, ''It would be unreasonable to
imagine a huge amount of (radioactive) material getting out - as it
apparently did - without there being a meltdown.''
The Chernobyl disaster sent a huge, invisible cloud of radioactivity
over much of Europe that has gradually working its way around the
world to the United States.
Although no foreign governments have reported health-threatening
levels of radioactive fallout, many have ordered precautionary
measures, including bans on some foodstuffs.
Milk samples taken across the United States showed no contamination
from Chernobyl radioactivity yet, but new isotopes spawned by the
disaster appeared in ground-level air for the first time on Friday,
according to a federal task force in Washington.
Radioactivity levels in rainwater in Portland, Ore., on Friday were
also the highest found so far. Oregon health officer Lester N. Wright
said the contamination was not high enough to raise health concerns,
but residents were advised not to dring rainwater.
The head of the International Atomic Energy, Hans Blix, said after
his group returned to its Vienna headquarters on Friday that the
Soviets had agreed to provide daily radiation readings from seven
stations along the Soviet Union's western border.
The readings are to be relayed to authorities, but not made public,
Blix said.
AP-NY-05-10-86 0419EDT
- - - - - -
a044 0325 10 May 86
PM-Nuclear Accident, 1st Add, a028,0094
MOSCOW, Blix said
Soviet media have labeled Western coverage of the Chernobyl accident
a ''campaign of hatred,'' and today asserted that Soviet nuclear
safety standards are higher than those observed in Europe or the
United States.
The Communist Party daily Pravda said there have been some 300
accidents, ''big and little,'' at Britain's nuclear fuel-processing
plant in Sellafield since the 1950s.
Tass, in a dispatch from New York, reported that 4,000 Nevada
residents were suffering serious ailments brought on by fallout from
nuclear test blasts in the United States.
AP-NY-05-10-86 0624EDT
- - - - - -
a054 0445 10 May 86
PM-Digest Briefs,0950
Eds: This package does not contain the following items from the News
Digest: MOSCOW-Nuclear Accident, a028; WASHINGTON-Space Rdp, a009;
BOSTON-Liver Tot, a029; NEW YORK-Church-Contempt, a013;
HAMPSTEAD-Forest Fire, a027.
AP-NY-05-10-86 0745EDT
a049 0401 10 May 86
PM-At Kiev Station,0491
Apprehension, Joy Combine as Ukrainians Arrive in Moscow
By ALISON SMALE
MOSCOW (AP) - There was uncertainty on the faces of children and
adults alike as they arrived by rail today from the Ukraine, the
latest drops in a human wave unleashed by the atomic power plant
accident at Chernobyl.
But their solemn looks often dissolved into smiles as grandmothers
or young women with bunches of tulips, carnations and lilac rushed up
to embrace friends and family members come to Moscow from Kiev.
For the past four days, up to 10 trains a day from the Ukrainian
capital have pulled into the Kievsky (Kiev) railway station here,
setting the cavernous halls of the Stalin-era building abuzz with
activity.
Muscovites arriving late to meet a train dash up to other people,
inquiring about platforms. Tired new arrivals still waiting to be
greeted lean against walls, surrounded by knapsacks and bulging bags.
The number of arrivals from Kiev has sharply increased since last
week, as has the presence of police who have asked at least three
Western reporters to leave after they questioned arrivals about the
accident at the nuclear plant 80 miles north of Kiev.
Outside the station, militia and civilian volunteers in red armbands
use megaphones to maintain order, while the new arrivals line up
behind metal barriers to wait for taxis and buses.
As trains of up to 20 cars each lumber into the station, uniformed
guards stand at the open doors of each car. Behind them, travelers
eager to end their journey crowd the corridors.
Others stay in their compartments, nose pressed against the window,
eyes scouring the platform for a familiar face.
For many, there is an unexpected family reunion, or a meeting with a
new friend or relative they have never seen.
''Look, this is Grisha,'' one woman said, proudly showing off her
grandson to a friend who met them at the station today.
''He's grown a lot, hasn't he?'' murmured one young woman to another
as they waited for a teen-age acquaintance they had already spotted
from the platform.
For another woman, a train offered the chance to get some needed
possessions she had left in the Ukraine.
''No, I haven't just arrived,'' she said, flashing a golden-toothed
smile. ''We came from Kiev on the 7th already, now I'm just getting
something we left behind.''
Children of all ages pour off the trains. Most assure inquiring
reporters that ''everything is normal, everything is calm'' in Kiev,
the Soviet Union's third-largest city, and several assert that their
travels were planned long in advance.
Some admit, however, to worrying about children.
''Quite a few people are leaving,'' said a woman in her 50s who
arrived from Kiev today. ''They say on the radio that everything is
fine, but people with children still want to get them out.''
AP-NY-05-10-86 0700EDT
a052 0423 10 May 86
PM-Nuclear Meltthrough,0808
Americans See Little Contamination Danger In Meltthrough Of Chernobyl Core
By PAUL RAEBURN
AP Science Editor
NEW YORK (AP) - American experts disagree over whether a meltdown
occurred at the Chernobyl nuclear reactor, but they say even if the
core melted through the floor of the reactor it would be unlikely to
further contaminate nearby water supplies.
''The potential of contamination through material that got out into
the atmosphere is always vastly greater than for stuff fighting its
way through the ground,'' said Robert Avery, a nuclear reactor expert
at Argonne National Laboratory in Illinois.
If the core does melt through its concrete floor, it would probably
not travel very far into the ground before beginning to cool and
harden, Avery said in an interview.
Although the core would be extremely radioactive, it would harden
into a glass-like mass not likely to spread through soil or water,
said Jan van Erp, a nuclear safety engineer at Argonne.
Avery and van Erp said they believe a meltdown must have occurred at
the reactor.
''It would be unreasonable to imagine a huge amount of (radioactive)
material getting out - as it apparently did - without there being a
meltdown,'' Avery said.
Van Erp said that the reactor core had obviously lost its cooling
system. Without continuous cooling, a reactor core will continue to
heat up until it melts, he said.
The heat comes from the radioactive decay of the elements produced
as a by-product of the splitting, or fission, of uranium during the
reactor's normal operation, van Erp said.
However, Michael Corradini, a nuclear engineer at the University of
Wisconsin, said he believes the reactor's fuel did not melt and is
now not likely to.
He assumes the Soviets are flooding the plant with a coolant to keep
the core from heating to the melting point. ''After they've put out
the fire, as I assume they have, there's really no concern anymore,''
he said. ''But that's speculative - assuming they're doing something
to get the heat out.''
He said that the reported radioactivity outside the planet could
have come from vaporization of some of the nuclear fuel by the fire,
even in the absence of melting of the fuel.
Morris Rosen, an American who directs the International Atomic
Energy Agency's division of nuclear safety, said Friday in a Moscow
press conference that a meltdown never occurred.
A statement by the agency said, however, that the reactor core was
extensively damaged. Rosen said workers were trying to build a
concrete shield under the reactor in case a nuclear reaction should
resume, sending radioactivity into the earth.
''I'm very surprised about what they're doing - tunneling under the
core,'' said van Erp. ''In all the studies I've seen over the years,
I've never seen people considering tunneling under the core.''
Kenneth Mossman, professor of radiation science at Georgetown
University in Washington, said it would be nearly impossible for
radiation workers to get near the core if it has melted through its
base.
''I'm not certain there's anything they can do until the radiation
gets down to lower levels,'' he said. ''Right now, you're talking
about lethal levels of radiation.''
It could be weeks or months before the radiation declines to a level
at which it will be safe for workers to approach the core even for
very short periods, he said.
At that time, workers could be moved near the core for very short
periods of work and then removed, to limit their total dose of
radiation, he said.
Uranium fuel melts at a temperature of 2,800 degrees Celsius (5,072
degrees Fahrenheit), and it tunnels through concrete by decomposing
certain components of the concrete, van Erp said.
The rate at which a melted core will pass through concrete depends
on the type of concrete used and its thickness, he said.
In the United States, a concrete floor several yards thick is built
underneath nuclear reactors, and studies have shown there is little
chance that reactor cores could melt through, van Erp said.
Avery, who has researched the design of the Chernobyl reactor, said
its graphite core covers an area 40 feet by 40 feet. A core of that
size is less likely than a smaller one to melt through, Avery said,
simply because it is more thinly distributed.
In West Germany, meanwhile, Klaus Koerting, a spokesman for the
country's Nuclear Research Center in Karlsruhe, said the Chernobyl
nuclear reactor core may have burned through the concrete floor of
the power plant to reach underground water.
He said his industry-financed group has been indirectly consulting
with the Soviets through contacts in Bonn, but emphasized that the
center's experts have been hampered by a lack of complete
information.
Koerting said the molten mass may have reached the underground
water. But he emphasized that his group had not run specific tests on
such a possibility.
AP-NY-05-10-86 0722EDT
a083 0829 10 May 86
PM-Poland-US Aid,0395
American Aid Shipment Arrives in Poland
WARSAW, Poland (AP) - An emergency airlift of privately donated U.S.
aid arrived here today carrying milk products, vitamins and iodine
tablets for Poles in the wake of the April 26 Soviet nuclear power
accident.
The specially chartered Boeing 747 touched down at Okecie Airport
shortly after noon following a flight from New York. It was carrying
goods collected by Americares, a private, non-profit agency based in
New Canaan, Conn.
Americares officials estimated that the shipment is worth about $1.5
million. It will be distributed by the Roman Catholic Church in
Poland.
''We want the Polish people to know that somebody does care and has
compassion for their problems,'' said Edward Piszek, a
Polish-American businessman from Philadelphia, Pa., and chairman of
the Polish section of Americares.
Piszek, interviewed at the airport's arrivals lounge, said
Americares had responded quickly to a request for emergency aid
submitted a week ago by Bishop Czeslaw Domin of Katowice, the head of
the Polish episcopate's charity commission.
Jan Wydro, an Americares official, said the aid shipment included
100,000 pounds of protein-enriched dried milk, 60,000 pounds of
sterilized long-life liquid milk, 1.3 million multivitamin tablets
and 600,000 doses of potassium iodide, which can protect people from
some harmful effects of radiation.
The plane also carried several purifiers to remove radioactive
particles from water, Wydro said.
Government officials earlier this week said increased radiation in
Poland as a result of the disaster at the Chernobyl nuclear plant in
the Ukraine did not pose a danger to Poles, but they have taken
precautionary steps to prevent possible radiation poisoning.
A special government commission set up to monitor the effects of the
accident said on Friday there had been ''a significant drop'' in the
contamination of Polish milk, the only food product in which
radiation levels had been reported to exceed emergency levels
requiring precautionary measures.
The commission also said rationing of powdered milk would be
expanded to cover all children under age 3. Rationing of powdered
milk for infants under a year was introduced last week after people
quickly bought out store supplies.
Government spokesman Jerzy Urban told a Warsaw news conference on
Tuesday that the Polish government was grateful for offers of
assistance from the West, but that the aid was not needed.
AP-NY-05-10-86 1128EDT
a201 0926 10 May 86
AM-News Digest, 2 Takes,0847
Sunday, May 11, 1986
Here are the top stories at this hour from The Associated Press. The
TERRORISM: Britain Expels Three Syrian Diplomats Who Refuse
NUCLEAR DISASTER:
Soviets Say Their Plants Safer Than Those In West
MOSCOW - Soviet media targets nuclear safety abroad with allegations
Western power plants have inferior safeguards, while Kiev residents
uncertain about the Chernobyl accident's consequences take their
children to distant regions. Slug AM-Nuclear Accident. Developing.
Chernobyl is Touching the World
UNDATED - Three Mile Island unsettled the world of nuclear power.
But the repercussions of the Chernobyl disaster have reached farther
and faster and promise to be longer-lasting. Governments are abruptly
scrapping or postponing new atomic-energy programs, election
campaigns are building around the issue, and tens of thousands of
anti-nuclear protesters have marched through the streets of world
capitals. Slug AM-Chernobyl-World. New, should stand. 1,400 words.
An AP Extra by Charles J. Hanley.
Two Weeks After Accident, The Seriousness Is Becoming Clear
MOSCOW - The gravity of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster and the
Soviet response to the emergency are beginning to unfold, two weeks
after the accident. In typical Kremlin fashion, the Soviet Union has
accused the West of making a propaganda howl over how Moscow has
reported the disaster. Slug AM-Accident Aftermath. New, should stand.
750 words.
News Analysis by Roxinne Ervasti.
TAXES: Overhaul Plan Given Good Chance of Senate Approval
SPACE TROUBLES: NASA Closed Book on O-Ring Problem
SUMMITS: Reagan Goes From Untested Newcomer to Firm Leader
TURF BATTLE: FBI and Labor Department in Tug of War
SHULTZ: His Praise of South Korean President Could Be Misinterpreted
CAMPAIGN '86:
SUMMER TRAVEL: Americans Will See America First
AP-NY-05-10-86 1226EDT
a218 1125 10 May 86
AM-Accident Aftermath, Bjt,0873
Two Weeks After Chernobyl, Some Details Emerge
AP News Analysis
By ROXINNE ERVASTI
MOSCOW (AP) - A Soviet leadership obsessed with secrecy and loath to
admit mistakes is just beginning to reveal the gravity of the
Chernobyl nuclear accident, even as it accuses the West of using the
disaster to score propaganda points.
In typical fashion, the Kremlin has been reluctant to alarm a
citizenry ruled by what is supposed to be a beneficent Communist
Party.
The Soviets have put on a heroic face, with the official media
focusing on bravery and charity among those coping with the disaster.
Buried in the accounts have been snippets of information that reveal
confusion, uncertainty and incomprehension among the authorities,
emergency teams and general population.
Any debate within the power circles over blame for the accident and
its handling remains a topic for insiders only, but there could be
some career casualties.
Some of the confusion has been publicly acknowledged.
Ukrainian Premier Alexander Lyashko disclosed that authorities in
Moscow were not told of the gravity of the situation until two days
after the April 26 explosion and fire at the reactor 80 miles north
of Kiev, the Soviet Union's third-largest city with 2.4 million
people.
He also said that most of the 84,000 people evacuated were not
ordered to leave until a week later.
The first evacuations, within a 6-mile radius of the plant, were
carried out about 36 hours after the accident. A government official
later said the evacuees were told they probably would be allowed to
return home in a day or two.
Instead, mounting radioactivity readings prompted more evacuations
beginning May 2 of people living up to 18 miles from the plant.
Some days after the accident, emergency crews began building a dike
to protect the Pripyat River from possible radioactive contamination.
The Pripyat feeds into Kiev's water supply.
Ukrainian Health Minister Anatoly Romanenko was attending an
international conference in the United States when the accident
occurred. He said then that it was a local accident without major
consequences.
By week's end, Romanenko was announcing that schools in the
evacuation zone and Kiev were being dismissed Thursday, 10 days
early, and the children were being sent to summer camps in the south.
The Soviet Union has defended the pace at which it released
information - including its two-day delay in telling the world of the
accident - by saying it did not want to cause undue panic or release
information that might later prove wrong.
Nuclear physicist Yevgeny Velikhov said last week that never before
have scientists anywhere been confronted with such an accident.
The United States and several other Western countries offered to
send experts to help determine how to cope with containing the
radiation, but the Soviet Union declined.
Hans Blix, head of the U.N.-affiliated International Atomic Energy
Agency, visited with two staff experts. After five days of meetings
with Soviet officials and a helicopter flight over the reactor, the
team concluded the Soviets were handling the situation the best they
could.
Morris Rosen, an American who is the agency's nuclear safety
director, said the reactor is being encased in concrete but that it
will take years for radioactivity at the site to reach ''a level
which should cause no concern.''
The Kremlin says two people were killed by fire and falling debris,
but East European journalists said Soviet officials told them a third
person died of radiation exposure.
The U.N. agency team gave high marks to the Soviet experts it met.
However, translating the experts' advice into action apparently has
not gone on without a hitch.
The Tass news agency said crews dropping sand, boron and other
materials on the burning reactor took a while to realize they could
speed their work by lumping bags together in nets instead of dropping
them singly.
The government newspaper Izvestia said there was no communication
between health and environment workers in the plant district and
adjacent areas.
Since the accident, the Soviet press has carried numerous stories
about nuclear problems in the West, suggesting Western authorities
have covered up the details or bungled cleanup efforts.
Georgy Arbatov, head of a Soviet institute that analyzes U.S.
policies for the Kremlin, said the West had been waiting for
something to uphold claims the Soviets cannot be trusted in arms
control.
''They have shouted this from the rooftops from dawn to dusk day
after day, using scientific terms that confuse laymen,'' he said.
''They had been frantically looking for a pretext, even a hint of a
pretext, to open massive fire from the propaganda guns of all
calibers at the Soviet Union's rising international prestige,'' he
said in a Pravda article.
Arbatov recounted Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev's proposal to
eliminate all nuclear weapons by the year 2000 and concluded that
Western slanderers will be ''bitterly disappointed'' because
Chernobyl will underscore the madness of the arms race.
---
EDITOR'S NOTE - Roxinne Ervasti is The Associated Press bureau chief
in Moscow and has been reporting from the Soviet Union since December
1983.
AP-NY-05-10-86 1425EDT
a220 1159 10 May 86
AM-Chernobyl-World, Bjt,1163
Governments Scrap Nuke Plans; Referendums Possible
An AP Extra
EDITOR'S NOTE - Day by day, since the Soviet nuclear disaster,
reports have come in from around the world of major government
reassessments and popular protests on the nuclear issue. Here is a
look at Chernobyl's impact in other nations.
---
By CHARLES J. HANLEY
Three Mile Island unsettled a nuclear world. Now Chernobyl has
shaken it.
As radioactive dust fell over the Northern Hemisphere last week,
governments abruptly scrapped or postponed new atomic-energy
programs. Election battle lines formed around the nuclear issue. And
anti-nuclear protesters marched by the thousands through the streets
of world capitals.
The 1979 accident at the Three Mile Island plant, near Harrisburg,
Pa., had a long-term impact. Within a year, for example, Swedes voted
to phase out their nuclear-power system, and the Chinese dropped
plans for a plant near Shanghai.
But repercussions of the April 26 disaster at the Soviet Union's
Chernobyl plant, history's worst nuclear accident, have reached
farther, faster.
Since Chernobyl, governments in Yugoslavia, the Philippines and the
Netherlands have put nuclear-power plans on hold or written them off
entirely. And, from Taiwan to Mexico to Italy, legislators and
editorialists are demanding major reassessments of atomic energy in
their countries.
''Harrisburg all at once changed the domestic policy scene in
Sweden,'' commented the Swedish newspaper Dagens Nyheter. ''Chernobyl
is on its way to do the same.''
Nuclear power provides one-sixth of the world's electricity. At the
end of 1985, 26 nations had 374 licensed power reactors operating,
100 of them in the United States, the International Atomic Energy
Agency reports.
Reactor safety and radioactive-waste disposal have been troublesome
political issues for decades. A U.S. General Accounting Office study,
recently released, reported 151 safety incidents at nuclear plants in
14 countries between 1971 and 1984.
But Chernobyl, a reactor ''meltdown,'' was the first to spew
radioactivity out over much of the world. In country after country,
the disaster sent government officials scrambling to reassure nervous
publics.
Experts pointed to concrete containment structures surrounding their
reactors that the devastated Soviet reactor did not have. The
containment at Three Mile Island proved to be the difference between
threat and disaster.
''It just isn't good enough to state glibly that our reactors are
different from the Soviets','' said David Martin, a spokesman for the
Canadian Nuclear Awareness group. ''Any reactor system can melt down
if there's a lack of coolant.''
Here is a region-by-region look at other after-effects of Chernobyl:
WESTERN EUROPE
Demonstrators rallied in West Germany, the Netherlands and Spain to
demand a shutdown of their countries' nuclear power installations.
In West Germany, which has 20 operating plants and is building or
planning 13 others, the issue could help the environmentalist Greens
party and the main opposition Social Democrats in national elections
next January. The Social Democrats favor a gradual phaseout of
nuclear power.
In Sweden, where voters in 1980 decided to shut down their four
nuclear power plants by the year 2010, political analysts said
Chernobyl could pressure the government into speeding up the process.
The first showdown may come over a government plan to spend $160
million to improve one plant.
Swiss voters in 1979 narrowly rejected a proposal to rein in nuclear
power, but environmentalists say they will now use the example of
Chernobyl to collect 100,000 petition signatures needed for a new
referendum. An opinion poll published last week indicated 45 percent
of Swiss oppose nuclear power.
Belgian Premier Wilfred Martens, whose country depends on atomic
power for 60 percent of its electricity, told Parliament on Friday he
had ordered a strengthening of safety programs.
But in France, authorities said Chernobyl would have no impact on a
nuclear program that produces 65 percent of the country's power, and
few protests were evident.
EASTERN EUROPE
Poland, with Soviet help, is building its first atomic power plant,
at Zarnowiec on the Baltic coast. Program chief Mieczyslaw Sowinski
said the Soviet disaster, which spread radioactivity across Poland,
''should not have any impact'' on the plans. But 200 Poles staged a
protest in the southern city of Wroclaw behind banners reading,
''Zarnowiec Will Be Next.''
No street demonstrations were reported in tightly disciplined East
Germany. But, in Chernobyl's aftermath, the Communist Party newspaper
published an article in which scientists said extra safety
precautions would be built into East Germany's five power reactors.
Czechoslovakia, Hungary and Bulgaria also have nuclear power plants,
but no public questioning of those systems was reported.
MIDDLE EAST
Negotiations with France for Israel's first power reactor will go
ahead despite the Soviet accident, Israeli officials said. But some
legislators called for an inquiry into whether Israel needs nuclear
energy at all.
In Egypt, which has no nuclear power plants but is planning to build
eight reactors, an official source quoted in the government-owned
press said those plans would be unaffected. Even before Chernobyl,
however, President Hosni Mubarak was known to be uneasy over the
safety and costliness of nuclear energy.
FAR EAST
The Soviet accident raised concerns in Taiwan, where a generator
fire shut down one of three nuclear plants last November. Some
legislators now want a thorough review of reactor safety, but
government officials say they still plan to proceed with a fourth
plant. Taiwan gets 59 percent of its power supplies from nuclear
facilities.
Across the South China Sea, near densely populated Hong Kong, the
Chinese communist government is building a nuclear plant at Daya Bay.
Hong Kong's British colonial government, to allay local concerns,
hastily asked London's Atomic Energy Authority to draw up contingency
plans for potential disasters.
The government in South Korea, which draws 18 percent of its
electricity from nuclear plants, issued no statements in Chernobyl's
aftermath. But the independent Korea Times newspaper said the
accident ''alerts Korean authorities to take all precautionary
measures to ensure nuclear safety.''
In Tokyo, officials said Japan would continue expanding its nuclear
power system, which already includes 32 reactors. But one power
company official acknowledged that at some point the Japanese, target
of a U.S. nuclear attack in World War II, ''are likely to respond
emotionally against nuclear power.''
WESTERN HEMISPHERE
In Mexico, Argentina and Brazil, where nuclear-power plans already
were scaled back or in question because of financial problems,
commentators suggested that the ''Chernobyl factor'' also be weighed.
''How well prepared will we be in Mexico to control one of these
failures in the Laguna Verde plant?'' asked Mexico City's El Sol
newspaper, referring to Mexico's almost-operational first plant.
In communist Cuba, where the Soviets are building four power
reactors, the official news media touched only lightly on the dangers
of Chernobyl, focusing instead on what it said was overdramatization
of the...
(End missing.)
a225 1258 10 May 86
AM-Nuclear Accident, Bjt,1231
URGENT
Soviets Issue New Radiation Figures; Kremlin Official Says Four Dead
By CAROL J. WILLIAMS
MOSCOW (AP) - The Soviet Union on Saturday said new radiation
readings show Kiev is ''absolutely safe'' from the Chernobyl nuclear
plant's fallout, and a Soviet official was quoted as saying the
Kremlin should have announced the accident sooner.
Valentin Falin, chairman of the Soviet news agency Novosti, also was
quoted as saying that two more people had died as a result of the
accident, which would bring the official death toll to four.
The West German news magazine Der Spiegel quoted Falin as saying the
two had been among 18 people who were hospitalized in serious
condition as a result of the April 26 accident.
The explosion and fire at the Chernobyl power plant 80 miles north
of Kiev released a cloud of radioactivity over Europe.
In a four-paragraph statement released Saturday, the Soviet
government said radiation levels in Kiev and at a radius of 35 miles
from the reactor were ''absolutely safe.''
Kiev is the country's third-largest city, with 2.4 million people.
Hundreds of its residents worried about radiation have been traveling
to Moscow, although no panic has been reported in Kiev.
The statement said radiation was measured at 0.32 milliroentgens per
hour in Kiev and at 0.33 milliroentgens per hour 35 miles from the
plant, but did not say when the readings were taken. A milliroentgen
is one-thousandth of a roentgen, the standard meaure of ionizing
radiation.
Experts say exposure to 50 roentgens or more per year is dangerous
and 400 roentgens per year can be fatal.
''On the country's western border, (the) radiation level is within
the limits of the background,'' or normal level, the statement said.
Soviet officials have said they evacuated people and livestock
within 18 miles of the reactor. The statement, distributed in English
by the official Tass news agency, did not specify radiation levels at
the plant or within the 18-mile evacuation area.
The statement also said that the fire in the graphite of the reactor
core was out, as announced Friday by officials of the U.N.-affiliated
International Atomic Energy Agency. The graphite is used to slow
nuclear reactions.
''The temperature inside the reactor went down substantially as a
result of the . . . measures'' taken by emergency crews, said the
statement.
''The opinion of scientists and specialists is that this is
indicative of a practical termination of the reactor's graphite
burning process. The release of radioactive substances has sharply
diminished,'' it said.
Der Spiegel quoted Falin, a former Soviet ambassador to Bonn, as
saying in an interview, ''Viewed in retrospect, it appears to me that
it would have been better if the information we released on Monday
(April 28) had already been released on Sunday.''
But he was quoted as saying, ''In order to see the situation
objectively, we have to take into account the fact that initial
reports from the leadership at the Chernobyl nuclear plant were
incomplete and later proved incorrect.''
Western leaders have criticized the Soviet Union for not confirming
an accident took place until two days afterward and only then when
Scandinavian authorities detected abnormally high radiation.
Soviet officials previously have insisted the statements were issued
in a manner to minimize panic and ensure accuracy, and have dismissed
as propaganda Western criticism of their handling of the accident.
''In critical situations there are various ways to react,'' Falin
was quoted as saying. ''This time the best way was not chosen.''
Earlier Saturday, Radio Moscow carried a brief, taped interview with
the director of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Hans Blix, in
which he praised the Soviets' ''enormous amount of competence in the
nuclear field.''
Blix said Soviet authorities ''need time to analyze the reason for
the accident.''
He and two other agency experts returned to Vienna, Austria, on
Friday after five days of talks with Soviet officials and a
helicopter flight over the damaged reactor. Blix said on Radio Moscow
that international measures should be reached so the whole world
''can learn from this accident and thereby improve nuclear safety.''
The agency team said Friday that workers were trying to encase the
reactor in concrete to prevent further releases of radiation.
The Soviet statement Saturday said simply, ''Work is being done to
additionally consolidate the reactor's foundation.''
The statement did not mention the casualty toll. Previous statements
have said two people were killed and 204 hospitalized, with 18 of
them in serious condition. Several East European journalists have
said Soviet officials told them a third person died of excessive
radiation.
In other countries affected by the radiation, some governments began
rolling back low-level health precautions.
Dutch authorities Saturday lifted a ban on the sale of fresh
spinach, saying that radiation was almost back to normal.
Greece lifted a ban Friday on the sale of fresh milk and yogurt.
More than 300 rightists marched Saturday on the Soviet Embassy in
Athens to protest the Kremlin's failure to immediately supply
information on the accident, while anarchists also protesting the
accident clashed with police overnight. Eleven were arrested.
Peaceful anti-nuclear demonstrations were held in Rome and Munich,
West Germany.
An emergency planeload of more than 100 tons of milk products and
medicine from a private American relief group arrived Saturday in
Poland, where the sale of fresh milk from grass-fed cows has been
banned and powdered milk is being rationed.
The relief group, Americares, sent the shipment in response to a
request from Bishop Czeslaw Domin of Katowice. Government spokesman
Jerzy Urban said Tuesday such aid was unneccessary.
Radio Moscow said decontamination of the Chernobyl reactor site was
proceeding well and that dikes have been built to prevent rainwater
from washing contaminants around the damaged reactor into the Pripyat
River and Kiev's water supply.
The Communist Party daily Pravda said ''ruling circles'' in the West
have used the accident to discredit the Soviet Union, but that it
actually revealed that ''safety precautions at nuclear facilities in
the West were often much worse than in the U.S.S.R.''
Pravda, citing British publications, said about 300 accidents, ''big
and little,'' have occurred at Britain's Sellafield nuclear
fuel-processing plant on the Irish Sea.
Tass reported from New York that about 4,000 Nevada residents are
suffering from ''serious ailments induced by the radioactive
fallout'' from U.S. nuclear test explosions. The agency quoted the
head of a Utah-based anti-war group as saying the U.S. government had
turned Nevada residents into guinea pigs.
People arriving in Moscow from Kiev said Saturday that the Ukrainian
capital was calm but that there was concern about the accident's
effects.
''Quite a few people are leaving,'' said one woman who arrived at
Moscow's Kievsky train station. ''They say on the radio that
everything is fine, but people with children still want to get them
out.''
Thousands have left Kiev, but most questioned by Western reporters
have declined to talk about why they left home.
Schools in Kiev and w...
(End missing.)
a201 0831 11 May 86
AM-News Digest,0974
Monday, May 12, 1986
Here are the top stories at this hour from The Associated Press. The
BRITAIN-SYRIA: In Response, Syria Orders British Diplomats Out
NUCLEAR ACCIDENT: Salvage Workers Trying To Prevent Water Table
Pollution
MOSCOW - Cleanup of the damaged Chernobyl nuclear plant has reached
a turning point and experts are working to prevent the radioactive
reactor core from polluting the water table, one of the leaders of
the salvage project says. Slug AM-Nuclear Disaster. Developing.
By Andrew Rosenthal. New LaserPhotos of damaged Chernobyl power
plant upcoming.
FOREST FIRE: Hits 50,000 Acres, Forces 5,000 People From Homes
CONGRESS: House Democrats Preparing For Trade Fight
FOOD: FDA Relaxing Rules on Food Claims
GOVERNOR EDWARDS: Now Faces Deficit In Legislature
DONOR ORGANS: Death of Toddler Rekindles Debate Over Organ
SOVIET JEWS: Shcharansky Star Of Annual Rally
AIDS:
Cyclosporine - A Drug with Vast Promise
CAMPAIGN '86: Old Photo of Symms, Khadafy Surfaces in Idaho Campaign
WHERE IS KHADAFY?: Appears More Isolated From Arabs, Trade Partners
EXCHANGE RATES: If Summit Plan Works, More Reliable Markets for U.S.
LIFE AFTER PRISON: Convicted Killer Says He Wants To Get On With Life
SPEAKING OUT: Miami's Cubans Disagree Over Rights
AP-NY-05-11-86 1132EDT
a217 1055 11 May 86
AM-Nuclear Accident, Bjt,1090
Cleanup at Chernobyl Focuses on Protecting Water Table, Official Says
LaserPhotos MOS11,12,13
By ANDREW ROSENTHAL
MOSCOW (AP) - A leading physicist in the cleanup of the damaged
Chernobyl nuclear reactor was quoted Sunday as saying a turning point
had been reached and that it was no longer possible the situation
would worsen.
''It's true that until today there existed the theoretical
possibility of a catastrophe - a large portion of the (nuclear) fuel
and reactor graphite was burning,'' the official news agency Tass
quoted Yevgeny Velikhov as saying.
''This is now not the case,'' he was quoted as telling Soviet
journalists in Kiev, 80 miles south of the plant.
Velikhov said workers were trying to protect ground water from
radioactive contamination. ''A new phase of work has begun,'' Tass
quoted him as saying. ''Work is being done to decontaminate and
encapsulate the radioactive material. This will ensure it won't fall
into the ground water.''
Velikhov, vice president of the Soviet Academy of Scientists and a
director of the Chernobyl cleanup, said soil is being frozen and
cement is being poured with the goal of sealing off the damaged
reactor. Officials will decide afterward whether to reactivate the
power plant, he was quoted as saying.
Tass issued close-up photos of the damaged reactor. The
black-and-white pictures, apparently taken from a helicopter, showed
the upper part of the reactor building was blown off, and piles of
rubble lay at its base. Nearby buildings appeared undamaged.
A Ukrainian health official Sunday denied a report that two more
Soviets have died as a result of the April 26 accident, in which an
explosion and fire released radioactivity that spread over Europe.
The West German newsmagazine Der Spiegel on Saturday quoted Valentin
Falin, chairman of the Soviet Novosti news agency, as saying two
people who were hospitalized as a result of the accident had since
died, bringing the death toll to four.
Kremlin statements have reported only two deaths - one from burns
and the other from falling debris. An assistant to Ukrainian Health
Minister Anatoly Y. Romanenko, reached by telephone in Kiev, said
Falin's statement ''is not true.''
''We have no such information. You are telling me about this for the
first time,'' said the assistant, who refused to give her name.
Last week, East European journalists quoted First Deputy Health
Minister Yevgeny Vorobyev as saying a victim had died of radiation
exposure, bringing the death toll to three. Romanenko's assistant
hung up before she could be asked about this report.
Officials at the National Health Ministry in Moscow refused to
comment on Vorobyev's or Falin's statements. Government statements
have said that in addition to the two dead, 204 people were
hospitalized and 18 of them were in serious condition.
The official media Sunday offered no new information on the
accident, instead reprinting Saturday's government statement that the
graphite fire in the reactor core was out and reactor temperatures
were falling.
The graphite is used to slow nuclear reactions.
Officials of the U.N.-affiliated International Atomic Energy Agency,
who flew over the damaged reactor, said Friday that the graphite fire
was out.
They said radiation was still leaking slowly and they could not rule
out a worsening of the situation. But agency officials said Soviet
experts appeared to be in control of the cleanup effort.
Radio Moscow said Sunday that the Soviets have begun relaying
information on radiation levels and weather conditions to the
international agency.
''As the information supplied shows, level of radiation is very low
and there is no ground for concern,'' the radio report said.
The government said Saturday that radiation was measured at 0.32
milliroentgens per hour in Kiev, the country's third-largest city
with 2.4 million people. It said the level was 0.33 milliroentgens
per hour 35 miles from the plant, but did not say when the readings
were taken.
A milliroentgen is one-thousandth of a roentgen, the standard
measure of ionizing radiation. Experts say exposure to 50 roentgens
per year is dangerous and 400 roentgens per year can be fatal.
In Amiens, France, a Soviet diplomat said Sunday that no additional
evacuations are planned in the Chernobyl region.
Serguei Kossenko, first secretary at the Soviet Embassy in Paris,
said at the meeting of a local cultural association that there had
been ''a real danger at the site itself,'' but that ''there will be
no further evacuation in the coming days.''
Soviet officials have said 84,000 people were evacuated from an
18-mile zone around the plant.
The European Common Market, meanwhile, said 11 of its 12 member
countries would begin banning fresh food imports from the Soviet
Union and six East European countries because of fears of radiation
contamination.
The economic union, based in Brussels, Belgium, announced Saturday
that the members had agreed on a joint ban.
But Italy said Sunday it would not join the ban because of a
disagreement over a separate proposal to set radiation standards for
food traded within the Common Market.
Poland and Hungary, both affected by the ban, raised objections.
Poland called it ''an act of political discrimination.''
In Yugoslavia, witnesses said about 1,000 youths rallied in the
northwestern city of Ljubljana and issued a statement criticizing
''the late and sketchy information'' provided by the Soviets on the
accident.
Some participants also demanded a Yugoslav moratorium on the
construction of new nuclear plants, and they urged the government to
seek compensation from the Soviet Union for damage from radioactive
fallout.
Yugoslavia, although Communist-ruled, professes independence from
Moscow.
In Moscow, the newspaper Sovietskaya Rossiya continued to insist the
Soviet leadership notified the International Atomic Energy Agency and
European governments ''immediately after it received data about what
happened'' at Chernobyl.
The agency's director, Hans Blix, said he wasn't informed until
April 28, two days after the accident. The Soviets issued their
first, brief statement on April 28 confirming an accident had
occurred.
A commentary in Sovietskaya Rossiya repeated criticism of some
Western officials' statements that Soviet handling of the accident
raised doubts about the Kremlin's trustworthiness in arms control
talks.
''The dirty information which the (U.S.) administration cooked up
with the help of the mass media since the first hours after the
accident is still bearing its poisonous fruit,'' the newspaper said.
''There are no doubts about the real political nature of all this
noise,'' it said.
AP-NY-05-11-86 1356EDT
- - - - - -
a232 1311 11 May 86
AM-Nuclear Accident, 1st Ld - Writethru, a217,1085
Cleanup at Chernobyl Focuses on Protecting Water Table, Official Says
Laserphotos MOS11,12,13
Eds: LEADS with 26 grafs to UPDATE with new Soviet statement,
television footage of evacuation zone. Picks up 24th graf pvs: 'The
European ...' Edits thereafter to trim.
By ANDREW ROSENTHAL
Associated Press Writer
MOSCOW (AP) - A leading physicist in the cleanup of the damaged
Chernobyl nuclear reactor was quoted Sunday as saying a turning point
had been reached and that it was no longer possible the situation
would worsen.
''It's true that until today there existed the theoretical
possibility of a catastrophe - a large portion of the (nuclear) fuel
and reactor graphite was burning,'' the official news agency Tass
quoted Yevgeny Velikhov as saying.
''This is now not the case,'' he was quoted as telling Soviet
journalists in Kiev, 80 miles south of the plant.
The Kremlin issued a three-paragraph statement Sunday night saying
work was under way to decontaminate housing near the power plant.
Soviet television broadcast footage of the evacuated 18-mile zone
around the plant, showing some decontamination workers in gas masks
and other people in street clothes.
Velikhov said workers were trying to protect ground water from
radioactive contamination. ''A new phase of work has begun,'' Tass
quoted him as saying. ''Work is being done to decontaminate and
encapsulate the radioactive material. This will ensure it won't fall
into the ground water.''
Velikhov, the vice president of the Soviet Academy of Scientists and
a director of the Chernobyl cleanup, said soil is being frozen and
cement is being poured with the goal of sealing off the damaged
reactor. Officials will decide afterward whether to reactivate the
power plant, he was quoted as saying.
Tass issued for the first time close-up photos of the damaged
reactor. The black-and-white pictures, apparently taken from a
helicopter, showed the upper part of the reactor building was blown
off, and piles of rubble lay at its base. Nearby buildings appeared
undamaged.
A Ukrainian health official Sunday denied a report that two more
Soviets have died as a result of the April 26 accident, in which an
explosion and fire released radioactivity that spread over Europe.
Many Western scientists believe the nuclear core melted.
The West German newsmagazine Der Spiegel on Saturday quoted Valentin
Falin, chairman of the Soviet Novosti news agency, as saying two
people who were hospitalized as a result of the accident had since
died, bringing the death toll to four.
Kremlin statements have reported only two deaths - one from burns
and the other from falling debris. An assistant to Ukrainian Health
Minister Anatoly Y. Romanenko, reached by telephone in Kiev, said
Falin's statement ''is not true.''
''We have no such information. You are telling me about this for the
first time,'' said the assistant, who refused to give her name.
Last week, East European journalists quoted First Deputy Health
Minister Yevgeny Vorobyev as saying a victim had died of radiation
exposure, bringing the death toll to three. Romanenko's assistant
hung up before she could be asked about this report.
Officials at the National Health Ministry in Moscow refused to
comment on Vorobyev's or Falin's statements. Government statements
have said that in addition to two dead, 204 people were hospitalized
and 18 of them were in serious condition.
The newspaper Izvestia said in a report on the accident that 92,000
evacuees from the Chernobyl region were being given jobs and
financial aid elsewhere.
Ukrainian officials told foreign correspondents in Kiev last week
that 84,000 people had been evacuated from the evacuation zone. The
Izvestia report did not explain the higher figure.
A television report Sunday night said Soviet journalists were taken
into the evacuation zone, and showed the tree-lined streets of the
town of Chernobyl, south of the damaged reactor. The report said cars
entering the zone need special passes.
Neither Izvestia nor the television report said when evacuees might
be allowed home.
In Amiens, France, a Soviet diplomat said Sunday no additional
evacuations were planned. Serguei Kossenko, first secretary at the
Soviet Embassy in Paris, made the comment at a local cultural
association meeting.
Sunday's government statement said radiation levels along the
country's western border were normal. It said radiation levels over
the Ukraine and Byelorussia, north of the Ukraine, ''remain the
same'' but gave no figures.
The government said Saturday that radiation was measured at 0.32
milliroentgens per hour in Kiev, the country's third-largest city
with 2.4 million people. It said the level was 0.33 milliroentgens
per hour 35 miles from the plant, but did not say when the readings
were taken.
A milliroentgen is one-thousandth of a roentgen, the standard
measure of ionizing radiation. Experts say exposure to 50 roentgens
per year is dangerous and 400 roentgens per year can be fatal.
The official media reprinted Saturday's government statement that
the graphite fire in the reactor core was out and reactor
temperatures were falling. The graphite is used to slow nuclear
reactions.
Officials of the U.N.-affiliated International Atomic Energy Agency,
who flew over the damaged reactor, said Friday that the graphite fire
was out.
They said radiation still was leaking slowly and that Soviet experts
appeared to have the situation under control.
Radio Moscow said Sunday that the Soviets have begun relaying
information on radiation levels and weather conditions to the
international agency.
The European Common Market, meanwhile, said 11 of its 12 member
countries would ban a wide range of food imports from the Soviet
Union and six East European countries because of fears of radiation
contamination.
The economic union, based in Brussels, Belgium, announced Saturday
that the members had agreed on a joint ban.
But Italy said Sunday it would not join the ban because of a
disagreement over a separate proposal to set radiation standards for
food traded within the Common Market.
Poland and Hungary, both affected by the ban, raised objections.
Poland called it ''an act of political discrimination.''
In Yugoslavia, witnesses said about 1,000 youths rallied in the
northwestern city of Ljubljana and issued a statement criticizing
''the late and sketchy information'' provided by the Soviets on the
accident.
Some participants also demanded a Yugoslav moratorium on the
construction of new nuclear plants, and they urged the government to
seek compensation from the Soviet Union for damage from radioactive
fallout.
Yugoslavia, although Communist-ruled, professes independence from
Moscow.
AP-NY-05-11-86 1612EDT
a247 1504 11 May 86
AM-Digest Advisory,0088
Eds:
All budgets have cleared. Here is a listing:
DAMASCUS, Syria - Syria-Britain, a223.
MOSCOW - Nuclear Disaster, a217.
HAMPSTEAD, N.C. - Forest Fire, a209.
WASHINGTON - Congress Rdp, a215.
WASHINGTON - FDA-Food Claims, a208.
NEW ORLEANS - Edwards, a226.
BOSTON - Liver Tot, a228.
NEW YORK - Solidarity Sunday, a243.
CAIRO, Egypt - Khadafy-US, a216.
SAN JOSE, Calif. - Bunyard, a220.
MIAMI - Miami Rights, a207.
AP-NY-05-11-86 1805EDT
a245 1456 11 May 86
AM-Common Market-Nuke,0307
Eleven of 12 Market Members Banning Food from Eastern Europe
With AM-Nuclear Accident, Bjt
BRUSSELS, Belgium (AP) - The Common Market said Sunday that all but
one of its 12 member countries would begin banning fresh food imports
from the Soviet Union and six East European countries.
The economic union said Saturday that all its members had agreed to
a joint ban, but Italy later said it had been misunderstood and would
not participate.
The Common Market's executive branch on Tuesday decided to ban
imports of fresh meat, cattle and pigs from the Soviet Union,
Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Poland, Romania and Yugoslavia.
However, it required unanimous approval of the union's member
countries to include poultry, game, freshwater fish, milk products,
fruits, vegetables and other fresh foods in the ban.
Common Market spokesman Michael Berendt said Sunday that all members
except Italy now plan to implement their own individual bans,
something France already has done.
The joint ban was to have lasted until May 31, with the possiblity
of being renewed. It was not clear how long each country would
enforce the individual bans.
Italian officials said they did not object to the proposed joint ban
but would not approve it until the Common Market reached agreement on
radioactivity standards for food traded within the bloc.
Italian newspapers quoted unidentified government sources as
complaining that tighter standards had been proposed for Italian
fruits and vegetables than for West German milk.
Poland's government Saturday called any ban on its food exports ''an
act of political discrimination striking at Poland's interest.'' It
warned that such bans could hinder efforts to meet payments on
Poland's huge foreign debt.
The Common Market imported $730 million in fresh food from the
Soviet Union and the six East European countries last year.
AP-NY-05-11-86 1757EDT
a246 1502 11 May 86
AM-US-Nuclear,0303
Radiation Levels in U.S. Pose No Health Hazard, Officials Say
WASHINGTON (AP) - Radioactive material from the Chernobyl nuclear
accident has been detected sporadically in most parts of the United
States, but poses no danger to health, U.S. officials said Sunday.
''It is expected that sensitive instruments may detect very low
levels (of radiation) in rainwater, air and possibly milk samples for
some weeks to come,'' the Environmental Protection Agency said in a
statement.
EPA initiated a nationwide monitoring network after the April 26
accident at the nuclear plant outside Kiev in the Soviet Union.
''The EPA's nationwide radiation monitoring network has recorded
sporadic and small detectible levels of radiation from the Soviet
reactor accident in most areas of the country, except the
southeastern United States through this past week,'' the EPA said.
In the May 7-8 monitoring period, only Phoenix, Ariz., indicated
above-normal readings of radiation in the air, the agency said,
adding, ''these are considered very low levels that pose no danger to
health or the environment.''
The samples showed iodine-131 in concentrations of 0.091 picocuries
per meter. Iodine-131 has a half-life of little more than eight days
- the time it takes for half the radioactivity to disappear.
Several cities showed detectable levels of iodine-131 in their
rainwater, the EPA said. The highest level, collected May 8, came
from Idaho Falls, Idaho. The level was iodine-131 in concentrations
of 440 picocuries per square meter, less than 1 percent of the level
at which the Food and Drug Administration would withhold food
products from the market, the EPA said.
Elevated levels of iodine-131 were also found in Portland, Ore.
The twice weekly milk sampling network reported no detectible levels
of radioactivity.
EPA stressed that the readings were all within acceptable levels and
should not cause Americans any concern for their health.
AP-NY-05-11-86 1803EDT
a250 1525 11 May 86
AM-Digest Briefs,0572
Eds: This package does not contain the following items from the News
Digest: WASHINGTON - Congress Rdp; WASHINGTON - FDA-Food Claims;
BOSTON - Liver Tot; BOSTON - AIDS Vaccine; WASHINGTON - New Drug;
WASHINGTON - Symms-Khadafy; CAIRO, Egypt - Khadafy-US; WASHINGTON -
Exchange Rates; SAN JOSE, Calif. - Bunyard; MIAMI - Miami Rights.
DAMASCUS, Syria - Syria on Sunday ordered out three British
MOSCOW - A leading physicist in the cleanup of the damaged Chernobyl
nuclear reactor was quoted Sunday as saying a turning point had been
reached and that it was no longer possible the situation would
worsen.
''It's true that until today there existed the theoretical
possibility of a catastrophe - a large portion of the (nuclear) fuel
and reactor graphite was burning,'' the official news agency Tass
quoted Yevgeny Velikhov as saying.
''This is now not the case,'' he was quoted as telling Soviet
journalists in Kiev, 80 miles south of the plant.
HAMPSTEAD, N.C. - North Carolina officials appealed to neighboring
NEW ORLEANS - Gov. Edwin Edwards, acquitted on federal racketeering
NEW YORK - Anatoly Shcharansky led 300,000 people in song Sunday and
AP-NY-05-11-86 1826EDT
a275 1753 11 May 86
AM-Soviet Fallout,0523
Radioactivity Found In Milk In Oregon
With AM-US-Nuclear
PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) - Radioactivity from the Soviet nuclear accident
was reported in U.S. milk for the first time Sunday by Oregon
officials who said the contamination was not a cause for concern.
The report came as weekend samples of air and rainwater in the
Pacific Northwest showed levels of radioactivity that were higher
than normal, but below a level considered dangerous.
The Environmental Protection Agency has recorded sporadic levels of
radiation from the Chernobyl disaster in the past week in much of the
country except the Southeast, the EPA said Sunday.
The discovery of traces of iodine-131 and cesium-137 in milk taken
Sunday from dairies in northwest Oregon means the radioactivity ''is
passing through the food chain,'' said Dr. Lester Wright of the state
Health Division.
The samples showed 118 picocuries of iodine-131 and 43 picocuries of
cesium-137 per liter of milk, he said.
Health officials would be concerned if the iodine-131 level reached
15,000 picocuries and the cesium-137 level rose to 24,000 picocuries
per liter.
''There is no reason to believe these levels will be reached,'' he
said.
Radiation in rainwater samples taken in Portland on Friday hit the
highest levels detected in the United States since a nuclear reactor
at Chernobyl in the Soviet Ukraine exploded and caught fire two weeks
ago.
In Washington state, an air sample taken Saturday at Olympia showed
.7 picocuries per cubic meter, an increase from .113 Friday and .07
Thursday.
A sample of rainwater taken in Seattle showed 2,400 picocuries of
radiation per cubic liter from iodine-131, which compares with 540
picocuries Friday, said Jim Kneeland, press secretary to Washington
Gov. Booth Gardner.
Still, Kneeland said Saturday, ''It's substantially below where they
would start advising precautionary action.''
A ban on drinking would be imposed if the level reached 10,000
picocuries per cubic liter, he said, and monitoring will continue
this week.
Rainfall samples taken in Portland on Friday morning showed 5,250
picocuries of iodine-131 per liter, but by Friday afternoon samples
showed 392 picocuries per liter.
Levels of iodine-131 in rainwater in 10 U.S. cities May 5-8 ranged
from 11 picocuries to 500 picocuries per liter, the EPA said. The
agency said it had found no radioactivity in milk.
Iodine-131 is considered particularly dangerous because it
concentrates in the thyroid, an organ sensitive to radiation damage.
Health officials in Oregon on Sunday continued to advise residents
to avoid drinking rainwater.
In Vancouver, British Columbia, officials of the Greater Vancouver
Water District said they were questioning the accuracy of radiation
readings that led to a shutdown of a section of the district's water
supply system Saturday.
The Coquitlam watershed, a suburban watershed east of Vancouver, was
closed after higher-than-usual levels of radioactivity were found in
the water.
Greater Vancouver Regional District spokesman Bud Elsie said the
radiation levels were not considered dangerous. He said the closure
was ordered as a precaution and would remain in effect at least until
Monday, when new test results become available.
AP-NY-05-11-86 2053EDT
a002 2122 11 May 86
PM-News Digest,1223
Monday, May 12, 1986
Here are the top stories for PMs. The General Desk supervisor is Ron
SYRIA: Retaliates By Ousting Three British Envoys
NUCLEAR ACCIDENT: Say the Worst Is Over, But Report Thousands Still
Flee
MOSCOW - Soviet officials supervising decontamination work at the
Chernobyl nuclear accident site say the worst is over. But the
government newspaper Izvestia says the number of Chernobyl area
residents evacuated in the Ukraine rose 10 percent this weekend to
92,000. Slug PM-Nuclear Accident.
Developing. By Carol J. Williams.
BUDGET CUTS: Shultz Says State Dept. Cuts Could Lead to National
TAX OVERHAUL: Don't Count Your Savings Before the Plan is Hatched
STUBBORN BLAZE: Firefighters Say They are Winning After A Week
DEAVER: GAO Details Recommendation That Former Reagan Aide be
WASHINGTON TODAY: Carter Uses Amy to Rip Reagan on Libya
DEFENSE SPENDING: GAO Says Missile Being Developed Without Complete
PLAGUE OF LOCUSTS: Idaho Ranchers Brace For Another Grasshopper War
FEDERAL JUDGE: Bad Spelling, Bad Grammar and More
BONNER: Wife Details Internal Exile Life of Andrei Sakharov
LIVER TOT: Death of Baby Renews Debate Over Organ Donation System
ANOTHER LOOK: West Virginia Farms Still Devastated Six Months Later
CAMPAIGN '86: War Hero Takes on Peace Activist in Pennsylvania Senate
FRIENDLY SKIES?: Lebanese Christians Building Own Airport Outside
SUPERFUND: Townspeople Want Money So Waste Treatment Can Continue
MOVE ANNIVERSARY: Couple Remembers Fire, Waits for New Home
MYSTERY TOUR: Fear Of Terrorism Lands Travelers in Ivory Coast
AP-NY-05-12-86 0023EDT
a028 0131 12 May 86
PM-Digest Advisory,0093
All the budgets have moved. Here is a list with Laserphoto numbers:
WASHINGTON - PM-Deaver, a005
WASHINGTON - PM-Pentagon Missile, a006
BOSTON - PM-Liver Tot, a008
WASHINGTON - PM-Manion Nomination, a009
BOISE - PM-Idaho Hoppers, a010
WASHINGTON - PM-Bonner, a011
ONEGO - PM-Another Look-Floods, a012. LaserPhoto CN1.
ABIDJAN - PM-Mystery Tour, a013
WASHINGTON - PM-Tax Overhaul, a018
DAMASCUS - PM-Syria, a020
HAMPSTEAD - PM-Forest Fire, a021
WASHINGTON - PM-Shultz, a023
MOSCOW - PM-Nuclear Accident, a027
The AP
AP-NY-05-12-86 0432EDT
a027 0130 12 May 86
PM-Nuclear Accident, Bjt,0917
Party Officials Punished for Lapses During Chernobyl Disaster, Pravda Says
By CAROL J. WILLIAMS
MOSCOW (AP) - The Communist Party has disciplined three employees of
the Chernobyl nuclear power plant for supplying insufficient
information on the disaster there or failing to tend fully to
evacuees, the party newspaper Pravda said today.
The measures announced in Pravda were the first known disciplinary
action resulting from the April 26 explosion and fire at the
Ukrainian atomic power station that spewed a cloud of radiation over
much of Europe.
On Sunday, officials in charge at the accident site, 80 miles north
of the Ukrainian capital of Kiev, said the worst danger had passed,
and that they were working to encase the fire-damaged reactor in
concrete to prevent any pollution of ground water.
Reporting from the town of Polessk, temporary home to some of the
92,000 people reported removed from the officially designated
''danger zone'' around Chernobyl, Pravda said three party members who
worked at the plant had been punished.
One official identified only as A. Shapoval was expelled from party
ranks for ''indifference and shirking his duties'' to evacuees,
Pravda said.
Another man, A. Sichkarenko, received an official reprimand entered
in his party membership record for the same neglect of duty, while a
third official, A. Gubski, was given a lesser reprimand for failing
to give timely and accurate information on the disaster.
Party disciplinary measures do not preclude criminal prosecution.
Speeches at the recent Communist Party congress stressed that party
officials in the future would be more liable to criminal as well as
party punishment for misdeeds.
Pravda did not say when the disciplinary measures were taken. Deputy
Premier Boris N. Shcherbina, head of a government investigatory
commission, first said last Tuesday that plant workers had initially
underestimated the magnitude of the accident.
There has been no public indication so far that higher-ranking
officials, such as ministers, top scientists or senior Ukrainian
party officials, might be punished in connection with the disaster.
Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev has yet to say a word in public
about the accident or the handling of its aftermath, which has drawn
strong foreign criticism and damaged his desired image of peacemaker
and campaigner for nuclear disarmament.
However, two top Kremlin officials, Communist Party Central
Committee Secretary Yegor K. Ligachev and Soviet Premier Nikolai I.
Ryzhkov, visited the disaster area May 2.
After that visit, the evacuated zone was expanded from six miles to
18 miles, and measures were announced to care for evacuees and to
warn the 2.4 million residents of Kiev, the Soviet Union's
third-largest city, of potential radiation hazards.
On Sunday, the Kremlin reported that work had begun to sheathe
Chernobyl's No. 4 reactor in concrete, but made no reference in a
three-paragraph statement to any new casualties. Recent reports have
quoted Soviet officials as saying up to four people had died.
Official Soviet statements have said that in addition to two dead,
204 people had been hospitalized, and that 18 of them were in serious
condition.
Physicist Yevgeny Velikhov, vice president of the Soviet Academy of
Sciences and one of the leaders of the Chernobyl cleanup effort,
declared on Sunday that a turning point had been reached.
''Theoretically until today, there existed the possibility of a
catastrophe since a large amount of fuel and reactor graphite was
burning. This is now not the case,'' Velikhov was quoted as telling
Soviet journalists in Kiev.
''A new stage in the work sets in now,'' Velikhov was quoted as
saying. ''It is necessary to take a whole number of measurements,
carry out research, determine the spots that are contaminated the
most.''
Television footage from inside the evacuated zone was shown on the
national news program ''Vremya'' (Time) on Sunday night. Some of the
estimated 150 people working in the area were shown walking along
tree-lined streets. Several wore gas masks.
All homes have been locked up and workers are preparing to
decontaminate them, the Soviet reporters were told.
None of the officials they interviewed, however, gave any indication
how long the decontamination work would continue or when evacuees
might be able to return home.
The government newspaper Izvestia, in a report on the journalists'
visit, wrote that food, money, clothing, housewares and even jobs
were being provided to nearly 92,000 people evacuated to other areas
of the northern Ukraine.
Last week, Ukrainian officials told a group of foreign reporters
taken to Kiev that 84,000 people had been moved. Izvestia gave no
explanation for the higher figure.
In an interview with the West German magazine Der Spiegel, Valentin
Falin, chief of the official Soviet Novosti news agency, was quoted
as saying the death toll in the disaster had reached four, with two
people dying after they received heavy radiation doses.
However, an assistant to Ukrainian Health Minister Anatoly
Romanenko, reached by telephone in Kiev on Sunday, said Falin's
reported statement ''is not true.''
''We have no such information. You are telling me about this for the
first time,'' said the woman, who did not identify herself. She then
hung up.
A government report on Saturday said radiation readings at a station
37 miles from the power plant were .33 milliroentgen per hour, which
it described as ''absolutely safe'' for humans. No updated figures
were published by Soviet media on Sunday.
A milliroentgen is one-thousandth of a roentgen, the standard
measure of ionizing radiation. Experts say exposure to 50 roentgens
per year is dangerous and 400 roentgens per year can be fatal.
AP-NY-05-12-86 0430EDT
AP-NY-05-12-86 0543EDT
- - - - - -
a058 0556 12 May 86
PM-Nuclear Accident, 1st Ld, a027,0417
Officials Punished for Lapses During Disaster, Pravda Says
Eds: UPDATES with Common Market ban, more details on punishments
By CAROL J. WILLIAMS
MOSCOW (AP) - The Communist Party newspaper Pravda said today the
party has disciplined three employees of the Chernobyl nuclear plant
for failing to recognize the scope of the disaster and bungling the
evacuation of nearby residents.
The measures announced in Pravda were the first known disciplinary
action resulting from the April 26 explosion and fire at the
Ukrainian power station. The accident spewed a cloud of radiation
over much of Europe.
The 12 Common Market nations today agreed to ban imports of fresh
food from the Soviet Union and six Eastern European countries closest
to the nuclear plant, said Willy de Clercq, a trading bloc official
in Brussels. Besides the Soviet Union, the ban applies to Bulgaria,
Romania, Hungary, Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia and Poland.
Officials in charge at the plant, 80 miles north of Kiev, said
Sunday the worst danger had passed, and that they were working to
encase the fire-damaged atomic reactor in concrete to prevent any
further radiation release.
Reporting from the town of Polessk, temporary home to some of the
92,000 people removed from the officially designated ''danger zone''
around the Chernobyl facility, Pravda said three party members who
worked at the plant have been punished.
An official identified only as A. Shapoval, chief engineer of the
branch supplying construction materials and transport at Chernobyl,
was expelled from party ranks for ''indifference and shirking his
duties'' to evacuees, Pravda said.
Another worker, A. Sichkarenko, received a reprimand entered in his
party membership record for the same neglect of duty.
A. Gubski, head of the Communist Party at the branch where Shapoval
and Sichkarenko also worked, was given a lesser reprimand for failing
to give timely and accurate information on the disaster, Pravda said.
The newspaper indicated the measures were taken last week by the
party committee for Pripyat, the evacuated settlement adjacent to the
power station.
It also hinted the officials would lose their jobs, saying the party
committee found it ''inexpedient that the leaders who had compromised
themselves should remain in their posts.''
Party disciplinary measures do not preclude criminal prosecution.
Speeches at the recent 27th Communist Party Congress stressed that
party officials in the future would be more liable to criminal as
well as party punishment for misdeeds.
There has been no, 9th graf
AP-NY-05-12-86 0856EDT
a035 0225 12 May 86
PM-US-Nuclear,0298
Radiation No Hazard In U.S., Some Found In Milk
WASHINGTON (AP) - Radiation from the Chernobyl nuclear accident will
continue to fall on the United States but will pose no health threat,
U.S. officials say.
''It is expected that sensitive instruments may detect very low
levels (of radiation) in rainwater, air and possibly milk samples for
some weeks to come,'' the Environmental Protection Agency said Sunday
in a statement.
From May 7 to May 8, only Phoenix, Ariz., indicated above-normal
readings of radiation in the air, the agency said, adding, ''These
are considered very low levels that pose no danger to health or the
environment.''
The samples showed iodine-131 in concentrations of 0.091 picocuries
per meter. Iodine-131 has a half-life of little more than eight days
- the time it takes for half the radioactivity to disappear.
EPA initiated a nationwide monitoring network after the April 26
accident at the nuclear plant outside Kiev in the Soviet Union.
''The EPA's nationwide radiation monitoring network has recorded
sporadic and small detectible levels of radiation from the Soviet
reactor accident in most areas of the country, except the
southeastern United States through this past week,'' the EPA said.
Several cities showed detectable levels of iodine-131 on the ground,
the EPA said. The highest level, collected May 8, came from Idaho
Falls, Idaho. The level was iodine-131 in concentrations of 440
picocuries per square meter, less than 1 percent of the level at
which the Food and Drug Administration would withhold food products
from the market, the EPA said.
Elevated levels of iodine-131 were also found in Portland, Ore.
The twice weekly milk sampling network reported no detectible levels
of radioactivity.
EPA stressed that the readings were all within acceptable levels and
should not cause Americans any concern for their health.
AP-NY-05-12-86 0525EDT
a044 0326 12 May 86
BC-Quotes,0136
Current Quotations
''Theoretically until today, there existed the possibility of a
catastrophe since a large amount of fuel and reactor graphite was
burning. This is now not the case.'' - Yevgeny Velikhov, vice
president of the Soviet Academy of Sciences, on the Chernobyl
accident.
AP-NY-05-12-86 0627EDT
a066 0657 12 May 86
PM-Soviet Fallout,0660
Radioactivity Shows Slight Decline in Washington, Monitoring Continues
OLYMPIA, Wash. (AP) - Radioactivity in Washington and Oregon air and
rainwater samples has decreased, but authorities say they will
continue monitoring because ''it's too early to say the worst is
past.''
And while health officials said Sunday that Oregon milk contained
traces of radiation for the first time since the Soviet nuclear power
plant accident, they said there was no cause for concern.
An air sample taken Sunday at Olympia showed .418 picocuries of
radiation per cubic liter, down from Saturday's .7 picocuries, said
Jim Kneeland, Gov. Booth Gardner's press secretary. The measurement
was .113 Friday and .07 on Thursday.
The threshhold for precautionary action is 10 picocuries, Kneeland
said. A picocurie is a trillionth of a curie, a unit used to measure
radioactivity.
A rainwater sample taken in Seattle showed 1,400 picocuries of
radiation per liter from iodine-131, down from Saturday's 2,400
picocuries. The rainwater measurement was 540 picocuries Friday.
A ban on drinking the water would be imposed if the level reached
10,000 picocuries per liter, Kneeland said.
''It's a good sign, I guess, but it's too early to say the worst is
past,'' he said Sunday. ''Radiation outfall has been somewhat patchy
in the past so we're going to keep monitoring until things get back
to normal.''
Kneeland said normal background radiation in Washington air is .06
picocuries. He said he had no comparable figure for radiation in
rainwater.
Samples of milk in Richland, taken by Battelle Northwest
Laboratories, showed 7 picocuries of iodine-131, said George Toombs,
supervisor of Oregon's radiation surveillance program.
Minimum acceptable levels of radiation in milk are 15,000 picocuries
per liter of iodine-131 and 240,000 picocuries per liter of cesium,
Toombs said.
In Oregon as well as Washington, the levels of radiation were still
well below the level that would cause concern, decreasing from 392
picocuries per liter of rainwater Saturday to 90 picocuries Sunday.
Friday's peak of 5,250 picocuries per liter was the highest level
detected in the United States since a nuclear reactor at Chernobyl in
the Soviet Ukraine exploded and caught fire two weeks ago.
Radioactive isotopes in Portland air samples were also at reduced
levels on Sunday compared with Saturday, officials said. They
decreased from .305 picocuries per cubic meter Saturday to .055
picocuries Sunday.
But Oregon milk contained traces of radiation for the first time
since the accident, health officials said Sunday.
Tests conducted by Oregon officials on raw milk in a northwest
Oregon dairy showed iodine-131 at 118 picocuries per liter and
cesium-137 at 43 picocuries per liter, Toombs said.
But officials said radiation levels would not harm people, including
pregnant women and nursing mothers.
Dr. Lester Wright, the state health officer, said radiation would
continue to appear in Oregon milk for a month to six weeks.
Wright also said health officials in Oregon continued to advise
residents to avoid drinking rainwater.
Iodine-131 is considered particularly dangerous because it
concentrates in the thyroid, an organ sensitive to radiation damage.
In Vancouver, British Columbia, a spokesman for the Greater
Vancouver Water District said the Coquitlam water system, part of a
mountainous watershed area supplying metropolitan Vancouver, will
remain closed while officials re-check radioactivity levels today.
Spokesman Bud Elsie said tests Sunday on the Coquitlam system showed
normal radiation levels. He said there are doubts about earlier tests
that found radioactivity levels higher than Canadian guidelines.
Tests from two other adjacent watershed areas - the Capilano and
Seymour systems - originally showed no unusual radiation levels,
Elsie said.
''The water was not considered hazardous but Greater Vancouver
Regional District authorities simply did not want to take a chance
and closed down the system,'' he said Saturday. The system was to
remain closed pending analysis of tests today. Its users were
switched to the adjacent systems.
AP-NY-05-12-86 0957EDT
a201 1014 12 May 86
AM-News Digest,0921
For Tuesday AMs
Here are the top stories at this hour from The Associated Press. The
LIBYA:
CHERNOBYL: Kremlin Raps Local Officials for Accident Procedure
MOSCOW - The Kremlin blames local officials for the 64-hour delay in
telling the world about the Chernobyl nuclear accident, and for
mismanaging the evacuation of 92,000 people living near the crippled
power plant. Slug AM-Chernobyl Nuclear. Developing.
DEAVER: GAO Says Ex-Reagan Aide May Have Violated Conflict Laws
SPACE:
China To Launch Two U.S. Communications Satellite
TAX COLLECTIONS:
FOREST FIRES: North Carolina Fights 70,000-Acre Blaze
ELECTIONS 86:
N.H. Democrats Recruit Ex-Massachusetts Governor
MIDEAST: Israel Claims Syrian Arms Buildup in Lebanon
MOVE ANNIVERSARY: Radical Group Plans 'Peaceful, Quiet' Observance
DAVID RICE: Goes on Trial for Life in Goldmark Family Deaths
FENCED-IN CAPITOL: Putting Congress Behind Bars is Nothing New
ROVING CAPITAL: Montana Governor Takes to the Streets
AP-NY-05-12-86 1315EDT
a203 1024 12 May 86
BC-Accident Report,0086
URGENT
Report Six Dead in Chernobyl Accident
MOSCOW (AP) - The Soviet government announced Monday that six people
have died of burns and radiation as a result of the Chernobyl nuclear
accident.
The announcement said that 35 people are still in serious condition,
nearly twice the previous official figure for serious injuries.
The six listed as having died appeared to be in addition to two
people who previously were reported to have died during the April 26
accident at the nuclear power plant in the Ukraine.
AP-NY-05-12-86 1324EDT
a282 2102 12 May 86
AM-Hammer-Soviets,0230
Armand Hammer Takes Plane Load of Medical Supplies to Soviet Union
LOS ANGELES (AP) - Industrialist Armand Hammer, instrumental in
getting the Soviets to accept private American medical help in coping
with its nuclear disaster, left for the Soviet Union on Monday on a
plane full of supplies for the U.S. medical team.
Hammer, chairman of Occidental Petroleum Corp., took the supplies
aboard his company's jet, Oxy-1.
Hammer had already been scheduled to travel to Moscow for the
opening of his private Renaissance art collection there as part of a
cultural exchange agreed to earlier this year.
The Soviet exhibit opened in Washington earlier this month, and it
was at that event that Hammer convinced high Soviet officials to
accept help through the International Bone Marrow Registry, headed by
Dr. Robert Gale of the University of California at Los Angeles.
The Soviets had previously rejected offers of help from foreign
governments, including the United States.
Bone marrow transplants are used to treat radiation victims. High
doses of radiation destroy bone marrow, resulting in death.
Hammer said Gale's medical team has performed 10 transplants and is
treating 23 other patients.
Hammer said the medical supplies he is taking to the Soviet Union
bring to about $500,000 the value of supplies donated by companies.
But he said the Soviet Union has said it will reimburse the companies
for the medicine and equipment.
AP-NY-05-13-86 0001EDT
a002 2123 12 May 86
PM-News Digest,1171
Tuesday, May 13, 1986
Here are the top stories for PMs. The General Desk supervisor is Ron
CHERNOBYL: Death Toll Said to be 6 With Report of Radiation
Fatalities
MOSCOW - The casualty toll from the Chernobyl nuclear accident
doubled when the government announced six people died from radiation
and burns and 35 were gravely ill. It is the first time anyone is
known to have died from radiation emitted from a civilian nuclear
power plant. Slug PM-Nuclear Accident.
Developing. By Andrew Rosenthal.
CAMPAIGN '86:
DEAVER PROBE: Say Former White House Counsel Gave Inacurate
PAPAL SHOOTING: Questions Linger About Why the Attack Occurred
BHOPAL: Indian Courts Can 'Stand Tall,' Judge Says
PAKISTAN: A Profile of Opposition Leader Benazir Bhutto
HAMPSTEAD, N.C. - With a boost from lower temperatures and calmer
WORLD CROPS: Abundance of Wheat Spells Bad News for U.S. Farmers
DRUG DEALING: Sharp Increase From Mexico Strains Ties With U.S.
FEDERAL RESERVE: Reagan Gets High Marks for Central Bank Pick
CAPITOL IDEAS: Goldwater and Others Get Verbal Bouquets
MAINE NUCLEAR: Nuclear Dump Would Be On Indian Hunting Land
GRAMM RUDMAN: American Indian Children Programs Feel the Ax
ALTERNATIVE MEDICINE: Acupuncture, Herbalism Ruffle Feathers in
AP-NY-05-13-86 0024EDT
-----
a031 0142 13 May 86
PM-Digest Advisory,0097
All the budgets have moved. Here is a list with Laserphoto numbers:
WASHINGTON - PM-Campaign Spending, a008
WASHINGTON - PM-Agriculture Policy, a010
WASHINGTON - PM-Deaver, a011. Laserphoto WX5.
WASHINGTON - PM-World Crops, a012
WASHINGTON - PM-US-Mexico, a015
WASHINGTON - PM-Fed Appointments, a016
TOWNSHIP 4ND - PM-Nuclear-Indians, a017
ROME - PM-Pope Shooting, a020
LONDON - PM-Alternative Medicine, a021
NEW YORK - PM-Bhopal, a022
HAMPSTEAD - PM-Forest Fire, a026. LaserColor JAK1.
UNDATED - PM-Election Rdp, a029
MOSCOW - PM-Nuclear Accident, a030
AP-NY-05-13-86 0442EDT
a030 0139 13 May 86
PM-Nuclear Accident, Bjt,0816
Soviets Provide Details of Salvage Crisis, Report Six Dead
By ANDREW ROSENTHAL
MOSCOW (AP) - The Soviet Union said today that six people had died
in the Chernobyl nuclear disaster, and that the stricken reactor's
white-hot core had threatened to burn through the earth and into a
water reservoir before experts cooled it.
In a report from Chernobyl, the Communist Party newspaper Pravda
quoted physicist Yevgeny Velikhov, one of those leading the cleanup
effort, as saying a crisis developed 10 days after a chemical
explosion rocked reactor No. 4 which caught on fire.
According to his report, the crisis would have developed on May 6.
''The reactor was damaged. Its heart was a white-hot core, a
scorched, active zone that was somehow 'hanging,' '' Velikhov, vice
president of the Soviet Academy of Sciences, told Pravda.
Velikhov said scientists feared that a massive shield of sand, lead
and other material dropped on top of the reactor to reduce
radioactive emissions would force the burning core downward into a
reservoir of water below, Pravda reported.
''Would we manage to keep it intact or would it go down into the
earth? No one in the world has ever been in such a complex
position,'' Velikhov told Pravda.
Scientists decided to pump out the water and then began drilling
holes to create a ''cooling zone'' that would carry heat away from
the reactor. It was not clear where the holes were drilled, but
Velikhov said the experiment was a success.
In a six-sentence report issued by the news agency Tass late Monday,
the Council of Ministers said ''35 persons are in a grave condition,
six persons suffering from burns and radiation died.''
It did not say when the victims died, or mention the two who were
reported earlier to have been killed in the accident itself - one by
steam burns and one by falling debris.
But today, Ivan Yemilyanov, deputy chief of organization that
designed the Chernobyl reactor, told a group of Western European
reporters that a total of six people had died in the accident.
Deputy Premier Ivan S. Silayev, who also is coordinating the
Chernobyl cleanup, said, ''The main danger at the present stage has
been eliminated.''
''However a huge amount of work lies ahead to fully decontaminate
the station and adjacent territory,'' he said.
Pravda repeated earlier reports that experts at Chernobyl, 80 miles
north of the Ukrainian capital of Kiev, were encasing the reactor in
concrete and working to remove radioactive particles that were
scattered by the accident on the area of the plant and the 18-mile
evacuated zone around it.
The government newspaper Izvestia has said topsoil in a ''danger
zone'' is being removed and the area paved over with concrete. It did
not say how big the zone is.
Pravda said the Kiev subway construction organization had sent a
crew of tunnel workers, but did not explain what they were doing.
The paper issued an appeal for Soviet specialists who think they
might be useful to make themselves available, especially drillers,
excavators and crane operators.
It said volunteers from all over the country were offering their
services and coming to Chernobyl from as far away as Urengoi, site of
a major natural gas field 1,200 miles away in northwestern Siberia.
The Tass report late Monday marked the first announcement of deaths
from radiation exposure, and was the first official word on more
deaths in the two weeks since the Soviets announced the first two
victims.
According to earlier official statistics, 18 radiation victims were
in serious condition. A total of 204 people were reported injured.
Soviet officials have said the worst cases were brought to Moscow,
where they are being treated with the help of bone marrow transplant
specialists from the United States.
The head of the team, Dr. Richard Gale, did not answer his hotel
telephone late Monday. He has declined comment on his work in the
past, saying he had agreed with Soviet officials not to talk to
reporters.
The Kremlin, meanwhile, is focusing blame on local officials for the
68-hour delay in telling the world about the Chernobyl nuclear
accident and for mismanaging the evacuation.
Pravda says three local party officials have been punished and
suggested they also will lose their jobs.
Vladimir Lomeiko, spokesman for the Foreign Ministry, said the
announcement of the accident and the evacuation were delayed because
officials on the spot did not understand how bad the disaster was.
The plant town of about 25,000 people and three other communities
within six miles of Chernobyl were not evacuated until 36 hours after
the explosion and fire. The remaining people within 18 miles of the
facility did not begin moving out until a week after the accident.
About 92,000 people are living in temporary homes after being
evacuated and 250,000 Kiev schoolchildren are to be sent away on an
early summer holiday starting Thursday.
AP-NY-05-13-86 0440EDT
- - - - - -
a049 0342 13 May 86
PM-Nuclear Accident, 1st Ld, a030,0129
EDS: LEADS with clarifying attribution in lede graf, updating with
Hammer's trip to Moscow
By ANDREW ROSENTHAL
MOSCOW (AP) - An official said today that six people had died in the
Chernobyl nuclear disaster, and a newspaper reported the stricken
reactor's white-hot core had threatened to burn through the earth and
into a water reservoir before experts cooled it.
Meanwhile, industrialist Armand Hammer arrives in Moscow today on a
plane loaded with supplies for a U.S. medical team that has been
treating victims of the Chernobyl accident.
Hammer, who has maintained contacts with top Soviet officials for
decades, was instrumental in getting the Soviets to accept private
American medical help to cope with the disaster.
In a report, 2nd graf
AP-NY-05-13-86 0642EDT
- - - - - -
a062 0520 13 May 86
PM-Digest Briefs,1229
Eds: This package does not contain the following items from the News
Digest: MOSCOW-Nuclear Accident, a030; WASHINGTON-Agriculture Policy,
a010; WASHINGTON-Deaver, a011; ISLAMABAD-Benazir Bhutto, a088;
WASHINGTON-Capitol Ideas, a076; TULSA-Gramm-Rudman-Indians,
a069,a077.
---
a079 0803 13 May 86
PM-Nuclear Accident, 2nd Ld - Writethru, a049,1078
URGENT
Soviets Provide Details of Salvage Crisis, Report Six Dead
Eds: UPDATES throughout with Soviet officials saying danger of
melt-through averted, six people killed, amount of uranium in reactor
at the time of the accident, other details. CORRECTS spelling of
Yemelyanov throughout.
By ANDREW ROSENTHAL
MOSCOW (AP) - Crews at the Chernobyl nuclear reactor stopped the
white-hot core from burning into the earth and it now will have to be
buried in concrete for centuries, Soviet officials said today.
Also today, a Soviet official said a total of six people have died
since the April 26 accident at the Ukrainian power plant spewed
radiation over much of Europe. A vaguely worded government statement,
issued Monday, led to speculation that eight people might have died.
In a report from Chernobyl, the Communist Party newspaper Pravda
quoted Yevgeny Velikhov, a coordinator of the cleanup at the plant,
as saying it could take months to finish encasing the reactor in
concrete to seal off its radioactive core.
Ivan Yemelyanov, deputy director of the organization that designed
the reactor, said today the concrete also would be poured into the
reactor's cooling apparatus and other portions of the system.
Once sealed, the reactor would have to remain ''entombed'' for
hundreds of years while its radioactive core decays into harmless
substances, Yemelyanov told West European reporters in Moscow. A
transcript of his comments was provided by one of the reporters
present.
Velikhov, vice president of the Soviet Academy of Sciences, told
Pravda a crisis developed 10 days after the accident, which began
when an explosion rocked Chernobyl's No. 4 reactor and it caught
fire.
''The reactor was damaged. It's heart was a white-hot core, a
scorched, active zone that was somehow 'hanging,' '' Velikhov said.
Scientists had feared that tons of sand, lead and other material
dumped on the reactor to stop leaking radiation would force the
burning core into a reservoir of water below the reactor, he said.
''Would we manage to keep it intact or would it go down into the
earth? No one in the world has ever been in such a complex
situation,'' he said.
Velikhov said scientists averted a catastrophe by pumping out the
water and drilling holes to draw heat from the reactor. It was not
clear when the holes were drilled, but Velikhov said the effort
succeeded.
Other reports have said workers began pouring concrete below the
reactor to reinforce its foundation.
Yemelyanov repeated assertions by U.N. experts that the chain
reaction within the reactor stopped immediately after the accident.
He said the reactor contained 192 tons of uranium, but that there
was very little of the more dangerous uranium-235 left since the
reactor had been brought down to 6 percent power for a maintenance
operation when the explosion erupted.
Yemelyanov confirmed speculation that the reactor did not have a
conventional containment vessel used in the West to prevent radiation
leaks in case of a breakdown.
He said officials hope to restart the three undamaged reactors.
Pravda said crews were also working to remove radioactive particles
that were scattered at the plant and in the 18-mile evacuated zone
around it.
The government newspaper Izvestia has said topsoil in a ''danger
zone'' is being removed and the area paved over with concrete. It did
not say how big the ''danger zone'' is.
Pravda said the Kiev subway construction organization had sent a
crew of tunnel workers. The paper issued an appeal for Soviet
specialists to make themselves available, especially drillers,
excavators and crane operators.
The newspaper said volunteers from all over the country were
offering their services and coming to Chernobyl from as far away as
Urengoi, site of a major natural gas field 1,200 miles away in
northwestern Siberia.
It remained unclear how many people have died as a result of the
accident. The official news agency Tass said Monday that ''35 persons
are in a grave condition, six persons suffering from burns and
radiation died.''
It did not say when the victims died, or mention the two who were
reported earlier to have been killed fighting the fire at the nuclear
plant. The phrasing appeared to indicate that the six dead were in
addition to the two reported earlier.
But today, a Scandinavian reporter quoted Yemelyanov as saying a
total of six people died in the accident.
Soviet officials have said earlier that 204 people were hospitalized
and that 18 of them were in serious condition. Authorities have said
the worst cases were brought to Moscow, where they are being treated
with the help of bone marrow transplant specialists from the United
States.
Industrialist Armand Hammer arrived in Moscow today on a plane
loaded with supplies for the U.S. medical team. Hammer, who has
maintained contact with top Soviet officials for decades, was
instrumental in getting the Soviets to accept private American
medical help.
The head of the team, Dr. Richard Gale, did not answer his hotel
telephone late Monday. He has declined comment on his work in the
past, saying he had agreed with Soviet officials not to talk to
reporters.
The Kremlin has focused blame on local officials for the 68-hour
delay in telling the world about the accident and for mismanaging the
evacuation.
But Yemelyanov seemed to disagree.
''They (the local officials) were correct in evaluating the
situation and certain measures had been taken, but you saw how large
the destruction was and it was difficult for local personnel and
personnel on duty to cope with the situation. It was impossible,'' he
said.
Pravda says three local party officials have been punished and
suggested they also will lose their jobs.
Vladimir Lomeiko, spokesman for the Foreign Ministry, said the
announcement of the accident and the evacuation were delayed because
officials on the spot did not understand how bad the disaster was.
The plant town of about 25,000 people and three other communities
within six miles of the nuclear faciltiy were not evacuated until 36
hours after the explosion and fire. The remaining people within 18
miles of the facility did not begin moving out until a week after the
accident.
About 92,000 people are living in temporary homes after being
evacuated and 250,000 Kiev schoolchildren are to be sent away on an
early summer holiday starting Thursday.
AP-NY-05-13-86 1104EDT
a065 0541 13 May 86
PM-Kiev Prize,0295
Contest Winner Awaits Prize Of Kiev Trip
BOSTON (AP) - A high school student will have to wait for the prize
she won in a letter-writing contest: a trip to Kiev where she may
find Soviet pen pals to join the 65 others with whom she corresponds
worldwide.
Paris Major of Boston English High School was named the winner of
the contest for all Boston school children during an awards ceremony
Monday, but her mother and the sponsor of the trip said the prize
would have to wait because of the Soviet nuclear power plant accident
at Chernobyl, 80 miles north of Kiev.
''I would need a lot more information on conditions in Kiev than I
have now to make the decision on whether or not it would be
appropriate for her to go,'' Ruth DeWilde-Major told The Boston
Globe. ''I couldn't possibly make such a decision on the information
I now have.''
The trip will take place ''at a time that is absolutely safe,'' said
Gerald Wright, president of the Boston-Kiev Sister City Association,
a non-profit group that is sponsoring the trip and is promoting a
cultural relationship with the Ukrainian city.
Paris was chosen as the winner from among more than 100 students who
wrote letters to Soviet children. In her letter, she said she
corresponds with 65 pen pals her age throughout the world, but none
yet from the Soviet Union.
''I hope that some day our countries will be more united and we will
share valuable friendships together,'' she wrote. ''There are many
things that are decided for me by my elders, yet I still feel a
strong responsibility towards myself and mankind to show my concern
in issues which affect us.''
AP-NY-05-13-86 0842EDT
a083 0814 13 May 86
PM-FDA-Nuclear,0314
First Trace of Chernobyl Radiation in Imported Food
WASHINGTON (AP) - The Food and Drug Administration said today it has
detected the first trace of radiation from the Chernobyl nuclear
accident in imported food - isolated samples of Norwegian salmon and
Italian mushrooms - but the levels are far below any threat to
health.
The FDA said 17 samples of salmon from Norway showed 10 with no
detectable radiation, six with a trace amount and one sample with a
reading of 225 picocuries per kilogram of Iodine-131.
Three samples of mushrooms from Italy were tested, the agency said.
One showed no detectable radiation, one 153 picocuries of Iodine-131,
and one 1,656 picocuries.
Guidelines established by the FDA in 1982 set acceptable levels of
Iodine-131 at 8,000 picocuries per kilogram for general use food, and
1,500 picocuries for infant food.
The imported foods, intended for general use, were well within
standards and therefore were released for U.S. consumption despite
the trace amounts of radioactivity, the FDA said. Foods exceeding the
standards can be impounded by the agency and futher imports of the
same types of food restricted.
The FDA said trace amounts of Iodine-131 may appear in imported
foods for about 60 days and small amounts of Cesium-134 and
Cesium-137 may be encountered for about a year. The acceptable
standards for Cesium-134 and -137 are 10,000 picocuries per kilogram
for both general and infant foods.
FDA inspectors have been taking samples of fresh fruits, vegetables
and dairy products plus fresh and frozen fish imports from a dozen
affected countries for about 10 days. FDA Deputy Commissioner John
Norris described the testing as ''precautionary.''
''From what we know, we not only expect no problem in domestic
foods, we anticipate little or none in imports,'' Norris said.
''However, we are taking these extra steps to be sure.''
AP-NY-05-13-86 1115EDT
a002 2127 13 May 86
PM-News Digest,1361
Wednesday, May 14, 1986
Here are the top stories for PMs. The General Desk supervisor is Ron
CHERNOBYL ACCIDENT:
Gorbachev to Go on TV as Nuclear Cleanup Continues
MOSCOW - Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev, who has yet to comment
publicly on the Chernobyl nuclear accident, plans a nationally
televised address tonight but the state-run media have not said what
his subject will be. Meanwhile, clean-up efforts continue at the
Chernobyl nuclear plant. Slug PM-Nuclear Accident.
Television appearance scheduled for 1 p.m. EDT.
By Carol J. Williams.
Soviet Nuclear Cloud Has Italians Grumbling...
ROME - The long shadow of the Soviet nuclear cloud has sown
confusion and fear among Italians torn between government
reassurances and prophets of gloom. While government officials talk
millirems and micro-Roentgens, Italians are grumbling, panic-buying
and staging impromptu radioactivity tests. Slug PM-Nuclear Confusion.
New, will stand. 690 words.
LaserPhoto NY6, father and son checked for radiation in Milan. By
Jennifer Parmelee.
And May Have Impact on West German Elections
FRANKFURT, West Germany - The Soviet radioactive fallout that has
ruined farmers' crops and cramped leisure lifestyles now clouds the
chances of West Germany's governing coalition in a crucial state
election next month, analysts say. Slug PM-Germany-Nuclear. New, will
stand. 680 words.
By Mark Heinrich.
Angry Poland Offers Blankets to Homeless of New York City
WARSAW, Poland - Poland, piqued by U.S. Senate stipulations on
powdered milk for Poles affected by the Chernobyl nuclear accident,
says it will give 5,000 blankets and sleeping bags to the homeless of
New York City. Sen. Paul Simon says the Poles have read their
intentions all wrong. Slug PM-Poland-Blankets.
Developing.
WASHINGTON TODAY: Confusion Around Chernobyl Similar to Three Mile
Island
WASHINGTON - The statement from General Public Utilities might as
well have been in Russian for all the information it gave people
about what was going on at Three Mile Island nuclear power plant. One
can easily find disturbing similarities to how Soviet officials
handled the recent accident at Chernobyl. Slug PM-Telling The Story.
670 words.
Moved in advance as a092.
Washington Today. Analysis by Political Writer Donald M. Rothberg
CAMPAIGN '86:
First Woman Vs. Woman Gubernatorial Election Likely
DES MOINES, Iowa - Gov. Terry Branstad's move away from President
SHCHRANSKY: Urges U.S. to Keep Pressure on Moscow to Free Soviet Jews
SPACE SHUTTLE: New NASA Probe Focuses on Intimidation Charges
REAGAN: Vows No First-Use of Nulcear Weapons
FOREST FIRES: Gusting Winds Rekindle Fears That Fire Will Advance
AIRLINE SAFETY: Congressional Panel Hits FAA Inspectors
DEFENSE SPENDING: Say Company with Ties to Libya Will Not Get
SOCIAL SECURITY: Reagan Pick to Head Agency Faces House Panel Today
DISCRIMINATION: Consent Decree Calls for Open Housing, Employment
BRAZIL EPIDEMIC: Dengue Strikes 350,000; Officials Fear Yellow Fever
(End missing.)
a030 0200 14 May 86
PM-Digest Advisory,0108
All the budgets have moved. Here is a list with Laserphoto numbers:
WASHINGTON - PM-Shcharansky, a008. LaserPhoto WX4.
WASHINGTON - PM-Reagan-Students, a010. LaserPhoto WX5.
WASHINGTON - PM-FAA-Inspections, a011
ROME - PM-Nuclear Confusion, a012. LaserPhoto NY6.
WASHINGTON - PM-Fiat-Pentagon, a013
WASHINGTON - PM-Social Security Nominee, a014
FRANKFURT - PM-Germany-Nuclear, a015
WASHINGTON - PM-Space Shuttle, a016. LaserPhoto WX8.
LUCAS - PM-Town's Hopes, a017
CICERO - PM-Cicero Discrimination, a019
WARSAW - PM-Poland-Blankets, a020
HAMPSTEAD - PM-Forest Fires, a021. LaserPhoto JAK1.
MOSCOW - PM-Nuclear Accident, a027
LINCOLN - PM-Nebraska Governor, a029. LaserColor AH1,2
The AP
AP-NY-05-14-86 0501EDT
- - - - - -
a060 0603 14 May 86
PM-News Advisory,0102
-PM-Shcharansky, a008, will be updated after his 10 a.m. speech.
-PM-Budget, a022. The House meets at 11 a.m. Update planned.
-PM-FAA-Inspections, a011, update expected at midmorning with
details of the GAO report.
-PM-Social Security Nominee, a014, prenoon update planned based on a
9:30 a.m. hearing.
-PM-Forest Fires, a057. Updateprospects uncertain.
-PM-Nuclear Accident, a027. Gorbachev television appearance expected
at around 1 p.m., but time is not certain.
AP-NY-05-14-86 0903EDT
a012 2306 13 May 86
PM-Nuclear Confusion, Bjt,0750
Radioactive Threat Spawns Confusion, Panic-Buying
Laserphoto NY6
By JENNIFER PARMELEE
ROME (AP) - The long shadow of the Chernobyl nuclear accident has
created confusion and fear among Italians who are torn between
government reassurances and prophets of gloom.
While government officials speak of millirems, micro-Roentgens, rads
and picocuries, ordinary Italians are grumbling, panic-buying,
staging protest marches and impromptu radioactivity tests.
''Has there been a little confusion? A little confusion?'' asked
produce salesman Giovanni Ricci, clasping his hands in the Italian
gesture that is equivalent to, ''Give me a break.''
''We don't know what's going on here. All we do know is that we're
losing money,'' he said at his fruit and vegetable stall at Rome's
main Vittorio Emmanuele market.
The Italian Health Ministry banned 14 varieties of leafy vegetables
on May 2, six days after the accident at the nuclear power plant in
the Soviet Ukraine. But the order also barred ''similar'' produce - a
stipulation that led to varying interpretations.
''First they said we couldn't sell zucchini. Then they cut off all
the (zucchini) flowers ... Then we could sell them,'' Ricci said.
''One day they took away all the strawberries. The next day they
brought them back.''
Although the order was lifted Monday night everywhere except
northern Italy, produce vendors say customers remain spooked.
Fears about radioactivity have extended to all kinds of foods, even
fish. It has become a nationwide debate.
Newspapers argue the relative merits of white asparagus versus green
asparagus. Some experts tout the iodine found in sea creatures as an
antidote to radioactivity. Others say fish are just as susceptible as
cows.
Wholesale produce prices are reported to have dropped as much as 50
percent as a result, with the fruit and vegetable business losing
about $3.3 million a day. Such concerns have left similar marks on
meat and milk sales.
The May 2 order also included a ban on serving or selling fresh milk
to expectant mothers or children under 10.
The government has assured adults it is perfectly safe for them to
drink fresh milk. Yet it remains widely shunned, with customers
feverishly buying up and hoarding stocks of powdered and conserved
milk.
''The levels of radioactivity ... show there is no danger for adults
in consuming fresh milk,'' said Franco Melchiorri, milk sales
director for the Rome region. ''But unfortunately, customers are
overcome by panic.''
The world of Italian officialdom has added to the general confusion.
On May 2, barely an hour after a news conference by top government
energy and civil defense officials who said Italians only needed to
wash their vegetables, the Health Ministry banned leafy vegetables
altogether, one of the stiffest measures in Europe.
For a week after the first signs of fallout appeared, various and
often conflicting readings were handed out sparingly - in millirems,
micro-Roentgens, picocuries, rads.
Conflicts between government agencies emerged publicly over
radioactivity levels, with one government scientist last week
claiming radiation had reached 100 times the base level. The claim
was denied by the Civil Defense Ministry, which cited an
interpretation error.
On Tuesday, local health officials for the Veneto region reported
levels of Iodine 131 in vegetables had doubled overnight, but the
central government reported a slight decline in radioactivity in the
same region.
Civil Defense Minister Giuseppe Zamberletti has said officials were
ill-prepared to deal with the radioactive cloud from the Soviet
nuclear power plant, and that scientists sometimes improvised to
measure radioactivity.
Noting that Italy only learned through hard experience that it
needed nationwide monitoring for earthquakes, he said Tuesday night:
''We must do the same for radioactivity.''
A poll conducted by La Repubblica newspaper among 1,565 people shows
many Italians are disenchanted: 52 percent of respondents believed
government figures on radioactivity. Forty percent considered them
false.
Some frustrated local officials have taken matters into their own
hands.
The Rome prosecutor's office ordered an investigation into the
government's handling of information about radiation.
In Milan, one government official cautioned parents against letting
children play outside. Another local official was later quoted as
saying it was all right as long as the children took baths afterward.
In Florence and in Venice on Tuesday, regional officials
unilaterally banned the sale of sheep and goat milk and ricotta
cheese, citing undisclosed results of radioactive tests.
One newspaper has offered a ''guide to eating in these times of
fallout.'' The maverick, anti-nuclear Radical Party set up stands in
central Milan with Geiger counters to measure radiation on the shoes
of passersby.
AP-NY-05-14-86 0207EDT
a015 2345 13 May 86
PM-Germany-Nuclear, Bjt,0630
Chernobyl Accident Boosts Chances of Anti-Nuclear Parties
By MARK HEINRICH
FRANKFURT, West Germany (AP) - Anxiety about the Chernobyl nuclear
power disaster has played into the hands of left-wing political
parties seeking to upset a backer of Chancellor Helmut Kohl in a key
governor's race leading to general election next January.
Opinion polls indicate a sudden surge in opposition to nuclear power
that has brightened prospects for the Social Democrats and Greens
Party, both of which have long opposed nuclear power.
''Not even the NATO nuclear missile deployment decision (in 1983) so
emotionalized the German people,'' Walter Tacke, director of the
respected Emnid Institute which conducted one of the polls, said
Tuesday.
Kohl's center-right coalition government, which has been criticized
as indecisive and disorganized, has insisted that fallout drifting
from the stricken nuclear reactor in the Soviet Ukraine never was a
serious threaten to public health.
But at the same time, several West German states, including one
governed by Kohl's Christian Democrats, were banning consumption of
fresh vegetables and milk that had not been inspected for radiation,
and warning people not to play in the grass or swim outdoors.
Citizens deluged state environment and weather offices with requests
for radiation readings and advice on whether they could take their
babies outside or go on vacations.
''People felt they weren't being taken care of. They couldn't
believe federal assurances that the radiation was harmless when they
were being warned not to drink milk,'' said Eduard Heussen, spokesman
for the Social Democrats in Bonn, the West German capital.
''What has happened is an affirmation of our drive for a phase-out
of nuclear power plants and their replacement with safer
alternatives,'' Heussen said in an interview Tuesday.
Opinion polls have suggested serious trouble for Kohl's coalition in
a key state election next month in Lower Saxony, which was expected
to be close even before the Chernobyl disaster.
Lower Saxony Governor Ernst Albrecht, a Christian Democrat, faces a
Social Democratic campaign led by lawyer Gerhard Schroeder that has
taken off over public alarm about Chernobyl.
German media commentators say that a Social Democrat-Greens defeat
of Albrecht in Lower Saxony could build pressure within the governing
coalition to replace Kohl for the national election campaign.
The Emnid Institute said that in a poll taken shortly after the
April 26 Chernobyl accident, 69 percent of the 1,000 respondents
opposed further construction of nuclear plants, compared to 46
percent in a similar 1982 survey.
It also said 60 percent of Christian Democratic voters queried felt
the accident would damage Kohl's party, and that 53 percent of all
respondents expected the Social Democrats and Greens to win a
majority in the 1987 federal elections compared to only 36 percent in
February.
''What is so unusual (in the recent survey) is this reaction that
does not differ according to party allegiance,'' he explained.
''You see, the Germans have a deep-seated angst toward war and any
problem that is a matter of life or death, affecting their health or
environment. Radiation is so horrible because we can only notice its
effects,'' Tacke said.
The government last Friday promised swift emergency aid to farmers
who say they could lose millions of dollars worth of produce ruined
by fallout or otherwise shunned by fearful consumers.
Farmers have long been a bastion of Christian Democratic votes in
West Germany, and Lower Saxony is a major agricultural state.
Kohl and other government leaders say some state precautionary
moves, such as warnings against swimming, were made with good
intentions, but were exaggerated.
Last week, Interior Minister Friedrich Zimmermann dismissed the
clamor for a phaseout of the country's 20 nuclear power plants. ''In
our country, a jumbo jet could crash-land on a nuclear plant and
nothing would happen to the reactor,'' he said.
AP-NY-05-14-86 0246EDT
a020 0039 14 May 86
PM-Poland-Blankets, Bjt,0635
Poland Offering Blankets To U.S. Homeless
WARSAW, Poland (AP) - Piqued by conditions imposed by the U.S.
Senate on distribution of powdered milk to Poles affected by the
Soviet nuclear accident, Poland says it is giving 5,000 sleeping bags
and blankets to New York City's homeless.
And the communist government stipulated Tuesday that given ''the
antipathy of President Ronald Reagan's administration'' toward
helping the poor, the blankets and sleeping bags are to be
distributed by a non-governmental charity.
In New York, Mayor Edward I. Koch called the Polish offer foolish
and said the city's homeless are provided with shelter, food and
medical service. He suggested the sleeping bags be donated instead to
the Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts.
The Senate passed a resolution May 6 calling for the powdered milk
to be shipped to help Poland replace milk tainted by radiation from
the April 26 nuclear accident at Chernobyl in the Soviet Ukraine.
In passing the resolution, the U.S. lawmakers stipulated that the
aid be routed through church and other charitable groups to assure
that it was distributed without regard to political considerations.
Jerzy Urban, a spokesman for the Polish government, said the aid
''could have been a gesture of friendship, but unfortunately ... it
was contaminated with unfriendliness.''
He accused the Senate of ''questioning the good intention and
honesty of Polish authorities'' and said the resolution treated
Poland as a ''whipping boy.''
Saying Poles were shocked to read about the ''many thousands of
homeless people'' who sleep in the streets of New York City, Urban
said, ''the Polish side ... out of humanitarian motives has decided
to give the homeless of New York City 5,000 blankets and sleeping
bags.''
A sponsor of the Senate resolution, Sen. Paul Simon, D-Ill., said
the lawmakers had meant to help the Polish people rather than
embarrass their government.
David Carle, Simon's press spokesman, said when Simon first
suggested to the Polish Embassy that emergency milk supplies could be
sent to the government for distribution, embassy officials seemed to
be enthusiastic about the idea.
But Carle said that just before the Senate vote, the Polish
government's position flip-flopped. He said Simon was contacted by an
embassy official who suggested the resolution was an effort to
embarrass the communist government.
Carle said the wording of the resolution then was changed to keep
the government out of the distribution network in the hope that would
eliminate opposition from Polish authorities to the donation.
Urban said the Polish government did not request any aid from the
West after the nuclear accident that sent a cloud of radiation over
much of Europe, tainting some milk and other fresh foods.
Polish farmers have been prohibited from allowing their dairy cows
to graze outdoors because of the radioactive fallout.
Urban said Poland has arranged to buy powdered milk from Western
Europe because of a temporary shortage caused by increased demand,
and that the government appreciates the shipments of powdered milk
sent by private agencies in the United States and Western Europe.
The Roman Catholic Church in Poland on Monday began distributing 50
tons of powdered milk airlifted to Warsaw by Americares, a private
U.S. relief agency, as well as 56 tons donated by West German
Catholic groups.
In New York, Koch told reporters that he thought the Polish
government was sending the sleeping bags and blankets to make a
political point.
''It happens the homeless in the city of New York have beds and
sheets and blankets and medical care and three meals a day in
facilities with showers all made available to them,'' Koch said.
He suggested the Polish government instead ''give those sleeping
blankets and bags to the Boy Scouts and the Girl Scouts. And that
would be a good way to distribute them without political rancor,
without seeking to engage in upsmanship.''
AP-NY-05-14-86 0340EDT
a027 0132 14 May 86
PM-Nuclear Accident, Bjt,0806
Radio Moscow: Town of Chernobyl No Longer Dangerous
By CAROL J. WILLIAMS
MOSCOW (AP) - The official radio said today that radiation in the
evacuated city of Chernobyl, 11 miles from the site of a nuclear
power disaster, was no longer dangerous, and a government official
said levels were once again normal at most observation points.
Meanwhile, state television's Tuesday evening news said a speech by
Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev would be broadcast tonight, but
did not indicate what the subject would be. Gorbachev so far has made
no public statements on the accident.
A report today on Radio Moscow said the ''consequences of the
accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power station are being stamped out
at a growing rate.''
It quoted decontamination experts as saying that radiation in
Chernobyl ''is no longer hazardous to people'' but did not say if or
when residents would be allowed to return.
No population figure is available for Chernobyl, but the city is
thought to have about 30,000 residents.
The Soviets have said 92,000 people were evacuated from an 18-mile
radius of the plant following the explosion and fire April 26 in the
No. 4 reactor of the nuclear power plant 80 miles north of the
Ukrainian capital Kiev. The official casualty toll is six dead and
about 200 injured.
An invisible cloud of radioactivity from the stricken plant spewed
over the western Soviet Union and Europe, and has worked its way
gradually around the world.
Deputy Premier Boris Y. Shcherbina, head of the government
investigation into the accident, held a briefing Tuesday for
diplomats from 15 nations.
Diplomats said Shcherbina told them readings Tuesday at five of
seven monitoring stations in the western Soviet Union showed
radiation had dropped to normal background levels, but that levels at
two stations southwest of the plant remained slightly above normal.
They also reported conflicting statements about emissions from the
plant. ''First they said emissions stopped, then they said emissions
practically stopped,'' said one diplomat who spoke on condition of
anonymity.
Shcherbina also said a French-made polymer was being used to cover
ground contaminated by radiation, the diplomats said.
The government evening newspaper Izvestia on Tuesday said workers
were covering up to 200,000 square yards each day, but did not
indicate the size of the area to be sealed.
Tuesday night's television news carried brief footage of cleanup
crews at work in Chernobyl and an interview with Boris Gudaspov, a
radiation control expert directing decontamination work.
Gudaspov said environmental conditions do not threaten the health of
cleanup workers, but he added that it was too early to tell when the
nearly 92,000 evacuees might be able to return home.
U.S. industrialist Armand Hammer arrived Tuesday with a shipment of
medicine and equipment needed to treat radiation victims.
Hammer, chairman of Occidental Petroleum Corp. and a longtime
associate of Kremlin leaders, arranged through the Soviet Embassy in
Washington to send three American medical specialists and an Israeli
doctor to assist with bone marrow transplants to save the lives of
those who received heavy doses of radiation at Chernobyl.
High doses of radiation can kill bone marrow, causing death unless
the marrow is replaced quickly.
Hammer said the foreign specialists will not be able to predict the
victims' chances for recovery for another two weeks.
The 87-year-old Hammer brought about $500,000 worth of medical
supplies with him for the treatments, including antibiotics and
soybean lectin, which the specialists plan to mix with donated marrow
that is not an exact match for the recipient.
Izvestia reported that crews are continuing to dump lead onto the
damaged reactor to close off openings from which radiation could
escape.
Workers last week erected dikes to prevent rainwater from washing
contamination from the power plant into the nearby Pripyat river.
Izvestia said the sewer system at the complex was closed off Tuesday
for the same reason.
In Washington Tuesday, Nuclear Regulatory Commission staff members
said they believe about half the radioactive material in the core of
the Soviet reactor was released to the atmosphere in the accident.
The Environmental Protection Agency in its daily report on the
Chernobyl accident said radioactivity in rainfall in Boise, Idaho,
and Salt Lake City, Utah, was far greater in some new samples than
has been reported before, but still not enough to require protective
action.
An official Soviet government statement Monday said six people had
died, but it did not make clear whether the six deaths were in
addition to two announced shortly after the accident. Ivan
Yemelyanov, deputy director of the organization that designed the
Chernobyl reactor, told West European reporters the total death count
was six, including the first two victims.
AP-NY-05-14-86 0432EDT
- - - - - -
a051 0450 14 May 86
PM-Digest Briefs,1231
Eds: This package does not contain the following items from the News
Digest: MOSCOW-Nuclear Accident, a027; ROME-Nuclear Confusion, a012;
WASHINGTON-Telling the Story, a092; LINCOLN-Nebraska Governor, a029;
DES MOINES-Iowa Governor-Farm, a068; WASHINGTON-Space Shuttle, a016;
WASHINGTON-Social Security Nominee, a014; RIO DE JANEIRO-Brazil
Epidemic, a083; UNDATED-Farmers-Food Stamps, a076.
---
FRANKFURT, West Germany (AP) - Anxiety about the Chernobyl nuclear
power disaster has played into the hands of left-wing political
parties seeking to upset a backer of Chancellor Helmut Kohl in a key
governor's race leading to general election next January.
Opinion polls indicate a sudden surge in opposition to nuclear power
that has brightened prospects for the Social Democrats and Greens
Party, both of which have long opposed nuclear power.
''Not even the NATO nuclear missile deployment decision (in 1983) so
emotionalized the German people,'' Walter Tacke, director of the
respected Emnid Institute which conducted one of the polls, said
Tuesday.
---
WARSAW, Poland (AP) - Piqued by conditions imposed by the U.S.
Senate on distribution of powdered milk to Poles affected by the
Soviet nuclear accident, Poland says it is giving 5,000 sleeping bags
and blankets to New York City's homeless.
And the communist government stipulated Tuesday that given ''the
antipathy of President Ronald Reagan's administration'' toward
helping the poor, the blankets and sleeping bags are to be
distributed by a non-governmental charity.
In New York, Mayor Edward I. Koch called the Polish offer foolish
and said the city's homeless are provided with shelter, food and
medical service. He suggested the sleeping bags be donated instead to
the Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts.
---
WASHINGTON (AP) - Anatoly Shcharansky, the Soviet Jewish dissident
WASHINGTON (AP) - President Reagan says the United States will never
HAMPSTEAD, N.C. (AP) - A handful of firefighters kept watch early
WASHINGTON (AP) - The Federal Aviation Administration, already under
WASHINGTON (AP) - Defense Secretary Caspar W. Weinberger has made
CICERO, Ill. (AP) - This Chicago suburb, once held up by the Rev.
LUCAS, Iowa (AP) - The town that spawned John L. Lewis has gone
a071 0736 14 May 86
PM-Nuclear Accident, Insert, a027,0095
MOSCOW Insert 2 grafs after 19th graf: The 87-year-old xxx recipient
To ADD Soviet report that pictures were faked
Meanwhile, Radio Moscow and the Italian television network RAI said
today that pictures purportedly showing the Chernobyl plant just
after the disaster were fakes.
The New York headquarters of ABC and NBC reported they bought the
pictures, which they broadcast Monday, from a Yugoslav tourist. The
networks said they began questioning the pictures' authenticity after
RAI said the scene closely resembled an industrial area of Trieste.
Izvestia reported: 20th graf
AP-NY-05-14-86 1036EDT
a041 0325 14 May 86
PM-Gorbachev,0614
Institute Says Gorbachev Formidable, but Modernization Likely to Fail
By DAVID MASON
Chief European Correspondent
LONDON (AP) - Mikhail S. Gorbachev is the most sophisticated and
effective Soviet leader in many years, but his effort to modernize
Soviet society probably will fall short, a British-based research
organization said today.
The International Institute for Strategic Studies said in its annual
report that Gorbachev, who took power last March 11 after the death
of Konstantin U. Chernenko, may need another year or two to
consolidate his power, but that so far he ''seemed totally innocent
of any belief in 'democratization.' ''
''People and governments in the West hoped that this new wind from
the East would be softer and more reasonable ... but (Gorbachev) sees
little wrong with the basic aims of his predecessors,'' the report
said.
The West ''now has to face a far more sophisticated and effective
opponent than it has seen for many years,'' the report said.
Leonid I. Brezhnev led the Soviet Communist Party for 18 years and
his final years were marked by a series of health problems that
sapped his energy. He died in 1982 and was succeeded by Yuri V.
Andropov, who died after 15 months in power. Chernenko took over from
Andropov but died in 13 months.
The institute's annual report said Soviet people looked to Gorbachev
''for a vigorous, dynamic leadership, providing them with new
direction, invigorating the economy, freeing society of the
deadweight of outmoded thinking - in short, radically transforming
Soviet society.''
To some extent, these expectations have been fulfilled, the report
said.
''But Soviet social and economic problems are systemic, and it is
doubtful whether Gorbachev's program of rationalization and
modernization, but without true reform, will lead to the hoped-for
millennium,'' the report said.
Robert O'Neill, director of the institute, said Gorbachev also may
face new problems in the aftermath of the April 26 Chernobyl nuclear
power plant disaster.
O'Neill told a news conference that the Chernobyl disaster, which
occurred after the report was compiled, ''bears out very much what we
say.''
''When the Soviet Union comes under pressure, the initial reaction
is to close up,'' he said.
O'Neill suggested there may have been an internal Kremlin struggle
over the amount of information disclosed about Chernobyl. ''This
whole issue has got a long way to run yet ... and one can expect
continuing stormy weather ahead'' for Gorbachev, he said.
The institute is a center for information and reseach on
international security, defense and arms control in the nuclear age.
It is non-governmental, financed largely by foundations, and says its
members and staff come from 70 countries.
On other subjects:
-O'Neill said the April 15 U.S. air raid on Libya ''served to send a
-The institute described terrorism as ''a growth industry,'' and
-The U.S.-Soviet summit meeting in Geneva last November ''seems to
AP-NY-05-14-86 0626EDT
a050 0429 14 May 86
PM-Soviet Fallout,0387
Radiation Traces Reported Across Nation; Calls Flood Oregon Hot Line
Oregon residents flooded a state hot line with worried questions as
health officials across the nation reported traces of radiation from
the Soviet nuclear disaster, with the highest concentrations noted in
Idaho.
Officials emphasized Tuesday that none of the readings of
radioactivity posed danger, even in Idaho, where analysis of
rainwater that fell on Boise Sunday showed about 1,680 picocuries per
liter. Picocuries are a measurement of radioactivity.
''We don't see this as being a major concern and we're not issuing
any health alerts at this time,'' Cheryl Koshuta, chief of the Idaho
Bureau of Hazardous Materials, said Tuesday.
She said the reading was well below the level of radiation in
drinking water at which the Environmental Protection Agency would
take action to protect public health, and ''there's certainly nothing
to be concerned about.''
An April 26 explosion and fire at a nuclear power plant at Chernobyl
in the Ukraine killed at least six people and spewed radioactivity
across much of Europe and gradually around the world.
In Oregon, the level of radiation in Portland's air nearly tripled
in the latest reported samples, taken in the 24-hour period ending at
6 p.m. Monday.
The state Health Division set up a telephone hot line Monday
afternoon for calls from people concerned about the potential health
impact and officials said 160 were received in the first half-day.
''It's been literally non-stop,'' said spokeswoman Judy Hoaglund.
''It's just been busy all day. The major questions are about milk and
a lot of questions from pregnant women and women with young
children.''
She said some people simply don't believe health officials when they
say that the levels of radiation are no cause for alarm.
Scientists at Iowa State University in Des Moines said thunderstorms
late last week and over the weekend were probably responsible for
stirring up low levels of radiation detected Tuesday in Ames.
''I don't think it poses any appreciable danger,'' said Milo Voss,
manager of safety, health and plant protection at the university.
''If one were to establish an ignorable level (of radiation) this
would probably be it.''
Officials also reported traces of radiation in Virginia,
Pennsylvania, Florida and Maryland.
AP-NY-05-14-86 0729EDT
a055 0528 14 May 86
PM-US-Chernobyl Rdp,0781
Long-term Effects Feared From Chernobyl Nuclear Accident
By DAVE SKIDMORE
WASHINGTON (AP) - Even if the Soviet count of only six dead and 200
sick from the Chernobyl nuclear accident is accurate, many more
people could face cancer, sterility and miscarriages from the
radioactive fallout, says a panel of anti-nuclear scientists and
physicians.
''We're looking at many years of suffering - people who will worry
about having children, people who when they are sick won't know
whether it's due to the accident or would have happened anyway,''
said Rosalie Bertell, a mathematician of the Canadian-based Institute
of Concern for Public Health.
At a news conference Tuesday sponsored by the Washington-based
Health & Energy Institute, she warned that the death toll could
increase over the next two months as victims succumb from radiation
damage to bone marrow and the intestinal system.
''We're talking here about a very slow and painful death,'' she
said.
It is difficult to estimate the number of deaths without knowing the
strength of the radiation dose to people near the Chernobyl plant,
which the Soviets have not revealed, she said. The Soviets have said
92,000 people were evacuated from an 18-mile radius of the plant
following the April 26 accident.
Long-term, the accident may have left a legacy of cancer, said Bill
Caldicott, an Australian doctor who works with Physicians for Social
Responsibility.
An epidemic of leukemia could begin in three to five years, and
solid cancers could begin to appear in eight to 10 years, he said.
Half a world away in the United States, government assurances that
fallout from the accident is too slight to cause harm are misleading,
panel members said.
''When the government is saying there is no risk from fallout - it's
basically lying,'' said Robert J. Alvarez, director of the
Washington-based Nuclear Weapons and Power Project of the
Environmental Policy Institute. ''There is no safe dose of
radiation.''
The Environmental Protection Agency on Tuesday reported that
radioactivity in rainfall in two Western cities was far greater in
some new samples than has been reported before, but still not enough
to trigger protective action.
The agency, in its daily report on the effects of the Chernobyl
accident, said the samples in question were taken Saturday at Boise,
Idaho, and May 4 at Salt Lake City, Utah.
Rainwater in Boise yielded iodine-131 at 900 picocuries per liter or
9,000 picocuries per square meter of ground coverage. That was still
less than 10 percent of the level at which farmers would be advised
to take actions such as keeping cows out of pastures to minimize the
danger of contaminated milk.
A picocurie is a measure of the amount of radioactivity present.
Meanwhile in Baltimore, state officials said radioactivity has shown
up in air samples, but the concentrations are so low they pose no
health risk to Maryland residents.
The levels found were less than 1 percent of the maximum permissible
concentration for particulates in the air. Analyses were to be
conducted late Tuesday and today on milk samples from Maryland dairy
farms, health officials said.
Briefing the Nuclear Regulatory Commission on what is known about
the Chernobyl accident, NRC staff members said Tuesday they believe
about half the radioactive material in the core of the Soviet reactor
was released to the atmosphere.
They said there probably was an initial puff of radiation followed
by a sustained release for several days. Whole body doses of
radiation probably totaled about 2 millirem over two days in
Stockholm, 5 millirem over the same period in Helsinki and 100 rem
over one day in Chernobyl, the staff said.
A rem - a thousand millirems - is a measure of radiation to the
body. A chest X-ray is equal to about 25 millirem.
Victor Stello, NRC executive director for operations, said the
accident taught the world once again that ''an accident anywhere is
an accident everywhere'' and that an international early warning
system is needed.
As far as lessons for U.S. plants, he said, ''There's nothing that
we see coming out of this accident that suggests that we ought to
change what we're doing.''
Members of the anti-nuclear panel, however, were among those signing
a letter to President Reagan calling for the immediate shutdown of
U.S. nuclear weapons reactors at Hanford, Wash., and Savannah River,
S.C.
The Hanford reactor - like the Chernobyl reactor - uses graphite to
moderate the nuclear reaction and has no containment structure.
Federal officials have said it has a safe design and good safety
record over 23 years.
AP-NY-05-14-86 0827EDT
- - - - - -
a077 0810 14 May 86
US-Chernobyl Rdp, 2nd Ld, a055,0293
Eds: Top 8 grafs new with officials saying accident hasn't changed
need for nuclear power
By DAVE SKIDMORE
WASHINGTON (AP) - Officials of the U.S. nuclear industry said today
that the Soviet accident at Chernobyl has not changed the world's
need for nuclear power, and that reactors are becoming safer.
''We should not allow the Soviet experience to have a greater impact
on the future of nuclear power here than it really warrants,'' said
Keith Turley, general chairman of the Nuclear Power Assembly meeting
this week in Washington.
Turley and others said nuclear power is essential to the United
States and that reactors are becoming safer each year.
Sherwood Smith Jr., chairman of the Edison Electric Institute, said
the industry is forming a committee to review the Chernobyl accident
and learn what lessons it can.
But he added: ''We have not and will not ever be confronted in this
country with an event like what happened at Chernobyl.''
Turley said that the industry's goals are to renew the
Price-Anderson Act that provides nuclear accident insurance;
standardize plant design and streamline the licensing process; and
transform the five-member Nuclear Regulatory Commission into a single
administrator. All of these changes would have to be approved by
Congress.
E. Linn Draper, president of the American Nuclear Society, said the
changes are necessary for the survival of the nuclear industry and
new orders for nuclear plants.
On Tuesday, a panel of anti-nuclear scientists and physicians said
that even if the Soviet count of only six dead and 200 sick from the
Chernobyl nuclear accident is accurate, many more people could face
cancer, sterility and miscarriages from the radioactive fallout.
''We're looking: 2nd graf
AP-NY-05-14-86 1111EDT
a066 0657 14 May 86
PM-Chernobyl-Pictures,0314
Networks May Have Unwittingly Bought Phony Chernobyl Pictures
NEW YORK (AP) - Two U.S. television networks say they are
investigating the authenticity of photographs they broadcast that
purportedly showed the burning Chernobyl nuclear plant in the Soviet
Union. An Italian network that used the same film said today it was a
fake.
Spokesman from ABC and NBC said they obtained the film from a
Yugoslav tourist who said he took them during a recent visit to Kiev,
which is 80 miles away from the nuclear plant.
The pictures were broadcast on Monday, though both networks said
they purchased the photograph a day after the nuclear disaster.
The possibility that the pictures were a fraud arose when the
Italian television network RAI, which also showed them, began getting
calls from viewers in Trieste. The viewers said the picture looked
much like one taken during a recent cement factory fire.
''On the basis of a report from our correspondent in Trieste who
looked into this matter, we are certain that this (film) was a
fake,'' Filippo D'Onofrio, a RAI official, told The Associated Press
today.
Anchorman Peter Jennings on ABC's ''World News Tonight'' told
viewers Tuesday night that there was a question of whether the
pictures were really of Chernobyl. ''We and others may have been the
victims of a scam,'' he said.
NBC showed the picture of the Trieste fire and the one they were
told was the Chernobyl plant on its ''Nightly News'' broadcast.
Anchorman Tom Brokaw said the Italians ''pointed out how closely it
resembles the other scene.''
ABC spokeswoman Elise Adde and NBC's Natalie Tiranno said their
networks would have no further comment until the investigation was
completed.
ABC and NBC said they purchased the photograph from the tourist, who
was not identified, a day after the nuclear disaster.
In Moscow, Radio Moscow today reported that the networks had
broadcast ''falsified film.''
AP-NY-05-14-86 0957EDT
a002 2122 14 May 86
PM-News Digest,1147
Thursday, May 15, 1986
Here are the top stories for PMs. The General Desk supervisor is Ron
CHERNOBYL ACCIDENT:
Gorbachev Goes Public in Effort to Limit Diplomatic Losses
MOSCOW - Mikhail S. Gorbachev's first public statement on the
Chernobyl disaster revealed the casualty toll has risen to nine and
attempted to limit diplomatic loss by renewing a moratorium on
nuclear testing while again urging Washington to join the nuclear
test ban. Slug PM-Chernobyl-Nuclear.
Developing. By Alison Smale.
Gorbachev Mixed Patriotic Pride with Skillful Politics
MOSCOW - Mikhail S. Gorbachev's first statement on the Chernobyl
accident mixed pride in Soviet heroism and skillful political
proposals apparently aimed at recovering from any diplomatic damage
the disaster caused. Slug PM-Gorbachev-Speech. 720. New, should
stand.
An AP Analysis by Andrew Rosenthal.
Gorbachev Struggles to Salvage Image After Wall of Silence
WASHINGTON - Mikhail Gorbachev's unusual TV report to the Soviet
people reinforced his image as a new-style leader but it can't
rekindle the glow lost in his 18 days of silence after the nuclear
meltdown at Chernobyl. Slug PM-Kremlin Stonewall. New, will stand.
850 words.
Analysis by Bryan Brumley
SOUTH AFRICA: Black Squatters Overrun Symbol of Discrimination
MIDDLE EAST: Shultz Says U.S. Issued Word of Caution to Israel and
SPACE SHUTTLE:
CENTRAL AMERICA:
EXECUTION: Murderer Who Twice Escaped Death Goes To Chamber
CLIMBERS: Eight Missing On Mountain; Three Die
BUDGET BATTLE: House Likely to Back Tax Hike and Defense Cut
PHARMACEUTICAL TRADE: Senate OKs Overseas Sale of Unapproved Drugs
AIDS: Military Says Positive Tests for Recruits Holding Steady
SUNBELT: Panel Urges States Not To Ignore Rural Areas
AGING AMERICA: The Baby Boomers Pad the Aging Middle-Aged
AP-NY-05-15-86 0022EDT
a037 0241 15 May 86
PM-Digest Advisory,0110
All the budgets have moved. Here is a list with Laserphoto numbers:
WASHINGTON - PM-Shultz-Middle East, a009. LaserPhoto WX9.
WASHINGTON - PM-Space Shuttle, a010
WASHINGTON - PM-Belize-Embassy, a011
WASHINGTON - PM-Aging America, a014
ATLANTA - PM-Sunbelt Shadows, a015
WASHINGTON - PM-AIDS-Military, a017
MOSCOW - PM-Gorbachev-Speech, a018
WASHINGTON - PM-Kremlin Stonewall, a020
WASHINGTON - PM-Budget, a021
WASHINGTON - PM-Drug Exports, a022
CAPE CANAVERAL - PM-Space Station, a023
TIMBERLINE LODGE - PM-Climbers, a027. LaserPhotos PD1,2,3.
HUNTSVILLE - PM-Pinkerton Execution, a028. LaserPhoto NY83.
PHOENIX - PM-Gandhi-Squatters, a029. LaserPhoto NY5.
MOSCOW - PM-Chernobyl-Nuclear, a036
AP-NY-05-15-86 0541EDT
a018 2335 14 May 86
PM-Gorbachev-Speech, Bjt,0793
Statement On Chernobyl Mixes Empathy, Pride And Politics
AP News Analysis
By ANDREW ROSENTHAL
MOSCOW (AP) - Mikhail S. Gorbachev's first statement on the
Chernobyl accident mixed pride in Soviet heroism and skillful
political proposals apparently aimed at recovering from any
diplomatic damage caused by the disaster.
Gorbachev appeared on national television Wednesday night after more
than two weeks of silence on the nuclear power plant accident, a
period in which the Soviets weathered a storm of criticism for the
way they informed the world.
Western diplomats here and politicians abroad suggested Gorbachev's
effort to cultivate a new image of openness, honesty and computer-age
sensibility would be damaged by the fact that the Kremlin reacted to
Chernobyl in the old way - by ringing down the curtain of secrecy.
Gorbachev appeared able, measured and concerned. He did not lay any
blame on Soviets, but had cutting words for those in the West who he
said built a ''mountain of lies'' over the tragedy.
He said nine people had died and 299 were hospitalized after an
explosion and fire at Chernobyl's reactor No. 4 early April 26 which
forced the evacuation of about 90,000 people living withing an
18-mile radius of the plant 80 miles north of Kiev, the Ukrainian
capital of 2.4 million.
The reactor fire also spewed an invisible cloud of radioactivity
that gradually has spread around the world after covering much of
Europe, where some foodstuffs were contaminated.
Striking back at charges that the initial silence cast doubt on
Soviet reliability on arms control, Gorbachev portrayed the Kremlin
as an injured party in the incident.
He accused the United States and the NATO allies of exploiting the
situation to stall disarmament talks and said international
cooperation could prevent accidents like Chernobyl.
The disaster, he said, ''was a grim warning that the nuclear age
necessitates a new political thinking and a new policy.''
''The accident at the Chernobyl station and the reaction to it have
become a kind of test of political morality,'' Gorbachev said. ''Once
again two different approaches, two different lines of conduct were
revealed for everyone to see.''
In a deft political gesture, Gorbachev said the Chernobyl tragedy
had prompted the Soviet Union to extend its moratorium on nuclear
testing until Aug. 6, the first anniversary of the testing halt and
the 41st anniversary of the U.S. atomic bombing of Hiroshima.
He has already extended the moratorium twice, but said in April he
no longer felt bound by it because of continued U.S. testing in
Nevada.
Gorbachev also reiterated his offer to meet with President Reagan in
Europe as soon as possible to discuss a permanent, comprehensive test
ban. In a casual but obviously calculated gesture, he added that the
two leaders also could talk in Hiroshima.
Gorbachev made a series of proposals for international control of
atomic energy that seemed aimed at reassuring the international
community, especially western Europe, that the Soviets are open to
cooperation and concerned about safety.
They included:
- A new warning and information system about nuclear power
accidents, especially those involving radioactive leaks.
This seemed to suggest that news of Chernobyl was delayed because of
the lack of an international reporting mechanism, and not because the
Kremlin held news back.
- Convening an international conference in Vienna on nuclear safety
under the auspices of the International Atomic Energy Agency, a U.N.
body.
- Strengthening the IAEA, which has no power to enforce safety
standards, to require accident reports or force inspection of atomic
power stations.
Gorbachev stressed that the agency was founded in 1957 and needs to
be updated. He did not mention that the Soviet Union only last year
put two of its atomic stations under IAEA.
- Giving a role in nuclear development to U.N. agencies like the
World Health Organization and the U.N. environmental program.
Gorbachev struck a forthright tone for domestic audiences,
describing the accident simply and clearly and giving details on
casualties. He also said the Politburo took full responsibility
''into its hands'' for round-the-clock damage control efforts.
Gorbachev said the area of the plant is still dangerous, but the
picture he painted was that catastrophe was avoided and the worst is
behind - thanks to the heroism of all, including the army.
Unlike other officials, Gorbachev didn't pin the blame on local men
who are being accused of underestimating the scope of the disaster.
He thanked those who offered help, including American doctors now
working in Moscow on bone marrow transplants.
''I must say that people have acted and are continuing to act
heroically, selflessly,'' Gorbachev said. ''A stern test has been
passed and is being passed by all.''
---
EDITORS: Andrew Rosenthal has been a Moscow correspondent for The
Associated Press since 1983.
AP-NY-05-15-86 0236EDT
a020 0005 15 May 86
PM-Kremlin Stonewall, Bjt,0935
Gorbachev's Open Image Is Another Victim Of The Fires Of Chernobyl
An AP News Analysis
By BRYAN BRUMLEY
WASHINGTON (AP) - Mikhail Gorbachev's unusual television report to
the Soviet people reinforced his image as a new style leader but
can't rekindle the glow lost in his 18 days of silence after the
nuclear meltdown at Chernobyl.
The reaction by Gorbachev and his team ''destroyed all the illusions
of those people who hoped they were genuinely open; they were open
until the crunch came,'' said Donald Shanor, a Soviet specialist at
Columbia University.
Other experts disagree on whether Gorbachev's reaction to the crisis
confirmed everything they always feared about the Soviet Union but
hoped wasn't true.
Certainly it was unprecedented for a Soviet leader to go on
television, give the accident's toll, discuss its cause, extend
condolences to its victims and call for reforms on the way future
accidents are reported.
The most troubling aspect of the way Soviet leaders handled the
crisis, in the view of many Western observers, was their apparent
disregard for the health of residents near the reactor and in
neighboring areas and countries.
The disaster, in the eyes of many Kremlin-watchers, has helped
confirm American stereotypes of the Soviet system:
-Low-level bureaucrats are fearful of informing their superiors
about trouble;
-Soviet leaders are prone to blame problems on the West;
-The Soviet press is slow and incomplete in reporting bad news;
-Russians are secretive dealing among themselves and with
foreigners;
-And the Soviet system is not advanced enough to be trusted with
advanced technology, such as nuclear reactors.
Gorbachev swept into office 13 months ago as a fresh force. He
launched a campaign to revitalize the country through draconian
measures against corruption and drunkenness and coupled the effort
with calls for greater candor.
Jerry Hough, a Duke University specialist in Soviet politics, saw
the increasing flow of official information about Chernobyl and
Gorbachev's television appearance as proof of a new style in the
Kremlin.
''Soviet general secretaries do not appear before the people with
reports on disasters or reports about anything,'' said Hough.
''Obviously, from an information point of view, they handled it
badly the first two or three days,'' said Hough. ''The question is:
Is it simply the birth pangs of a new information policy or does it
suggest that they didn't know what was going on for several days?''
Marshall Goldman, a Harvard University specialist on the Soviet
economy, said Soviet stonewalling in the first days after the
accident may stop Gorbachev's campaign dead in its tracks.
The political fallout, said Goldman, ''is going to affect the Soviet
Union for decades to come ... because this was something that
involved the national leadership and they didn't respond properly.''
''There is never a good time for a nuclear meltdown, but this was
one of the worst times,'' Goldman said.
In the short run, oil prices are down, denying the Kremlin the hard
currency it needs to buy technology and feed grain from the West. He
said that in the long run, Gorbachev was building up his credibility
and his openness among the people.
''I can't see how he can survive without massive damage now,'' said
Goldman.
Dmitri Simes, a Soviet emigre who teaches at Johns Hopkins in
Washington, said that ''nothing Gorbachev said was inconsistent with
our initial conclusions,'' that the Kremlin kept the accident secret
from its neighbors until Sweden detected high radiation levels, and
from its own citizens until evacuation plans were ready.
In his speech, Gorbachev tried ''to shift the focus of debate from
the disaster itself to allegedly exaggerated Western reports,'' said
Simes.
Moreover, Simes said that by using the speech to renew calls for a
freeze in nuclear testing and for a meeting with President Reagan in
Europe or Japan - rather than in America as agreed at the Geneva
summit last November - Gorbachev tried to ''turn the accident into a
political extravaganza.''
Those who argue that Chernobyl shows that the Soviet Union is little
changed under Gorbachev note that authorities waited until Monday
night, two days after the accident, to disclose the accident, and
that disclosure came only after Sweden complained of nuclear fallout
from the Ukraine.
They note that at a May 6 news conference, at which Soviet officials
discussed the event, authorities refused to accept questions from
Western reporters and that Soviet television censored mentions of the
health dangers from radiation.
Ten days after the accident, the Communist Party disciplined three
local officials for allegedly being remiss in maintaining the reactor
and in reporting full details of the accident to Moscow.
However, note Goldman and Simes, a commission headed by Deputy Vice
Premier Boris Shcherbina visited the reactor site Saturday, the day
the accident happened, and apparently ordered the evacuation of
50,000 people - 36 hours after the accident. An additional 44,000
people were later evacuated, but it was not clear how much radiation
they absorbed.
''It's not just local functionaries screwing up,'' said Goldman.
''They knew in Moscow right away what was happening. I don't know
whether Gorbachev knew, but somebody at the very highest level knew,
because there was a deputy prime minister involved.''
The confusion of the first few days, said Goldman, ''kind of
illustrates what we have known about the system for a long time.''
Not so, said Hough: Kremlin handling of the incident ''clearly
indicates that Gorbachev's enunciated policy of greater openness of
information, relaxation of censorship over sensitive questions, is
for real.''
---
EDITOR'S NOTE: Bryan Brumley has covered Soviet affairs for The
Associated Press since 1982, from Moscow, Warsaw and Washington.
AP-NY-05-15-86 0305EDT
a034 0219 15 May 86
PM-Reagan-Gorbachev,0485
White House Denies US Took Advantage Of Chernobyl Accident
WASHINGTON (AP) - The United States has not used the Chernobyl
nuclear disaster to its political advantage, as Mikhail Gorbachev has
charged, and would like to pursue the Soviet leader's call for
broader international exchanges for such accidents, the White House
said.
In another response to one of several points Gorbachev made in a
television address Wednesday night, White House spokesman Larry
Speakes said a meeting between the Soviet leader and President Reagan
''is possible this year if Mr. Gorbachev desires.''
''We are distressed ... that Mr. Gorbachev used the occasion of his
otherwise reassuring presentation to make unfounded charges against
the United States and other western governments,'' Speakes said.
''There has been no effort by this government, or its partners at the
Tokyo economic summit, to make political capital out of the Chernobyl
tragedy.''
Speakes said the United States found comfort in Gorbachev's
assertion in his television address that ''the worst is behind us''
in dealing with the nuclear plant accident.
Gorbachev accused the West of telling a ''veritable mountain of
lies'' about the disaster in an effort to ''blast the possibilities
for balancing international relations, to sow new seeds of mistrust
and suspicion toward the socialist countries.''
''The United States government at no point encouraged inaccurate
reporting on the accident,'' Speakes said. ''If some reports carried
in the mass media were in fact inaccurate, this was an inevitable
result of the extreme secrecy with which the Soviet authorities dealt
with the accident in the days immediately following it.
''Unfounded accusations against others must not be used in an
attempt to exonerate national officials from their obligation to
inform the public promptly of accidents which may affect their
health,'' he said.
The White House applauded Gorbachev's call for greater international
cooperation on nuclear power.
''We have noted his suggestion regarding futher inernational efforts
to enhance the safety of nuclear power plants. We believe that they
deserve the most serious consideration,'' the statement said.
Although the Chernobyl accident occurred in the early hours of April
26, the Soviet Union did not acknowledge it until the night of April
28, after high levels of radiation were detected in Scandinavia.
Speakes also said any meeting between Reagan and Gorbachev should
deal with a broad range of issues.
Gorbachev invited Reagan to meet him in Europe or Hiroshima, Japan,
to discuss halting all nuclear tests.
Speakes replied, ''It is difficult to understand the rationale for a
meeting of our leaders confined to the nuclear testing issue, when
the Soviet Union has up to now been unwilling to authorize a
discussion at the expert level.''
In his speech, the Soviet leader suggested a prompt warning system
for nuclear accidents, expansion of the U.N.-affiliated International
Atomic Energy Agency and a conference to discuss accident warning.
AP-NY-05-15-86 0518EDT
a036 0239 15 May 86
PM-Chernobyl-Nuclear, Bjt,0555
Gorbachev: Nine People Dead in Atomic Accident
By ALISON SMALE
MOSCOW (AP) - Mikhail S. Gorbachev told the nation nine people had
died in the Chernobyl atomic accident, and called on Washington to
join the Kremlin in banning nuclear tests to avert the ''far more
horrible'' threat of atomic war.
In an apparent attempt to still foreign criticism over Moscow's
handling of the April 26 nuclear power plant accident, Gorbachev also
used his Wednesday television speech to propose better international
cooperation to warn of future atomic power mishaps.
The Communist Party leader mixed concern for his fellow Soviets with
outrage at foreign reaction to the disaster.
He also thanked foreign specialists who had helped the Soviets, and
mentioned Drs. Robert P. Gale and Paul Terasaki, who along with a
third American and an Israeli doctor have operated on victims.
In his 25-minute address, he revealed for the first time that nine
people were now dead and 299 still hospitalized because of the
accident in the northern Ukraine.
Gorbachev did not explain the increase in the number of people
reported hospitalized since a Soviet official told a May 6 news
conference that 204 were admitted for care.
Gorbachev said radiation at the Chernobyl plant, 80 miles north of
Kiev, as well as in the immediate vicinity, was still at dangerous
levels, but stressed that courage and concern on the part of many had
averted a catastrophe.
An explosion in the plant's No. 4 reactor, Gorbachev said, was
triggered by a sudden power surge and a buildup of explosive
hydrogen. But, he told the Soviet people, ''The worst is now behind
us.''
Declaring that Chernobyl had sounded the alarm about the dangers of
nuclear technology, Gorbachev said the accident had prompted the
Kremlin leadership to renew its unilateral mortatorium on nuclear
testing until Aug. 6.
Last month, Gorbachev had said that because of continued U.S.
nuclear testing, he would abandon the ban which had been in effect
since last Aug. 6, the 40th anniversary of the atomic bombing of
Hiroshima, Japan by the United States.
The moratorium, originally due to expire last Dec. 31, had twice
been extended by the Soviets.
On March 29, Gorbachev had invited Reagan to meet him as soon as
possible in Europe for talks on a joint test ban. He renewed this
offer on Wednesday, adding the suggestion that the meeting be held in
Hiroshima.
''The accident at Chernobyl showed again what an abyss will open if
nuclear war befalls mankind, for inherent in the nuclear arsenals
stockpiled are thousands upon thousands of disasters far more
horrible than the Chernobyl one,'' the Soviet leader said.
Extension of the moratorium and renewal of the invitation to Reagan
appeared designed to regain some of the momentum the Soviets were
felt to have lost on the disarmament issue after the Chernobyl
accident.
The spread of a huge radioactive cloud over much of Europe caused
widespread worry and concern, and some West European governments
denounced the Kremlin for initially being too tight-lipped about the
disaster.
In his speech, Gorbachev excoriated the governments, politicians and
media of NATO countries, especially the United States, for what he
called a ''highly immoral campaign'' of exaggeration for political
purposes.
AP-NY-05-15-86 0539EDT
- - - - - -
a048 0421 15 May 86
PM-Chernobyl-Nuclear, 1st Ld - Writethru, a036,0958
URGENT
Eds: UPDATES with U.S. doctor's news conference
By ALISON SMALE
MOSCOW (AP) - A U.S. medical specialist treating victims from the
Chernobyl disaster today said more Soviets would die because they
received lethal doses of radiation released by the stricken nuclear
power plant.
Dr. Robert P. Gale, a bone marrow expert, told a packed news
conference in Moscow that Soviet and foreign specialists had
identified 35 people who had suffered severe radiation exposure
because of the April 26 accident at the power station in the Ukraine.
Despite around-the-clock efforts by doctors in a Moscow clinic, Gale
said, seven of the radiation cases had died, and more deaths are
expected.
Soviet officials, including Communist Party leader Mikhail S.
Gorbachev, have said two other people were killed in the explosion
and fire at the plant's No. 4 reactor that spewed a cloud of
radioactivity over much of Europe.
In a Wednesday televised speech, Gorbachev announced the death toll
had reached nine, and said the accident had sounded the alarm about
the dangers of the atom.
He also called upon the United States to join the Kremlin in its
revived self-imposed moratorium on nuclear testing, which Gorbachev
said would run until Aug. 6, the anniversary of the 1945 atomic
bombing of Hiroshima, Japan, by the United States.
He also called on Reagan to meet him for talks on a nuclear test
ban, possibly in Hiroshima itself.
In a subsequent statement, White House spokesman Lasrry Speakes said
a meeting was ''possible this year if Mr. Gorbachev desires,'' but
said it should deal with a broader range of issues.
Of the accident itself, Gorbachev assured the Soviet people, ''The
worst is over.''
He also accused the West of trying to score political points over
the disaster in a ''highly immoral campaign,'' and said the Soviets
were faced with ''a veritable mountain of lies - dishonest and
malicious lies.''
Speaking today of the attempts to save those who had absorbed large
doses of radiation, Gale said, ''Predictably, our efforts have not
been successful in all cases. But 28 of these 35 individuals are
alive.''
''Although we know that additional deaths are unavoidable, we hope
that a substantial number of these patients will survive,'' he said.
Gale, of the University of California at Los Angeles, said 19
patients had received bone marrow transplants. Heavy doses of
radiation destroy the marrow, which can be fatal.
Not all patients in the severely injured group had received bone
marrow transplants, Gale said. In some cases, he said, transplants
were considered unnecessary; in others, the patient had sustained too
much radiation damage to internal organs, such as kidneys, to make a
transplant worthwhile.
He did not specify how many such cases exist.
Gale said 299 people were still hospitalized as a result of the
accident, the same total given Wednesday night by Gorbachev. Gale
emphasized that this number could change because of the uncertainty
of calculating the radiation exposure of victims.
Gale and a Soviet colleague, Dr. Andrei I. Vorobyev, were asked
repeatedly during the 80-minute news conference to assess the health
hazards posed by the accident to residents of Kiev, a city of 2.4
million people 80 miles south of the Chernobyl plant, as well as to
people closer to the site.
Vorobyev said it was impossible for anyone who had been more than 18
miles from the accident site to be suffering from acute radiation
sickness as a result.
Asked to comment, Gale said, ''It is extremely unlikely that anybody
at considerable distance from the radiation source could suffer acute
radidation sickness.'' He did not define what he meant by
considerable distance.
Gale noted that neither he nor any of his team of foreign experts
flown in to treat Chernobyl casualties has visited the site of the
stricken plant, but said he had suggested such a visit.
However, the American doctor, who said he is scheduled to meet
Gorbachev later today, said he had not yet received a reply to his
request.
He added, however, that he and his Soviet colleagues have agreed on
joint publication of all data from the Chernobyl accident in
specialized journals.
Several times, Gale emphasized that Soviet medical expertise and
hospital conditions were impressive, but said no nation could quickly
cope with medical problems like those posed by the Chernobyl
accident.
At Gale's request, a U.S. specialist in tissue typing, Dr. Paul
Terasaki, as well as Gale's colleague, Richard Champlin, and Israeli
specialist Yair Reisner had come to Moscow to help in treatmennt.
Gale and Terasaki, who has since now returned to Los Angeles, were
singled out for praise by Gorbachev in his Wednesday night television
appearance, which was the Soviet leader's first public statement on
the disaster.
That address, published on the front pages of Soviet national
newspapers today, also suggested improved international cooperation
to warn and inform other countries of future nuclear mishaps.
Many European nations had expressed fury and bewilderment at the
Soviets' initial tight-lipped reaction to the accident.
A Soviet radio broadcast monitored by the British Broadcasting Corp.
in London said officials have started sending schoolchildren to
summer camp who had been moved from the 18-mile ''danger zone''
evacuated around Chernobyl.
Children in grades one through seven in Kiev end their school year
on Friday and will also be going to camps, the broadcast reportedly
said.
Gorbachev said Wednesday that radiation at the Chernobyl plant and
in its immediate environs was still at dangerous levels, but stressed
that courage and concern on the part of many Soviets had averted a
bigger catastrophe.
AP-NY-05-15-86 0721EDT
- - - - - -
a053 0502 15 May 86
PM-Digest Briefs,1229
Eds: This package does not contain the following items from the News
Digest: MOSCOW-Chernobyl-Nuclear, a036; MOSCOW-Gorbachev-Speech,
a018; WASHINGTON-Kremlin Stonewall, a020; TEGUCIGALPA-Honduras-US,
a072; TIMBERLINE LODGE-Climbers, a027; ATLANTA-Sunbelt Shadows, a015.
---
PHOENIX, South Africa (AP) - Trustees of Mohandas Gandhi's rundown
WASHINGTON (AP) - Secretary of State George P. Shultz, calling a new
WASHINGTON (AP) - The Senate Appropriations Committee is taking the
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) - Fourteen space shuttle flights will be
WASHINGTON (AP) - The State Department has budgeted $33 million to
HUNTSVILLE, Texas (AP) - Jay Kelly Pinkerton, convicted of the
WASHINGTON (AP) - The House, finishing work on its fiscal 1987
WASHINGTON (AP) - American-made drugs not yet approved for sale in
WASHINGTON (AP) - The rate at which military recruits are testing
WASHINGTON (AP) - It may not be time for MTV to add Lawrence Welk to
---
n999 0547 15 May 86
. . .
n.''
Waldheim said he had no plans to give a detailed summary of his
wartime activities.
''Since they are distorting the truth, .
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PM-News Advisory,0090
The General Desk supervisor is John Daniszewski (212) 621-1604. The
-PM-Chernobyl-Nuclear, a048. Update planned with more details from
news briefing.
-PM-Budget, a021. The House meets at 10 a.m. Prenoon lead planned.
-PM-Space Shuttle, a010. Hearings begin at 10 a.m. in both the
Senate and the House. Update planned.
-PM-Chernobyl-Pictures, a046. Update coming with arrest in case.
-PM-Climbers, a054. Will be updated before noon with search.
AP-NY-05-15-86 0847EDT
- - - - - -
a062 0612 15 May 86
PM-Chernobyl-Nuclear, 1st Insert, a048,0139
MOSCOW Insert after 7th graf from end: At Gale's xx treatment
Gale is president of an international bone marrow donor data bank,
which he said the Soviets now ve exid willingnesst5$0
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organized by Dr. Armand Hammer, president of Occidental Petroleum
Corp., whose ties with Soviet leaders stretch back to the days of
V.L. Lenin. Hammer told the news conference today he a5
PM-Chernobyl-Nuclear, 1st Insert, a048,0145
Rpt a062 to fix overline
MOSCOW Insert after 7th graf from end: At Gale's xxx treatment
Gale is president of an international bone marrow donor data bank,
which he said the Soviets now have expressed willingness to join. No
donors from the data bank were used in operations in Moscow to date,
he said.
In a bone marrow transplant, marrow from a donor, usually a relative
with identical or very similar tissue structure to the victim, is
injected intravenously into the patient.
The supply of doctors and medicines to the Soviet Union was
organized by Dr. Armand Hammer, president of Occidental Petroleum
Corp., whose ties with Soviet leaders stretch back to the days of
V.I. Lenin. Hammer told the news conference today he would not accept
payment for the help.
Gale and Terasaki,: 6th graf from end
AP-NY-05-15-86 0920EDT
***************
a042 0327 15 May 86
PM-US-Chernobyl,0530
Udall Tells Nuclear Industry That Accident Insurance Ceiling Must Rise
By JILL LAWRENCE
WASHINGTON (AP) - The keynote speaker at a nuclear industry
conference told the assembled executives something they didn't want
to hear: $2 billion is not enough insurance to cover claims arising
from a nuclear accident.
Rep. Morris Udall, D-Ariz., chairman of the House Interior
Committee, told the Nuclear Power Assembly on Wednesday that the $2
billion ceiling is ''clearly inadequate. It does little more than
adjust the 1957 level for inflation.''
Udall's committee is considering renewal of the 29-year-old
Price-Anderson nuclear liability act, which has a limit of about $600
million. Udall wants an $8 billion ceiling.
''I think there's grounds for compromise if the industry could take
another look and agree that $2 billion is not enough,'' Udall told
the gathering of nuclear industry executives. ''I regret some of the
close calls we've had. But the nuclear option must be preserved and
I'd be glad to work with you.''
Nuclear utility officials at the conference predicted the Chernobyl
nuclear power plant accident in the Soviet Union would have little
impact on their industry because Soviet reactors are so different
from the ones here. They also said data from Chernobyl might aid
their drive to reduce the 10-mile emergency planning zone around U.S.
reactors.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is studying the potential
radiation that might be released from an accident, and the
consequences for evacuation and other emergency plans.
Sherwood Smith, chairman of the Edison Electric Institute, an
utility industry trade group, said the radiation released during the
1979 Three Mile Island accident was ''much, much less than previously
postulated.'' He said the radiation released at Chernobyl since the
April 26 accident also was not as heavy as anticipated, and the NRC
would consider that data.
''The possibility is that the NRC will continue to develop a more
appropriate safety zone,'' he said.
Earlier this year, the NRC turned down a Baltimore utility's request
for a 2-mile zone as premature.
Soviet officials evacuated an 18-mile area around the Chernobyl
plant after the accident, which Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev
acknowledged on Soviet television Wednesday has killed nine and
hospitalized 299 people so far.
Asked whether the Soviet accident would affect future siting of U.S.
reactors in populated areas, Smith said it would have at least a
psychological impact. He said reactor locations must be determined on
a case-by-case basis and that population would be one consideration.
Meanwhile, rain anywhere in the United States over the next few days
is likely to contain small amounts of radioactivity from the
Ukrainian accident, the Environmental Protection Agency said
Wednesday. The agency said the government believes the radiation
levels would not threaten human health.
The Soviet accident also spurred another request for a look at U.S.
reactors. Department of Energy Secretary John S. Herrington asked the
National Academy of Sciences to investigate the safety of the DOE's
11 large nuclear reactors.
Among the department's reactors is the N-reactor at Hanford, Wash.,
which like the Chernobyl plant uses graphite to cool the nuclear
core.
AP-NY-05-15-86 0628EDT
a044 0345 15 May 86
BC-Quotes,0140
Current Quotations
By The Associated Press
''I must say that people have acted and are continuing to act
heroically, selflessly. A stern test has been passed and is being
passed by all.'' - Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev, in his first
statement on the Chernobyl accident.
---
''If some reports carried in the mass media were in fact inaccurate,
this was an inevitable result of the extreme secrecy with which the
Soviet authorities dealt with the accident in the days immediately
following it.'' - White House spokesman Larry Speakes, after Soviet
leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev accused the West of lying about the
Chernobyl nuclear accident.
---
''It's disgusting the way stuff leaks out, and we've got to find the
people who are doing it and fire them.'' - Secretary of State George
P. Shultz, on those who leak government secrets.
AP-NY-05-15-86 0645EDT
a046 0354 15 May 86
PM-Chernobyl-Pictures,0279
Networks Conclude Pictures of Chernobyl Were Phony
NEW YORK (AP) - ABC and NBC television networks have concluded that
a videotape they broadcast believing it to be of the burning
Chernobyl nuclear reactor in the Soviet Union was a hoax.
Spokesmen for the networks acknowledged that the footage, sold to
them by an agency named Albatross, actually showed a smoking Italian
cement factory.
Both NBC and ABC broadcast the pictures Monday. Network spokesmen
said the videotape came from a Yugoslav tourist who claimed it was
made during a recent visit to Kiev, 80 miles away from the nuclear
plant.
''The unfortunate conclusion is that NBC News was the victim of
fraud,'' Bill McAndrews, news information manager for the network,
said Wednesday. ''We regret the incident.''
On ABC's ''World News Tonight,'' anchorman Peter Jennings said, ''We
and others were the victims of fraud.''
''We were badly misled, we misled you and as you can imagine we're
not very happy about it,'' he said at the end of the show. ''It's one
mistake we'll try not to make again.''
Howard Stringer, executive vice president of CBS News, which did not
use the film, said: ''We were initially concerned because we didn't
have it. Then when we saw it on the air, it was not very revealing.''
The possibility that the pictures were a fraud arose when the
Italian television network RAI, which also showed them, began getting
calls from viewers in Trieste, who said they looked like those taken
at a recent cement factory fire.
NBC News and ABC News together had agreed to pay Albatross $11,000
for the footage. No checks have been forwarded to the agency, the
networks said.
AP-NY-05-15-86 0654EDT
- - - - - -
a064 0626 15 May 86
PM-Chernobyl-Pictures, 1st Ld - Writethru, a046,0373
PRECEDE New York
Eds: UPDATES throughout with arrest in fake film case
Frenchman Arrested for Peddling Fake Chernobyl Film
ROME (AP) - Police today announced the arrest of a 24-year-old
Frenchman and accused him of duping two U.S. television networks by
selling them videotape that purportedly showed the burning Chernobyl
nuclear plant.
The networks, ABC and NBC, broadcast the footage Monday. On
Wednesday, the networks told viewers the footage was a hoax and
actually showed a cement factory in Trieste.
The arrested man, Thomas Garenq, was picked up overnight and charged
with fraud, police said. He was identified at first as a Yugoslav,
but police later said he is a French citizen.
The footage was called a fake by the Italian state-run RAI
television network, which also showed the film after it was made
available through Eurovision.
RAI said numerous callers from Trieste, near the Yugoslav border,
said the pictures they saw on television actually showed areas
outside their city.
The ANSA news agency, quoting unidentified police sources, said
Garenq received more than $2,000 from each of the two American
networks as an advance when he handed over the film. The purchase
price was $20,000, ANSA quoted the sources as saying.
In New York, spokesmen for the two American networks said they
bought the videotape from an agency named Albatross for a total of
$11,000 but that no checks have been forwarded to the agency.
''The unfortunate conclusion is that NBC News was the victim of
fraud,'' Bill McAndrews, news information manager for the network,
said Wednesday. ''We regret the incident.''
On ABC's ''World News Tonight,'' anchorman Peter Jennings said, ''We
and others were the victims of fraud.
''We were badly misled, we misled you and as you can imagine we're
not very happy about it,'' he said at the end of the show. ''It's one
mistake we'll try not to make again.''
Howard Stringer, executive vice president of CBS News, which did not
use the film, said: ''We were initially concerned because we didn't
have it. Then when we saw it on the air, it was not very revealing.''
The networks cooperated with Italian police in the investigation.
AP-NY-05-15-86 0927EDT
a090 0919 15 May 86
PM-Business Mirror, Adv 16,0613
$adv 16
For Release PMs Friday May 16
Despite Good News, Inflation Fears Persist
Eds: John Cunniff is on vacation. Also on financial wires.
By CHET CURRIER
AP Business Writer
NEW YORK (AP) - Though recent events have dealt what looks like a
knockout blow to inflation, talk persists that that old economic
nemesis is preparing to make a comeback.
The big drop in oil prices early this year helped produce a decline
in the Consumer Price Index for the first quarter. And many analysts
believe the index will register another negative reading for April
when it is reported by the Labor Department on May 21.
As measured by the CPI, the inflation rate for the past 12 months
has been just 2.2 percent.
To some observers, however, all that favorable news poses the threat
of dangerous overconfidence and complacency. The price of oil has
lately turned upward, they say, and it may well have seen its lows.
In pursuit of the elusive goal of economic growth, some argue, the
Federal Reserve has permitted growth of the money supply that sooner
or later is likely to exert upward pressure on prices.
Also, the nuclear accident at Chernobyl in the Soviet Union has
prompted speculators to bid up prices of some agricultural products
in the commodity markets. If there is significant damage to crops in
that part of the world, the reasoning goes, food prices could
experience an inflationary jolt like the one that occurred in the
mid-1970s.
Still another worry is the decline of the dollar in foreign
exchange. In theory at least, a falling dollar makes imported goods
more expensive in this country, and gives domestic producers who
compete with imports more room to raise prices.
''Although all the aggregate measures of inflation are still
declining, we believe that a turning point in inflation is
imminent,'' said Martin Sass, president of the investment management
firm M.D. Sass Investors Services, at a recent financial seminar.
''All of these indices are heavily weighted by energy and interest
rates. Once the bulk of oil price and interest rate declines are
reflected in the system in the second half of 1986, inflation is
likely to return to an annualized rate of increase of 3 percent to 4
percent.''
As compelling as that kind of argument may seem, though, there are
some economists who believe the pessimists are overlooking real
long-term progress toward the goal of taming inflation.
Edward Yardeni, economist at Prudential-Bache Securities, cites the
trend in wages. In April, he notes an inflation index that measures
increases in hourly earnings fell to its lowest level on record
dating back to 1965.
''We've always believed that the best measure of the underlying rate
of inflation is the yearly percent change in wages,'' he said in a
recent report.
''Wages must reflect the average inflationary expectations of labor
and management over either an explicit or implicit contract period.
Wages are unlikely to respond to temporary price shocks whether they
be inflationary or deflationary.''
The recent data, he concluded, ''suggest that the forces of
disinflation are still very powerful in the labor markets.''
Aubrey Zaffuto, economist at Schroder Economic Research in New York,
argues, ''the underlying inflation rate is not immovable.
''Our guess is that by the time oil and food commodity prices
stabilize they will have left their mark on the underlying rate of
inflation. The benefits of lower energy costs, lower interest rates
and lower food prices will be passed along to gain a market edge in a
very competitive environment.''
End Adv PMs Fri May 16
AP-NY-05-15-86 1220EDT
a201 0954 15 May 86
AM-News Digest,1051
Friday, May 16, 1986
Here are the top stories at this hour from The Associated Press. The
CHERNOBYL: Death Toll Likely Will Rise, U.S. Transplant Doctor Says
MOSCOW - U.S. and Soviet doctors say the death toll from the
Chernobyl nuclear accident will rise from nine, and that it take
years for experts to fully assess the health effects of the world's
worst nuclear disaster. Slug AM-Chernobyl-Nuclear. Developing.
By Andrew Rosenthal. LaserPhoto MOS17, Gale news conference;
LaserGraphic on bone marrow transmplants upcoming.
HOSTAGES: Anonymous Caller Threatens U.S., French Captives In Lebanon
ARMS CONTROL:
MOUNTAIN CLIMBERS: Searchers Redouble Efforts For Eight Lost
BUDGET: House Members Poised To Act on Spending Blueprint
HINCKLEY: Father of Presidential Assailant Talks About Mental Health
UNITED NATIONS: Most Nations Vote Against United States
TRADE: Farm Export Fight May Bring Retaliatory Measures
SHUTTLE: NASA Outlines Costs of Modifying Space Shuttles
MILITARY:
AIDS Tests Spring Few Surprises for Military Doctors
CUOMO'S FUTURE: Aides Say He'll Seek New Term, Governor Says Wait And
SOUTH KOREA STUDENTS: Demonstrations Mark Uprising
TEACHING: Panel Calls For Major Changes In Teacher Training
ULTRA LICKS: Grandaddy of Franchised Ice Cream Goes Upscale
AP-NY-05-15-86 1255EDT
a002 2115 15 May 86
PMs AP News Digest
Friday, May 16, 1986
Here are the top stories for PMs. The General Desk supervisor is Ron
CLIMBERS FOUND: Missing Climbers Huddled For Days In Snow Cave
CHERNOBYL ACCIDENT: Gorbachev Rips U.S. on Reaction to Accident
MOSCOW - Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev has told American
industrialist Armand Hammer that official Washington reaction to the
Chernobyl nuclear accident has done nothing to improve the superpower
relations. Slug PM-Chernobyl-Nuclear.
Developing. By Carol J. Williams.
TEAMSTERS: Say Jackie Presser To Be Charged in Ghost Worker Scam
DEAVER: Former Reagan Aides Denies Peddling Influenece
SRI LANKA CRISIS: Battle With Separatists Said to Be at Crucial Stage
SPACE SHUTTLE: NASA Will Make Major Rocket Changes Before Shuttle
KIDDIE EXTORTION: Police, Psychologist Discuss Middle-Class Problem
WASHINGTON - Despite dire warnings from the White House, Congress
MIDDLE EAST: Shultz Backs Proposed Arms Sale to Saudi Arabia
EDUCATION REFORM: Panel Says Give Teachers Pay, Prestige, Autonomy
AIDS: Report Virus Grown in Animal Cells for First Time
MILITARY RETIREMENT: Congress Votes to Slash Benefits of Future
STAMPED OUT: Huge Rubber Stamp Replica Doesn't Get Rubber Stamp
LAST PICTURE SHOW: Dandy Photographer Holds Center Stage
POPULAR PROF: Man Who Coined Term 'WASP' Gives Last Lecture
AP-NY-05-16-86 0016EDT
a004 2141 15 May 86
Names in the News
LaserPhoto NY14
PRINCETON, Ill. (AP) - The company making the Chicago Bears' Super
NEW YORK (AP) - A good memory is the most important quality for a
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. (AP) - Edward M. Kennedy Jr. told graduates of a
WASHINGTON (AP) - Oscar-winning actor John Houseman has been honored
OVERLAND PARK, Kan. (AP) - Edwin Newman, NBC-TV reporter turned
MOSCOW (AP) - American industrialist Armand Hammer says he hopes the
opening of his private art collection in Moscow ''will be another
positive step toward the long-sought goal of improving'' super-power
relations.
Hammer's collection of 125 masterpieces dating to the 16th century
had been on display in Leningrad since March 25 as part of a special
tour arranged under the renewed U.S.-Soviet cultural exchange accord.
It opened Thursday in Moscow and is scheduled to move later this year
to Novosibirsk, Odessa and Kiev.
Accompanying Hammer to the State Picture Gallery were former
Ambassador to Washington Anatoly F. Dobrynin, a Communist Party
Central Committee Secretary responsible for international relations,
and two American doctors treating victims of the Chernobyl nuclear
accident.
AP-NY-05-16-86 0042EDT
a034 0143 16 May 86
PM-Digest Advisory,0113
All the budgets have moved. Here is a list with Laserphoto numbers:
WASHINGTON - PM-Deaver, a005
WASHINGTON - PM-Space Shuttle, a007, a010
BOURBONNAIS - PM-Free Stamp, a012. LaserPhoto CD1.
WASHINGTON - PM-Budget, a013
WASHINGTON - PM-Military Retirement, a016
WASHINGTON - PM-Shultz-Middle East, a017
WASHINGTON - PM-AIDS Virus, a018
SPRINGFIELD - PM-Kiddie Extortion, a020
LONDON - PM-Last Picture Show, a021, a023
CORONADO - PM-Carnegie-Teachers, a024
COLOMBO - PM-Sri Lanka Crisis, a025
PHILADELPHIA - PM-Popular Professor, a026. LaserPhoto PX1.
MOSCOW - PM-Chernobyl-Nuclear, a027
WASHINGTON - PM-Presser, a028
PORTLAND - PM-Climbers, a033. LaserPhotos PD2,3; LaserColor PD1
AP-NY-05-16-86 0443EDT
a027 0047 16 May 86
Gorbachev Thanks Two Americans, Blasts Official U.S. Stance on Accident
By CAROL J. WILLIAMS
MOSCOW (AP) - Mikhail S. Gorbachev gave two Americans his personal
thanks for helping the Soviet Union deal with the Chernobyl nuclear
disaster, but said official U.S. reaction to the accident had soured
superpower relations further.
The Soviet leader received industrialist Armand Hammer and Dr.
Robert Gale at the Kremlin on Thursday. Hammer, whose ties with the
Soviets stretch back to the days of V.I. Lenin, had arranged for Gale
and other physicians to fly to Moscow after the April 26 accident to
help treat casualties.
Gale told reporters earlier Thursday that seven people had succumbed
to lethal doses of radiation unleashed when the Ukrainian power
plant's No. 4 atomic reactor exploded and caught fire, and said more
deaths were inevitable.
The Soviet Union says two other people were killed in the explosion
and blaze, and Gale told the journalists that 299 people remained
hospitalized, of whom he said 28 were in grave condition.
Gale, a bone marrow expert, leads a team of foreign specialists
helping Soviet doctors perform marrow transplants on radiation
victims. High levels of radiation destroy the marrow and can be
fatal.
Gorbachev said during his meeting with the Americans in the
Kremlin's reception room that: ''The Soviet people view the actions
of Armand Hammer and Robert Gale as an example of how relations
between the two great peoples should be built if there are political
wisdow and will in the leadership of both countries.''
However, he added: ''The conduct of the Washington officialdom in
these difficult days, however, is deeply disappointing: It is
shameful speculation on the accident and gross attempts to exploit it
to discredit the entire policy of the Soviet Union and to sow
mistrust towards its peace initiatives.''
His remarks were carried by Tass, the official Soviet news agency.
Western governments, including the United States, complained that
Moscow was slow in releasing information about the nuclear accident,
which officials of the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy
Agency have called the worst in history.
The Soviets have accused the West of using the disaster for
propaganda purposes, including trying to damage the Soviets'
reputation as reliable partners in arms control. In addition, they
say Western media reported wild speculation about the accident and
its consequences.
''As to the atmosphere, it worsened still more as a result of a
vicious anti-Soviet campaign launched by Washington in connection
with the accident in Chernobyl,'' Gorbachev said.
Tass said that at the initiative of Hammer, the chairman of
Occidental Petroleum Corp., the subject of a summit meeting this year
between Gorbachev and President Reagan was discussed.
Gorbachev confirmed ''his consent in principle to a new meeting and
repeated that two simple things are needed for its holding: the
readiness for it bringing a tangible practical result if only in one
or two matters agitating the whole world, and an appropriate
political atmosphere.''
The Tass report on the meeting did not spell out what results the
Soviets want, but the Soviets have said many times before that they
want progress in arms control.
Gorbachev and Reagan have agreed in principle to a meeting this year
in the United States, but U.S. officials have said the Kremlin has
shied away from setting a date.
AP-NY-05-16-86 0346EDT
- - - - - -
a046 0336 16 May 86
PM-Chernobyl-Nuclear, 1st Ld, a027,0602
EDS: UPDATES with account from today's newspapers
By CAROL J. WILLIAMS
MOSCOW (AP) - Soviet newspapers today indicated the death toll in
the Chernobyl disaster had reached 10, and one account said five
victims were firemen who had braved fierce radiation to fight flames
engulfing the crippled atomic reactor.
Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev, speaking to the nation on
television Wednesday night, put the death toll at nine in the April
26 disaster at the nuclear power station in the Ukraine, 80 miles
north of Kiev.
U.S. bone marrow specialist Dr. Robert P. Gale, who met with
Gorbachev on Thursday in the Kremlin, said seven of the victims had
died after exposure to large doses of radiation.
He said, however, that some of the 299 radiation victims still
hospitalized were expected to die.
Gale heads a team of foreign doctors assembled by U.S. industrialist
Armand Hammer to aid the Soviets in coping with the Chernobyl
accident's aftermath. His speciality is bone marrow transplants, a
substance destroyed by intense radioactivity and whose destruction
can cause death.
In addition to the radiation-related fatalities, Soviet officials
have mentioned two victims who apparently died in the explosion that
ripped apart the plant's No. 4 reactor, spewing radioactivity and
sparking a fire that set graphite cooling rods inside ablaze.
Reports in three different Soviet newspapers today identified a
total of eight people who died following the accident, and whose
names differed from those of the two apparent explosion victims
Gorbachev had mentioned by name on Wednesday.
The Communist Party daily Pravda today began its account of the
Chernobyl accident and its consequences with a description of the
grief felt by plant workers on hearing that one of their comrades had
succumbed to his injuries.
''For a long time, we cannot begin the conversation,'' Pravda's
correspondents wrote. ''Just a few minutes ago, word arrived that
Lelechenko had died. Burns and radiation did their work. Lelechenko
was their friend.''
Pravda said the dead worker's friends hailed him as ''a real hero''
who was at the disaster scene in the first hours after the accident.
The Communist youth newspaper Komsomolskaya Pravda had similar words
of praise for the firemen who battled flames on the night of the
accident that took more than 50 firefighting teams some four hours to
control.
The newspaper's account focused on Viktor Kibenok, 23, who was said
to have fought the flames for up to three hours, not caring about the
dangers posed by what the newspaper called ''the invisible enemy'' -
radiation.
Komsomolskaya Pravda said Kibenok died of burns and radiation 15
days after the accident, and identified four other firemen who also
had died.
A report from the Soviet official news agency Tass, published in the
Moscow daily Moskovskaya Pravda, identified two other victims who
died following the accident.
Alexander Akimov, a shift leader at the No. 4 reactor, and Anatoly
Kurguze, an operator, were paid last respects by friends and
colleagues, Moskovskaya Pravda said. It reported that the men had
died of burns and radiation.
At the Kremlin on Thursday, Gorbachev met with Hammer and Gale to
extend his personal thanks for their services, but also used the
occasion to criticize the attitude taken by the Reagan
administration.
Gorbachev told the Americans the Soviet people viewed their deeds
''as an example of how relations between the two great peoples should
be built if there are political wisdow and will in the leadership of
both countries.''
However, he, 7th graf
AP-NY-05-16-86 0637EDT
- - - - - -
a071 0636 16 May 86
PM-Chernobyl-Nuclear, 2nd Ld, a046,0566
Soviet Press Indicates 10 Dead in Accident; Five Were Firefighters
Eds: LEADS with 15 grafs to UPDATE with radiation levels in Kiev,
edits to tighten
By CAROL J. WILLIAMS
MOSCOW (AP) - Soviet newspapers today indicated the death toll in
the Chernobyl disaster has reached 10, and one account said five
victims were firefighters who braved fierce radiation to battle
flames engulfing the nuclear reactor.
Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev said Wednesday that nine people
had died since the April 26 disaster at the Ukrainian power plant 80
miles north of Kiev. But U.S. bone marrow specialist Dr. Robert P.
Gale said Thursday that some of the 299 hospitalized radiation
victims were expected to die.
Reports in three different Soviet newspapers today identified eight
people who died after the nuclear accident, and whose names differed
from those of the two victims Gorbachev identified by name Wednesday.
The Communist Party daily Pravda today described the grief felt by
plant workers on hearing that one of their comrades had died of his
injuries.
''For a long time, we cannot begin the conversation,'' Pravda's
correspondents wrote. ''Just a few minutes ago, word arrived that
Lelechenko had died. Burns and radiation did their work. Lelechenko
was their friend.''
Pravda said the dead worker's friends hailed him as ''a real hero''
who was at the nuclear plant in the first hours after an explosion
ripped apart the No. 4 reactor, spewing radioactivity and sparking a
fire.
The Communist youth newspaper Komsomolskaya Pravda praised the
firemen who battled the flames, which took more than 50 firefighting
teams about four hours to control.
It focused on Viktor Kibenok, 23, saying he fought the flames for up
to three hours heedless of the danger from radiation, which it called
the ''invisible enemy.''
Komsomolskaya Pravda said Kibenok died of burns and radiation 15
days after the accident, and identified four other firemen who also
had died.
The Moscow daily Moskovskaya Pravda published a dispatch from the
official Tass news agency that said Alexander Akimov, a shift leader
at the No. 4 reactor, and Anatoly Kurguze, an operator, also died of
burns and radiation after the accident.
In addition to the eight named in today's reports, Gorbachev
identified by name two other men who apparently died in the
explosion.
Also today, a Soviet environment specialist said radiation in Kiev
was measured at 0.15 to 0.2 milliroentgens per hour, within the
normal range. Nikolai Kozlov, deputy chief of the State Committee on
Weather and Environment, said he had no information on the accident's
effects on agriculture, and asserted there has been no contamination
of water supplies.
A milliroentgen is a thousandth of a roentgen, the unit used to
measure ionizing radiation. Scientists say exposure to 50 or more
roentgens in a year can be dangerous.
Gale, of the University of California at Los Angeles, heads a team
of foreign doctors assembled by U.S. industrialist Armand Hammer to
aid the Soviets in treating radiation victims. Gale's speciality is
bone marrow transplants. Bone marrow is destroyed by intense
radioactivity, and death can result.
Gorbachev met Thursday with Hammer and Gale at the Kremlin to extend
his personal thanks for their services, but also used the occasion to
criticize the attitude taken by the Reagan administration.
Gorbachev told: 17th graf
AP-NY-05-16-86 0936EDT
- - - - - -
a078 0704 16 May 86
Gale Indicates Chernobyl Death Toll Now At 13
Eds: LEADS with 8 grafs to UPDATE with Gale indicating 13 dead.
DELETE 14th graf: Gale, of xxx can result, now redundant.
By CAROL J. WILLIAMS
MOSCOW (AP) - An American doctor treating victims of the Chernobyl
nuclear accident indicated today that the death toll has reached 13.
One Soviet newspaper said five were firefighters who braved fierce
radiation to battle flames engulfing the nuclear reactor.
Dr. Robert Gale, who left Moscow shortly after giving interviews to
U.S. television correspondents, told ABC-TV's ''Good Morning
America'' and the Cable News Network that only 24 of the 35 people
previously listed in grave condition still were alive.
He declined to say when the latest deaths occurred. Gale told a news
conference Thursday that 28 of the 35 most seriously injured were
alive, adding more deaths were inevitable.
Reports in three different Soviet newspapers today identified eight
people who died after the nuclear accident. Soviet leader Mikhail S.
Gorbachev on Wednesday identified by name two other men who were
killed in the initial explosion and fire April 26 at the nuclear
power plant 80 miles north of Kiev.
''We are unfortunately having deaths on a continuing basis, although
nothing happened in the last day,'' Gale said in the interview with
CNN.
He told ABC the current death toll ''may be reasonably stable, but
there may be some additional deaths. We have good results in about
two-thirds of the patients.''
Gale has said 299 radiation victims had been hospitalized.
The doctor, a specialist in bone marrow transplants from the
University of California at Los Angeles, heads a team of foreign
experts who have been helping the Soviets treat the victims. Bone
marrow is destroyed by intense radioactivity, and death can result.
The Communist: 4th graf
AP-NY-05-16-86 1004EDT
a056 0453 16 May 86
PM-Digest Briefs,1012
Eds: This package does not contain the following items from the News
Digest: PORTLAND-Climbers, a033; WASHINGTON-Presser, a028;
COLOMBO-Sri Lanka, a025; SPRINGFIELD-Kiddie Extortion, a020;
CORONADO-Carnegie-Teachers, a024; BOURBONNAIS-Free Stamp, a012;
PHILADELPHIA-Popular Professor, a026.
---
By The Associated Press
MOSCOW (AP) - Soviet newspapers today indicated the death toll in
the Chernobyl disaster had reached 10, and one account said five
victims were firemen who had braved fierce radiation to fight flames
engulfing the crippled atomic reactor.
Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev, speaking to the nation on
television Wednesday night, put the death toll at nine in the April
26 disaster at the nuclear power station in the Ukraine, 80 miles
north of Kiev.
U.S. bone marrow specialist Dr. Robert P. Gale, who met with
Gorbachev on Thursday in the Kremlin, said seven of the victims had
died after exposure to large doses of radiation. He said, however,
that some of the 299 radiation victims still hospitalized were
expected to die.
---
WASHINGTON (AP) - His lobbying activities under attack, former
WASHINGTON (AP) - NASA intends to make costly changes in the space
WASHINGTON (AP) - Despite dire warnings from the White House,
WASHINGTON (AP) - Secretary of State George P. Shultz, addressing an
WASHINGTON (AP) - California researchers for the first time have
WASHINGTON (AP) - Congress overwhelmingly voted to reduce the
LONDON (AP) - Cecil Beaton, the dandy photographer who knew
AP-NY-05-16-86 0753EDT
a038 0221 16 May 86
PM-Radioactive Rain,0634
Fallout Expected to Continue But Begin Dropping Off Soon
WASHINGTON (AP) - Reports of radioactivity in milk should increase
as the fallout from the Chernobyl nuclear accident shows up in the
U.S. food chain, the Environmental Protection Agency said.
That fallout should continue for weeks, the EPA official said
Thursday, but it will probably begin to decline soon.
None of the radioactivity measured in the United States should be
dangerous to residents, said Bill Gunter, an EPA radiation
specialist.
''We could see it for several more weeks,'' he said of the Chernobyl
fallout. ''After the last Chinese (airborne nuclear weapons test),
they saw it for months.''
The agency also reported that 13 cities received radioactive rain
over the weekend and early this week, six of them for the first time.
Airborne radioactivity was found in 12 cities.
For radioactive rainfall, ''I have a gut feeling we have peaked out.
The maximums did not increase and the number of hits didn't increase
percentage-wise,'' Gunter said.
The agency said it had received the first reports of radioactivity
in milk from its monitoring system, though state tests outside the
system have turned up radioactive milk before. The EPA radioactivity
was detected in samples Tuesday at Salt Lake City, Utah, and Helena,
Mont., at 26 picocuries per liter of iodine-131.
In fallout episodes no more frequent than about once a year, Food
and Drug Administration guidelines allow 15,000 picocuries per liter,
about a quart, before action by public health officials is
recommended. An example might be diversion of the milk into cheese
for later marketing after the radioactivity has died out.
The agency's daily statement on behalf of the interagency task force
monitoring Chernobyl developments said, however, that ''since the
pathway leading from rainwater to milk takes several days, it is
expected that additional milk samples containing iodine-131 may be
encountered, possibly at higher levels than those reported today.''
The EPA's report listed the following cities from which it had new
reports of rain containing radioactivity.
The first number is the concentration in picocuries of iodine-131
per cubic liter of rainfall and the second number is the total amount
of radioactivity deposited on the ground in picocuries of iodine-131
per square meter, a quantity that depends on the amount of rainfall
as well as the concentration.
-Dothan, Ala., Monday, 290; not available.
-Juneau, Alaska, Monday, 50; not available.
-North Pole, Alaska, Sunday, 600; not available.
-Idaho Falls, Idaho, Saturday, 1,980; 2,460; Sunday, 750; 8,410.
-Topeka, Kan., Tuesday, 44; 1,140.
-Minneapolis, Tuesday, 180; 350.
-Jefferson City, Mo., Tuesday, 74; 410.
-Concord, N.H., Tuesday, 53; 14.
-Columbus, Ohio, Tuesday, 150; 410.
-Oklahoma City, Monday, 54; 1,120.
-Portland, Ore., May 4, 130, 740; morning May 9, 2,400, 700; evening
May 9, 360, 2,930; Saturday, 260, 1,690; Monday, 260, 320; Tuesday,
100; 290.
Olympia, Wash., Tuesday, 140; 2,720.
Cheyenne, Wyo., Tuesday, 1,070; 1,650.
It was the first radioactive rain reported for Dothan, Juneau, North
Pole, Topeka, Columbus and Oklahoma City.
All the cities also had other isotopes in concentrations too small
to measure, Gunter said - ruthenium-103, ruthenium-106, cesium-134,
cesium-136, cesium-137, iodine-132, barium-140 and lathanum-140.
FDA guidelines call for precautions to protect the milk supply when
ground depositions of iodine-131 reach 150,000 picocuries per square
meter, about 11 square feet. The EPA says drinking three liters of
milk containing 500 picocuries per liter of iodine-131 yields a
radiation dose to the body about the equivalent of a chest X-ray, and
a chest X-ray increases the chance of cancer by about eight in a
million. The agency's drinking water standards permit no more than 3
picocuries per liter of iodine-131 on a permanent basis.
AP-NY-05-16-86 0521EDT
a002 2118 16 May 86
PMs AP News Digest
Saturday, May 17, 1986
Here are the top stories for PMs. The General Desk supervisor is
SCHOOL BLAST: Injured Treated At Hospitals In Two States
PRESSER: Court Appearance Scheduled On Racketeering Charge
CHERNOBYL: Medical Emergency Over, But Doctor Says More Will Die
MOSCOW - The U.S. doctor treating radiation victims from the
Chernobyl disaster says the medical emergency caused by the worst
atomic accident in history is over. But hundreds remain hospitalized,
and some are expected to die. Slug PM-Chernobyl-Nuclear. Developing.
CHALLENGER: Panel Probing Destruction Of Documents Ordered Saved
CLIMB SURVIVORS: Doctors Optimistic Two Teens Will Survive
DEAVER: Former Reagan Aide Lays To Rest Some Allegations
COMMANDER ZERO: Eden Pastora Seeking Asylum In Costa Rica
CHINA TALKS: First China-Taiwan Talks In 37 Years
DOMINICAN ELECTIONS: Peaceful Elections Follow Violent Campaign
TROUBLED SKIES: FAA-Eastern Dispute Nears Court Stage
GRINNELL, Iowa - It was the turbulent 1960s. John Paul, George and
AP-NY-05-17-86 0019EDT
a035 0225 17 May 86
PM-Digest Advisory,0089
All the budgets have moved. Here is a list with Laserphoto numbers:
ON THE SAN JUAN RIVER - PM-Pastora, a005. LaserPhoto NY7.
WASHINGTON - PM-Deaver, a010
WASHINGTON - PM-FAA-Eastern, a011
GRINNELL - PM-Yearbook, a012
WASHINGTON - PM-Space Shuttle, a013
CLEVELAND - PM-Presser, a014
COKEVILLE - PM-Hostage School, a024. LaserPhotos SK1,2,3,4,5;
SANTO DOMINGO - PM-Dominican Elections, a025
PORTLAND - PM-Climbers, a026. LaserPhoto PD1.
HONG KONG - PM-China-Taiwan, a027
MOSCOW - PM-Chernobyl-Nuclear, a034
AP-NY-05-17-86 0525EDT
a022 0023 17 May 86
PM-Radioactive Rain,0621
Chernobyl Fallout in United States Apparently Has Peaked
WASHINGTON (AP) - Radioactivity readings in the United States from
the accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant have decreased in
recent days, leaving officials to conclude that U.S. fallout has
passed its peak.
Specialists cautioned Friday that small amounts of radioactivity
could continue to show up in the United States for weeks. But they
said that none of the fallout has threatened human health.
The average concentration in radioactive rain samples fell by better
than half from Thursday's daily report to Friday's - from about 1,000
picocuries per liter to 410, the Environmental Protection Agency
said. The number of cities with radioactive rain this week fell from
13 to eight.
The most active sample was less active than the most active sample
the day before. And peak radioactivity actually deposited on the
ground - which depends on how long it rains as well as the
radioactivity of the rainfall - was off sharply, from 8,410
picocuries per square meter Thursday to 2,310 Friday.
For those reasons, the EPA said on behalf of the interagency task
force monitoring Chernobyl developments, radioactivity in rainfall
''appears to be decreasing.''
All but two cities sampled had iodine-131 in rain on Wednesday,
according to Friday's report. The exceptions are Virginia Beach, Va.,
where the sample was taken Tuesday, and Jackson, Wyo., where the
sample was taken May 7.
The first number given is radioactivity in picocuries per liter,
about a quart, and the second is picocuries of radioactivity
deposited per square meter of ground, a figure that depends on how
much rain falls.
-Iowa City, Iowa, 99, 790.
-Chicago, 39, 450.
-Indianapolis, 50, 550.
-Minneapolis, 330, 2,310.
-Jefferson City, Mo., 210, 460.
-Helena, Mont., 570, 1,150.
-Virginia Beach, Va., 180, 180.
-Spokane, Wash., 2,110, 800.
-Jackson, Wyo., 100, not available.
It was the first radioactive rainfall for Iowa City, Indianapolis
and Virginia Beach.
Food and Drug Administration guidelines call for precautions to
protect the milk supply when ground depositions of iodine-131 reach
150,000 picocuries per square meter, about 11 square feet.
The EPA says drinking three liters of water containing 500
picocuries per liter of iodine-131 yields a radiation dose to the
body about the equivalent of a chest X-ray, and a chest X-ray
increases the chance of cancer by about eight in a million.
The agency's drinking water standards permit no more than 3
picocuries per liter of iodine-131 on a permanent basis.
The following cities were shown as having radioactive particles of
iodine-131 in air samples. The figure given is picocuries of
iodine-131 per cubic meter of air on Tuesday, except for Montgomery,
Ala., where the sample was taken Thursday, and Salt Lake City, where
it was taken Monday. Where two figures are given, the second is a
sample on Wednesday.
-Montgomery, Ala., 0.06.
-Phoenix, Ariz., 1.4.
-Berkeley, Calif., 0.42.
-Los Angeles, 0.18, 0.18.
-Denver, 0.27.
-Idaho Falls, Idaho, 0.40.
-Indianapolis, 0.15.
-Lincoln, Neb., 0.21, 0.32.
-Las Vegas, Nev., 0.84.
-Columbus, Ohio, 0.24.
-Salt Lake City, 1.1.
-Spokane, Wash., 0.74.
-Cheyenne, Wyo., 0.43, 0.37.
The EPA says 1 picocurie per cubic meter, if breathed for a year,
yields a radiation dose about equivalent to one-third of a chest
X-ray.
Only one milk sample showed radioactivity, in Spokane on Tuesday.
The sample contained 41 picocuries per liter of iodine-131, compared
with 26 picocuries per liter in two samples from the Northwest in
Thursday's report.
The agency said Thursday it expected milk readings to rise because
it takes a few days for fallout to work its way through forage into
milk.
In fallout episodes no more frequent than about once a year, FDA
guidelines allow 15,000 picocuries per liter before action by public
health officials is recommended.
AP-NY-05-17-86 0323EDT
a044 0338 17 May 86
PM-Digest Briefs,0968
Eds: This package does not contain the following items from the News
Digest: COKEVILLE-Hostage School, a024; CLEVELAND-Presser, a014;
MOSCOW-Chernobyl-Nuclear, a034; SANTO DOMINGO-Dominican Elections,
a025.
WASHINGTON (AP) - The presidential Challenger commission,
PORTLANDthem up the mountain say they remain committed to the
WASHINGTON (AP) - Testimony by former presidential aide Michael K.
ON THE SAN JUAN RIVER, Costa Rica (AP) - Nicaraguan rebel chief Eden
HONG KONG (AP) - Representatives of capitalist Taiwan and communist
WASHINGTON (AP) - The dispute between the Federal Aviation
GRINNELL, Iowa (AP) - It was the turbulent 1960s. John, Paul, George
AP-NY-05-17-86 0639EDT
a031 0201 17 May 86
PM-Chernobyl-Allies,0472
Chernobyl Cost is High, But Soviet Allies Standing Firm
By LARRY GERBER
VIENNA, Austria (AP) - Although the Chernobyl atomic accident may
cost them millions of dollars, communist-ruled nations in Eastern
Europe have publicly rallied behind the Soviet Union to defend its
handling of the disaster.
''The friends of the Soviet Union stand at these moments by its
side,'' Rude Pravo, the Czechoslovak Communist Party newspaper,
declared earlier this month.
On April 26, an explosion at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in
the Ukraine spewed a cloud of radioactivity into the atmosphere that
drifted west across Europe.
The highest levels of radioactivity were recorded in the Eastern
European nations closest to the Soviet Union.
The Common Market nations of Western Europe subsequently banned
imports of fresh food from Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, Hungary,
Romania, Poland, Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union, fearing radioactive
contamination.
Neutral Austria imposed a similar ban that included sales of its own
fruit and vegetables grown outside hothouses.
The subsequent loss of revenue for the Soviet-bloc countries cannot
be determined because many do not give figures on their hard-currency
exports.
But harvests of early season crops such as lettuce and spinach is
just beginning in the south of the region and the ban, which includes
meat and fish, could be crippling if it continues for long.
Some Soviet allies such as Czechoslovakia boast stable, almost
debt-free economies, but Western exports are crucial for others
because they need the hard currency to pay their debts and keep their
economies running.
Yugoslavia, a non-aligned communist nation, stands to lose $15
million to $20 million if the ban is enforced as planned through the
end of May. That estimate by Yugoslavia's official media is based on
the country's annual $350 million in produce exports to the Common
Market.
Applying the Yugoslav formula to Hungary, that nation's losses would
come to about $18 million.
Andrzej Dorosz, Poland's deputy minister of foreign trade, said this
week that Poland's losses could be $45 million to $50 million in May.
Czechoslovakia, which exports about $19 million worth of meat and
fish to the West, mostly to the Common Market, would lose
approximately $1 million.
Romania, a major food exporter heavily dependent on Western trade,
and Bulgaria have not released specific loss figures.
Even though they apparently were not informed of the danger during
the crucial early days of radiation release, Eastern European nations
have staunchly defended in public the Soviet actions taken to deal
with the accident.
Said Hungary's government newspaper Magyar Hirlap: ''The whipping up
of hysteria and the discriminative measures taken against the Soviet
Union and other socialist countries after the Chernobyl accident are
further links in the chain of hostile acts'' by the West.
AP-NY-05-17-86 0501EDT
a034 0223 17 May 86
PM-Chernobyl-Nuclear, Bjt,0439
U.S. Doctor: More Victims May Die, But Acute Emergency Over
MOSCOW (AP) - The U.S. doctor treating radiation victims from the
Chernobyl disaster said the acute medical crisis caused by history's
worst atomic accident is past. But he said hundreds of people remain
hospitalized, and that some could die.
Dr. Robert P. Gale, a bone marrow expert from Los Angeles, indicated
Friday that 13 people had died as a result of the April 26 accident
at the Ukrainian nuclear power plant 80 miles north of Kiev.
Soviet officials have said two victims were killed in the initial
explosion and fire at the power station.
On Thursday, Gale said seven people had died after exposure to huge
doses of radiation unleashed by the accident, and the next day said
four more had succumbed.
Gale also said Friday that doctors believe they have isolated the
most seriously injured victims and do not expect many more cases of
radiation sickness beyond about 300 people who already have required
hospitalization.
''We are unfortunately having deaths on a continuing basis, although
nothing has happened in the last day,'' Gale told U.S. television
correspondents in Moscow. ''The acute medical emergency is over.''
Of the 35 victims orginally identified as the most serious cases,
Gale said, ''We may have additional casualties, but I think we will
be able to rescue at least half.''
The 11 people identified as having died were among this group, he
indicated.
Gale, who left for Los Angeles after the interview, gave no details
of the four latest deaths and declined to be specific about when they
occurred. The doctor plans to return to Moscow next week.
The physician is a specialist in transplanting bone marrow, a
substance whose destruction by radioactivity can cause death.
U.S. industrialist Armand Hammer, who has a long commercial
relationship with the Soviet Union, arranged the visit by Gale's
medical team and also left Moscow with the doctor.
Nikolai Kozlov, deputy chief of the government environmental
committee, told foreign and Soviet journalists that radiation in
Kiev, the Soviet Union's third-largest city with 2.4 million
inhabitants, had fallen by half from the high of .4 milliroentgens
per hour reached April 30.
The normal level ranges from .005 to .025 milliroentgens per hour in
the Soviet Union.
Kiev's readings have declined to between .15 and .2 milliroentgens
per hour, or 15 to 20 times the normal background level, Kozlov said.
He said the level is not considered hazardous to human health, and
added that no contamination of drinking water had been detected.
AP-NY-05-17-86 0523EDT
- - - - - -
a042 0316 17 May 86
PM-Chernobyl-Nuclear, 1st Ld, a034,0511
EDS: UPDATES with today's Soviet media reports.
By CAROL J. WILLIAMS
MOSCOW (AP) - Radio Moscow today said all evacuees from the
Chernobyl nuclear disaster zone had been checked for radiation
sickness but that no symptoms were found. A U.S. doctor said the
medical crisis is past, but that some victims now hospitalized may
die.
''Medical workers have examined the 92,000 people evacuated from the
areas adjoining the nuclear power plant,'' Radio Moscow said this
morning in its latest report on the aftermath of the April 26
accident.
The medical personnel, Radio Moscow said, reported that ''none of
their patients have any signs of ailments connected with the increase
of radiation at the time of the accident.'' It did not elaborate
further.
Soviet authorities have said they moved people from within an
18-mile radius of Chernobyl once the magnitude of the accident at the
nuclear power plant 80 miles north of Kiev became known.
Nevertheless, hundreds of people absorbed doses of radiation
following an explosion and fire in one of the plant's atomic
reactors, and 35 were ''highly exposed individuals,'' said Dr. Robert
P. Gale.
Gale, a U.S. bone marrow expert who treated the victims, returned
late Friday to Los Angeles, where he told reporters that 11 of the 35
severe exposure cases had died to date. Two other plant workers were
killed the day of the accident, he said.
Gale also said that doctors believe they have isolated the most
seriously injured victims, and do not expect many more cases of
radiation sickness beyond about 300 people who already have required
hospitalization.
Before leaving Moscow, he told U.S. television correspondents that
''the acute medical emergency is over.''
Of the 35 severe cases, he said ''we may have additional casualties,
but I think we will be able to rescue at least half.''
U.S. industrialist Armand Hammer, who has a long commercial
relationship with the Soviet Union, arranged the visit by Gale's
medical team and returned to Los Angeles with the doctor.
Gale said he planned to return to Moscow next week. His speciality,
the transplanting of bone marrow, can save radiation victims whose
own marrow has been destroyed by high doses of radioactivity.
The Chernobyl accident poured out a huge invisible cloud of
radioactivity that spread over Europe and gradually has worked its
way around the world.
Western governments, including the United States, reacted with shock
and anger at the Soviets' initial tight-lipped policy in disclosing
information about the accident and its aftermath.
The Kremlin accused the West of seizing upon the accident as a
pretext to score points in an anti-Soviet propaganda campaign.
Reports in official Soviet media today continued to present the
Chernobyl disaster as similar to accidents that have occurred in the
West.
The weekly Moscow News published what it called ''the chronicle of
atomic accidents,'' listing 20 incidents dating back to 1951 in the
United States, Canada, Japan and western Europe.
Nikolai Kozlov, 12th graf
AP-NY-05-17-86 0616EDT
a201 0914 17 May 86
AMs AP News Digest
For Sunday AMs
Here are the top stories at this hour from The Associated Press. The
CHERNOBYL:
Soviets Punish Those Who Panicked and Failed Their Duty...
MOSCOW - Soviet media, which have lionized heroes of the Chernobyl
nuclear accident, reveal that some people panicked and abandoned
their comrades at the plant when disaster struck and were punished
for failing in their duties. Slug AM-Chernobyl-Nuclear. About 700.
By Alison Smale.
...While Heroes Are Honored, from Farmers to Firefighters
MOSCOW - In a nation that worships the lionhearted, the Chernobyl
nuclear disaster has become fertile ground for the breeding of
heroes, from potato farmers to pipe welders, from firefighters to
fliers. Slug AM-Chernobyl-Heroes. About 750.
An AP Extra by Andrew Rosenthal.
HOSTAGE SCHOOL: Authorities Seek More Clues in Ransom Scheme
MOUNT HOOD TRAGEDY: Funerals Set for 2 of 9 Climbers Who Died
TEAMSTERS:
PAKISTAN: Alerts Border Troops after Air Clash with Afghanistan
TWO CHINAS: Capitalist, Communist Nations Hold a Rare Meeting
DRUG REPORT: Cocaine Smuggled into U.S. May Double This Year
DINOFLOP: Giant Pterodactyl Fails in Comeback Try
BAR BURNINGS: Taverns Flourish, but Anti-Alcohol Move Continues
MOUNT ST. HELENS: National Volcanic Monument Faces Uncertainty
SYRIA BASTION: Single-Minded Nation Rallies Arabs against Israel
AFRICA'S LAST CHANCE: A Struggle for Food Security
MARCOS: Did He Leave the Philippines or Was He Kidnapped?
CAMPAIGN '86: Alabama Governor's Race, Minus Wallace, Is Four-Way
AP-NY-05-17-86 1214EDT
a248 1514 17 May 86
AM-Digest Advisory,0156
All budgets have cleared. Here is a listing.
ST. REGIS, N.Y. - St Regis Reservation, a208.
WASH - Teamster Troubles, a214.
VANCOUVER, Wash. - Volcano Anniversary, a214. LaserPhoto NY23.
ANDREWS AIR FORCE BASE, Md. - Dinaflop, a218.
MOSCOW - Chernobyl-Nuclear, a224.
MOSCOW - Chernobyl-Heroes, a225.
CLEVELAND - Presser, a226.
COKEVILLE, Wyo. - Hostage School, a245, a238, laserphotos
PORTLAND, Ore. - Climbers, a247, laserphoto PD1.
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - Pakistan-Afghanistan, a234, a233.
HONG KONG - China-Taiwan, a235.
WASH - Drugs, a236.
UNDATED - Bastion-Syria, moved in advance as a277-a278 on May 15.
TIMBUKTU, Mali - Aftica-Last Chance, moved in advance as a268-a269
WASH - Marcos Departure, moved in advance as a273 on May 15.
MONTGOMERY, Ala. - Alabama Governor, moved in advance as a269 on May
AP-NY-05-17-86 1815EDT
a220 1145 17 May 86
AM-Accident-Review,0768
Review of Information About the Chernobyl Accident
With AM-Chernobyl-Nuclear, Bjt
MOSCOW (AP) - The following is a review of information that has
emerged about the Chernobyl nuclear accident in the northern Ukraine.
The information comes from Soviet officials, the state-run media and
foreign doctors treating victims.
The accident:
At 1:23 a.m. on April 26, an explosion occurred in one of four
1,000-megawatt graphite-moderated reactors at the Chernobyl power
station in the Ukraine, 80 miles north of Kiev. Soviet leader Mikhail
S. Gorbachev explained in a speech Wednesday night, ''The reactor's
capacity suddenly increased during a scheduled shutdown of the fourth
unit. The considerable emission of steam and subsequent reaction
resulted in the formation of hydrogen, its explosion, damage to the
reactor and the associated radioactive release.''
Notification:
Officials of the U.N.-affiliated International Atomic Energy Agency
said they received the first word of the accident from Soviet
officials when the agency telephoned Moscow on the night of April 28,
nearly three days after the accident.
Gorbachev said of the accident, ''It was necessary to evaluate it
urgently and competently. And as soon as we received reliable initial
information it was made available to Soviet people and sent through
diplomatic channels to the governments of foreign countries.''
However, he implied that officials realized how dangerous the
situation was by the afternoon of April 27, which some officials say
was when evacuations were ordered. These began almost 32 hours before
the Soviet government issued its first public statement on the
accident.
Deaths:
As of Saturday, at least 13 deaths were announced. Gorbachev set the
death toll at nine during his speech.
Dr. Robert Gale, an American bone marrow specialist who spent two
weeks in Moscow treating the most seriously injured, indicated on
Friday that 11 people died in hospitals. Two were reported earlier to
have been killed in the initial explosion.
Injuries:
Gorbachev said 299 people have been hospitalized. Twenty-four are in
grave condition, according to Gale, who said doctors believe they
have located most of the injured and that few new cases of radiation
sickness are expected.
Evacuations:
About 92,000 people have been evacuated in two waves. Gorbachev
said, ''The inhabitants of the settlement near the station were
evacuated within a matter of hours and then, when it had become clear
that there was a potential threat to the health of people in the
adjoining zone, they also were moved to safe areas.'' Other officials
have said the evacuations occurred April 27 and May 2-4.
Danger zone:
An area extending 18 miles around the power station has been
identified as the danger zone, with special passes required to enter.
Farming has been halted within the zone.
Damage:
The No. 4 reactor was ruined by the fire and explosion, and its
cooling system was extensively damaged. The remaining three reactors
at the plant have been shut down, but are said to be undamaged.
Housing, land, vehicles and everything else within the danger zone
was contaminated by radioactivity.
Cleanup:
The reactor core, which burned for days after the initial explosion,
has been smothered with 5,000 tons of sand, lead, boron, dolomite and
other materials dropped from helicopters. The covering sealed off
radioactive emissions, and workers at the plant then began a
months-long process of sealing the ruined reactor in concrete, where
it will stay for hundreds of years while its fuel decays.
About 150 workers are in the danger zone each day to decontaminate
the site and attempt to make the area habitable again. News reports
have said the workers erected dikes and shut off the community's
sewer system to prevent rainwater from washing contamination into the
nearby Pripyat River, which feeds Kiev's water supply. The workers
also are reported to be sealing radioactive ground with a synthetic
polymer covering to prevent the contamination from spreading.
Buildings at the plant and in the adjoining settlement of Pripyat
are being washed down with water which then is drained in special
systems to prevent contamination of the sewer system.
No one has predicted when the cleanup will be finished, or whether
evacuated residents will be able to return.
Foreign aid:
Doctors Gale, Paul Terasaki and Richard Champline of the United
States and Dr. Yair Reisner of Israel have performed bone marrow
transplants on some of the most seriously injured. Western reports
say France is supplying the polymer being used to contain ground
contamination. Switzerland has sent medical supplies and West Germany
has provided special equipment for decontamination.
AP-NY-05-17-86 1445EDT
a224 1218 17 May 86
AM-Chernobyl-Nuclear, Bjt,0758
Media Reports Panic As Well as Heroism at Chernobyl
By ALISON SMALE
MOSCOW (AP) - The Soviet media reported for the first time Saturday
that some workers at the Chernobyl nuclear plant panicked and
deserted during the accident, and said they were being disciplined.
Deputy Premier Ivan Silaev told a television interviewer that the
crippled reactor's temperature has dropped to 392 degrees Fahrenheit.
It was reported at 572 degrees eight days ago.
''We are calm today, and confident there will be no relapse, or any
increase in temperature,'' Silaev said. He said he saw miners
tunneling under the reactor to make a shaft that will be filled with
concrete to prevent radiation from seeping into the ground.
Silaev emphasized ''the heroism of our Soviet man'' toiling to clean
up after the April 26 explosion and fire in the reactor, 80 miles
north of Kiev.
By contrast, the weekly magazine Ogonyek quoted Grigory Revenko,
head of the Communist Party in the Kiev region, as saying he could
not hide the fact that ''there were cases of people deserting,
panicking and trying to pin the blame on others'' after the accident.
''A sharp examination of each individual is being carried out,'' he
said. ''We have already got rid of a few people, including people in
leadership positions. They have parted with their party (membership)
tickets. These people got into the party by chance, and they couldn't
even withstand the first test.''
The Communist Party newspaper Pravda reported Monday that three
party members were punished for underestimating the scope of the
accident and bungling the subsequent evacuation of nearby residents.
However, it did not accuse the men of deserting their posts.
The youth newspaper Komsomolskaya Pravda said Saturday that Yuri
Zagalsky, a construction worker at the reactor and a leader of the
Communist Party's youth branch, Komsomol, disappeared on the night of
the accident and did not appear for days afterwards.
''He didn't help at the work camp (set up for evacuees),'' it said.
''He was busy with personal matters.''
Zagalsky was dismissed from his post in the Komsomol and probably
will be expelled, the paper said. Komsomol membership is a vital
stepping stone to membership in the regular party.
The paper said Galina Lupiy, a Komsomol member in charge of the
plant's food department, panicked and went to stay with relatives. It
said she had to be summoned back by telegram nine days later, but did
not say if she was being punished.
Of the three party members Pravda earlier said were punished, one
was expelled from the party and the two others were given official
reprimands. The paper said they may face criminal prosecution.
Also Saturday, Lev P. Feoktistov, a scientist and deputy director of
the State Committee on the Use of Atomic Energy, appeared on the
current affairs television program, ''Studio Nine,'' giving Soviet
television viewers their first detailed report on radiation released
by the accident.
Feoktistov said the accident's effects could not be compared to
those of a nuclear bomb, and insisted that radiation levels were not
dangerous in Kiev, the Soviet Union's third largest city with 2.4
million residents.
An American doctor who was treating victims of the accident
indicated Friday that 13 people had died, including two killed in the
initial explosion and 11 who later died of radiation exposure. He
said that altogether 299 people were hospitalized with injuries.
Dr. Robert Gale of the University of California at Los Angeles
returned home late Friday but said he planned to return soon to the
Soviet Union. He refused to elaborate on his plans.
''We believe we can rescue a substantial number (of victims),'' Gale
told reporters at an airport news conference in Los Angeles.
Feoktistov gave the most detailed discussion in the Soviet media of
nuclear power technology and the accident's effects. The program
seemed intended to calm Soviet citizens, who generally are less aware
than Westerners of the dangers of low-level radiation and are not
accustomed to public discussion of domestic accidents.
Feoktistov conveyed how surprised top Soviet scientists were by the
accident and its aftermath.
Asked by commentator Alexander Bovin what he would have thought
before the accident if someone had described such a series of events,
Feoktistov replied, ''I would have thought it was completely
incredible. A completely incredible event.''
He said it may take a long time to determine the exact cause of the
explosion.
AP-NY-05-17-86 1516EDT
a225 1230 17 May 86
AM-Chernobyl-Heroes, Bjt,0725
Soviet Media Stresses Heroics in Chernobyl Coverage
An AP Extra
By ANDREW ROSENTHAL
MOSCOW (AP) - Soviet reporting of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster
carries echoes of World War II, with tales of men sticking to their
posts despite great danger, and farmers and factory workers pledging
to increase productivity to meet a crisis.
The enemy this time is radiation, not Germans. But the coverage
reflects the Soviets' traditional worship of heroes and the
government's penchant for turning bad news into good by emphasizing
the self-sacrificing nature of the citizenry.
Disasters anywhere usually produce tales of bravery. But the stories
of Chernobyl bear the unique stamp of the Soviet state, with its hero
workers, hero mothers, hero soldiers, hero cosmonauts and, above all,
hero communists.
Painful scenes of weeping widows, body bags, careening ambulances or
hospital vigils are avoided by the media.
News accounts have glorified firefighters who stood on the roof of
the burning reactor building after the April 26 explosion at the
power plant and one by one collapsed from radiation sickness.
One firefighter, Viktor Kibenko, was only 23 and had just learned
two days earlier that his wife was pregnant, wrote the official youth
newspaper, Komsomolskaya Pravda. It said he fought the fire directly
over the reactor for hours, averting a catastrophic spread of the
fire but also ingesting deadly amounts of radiation.
Kibenko died 15 days later in a hospital, it said.
The media also glorified two men who dived into radioactive water
that had collected under the reactor. They released a valve and
drained the water, heading off a possible steam explosion.
There have been few reports of human failure during the crisis.
Komsomolskaya Pravda said Saturday that one youth league leader at
the Chernobyl plant was dismissed from his league post and might be
expelled for an unspecified failure of duty. It said a woman in
charge of the plant's food department panicked and fled the area
after the accident.
The Communist Party daily Pravda said one party member was expelled
and two others were reprimanded for underestimating the scope of the
accident and bungling the evacuation of nearby residents.
The heroic tradition is an old one in the Soviet Union. Some of the
most popular Russian legends are about powerful warriors -
''bogatyri'' - who, coincidentally, lived in the city of Kiev, 80
miles south of Chernobyl.
The Soviet Union's greatest hero is its founder, Lenin. There's also
Yuri Gagarin, the first man in space, and a string of World War II
heroes. Many still worship the late dictator Josef Stalin.
Women with many children are given medals and workers who
overfulfill the economic plan are named ''heroes of socialist
labor.''
Perhaps the most famous labor hero was Alexei Stakhanov, who sped up
production in his coal mine in the 1930s and spawned a movement of
zealous overproducers that still exists.
At first, the Soviet media said little about the Chernobyl accident,
a secrecy reflex ingrained in a system that jealously guards
information.
But in recent days, the official media has provided extensive and
almost entirely postive coverage.
Television shows farmhands picking onions supervised by a specialist
with a geiger counter, and potato farmers pledging to make up for any
shortages.
One television report showed a factory team leader in Kiev hammering
his fist in the air and urging his men to weld more pipes for use at
Chernobyl.
Coal miners were reported to be donating their free time to help
make up for Chernobyl's lost share of the national energy supply.
There have been tales of helicopter pilots making hazardous flights
to dump sand, lead and other material on the reactor.
Most of the heroes are members of the Communist Party or its youth
branch, Komsomol.
''It's always that way, when times are hard Communists and
Komsomolists set the example,'' wrote the military daily Krasnaya
Zvezda.
There probably were non-party members who gave their lives or
performed feats of daring, but they're not getting much media
attention. The Tass news agency mentioned a radiation-stricken worker
who was not in the party, but only to say that he had sent a telegram
from his hospital bed asking to be made a member.
AP-NY-05-17-86 1530EDT
a250 1539 17 May 86
AM-Digest Briefs,0797
Eds: This package does not contain the following items from the News
Digest: COKEVILLE, Wyo. - Hostage School; PORTLAND, Ore. - Climbers;
CLEVELAND - Presser; WASH - Teamster Troubles; ISLAMABAD, Pakistan -
Pakistan-Afghanistan; LAFAYETTE, La. - Oil-Louisiana Slide; UNDATED -
Bastion Syria; TIMBUKTU., Mali - Africa-Last Chance; MONTGOMERY, Ala.
- Alabama Governor; WASH - LaRouche-Money; WASH - Marcos-Departure.
MOSCOW - The Soviet media reported for the first time Saturday that
some workers at the Chernobyl nuclear reactor panicked and deserted
during the accident. A deputy premier said the reactor temperature
was cooling rapidly.
''We are calm today, and confident there will be no relapse, or any
increase in temperature,'' Deputy Premier Ivan Silaev said in a
television interview.
Silaev said the reactor was 392 degrees Fahrenheit. It was reported
at 572 degrees eight days ago.
---
MOSCOW - Soviet reporting of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster carries
echoes of World War II, with tales of men sticking to their posts
despite great danger, and farmers and factory workers pledging to
increase productivity to meet a crisis.
The enemy this time is radiation, not Germans. But the coverage
reflects the Soviets' traditional worship of heroes and the
government's penchant for turning bad news into good by emphasizing
the self-sacrificing nature of the citizenry.
Disasters anywhere usually produce tales of bravery. But the stories
of Chernobyl bear the unique stamp of the Soviet state, with its hero
workers, hero mothers, hero soldiers, hero cosmonauts and, above all,
hero Communists.
---
HONG KONG - Officials of China and Taiwan met Saturday for the first
WASHINGTON - The volume of cocaine smuggled into the United States
ANDREWS AIR FORCE BASE, Md. - The giant pterodactyl, a flying
an Indian reservation culminated in the torching of an unlicensed
VANCOUVER, Wash. - Six years after a natural force with the punch of
AP-NY-05-17-86 1839EDT
a006 2358 17 May 86
BC-Industry News, Advisory, 4th Add,0492
Law Would Require Reporters To Reveal Sources In Libel Suits
IPI Director Says Greater Danger to Foreign Correspondents
VIENNA, Austria - Foreign correspondents are in greater danger than
ever, particularly in countries engaged in civil war, says Peter
Galliner, director of the International Press Institute.
''Because they are unarmed, journalists are the easiest targets,''
Galliner told an IPI general assembly. ''But they are also the only
neutral and therefore objective witnesses to conflicts in which the
truth becomes ever more difficult to discover.''
The IPI, a London-based organization of Western and Third World
editors, publishers and broadcasters, met last week for three days to
discuss issues of news coverage.
Delegates to the IPI General Assembly elected Juan Luis Cebrian,
editor of the Spanish daily newspaper El Pais, chairman for the next
two years. He succeeds Richard Leonard, associate editor of The
Milwaukee Journal.
The group condemned slow Soviet reporting of the Chernobyl nuclear
accident, Lebanese kidnappers who hold reporters and South Africa's
restrictions on coverage of its racial conflict.
The independently financed IPI says it represents 2,000 editors and
publishers in more than 60 countries.
BROADCAST NEWS OF NOTE
Gannett To Buy Seattle Radio Station for $6.5 Million
AP-NY-05-18-86 0259EDT
a007 0008 18 May 86
BC-Industry News, Advisory, 5th Add,0521
Four European Broadcasters To Get CNN
Networks Conclude Pictures of Chernobyl Were Phony
NEW YORK - ABC and NBC said in their evening news broadcasts May 14
that a videotape they broadcast two days earlier that purportedly
showed the burning Chernobyl nuclear plant was fraudulent.
Investigations of the videotape, which came from a Yugoslav tourist,
were begun after Italian television showed the pictures and began
getting calls from viewers who said the pictures looked like those
taken of a recent cement factory fire in Trieste, on the
Italian-Yugoslav border, the networks said.
Both networks said they obtained the pictures the day after the
nuclear accident in the Soviet Union.
PERSONNEL MATTERS
Times-Mirror Names Steven L. Isenberg Associate Publisher of Newsday
Gannett Announces New Appointments
AP-NY-05-18-86 0309EDT
a201 0849 18 May 86
AMs AP News Digest
For Monday AMs
Here are the top stories at this hour from The Associated Press. The
CHERNOBYL AFTERMATH:
Soviet Citizens Offer Shelter, Aid to Nuclear Diaster Victims
MOSCOW - Readers of the Communist daily Pravda write letters
offering temporary shelter and money for people affected by the
Chernobyl accident, and another newspaper identifies an 11th victim
of the disaster. Slug AM-Chernobyl-Nuclear. Developing.
By Carol J. Williams.
US Doctor Says Many Soviets Exposed to Radiation Will Survive
LOS ANGELES - A California doctor says he performed 19 bone-marrow
transplants on victims of the Chernobyl atomic reactor accident in
Russia and expects that hundreds exposed to radiation can survive the
tragedy. Slug AM-Hammer-Gale. Developing.
By Kathleen Boland. News conference planned at 3:30 p.m. EDT.
MIDEAST: Tensions Mount between Israel and Syria
SOUTH KOREA: Riot Police Disperse Anti-Government Protesters
TERRORISM: British Mount Tight Security after Port Threat
COKEVILLE HOSTAGES: Tiny Town Seeks to Answer Violence with Love
ROBBERY SHOOTINGS: Gunman Sought in Five Slayings Kills Himself
STORMS: Two Drown, 14 Missing in Severe Texas Weather
HANDS ACROSS AMERICA: Gaps Conceded in $50 Million Route
TEAMSTERS: Presser Indictment Casts Cloud over FBI Involvment
DEAVER: Former Reagan Aide Gives Unwitting Help to Lobbying Foe
SPACE SHUTTLE: Study Cites Radioactive Dangers in Accident
US-MEXICO: Charges of Corruption Bring Crisis of Confidence
ELECTIONS '86:
CLOSED CHAPTER: Connecticut's Largest City Loses Only Bookstore
DOCTOR'S KILLING: Mourned by Children Who Might Not Have Been
POLL: Senate TV a Good Idea, but Few Will Watch
a208 1001 18 May 86
AM-Chernobyl-Nuclear,0721
Questions Remain Three Weeks after Chernobyl Disaster
An AP News Analysis
By ANDREW ROSENTHAL
MOSCOW (AP) - The full story on the Chernobyl nuclear disaster has
yet to emerge more than three weeks after the accident, leaving many
questions about the disaster and its consequences, as well as
unexplained conflicts in the official account of what happened.
The Soviet Union is restricting information on the accident but has
promised an eventual full report on what caused the No. 4 reactor at
Chernobyl to explode.
A Soviet expert has said it will take a long time to find the exact
cause, and a U.S. doctor treating victims said it may be years before
the full human cost of the Chernobyl tragedy is known.
It will also take time to determine what political and economic
damage the accident caused, and there may never be a full explanation
of how the Soviet chain of command handled it.
Official reports say that at 1:23 a.m. on April 26, an explosion
rocked the No. 4 reactor of the four-reactor Chernobyl station 80
miles north of Kiev in the Ukraine.
Some or all of the graphite used to regulate the nuclear core caught
fire, damaging or destroying the radioactive fuel. Radiation spewed
upward, forming a cloud eventually detected as far away as Japan and
the United States.
How much of the nuclear fuel was destroyed and how much radiation
was released? How close did the reactor come to the so-called ''China
syndrome,'' in which it would have burned uncontrollably into the
earth?
These questions have not been answered.
It is also not clear why the explosion occurred. Soviet leader
Mikhail S. Gorbachev has said the reactor was being shut down for
scheduled maintenance, but power surged out of control and created a
hydrogen explosion.
Official reports have said pipes in the reactor cooling system
ruptured, but did not explain whether the system was damaged by the
blast or if it broke down beforehand, perhaps contributing to the
accident.
Some Soviet officials have suggested human error might have
contributed to the accident, while others say safety systems were
intended to account for such error. The Soviets have always
maintained their nuclear plants are safe and now say more reactors
like the one at Chernobyl will be built.
Press reports have said experts are building a concrete tomb for the
reactor, digging a tunnel to provide a cushion below, covering some
land with a synthetic substance, and building dikes to prevent
pollution of a nearby river. But many details of the cleanup
operation remain unclear.
Why did the Soviets wait three days before informing the world about
Chernobyl and 36 hours before evacuating area residents?
Gorbachev said in a televised speech that the Kremlin told its own
people and other nations about the accident as soon as it had
reliable information to give.
Ukrainian Premier Alexander Lyashko told Western reporters in Kiev
that Moscow was told of the explosion on April 26, but did not learn
the full gravity of the accident until two days later.
Some Soviet officials have accused local authorities of not
understanding the scale of the disaster. Others say local officials
did know what was happening. But the government newspaper Izvestia
stressed in an article Sunday that Chernobyl firefighters knew they
were confronting a nuclear accident.
Is it possible Ukrainian officials kept Moscow in the dark at first?
Local officials may have wanted time to deal with the accident
before informing the Kremlin. This fits into a currently popular
thesis that Ukrainian party chief Vladimir Shcherbitsky is in
political straits.
But the Kremlin must have its own sources of information in Kiev,
including the KGB secret police with its agents and internal armed
forces.
Some local officials have already been punished, but it remains to
be seen how high the repercussions will be felt, and whether
Chernobyl will give Gorbachev any political trouble.
Dr. Robert Gale of Los Angeles, who has helped Soviet doctors treat
the worst radiation cases, has said the current death toll of at
least 13 will rise. It will take years to discover the full health
impact on the local population near Chernobyl, he said.
AP-NY-05-18-86 1302EDT
- - - - - -
a209 1002 18 May 86
AM-Chernobyl-Nuclear, Advisory,0040
Eds:
Please note that the analysis story Chernobyl-Nuclear, a208, which
just moved should have been slugged Chernobyl-Questions, and is not
the Moscow-dated Bjt slugged Chernobyl-Nuclear. That story is
upcoming shortly.
AP-NY-05-18-86 1303EDT
a233 1334 18 May 86
AM-Kohl-Chernobyl, INSERT, a219,0137
MUNICH, West Germany: INSERTS 3 grafs after 5th graf pvs, 'Kohl spoke
...' to UPDATE with Tass response. Picks up 6th graf pvs, 'West
Germany ...'
In Moscow, The official Soviet news agency Tass reported on Kohl's
speech and said he ''did not miss the opportunity to use the accident
... for demands which are totally unfounded,'' a reference to the
suggestion the Soviets provide compensation.
''He made this impudent demand in front of Hitler relics on the eve
of the 45th anniversary of Nazi Germany's attack against the Soviet
Union,'' Tass said.
''They in Bonn have, apparently, forgotten their irredeemable debt
to the Soviet people for the grief, murder, destruction and suffering
caused by German Nazism to the U.S.S.R., to every Soviet family,'' it
said.
West Germany, 6th graf
AP-NY-05-18-86 1635EDT
a220 1141 18 May 86
AM-Chernobyl-Nuclear, Bjt,0610
Readers Offer Help To Accident Victims; Kohl Blasts Gorbachev
By CAROL WILLIAMS
MOSCOW (AP) - A Soviet newspaper on Sunday published letters by
readers offering shelter, money and free labor to assist victims of
the Chernobyl nuclear accident, and another publication identified an
11th person who died in the disaster.
In Munich, West German chancellor Helmut Kohl suggested the Soviet
Union should compensate his country for damages caused by the
disaster.
The Communist Party newspaper Pravda said readers have flooded the
editorial office with mail offering help and volunteering labor for
the victims of the April 26 accident at the plant 80 miles north of
Kiev, the country's third largest city with 2.4 million.
''I am a physicist, 30 years old, in good health, and could prove
useful in any capacity,'' Pravda quoted from a telegram. ''During my
vacation, I would like to work without compensation to liquidate the
consequences of the accident at the Chernobyl (nuclear power
station). I can take vacation soon.''
A Leningrad couple sent $1,420 to aid accident victims and a music
teacher from Tbilisi offered to house two evacuated children for the
summer, Pravda said.
A central Asian building company invited 150 evacuees to live in its
private rest camp and the workers of a Crimean cafeteria suggested a
national day of free labor to help raise money for the victims and
decontamination work, the newspaper said.
Soviet officials say 92,000 people were evacuated from within 18
miles of the plant.
Kohl criticized Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev for waiting until
Wednesday to speak publicly about the accident that spewed a cloud of
radiation over the western Soviet Union and much of the rest of the
world. In his speech, Gorbachev had accused the West of trying to
score political points over the disaster in a ''highly immoral
campaign.''
''Finally, three weeks after the reactor accident at Chernobyl,
General-Secretary Gorbachev now has spoken on the accident,'' Kohl
said in a speech in Munich, West Germany. ''It would have been better
if he had left behind slander against us and had given important
information and, first of all, addressed the question of how the
Soviet Union plans to compensate for material damages that also
occurred in West Germany.''
West German leaders have discussed demanding reparations for
agricultural losses caused by the Chernobyl accident. The country
plans a major compensation program for farmers and dairymen who lost
sales because of tight restrictions imposed after the disaster
because of concern of radiation contamination.
The Agriculture Ministry says that the program is expected to cost
more than $90 million, and national leaders have come under pressure
to seek compensation from Moscow.
Kohl welcomed Gorbachev's proposal for an international conference
to discuss the safety of nuclear power plants and said the issue
should be part of the East-West dialogue.
The government newspaper Izvestia reported Sunday that firefighter
Nikolai I. Titenok died of massive doses of radiation received while
battling the reactor fire. Ten other victims have been identified by
name in previous newspaper articles, but it remains unclear how many
people have died.
U.S. bone marrow specialist Dr. Robert Gale indicated Friday that 13
people have died, including 11 radiation victims and two men killed
in the initial fire and explosion.
The last official report on casualties was issued Wednesday when
Gorbachev said nine people had died and 299 were hospitalized with
radiation injuries.
Izvestia also published fragmentary accounts by six firefighters who
battled the blaze at Chernobyl's No. 4 reactor and were now
hospitalized in Moscow with radiation sickness.
AP-NY-05-18-86 1441EDT
- - - - - -
a241 1443 18 May 86
AM-Chernobyl-Nuclear, 1st Ld, a220,0702
Readers Offer Help To Accident Victims; Kohl Blasts Gorbachev
Eds: UPDATES with Tass responds to Kohl; Soviet ambassador says radiation
has spread but not dangerous; Soviet tv report of cleanup work at
Chernobyl; CORRECTS that Soviet press, not officials, estimated 92,000
evacuated. Pickup 13th pvs, The government newspaper...
By CAROL WILLIAMS
MOSCOW (AP) - A Soviet newspaper published letters Sunday by readers
offering shelter, money and free labor to help victims of the
Chernobyl nuclear accident, and another publication identified an
11th person who died in the disaster.
In Munich, West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl suggested the Soviet
Union should compensate his country for damages caused by the
disaster. Tass, the official Soviet news agency, responded by saying
Kohl's call for reparations was ''totally unfounded.''
And in Bonn, the West German capital, Soviet Ambassador Yuli
Kvitsinsky said in a letter to Interior Minister Friedrich Zimmermann
that radioactive fallout from the damaged Chernobyl plant had spread
as far as Lithuania and Estonia, but radioactivity levels were now
''practically'' back to normal in the Baltic republics.
Kvitsinsky said higher than normal radiation levels had been
measured briefly in the cities of Tallinn, Vilnus, Odessa and Sochi.
Tallinn, in Estonia, is about 600 miles north of Chernobyl, and
Vilnus, in Lithuania, is 300 miles north of the accident site. Odessa
is about 240 miles south of Chernobyl and Sochi 600 miles to the
south, both on the Black Sea.
The Communist Party newspaper Pravda said readers had flooded the
editorial office with mail offering help and volunteering labor for
the victims of the April 26 accident at the plant 80 miles north of
Kiev, the country's third largest city with 2.4 million.
''I am a physicist, 30 years old, in good health, and could prove
useful in any capacity,'' Pravda quoted from one telegram. ''During
my vacation, I would like to work without compensation to liquidate
the consequences of the accident at Chernobyl. I can take vacation
soon.''
A Leningrad couple sent $1,420 to aid accident victims and a music
teacher from Tbilisi offered to house two evacuated children for the
summer, Pravda said.
A central Asian building company invited 150 evacuees to live in its
private rest camp and the workers of a Crimean cafeteria suggested a
national day of free labor to help raise money for the victims and
decontamination work, according to the newspaper.
The Soviet press has reported that 92,000 people were evacuated from
an area within 18 miles of the plant.
Kohl criticized Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev for waiting until
Wednesday to speak publicly about the accident that spewed a cloud of
radiation over the western Soviet Union and much of Europe. In his
speech, Gorbachev accused the West of trying to score political
points over the disaster in a ''highly immoral campaign.''
''Finally, three weeks after the reactor accident at Chernobyl,
General-Secretary Gorbachev now has spoken on the accident,'' Kohl
said in a speech in Munich.
''It would have been better if he had left behind slander against us
and had given important information and, first of all, addressed the
question of how the Soviet Union plans to compensate for material
damages that also occurred in West Germany,'' Kohl said.
West German leaders have discussed demanding reparations for
agricultural losses caused by the fallout. The country plans a major
compensation program for farmers and dairymen who lost sales because
of tight restrictions imposed because of concern of radiation
contamination.
The Agriculture Ministry estimates the program will cost more than
$90 million, and national leaders have come under pressure to seek
compensation from Moscow.
Tass said Kohl ''did not miss the opportunity to use the accident at
the Chernobyl nuclear power station for demands which are totally
unfounded for a 'compensation for the material damage' allegedly
caused'' to West Germany.
Moscow's evening television news program showed film of cleanup work
at Chernobyl but did not give any new details on the state of the
reactor.
''The situation changes here every day,'' the announcer said. ''As
one problem is solved, another one appears.''
The government, 13th graf
AP-NY-05-18-86 1743EDT
- - - - - -
a249 1547 18 May 86
AM-Digest Advisory,0113
Eds:
All budgets have cleared. Here is a listing.
MOSCOW - Chernobyl-Nuclear, a241, a220.
LOS ANGELES - Hammer-Gale, a245.
WASHINGTON - US-Mideast, a237.
KWANGJU, South Korea - South Korea, a236.
LONDON - Ports Security, a229.
COKEVILLE, Wyo. - Hostage School, a248.
COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. - Robbery Shootings, a232, a227.
HOUSTON - Storms Rdp, a224.
LOS ANGELES - Hands-Money, a216.
WASHINGTON - FBI-Presser, a239, a222.
WASHINGTON - Lobbying, a230.
WASHINGTON - Shuttle-Plutonium, a223.
WASHINGTON - US-Mexico, a217.
HARRISBURG, Pa. - Pennsylvania Primary, a205.
BRIDGEPORT, Conn. - No Bookstores, a203.
AP-NY-05-18-86 1847EDT
a245 1518 18 May 86
AM-Hammer-Gale, Bjt,0472
100,000 Could Feel Long-Term Radiation Effects, Doctor Says
By KATHLEEN BOLAND
LOS ANGELES (AP) - As many as 100,000 Soviets will suffer long-term
effects of radiation from the Chernobyl nuclear plant accident that
already has killed 13 people, an American bone-marrow specialist said
Sunday.
Dr. Robert Gale, who assisted Soviet physicians in performing
bone-marrow transplants on radiation victims, said 300 Soviets had
been exposed to substantial radiation and 11 of them have died. Two
others died from immediate injuries at the Chernobyl site, he said.
Thirty-five received the most serious doses, he said, adding that he
assisted in 19 bone-marrow transplants. He returned from the Soviet
Union on Friday.
''We believe we can rescue a substantial number of the 35 and
possibly the rest of the 265,'' he said.
The Soviets' last official report on casualties was issued Wednesday
when Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev said nine people had died and
299 were hospitalized with radiation injuries.
Most of the deaths resulted from skin, gastrointestinal or liver
damage from radiation, Gale said.
The April 26 accident spread an invisible cloud of radiation across
the Soviet Union and much of the world.
''I think we can say there are at least 50,000 to 100,000 people who
have had some dose of radiation which might be of long-term
concern,'' Gale said. ''There will, unfortunately, be additional
fatalities. We hope this number will be small,'' he said.
Bone marrow, which produces blood cells, is easily damaged by
radiation.
Gale, chairman of the International Bone Marrow Transplant Registry,
said his estimates on long-term effects were based in part on
information obtained after the atomic bomb blasts that ended World
War II in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan.
He said his team received much cooperation from Soviet doctors. The
group did not deal directly with patients but assisted the Soviets,
he said.
''That was our primary role in representing the other transplant
nations, to assist them as they assist us in any of the other member
nations,'' he said.
The Soviets put no constraints on the team's ability to contact
western or Soviet news media, he said, adding that he would not
comment on individual cases because of doctor-patient
confidentiality.
Gale said he would return to the Soviet Union next week to aid more
Chernobyl victims and assess patients' progress.
Some of the two dozen more seriously exposed victims will not
survive, including those exposed during efforts to prevent a
castastrophe, he said.
''We know that there are some injuries in these accidents that are
simply irreversible,'' he added.
Gale's mission was arranged by Dr. Armand Hammer, the Occidental
Petroleum Corp. chairman who has engaged in trade with the Soviet
Union since the days of the Bolshevik revolution.
Fifteen countries contributed to the rescue effort, including France
and Switzerland, which supplied equipment and drugs, Gale said.
AP-NY-05-18-86 1819EDT
- - - - - -
a259 1654 18 May 86
AM-Hammer-Gale, 1st Ld, a245,0186
LOS ANGELES: SUBS 10th graf pvs 'Gale, chairman ...' with 5 grafs to
UPDATE with Gale saying he has asked to visit the reactor site, adds
that physicians group is based in Milwaukee. Picks up 11th graf pvs
'He said ...'
CORRECTS spelling on byline to Bohland, sted Boland.
By KATHLEEN BOHLAND
Gale said he had asked the Soviet government to allow him to visit
the Chernobyl site and surrounding area.
''I wouldn't say it's been turned down, but I'm not there yet,'' he
said.
The presence of a physician at the site might reassure people, he
said, adding that a doctor could assess the biological hazard and
release specific information about any such findings.
''I think it could defuse to some extent a lot of the speculation,''
he said.
Gale, chairman of the Milwaukee-based International Bone Marrow
Transplant Registry, said his estimates on long-term effects were
based in part on information obtained after the atomic bomb blasts
that ended World War II in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan.
He said, 11th graf
AP-NY-05-18-86 1955EDT
a251 1611 18 May 86
AM-Digest Briefs,1058
Eds: This package does not contain the following items from the News
Digest: MOSCOW - Chernobyl Questions; WASH - US-Britain; COKEVILLE,
Wyo. - Hostage School; HOUSTON - Storms Rdp; WASH - Lobbying; WASH -
US-Mexico; HARRISBURG, Pa. - Pennsylvania Primary; PIERRE, S.D. - SD
Governor; RYDAL, Pa. - Doctor's Killing; NEW YORK - Poll-Senate TV.
MOSCOW - A Soviet newspaper published letters Sunday by readers
offering shelter, money and free labor to help victims of the
Chernobyl nuclear accident, and another publication identified an
11th person who died in the disaster.
In Munich, West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl suggested the Soviet
Union should compensate his country for damages caused by the
disaster. Tass, the official Soviet news agency, responded by saying
Kohl's call for reparations was ''totally unfounded.''
And in Bonn, the West German capital, Soviet Ambassador Yuli
Kvitsinsky said in a letter to Interior Minister Friedrich Zimmermann
that radioactive fallout from the damaged Chernobyl plant had spread
as far as Lithuania and Estonia, but radioactivity levels were now
''practically'' back to normal in the Baltic republics.
---
LOS ANGELES - As many as 100,000 Soviets will suffer long-term
effects of radiation from the Chernobyl nuclear plant accident that
already has killed 13 people, an American bone-marrow specialist said
Sunday.
Dr. Robert Gale, who assisted Soviet physicians in performing
bone-marrow transplants on radiation victims, said 300 Soviets had
been exposed to substantial radiation and 11 of them have died. Two
others died from immediate injuries at the Chernobyl site, he said.
Thirty-five received the most serious doses, he said, adding that he
assisted in 19 bone-marrow transplants. He returned from the Soviet
Union on Friday.
---
WASHINGTON - Israeli leaders agreed Sunday with Syrian President
KWANGJU, South Korea - Police fired tear gas at anti-government
LONDON - Border guards at ports in four countries scoured passengers
COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. - A 29-year-old man sought in the slayings
LOS ANGELES - While conceding there will be gaps in their planned
WASHINGTON - The indictment of an FBI agent in connection with
WASHINGTON - The most probable space shuttle accident involving
AP-NY-05-18-86 1912EDT
a275 1854 18 May 86
AM-Nuclear Demonstration,0356
Heavy Clashes Between Police And Protesters, 132 Police Injured
WACKERSDORF, West Germany (AP) - About 1,000 anti-nuclear protesters
attacked riot police with Molotov cocktails, stones and steel balls
at a nuclear waste reprocessing plant Sunday. Authorities said 132
police were injured.
The riot police unleashed water cannons and tear gas to drive the
protesters from the plant in this rural Bavarian town, near the
border with Czechoslovakia.
Police spokesman Oswald Ertl said 132 policemen were injured and 25
of them required hospital treatment, but did not elaborate on their
condition. He said about 2,000 riot police were deployed at the site.
Ertl said nine protesters were believed to have been taken to
hospitals for treatment. Sixteen demonstrators were arrested, nine of
them late Saturday when earlier clashes erupted.
The protesters hurled logs and tried to cut through the metal fence
surrounding West Germany's first nuclear waste reprocessing facility,
which is still under construction.
Police, positioned behind the fence, fired water cannon. Many of the
demonstrators wore black hoods to conceal their identity and gas
masks to protect them from tear gas.
Ertl said about 3,000 protesters had gathered at the site for a
demonstration called by environmentalist groups. He said about 1,000
people attacked the plant after a peaceful rally.
Protesters also erected barricades on a nearby railway line,
disrupting traffic for several hours. They stopped two freight trains
and tried to damage the tracks, Ertl said.
Clashes first occurred Saturday evening when about 500 protesters
tried to storm the plant.
Late that evening, about 100 protesters stopped a train and attacked
the engine driver with stones. The man locked himself in the engine
and had to be rescued by police, Ertl said.
Anti-nuclear protesters and police guarding the installation have
clashed frequently since construction work on the plant began in
December.
Ertl said Sunday's clash was the most violent so far. The protesters
dispersed by late evening.
Opposition to nuclear power in West Germany has grown since the
April 26 accident at the Chernobyl nuclear reactor in the Soviet
Ukraine.
AP-NY-05-18-86 2148EDT
a002 2127 18 May 86
PMs AP News Digest
MONDAY, May 19, 1986
Here are the top stories for PMs. The General Desk supervisor is
MIDEAST:
NUCLEAR DISASTER: Soviets Say Aid Offers Pouring In
MOSCOW - A Soviet newspaper says it is being deluged with offers to
help victims of the Chernobyl nuclear accident, and the official news
agency rejects as unfounded a suggestion that the Soviet Union
compensate West Germany for radiation damage. PM-Chernobyl-Nuclear.
Developing. 700 Words.
TRAIN DERAILMENT: 185 Injured After Vintage Train Goes Off The Tracks
TEAMSTERS: Seeking To Change The Rules
DRUGS: Volume Of Cocaine Smuggling Could Double
HOSTAGE SCHOOL: Help On The Way For Traumatized Children
SHOOTINGS: Clues Sought As To Why 'Happy-Go-Lucky Guy' Killed Five
DOMINICAN ELECTION: Former President Claims Victory; Counting
WALDHEIM SAGA: Touches Raw Nerve About Austria's Past
HOMELESS MOVIE: Mitch Snyder Profiled Tonight
BUSINESS FORECAST: Prospects Brighter
ELECTIONS: Packwood, Weaver Favored In Oregon
RICHARD NIXON: Returning to Respectability
SUGAR DITCH ALLEY: Residents of Delta Slum Find New Homes
KP DUTY: Marine Corps Ends KP Duty
AP-NY-05-19-86 0027EDT
a031 0138 19 May 86
PM-Digest Advisory,0102
All the budgets have moved. Here is a list with Laserphoto numbers:
SALEM - PM-Oregon Primary, a003
COKEVILLE - PM-Hostage School, a011
COLORADO SPRINGS - PM-Robbery Shootings, a013
VIENNA - PM-Waldheim-Austria, a014
WASHINGTON - PM-US-Syria, a015
MOSCOW - PM-Chernobyl-Nuclear, a017, a020
WASHINGTON - PM-Marine KP, a022
CHESAPEAKE - PM-Train Derails, a024. LaserPhoto NK3.
WASHINGTON - PM-Business Forecast, a025
WASHINGTON - PM-Homeless Movie, a026
LONDON - PM-Ports Security, a027
WASHINGTON - PM-Drugs, a028
LAS VEGAS - PM-Teamsters, a029
SANTO DOMINGO - PM-Dominican Election, a030
AP-NY-05-19-86 0438EDT
a017 2347 18 May 86
PM-Chernobyl-Nuclear, Bjt,0767
Readers Offer Help To Accident Victims; Kohl Blasts Gorbachev
By ANDREW M. ROSENTHAL
MOSCOW (AP) - The Soviet Union rejected West Germany's call for
reparations for the nuclear accident in the Ukraine, and a Soviet
official indicated for the first time that fallout from the disaster
had spread from the Black Sea to the Baltic.
On Sunday, the Communist Party newspaper Pravda published letters
from readers offering shelter, money and free labor to aid victims of
the April 26 accident at the Chernobyl atomic power plant.
A U.S. doctor brought to the Soviet Union to treat radiation cases
has said 13 people died after the explosion and fire in the plant's
No. 4 reactor, and official Soviet media have reported that 92,000
people were evacuated from a ''danger zone'' within 18 miles of the
power station.
The nuclear accident, termed the worst in history by officials of
the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency, spewed
radioactivity over much of Europe and triggered restrictions in some
nations on the sale of milk, vegetables and other foodstuffs.
On Sunday, West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl suggested the Kremlin
compensate his country for damage caused by the accident. Kohl also
criticized Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev for waiting until
Wednesday to speak publicly about Chernobyl.
Gorbachev, in his televised address, accused the West of conducting
a ''highly immoral campaign'' to score political points over the
disaster.
But in a speech in Munich, Kohl said, ''It would have been better if
he (Gorbachev) had left behind slander against us and had given
important information and, first of all, addressed the question of
how the Soviet Union plans to compensate for material damages that
also occurred in West Germany.''
West Germany plans a major compensation program for farmers and
dairymen who lost sales because of tight restrictions imposed over
the concern of radiation contamination.
The Agriculture Ministry estimates the program will cost more than
$90 million, and national leaders have come under pressure to seek
compensation from Moscow.
However, the official Soviet news agency Tass dismissed Kohl's
remarks, made to a gathering of Germans who fled Czechoslovakia after
World War II, as ''totally unfounded (attempt) for a 'compensation
for the material damage' allegedly caused'' by Chernobyl.
''They in Bonn have, apparently, forgotten their irredeemable debt
to the Soviet people for the grief, murder, destruction and suffering
caused by German Nazism to the U.S.S.R., to every Soviet family,''
Tass said.
MORE
AP-NY-05-19-86 0248EDT
- - - - - -
a020 2356 18 May 86
PM-Chernobyl-Nuclear, Bjt-1st Add, a017,0354
MOSCOW, Tass said.
In Bonn, Soviet Ambassador Yuli Kvitsinsky said in a letter to
Interior Minister Friedrich Zimmermann that radioactivity from the
accident had spread from the Black Sea to the Baltic.
Kvitsinsky, in the first public comments by a Soviet official on the
spread of fallout inside the Soviet Union, said higher than normal
radiation levels had been measured in Tallinn, Vilnius, Odessa and
Sochi, but that radioactivity there had fallen nearly to normal.
Tallinn, in the Baltic republic of Estonia, is about 600 miles north
of Chernobyl, and Vilnius, in the Baltic republic of Lithuania, is
300 miles north of the accident site.
Odessa is about 240 miles south of Chernobyl, and Sochi, 600 miles
to the south. Both are on the Black Sea.
Pravda said readers had flooded its editorial office with mail
offering help and volunteering labor for the victims of the accident
at the power station 80 miles north of Kiev, the country's
third-largest city.
''I am a physicist, 30 years old, in good health, and could prove
useful in any capacity,'' Pravda quoted from one telegram. ''During
my vacation, I would like to work without compensation to liquidate
the consequences of the accident at Chernobyl.''
A Leningrad couple sent $1,420 to aid accident victims and a music
teacher from Tbilisi, the capital of Soviet Georgia, offered to house
two evacuated children for the summer, Pravda said.
The government newspaper Izvestia reported on Sunday that
firefighter Nikolai I. Titenok died of massive doses of radiation
received while battling the reactor fire.
Ten other victims have been identified by name in previous newspaper
articles, but it remains unclear how many people have died.
Dr. Robert Gale, who treated victims of the Chernobyl accident in
Moscow before returning to the United States on Friday, said 13
people have died, including 11 radiation victims and two men killed
in the initial fire and explosion.
The last official Soviet report on casualties came in Gorbachev's
speech, when he said nine people had died and 299 were hospitalized
with radiation injuries.
AP-NY-05-19-86 0257EDT
- - - - - -
a053 0416 19 May 86
PM-Chernobyl-Nuclear, 1st Ld, a017, a020,0494
EDS: UPDATES with energy official's report on reactor, investigatory
panel
By ANDREW ROSENTHAL
MOSCOW (AP) - A nuclear energy official today said the Kremlin named
a panel to investigate the Chernobyl nuclear accident on the day the
disaster occurred, apparently contradicting assertions that Moscow
was without reliable reports for two days.
Ivan Yemelyanov, first deputy director of the Soviet state institute
that designed the Chernobyl reactor, also told Western reporters that
before the accident the reactor's heat output surged from a standby
level of 6 percent of maximum capacity to 50 percent in only 10
seconds.
He said the chain reaction was successfully stopped, and declined to
say how the surge was connected to the explosion that ripped apart
the reactor early in the morning of April 26.
Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev, in a televised speech to the
nation Wednesday, said a pocket of hydrogen exploded after the surge.
Yemelyanov said experts have not decided if human error or
mechanical malfunction caused the accident, but said he saw no sign
the Soviets were considering a review of the reactor, of a type known
as RBMK-1000, that is used at Chernobyl, or the policy of locating
atomic power plants near populated areas.
Yemelyanov said radiation emissions from Chernobyl's damaged
1,000-megawatt reactor have stopped, but said he could not predict
when workers would finally have it completely encased in concrete.
He said he had no new information on casualties from the accident at
the four-reactor power plant 80 miles north of the Ukrainian capital
of Kiev.
There has been no government update on casualties since Gorbachev's
speech, but an American doctor who helped treat radiation victims
said 13 people have died.
The physician, Dr. Robert Gale, told a news conference in Los
Angeles that ''there are at least 50,000 to 100,000 people who have
had some dose of radiation which might be of long-term concern.''
''There will, unfortunately, be additional fatalities,'' Gale said
Sunday. ''We hope this number will be small.''
Yemelyanov spoke with Western reporters in a meeting arranged by the
official Soviet press agency Novosti.
Some Soviet officials have said the central government was not well
informed about the accident initially, and that local officials
underestimated its severity.
Gorbachev explained the nearly three-day delay in informing the
Soviet public and the world about the accident by saying the Kremlin
made the announcement as soon as it had reliable data.
But Yemelyanov was asked when the investigating commission headed by
First Deputy Premier Boris Y. Shcherbina was appointed, and said it
was at work ''on the very day of the accident, April 26.''
One of its first decisions, which Yemelyanov said was made ''within
only a few hours after the explosion,'' was to shut down the No. 3
reactor, housed in a building adjoining the stricken No. 4 unit.
The nuclear, 4th graf
AP-NY-05-19-86 0716EDT
- - - - - -
a086 0940 19 May 86
PM-Chernobyl-Nuclear, 2nd Ld-Writethru, a053,0705
Official: Panel to Investigate Chernobyl Was Named on the Day of the
Accident
Eds: UPDATES with material on Soviet commissions, more on previous
statements by officials. No pickup
By ANDREW ROSENTHAL
MOSCOW (AP) - A Soviet nuclear power expert said today the Kremlin
named a panel to investigate the Chernobyl accident on the day the
disaster occurred. His statement appeared to contradict assertions
Moscow was without reliable reports on the accident for two days.
Ivan Yemelyanov, first deputy director of the Soviet state institute
that designed the Chernobyl reactor, said the investigating
commission looking into the disaster was at work ''on the very day of
the accident, April 26.''
Yemelyanov met with Western reporters at a news conference arranged
by the Soviet news agency Novosti. He said experts have not decided
if human error or mechanical malfunction caused the accident at the
Ukrainian power plant.
The April 26 pre-dawn explosion set the No. 4 reactor afire and
spewed a cloud of radiation that stretched worldwide. The Soviets did
not announce the accident until the evening of April 28, after
Scandinavian officials reported increased radiation coming from the
Soviet Union.
Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev explained the delay by saying the
Kremlin made the announcement as soon as it had reliable data.
However, the establishment of the Chernobyl panel immediately after
the explosion indicates the Kremlin knew at least that it was dealing
with a major accident with unpredictable consequences.
The Soviets often set up such commissions after major accidents or
disasters - such as a ship sinking or an earthquake - to coordinate
cleanup efforts and investigate. It is rarely known when the
commissions are created.
The level of the commission is a clue to the importance attached by
the Kremlin to the particular event. The Chernobyl commission is
headed by a first deputy prime minister, Boris Y. Shcherbina, and a
special Politburo panel supervises his committee.
Shcherbina and Andranik Petrosyants, head of the state environment
committee, held a news conference May 6 in which Shcherbina said
''local experts didn't have a true assessment of the accident.''
And Foreign Ministry spokesman Vladimir Lomeiko said that the delay
in reporting the accident was not the Kremlin's fault. ''It is
understandable that people were not satisfied with the information
that was supplied,'' he said then. ''But it was not done with ill
intent. The first people who saw this accident did not think
radioactive material would be released into the atmosphere.''
Yemelyanov told reporters today that Shcherbina's commission was at
work April 26, and that one of its first decisions was to shut down
the No. 3 reactor adjoining the burning unit. That decision came
''within only a few hours after the explosion,'' he said.
Yemelyanov also said that before the accident the reactor's heat
output surged from a standby level of 6 percent of maximum capacity
to 50 percent in only 10 seconds.
He said the nuclear chain reaction was successfully stopped, and
declined to say how the heat surge was connected to the explosion
that ripped apart the reactor.
Gorbachev has said a pocket of hydrogen exploded after the surge.
Yemelyanov said he saw no sign the Soviets were considering a review
of the reactor, of a type known as RBMK-1000, that is used at
Chernobyl, or the policy of locating atomic power plants near
populated areas.
He said radiation emissions from Chernobyl's damaged 1,000-megawatt
reactor have stopped, but said he could not predict when workers
would finally have it completely encased in concrete.
Yemelyanov said he had no new information on casualties from the
accident at the four-reactor plant 80 miles north of the Ukrainian
capital of Kiev.
There has been no government update on casualties since Gorbachev's
speech Wednesday, but an American doctor who helped treat radiation
victims said 13 people have died.
Dr. Robert Gale said in Los Angeles that ''there are at least 50,000
to 100,000 people who have had some dose of radiation which might be
of long-term concern.
''There will, unfortunately, be additional fatalities,'' Gale said
Sunday. ''We hope this number will be small.''
AP-NY-05-19-86 1240EDT
a052 0407 19 May 86
PM-Digest Briefs,1141
Eds: This package does not contain the following items from the News
Digest: CHESAPEAKE-Train Derails, a024; LAS VEGAS-Teamsters, a029;
SANTO DOMINGO-Dominican Election, a030; VIENNA-Waldheim-Austria,
a014; SALEM-Oregon Primary, a003; WASHINGTON-Nixon-Fascination,
a096,a213,a053; TUNICA-Another Look-Sugar Ditch, a068.
---
WASHINGTON (AP) - Syrian President Hafez Assad says his country
LONDON (AP) - Police in Britain and six other countries today
MOSCOW (AP) - The Soviet Union rejected West Germany's call for
reparations for the nuclear accident in the Ukraine, and a Soviet
official indicated for the first time that fallout from the disaster
had spread from the Black Sea to the Baltic.
On Sunday, the Communist Party newspaper Pravda published letters
from readers offering shelter, money and free labor to aid victims of
the April 26 accident at the Chernobyl atomic power plant.
A U.S. doctor brought to the Soviet Union to treat radiation cases
has said 13 people died after the explosion and fire in the plant's
No. 4 reactor, and official Soviet media have reported that 92,000
people were evacuated from a ''danger zone'' within 18 miles of the
power station.
WASHINGTON (AP) - The volume of cocaine smuggled into the United
COKEVILLE, Wyo. (AP) - Psychologists who helped traumatized
COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (AP) - Police and those who knew him have
WASHINGTON (AP) - ''Samaritan: The Mitch Snyder Story'' may have
WASHINGTON (AP) - The prospects for strong economic growth and lower
WASHINGTON (AP) - The Marine Corps has decided to get its ''few good
AP-NY-05-19-86 0708EDT
a039 0243 19 May 86
PM-Chernobyl-Design,0433
Chernobyl Design Found To Include New Safety Plans
NEW YORK (AP) - The Chernobyl nuclear power plant in the Soviet
Union that exploded last month had a containment structure and other
advanced safety features similar to those found in the designs of
American reactors, according to a report published today.
Though the Chernobyl plant would probably not have met United States
safety standards, new evidence suggests that the plant had more and
better safety features than Western experts had at first believed
after the April 26 explosion, American nuclear experts told The New
York Times.
Based on technical drawings and other information obtained through
government and international scientific sources, the nuclear experts
say that the Chernobyl accident raises questions about the
effectiveness of nuclear plant designs in the United States as well.
''Our first impression was that it had no containment, based on
other designs we had of older Soviet plants,'' Robert M. Bernero, a
top safety official at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, told The
Times.
''But then we found out through the CIA, technical literature and
other means that it was a newer plant,'' Bernero added. ''The Soviets
in fact have tried to incorporate containment features that were
adapted and backfitted in the middle of their product line.'' Most of
the walls around the reactor, he said, are ''truly massive and
sturdy.''
The experts say it has become clear that a large structure of heavy
steel and concrete surrounded the No. 4 reactor at Chernobyl, and
that at least some of this containment was designed to withstand
pressures similar to those in many American reactors.
The roof of the Chernobyl plant was blown off by a hydrogen
explosion, allowing radiation to spread over the Ukraine, Eastern
Europe and parts of Scandanavia.
In addition to the containment structure, Western nuclear experts
say, the Chernobyl reactor had a large basement water pool to absorb
excessive steam pressure; a chamber of nitrogen around the reactor
that, unlike oxygen, will not support fires; duplicate and
well-protected power cables and other modern features similar to
those found in American plants.
''The message is not whether the Russian plant is as safe as ours,''
said Bernero. ''The question is whether we understand our own
reactors well enough. Did the Russians have something there that we
have missed?''
But Dr. Richard Wilson, professor of physics at Harvard University
and chairman of a 1985 American Physical Society study on severe
nuclear accidents, said: ''I'm just a little nervous that we have the
same design and it didn't work.''
AP-NY-05-19-86 0543EDT
a201 1035 19 May 86
AMs AP News Digest
For Tuesday AMs
Here are the top stories at this hour from The Associated Press. The
SOUTH AFRICA:
SUPREME COURT: High Court Strikes Down Affirmative Action Plan
TERRORISM: Reagan Administration Hangs Out Wanted Sign for Syria
CHERNOBYL AFTERMATH: Soviets Plan No Nuclear Reactor Changes
MOSCOW - A nuclear energy official says the Soviet government has no
plans to revise nuclear reactor construction or location of nuclear
plants in populated areas because of the Chernobyl accident. Slug
AM-Chernobyl-Nuclear. About 750 words.
By Carol J. Williams. LaserPhoto MOS17, Izvestia photos of firemen
who died of radiation.
GUNS: Reagan Embraces Bill Easing Restrictions on Arms
DISCLOSURE: Members of Senate File Annual Financial Reports
TEAMSTERS: Union Convention Rallies behind Indicted President
MOUNT HOOD MOURNERS: Services Held for One of Nine Dead Climbers
HOSTAGE HORROR: Psychologistws Help Cokeville Deal with Trauma
DRUG MONEY: Custom Agents Crack Down on Return Flow of Cash
ARMS CONTROL: Administration Warns Congress on Defense Shield
PHILIPPINES: Security Concerns Limit Aquino's Public Appearances
FOOD PREFERENCE: Industry Studies Food Concerns of Shoppers
MORE
AP-NY-05-19-86 1335EDT
a206 1108 19 May 86
AM-Chernobyl-Nuclear, Bjt,0704
Official Says No Change in Nuclear Plans Because of Chernobyl
LaserPhoto MOS17
By CAROL J. WILLIAMS
MOSCOW (AP) - The government has no plans to put containment
structures around nuclear reactors or stop building them in heavily
populated areas because of the Chernobyl disaster, a senior Soviet
atomic energy official said Monday.
Ivan Yemelyanov, deputy director of the government agency that
designed the Chernobyl power plant reactor, also said an
investigation team was appointed and went to work on the day of the
accident, April 26.
His statement at a meeting with foreign reporters appeared to
contradict reports by other officials that people in charge at
Chernobyl initially misread the scope of the accident and that the
Kremlin did not have reliable information on its seriousness for two
days.
The government did not acknowledge the explosion and fire at the
Ukrainian plant 80 miles north of Kiev until 68 hours after it
happened, when abnormally high levels of radiation had been detected
in Scandinavia and Sweden demanded an explanation.
Yemelyanov said radioactive emissions from the destroyed No. 4
reactor had ceased. Moscow radio said Monday the reactor ''is
harmless, but still requires constant attention.''
A huge invisible cloud of radiation that poured from the burning
reactor spread over Europe and has worked its way gradually around
the world.
Based on a report by Dr. Robert P. Gale, an American specialist in
bone marrow transplants, the unofficial death toll stood at 13 on
Monday.
Gale, who spent two weeks here treating accident victims and plans
to return, told reporters in Los Angeles that more deaths are
expected and 50,000 to 100,000 Soviet citizens might face long-term
health problems from radiation.
He said 11 of the 35 people most seriously injured had died, in
addition to two men killed in the first stages of the plant accident.
No government statement on casualties has been issued since Soviet
leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev said in a television speech Wednesday
that nine people had died and 299 were hospitalized.
Yemelyanov said he had no new information on casualties from the
accident at the four-reactor power station. He said the investigation
of its cause was continuing and experts had not decided whether human
error or mechanical failure was to blame.
Asked whether Soviet authorities plan to review the practice of
building reactors near populated areas, and allowing worker
settlements to grow up around nuclear power plants, Yemelyanov said:
''I don't see any sign that this concept will be changed or
reviewed.''
A total of 92,000 people were evacuated from an 18-mile radius of
the Chernobyl plant in the week after the accident. Kiev, the
Ukrainian provincial capital 80 miles away, is a city of 2.4 million.
There is no debate on the design of Soviet reactors, Yemelyanov
said. The four Chernobyl reactors were built in pairs, and one of the
biggest tasks faced by rescue teams was to keep the fire in No. 4
from spreading to No. 3 in an adjacent building.
''The pairing of the reactors had no relation to the accident,'' the
official said.
Reactors at the Chernobyl plant do not have containment structures
similar to those used in the West to prevent radiation from escaping
into the atmosphere after an accident.
''We don't think containment vessels are much more effective and we
believe the emphasis should be on preventing accidents,'' Yemelyanov
said.
The official said investigators determined that the reactor
experienced a power surge, from 6 percent of capacity to 50 percent
within 10 seconds, as it was being taken out of service for
maintenance work that he did not describe.
He did not fully explain the significance of the surge or whether it
caused the explosion. Gorbachev said in his television speech last
week that the blast was believed to be a hydrogen explosion.
Yemelyanov said the government investigating commission began work
within hours after the accident occurred at 1:23 a.m.
Other officials said previously that no reliable information was
available immediately to indicate the accident was serious enough to
inform foreign governments and the International Atomic Energy
Agency.
AP-NY-05-19-86 1409EDT
a220 1308 19 May 86
AM-Cuba-Capitalism,0391
Castro Scraps Free Markets, Continues Nuclear Project
By DAN SEWELL
MIAMI (AP) - Cuba's communist government has halted its experiment
with capitalism and is pushing ahead with its Soviet-directed
nuclear reactor construction, Havana radio reports said Monday.
''The peasant free market will pass without glory, leaving behind a
great lesson, many damages and millionaires,'' President Fidel Castro
was quoted as saying Sunday.
A report on Radio Reloj, monitored in Miami, said Castro declared
the free market abolished, calling it ''a source of enrichment for
neo-capitalists and neo-bourgeois.''
In a separate report, the state-run domestic Cuban radio announced a
new contract with the Soviet Union for nuclear materials for two
reactors under construction near the southern Cuban city of
Cienfuegos. This was the first mention of Cuba's nuclear project
since the April 26 disaster at the Soviet nuclear power plant at
Chernobyl.
Castro's decision to end the 6-year-old ''free markets,'' which gave
farmers an incentive to increase production by allowing them to sell
produce themselves after satisfying state quotas, came after several
earlier speeches in which he vowed an end to corruption.
The free markets were among several measures taken in recent years
to relax tight state control of the economy, in hopes of improving
production.
About two years after the free markets began, the government in 1982
announced new restrictions, including a 20 percent tax on farmers'
profits. But Castro lashed out at middlemen who bought the products
of farmers in the countryside, then brought them into the cities and
sold them at a larger profit.
''Before the activity of certain individuals who want to become rich
at the expense of the sweat of others, we make clear that one thing
is respect of initiative and quite another thing different is
tolerance of abuses and enrichment,'' Castro said Sunday.
In the report on Cuba's nuclear power plans, Lazaro Hernandez,
director of the Energy-Import agency of Cuba, was quoted as calling
the new nuclear equipment contract with the Soviet Union an
expression of ''our total confidence in the scientific-technical
development of the Soviets in the energy and nuclear fields.''
Gregor Vladimir Dimitrov, identified as a Soviet official, said the
nuclear materials being sent to Cuba are of the kind used in 19
nuclear reactors in other nations.
AP-NY-05-19-86 1608EDT
a041 0327 20 May 86
PM-Chernobyl-Nuclear,0692
Newspaper: Kiev Residents Fled After Hearing Western Reports About
Chernobyl
By ANDREW ROSENTHAL
MOSCOW (AP) - A Soviet newspaper today reported that worried Kiev
residents streamed to railway stations after the Chernobyl accident,
but blamed their fears on ''enemy radio voices'' it said were
spreading rumors about the disaster.
Diplomats at the Swedish, British, Canadian, Italian, Danish,
Finnish and Japanese embassies said their ambassadors declined a
Soviet invitation to visit Kiev and an area near the Ukrainian
capital where evacuees from the Chernobyl area are living.
Other Western legations, including the U.S. Embassy, were still
considering the offer, but were expected to turn it down, diplomats
said.
Most of the diplomats said the offer was rejected because their
governments wanted to send experts, not ambassadors, to the area and
wanted the experts to visit the plant itself, not just Kiev which is
80 miles south of Chernobyl.
For the sixth day, there was no update on the Chernobyl casualty
toll, which American Dr. Robert Gale, who helped treat the worst
radiation cases, has said was 13 dead, with 24 in grave condition.
The last official report on casualties came last Wednesday in a
speech by Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev, who said nine people
were dead and 299 hospitalized.
Many of the nationally circulating newspapers carried lengthy
stories on Chernobyl today, focusing on various aspects of the
cleanup operation but offering no detailed update on efforts to cover
the ruined No. 4 reactor in concrete and decontaminate the station
and its surroundings.
The armed forces newspaper, Krasnaya Zvezda, said experts working on
the salvage operation still cannot approach the reactor and are
relying on detailed photographs taken several times a day by military
pilots in airplanes or helicopters.
For about two weeks after the accident, extra airplane flights and
trains came into Moscow from Kiev and many of those arriving brought
young children whom they feared would be exposed to radiation.
But, although some press reports have suggested that concern was
heightened by the initial delay in reporting the April 26 accident,
the official press has sought to play down the reaction in Kiev.
Sovietskaya Rossiya, the Russian Republic's government newspaper,
indicated that during the official silence, Kiev residents were
relying on shortwave radio broadcasts from the West.
The newspaper charged that ''rumors (which) began appearing through
the efforts of enemy radio voices'' alarmed Kiev residents. The
newspaper said the normal May 1 holiday exodus was swelled by people
who wanted to leave because of the accident.
''At noon, I saw that an unusual stream of passengers was forming,''
central railway station chief O.V. Smolko told the newspaper. ''There
were dozens of people at the windows. I ordered another eight
cashiers to go to work, cut the lunch break and extended the period
for selling tickets.''
The newspaper called the surge of passengers a ''tense rush hour,''
and said the ticket hall was filled with shouting as people cut to
the front of the line because of their privileges as war veterans or
invalids.
It singled out two cashiers for having avoided ''any kind of
conflict and tension'' in the lines in front of their windows.
''During these days, they didn't simply sell tickets at the railway
station, they gave battle to absurd rumors and gave confidence to
people who were naturally alarmed by what happened,'' the paper said.
It said Soviet officials' statements on radio and television and in
the newspapers showed ''there was no reason for fear'' and that by
May 7, the railway stations were filled with people who wanted to
return their tickets.
In Moscow, however, up to 10 trains a day continued arriving from
Kiev after May 7.
On May 8 and May 10, when foreign reporters visited the stations,
all of the 20-car trains were packed, including three extra trains
per day.
Uniformed guards were assigned to each car and extra police and
civilian volunteers with red armbands were stationed outside the
station to maintain order.
There was no sign of real panic, but many of those arriving came
with young children and had appeared concerned about the impact of
the reactor accident.
AP-NY-05-20-86 0627EDT
a069 0650 20 May 86
PM-Religion Roundup, Adv23,0604
For release Fri PMs May 23, and thereafter
STONY POINT, N.Y. (AP) - About 160 church women from many lands have
ATLANTA (AP) - The Rev. Charles Stanley, president of the Southern
NEW YORK (AP) - Catholic Relief Services last week airlifted 100,000
tons of dry milk to Poland to meet needs for children after
radioactive fallout from the Soviet nuclear accident affected Polish
dairy products.
The air shipments were part of a three-month relief effort there by
the U.S. church agency at the request of Polish bishops. The agency
earlier allocated $100,000 for purchase of milk in Europe for Polish
children.
WASHINGTON (AP) - The general secretary of the U.S. Roman Catholic
KIAMESHA LAKE, N.Y. (AP) - Cantors, the singers of prayers in Jewish
AP-NY-05-20-86 0950EDT
a002 2149 20 May 86
PM-News Digest,1238
Wednesday, May 21, 1986
Here are the top stories for PMs. The General Desk supervisor is Ron
CHILE: Anti-Government Bombs Blackout Capital; Troops Move In
SANTIAGO, Chile - Bombs destroyed three utility towers in Santiago,
TYPHOON: Say Solomon Islands Are Devasted; Rush in Relief Aid
NATO: Weinberger Arrives Today for Stratgey Session
ELECTION '86:
SAUDI ARMS SALE: Say Administration is Gaining Ground in Proposed
CIA vs. MEDIA: Say Reagan Asked Washington Post Not to Publish
CHERNOBYL: Government Media Says Undamaged Reactors Readied for Operation
MOSCOW - The government newspaper Izvestia quoted a member of its
investigative commission as saying the three remaining nuclear
reactors at Chernobyl are being readied to resume operations, but did
not say when they would restart. Slug PM-Chernobyl-Nuclear. New
material, may stand.
NICARAGUA:
DEAVER: Say Probe Could Raise Questions About Revising Ethical
NURSING HOMES: Say More than One-Third Don't Meet Basic Standards
AIDS: Question Federal Distribution of Money to Fight Deadly Disease
TEAMSTERS: Union Delegates Back Presser, Crush Proposals
INSECTICIDE: Still Shows Up Worldwide 4 Years After Ban
DROUGHT RELIEF: Southeast Gets Dampened, But Not Yet Enough
OIL PRICES: Transit Saves Millions on Fuel, But No Fare Cuts Likely
DAYLIGHT SAVING TIME: Senate Plan Would Add Three Weeks of Sunshine
(End missing.)
a026 0139 21 May 86
PM-Digest Advisory,0106
All the budgets have moved. Here is a list:
WASHINGTON - PM-Daylight Saving Time, a006
WASHINGTON - PM-US-Contadora, a008
WASHINGTON - PM-LaRouche-ADL, a009
WASHINGTON - PM-Nursing Homes, a010
LAS VEGAS - PM-Teamsters, a011
WASHINGTON - PM-Deaver Probe, a012
WASHINGTON - PM-AIDS Grants, a013
WASHINGTON - PM-US-Saudi Arms, a014
UNDATED - PM-Southern Drought, a015
PORT MORESBY - PM-Solomon-Typhoon, a016
MACKINAC ISLAND - PM-Insecticide Hazard, a017
WASHINGTON - PM-Reagan-Post, a018
SANTIAGO - PM-Chile-Disorder, a019
UNDATED - PM-Primaries Rdp, a021
MOSCOW - PM-Chernobyl-Nuclear, a022
BRUSSELS - PM-Weinberger-NATO, a025
AP-NY-05-21-86 0438EDT
a057 0523 21 May 86
PM-Digest Briefs,1172
Eds: This package does not contain the following items from the News
Digest: SANTIAGO-Chile-Disorder, a019; BRUSSELS-Weinberger-NATO,
a025; UNDATED-Primaries Rdp, a021; WASHINGTON-Reagan-Post, a018;
MOSCOW-Chernobyl-Nuclear, a022; MANAGUA-Nicaragua-Tourism, a087; NEW
YORK-Oil-Transit Fuel, a092; WASHINGTON-LaRouche-ADL, a009;
WASHINGTON-AIDS Grants, a013.
AP-NY-05-21-86 0822EDT
a022 0111 21 May 86
PM-Chernobyl-Nuclear, Bjt,0611
Chernobyl Plant Being Readied to Resume Operations
MOSCOW (AP) - Radiation levels are dangerously high at Chernobyl
reactor No. 4, but a cleanup crew is getting the Ukrainian power
plant's three other reactors ready to restart, the government
newspaper Izvestia reported.
Izvestia also said Tuesday that a 19-ton bulldozer flown in from
Chelyabinsk, an industrial city in the Ural Mountains, was helping
build a heap of radioactive waste that would be buried where a fifth
reactor was to have been constructed.
The account did not say when cleanup from the April 26 explosion and
reactor fire would be completed, or estimate when the 92,000 people
evacuated from within an 18-mile radius could return home.
Many of the evacuees were moved 80 miles south of the plant to the
Ukrainian capital of Kiev, a city of 2.4 million people.
The State Department announced in Washington on Tuesday that it had
turned down a Soviet invitation to send a diplomat to visit the area
around Chernobyl.
Deputy State Department spokesman Charles Redman said there would be
little reason for such a visit by a person who did not have the
technical background to evaluate the situation in the fallout area.
He said the United States would welcome the opportunity for U.S.
specialists, perhaps under the auspices of the International Atomic
Energy Agency, to establish long-term independent means of monitoring
contamination in the area first hand.
Sovietskaya Rossiya, the Russian Republic's government newspaper,
acknowledged Tuesday that many Kiev residents tried to flee after the
explosion and reactor fire, but blamed their fear on ''enemy radio
voices'' from the West.
Chernobyl workers interviewed on Tuesday's national television news
also said some workers panicked when the reactor fire began, but the
report stressed that most remained at their posts.
It said many were Communist Party members taking the lead expected
of the party in Soviet society.
Izvestia opened its report by saying that no one could go near the
No. 4 reactor and the ruined building that housed it because of the
high radiation.
It said radiation also remains very high in parts of the plant, but
quoted an official overseeing the cleanup as saying the temperature
of the destroyed reactor had declined to about 390 degrees
Fahrenheit.
The last report on the reactor temperature, given Saturday by Deputy
Premier Ivan Silaev, put it between 390 and 480 degrees.
Izvestia said Silaev's place on the government commission
investigating the accident and supervising the cleanup has been taken
by Lev Voronin, another deputy premier who heads the state supply
committee. It did not provide a reason for the change.
Voronin told Izvestia, the Soviet government newspaper, that the
cleanup team has an operations program extending at least to June 15,
and was getting the other three reactors ready for a restart. It did
not elaborate on what the program entailed.
Izvestia printed letters on its front page from people volunteering
to help with the Chernobyl cleanup or aid evacuees.
The Soviet Union did not acknowledge the accident until 68 hours
after it occurred, when radiation had been reported in Scandinavia
and Sweden demanded an explanation. The government gave little
information initially.
Genrikh Borovik, a television commentator, bristled at suggestions
from West Germany that the Soviet Union pay for damage caused by
radiation the Chernobyl fire spewed over Europe.
He said the Soviet people would have as much right, if not more, to
demand reparations for ''the moral losses'' suffered from what he
called the distorted coverage of the disaster in the West, especially
the United States.
AP-NY-05-21-86 0410EDT
- - - - - -
a042 0334 21 May 86
PM-Chernobyl-Nuclear, 1st Ld, a022,0609
EDS: UPDATES with reports that Chernobyl evacuees in for a long absence.
By ANDREW ROSENTHAL
MOSCOW (AP) - Authorities are preparing for a prolonged absence of
the 92,000 Chernobyl evacuees, some of whom still are separated from
their families 25 days after the nuclear accident, news reports said
today.
The Communist Party newspaper Pravda said authorities were planning
to build 10,000 winter homes for some of those evacuated from within
an 18-mile radius of the Ukrainian power plant after the April 26
explosion and reactor fire.
More than 20,000 evacuees have been sent to jobs in other areas to
relieve pressure on the Ukrainian and Byelorussian villages and towns
that took them in, Pravda said.
Radio Moscow said in an English-language broadcast that experts
working at the Chernobyl plant 80 miles north of Kiev had worked out
an operational plan through June 15, which included the encasement of
the ruined reactor in a concrete shell.
The report did not make completely clear if that meant the
''entombment'' project would be finished by then.
The broadcast also said workers were continuing to decontaminate the
plant's territory and the ''danger zone'' from which residents and
farm animals were evacuated between April 27 and May 4.
Trud, the labor union newspaper, said miners from the Donbass coal
basin were digging a tunnel toward the ruined No. 4 reactor that will
run under the adjacent No. 3 reactor building at a depth of about six
yards.
Workers will then construct a concrete ''cushion'' under the reactor
and install a refrigeration system to keep the reactor temperature
low over the years, Trud said.
The newspaper said the miners so far have dug 10 yards of the
160-yard tunnel and will need more than 10 days to complete the
project.
The government newspaper Izvestia reported Tuesday that radiation
levels were still dangerously high at reactor No. 4, but that a
cleanup crew was getting the Chernobyl power plants other three
reactors ready to restart.
Izvestia also said that a 19-ton bulldozer flown in from
Chelyabinsk, an industrial city in the Ural Mountains, was helping
build a heap of radioactive waste that would be buried where a fifth
reactor was to have been constructed.
Pravda complained today that some party, government and industrial
leaders were not meeting their responsibilities in caring for
evacuees.
Mothers with pre-school children and the youngest school pupils were
to have been sent away to summer camps and rest homes on the Black
Sea and in other resort areas, but Pravda said many have not left.
''The fact that hundreds of mothers with small children still have
not left the Polessky region (a zone where evacuees were brought) for
the south is evidence of the bureaucratic indifference of some
workers ... in Kiev who are carrying out this portion of the task,''
Pravda said.
It said the head of a transportation unit in Pripyat, the settlement
of 25,000 that adjoins the reactor, had been fired even though the
Ukrainian Transport Ministry initially praised him for his efforts
during the Chernobyl crisis.
''It turned out that he did not stand the test of experience,''
Pravda said.
Some of the evacuees ''to this day still can't find their loved
ones,'' it said, mentioning a young Communist Party worker who only
''in recent days'' located his wife, their 1 1/2-month-old daughter and
6-year-old son.
It gave no details on how the evacuees got separated from their
families or what kind of efforts were under way to reunite them.
The State, 5th graf
AP-NY-05-21-86 0634EDT
- - - - - -
a078 0712 21 May 86
PM-Chernobyl-Nuclear, 2nd Ld, a042,0245
Soviets To Build Winter Homes For Evacuees
Eds: Leads with 5 grafs to recast, move up detail. DELETE last 4
grafs as redundant.
By ANDREW ROSENTHAL
MOSCOW (AP) - The Soviet Union will build 10,000 winter homes for
people displaced by the Chernobyl nuclear accident, the Communist
Party newspaper Pravda said today. It said some of the 92,000
evacuees have yet to find their families, 25 days after the nuclear
accident.
The newspaper said that in addition to preparing to build the homes
and supply them with heating oil, plans were being made to build
barns for the tens of thousands of cows removed from an 18-mile
evacuation zone around the Ukrainian power plant.
Pravda gave no details on how evacuees were separated from their
relatives after the April 26 explosion, fire and radiation release at
the plant, or what efforts were under way to reunite them.
Some evacuees ''to this day still can't find their loved ones,'' the
newspaper said, mentioning a young Communist Party worker who only
''in recent days'' located his wife, their 1 1/2-month-old daughter and
6-year-old son.
The newspaper also said more than 20,000 people from Pripyat, most
of them apparently workers at the atomic power station, have been
sent out of the area to work at other places, including atomic power
plants and plants under construction.
Radio Moscow: 4th graf, deleting grafs 17-18: Some of xxx reunite
them, redundant
AP-NY-05-21-86 1012EDT
- - - - - -
a081 0739 21 May 86
PM-Chernobyl-Nuclear, 3rd Ld, a078,0417
Experiments Going On At Time Of Nuclear Accident
Eds: Leads with 11 grafs to update with experiments going on when
accident occurred
By ANDREW ROSENTHAL
MOSCOW (AP) - Experts were conducting experiments on the No. 4
Chernobyl reactor when it exploded, caught fire and spewed radiation
into the air, an atomic energy official disclosed today.
Viktor Sidorenko, deputy chairman of the State Committee for Nuclear
Inspection, refused to describe the experiments or say if they were
connected with the accident, which killed at least 13 people, injured
nearly 300 others and sent out a radioactive cloud that stretched
worldwide.
Sidorenko spoke to Western reporters at the Soviet Foreign Ministry
press department offices, one of a series of interviews with small
groups of invited correspondents that have been arranged recently by
Soviet officials. The Associated Press obtained a transcript of some
of his comments from a reporter who was at the interview.
He repeated earlier official statements that the accident occurred
while the reactor was operating at about 6 percent of its capacity in
preparation for what he called ''planned annual repairs.''
''We planned to hold some experiments, research work, when the
reactor was on this level,'' Sidorenko said. ''The accident took
place in the stage of experimental research work.''
Asked what kind of experiments were being conducted, he replied:
''These experiments were connected with the checking up of some
systems of the station. . . . As to the technical details of the
accident, they can be made (public) after the technical analysis of
the accident'' by a government commission.
Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev has said the accident began after
a power surge that led to an accumulation of hydrogen, but Soviet
officials have declined to speculate on possible causes until the
government commission issues its report.
On Monday, in an interview attended by an AP reporter, Ivan
Yemelyanov, deputy director of the state research institute that
designed the Chernobyl reactor, said the power surge raised the heat
output of the reactor to 50 percent of capacity in just 10 seconds.
Both Yemelyanov and Sidorenko declined to discuss the kind of
maintenance work that was being done on the reactor.
Also today, the Communist Party newspaper Pravda reported the Soviet
Union will build 10,000 winter homes for people displaced by the
nuclear accident. The newspaper said some of the 92,000 evacuees have
yet to find their families.
The newspaper: 2nd graf
AP-NY-05-21-86 1038EDT
a002 2128 21 May 86
PM-News Digest,1197
Thursday, May 22, 1986
Here are the top stories for PMs. The General Desk supervisor is Ron
SAUDI ARMS: Reagan Uses Veto; Senate Delays Override Effort
NATO MEETINGS: At Least Three Nations Will Balk at Chemical Weapons
PRESSER: How Long He Holds The Reins Is Up To A Federal Jury
TWA VOTE: Flight Attendants Vote on a No-Win Contract Proposal
CHERNOBYL: Soviet Says They've Learned Much to Stop Future Accidents
MOSCOW - A Soviet official in charge of operations at the Chernobyl
nuclear power station says authorities have learned much from the
accident and that new facilities are being built to prevent another
meltdown from ever occuring there. Slug PM-Chernobyl-Nuclear.
Developing.
TRADE: House Slaps Reagan as Many Republicans Back Democratic Effort
NICARAGUA: German Captives Among Thousands who Came to Help
HOLD THE PHONE: AT&T Wants to Give Consumers a $450 Million Break
HUNGER IN AMERICA: Activists Rip Reagan on Anti-Hunger Effort
ORGAN DONATIONS: Singapore Will Be Pioneer Among Asian Nations
OIL IN CRISIS: Thousands Come Away Empty From Strapped Jobless System
CLIPPER SURVIVORS: Crew Members Return Home after Ordeal at Sea
HISTORICAL FIND: 18th-Century Shipwreck is Treasure Trove of
THE WHITE HOUSE: A Rising Young GOP Star in the White House
PARAQUAT: Federal Study Says Herbicide is Safe for Anti-Marijuana Use
HOSPITAL SHIPS: A Vessel the Navy Hopes It Will Never Have to Use
ALOHA: The Spirit of The Islands Is Now The Spirit Of The Law
AP-NY-05-22-86 0025EDT
a045 0321 22 May 86
PM-Digest Advisory,0093
All the budgets have moved. Here is a list:
WASHINGTON - PM-US-Saudi Arms, a012
WASHINGTON - PM-Trade, a014
MANAGUA - PM-Nicaragua-Volunteers, a015
WASHINGTON - PM-Long-Distance, a016
WASHINGTON - PM-Reagan-Hunger, a017
WASHINGTON - PM-Paraquat, a019
WASHINGTON - PM-Hospital Ships, a020
HONOLULU - PM-Aloha Spirit, a021
SINGAPORE - PM-Singapore-Organ Donations, a024
LAS VEGAS - PM-Teamsters, a025
BALTIMORE - PM-Clipper Survivors, a031
NEW YORK - PM-TWA Vote, a032
MOSCOW - PM-Chernobyl-Nuclear, a033
BRUSSELS - PM-NATO Meeting, a044
AP-NY-05-22-86 0620EDT
- - - - - -
a058 0448 22 May 86
PM-Digest Briefs,1025
Eds: This package does not contain the following items from the News
Digest: WASHINGTON-US-Saudi Arms, a012; BRUSSELS-NATO Meeting, a044;
MOSCOW-Chernobyl-Nuclear, a033; MANAGUA-Nicaragua-Volunteers, a015;
BRISBANE-Historic Wreck, a058; WASHINGTON-The White House, a076;
BALTIMORE-Clipper Survivors, a031; HONOLULU-Aloha Spirit, a021.
a033 0150 22 May 86
PM-Chernobyl-Nuclear, Bjt,0733
Official: Accident Showed Deficiencies at Chernobyl
By ANDREW ROSENTHAL
MOSCOW (AP) - Experts dealing with the Chernobyl nuclear disaster
did not have all the equipment they needed, and engineers have been
brought to the scene to plan how to deal with any future reactor
accidents, a Soviet official said.
''The incident has taught us a great deal,'' Deputy Premier Ivan
Silayev, the official, told Radio Moscow in a Wednesday night
broadcast monitored in London by the British Broadcasting Corp.
His comments marked the first time a Soviet official has suggested
that equipment to combat a radiation accident at the Ukrainian
nuclear power station 80 miles north of Kiev had not been adequate.
Other officials, however, have complained about the initial response
by on-site personnel to the April 26 reactor explosion and fire, and
about the organization of radiation-warning services around the
plant.
The Chernobyl accident led to the deaths of 13 people by unofficial
count and spewed a huge radioactive cloud that spread over much of
Europe.
Silayev, who has worked as chief of operations at the Chernobyl
site, told the domestic service of Radio Moscow that Soviet
technology did not perform badly after the atomic accident, but said
the disaster suggested ''better facilities'' are needed.
He appeared to be talking about equipment to handle accidents, not
better safety devices for nuclear reactors.
''We have invited our designers and machine builders here,'' Silayev
said. ''We are showing them what is required in such circumstances,
what facilities there ought to be, and they are of course to map out
a program for us to use in similar or other circumstances.''
Silayev said no one can rule out another accident like the one at
Chernobyl, termed the worst in history by officials of the
Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency.
''They (engineers) are to create new technical facilities now, the
things that we lacked,'' he said. ''This is being done directly on
site here.''
Silayev said he was being given a leave from his post as chief of
operations at the Chernobyl site, and was being replaced by another
deputy premier, Lev Voronin.
Soviet newspapers, which had been carrying daily reports from the
accident scene and areas where the 92,000 evacuees are living,
dropped on-site coverage today and instead criticized Western
reaction to the accident.
Pravda, the Communist Party daily, charged Western politicians were
creating ''heaps of lies'' about the accident, and the Russian
republic government newspaper Sovietskaya Rossiya claimed some were
showing ''delight in the misfortune of others.''
Pravda also used the disaster to bolster Soviet calls for a nuclear
test ban, reiterated by Kremlin leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev in a
televised speech on Chernobyl last week.
''At a critical moment of developments it is the Soviet Union that
has come up with a package of measures which can throw the door open
to a world where the atom will cease to be a sword of Damocles,''
Pravda said.
On Wednesday, a Soviet nuclear safety official said experts were
conducting experiments on Chernobyl's No. 4 reactor when it exploded.
Viktor Sidorenko, the deputy chairman of the state committee for
nuclear inspection, also told reporters that authorities in Moscow
were notified of the trouble in less than three hours.
The Kremlin said nothing about the accident until nearly three days
later, after Sweden demanded an explanation for high levels of
radiation detected in Scandinavia.
Sidorenko met with a few Western journalists in one of several
interviews with government experts that have been arranged in the
past two weeks. A transcript of his remarks was provided to The
Associated Press.
In his meeting, Sidorenko declined to describe the experiments that
had been under way at Chernobyl, and would not give a detailed
explanation of the accident's cause.
However, Morris Rosen, director of the International Atomic Energy
Agency's safety division, said the Soviets ''have agreed that, before
the end of the summer, they would come to Vienna and present, on a
technical basis, the cause, the sequence of events and the
consequences of the accident.''
Rosen, who spoke on U.S. public television's McNeil-Lehrer News Hour
from Vienna, was one of three top agency officials who spent five
days in the Soviet Union earlier this month meeting with officials
about the accident.
AP-NY-05-22-86 0449EDT
- - - - - -
a072 0644 22 May 86
PM-Chernobyl-Nuclear, 1st Ld, a033,0432
Official: Accident Showed Deficiencies at Chernobyl
Eds: Leads with 11 grafs to update with Soviet official saying 15
dead in accident, details on international nuclear agreement
By ANDREW ROSENTHAL
MOSCOW (AP) - Experts dealing with the Chernobyl nuclear disaster
did not have all the equipment they needed, and engineers have been
brought to the scene to plan how to deal with any future reactor
accidents, a Soviet official said.
Meanwhile, a Soviet official said today in Vienna, Austria, that the
death toll from the April 26 nuclear accident at the Ukrainian power
station has risen to 15. It was not known whether the new figure
included two men the Soviets said died the day of the accident.
Boris Semyonov also told the International Atomic Energy Agency that
20 people were in critical condition from radiation sickness. It was
reported earlier that 35 people were hospitalized after the accident
with severe radiation sickness, and an American doctor said last week
11 of those patients had died.
In a Radio Moscow interview Wednesday night, Deputy Premier Ivan
Silayev said Soviet technology did not perform badly after the
Chernobyl accident, but the disaster suggested ''better facilities''
are needed.
''The incident has taught us a great deal,'' Silayev hsaid in the
broadcast monitored in London by the British Broadcasting Corp.
His comments marked the first time a Soviet official has suggested
that equipment had not been adequate to combat a radiation accident
at the Chernobyl plant 80 miles north of Kiev.
Other officials, however, have complained about the initial response
by on-site personnel to the reactor explosion and fire, and about the
organization of radiation-warning services around the plant.
Also in Vienna today, International Atomic Energy Agency policy
makers said they have reached preliminary agreement on ways to make
nuclear plants safer, including setting up panels of government
experts to work out a system of mandatory reporting of nuclear
accidents.
There has been widespread criticism of the Soviet Union for holding
back information during the first days after the Chernobyl accident,
while a cloud of radioactivity was spreading over much of Europe and
gradually stretched around the world.
Hans Blix, the agency's director general, said the Soviets had given
the agency no indication experiments were being carried out at the
reactor when it exploded, as was reported in Moscow by a Soviet
official.
In the Radio Moscow interview, Silayev appeared to be talking about
equipment to handle accidents, not better safety devices for nuclear
reactors.
''We have: 8th graf
AP-NY-05-22-86 0943EDT
a061 0504 22 May 86
PM-Chernobyl Cancer,0289
Scientists Say Chernobyl Accident Will Cause Thousands of Cancer
Deaths
LOS ANGELES (AP) - Scientists are giving varying estimates on how
many cancer deaths may eventually accumulate as a result of the
Chernobyl nuclear disaster, with some researchers forecasting up to
40,000 deaths, according to a published report today.
Others, however, make a more conservative prediction of about 5,000
deaths resulting from radiation contamination caused by the nuclear
reactor accident in the Ukraine last month, the Los Angeles Times
reported.
According to figures compiled by John Gofman, professor emeritus of
medical physics at the University of California at Berkeley, at least
32,900 people in Scandinavia and the rest of Europe may develop
cancer, with half of them dying. He also said as many as 23,000
Soviet citizens could die of cancer.
A more conservative estimate was prepared by physicists Thomas
Cochran of the Natural Resources Defense Council and Frank Von Hippel
of Princeton University.
Those physicists forecast that at least 51,280 people in
Scandinavia, Europe and the Soviet Union might develop cancer as a
result of Chernobyl, but that only 5,128 would die as a result.
The ultimate toll may never be known, but it could fall somewhere in
between the two projections, said Dr. Richard Gardiner, a spokesman
for Physicians for Social Responsibility, a group dedicated to
warning of the medical consequences of nuclear war.
''My guess would be that Von Hippel's figures would be low and
Gofman's would be high,'' said Gardiner, a radiologist.
Cochran's and Von Hippel's calculations were based on computer
simulations conducted by physicist Joseph Knox and his colleagues at
the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.
The two scientists stressed their estimates were conservative.
AP-NY-05-22-86 0800EDT
a068 0607 22 May 86
PM-Nuclear Safety,0479
Groundwork Laid for Agreement on Safety, 15 Chernobyl Deaths Reported
By LARRY GERBER
VIENNA, Austria (AP) - Policy makers for the International Atomic
Energy Agency have reached preliminary agreement on ways to make
nuclear plants safer after the Chernobyl accident, officials said
today.
Also today, a Soviet official told the agency's board of governors
that the death toll has risen to 15 as a result of the April 26
nuclear accident in the Soviet Ukraine. It was not known whether the
figure included two men the Soviets said died the day of the
accident.
''The membership wants a comprehensive international program on
safety and they want that program to be presented to them without
delay,'' said Hans Blix, the agency's director general.
He spoke to reporters after a meeting Wednesday of the agency's
board of governors, which represents 35 countries including the
United States and the Soviet Union. He said all the members agreed on
the measures.
Panels of government experts will be set up to work out a system of
mandatory reporting of nuclear accidents that could have
international effects, said board chairwoman Artati Sudirdjo of
Indonesia.
Another measure ''would commit its parties to coordinate emergency
response and assistance in the event of a nuclear accident which
could involve transboundary radiological release,'' she said.
There has been criticism of the Soviet Union for holding back
information during the first days after the accident while a cloud of
radioactivity was spreading over much of Europe.
Boris Semyonov, who represents the Soviet Union on the board of
governors, reported that in addition to the 15 dead from the
accident, 20 people remained in critical condition.
Thirty-five people had been hospitalized after the accident with
severe radiation sickness, Soviet officials and foreign doctors have
said. Dr. Robert P. Gale, an American bone marrow specialist who
treated the patients in Moscow, said last week that 11 of the
patients had died.
Semyonov said the stricken Chernobyl No. 4 reactor had cooled from
earlier temperatures of 400 to 450 degrees centigrade to 200 to 250
degrees, and that decontamination work was continuing.
Blix said the Soviets had given the agency no indication that
experiments were being carried out at the reactor when it exploded,
as had been mentioned in Moscow by Viktor Sidorenko, deputy chairman
of the Soviet State Committee for Nuclear Inspection.
In addition to the international reporting agreements, Blix said the
agency would beef up its safety inspection program. The agency has
concentrated on stopping the spread of nuclear weapons, and now
spends only about 6 percent of its $100 million annual budget on
safety.
Blix said it was unlikely that any safety program would be
mandatory.
''The board members take the firm view that responsiblity for
nuclear safety will have to remain with national governments,'' he
said. ''No international organization can take over that
responsibility from governments.''
AP-NY-05-22-86 0906EDT
a002 2131 22 May 86
PM-News Digest,1548
Friday, May 23, 1986
Here are the top stories for PMs. The General Desk supervisor is Ron
SOUTH AFRICA: Police Turn Tear Gas on White Extremists
TYPHOON: Say Death Toll in Solomons Likely to Pass 100
CHEMICAL WEAPONS:
TRADE: Veto Threat Hangs Over Legislation Containing Curbs on Imports
CENTRAL AMERICA:
SPACE SHUTTLE: Say Reagan Will Approve Construction of New Shuttle
PHILIPPINES: Aquino Takes to the Road to Talk Up New Government
TERRORISM FEAR: West Europe Tries to Ease the Fears of Americans
LONDON - The Dutch have sent a message to U.S. travel agents that
the country is ''not that unsafe'' and British Airways is offering
thousands of free rides across the Atlantic as West European nations
try to lure Americans wary of terrorists and radioactive fallout.
Slug PM-Fallout-Terrorism. 700. New, will stand.
An AP Extra by Maureen Johnson.
NUCLEAR SAFETY: Federal Regulator Says Chernobyl Could Happen Here
WASHINGTON - The nuclear industry has maintained for weeks that a
Chernobyl-type accident couldn't happen in the United States. But a
federal regulator says an accident at a U.S. reactor could release
comparable levels of radiation. Slug PM-Nuclear Safety. New material,
may stand. 740 words.
By Jill Lawrence
SMOKING BAN: Proposed Measure Could Clear the Air in Federal Buildings
AIDS: Scientists Say They Have New Lead on Vaccine
HOUSE WEALTH: Golf Seems to Fit Congressmen to a Tee
HANDS ACROSS AMERICA: Towns and Cities Give Indirectly, Officials Say
SPEEDING: Memorial Day Weekend Opens Hunting Season for Drivers
STUDENT LOANS: Debtors Turn to More Lucrative Majors, Study Says
IT'S A SMALL WORLD: Neighborly Thing to Do Links Town With World
a013 2326 22 May 86
PM-Nuclear Safety, Bjt,0778
Chernobyl-Type Accident Likely in U.S. in 20 Years, Regulator Says
By JILL LAWRENCE
WASHINGTON (AP) - The nuclear industry has maintained for weeks that
a Chernobyl-type accident couldn't happen in the United States. But a
federal regulator says an accident at a U.S. reactor could release
comparable levels of radiation.
''Our reactors were not designed for large-scale core melt
accidents,'' Nuclear Regulatory Commission member James Asselstine
said Thursday at a House hearing.
Unless further safety steps are taken, ''We can expect to see a core
melt accident in the next 20 years and possibly a radiation release
equal to or greater than the one at Chernobyl,'' he said.
Fifteen people have died so far as a result of the April 26 accident
in the Soviet Union, hundreds more were hospitalized with radiation
sickness and 92,000 were evacuated from an 18-mile radius around the
plant.
Soviet officials said for the first time Thursday that some evacuees
had begun returning to their homes.
The five-member NRC was called before the House energy conservation
and power subcommittee to discuss nuclear safety, a subject on which
Asselstine frequently parts ways with his four colleagues.
Speaking for the commission majority, NRC Chairman Nunzio Palladino
asserted that despite some unresolved safety issues, U.S. plants are
safe.
He said the likelihood of a core melt accident in the next 20 years,
previously estimated at 45 percent, was put at 12 percent in a more
recent study of plants with safety improvements ordered after the
1979 Three Mile Island nuclear power plant accident.
In a lengthy opening statement marked by a number of complaints,
subcommittee chairman Edward Markey, D-Mass., accused the commission
of ''nukespeak'' because plant failures are called ''events''; of
defining ''undue risk'' as existing only when people are actually
radiated; of encouraging the nuclear industry to regulate itself; of
perpetuating secrecy about nuclear safety domestically and
internationally; and of failing to adequately upgrade plant safety.
Markey said an NRC-provided list of the 10 most serious plant
incidents last year revealed patterns of utility mismanagement and
regulatory neglect.
''We don't like these incidents any more than you do,'' Palladino
responded. ''But the fact that we've coped with them should provide
some degree of assurance that we've done things right.''
Markey criticized the NRC for allowing a safety review of all
Babcock & Wilcox reactors to be conducted by the owners of the
reactors. He also cited an NRC policy of deferring action in areas in
which the industry has set up self-improvement programs.
''There's no deregulation going on here,'' replied Commissioner Fred
Bernthal. ''There's an attempt to get things done better and
faster.''
Markey charged that the commission has made one industry group, the
Institute for Nuclear Power Operations, ''a branch of government ...
a wing of the NRC.''
The group conducts reactor safety reviews and submits the results to
the NRC on the condition the information be kept confidential.
''This information in many cases has very profound safety
implications,'' Markey said. He said the commission should not agree
to keep it secret and should also work out new arrangements with
other countries, which have given it information on their reactors on
the condition it not be made public.
All five commissioners said their sources at home and abroad would
dry up if they didn't agree to confidentiality and praised the
Institute for improving plant safety during its five years of
existence.
But Asselstine said the Institute had failed to prevent serious
incidents last year at the Rancho Seco nuclear plant near Sacramento,
Calif., and the Davis-Besse facility near Toledo, Ohio. He also said
the Institute had not averted ''the collapse'' of the Tennessee
Valley Authority's nuclear power generating capacity. TVA's five
reactors in Alabama and Tennessee are all shut down for safety
reasons.
Asked to name the five safest and five least safe plants, Palladino
said he would submit his list in writing. But Asselstine, Bernthal
and Commissioner Lando Zech named several they said were well-run and
others they said had problems.
The informal list of problem plants included the TVA reactors;
Rancho Seco; Davis-Besse; LaSalle near Ottawa, Ill.; Oyster Creek
near Toms River, N.J.; Pilgrim near Plymouth, Mass.; Turkey Point
near Laguna Beach, Fla.; Fermi near Detroit; and Fort St. Vrain near
Platteville, Colo.
Among the best-run plants, according to the three commissioners, are
Kewanee near Green Bay, Wis.; Monticello and Prairie Island near
Minneapolis; Farley near Dothan, Ala.; Millstone near New London,
Conn.; and plants operated by Duke Power Co. in North Carolina and
South Carolina.
AP-NY-05-23-86 0225EDT
a016 0011 23 May 86
PM-Fallout-Terrorism, Bjt,0940
Europe Pays Heavily for Terrorism and Chernobyl
An AP Extra
By MAUREEN JOHNSON
LONDON (AP) - The Dutch have told jittery U.S. travel agents that
the Netherlands is not really dangerous, and British Airways is
offering 5,600 free rides across the Atlantic to show how far Europe
will go to lure Americans who fear terrorism and radioactive fallout.
Airport attacks and airplane hijackings already had hurt the tourist
trade prior to the U.S. bombing of Libya on April 15. But Americans
became even more jittery after the air strike, fearing more terrorist
activity.
Less than two weeks later a cloud of radiation spread across Europe
after an accident at the Chernobyl nuclear plant in the Soviet
Ukraine.
Since then, cancellations by American visitors have reached the
hundreds of thousands.
Tourist authorities from neutral Finland, a Soviet neighbor, to
President Reagan's staunchest ally, Britain, estimate the number of
American visitors will decrease between 15 percent and 50 percent.
That will cost them each millions of dollars.
While terrorism is still the prime reason, abetted by a weaker
dollar, the fallout from Chernobyl is particularly difficult to
combat because there are no feasible safety precautions equivalent to
tightening airport security against terrorists.
The air now is thick with European jibes about stayaway Americans,
and bitterness about the radiation for which the Soviets gave no
warning. There also is some resignation.
For instance, the tourist board in Finland says it is just too late
to try to reverse the 10,000 American cancellations after the
Chernobyl accident. The tourists had also been scheduled to go to the
Soviet Union.
''Yanks, Come Back,'' implored a banner headline in London's Daily
Express over a front-page story about tourism.
Here is country-by-country look at the cost of American fears of
radiation and terrorism.
BRITAIN:
Unofficial estimates are that the number of U.S. tourists will fall
by 25 percent, which for Britain, the top attraction for Americans in
Europe, would mean a loss of $1.3 billion.
British Caledonian airline laid off 1,000 workers May 18 after
bookings on trans-Atlantic routes fell 40 percent. The airline lost
$6 million revenue in two weeks after the Libya raid and looks likely
to lose $22.6 million more this summer.
State-owned British Airways offered Americans 5,600 free seats in a
drawing as part of a plan to boost trans-Atlantic bookings that have
slumped 20 percent.
THE NETHERLANDS:
The Dutch, like many West Europeans, are edgy themselves about
radiation from the Soviet nuclear power plant but potential tourists
are even more wary.
American tourist bookings are down 30 percent, and that will cost
the Netherlands nearly $100 million, the Dutch Bureau for Tourism
estimates.
The tourism bureau has stopped trying to advertise the country to
the American public and is now focusing on travel agents and writers
instead.
Said spokesman Rene Brouwer, ''Of course something can happen here,
too, but we give them realistic information. We're saying that things
aren't that unsafe here.''
ITALY:
ENIT, the national tourist body, says the outlook is slack for the
summer and is hoping stepped-up tourism by other Europeans and
Japanese will help fill some of the gap.
However, after Chernobyl, many Italians were fearful of visiting
beach resorts in northern Italy, where radiation levels were highest.
Alitalia, the state airline, reported 40,000 canceled American
bookings between January and May.
AUSTRIA:
Tourist authorities reported no upsurge after Chernobyl in what was
already a steady stream of cancellations after the bombing of Libya.
But some big names dropped out of the Vienna Festival of Music after
Chernobyl. The Vienna newspaper Die Presse said they included the
Israeli concert violinist Pinchas Zukerman and the Juilliard String
Quartet.
FRANCE:
Authorities anticipate a 30 percent drop in American tourists and
Pan American Airways postponed indefinitely a Los Angeles-Paris
service that was to start April 28.
There are fears that France, which refused to let the U.S. warplanes
fly over its territory en route to Libya, will get a triple dose of
the stayaway - sparked by anxiety about radiation and about
terrorism, as well as vengeful feelings of some Americans.
WEST GERMANY:
The government has demanded Soviet compensation for an estimated $91
million loss to farmers through contamination of milk, lettuces and
spinach. But for the tourist falloff by 10-20 percent, there's no
hope of reparation.
SCANDINAVIA:
Sweden, near the Soviet Union, expects to lose $15 million, about
one-fourth its American tourist revenue this year.
After the Libya bombing, Sweden had a big upsurge in inquiries about
vacations from Americans deterred from southern Europe. ''Now we
probably receive the same amount of callers asking how bad it is with
the radioactivity,'' said Tourist Board spokeswoman Christina
Soderman.
Norway also reports a rash of cancellations and Denmark expects a 20
percent drop in U.S. tourists.
FINLAND:
''In retrospect, (radiation) effects in Finland were actually very
small ... the shock was psychological,'' said Professor Antti
Vuorinen of the Nuclear Radiation Office in Helsinki.
But 10,000 American tourists - who were also due to go to the Soviet
Union - have canceled.
Tourist Board director Bengt Pihlstrom blames the cancellations on
''the obviously wrong information published during the first days
after the accident when nobody really knew what had happened.''
''The damage is done for this summer,'' he added.
BELGIUM:
It also expects U.S. tourism to fall by one-third this summer.
SPAIN:
This country escaped the worst after-effects because Americans
account for less than 3 percent of Spain's thriving tourist industry.
Although there have been big cancellations by Americans - some
operators say up to 85 percent of reservations have been cancelled -
overall tourism is expected to rise 3-4 percent.
AP-NY-05-23-86 0310EDT
a028 0158 23 May 86
PM-Washington in Brief,0582
EPA Sets Conditions for Continued Use of Pesticide
Shultz Says U.S. Ready to Work With Soviets To Prevent Nuke Accidents
WASHINGTON (AP) - Secretary of State George P. Shultz says the
United States is ready to cooperate with the Soviets on measures to
prevent accidents similar to the one at the Chernobyl nuclear plant.
''The United States stands ready to lend a hand in any way we can in
helping the Soviet Union recover from the tragedy,'' Shultz said
Thursday after meeting for an hour in his office with bone marrow
specialists Robert Gale, Paul Teraski and Richard Champlin, who went
to the Soviet Union to treat victims of the Chernobyl accident.
''I was impressed and inspired by Dr. Gale's descriptions of the
courage and sacrifice with which his Soviet colleagues and the Soviet
people as a whole have sought to cope with the effects of the
accident,'' Shultz said in a written statement after the meeting.
Gale told reporters that Shultz asked him to convey U.S. assistance
offers and sympathy to the Soviets when he returns for further
medical work.
''We hope that the lessons we learned at Chernobyl will be useful in
our plans to respond to accidents and would be a lesson about our
limited ability to respond to nuclear events,'' Gale said.
---
First Lady Hosts Anti-Drug Rally
a044 0346 23 May 86
PM-Chernobyl-Nuclear,0552
Chernobyl Victim to Be Entombed Along With Reactor, Pravda Says
By ALISON SMALE
MOSCOW (AP) - The body of one of the two workers killed during the
accident at the Chernobyl nuclear plant will be entombed in the
concrete ''coffin'' being built around the stricken reactor, the
Communist Party newspaper Pravda said today.
A party official, meanwhile, was quoted as confirming that many of
the 92,000 people evacuated from around the Ukrainian power station
will not return home ''as soon as we had wanted,'' and will be
resettled.
Ivan Plyushch, a senior official of the Communist Party in the Kiev
region, told Nedelya, a weekly supplement to the government newspaper
Izvestia, that ''evidently, we will gradually be settling them in
other places. We'll probably be building additional homes, using
houses that become empty.''
Soviet media reported earlier this week that 10,000 winter homes and
barns are already under construction for people evacuated from around
the power plant 80 miles north of Kiev.
On Thursday, A. Kokhlenkov, an officer of the Ukrainian branch of
Komsomol, the Communist youth league, had told the Moscow newspaper
Moskovsky Komsomolets that the situation near the plant was becoming
normal, and added, ''the fact that many Chernobyl residents are
already going to their apartments serves as proof of that.''
But it was not clear from Kokhlenkov's comments how many people had
come back, and whether they had returned for good or merely to seek
belongings.
A Soviet representative to the Vienna-based International Atomic
Energy Agency, Boris Semyonov, reported Thursday that the death toll
in the disaster stood at 15, including 13 people who have died in
hospitals since the April 26 accident.
Pravda today reported that the body of Valery Khodemchuk, an
operator at Chernobyl, was never recovered after an explosion ripped
through the No. 4 reactor building, igniting a fire that engulfed the
structure.
Vladimir Shashenok, the other man killed immediately in the
accident, was brought out of the blaze and was able to mutter only
''there, Valery,'' before he lost consciousness and died, Pravda
said.
Workers are now toiling to encase the reactor in concrete where it
will remain for centuries to prevent any radiation leakage. Pravda
suggested that the casing bear an inscription to Khodemchuk.
Although Khodemchuk's mother has been told her son is dead, she is
still waiting for him to visit her, Pravda's correspondent wrote
after meeting her. As a villager, the newspaper said, she could not
believe her son was dead unless he was buried by all the villagers.
''The fourth (reactor) block will also become his coffin,'' Pravda
said. ''And, perhaps, someone will write on those concrete walls,
that it is not the reactor which is buried here, but Valery
Khodemchuk. But will that calm his mother down?''
Pravda today also disclosed the first reported instance of residents
in nearby villages refusing to take in evacuees from the 18-mile zone
that was cleared around the Chernobyl plant.
Most Soviet accounts have emphasized the communal spirit of evacuees
and their hosts, but Pravda said a man in the village of Blidzha,
Pyotr Artemenko, had refused to take evacuees into his large house
because he feared they would ruin the newly polished floors.
- - - - - -
a062 0544 23 May 86
PM-Chernobyl-Nuclear Sub, a044,0067
MOSCOW SUB 7th graf: A Soviet xxx 26 accident to CLARIFY source on
casualty figure
A Soviet representative to the International Atomic Energy Agency,
Boris Semyonov, reported Thursday that the death toll in the disaster
stood at 15. An American official of the Vienna-based agency, Morris
Rosen, said the figure included the two workers killed during the
accident.
Pravda today: 8th graf
AP-NY-05-23-86 0843EDT
a201 1016 23 May 86
AM-News Digest,1010
For Saturday AMs
Here are the top stories at this hour from The Associated Press. The
LEBANON:
HANDS ACROSS AMERICA:
CHERNOBYL: Evacuees from Reactor Area May Be Permanently Relocated
MOSCOW - A senior official of the Ukrainian Communist Party
indicates some of the 92,000 people evacuated from the Chernobyl
nuclear reactor accident area face a long stay away from home, if not
permanent relocation. Slug AM-Chernobyl-Nuclear. New material, may
stand. 650.
By Carol J. Williams.
WALDHEIM: Israel Says It's Too Early To Seek Extradition
US-SOUTH AFRICA: Disinvestment by U.S. Firms Is Outlined
WOMEN VETERANS: Drive Launched To Honor Vietnam War Nurses
HOMELESS STUDENTS: May Number 3,000 at New York City University
LOWEST-PAID TEACHER: Says Goodbye to One-Room Schoolhouse
CHINA PLANE: Defecting Pilot Forced Crewmen To Go Along
FEDERAL LANDS: Congressman Raps Visitors' Fees
IVY INFIGHTING: Moderates Prevail at Dartmouth
GRANDPARENTS LAW: Held Responsible for Teen-age Child's Offspring
DONDI'S FAREWELL: Little World War II Refugee Leaves Comic Pages
AP-NY-05-23-86 1315EDT
a058 0423 24 May 86
PM-Chernobyl-Nuclear,0628
Newspapers Report More Offers of Help, Nuclear Dangers
MOSCOW (AP) - The Communist Party daily Pravda today used the
Chernobyl accident to argue for a nuclear test ban, and other Soviet
media reported that volunteers were to work to reunite families
separated since the disaster.
''The nuclear arsenals accumulated worldwide harbor thousands and
thousands of disasters far more terrible than that at Chernobyl,''
Pravda said in its front-page plea for U.S. agreement on the test ban
proposed by the Kremlin.
The April 26 explosion and fire at the Ukrainian atomic power
station spewed a cloud of radiation over much of Europe that
gradually spread around the world, causing some governments to order
precautionary measures against contamination.
By official Soviet count, at least 13 people have died from burns
and radiation suffered in the accident, while two workers were
reported killed almost immediatetly.
Sovietskaya Rossiya, a party and government publication, carried a
Tass news agency report today on a Moscow work association serving as
headquarters for coordinating assistance for Chernobyl victims.
Phones at the Atomic Energy Workers Association ''do not stop
ringing for a second,'' the report said.
Soldiers about to wind up their two-year terms in the Soviet army
are volunteering to go to the Chernobyl site 80 miles north of Kiev,
Tass said, and calls have also come in from people trying to find
relatives displaced by the accident.
One department supervisor at the atomic energy association received
a call from a mother unable to find her child, who was evacuated from
the danger zone surrounding the four-reactor power station.
The child was eventually located in a youth camp on the Black Sea
coast, Tass said.
The national television news program Vremya reported Friday night
that the association was assisting with location of relatives from
the Chernobyl area.
A commentator said a Moscow grandmother was worried about her son's
family, and after calling relief headquarters, learned that her
grandchildren were safe at a summer resort.
No further details of the individual cases were reported. Newspaper
reports earlier in the week suggested that separation of families was
a problem that continued to plague some of the 92,000 people reported
evacuated from the accident site.
Pravda carried several short reports on offers of help for Chernobyl
victims, including the equivalent of $1,845 in bonuses donated by
workers from a Kaluga candy and macaroni plant and a day of free
labor planned next Saturday by workers in the Lvov region of the
western Ukraine.
The Defense Ministry daily Krasnaya Zvezda reported on the
activities of soldiers working in the danger zone, which extends 18
miles from the damaged power station.
Army men are busy cooling the ruined No. 4 reactor by piping
nitrogen around it, the newspaper said.
Soldiers also are driving the trucks delivering cement to the
reactor, which is being encased in concrete where it will stay for
centuries while its radioactive fuel decays.
A Soviet paper said Friday that parts of the Chernobyl plant are so
radioactive that cleanup crews can work only minutes at a time, and
indicated some of the evacuees from the area may never return.
The weekly Nedelya quoted Ivan Plyushch, head of the Kiev regional
government, as saying: ''It has become clear that evacuees will not
be returning home as soon as they would like. Evidently, we will
gradually be settling them in other places.''
Plyushch's phrasing indicated resettlement could be permanent. The
newspaper, a weekly supplement to the government daily Izvestia, gave
no hint of how many evacuees may never return home.
Nedelya's report that men equipped with respirators and protective
clothing could work in some parts of the plant for only a few minutes
at a stretch suggested radiation levels in the plant settlement of
Pripyat also remain dangerously high.
AP-NY-05-24-86 0722EDT
a068 0543 24 May 86
PM-EROS Data, Adv 28,0887
For Release Wed PMs, May 28, and Thereafter
Space-Age Data Center Surrounded by Corn Fields and Cows
By SUZANNE MALICH
GARRETSON, S.D. (AP) - Across the road from a rural cemetery, near
pastures where deer roam, stands a $50 million space-age complex of
glass and steel, where scientists track the spread of radiation from
the Soviet Union's Chernobyl reactor.
EROS Data Center, the nation's only government-run center for
processing data from Landsat satellites, is an anomaly for this quiet
southeastern South Dakota town of 963.
''Most of our people appreciate that they don't have to battle
bumper-to-bumper traffic every day or contend with pollution,'' said
Phyllis Wiepking, information officer for EROS, or Earth Resources
Observation Systems.
The center's 350 employees, more than half of whom are scientists
with advanced degrees, do occasionally have to contend with
slow-moving tractors when they commute from nearby communities,
including Sioux Falls, about 15 miles away.
When it was built in 1973, technology required that EROS be near the
center of the continent and away from interfering radio and
television signals. Though today's technology could deliver the
signals from space almost anywhere, Garretson remains EROS' home.
Big things are happening in this small town setting.
Photographs produced by EROS, showing the Chernobyl nuclear reactor
shortly after the April 26 accident, were published in newspapers and
magazines throughout the world.
The Chernobyl photographs were enhanced by computer, giving the
images more detail, said Allen Watkins, director of EROS.
''Our people were up most of the night and took the time to do the
further analysis. Our sophisticated computer equipment allowed us to
enhance the photographs as much as is possible,'' he said.
He said EROS was monitoring crops in fields near Chernobyl to see
how they're being affected by radiation. Any damage from radiation
will be visible in about two months, he said.
EROS provided pictures of the Chernobyl reactor to the CIA and other
U.S. intelligence operations as well as to the news media, Watkins
said. Other uses of EROS photos by the intelligence services are
classified, he said.
Operated by the U.S. Geological Survey of the Department of
Interior, EROS is a national archive and research facility for data
collected by satellites and high-flying aircraft.
Some 7 million photographs and images of the Earth stored at the
center are for sale to anyone, including foreign governments and
private industry.
''Some of our customers have included the U.S. intelligence agencies
that, for example, want to find out the crop yields in other
countries such as the Soviet Union,'' said Watkins.
''Also, some of our orders have been spawned by the Iran-Iraq
situation,'' he said, referring to those nations' prolonged war.
''And the Chinese are always interested in what their neighbors are
up to.''
By analyzing the pictures, experts can monitor disasters, study the
effects of acid rain, advise oil companies where to drill and keep
track of urban sprawl.
The images are picked up by satellites called Landsats that orbit
the Earth about once every 100 minutes. The electronic signal is
relayed to EROS where it is changed, by computer, into photographs or
tapes that computers translate into video screen images of the
Earth's surface.
The satellites, about the size of a car, are capable of picking up
images from anywhere in the world except the North and South poles,
provided the area is free of clouds, said Watkins.
Starting in 1972, five Landsats have been launched, and a sixth is
being built now, Watkins said. The satellites operate for about three
years and are replaced as they go out of service, he said, adding
that just one Landsat is fully operational now.
Watkins said that while some private data companies operate on a
smaller basis than the government-run EROS, ''there are no others in
this country that process all the data and do all the interpretation
at the level we do. No other facility has such a broad-based set of
scientists. We have everything from agriculture experts,
hydrologists, energy people and geologists.''
Watkins said Landsat signals are received and processed at 12 points
outside the United States, including centers in Australia, Argentina,
Brazil, India, France, Sweden and Canada.
The photo lab at EROS looks like a hospital operating room.
Technicians wear white coats and booties to preserve a sterile
environment. A speck of dust on an enlarged photograph comes out as a
blob, said Don Lauer, who is in charge of interpreting the data.
A private company, Earth Observation Satellite Co. of Arlington,
Va., took over sales of the photos from the federal government last
September. Prices range from $50 for a 7-inch black and white photo
to $3,300 for a computer-compatible tape, Watkins said. Sales totaled
about $10 million last year.
''People wanted pictures of Mount St. Helens, the invasion of the
Falkland Islands, and of areas in California that are prone to
earthquakes,'' said Ms. Wiepking.
Lauer said several people were interested in obtaining satellite
pictures of Mount Ararat on the Soviet-Turkish border so people could
look for Noah's Ark. ''Of course they never found it,'' he said.
End Adv for Wed PMs, May 28
AP-NY-05-24-86 0834EDT
a201 0854 24 May 86
AM-News Digest, 2 Takes,0926
Sunday, May 25, 1986
Here are the top stories at this hour from The Associated Press. The
TERRORISM:
JOINING HANDS: The Line Likely Won't Be Unbroken
SOUTH AFRICA:
THATCHER: On Her Way To Israel, Which Gained Independence 38 Years
CHERNOBYL:
Running Relief Agency To Track Down Families
MOSCOW - Volunteers are operating a relief coordinating agency in
Moscow to handle offers of help for victims of the Chernobyl nuclear
accident and to track down family members separated by the disaster,
Soviet news media report. Slug AM-Chernobyl-Nuclear. New, should
stand. 550 words.
Nuclear Accident Leads To Grim Jokes In The Soviet Bloc
VIENNA, Austria - The Chernobyl nuclear disaster generates rumors
and some bitter jokes in the Soviet bloc, such as the Soviet Union
being renamed the Union of Soviet Radioactive Republics. Or one
asking for a pill ''against the Russians.'' Slug AM-Chernobyl-East.
New, should stand. 750 words.
By Roland Prinz.
YELENA BONNER: Begins Her Journey Home To The Soviet Union
HAZARDOUS MATERIALS: Workplace Right-to-Know Law Takes Effect
TEAMSTERS: Union Rallies Around Jackie Presser
SUMMERTIME:
AP-NY-05-24-86 1153EDT
a204 0905 24 May 86
AM-News Shows, Advisory,0129
Here is the lineup for Sunday's television news shows:
ABC's ''This Week with David Brinkley'' - Attorney General Edwin
CBS's ''Face the Nation'' - Syrian Foreign Minister Farouk al
Shara'a and Sens. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, and Christopher Dodd, D-Conn.
NBC's ''Meet the Press'' - Yevgeny Velikhov, the top Soviet
scientist leading Chernobyl cleanup effort, and former Energy
Secretary James Schlesinger.
---
CBS ''60 Minutes'' (repeats):
''The Great Postal Robbery'' - Alleged Philippine crime syndicate
under investigation.
''Athol and Zakes'' - South African playwright and actor whose
Broadway play ''Blood Knot'' was outlawed in their own country.
''A Nun's Story'' - Talk show host Mother Angelica at her monastery,
which is also headquarters of The Eternal Word television network.
AP-NY-05-24-86 1205EDT
//08 0927 24 May 86
AM-Chernobyl-East, Bjt,0620
Fears, Rumors, Bitter Jokes in Eastern Europe Follow Soviet Accident
An AP Extra
By ROLAND PRINZ
VIENNA, Austria (AP) - The Chernobyl nuclear disaster has generated
fears, rumors and some bitter jokes in Eastern Europe, like the
Czechoslovak gag about the U.S.S.R. being renamed U.S.R.R., for
''Union of Soviet Radioactive Republics.''
Authorities thoughout the Soviet bloc assured residents they faced
no health hazards from the April 26 nuclear plant accident in the
Soviet Ukraine, even though precautions were taken against possible
radioactive contamination.
Some people, accustomed to mistrusting the official version of
matters, did not believe the assurances.
Romanian hospitals had an increase in poisoning cases as parents
gave children iodine solutions before the chemical was distributed
through dispensaries, said knowledgeable contacts who would not be
identified.
The privately administered doses of the solution, which can prevent
some harmful effects of radiation, were apparently too high.
The Polish weekly Przeglad Tygodniowy on May 11 reported that
immediately after the Chernobyl accident a lot of ''science fiction''
rumors circulated.
In the town of Suwalki, said the paper, someone reported seeing
''luminous milk'' in his refrigerator. And in Bialystok a man claimed
radioactivity was causing his hair to fall out.
A doctor in Bucharest, Romania, said she had been flooded with calls
from worried people asking for advice. One woman asked if increased
radiation levels could have caused her to lose a tooth.
Residents of Iasi and other cities in Romania's Moldova province,
which borders the Soviet Union, protected their hair with all sorts
of hats as the radioactive cloud from Chernobyl passed over their
country, a newspaper said.
Along with reports of radiation scares, sarcastic jokes also emerged
from the Soviet bloc.
According to one gag, a Czech newspaper advertises for sale: ''Villa
in Chernobyl . . . solitude ensured.''
In Romania, according to another joke, an elderly lady sees her
doctor to get an iodine pill but she doesn't know what it's called.
In the end, she says, ''Well, how should I put it, just give me a
tablet which is good against the Russians.''
Another runs: ''What is small, yellow and shines? Chicken Kiev.''
Kiev is a Soviet city 80 miles from the accident site.
A joke from Warsaw says the new slogan of the Polish Communist Party
is ''Be radiant.''
No illnesses from the disaster were reported outside the Chernobyl
area, but precautions were taken in Eastern Europe, and fears
persisted.
Some countries, such as Poland and Romania, warned against drinking
milk, set up health consultation centers and monitored radiation
closely.
In Yugoslavia, which is not a member of the Soviet bloc, authorities
instituted a special telephone number so people could get official
word on radiation levels.
Vegetables have been approved for sale again in Yugoslavia after an
earlier prohibition, but few people seem to be buying them, and
Hungarian housewives also stopped buying fresh vegetables. This was
occurring as the Common Market banned fresh food imports from the
Soviet bloc because of the possibility of radioactive contamination.
Yugoslavia's press, which features some of the most sensational
reporting in the communist world, has been running stories about an
increased number of miscarriages and requests for abortions following
the accident.
Jan Suchowiak, director of the Sanitary Inspection Department at the
Polish Ministry of Health, said some ''maniacs'' in Poland reported
they had suffered ill effects from radiation exposure. They were
examined by doctors just ''to calm down their families and friends,''
he said.
He said, ''contamination levels here were so low they didn't even
approach one-thousandth of the level that would cause any health
threat.''
AP-NY-05-24-86 1227EDT
a204 0906 25 May 86
AM-Chernobyl-Operation,0394
Soviet Revises Rules of Operation for Nuclear Plants After Disaster
NEW YORK (AP) - The Soviet Union's top nuclear power official has
disclosed that the government issued new operating instructions for
its nuclear stations as soon as the Chernobyl accident occurred,
according to a published report.
Gennadi A. Veretennikov said the instructions were intended to
''enhance the reliability and safety'' of nuclear power plant
operations, according to a New York Times report Sunday that quoted
from a Soviet construction industry newspaper.
Veretennikov, in an interview with the Soviet paper, said the
directives covered unspecified ''organizational measures'' and called
for ''maximum control over the operation of all systems and
equipment.''
Veretennikov also told Stroitelnaya Gazetain in the interview
published in Moscow on May 14 that the Soviet government was
determined to push ahead with its nuclear power program.
He said any findings of the government commission investigating the
causes of the Chernobyl accident would be taken into account in plans
and in modifying reactor designs.
''Of course, the situation at the Chernobyl station will be a matter
of careful study,'' he told the Soviet paper. ''The nuclear power
industry is being improved from year to year by all the experience
being accumulated in the Soviet Union and abroad, positive and
negative,''
The Soviet Union has not disclosed the specific causes of the
explosion and fire that damaged the Chernobyl nuclear power station
in the Ukraine on April 26.
Before the accident, the Soviet Union had 37 large civilian power
reactors in operation, with a combined generating capacity of 28,000
megawatts. One-thousand megawatts is considered sufficient to supply
electricity to a city of 1 million people.
Any changes in the nuclear program as a result of Chernobyl may
become evident next month when the Supreme Soviet, the nominal
parliament, meets to enact the final version of the new five-year
plan (1986-90). Under plan guidelines approved earlier this year, the
Soviet Union was to add 41,000 megawatts of generating capacity by
the end of 1990.
Veretennikov, a former official of the State Planning Committee,
took charge of the nuclear power industry in August 1983 during a
high-level management shake-up. He is a Deputy Minister of Electric
Power and head of the National Nuclear Power Corp., a ministry
division that constructs and operates nuclear generating stations.
AP-NY-05-25-86 1206EDT
- - - - - -
a237 1330 25 May 86
AM-Chernobyl-Operation, INSERT, a204,0294
NEW YORK: INSERTS 7 grafs after 7th graf pvs ''The Soviet...'' to
UPDATE with Soviets' comments today on impact and clean up, picks up
8th graf pvs ''Before the...''
The Soviet Union has not disclosed the specific causes of the
explosion and fire that damaged the Chernobyl nuclear power station
in the Ukraine on April 26.
A top Soviet physicist coordinating the cleanup at Chernobyl said
Sunday that the reason the Soviet Union has not disclosed the cause
''is not (a) problem of any limitation of information but the problem
is more (one of) understanding ....''
The physicist, Yevgeny Velikhov, also said on the NBC News program,
''Meet the Press,'' that the accident was caused by both human error
and mechanical failure. Neither could have caused such an accident
alone, he said.
Velikhov said the immediate danger is over, and added, ''Our main
worry today is long-term worry, not to put any trace of radioactivity
in the underground water.''
He said tens of thousands of people had been resettled from the area
immediately surrounding the reactor. He put the number suffering from
radiation sickness at slightly more than 200.
Velikhov said a 30-kilometer area surrounding the plant was ''out of
commission'' for agricultural use, and that contaminated topsoil was
being removed from a wider area in the hope of regaining its use.
Former U.S. Energy Secretary James Schlesinger, who also was
interviewed on the program, estimated that the Chernobyl accident
would cost the Soviet Union $5 billion to $10 billion in cleanup
costs alone and would have a major impact on the Soviet budget.
He also predicted it would slow the pace of nuclear construction in
Western Europe.
Before the, 8th graf
AP-NY-05-25-86 1630EDT
a220 1120 25 May 86
AM-News Advisory,0175
Also moving for AMs:
ESSEX, Conn. - Former Ambassador Chester Bowles, a liberal Democrat
MIAMI - The FBI has requested the records of 25 current and former
MOSCOW - Workers digging a tunnel toward the No. 4 Chernobyl reactor
still are dozens of yards from the spot where they will build the
foundation of a concrete tomb for the destroyed reactor, a newspaper
says. American Dr. Robert Gale heads back to Moscow.
AM-Chernobyl-Nuclear.
WASHINGTON - Andrew and Agatha will lead off the 1986 hit parade of
AP-NY-05-25-86 1420EDT
a238 1341 25 May 86
AM-Chernobyl-Nuclear,0642
American Doctor Returns To Moscow To Treat Chernobyl Victims
MOSCOW (AP) - U.S. specialist Robert Gale, who has been treating
victims of the Chernobyl disaster, returned here Sunday, as a Soviet
newspaper indicated that cleanup workers digging underground toward
the destroyed reactor were far from their goal.
Gale, a specialist in bone marrow transplants, returned from a short
trip to his home in Los Angeles. He has been helping doctors in
Moscow treat the worst radiation victims from the April 26 accident.
Boris Semyonov, Soviet representative to the International Atomic
Energy Agency in Vienna, said last week that 15 people have died as a
result of the accident and 20 are in grave condition.
Gale told reporters at Moscow airport Sunday he did not know the
current death toll from Chernobyl, 80 miles south of Kiev in the
Ukraine.
Before leaving Los Angeles, Gale said he hoped this trip would
provide follow-up treatment to the patients he saw before.
''We expect smaller numbers of additional fatalities,'' Gale said
Saturday. ''I'll know more tomorrow evening when I get to the
hospital.''
Workers plan to seal the Chernobyl plant's destroyed No. 4 reactor
by building a concrete tomb around it.
Red Star, the armed forces daily, said ''dozens of meters (yards)
remain to the (No. 4) reactor'' as miners tunnel under the adjacent
building that houses the shutdown No. 3 reactor of the four-reactor
complex.
Once completed, the tunnel will be used to bring in equipment to
build a concrete pad that will serve as the foundation for the
concrete tomb.
Soviet officials have not said how far the workers must dig.
The labor union daily Trud said the thousands of tons of sand, lead
and other material dumped on the reactor are doing their job and
radiation emissions are constantly decreasing.
But it said the plant was still strewn with radioactive particles
thrown off from the explosion at the reactor, and that the radiation
level remains high. The paper gave no figures.
''For now, only those who are reliably protected with lead sheets
and heavy armor (in vehicles) are allowed to work in the direct
proximity of the reactor,'' Trud said.
Helicopter pilots are dropping plastic bags onto the area around the
reactor, the paper said. The bags burst on impact, releasing a liquid
that quickly hardens into synthetic film, which absorbs dust and
other particles, Trud said.
Soviet reports have said 92,000 people were evacuated between April
27 and May 4 from an 18-mile zone around the Chernobyl plant.
The agriculture newspaper Selskaya Zhizn on Sunday said the entire
staffs of farms in the evacuated zone were transferred to farms
outside the contaminated area along with their cattle and other
livestock.
''It's necessary to think not only about how to feed them (the
cattle) now, but also in the coming wintering period,'' the newspaper
said.
In London, The Observer newspaper on Sunday quoted unidentified
Soviet and international nuclear investigators as saying a bumbling
reactor operator caused the disaster.
''The investigators think the operator pulled out some control
rods,'' The Observer said. ''Alarmed, he moved some more rods to try
to get the situation back under control - and this caused part of the
reactor to 'go critical.'''
The investigators said that led to an explosion, and that a 200-ton
mobile crane suspended above the reactor core ''crashed down on it,
causing enormous damage,'' according to the paper.
Fire then broke out in the reactor, the paper quoted the
investigators as saying.
The physicist overseeing the cleanup at Chernobyl, Yevgeny Velihkov,
said on the NBC news program ''Meet the Press'' Sunday that the
accident was caused both by both human error and mechanical failure,
but he did not elaborate.
AP-NY-05-25-86 1641EDT
a294 2031 25 May 86
AM-Hammer-Summit,0261
Industrialist Says Second Summit Up To U.S.
LAS VEGAS, N.M. (AP) - Industrialist Armand Hammer said the Reagan
administration must take the initiative if it wants to hold a second
summit with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev.
Hammer, speaking at a news conference Saturday on the campus of the
United World College of the American West, said he did not know if a
second summit between the two countries was possible.
The head of Occidental Petroleum Co. visited the school he founded
for its third commencement exercises.
''Mikhail Gorbachev can't be pushed around,'' said Hammer, who has
close ties with the Soviet Union and returned recently from Moscow.
''He is the best Soviet leader since Lenin.''
Hammer said Gorbachev was America's best hope for improving
relations with the Soviet Union, calling him ''pragmatic, practical,
honest and proud.''
Gorbachev was not interested in another ''hand-shaking'' meeting
with Reagan, Hammer said, referring to the November meeting in
Geneva, Switzerland.
''He feels he and Mr. Reagan have had their get-acquainted session,
said Hammer. ''He wants to get something done.''
Hammer played a role in helping the Soviet Union obtain medical help
for the victims of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant accident,
arranging a visit by leading bone marrow transplant surgeon Dr.
Robert Gale of the University of California at Los Angeles Medical
School.
Gale, who assisted in 19 bone marrow transplants, said Saturday as
he left Los Angeles to return to the Soviet Union that Secretary of
State George Schultz asked him to relay the Reagan administration's
desire to hold a summit, possibly in September.
AP-NY-05-25-86 2331EDT
a002 2118 25 May 86
PM-News Digest,0829
Monday, May 26, 1986
Here are the top stories for PMs. The General Desk supervisor is Ron
HANDS ACROSS AMERICA:
MEMORIAL DAY: Hand-holding, Sun and Fun Mark Memorial Day
COLOMBIA ELECTION: American-Educated Economist Tops Presidential Vote
LEBANON HOSTAGES: Conflicting Reports Concerning Possible Release
PHILIPPINES: Aquino Names Panel to Write New Constitution
CHERNOBYL: U.S. Bone Marrow Transplant Expert Returns to Moscow
MOSCOW - Dr. Robert Gale, the U.S. bone marrow specialist who helped
treat radioactive victims from the Chernobyl nuclear accident, has
returned to Moscow. A Soviet newspaper reports attempts to dig
underground toward the reactor are far from over. Slug PM-Chernobyl.
New material, shoould stand. 680 words.
CENTRAL AMERICA: Guatemalan Commission To Investigate Human Rights
BELATED DIPLOMA: Teacher To Get Diploma - 44 Years Late
WHAT'S IN A NAME: This Year's Batch of Hurricane Names Lack Punch
STAMP OF APPROVAL: Bugs, Trains and Self-Scouring Steel Plow to Be
AP-NY-05-26-86 0018EDT
a031 0124 26 May 86
PM-Digest Advisory,0075
All the budgets have moved. Here is a list with Laserphoto numbers:
UNDATED - PM-Hands, a006
WASHINGTON - PM-Reagan-Hands, a007. LaserPhoto WX4
WASHINGTON - PM-1987 Stamps, a008
WASHINGTON - PM-Hurricane Names, a009
EUGENE - PM-Belated Diploma, a011
MANILA - PM-Philippines, a012
MOSCOW - PM-Chernobyl, a019
BEIRUT - PM-Lebanon-Hostages, a020
UNDATED - PM-Memorial Day Rdp, a027
BOGOTA - PM-Colombia Election, a029
AP-NY-05-26-86 0421EDT
- - - - - -
a048 0326 26 May 86
PM-Digest Briefs,0935
Eds: This package does not contain the following items from the News
Digest: UNDATED-Hands, a006; UNDATED-Memorial Day Rdp, a027;
GUATEMALA CITY-Guatemala-Rights, a073.
---
WASHINGTON (AP) - President Reagan walked a few paces out of the
BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) - Liberal Party candidate Virgilio Barco swept
BEIRUT, Lebanon (AP) - Persistent reports that some Westerners
MANILA, Philippines (AP) - President Corazon Aquino offered five of
MOSCOW (AP) - Radiation levels around the stricken nuclear reactor
at Chernobyl are still high, but two other reactors at the power
plant will be operating again by the end of this year, the newspaper
Pravda reported today.
The Communist Party newspaper said decontamination work in the
evacuated 18-mile zone surrounding the damaged power station 80 miles
north of Kiev is ''entering an even course.''
Radio Moscow declared ''the situation is completely stabilized'' at
Chernobyl, and also noted that U.S. bone marrow specialist Dr. Robert
P. Gale had returned to the Soviet Union on Sunday to continue
treating victims of the April 26 accident.
---
EUGENE, Ore. (AP) - Michi Yasui Ando will finally get her diploma
WASHINGTON (AP) - If this year's hurricane names - beginning with
WASHINGTON (AP) - The U.S. Postal Service said today it will release
AP-NY-05-26-86 0627EDT
a019 2349 25 May 86
PM-Chernobyl, Bjt,0503
Gale Returns to Treat More Radiation Victims
MOSCOW (AP) - An American bone marrow specialist returned to the
Soviet Union to treat victims of the nuclear disaster at the
Chernobyl power plant, which a Soviet newspaper says is being encased
from above and below by crews working behind lead shields.
Meanwhile in London, a British newspaper quoted unidentified Soviet
and international nuclear investigators as saying a foul-up by a
reactor operator caused the April 26 disaster 80 miles north of Kiev.
London's Observer newspaper said Sunday that investigators think the
operator pulled out some control rods. ''Alarmed, he moved some more
rods to try to get the situation back under control - and this caused
part of the reactor to 'go critical.' ''
That led to an explosion, and a 200-ton mobile crane suspended above
the reactor core ''crashed down on it, causing enormous damage,'' The
Observer said. It quoted the investigators as saying the fire that
raged for days then broke out in the reactor.
The physicist who is overseeing the cleanup at Chernobyl, Yevgeny
Velikhov, said on the NBC news program ''Meet the Press'' Sunday that
the accident was caused both by both human error and mechanical
failure. He did not elaborate.
Robert Gale, the U.S. bone marrow specialist from Los Angeles, told
reporters when he returned to Moscow on Sunday that he could not
provide an update on the number of deaths caused by the Chernobyl
accident.
A Soviet representative to the International Atomic Energy Agency in
Vienna, Boris Semyonov, said last week that 15 people had died from
the accident and 20 were in grave condition.
Before leaving Los Angeles on Saturday, Gale said he hoped he would
be able to provide follow-up treatment to patients he treated
earlier. ''We expect smaller numbers of additional fatalities,'' Gale
said Saturday.
Workers are sealing the destroyed reactor, one of four at Chernobyl,
with concrete.
Red Star, the armed forces newpaper, said that once completed, a
tunnel under the reactor will be used to bring in equipment to build
a concrete pad that will serve as the foundation for the concrete
tomb.
Trud, the labor union daily, said radiation levels remain high, but
that emissions are continuing to decrease.
''For now, only those who are reliably protected with lead sheets
and heavy armor (in vehicles) are allowed to work in the direct
proximity of the reactor,'' Trud said.
Helicopter pilots are dropping plastic bags around the reactor that
burst on impact and release a liquid, Trud said. The liquid hardens
into synthetic film that absorbs dust and other particles.
Soviet reports say 92,000 people were evacuated between April 27 and
May 4 from an 18-mile zone around the Chernobyl plant.
The agriculture newspaper Selskaya Zhizn said Sunday that entire
staffs of farms in the evacuation zone were transferred to farms
outside the contaminated area along with their livestock.
''It's necessary to think not only about how to feed them (the
cattle) now, but also in the coming wintering period,'' the newspaper
said.
AP-NY-05-26-86 0249EDT
- - - - - -
a049 0334 26 May 86
PM-Chernobyl, 1st Ld, a019,0468
EDS: UPDATES with today's Soviet media reports
By CAROL J. WILLIAMS
MOSCOW (AP) - Radiation levels around the stricken nuclear reactor
at Chernobyl are still high, but two other reactors at the power
plant will be operating again by the end of this year, the newspaper
Pravda reported today.
The Communist Party newspaper said decontamination work in the
evacuated 18-mile zone surrounding the damaged power station 80 miles
north of Kiev is ''entering an even course.''
Radio Moscow declared ''the situation is completely stabilized'' at
Chernobyl.
Soviet Deputy Premier Lev Voronin, one of the leaders of the
government inquiry into the accident, told Pravda that radioactivity
in the air and on the ground was being checked in 240 locations
several times daily.
''Each day the level of radiation is dropping by 5 percent,''
Voronin said. It was not clear, however, whether he was referring to
an overall level for the evacuated zone or just the area around the
stricken No. 4 reactor.
''Residual thermal reactions were abating'' around the reactor,
Voronin said. ''However, the level of radiation near the unit itself
is high, necessitating the use of special equipment.''
Pravda said today that Voronin reported radiation readings around
the reactor were varying widely, from near normal background levels
to hundreds of roentgens per hour.
Western experts say 50 roentgens per year are dangerous to health,
and 400 roentgens are lethal.
''We are removing the sources of radiation - clearing away the
debris - and also working throughout the territory inside the
plant,'' Voronin was quoted as saying.
''At the same time, we are beginning preparations for the normal
operation of units No. 1 and No. 2. Several months will be required
for that purpose, but we will surely put them on line this year.''
The power station consists of two sets of paired reactors. The first
two are located in adjoining buildings, as are the No. 3 and No. 4
units, but it has not been made clear how much distance separates the
two sets.
Today's Pravda quoted an unidentified atomic specialist as proposing
that some of the 92,000 people evacuated from around the plant be
allowed back to areas where radiation is no longer dangerous so they
can help with decontamination work.
Soviet officials said more than a week ago that radiation levels in
the city of Chernobyl, 11 miles from the station, were no longer high
enough to be considered dangerous.
But other officials have said the community of Pripyat adjoining the
station will not be habitable for a long time.
Pravda today said ''without fail people will return'' to Pripyat,
but gave no indication of when that might be possible.
Meanwhile in, 2nd graf
AP-NY-05-26-86 0634EDT
- - - - - -
a091 0829 26 May 86
PM-Chernobyl, 2nd Ld, a049,0325
URGENT
Death Toll Now 19 From Chernobyl Accident
Eds: UPDATES with death toll at 19
By CAROL J. WILLIAMS
MOSCOW (AP) - A leading Soviet science official said today the death
toll from the Chernobyl nuclear disaster stands at 19, one month
after history's worst nuclear power plant accident.
Yevgeny Velikhov, vice president of the Academy of Sciences and one
of the top figures in the Chernobyl cleanup effort, told a news
conference the latest death count includes two people who perished in
the April 26 accident itself and 17 who died in hospitals after
suffering heavy radiation exposure.
He did not say how many people remain hospitalized or how many
people were in critical condition.
Dr. Robert Gale, an American bone marrow specialist who has been
helping treat the injured, has said doctors initially diagnosed 35
people as having suffered critical radiation doses. Gale returned to
Moscow on Sunday after a brief visit to his California home.
Velikhov provided the first official update in Moscow on casualties
from the nuclear power plant accident since Soviet leader Mikhail S.
Gorbachev said May 14 that nine people had died and 299 people had
been hospitalized because of the accident.
On Thursday, one Soviet official, Boris Semyonov, told the
International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna, Austria, that 15 people
had died and 20 were in grave condition as a result of the reactor
explosion and fire and the radiation they released.
The Communist Party daily newspaper Pravda said today radiation
levels around the damaged No. 4 reactor at the Ukrainian plant still
were far above normal. But it said two of the other three reactors at
the Chernobyl plant will be back in operation sometime this year.
The newspaper said decontamination work in the 18-mile danger zone
surrounding the plant 80 miles north of Kiev is ''entering an even
course.''
Soviet Deputy, 4th graf
AP-NY-05-26-86 1129EDT
a045 0258 26 May 86
PM-Chernobyl-Operation,0607
Soviet Revises Rules of Operation for Nuclear Plants After Disaster
NEW YORK (AP) - New safety instructions for Soviet nuclear stations
were issued immediately after the Chernobyl accident, says a
published report quoting from a Soviet construction industry
newspaper.
Gennadi A. Veretennikov, the top nuclear power officicial in the
Soviet Union, said the instructions were intended to ''enhance the
reliability and safety'' of nuclear power plant operations, the New
York Times reported Sunday.
The Times based its report on an interview with Veretennikov in the
Stroitelnaya Gazetain.
Veretennikov told the paper, the Times said, that the directives
covered unspecified ''organizational measures'' and called for
''maximum control over the operation of all systems and equipment.''
Veretennikov also told in the interview published in Moscow on May
14 that the Soviet government was determined to push ahead with its
nuclear power program.
He said any findings of the government commission investigating the
causes of the Chernobyl accident would be taken into account in plans
and in modifying reactor designs.
''Of course, the situation at the Chernobyl station will be a matter
of careful study,'' he told the Soviet paper. ''The nuclear power
industry is being improved from year to year by all the experience
being accumulated in the Soviet Union and abroad, positive and
negative,''
The Soviet Union has not disclosed the specific causes of the
explosion and fire that damaged the Chernobyl nuclear power station
in the Ukraine on April 26.
A top Soviet physicist coordinating the cleanup at Chernobyl said
Sunday that the reason the Soviet Union has not disclosed the cause
''is not (a) problem of any limitation of information but the problem
is more (one of) understanding ....''
The physicist, Yevgeny Velikhov, also said on the NBC News program,
''Meet the Press,'' that the accident was caused by both human error
and mechanical failure. Neither could have caused such an accident
alone, he said.
Velikhov said the immediate danger is over, and added, ''Our main
worry today is long-term worry, not to put any trace of radioactivity
in the underground water.''
He said tens of thousands of people had been resettled from the area
immediately surrounding the reactor. He put the number suffering from
radiation sickness at slightly more than 200.
Velikhov said a 30-kilometer area surrounding the plant was ''out of
commission'' for agricultural use, and that contaminated topsoil was
being removed from a wider area in the hope of regaining its use.
Former U.S. Energy Secretary James Schlesinger, who also was
interviewed on the program, estimated that the Chernobyl accident
would cost the Soviet Union $5 billion to $10 billion in cleanup
costs alone and would have a major impact on the Soviet budget.
He also predicted it would slow the pace of nuclear construction in
Western Europe.
Before the accident, the Soviet Union had 37 large civilian power
reactors in operation, with a combined generating capacity of 28,000
megawatts. One-thousand megawatts is considered sufficient to supply
electricity to a city of 1 million people.
Any changes in the nuclear program as a result of Chernobyl may
become evident next month when the Supreme Soviet, the nominal
parliament, meets to enact the final version of the new five-year
plan (1986-90). Under plan guidelines approved earlier this year, the
Soviet Union was to add 41,000 megawatts of generating capacity by
the end of 1990.
Veretennikov, a former official of the State Planning Committee,
took charge of the nuclear power industry in August 1983 during a
high-level management shake-up. He is a Deputy Minister of Electric
Power and head of the National Nuclear Power Corp., a ministry
division that constructs and operates nuclear generating stations.
AP-NY-05-26-86 0558EDT
a084 0756 26 May 86
PM-Chernobyl-Dead,0093
Soviet Scientist Says Death Toll Now 19 From Chernobyl Accident
MOSCOW (AP) - A leading Soviet science official said today the death
toll from the Chernobyl nuclear disaster stands at 19, one month
after history's worst civilian nuclear accident.
Yevgeny Velikhov, vice president of the Academy of Sciences and one
of the top figures in the Chernobyl cleanup effort, told a news
conference the latest death count includes two people who perished in
the April 26 accident itself and 17 who died in hospitals after
suffering heavy radiation exposure.
AP-NY-05-26-86 1056EDT
a201 0953 26 May 86
AM-News Digest,1245
For Tuesday AMs
Here are the top stories at this hour from The Associated Press. The
CHERNOBYL: Cite 'Incorrect Actions' as Cause; Death Toll at 19
MOSCOW - A leader of the Chernobyl cleanup team, Yevgeny Velikhov,
says he believes ''incorrect actions'' caused the nuclear reactor
explosion a month ago and that the slowly rising toll from the
disaster stands at 19 dead. Slug AM-Chernobyl-Nuclear. May develop.
700.
By Carol J. Williams.
LEBANON: European Initiative Aims at Ending Civil War
MEMORIAL DAY:
HANDS ACROSS AMERICA: 6 Million in Effort To Aid Hungry, Homeless
BOAT TRAGEDY: 500 Feared Dead in Bangladesh
COPTER ESCAPE: Inmate Is Plucked from Paris Prison
ISRAEL: Rabin Rejects Thatcher Proposal on West Bank Elections
PRICES: Era of Low Inflation May Be Coming too End
PORNOGRAPHY: ACLU Obtains Portions of Commission's Report
PRIMARIES '86: Former Arkansas Gov. Faubus in Longshot Comeback Bid
AIDS: Expert Says Control Efforts So Far Have Been 'Anemic'
GETTING JOBS: Self-Confidence More Important than Mental Ability
MEXICAN INVASION: Trying To Stem Rising Tide of Illegal Aliens
SEAT BELTS: Automakers Lobby Strong To Block Air Bags
THE OIL SLIDE: Cheap Gas Slows School Reform in Oil States
a054 0356 27 May 86
PM-Chernobyl-Nuclear,0587
Soviet Paper Criticizes U.S. Report, Says Moscow Milk Safe
MOSCOW (AP) - A government newspaper today criticized U.S. Embassy
tests that found increased levels of radiation in milk sold in
Moscow, and insisted that dairy products for sale in the Soviet
capital are safe.
A leading Soviet nuclear scientist said Monday that the accident at
the Chernobyl nuclear power plant on April 26, which spread radiation
over much of the Soviet Union and Europe, had killed 19 people,
including two workers who died at the scene.
The last report from a Soviet official had indicated last week that
the death toll was 15.
In an article today headlined ''A Storm in a Glass of Milk,''
Sovietskaya Rossiya, the government newspaper of the Russian
Republic, suggested that the embassy report over the weekend was part
of a U.S. campaign to spread false rumors and fears about the
accident more than 400 miles south of Moscow.
It also seemed intended to counter reports on Moscow milk that might
have reached Soviets through radio broadcasts from the West. The
newspaper said U.S. officials may have released the information in
hopes it would be broadcast back to the Soviet Union and generate
fear.
''The statement about the 'dangerous' Moscow milk carries a
political tint, rather than a concern about anyone's health,''
Vyacheslov Avilov, an official at the department on proccesing of
animal products, told the newspaper.
U.S. Embassy officials called all pregnant American women and
families with young children living in Moscow after receiving results
Saturday of tests on a milk sample that showed radiation double the
maximum level considered safe for infants and pregnant women.
Embassy spokesman Phil Duchateau said Saturday that tests on a milk
sample taken the previous week indicated double the level of 1,500
picocuries per liter recommended by the U.S. Food and Drug
Administration as safe for pregnant women and infants.
An embassy official said today that so far there have been no other
reported findings of high radiation levels in U.S. tests of Moscow
food samples since the Chernobyl accident.
Vera Vinogradova, deputy chief of a sanitation and epidemiology
station in Moscow, said the existing systems for checking foodstuffs
were intensified after the Chernobyl accident, the newspaper
reported. She said she could give the newspaper a complete guarantee
that milk sold in Moscow is safe to drink.
Sovietskaya Rossiya said background radiation is monitored in
fodder, pastures, soil and livestock, and that levels remain safe in
the areas tested.
The article did not say what areas were monitored, or give any
figures on normal background radiation.
Yevgeny P. Velikhov, vice president of the Soviet Academy of
Sciences, said Monday that 19 people had died as a result of the
disaster, but he said it would be months before a government
investigating commission determines the cause of the accident.
Pressed by reporters to explain the disaster and to comment on
reports that it was caused by human error, Velikhov told reporters,
''I think that a number of consecutive incorrect actions led to what
happened.''
He did not elaborate, and refused to answer a question on statements
by a Soviet energy official that experts were conducting experiments
on the reactor when the accident occurred.
Velikhov said hundreds of workers, soldiers and scientists are
working to clean up the Chernobyl plant, and that many more are
working in the evacuation zone. He declined to describe the cleanup
work in detail.
AP-NY-05-27-86 0656EDT
a066 0508 27 May 86
PM-Chernobyl-Students,0266
Students' Letters Seek to Console Gorbachev, Promote Peace
Eds: Esfahani in 4th graf, Shir in last graf cq
LOS ANGELES (AP) - A group of American schoolchildren has sent
condolences to Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev over the deaths caused
by the Chernobyl nuclear accident.
''I wish I could do something to help you but I can't,'' wrote
Rachel Ortega, a fourth-grader at Roscomare Road School in Los
Angeles. ''I am so sorry.''
Rachel's letter, along with others from second- and fourth-graders
at the school, was delivered to Moscow by Dr. Robert Gale, the
specialist who helped perform bone-marrow transplants on victims of
the April 26 accident near Kiev.
''I hope no more people die,'' wrote Michael Esfahani, a student in
one of the two classes visited last week by Gale, who has two
daughters at the school.
Some of the letters were adorned with drawings of hearts, flowers
and American and Soviet flags.
Some students advised Gorbachev on how to prevent a repetition of
the disaster.
''I think you might put a containment structure around the reactor
so an accident wouldn't happen again,'' wrote Steven Heyman, 9. ''You
also might want to install safety rods and an emergency cooling
system.''
Brad W. Klaustermeyer, a fourth-grader, wrote, ''I think you should
build a new nuclear plant and check it; I never ever want this to
happen again.''
Other children took the opportunity to lobby for world peace.
''I hope your and our countries can be friends,'' wrote
fourth-grader Gabriel Rodriguez.
The message from Gale's younger daughter, Shir, was similar: ''Peace
will come in another few hundred years.''
AP-NY-05-27-86 0808EDT
a069 0523 27 May 86
PM-BRF--Soviets-Britain,0134
Thatcher Sends Letter To Gorbachev
MOSCOW (AP) - The head of Britain's House of Lords delivered a
letter from Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher to Soviet leader Mikhail
S. Gorbachev, but declined to reveal the contents.
Lord Whitelaw said Gorbachev promised to respond to the message
delivered Monday, and also indicated he will renew his proposal for
separate talks with Britain on nuclear disarmament.
Whitelaw said Gorbachev met privately with him for about a
half-hour, then held talks for more than two hours with a British
parliamentary delegation.
Also at the meeting was Anatoly Dobrynin, former ambassador to
Washington who in March was named a secretary of the Communist Party
Central Committee and is believed to be in charge of the
international department.
Whitelaw said the Chernobyl accident was mentioned, but not
discussed in detail.
AP-NY-05-27-86 0822EDT
a002 2136 27 May 86
PM-News Digest,1099
Wednesday, May 28, 1986
Here are the top stories for PMs. The General Desk supervisor is Ron
CHERNOBYL: U.S. Doctor Says More than 100,000 People May Develop
Cancer
MOSCOW - An American bone marrow specialist treating Soviets injured
by radioactive fallout from the Chernobyl nuclear accident says more
than 100,000 people are at risk of developing cancer in years to
come. Thirty-five are in immediate danger of dying, Dr. Robert Gale
says. Slug PM-Chernobyl-Nuclear.
Developing.
With GARRETSON, S.D.-dated PM-EROS Data, Across the road from a
rural cemetery, near pastures where deer roam, stands a $50 million
space-age complex of glass and steel, where scientists track the
spread of radiation from the Soviet Union's Chernobyl reactor.
Moved in advance as a068.
MIDEAST: Gorbachev Meets With Libya No. 2 Man
DIVIDED FAMILIES: U.S. Hails Decision by Soviets to Let Spouses Leave
ARMS CONTROL: Reagan, Saying Soviets Cheat, Vows to Ignore Limits
HEALTH:
DIVIDED GERMANY: East Germany Denies Effort to End Division of Berlin
ELECTION '86: Primaries in Arkansas, Kentucky, Idaho
BUDGET: Congress Slips Farther Behind 1987 Spending Schedule
TAX OVERHAUL: Some Questions and Answers About the Proposed Plans
DEAVER: Joins Critics in Praising Appointment of Independent Counsel
SUPREME COURT: Ruling May Spare Consumers Millions in Telephone Bills
ANCIENT FIND: Unearth 15-Million-Year-Old Fossil Site in Australia
AP-NY-05-28-86 0036EDT
PM-Digest Advisory,0094
All the budgets have moved. Here is a list with Laserphoto numbers:
WASHINGTON - PM-Divided Families, a006
WASHINGTON - PM-Budget Timetable, a009
PHILADELPHIA - PM-Drug Resistance, a010
WASHINGTON - PM-Reagan-Arms, a011
PHILADELPHIA - PM-Romance Readers, a012
WASHINGTON - PM-Scotus Rdp, a013
WASHINGTON - PM-Deaver, a014
WASHINGTON - PM-Tax Overhaul Q and A, a015
CHICAGO - PM-Transplants, a017
BERLIN - PM-Berlin-Diplomats, a018
UNDATED - PM-Primaries Rdp, a021. LaserPhotos LR1,2
MOSCOW - PM-Chernobyl-Nuclear, a025
MOSCOW - PM-Soviets-Mideast, a026
AP-NY-05-28-86 0417EDT
a025 0102 28 May 86
PM-Chernobyl-Nuclear, Bjt,0547
More Than 100,000 Could Develop Cancer as Result of Accident, Doctor Says
MOSCOW (AP) - More than 100,000 people risk developing cancer
because of exposure to radiation unleashed by the Chernobyl disaster,
said an American doctor treating victims of the nuclear power plant
accident.
Meanwhile, a Soviet physician, Dr. Angelina Guskova, was quoted by
the government newspaper Izvestia on Tuesday as saying that 120
people from the Chernobyl area were being cared for at Moscow's
Hospital No. 6.
Of those patients, 70 to 80 ''are occupying our hearts and minds
permamently,'' Ms. Guskova, the hospital's chief radiologist, was
quoted as saying, indicating that their condition was serious.
According to official Soviet accounts, two workers were killed in
the April 26 explosion and fire at Chernobyl's No. 4 reactor, and 17
people have died in hospitals since.
The accident at the power station, 80 miles north of the Ukrainian
capital of Kiev, sent radioactive particles skyward and spread an
invisible cloud of radiation over much of Europe that ultimately
reached around the world.
Dr. Robert P. Gale, a U.S. bone marrow specialist in Moscow to help
treat victims of the worst nuclear accident in history, indicated in
an interview Tuesday night that the full human cost of the disaster
may not be known for years.
Speaking live from Moscow in the British Broadcasting Corp. program
''After Chernobyl,'' Gale said 300 people had sustained immediate
injuries from the reactor blast, and that 35 of them were in danger
of dying.
But he said it was not unlikely that a thousand or thousands of
people in the Chernobyl area who were exposed to substantial levels
of radiation would develop cancers in years to come.
He estimated the total number of people at risk of developing cancer
at more than 100,000.
Gale, who arrived in Moscow within days after the explosion,
returned to the Soviet capital on Sunday after an eight-day break at
his home in Los Angeles.
He said he had performed 19 bone marrow transplants on victims, but
added, ''It is too early to say if they will live or not.''
Bone marrow transplants, which are Gale's speciality, have
potentially dangerous side effects, but are considered the only
effective treatment for severe radiation exposure cases.
Intense radiation destroys bone marrow and can lead to death.
Ms. Guskova was quoted in Izvestia as saying that about 200 people
were admitted to Hospital No. 6 after the accident, and that about 70
of them had been discharged after treatment.
She told Izvestia the third to sixth weeks are crucial in treating
radiation sickness, and that during that period, the slightest
infection or bruise can be ''a source of complications.''
Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev said on May 14 that 299 people
were hospitalized as a result of the Chernobyl disaster, and Ms.
Guskova's remarks indicated most of them had been taken to Moscow.
Ms. Guskova was quoted by Izvestia as saying that her patients
included few women, and that only two women were among those
seriously ill.
Most of the patients were firemen or others, including two
physicians, who helped rescue people from the reactor fire, she was
quoted as saying.
AP-NY-05-28-86 0403EDT
- - - - - -
a048 0358 28 May 86
PM-Digest Briefs,1047
Eds: This package does not contain the following items from the News
Digest: MOSCOW-Chernobyl-Nuclear, a025; WASHINGTON-Reagan-Arms, a011;
UNDATED-Primaries Rdp, a021; WASHINGTON-Is Cuomo Running?,a081;
WASHINGTON-Budget Timetable, a009; WASHINGTON-Tax Overhaul Q and A,
a015; RIVERSLEIGH-Fossil Bonanza, a080.
AP-NY-05-28-86 0658EDT
- - - - - -
a076 0736 28 May 86
PM-Chernobyl-Nuclear, 1st Ld, a025,0482
Soviet Official Says Chernobyl Commission Will Report In 4-6 Weeks
Eds: Leads with 11 grafs, Soviet official says Chernobyl commission
report expected in four to six weeks, concert planned for disaster
fund. Adds byline.
By ALISON SMALE
MOSCOW (AP) - A high-ranking Soviet official said today a detailed
report on the cause of the Chernobyl nuclear accident will be ready
in four to six weeks, and Soviet authorities announced plans for a
pop and rock concert to benefit a Chernobyl nuclear disaster fund.
Lev Tolkunov, chairman of the House of Unions, said the report on
the Chernobyl disaster would be given to the International Atomic
Energy Organization in Vienna, Austria.
''A detailed report is being carefully prepared by a special
government commission and nuclear scientists and will be completed
within one to one and one-half months,'' Tolkunov told reporters in
Bonn, West Germany.
''It is already clear that the accident was the result of a
combination of a factors that came together,'' he said of the April
26 explosion, fire and radiation release at the nuclear power plant
in the Ukraine.
''The exact knowledge of the cause and results of the power plant
disaster are not only of interest to the Soviet Union, but to all
countries that are working on the peaceful use of nuclear energy,''
Tolkunov said.
As chairman of the House of Unions, Tolkunov heads one of the two
houses of the 1,500-member Supreme Soviet, or parliament. He went to
Bonn for meetings on confidence-building measures between NATO and
Warsaw Pact countries.
Also today, officials of Roskontsert, the Russian Federation Concert
Organization, said some of most popular Soviet pop and rock music
stars will perform at a concert in Moscow on Friday to raise money
for a Chernobyl nuclear disaster fund.
The concert is being called ''Account No. 904'' after an account set
up for disaster fund donations, and is the first of its kind in the
Soviet Union, the Roskontsert officials said.
Pop singer Alla Pugacheva, rock groups Avtograf, Bravo and Kruiz,
and balladeer Alexander Gradsky will be the featured performers,
concert organizer Art Troitsky said in a telephone interview.
The concert will be held at the indoor stadium built for the 1980
Moscow Olympics, which seats about 25,000 people, and is expected to
raise more than $140,000 from ticket sales, he said. Troitsky said
the concert would be recorded and videotaped and organizers expect
''much more money'' in proceeds from their sale.
On Tuesday, an American doctor said more than 100,000 people risk
developing cancer because of exposure to radiation unleashed by the
Chernobyl disaster. And a Soviet physician, Dr. Angelina Guskova, was
quoted by the government newspaper Izvestia as saying 120 people from
the Chernobyl area were being cared for at Moscow's Hospital No. 6.
Of those: 3rd graf
AP-NY-05-28-86 1035EDT
- - - - - -
a083 0831 28 May 86
PM-Chernobyl-Nuclear, 2nd Ld, a076,0106
Soviet Official Says Chernobyl Commission Will Report In 4-6 Weeks
Eds: CORRECTS Organization to Agency in 2nd graf.
By ALISON SMALE
MOSCOW (AP) - A high-ranking Soviet official said today a detailed
report on the cause of the Chernobyl nuclear accident will be ready
in four to six weeks, and Soviet authorities announced plans for a
pop and rock concert to benefit a Chernobyl nuclear disaster fund.
Lev Tolkunov, chairman of the House of Unions, said the report on
the Chernobyl disaster would be given to the International Atomic
Energy Agency in Vienna, Austria.
''A detailed: 3rd graf
AP-NY-05-28-86 1131EDT
a074 0722 28 May 86
PM-Religion Roundup, Adv30,0602
$adv30
For release Fri PMs May 30, and thereafter
NEW YORK (AP) - Preserving grand, old churches expands the ministry,
DETROIT (AP) - A Michigan official says roving gamblers are cheating
NEW YORK (AP) - Lutheran World Ministries has canceled a May 26-June
18 peace study trip by 22 Lutherans to the Soviet Union and Eastern
Europe because of the Chernobyl nuclear accident.
The Rev. Paul A. Wee, general secretary of the ministries, U.S. arm
of the Lutheran World Federation, says the decision was ''exceedingly
difficult'' but many unknowns remain about effects of the accident in
the Soviet Ukraine.
---
WASHINGTON (AP) - A New York attorney, Theodore Ellenoff, has been
NEW YORK (AP) - A five-member delegation of the National Council of
WASHINGTON (AP) - The head of an office representing eight Baptist
AP-NY-05-28-86 1022EDT
a094 0909 28 May 86
PM-Chernobyl-Casualties,0181
Novosti Indicates 1,000 Injured In Chernobyl Accident
MOSCOW (AP) - The Soviet news agency Novosti today indicated 1,000
people were injured in the Chernobyl nuclear plant accident.
The report distributed to Western news agencies was the first Soviet
account to refer to so many casualties. Soviet leader Mikhail S.
Gorbachev said May 14 that 299 people were hospitalized because of
the April 26 explosion, fire and radiation release at the Ukrainian
power plant.
Soviet officials have said since then that 19 people have died as a
result of the accident, but recent official statements have not dealt
with the total number of injured.
Novosti said the national centralized health service network
responded to the accident quickly and set up a team to screen the
injured.
''Four hours after the disaster, a special medical team was ready to
fly from Moscow to the nuclear power station. Within 24 hours, they
selected the hundred most serious cases out of a thousand.''
The Novosti department responsible for the article did not answer
inquiries after the report was sent to The Associated Press by telex.
AP-NY-05-28-86 1209EDT
a002 2128 28 May 86
PM-News Digest,1224
Thursday, May 29, 1986
Here are the top stories for PMs. The General Desk supervisor is Ron
CHERNOBYL: Moscow Says Up to 1,000 were Injured in Nuclear Accident
MOSCOW - A government news agency says up to 1,000 people were
injured in the Chernobyl nuclear accident and that some may have been
residents of the zone evacuated around the plant. Slug
PM-Chernobyl-Nuclear. New material, should stand. 660 words.
NUCLEAR WASTE:
FALKLANDS: Say Argentines Blast Taiwanese Ship off British Islands
NATO: Delegates Consider East German Travel Rules for Diplomats in
CENTRAL AMERICA: Study Says Political Violence Hit 1,900 in Salvador
HIT THE ROAD: 2 States May Lose Money Over Failure to Enforce 55 MPH
DEPRESSION: Serious Depression Very Common, But Largely Untreated
PHILIPPINES: House Panel Says Marcos Should Pay U.S. for Personal
JUDGE QUITS: Chief Justice Facing Impeachment Quits
FARM INCOME: Direct Government Payments Will Double Last Year's Level
OCEAN INCINERATION: Govt. Backs Off Plan to Burn Toxic Waste in
STAR SEARCH: Government Plans Massive Search for Life in Outer Space
OIL CRISIS: Thousands Come Away Empty From Strapped Jobless System
MIDDLE EAST: Arab Unemployment a Growing Problem in Israeli-Occupied
LAKE FERRY: No Love Boat, But Passengers Love Convenience
SPELLING BEE: 12-Year-Old Blind Since Birth Advances to Final Round
AP-NY-05-29-86 0028EDT
***************
a043 0306 29 May 86
PM-Digest Advisory,0117
All the budgets have moved. Here is a list with Laserphoto numbers:
PHILADELPHIA - PM-Star Search, a011
WASHINGTON - PM-Nuclear Waste, a012, a015. LaserPhoto WX4.
HALIFAX - PM-Shultz-NATO, a013
ABOARD THE MIDLAND - PM-Lake Michigan Ferry, a016. LaserPhoto GS1.
WASHINGTON - PM-Marcos, a017
WASHINGTON - PM-Farm Income, a018
WASHINGTON - PM-Spelling Bee, a021. LaserPhoto WX5.
WASHINGTON - PM-Ocean Incineration, a023
WASHINGTON - PM-Speed-Money, a024
UNDATED - PM-Nuclear Waste-Reax, a025
PHILADELPHIA - PM-Widespread Depression, a026
SAN SALVADOR - PM-Salvador-Human Rights, a029, a036
PROVIDENCE - PM-Judge Impeachment, a030. LaserPhoto NY8.
PORT STANLEY - PM-Falklands, a033
MOSCOW - PM-Chernobyl-Nuclear, a042
AP-NY-05-29-86 0606EDT
***************
a066 0601 29 May 86
PM-Nuclear Waste-Reax, Sub, a025,0185
UNDATED SUB grafs 17-18: Texas Agriculture xxx disaster with 4 grafs
with lawsuit by private group, comment from farmer.
Attorneys for the Nuclear Waste Task Force Inc., an organization
comprised of Panhandle landowners, citizen and commodity groups, said
they expected to file a lawsuit today to delay and eventually stop
the site studies.
Texas Agriculture Commissioner Jim Hightower said Deaf Smith County
and other portions of the Panhandle could be damaged by drilling the
testing shaft through the Ogallala Aquifer, the region's major water
source. He also noted the number of food and agricultural operations
in the area.
''Didn't we learn anything fromm the accident at Chernobyl, where
essential food supplies for part of a continent were contaminated?''
Hightower asked, referring to last month's Soviet nuclear power plant
disaster.
''I feel they would ruin the whole Texas Wheat Belt should the water
get contaminated,'' said Deaf Smith farmer Anthony Paschel. ''If
there's an accident here like there was in Russia a few weeks ago,
then there won't be water left for a jackrabbit.''
In Mississippi,: 19th graf
AP-NY-05-29-86 0902EDT
***************
a042 0303 29 May 86
PM-Chernobyl-Nuclear, Bjt,0415
URGENT
Radiologist Says Most Seriously Injured Have Died
MOSCOW (AP) - A radiologist at a Moscow hospital that is treating
about 120 radiation sickness patients told a government news agency
that those most seriously injured in the Chernobyl nuclear accident
already had died.
The Novosti news agency on Wednesday quoted Dr. Angelina Guskova,
chief radiologist at Hospital No. 6 in Moscow, as saying patients
''whose entire organisms and vast skin areas were affected, are no
more.''
She did not say how many people had died, but the latest figure from
Soviet officials is 19. On Tuesday the the government newspaper
Izvestia said Ms. Guskova had indicated that as many as 80 of about
120 radiation sickness patients being treated at her hospital were in
serious condition.
Novosti indicated Wednesday that 1,000 people were injured in the
April 26 Chernobyl nuclear accident, including residents evacuated
from an 18-mile radius around the power station.
However, today Novosti said the 1,000 figure it used actually had
referred to the number of people examined by a medical team rather
than the number injured, and that the patients it referred to among
the evacuees were workers who were at the plant at the time the
accident occurred, and later were evacuated along with their
families.
''Four hours after the disaster, a special medical team was ready to
fly from Moscow to the nuclear power station. Within 24 hours, they
selected the hundred most serious cases out of a thousand,'' Novosti
said Wednesday in its original report.
''The third and last batch of patients now treated in Moscow are
from among the evacuees,'' that report had said.
Yevgeny Velikhov, a prominent physicist and one of those directing
decontamination work at the Chernobyl plant located 80 miles north of
Kiev, earlier this week told a news conference that 19 had died from
the disaster - two who died at the scene, and 17 who have died
subsequently in hospitals.
Officials have put the total number hospitalized at about 300.
Moscow radio said two weeks ago that doctors examined all 92,000
evacuees, who did not begin leaving until 36 hours after the
accident, and found none with illnesses related to radiation.
Lev Tolkunov, chairman of the Soviet House of Unions, said on a
visit to Bonn, West Germany, that the Kremlin will provide a detailed
report on the disaster within six weeks to the International Atomic
Energy Agency in Vienna.
AP-NY-05-29-86 0603EDT
- - - - - -
a057 0458 29 May 86
PM-Digest Briefs,1089
Eds: This package does not contain the following items from the News
Digest: MOSCOW-Chernobyl-Nuclear, a042; PORT STANLEY-Falklands, a033;
HALIFAX-Shultz-NATO, a013; UNDATED-Nuclear Waste-Reax, a025;
WASHINGTON-Nuclear Waste, a012; HOUMA-Oil-The Unemployed, a095;
JERUSALEM-West Bank-Jobless, a114,a069; ABOARD THE MIDLAND-Lake
Michigan Ferry, a016.
---
a062 0536 29 May 86
PM-Chernobyl-Nuclear, 1st Ld - Writethru, a042,0829
URGENT
Soviet Physician: Death Toll in Chernobyl Accident Rises to 21
Eds: NEW throughout to UPDATE with death toll rising, details of
Novosti correction, ADDS byline
By ALISON SMALE
Associated Press Writer
MOSCOW (AP) - The Chernobyl nuclear accident has claimed 21 lives,
including those of 11 people who died despite receiving bone marrow
transplants, a Soviet doctor said in a statement released today in
West Germany.
Dr. Yevgeny Chazov, Soviet co-president of the International
Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, issued the statement as
the group, winner of the the 1985 Nobel Peace Prize, opened four days
of meetings in Cologne.
The figures provided by Chazov raised the official death toll in the
April 26 accident by two from the previous figure of 19.
Chazov said two people were killed immediately in the fire and
explosion at the atomic power station 80 miles north of Kiev and that
19 others died later in hospitals. He said 299 people had ''suffered
radiation injuries and burns.
Of the dead, Chazov said in a written statement given to reporters,
''11 had received bone marrow transplants,'' a technique employed to
try to treat radiation victims. Large doses of radiation destroy bone
marrow, which can be fatal.
Chazov, who was summarizing a Soviet report on the accident to the
physicians' anti-war group, said the casualty toll was ''as of our
date of our departure from Moscow,'' without specifying the date.
On Wednesday, the official Soviet news agency Novosti indicated
1,000 people were injured in the Chernobyl accident, including
residents evacuated from an 18-mile radius of the facility.
However, a telex sent today to The Associated Press in Moscow said
the figure of 1,000 ''refers to people examined and not to cases of
radiation sickness.''
Valery Neyev of the agency's North American Department said the
telex was intended to serve as a formal correction to the Novosti
report telexed to the AP and other Western news agencies on Wednesday
night.
Novosti's English-language report Wednesday said a special team was
created to screen the injured.
The original report said: ''Four hours after the disaster, a special
medical team was ready to fly from Moscow to the nuclear power
station. Within 24 hours, they selected the hundred most serious
cases out of a thousand. The third and last batch of patients now
treated in Moscow are from among the evacuees.''
Novosti editor Anna Nikolayeva, author of the report distributed
Wednesday, told the AP by telephone that her original account had
been poorly translated.
She said the Russian-language version, which was not made available
to the AP, specified the 1,000 referred to people examined.
The AP had telephoned numbers for four different officials at the
Novosti agency on Wednesday night seeking clarification of Ms.
Nikolayeva's dispatch before reporting that it indicated there were
1,000 people injured in the Chernobyl disaster.
The only person reached at the agency was a woman who did not
identify herself, but said she could not comment on the report.
Ms. Nikolayeva also said Dr. Angelina Guskova, chief radiologist at
Moscow's Hospital No. 6, had specified that none of the patients
hospitalized were residents of the evacuated zone around the plant.
All the patients worked at the power station site, Ms. Nikolayeva
said.
Today's telex stated that Ms. Guskova had said those hospitalized
''were the employees, who were on the station's territory when the
accident occurred. But since they did not show any signs of injury at
first, they were evacuated with their families.
''As soon as they showed the first sign of sickness they were
selected by local doctors on the evacuated territory and brought to
Moscow,'' the telex said.
Moscow radio said two weeks ago that doctors examined all 92,000
evacuees, who did not begin leaving until 36 hours after the
accident, and found none with illnesses related to radiation.
Earlier this week, Yevgeny Velikhov, a prominent physicist and one
of those directing decontamination work at the Chernobyl plant told a
news conference that 19 people had died from the disaster.
Ms. Guskova was said by the official Soviet news agency Tass to have
given a report today to a scientists' conference in the Soviet
capital on peace and nuclear disarmament.
Among the factors she discussed were the influence of an atomic
blast ''on physical and psychological fitness of people,'' Tass said.
''She in condensed form told (the conference) about the main
consequences of nuclear war for people's health, as well as analyzing
the tasks of a physician in the light of a similar experience,'' Tass
said, in apparent reference to the Chernobyl accident.
Lev Tolkunov, chairman of the Soviet House of Unions, said on a
visit to Bonn, West Germany, that the Kremlin will provide a detailed
report on the disaster within six weeks to the International Atomic
Energy Agency in Vienna, Austria.
AP-NY-05-29-86 0836EDT
- - - - - -
a070 0625 29 May 86
PM-Chernobyl-Nuclear, 1st Ld, Sub, a062,0188
MOSCOW SUB 6th graf: Chazov, who xxx the date with 4 grafs to UPDATE
with Chazov giving new injured toll, CLARIFY when he arrived in West
Germany
Chazov, who was summarizing a Soviet report on the accident to the
physicians' anti-war group, said the casualty toll was ''as of the
date of our departure from Moscow.''
He did not specify when he left the Soviet capital, but an official
from the international doctors group who spoke on condition he not be
identified said Chazov arrived at Bonn-Cologne airport on Wednesday
night. The official could not confirm that Chazov had come directly
from Moscow.
The Soviet doctor's statement said 30 of those injured were in
serious condition, and that 89 had been released from hospitals. He
said a total of 19 people had received bone marrow transplants, but
that the procedure - intended to replace bone marrow destroyed by
radiation - had not proven very effective.
An American bone marrow specialist, Dr. Robert P. Gale, is in Moscow
to help treat the victims of the nuclear disaster.
On Wednesday,: 7th graf
AP-NY-05-29-86 0925EDT
***************
a054 0426 29 May 86
PM-Doctors-Nuclear,0451
Soviet Doctors Report on Chernobyl
By SUSAN J. SMITH
COLOGNE, West Germany (AP) - A prominent Soviet physician said today
that 21 people, including 11 who received bone marrow transplants,
have died as a result of the nuclear power plant accident at
Chernobyl.
Dr. Yevgeny Chazov, the Soviet co-president of the International
Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, provided the updated
casualty total as the organization opened a four-day convention in
Cologne.
The previous figure provided by Soviet officials was 19 dead.
But Chazov said in a statement issued today that two people were
killed immediately, and that 19 others died later in hospitals as a
result of the accident in Chernobyl, located 80 miles north of Kiev
in the Soviet Ukraine.
He said 299 people ''suffered radiation injuries and burns.''
''As of the date of our departure from Moscow a total of 21 persons
have died, including 11 who had received bone marrow transplants,''
Chazov said in the statement.
The statement summarized a report that Dr. Bernard Lown, a Harvard
professor who is the American co-president, said was given to the
physicians' organization on Wednesday by Chazov and Leonid Ilyin, a
Soviet doctor who has been to the Chernobyl site.
Peter Zeuthlin, spokesman for the organization's headquarters in
Boston, Mass., said the report summarized how Soviet medical
personnel reacted to the accident, including how many people had been
examined by doctors afterwards.
The medical emergencies caused by Chernobyl indicate that experts
have probably underestimated the medical impact of a nuclear war,
Bochkov said.
''For six years, we (doctors in the organization) have been talking
about calculating what would be destroyed in a nuclear explosion. But
when we talk about the number of victims, many people just don't like
it, they think it's not true,'' Bochkov said.
''Really, Chernobyl shows us clearly that our estimate of the
damages (from a nuclear bomb) probably was understated,'' he said.
Bochkov, a geneticist and member of the Academy of Medical Sciences
in Moscow, represents the Soviet Union on the 49-nation International
Council, the governing body of the International Physicians for the
Prevention of Nuclear War.
The organization was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize last year.
Lown and Bochkov said they did not expect the doctors' organization,
which favors nuclear disarmament but has no position on nuclear
power, to take a stand opposing atomic power because of Chernobyl.
About 1,000 doctors from 60 countries are expected to attend the
group's congress. Forty-nine countries have chapters in the
organization, and the other eleven are sending observers, Zheutlin
said.
The organization has 154,000 members worldwide.
AP-NY-05-29-86 0726EDT
- - - - - -
a088 0839 29 May 86
PM-Doctors-Nuclear, 1st Ld - Writethru, a054,0717
Bone Marrow Transplants Given to 19 Chernobyl Victims, But 11 Die
Eds: NEW throughout to UPDATE with more details of Chernobyl
evacuation, edit for transition. No pickup.
With PM-Chernobyl-Nuclear, Bjt
By SUSAN J. SMITH
Associated Press Writer
COLOGNE, West Germany (AP) - Of the 19 victims of the Chernobyl
atomic disaster given bone marrow transplants, 11 died, a Soviet
physician said today in announcing that the death toll from the
accident had reached 21.
Dr. Yevgeny Chazov, Soviet co-president of the International
Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, provided the updated
casualty toll and more details on the accident in a statement
released as the organization opened a four-day convention in Cologne.
The previous figure provided by Soviet authorities on the April 26
accident at the Ukrainian atomic power plant was 19 dead.
Chazov's statement summarized a report that Dr. Bernard Lown, a
Harvard professor who is the American co-president of the doctors'
group, said was given to the organization Wednesday by Chazov and
Leonid Ilyin, a Soviet doctor who has been to the Chernobyl site, 80
miles north of Kiev.
In his statement, Chazov said 299 people ''suffered radiation
injuries and burns'' and had been hospitalized after the explosion,
reactor fire and radiation release at the Chernobyl power station.
He said 30 of the injured remained in serious condition, while 89
had been released from the hospital.
He said 19 patients had received bone marrow transplants, adding
that ''As many of us thought from the beginning, a bone marrow
transplant proved not very effective.''
High doses of radiation destroy tissue, including vital bone marrow,
and can cause death. Dr. Robert P. Gale, a U.S. specialist in bone
marrow transplants, is in Moscow to help treat victims of the
Chernobyl accident.
''As of the date of our departure from Moscow a total of 21 people
have died, including 11 who had received bone marrow transplants,''
Chazov said in his statement. He did not say when he had left the
Soviet capital.
An official of the doctors group who spoke on condition of anonymity
said Chazov flew into Cologne on Wednesday night. The official said
he did not know when Chazov left Moscow.
Chazov said 100,000 people had received medical checks since the
accident, but said ''we did not diagnose any case of acute radiation
sickness or radiation effects in any of those 100,000 evacuated.''
Soviet media previously reported 92,000 people were moved out of
their homes in the vicinity of the power station. Chazov said the
evacuees would continue to be monitored on a long-term basis.
''The monitoring of radioactivity in the area is being done by 188
permanent stations and 38 mobile stations on automobiles, aircraft,
and helicopters,'' Chazov's statement said.
''Every hour we take samples of water in the rivers and lakes and
reservoirs in the adjoining areas,'' he said.
Speaking of the 299 people who had been hospitalized, Chezov said a
report on their condition would be made within three months and sent
to the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War and
to the World Health Organization in Geneva.
In 1985, the physicians' group was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for
its activities on behalf of nuclear disarmament. It was uncertain
whether the organization, which has no position on nuclear power,
would take a stand opposing atomic power because of the Soviet
nuclear disaster.
''Chernobyl is a tiny little accident,'' Lown, a cardiologist, told
The Associated Press on Wednesday. ''It is a tragedy for the Soviet
people, but it is irrelevant when you consider that one nuclear
missile exploding over one city would create thousands of
Chernobyls.''
The group has some doctors who oppose nuclear power and others who
favor it, and the issue has been raised at meetings of the
organization's governing body, the International Council, Lown said.
''But we need to maintain a consensus on what we all agree on,'' he
said. ''Nuclear weapons are the prime enemy. Chernobyl is a warning
that validates all the warnings the doctors have made about how
accidents can happen.''
About 1,000 doctors from 60 countries are expected to attend the
congress of the doctors' group, which has 154,000 members worldwide.
AP-NY-05-29-86 1139EDT
***************
a002 2133 29 May 86
PM-News Digest,1385
Friday, May 30, 1986
Here are the top stories for PMs. The General Desk supervisor is Ron
SOUTH AFRICA:
CHERNOBYL: U.S. Doctor Says 23 Dead; Soviets Say 2 Reactors Will
Restart
MOSCOW - A U.S. physician treating radiation victims from the
Chernobyl nuclear accident says 23 people have died and 55 are
seriously ill. Radio Moscow, meanwhile, says at least two of the four
nuclear reactors at Chernobyl will be restarted by the year's end.
Slug PM-Chernobyl-Nuclear.
Developing.
CONTRAS: Rebel Officials Say CIA Officer Encouraged Defections
VATICAN CONFERENCE: Pope to Release Document on Holy Spirit
INTELLIGENCE SECRETS: CIA Boss Admits Lagging in Probe of Employees
WASHINGTON TODAY: Critics Zero in on Reagan Rebuff of SALT II
HELPING THE HELPLESS: Celebrity Crusaders Speak Out at the U.N.
DEAVER: Former U.S. Attorney Leads Probe of Former Presidential Aide
BUS EMERGENCY: Driver Refuses To Go A Block Off Route; Girl Dies
CHEMICAL FUMES: 60 Sickened, 10,000 Flee From Fumes
TAX OVERHAUL: Chairman Says Senate Panel Members Getting Restless
MISSION TO MARS: Manned Flight To Moons Of Mars Proposed
MILITARY LIQUOR: Say New Regulations Cause Dramatic Increase in Costs
CAMPAIGN '86:
TURKISH POLITICS: Former Premier Demirel Attempts Political Comeback
STARTING OVER: A Year Later...
a056 0527 30 May 86
PM-Digest Briefs,1255
Eds: This package does not contain the following items from the News
Digest: WASHINGTON-Contras-CIA, a007; WASHINGTON-Intelligence
Secrets, a006; WASHINGTON-Living Without SALT, a076; UNITED
NATIONS-Celebrity Crusaders, a013; CHICAGO-Bus Emergency, a017; MASON
CITY-Congress-Grandy, a009; SANTA FE-New Mexico Gov Race, a095;
SANLIURFA-Turkish Politics, a100; ALBION-Tornadoes-Rebuilding, a063;
VATICAN CITY-Pope-Encyclical, a039
---
JOHANNESBURG, South Africa (AP) - The government says it needs broad
WASHINGTON (AP) - Bishop Desmond Tutu, winner of the 1984 Nobel
---
MOSCOW (AP) - A U.S. bone marrow specialist said the death toll from
the Chernobyl nuclear accident has reached 23, and that he plans a
trip to the Ukraine to examine more victims and devise a program of
care ''for the rest of their lives.''
In a telephone interview late Thursday, Dr. Robert P. Gale said
about 55 people exposed to radiation following the accident at the
Chernobyl atomic power plant are hospitalized in Moscow in serious
condition, and that 14 of them are critical cases.
''We expect to see a few more, but not many more fatalities,'' said
Gale, who is in Moscow to help Soviet doctors treat people exposed to
radiation as a result of the April 26 accident.
---
WASHINGTON (AP) - A federal court chose a former U.S. attorney to
SPRINGFIELD, Mass. (AP) - Investigators remain puzzled about the
WASHINGTON (AP) - The chairman of the Senate Finance Committee says
PHILADELPHIA (AP) - Colonizing the moons of Mars would allow access
WASHINGTON (AP) - A decision by Congress to require military liquor
WASHINGTON (AP) - Jon Pennington said that at times in the final
a040 0327 30 May 86
PM-Digest Advisory,0106
All the budgets have moved. Here is a list with Laserphoto numbers:
JOHANNESBURG - South Africa, a026
WASHINGTON - Tutu-Violence, a010
MOSCOW - Chernobyl-Nuclear, a028
WASHINGTON - Contras-CIA, a007
VATICAN CITY - Pope-Encyclical, a039
WASHINGTON - Intelligence Secrets, a006
UNITED NATIONS - Celebrity Crusaders, a013
WASHINGTON - Deaver-Counsel, a014
CHICAGO - Bus Emergency, a017. LaserPhoto CX2.
SPRINGFIELD - Chemical Accident, a012
WASHINGTON - Tax Overhaul, a005
PHILADELPHIA - Mars Moon Mission, a019
WASHINGTON - Military-Liquor, a004
MASON CITY - Congress-Grandy, a009
WASHINGTON - Spelling Bee, a015
AP-NY-05-30-86 0627EDT
a028 0146 30 May 86
PM-Chernobyl-Nuclear, Bjt,0735
Gale Says He Plans Trip to Kiev to Check Conditions of Chernobyl
Victims
Eds: Benefit concert for Chernobyl to begin at 11 a.m. EDT
By CAROL J. WILLIAMS
MOSCOW (AP) - A U.S. bone marrow specialist said the death toll from
the Chernobyl nuclear accident has reached 23, and that he plans a
trip to the Ukraine to examine more victims and devise a program of
care ''for the rest of their lives.''
In a telephone interview late Thursday, Dr. Robert P. Gale said
about 55 people exposed to radiation following the accident at the
Chernobyl atomic power plant are hospitalized in Moscow in serious
condition, and that 14 of them are critical cases.
''We expect to see a few more, but not many more fatalities,'' said
Gale, who is in Moscow to help Soviet doctors treat people exposed to
radiation as a result of the April 26 accident.
Meanwhile, Radio Moscow reported early today that the ''intact
reactors'' of the four-reactor power station, 80 miles north of Kiev,
will be back on line by the end of the year.
Earlier reports had said the No. 1 and No. 2 reactors at Chernobyl
would be restarted this year, but made no reference to plans for the
No. 3 reactor, also said to be undamaged but housed in a building
adjacent to the No. 4 unit, which exploded and caught fire.
National newspapers continued to focus today on humanitarian aid
being offered to accident victims by Soviets, such as the benefit
concert planned tonight at a Moscow stadium by Soviet rock and pop
music performers.
Gale said he plans to leave for the northern Ukraine Sunday night to
visit Kiev, the Ukrainian capital, as well as the Chernobyl area.
Asked whether he would be going to the damaged power station itself
or to other areas within the evacuated zone extending 18 miles from
the plant, Gale said he had not been given an exact itinerary, but
that he expected to at least be allowed to check radiation victims in
Kiev hospitals.
''Apparently 1,000 individuals at least initially were seriously
examined for possible exposure to radiation in the Chernobyl area,''
Gale said.
Soviet medical workers ''selected a group of approximately 300
people considered more serious than the others, who were felt not to
be at immediate risk,'' he said.
Gale said about 250 of those 300 patients were sent to Moscow, but
that about 50 remain in Kiev hospitals, some apparently because they
were too ill to travel.
Earlier Thursday in Cologne, West Germany, Soviet physician Dr.
Yevgeny Chazov had issued a statement putting the number of dead in
the Chernobyl disaster at 21.
Chazov, a prominent heart specialist, was attending a conference of
the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, of
which he is co-president with Dr. Bernard Lown of the United States.
The antiwar group won 1985 Nobel Peace Prize.
Gale said his trip to the Ukraine would also be aimed at gathering
information for a report on the Chernobyl accident and its long-term
health consequences.
Gale said he hoped his report would be approved by both the U.S.
National Institutes of Health and the Soviet Academy of Sciences. He
said he also plans to develop long-term health care plans for
Chernobyl victims.
''We will be following these people for the rest of their lives,''
Gale said.
Of the 250 patients brought to Moscow, Gale said, 35 were diagnosed
as critically ill from radiation exposure, including two women.
Twenty-one from the critical list have died, including at least one
woman, Gale said. The other two victims died in the power plant
explosion and fire, he said.
Gale said the outlook for the patients in serious condition is good,
although he said they will always be at higher risk of developing
cancer or blood complications.
The 40-year-old bone marrow specialist from Los Angeles assisted
Soviet doctors in bone marrow transplants, which were performed on 19
of the critically injured Chernobyl victims.
Chazov said Thursday that the transplants had not proven very
effective. He indicated that 11 of the fatalities Soviet officials
have reported to date were people who had received bone marrow.
Heavy doses of radiation can destroy the marrow, causing death
unless it is restored quickly.
AP-NY-05-30-86 0447EDT
a057 0535 30 May 86
PM-News Advisory,0101
The General Desk supervisor is John Daniszewski (212) 621-1604. The
All times EDT
-PM-Tampering Arrest, a053. Developing. Updates expected.
-PM-Pelton Trial, a034. Trial resumes 10 a.m. Prenoon update likely.
-PM-Trade, a0441, to be topped at 8:30 a.m. with government report.
PM-Economy Rdp, a0408, also will be led.
-PM-Medicare, a0453, lead possible after HHS briefing skedded for 9
a.m.
-PM-Chernobyl-Nuclear, a028. Benefit concert planned at 11 a.m.
Update planned.
-PM-Shultz-NATO, a016. News conference set for 11:45 a.m. Update
planned.
AP-NY-05-30-86 0830EDT
a002 2130 30 May 86
PM-News Digest,0579
Saturday, May 31, 1986
Here are the top stories for PMs. The General Desk supervisor is
BUS PLUNGE: 18 Dead, Two Dozen Injured In Worst Bus Crash In Years
STORMS: At Least Four Dead In Western Pa. Flash Floods
CHERNOBYL-AID: Soviet Rockers Raise Money For Nuclear Victims
MOSCOW - An estimated 30,000 people attend the nation's first
benefit rock concert, staged by Soviet stars to raise money for
victims of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster and the vast cleanup under
way in the Ukraine. Slug PM-Chernobyl-Concert. New material, should
stand. 520 words.
LaserPhoto NY5, Soviet pop star sings. By Alison Smale.
PHONE WORKERS: Midnight Strike Deadline Looms Over Talks
NATO: Foreign Ministers Coordinate Position On Arms Talks
BERLIN WALL: Western Diplomats To Ignore Passport Requirement
POSTAL PROBE: Official Pleads Guilty, Cooperates With Investigation
SPY TRIAL: Damage From Leaked Info Potentially 'Grave'
AP-NY-05-31-86 0030EDT
***************
a016 2340 30 May 86
PM-Chernobyl-Concert, Bjt,0642
Soviet Stars Perform For Chernobyl Relief
By ALISON SMALE
MOSCOW (AP) - Soviet pop star Alla Pugacheva, declaring ''we want to
give our hearts,'' kicked off a benefit concert before 30,000 people
to aid victims of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster and help pay for the
vast cleanup now under way.
The concert, the Soviet Union's first rock benefit, was held in
Moscow Friday night at an indoor stadium built for the 1980 Olympics.
The 2 1/2-hour show mixed hard rock and some touches of the 1940s, and
presented acts ranging from the new wave band Bravo to more typically
Soviet variety numbers and a poetry recital by actor Mikhail Ulyanov.
Spectators in stands that began 80 yards from the multitiered stage
were quiet in comparison with crowds at Western concerts. They
remained in their places and applauded most performances warmly, but
not wildly.
''Money is money, but we want to give our hearts,'' Ms. Pugacheva
told the audience, then opened the evening with a song called
''Twentieth Century.''
The red-haired singer then introduced a Soviet journalist, Vladimir
Svetov, who presided over a satellite television link with Kiev.
He presented a parade of people who had done cleanup work around the
stricken nuclear power plant 80 miles north of the Ukrainian capital.
''Come on, let's applaud every time we hear the name of that town!''
Ms. Pugacheva urged as miners, firemen and others sent greetings to
the Moscow audience and performers.
A Chernobyl worker later expressed ''our heartfelt thanks'' to
balladeer Alexander Gradsky, whose set won a long ovation from the
Moscow audience.
An explosion and fire at the Chernobyl power plant on April 26
spewed a radioactive cloud into the air that ultimately worked its
way around the world.
U.S. physician Dr. Robert P. Gale, in Moscow to help treat victims
of the accident, said Thursday that 23 people had died, including two
people killed instantly when the reactor was torn by the explosion.
Soviet authorities evacuated people from within an 18-mile radius of
the plant, and began efforts to encase the damaged No. 4 reactor in
concrete and decontaminate land or objects affected by radioactivity.
Also featured at the Moscow benefit were the hard rock groups Kruiz
and Avtograf, the only act with experience in benefit shows. Avtograf
took part in the Live Aid concert last July, playing a 10-minute set
beamed around the world by satellite.
Neither the Live Aid concert, which raised money for famine victims
in Ethiopia, a Soviet ally, nor Avtograf's performance was shown on
state television or given much publicity here.
Ms. Pugacheva told Western reporters before the show that she
thought it eventually might raise 1-1.5 million rubles ($1.4-$2.1
million at the official rate of exchange). Tapes and records of the
benefit are to be sold.
The show was called ''Account No. 904'' - the number of a Chernobyl
relief account the state bank has opened to receive contributions.
It was also filmed by television and may be shown at a later date,
said Art Troitsky, the concert organizer and manager of Bravo.
According to Troitsky, musicians got the idea for the concert and
obtained support from Communist Party and Moscow city authorities.
Time was too short to line up Western rock stars for the show, he
said, but Ms. Pugacheva said another concert might be organized in
August with international participation.
She read a ''good luck'' telegram from the Swedish pop group Abba.
Troitsky said he would like to have an international concert
including Bruce Springsteen, Julian Lennon, Stevie Wonder, Paul
McCartney and the rock group Dire Straits.
None has performed in the Soviet Union, whose leaders have given
rock little encouragement or recognition until recently.
AP-NY-05-31-86 0240EDT
***************
a043 0334 31 May 86
PM-Digest Briefs,0697
MOSCOW (AP) - Soviet pop star Alla Pugacheva, declaring ''we want to
give our hearts,'' kicked off a benefit concert before 30,000 people
to aid victims of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster and help pay for the
vast cleanup now under way.
The concert, the Soviet Union's first rock benefit, was held in
Moscow Friday night at an indoor stadium built for the 1980 Olympics.
The 2 1/2-hour show mixed hard rock and some touches of the 1940s, and
presented acts ranging from the new wave band Bravo to more typically
Soviet variety numbers and a poetry recital by actor Mikhail Ulyanov.
---
WASHINGTON (AP) - Facing a midnight strike threat, American
HALIFAX, Nova Scotia (AP) - The Western alliance, reportedly worried
BERLIN (AP) - East Germany and the Western allies are deadlocked
WASHINGTON (AP) - Peter Voss, vice chairman of the U.S. Postal
BALTIMORE (AP) - Information about U.S. electronic eavesdropping
AP-NY-05-31-86 0634EDT
a052 0438 31 May 86
PM-Chernobyl-Nuclear,0681
French Find Contaminated Veal In Market
MOSCOW (AP) - Radiation six to 10 times greater than the level
considered safe by the Common Market was found in veal sold in
Moscow, prompting recommendations to foreigners not to buy some
locally produced meats, a diplomat said today.
Checks of food sold in the Soviet Union began following the April 26
explosion and fire at the Chernobyl atomic power plant in the
Ukraine, which spewed a cloud of radioactivity into the air that
spread over much of Europe and worked its way around the world.
French Embassy spokesman Edmond Ponboujian today said the veal was
bought about 10 days ago in a central Moscow market and sent to Paris
for testing.
It was found to contain six to 10 times the level of radiation
considered safe by the Common Market, he said in a telephone
interview. Ponboujian did not specify what that level was.
He said French residents of the Soviet capital were advised against
buying locally produced veal and pork, and that the warning was
relayed to other Westerners living in Moscow through their embassies.
Veal and pork concentrate the chemical cesium in much greater
quantities than beef, Ponboujian said.
Cesium was one of the chemicals released in the cloud of radiation
spewed from Chernobyl's reactor No. 4 when it was torn by the
explosion and fire.
The U.S. Embassy said last Saturday that a milk sample it had sent
to the United States for testing had been found to contain twice the
level of radiation considered safe for pregnant women and infants.
On Friday, the news weekly Nedelya reported that radiation from
Chernobyl disaster was so fierce that it turned acres of fir forests
near the disaster site brown.
In a report on the cleanup efforts now under way in the Ukraine,
Nedelya said the trees were being sprayed with a substance that
hardens into a protective film in an effort to reduce radiation
contamination.
Nedeyla said the trees would be chopped down and ''reliably
isolated,'' but gave no details.
The weekly news supplement to the government newspaper Izvestia also
quoted unidentified specialists as saying they are convinced ''the
whole zone will be clean.''
Nedelya reported that a newspaper kiosk, a movie house and a
hairdressing salon and barber shop have reopened in the town of
Chernobyl, about 11 miles from the crippled power plant, to provide
services for cleanup workers.
Dr. Robert P. Gale, a U.S. bone marrow specialist who has been
helping treat victims of the nuclear disaster at Moscow hospitals,
plans to leave Sunday for the Chernobyl area and Kiev, the Ukrainian
capital of 2.4 million people.
He says he hopes to visit radiation patients at Kiev hospitals.
Gale said on Thursday that 23 people had died from the disaster,
including two killed immediately. Soviet officials have said about
300 people were hospitalized.
In West Germany, the head of a Soviet government news agency on
Friday said the Soviet Union needs ''all medical means available'' to
help the Chernobyl victims.
Valentin Falin, the general director of Novosti, also said the
Soviets are willing to accept international safety norms for atomic
reactors. At a news conference in the Soviet Embassy in Bonn, he said
nuclear power safety standards should be ''the same for all
countries.''
Meanwhile, in Moscow, 14 people including members of a peace group
were detained by police for three hours Friday after the activists
collected more than 50 signatures on a petition calling for changes
in the country's nuclear power program, a member of the group said.
Yuri Medvedkov said those detained after the roundup in Gorky Park
included two children and five people not associated with his peace
group, the Committee to Establish Trust Between the U.S. and U.S.S.R.
Medvedkov said the petition did not mention the Chernobyl accident.
He did not detail what the petition seeks, other than to say that it
asks ''revisions'' to the national program for nuclear energy.
AP-NY-05-31-86 0738EDT
- - - - - -
a056 0515 31 May 86
PM-Chernobyl-Nuclear, Insert, a052,0065
MOSCOW INSERT 1 graf after 8th graf: The U.S. xxx infants to provide
background on Soviets saying food safe
Soviet media and officials have stated repeatedly that meat, produce
and dairy products in state stores and markets are safe. A Soviet
newspaper on Tuesday claimed the U.S. Embassy made its announcement
about milk for political reasons.
On Friday,: 9th graf
AP-NY-05-31-86 0815EDT
***************
a201 0939 31 May 86
AM-News Digest,1282
For Sunday AMs, June 1, 1986
Here are the top stories at this hour from The Associated Press. The
SOVIETS-SALT: Says It Will Abandon SALT If U.S. Does
'Eurowimps' Take on 'American Cowboys' in NATO
NATURE'S TOLL: Rescue Workers Hunt for More Bodies In Flash Flood
HIGHWAY TRAGEDY: Eighteen Dead in Bus Accident
CONTRAS: U.S. 'Deal' with Pastora Seen Undercut by CIA
LOBBYING: Deaver's Troubles Don't Trouble Conservatives
SPIES: U.S. Officials Asking Media to Keep Secrets from Soviets
SOUTH AFRICA: Rumblings from the Far Right
CHERNOBYL: French Embassy Warns of Contaminated Meat
MOSCOW - The French Embassy says veal sold in a Moscow private
market had radiation up to 10 times the level the European Common
Market considers safe. Several embassies warn foreign nationals here
against consuming some Soviet meat. Slug AM-Chernobyl-Nuclear. May
stand. 650.
PHONE WORKERS: Bargaining Talks Resume in Face of Strike Deadline
VETERAN CUTS: Impact Felt Behind the Scenes
PRISONER SUES: Inmate Touches Off Furor With Lawsuit
TORTURE TRIAL: Testimony Spins Tale of Horror
SRI LANKA: Five Die In Latest of Deadly Bombings
ECUADOR: Pro-Business Stance Gets Voters' Test
INDIA: Militants Stronger Two Years After Golden Temple
HONG KONG: Difficult Choices Ahead for Indian Minority
EDISON CENTENNIAL: Curator Seeks Funds to Preserve Edison Artifacts
a219 1213 31 May 86
AM-Chernobyl-Nuclear, Bjt,0611
Veal In Moscow Shows High Radiation Levels
MOSCOW (AP) - A cut of veal purchased at a Moscow food market and
analyzed in France had radiation six to 10 times above the level
considered safe by the European Common Market, a diplomat said
Saturday.
The finding prompted some embassies to recommend that their
nationals avoid buying Soviet veal and pork for now, because those
meats are said to be particularly prone to absorbing radioactivity.
French Embassy spokesman Edmond Ponboujian said the veal was
purchased about 10 days ago, sent to Paris for testing and found to
have a high level of contamination of caesium, one of the chemicals
released when the Chernobyl nuclear reactor was torn apart by an
explosion April 26. Details of the sample results were not provided.
Several Western embassies in the Soviet capital have been sampling
water and foodstuffs, particularly dairy products and lettuce, and
sharing results in order to advise foreign residents here. No
embassies reported any cause for alarm, except for possible risks to
pregnant women and to infants from drinking milk. Initial samples of
milk uncovered some contamination.
Ponboujian said the French Embassy is regularly sampling meat, fruit
and vegetables.
The U.S. Embassy, which sent milk, lettuce, Moscow tap water and
yogurt to the United States for testing, said on May 24 that one milk
sample it took contained twice the level of radiation considered safe
for pregnant women and infants.
Officials of the Western embassies have stressed that they do not
see any cause for alarm for the general population, however. Soviet
officials have said that there are no health dangers.
The newspaper Sovietskaya Kultura on Saturday carried a report about
a Communist Party member who shirked his duties following the
accident.
A man identified as Slava Staroshchuk was said to have fled to the
Black Sea port of Odessa and to have sent a telegram demanding ''the
money you owe me.''
The paper gave few details about the case, one of several that
newspapers have carried about people who abandoned their jobs and
left the disaster area. Most newspaper accounts have focused on the
bravery of workers in the initial accident and subsequent cleanup
efforts.
There were no detailed reports on the situation in Chernobyl on
Saturday. The government newspaper Izvestia carried a report about
truck drivers bringing decontamination and other supplies to the
reactor site.
It said that a new road was quickly constructed to shorten the
distance between the village of Kolpachi and the damaged reactor.
Previously, the only route was a roundabout one about eight miles
long. According to Izvestia, truck drivers took a more direct route
to lessen their time in the exposed area but because that kicked up
so much dust, a new, shortened road was paved.
Friday night, several Soviet pop entertainers gave a concert to
raise money for a Chernobyl disaster fund, but newspapers on Saturday
carried no accounts of it.
Soviet pop queen Alla Pugacheva had predicted that the concert, held
at an indoor stadium built for the 1980 Moscow Olympics before about
30,000 people, would raise the equivalent of up to $2 million.
Meanwhile, the official news agency Tass reported that a group of
Americans traveling in the Soviet Union contributed to the Chernobyl
fund.
Tass said they were tourists, but gave no details.
It quoted a Virginia Santer as saying that the contribution stated
the group's desire to broaden friendship between the two countries
and that the Chernobyl accident demonstrated ''how small our world
is.'' A man identified as Dr. Saul Malkiel of Boston was quoted as
saying that the accident made one imagine what would happen if
nuclear weapons were exploded.
AP-NY-05-31-86 1513EDT
***************
a235 1524 31 May 86
AM-Digest Advisory,0127
All budgets have cleared. Here is a listing.
MOSCOW - Soviets-SALT, a225.
HALIFAX, Nova Scotia - Shultz-NATO, a232.
PITTSBURGH - Flash Flood, a228.
ALBION, Pa. - Tornado Anniversary, a234.
WALKER, Calif. - Bus Plunge, a227.
WASHINGTON - Contras-CIA, a231.
WASHINGTON - Deaver's Foes, a211.
WASHINGTON - Intelligence Secrets, a224.
PRETORIA, South Africa - South Africa, a222.
MOSCOW - Chernobyl-Nuclear, a219.
WASHINGTON - Phone Workers, a223.
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. - Tasker-Prisons, a229.
KERRVILLE, Texas - Kidnapping-Slavery, a212.
COLOMBO, Sri Lanka - Sri Lanka, a233.
QUITO, Ecuador - Ecuador-Elect, a216.
AMRITSAR, India - Punjab Anniversary, a230.
LONDON - Hong Kong-Britain, a214.
WEST ORANGE, N.J. - Edison Site, a210. LaserPhoto NY22.
AP-NY-05-31-86 1824EDT
***************
a240 1613 31 May 86
AM-Digest Briefs,0837
Eds: This package does not contain the following items from the News
Digest: HALIFAX, Nova Scotia - Shultz-NATO; ALBION, Pa. - Tornado
Anniversary; WASHINGTON - Contras-CIA; WASHINGTON - Deaver Foes;
WASHINGTON - Intelligence Secrets; WASHINGTON - Phone Workers;
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. - Tasker-Prisons; KERRVILLE, Texas -
Kidnapping-Slavery; QUITO, Ecuador - Ecuador-Elect; AMRITSAR, India -
Punjab Anniversary; LONDON - Hong Kong-Britain; WEST ORANGE, N.J. -
Edison Site.
MOSCOW - The Soviet Union announced Saturday it would no longer feel
ETNA, Pa. - Rescuers searched for more victims in Pittsburgh's
WALKER, Calif. - A dozen seriously injured survivors of a tour bus
MONTREAL - Five Sikhs, who allegedly planned to blow up an Air-India
PRETORIA, South Africa - About 10,000 whites gathered at an
---
MOSCOW - A cut of veal purchased at a Moscow food market and
analyzed in France had radiation six to 10 times above the level
considered safe by the European Common Market, a diplomat said
Saturday.
The finding prompted some embassies to recommend that their
nationals avoid buying Soviet veal and pork for now, because those
meats are said to be particularly prone to absorbing radioactivity.
French Embassy spokesman Edmond Ponboujian said the veal was
purchased about 10 days ago, sent to Paris for testing and found to
have a high level of contamination of caesium, one of the chemicals
released when the Chernobyl nuclear reactor was torn apart by an
explosion April 26. Details of the sample results were not provided.
---
COLOMBO, Sri Lanka - A crowded, slow moving passenger train bound
AP-NY-05-31-86 1914EDT
***************
a258 1803 31 May 86
AM-Israel-Teller,0265
Physicist Says Chernobyl Accident Came As No Surprise
With AM-Chernobyl-Nuclear, Bjt
TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) - Dr. Edward Teller, one of the scientists who
helped develop the atomic bomb, said Saturday that the Chernobyl
nuclear disaster came as no surprise - ''I expected it.''
He said on Israel radio that in the late 1940s, he warned the U.S.
Atomic Energy Commission of the dangers of the Chernobyl-type nuclear
reactor.
Teller said a committee of American scientists which he headed
declared Chernobyl-type graphite, water-cooled nuclear reactors
unsafe and warned that people should not be allowed within five miles
of them.
He said of the Chernobyl disaster: ''I expected it. ... We were
worried about it, we have foreseen it and we are no longer building
that kind of reactor and we protested against it.''
Teller said the AEC heeded the warning.
The 78-year old physicist said that most of the reactors in the
world were safe and that the Chernobyl disaster could be used to
enhance safety.
''Because it happened, because the worst case was bad but the
consequences were limited, I think in the end we will really learn
how to use nuclear energy in the right way without excessive
danger.''
Teller, in Israel for a meeting of the board of governors of Tel
Aviv University, said Israel should not rule out purchasing a nuclear
reactor despite what happened at Chernobyl. He warned that for
security's sake, the country could not afford to be dependent on oil
and had to develop diversified sources of energy.
AP-NY-05-31-86 2103EDT
***************
a008 0410 01 Jun 86
PM-Chernobyl-Concert, Bjt,0642
Soviet Stars Perform For Chernobyl Relief
LaserPhoto NY5
By ALISON SMALE
MOSCOW (AP) - Soviet pop star Alla Pugacheva, declaring ''we want to
give our hearts,'' kicked off a benefit concert before 30,000 people
to aid victims of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster and help pay for the
vast cleanup now under way.
The concert, the Soviet Union's first rock benefit, was held in
Moscow Friday night at an indoor stadium built for the 1980 Olympics.
The 2 1/2-hour show mixed hard rock and some touches of the 1940s, and
presented acts ranging from the new wave band Bravo to more typically
Soviet variety numbers and a poetry recital by actor Mikhail Ulyanov.
Spectators in stands that began 80 yards from the multitiered stage
were quiet in comparison with crowds at Western concerts. They
remained in their places and applauded most performances warmly, but
not wildly.
''Money is money, but we want to give our hearts,'' Ms. Pugacheva
told the audience, then opened the evening with a song called
''Twentieth Century.''
The red-haired singer then introduced a Soviet journalist, Vladimir
Svetov, who presided over a satellite television link with Kiev.
He presented a parade of people who had done cleanup work around the
stricken nuclear power plant 80 miles north of the Ukrainian capital.
''Come on, let's applaud every time we hear the name of that town!''
Ms. Pugacheva urged as miners, firemen and others sent greetings to
the Moscow audience and performers.
A Chernobyl worker later expressed ''our heartfelt thanks'' to
balladeer Alexander Gradsky, whose set won a long ovation from the
Moscow audience.
An explosion and fire at the Chernobyl power plant on April 26
spewed a radioactive cloud into the air that ultimately worked its
way around the world.
U.S. physician Dr. Robert P. Gale, in Moscow to help treat victims
of the accident, said Thursday that 23 people had died, including two
people killed instantly when the reactor was torn by the explosion.
Soviet authorities evacuated people from within an 18-mile radius of
the plant, and began efforts to encase the damaged No. 4 reactor in
concrete and decontaminate land or objects affected by radioactivity.
Also featured at the Moscow benefit were the hard rock groups Kruiz
and Avtograf, the only act with experience in benefit shows. Avtograf
took part in the Live Aid concert last July, playing a 10-minute set
beamed around the world by satellite.
Neither the Live Aid concert, which raised money for famine victims
in Ethiopia, a Soviet ally, nor Avtograf's performance was shown on
state television or given much publicity here.
Ms. Pugacheva told Western reporters before the show that she
thought it eventually might raise 1-1.5 million rubles ($1.4-$2.1
million at the official rate of exchange). Tapes and records of the
benefit are to be sold.
The show was called ''Account No. 904'' - the number of a Chernobyl
relief account the state bank has opened to receive contributions.
It was also filmed by television and may be shown at a later date,
said Art Troitsky, the concert organizer and manager of Bravo.
According to Troitsky, musicians got the idea for the concert and
obtained support from Communist Party and Moscow city authorities.
Time was too short to line up Western rock stars for the show, he
said, but Ms. Pugacheva said another concert might be organized in
August with international participation.
She read a ''good luck'' telegram from the Swedish pop group Abba.
Troitsky said he would like to have an international concert
including Bruce Springsteen, Julian Lennon, Stevie Wonder, Paul
McCartney and the rock group Dire Straits.
None has performed in the Soviet Union, whose leaders have given
rock little encouragement or recognition until recently.
AP-NY-06-01-86 0709EDT
***************
a201 0851 01 Jun 86
AM-News Digest, 2 takes,1070
For Monday AMs
POLAND: Thousands Protest Arrest of Solidarity Leader
PHILIPPINES: Marcos Backers Overrun Police in Manila Protest
PHONE STRIKE: AT&T Workers Walk Picket Lines
PITTSBURGH FLOODS: 8 Known Dead as Workers Search for More Bodies
BUS PLUNGE: Probe Continues into Accident that Killed 18
ISRAEL: Cabinet Replaces Attorney General in Intelligence Flap
CHERNOBYL: Sandhogs Complete Tunnel to Ruined Reactor
MOSCOW - Soviet army sandhogs complete a sensitive operation to
blast a tunnel through to Chernobyl's ruined no. 4 reactor, which
will be encased in concrete for hundreds of years while its fuel
decays, a Soviet newspaper says. Slug AM-Chernobyl-Nuclear. May
develop. 500.
HUMAN RIGHTS: Romania Seeks To Save Trade Status with U.S.
ELECTIONS-POLITICS '86:
LABOR: Auto Workers Elect Top Leaders for Troubled Times
HEART HORMONE: May Help Treat High Blood Pressure, Heart Failure
ARTS-THEATER:
AP-NY-06-01-86 1150EDT
***************
a215 1110 01 Jun 86
AM-Chernobyl-Nuclear, Bjt,0645
Army Men Blast Tunnel Through To Crippled Reactor
By CAROL J. WILLIAMS
MOSCOW (AP) - Soviet army sandhogs have blasted a tunnel through to
Chernobyl's crippled No. 4 nuclear reactor, carefully setting
explosive charges so as not to shake the ruined block and working
quickly to avoid long exposure to radiation, a newspaper reported
Sunday.
The reactor, wrecked by an explosion and fire on April 26, now will
be entombed in cement to seal off radiation.
The tunnel has been fitted with pipes through which the cement will
be poured beneath and around the reactor, said the Defense Ministry
daily Krasnaya Zvezda. Officials have said the reactor will remain
entombed for centuries until the fuel element decays.
The newspaper did not say how long the tunnel is or when it was
completed. It said the people who built it have been decorated.
The workers had to blast through walls of ventilation shafts to
reach the foundation, said the newspaper.
''Precaution was necessary, first of all, because the openings of
the required size had to be made with minimum blasts, as unwarranted
shaking in the area of the reactor was undesirable,'' the newspaper
said. ''And secondly, it was necessary to considerably shorten the
time of the operation in conditions of high radiation.''
The newspaper did not indicate what protection against radiation the
workers might have had.
Ogonek, a weekly newsfeature magazine, said regional Communist Party
officials in the northern Ukraine expected to approve the design of
the ventilated tomb by June 20.
The magazine described the project as ''a gigantic, multilayered
sarcophagus with a complex ventilation system.'' It gave few other
details.
While crews worked to entomb the reactor, others readied the
undamaged blocks at the four-reactor power station for reactivation
before the end of the year, Soviet news media have said.
Hundreds of Soviet soldiers and civilians were working in the danger
zone to decontaminate the reactor and its adjacent communities. After
the disaster, about 92,000 people were evacuated from the danger
zone, which extends 18 miles around the plant.
Soviet officials have given no estimates of when the towns in the
danger zone might in inhabitable again. Kiev regional government
officials have indicated that some evacuees face long waits before
they can return home.
In Italy, officials reinstated a ban Sunday on the sale of milk in
some areas following overnight rainfall and a reported rise in levels
of radioactivity, the Italian news agency ANSA reported.
Officials in the northern province of Como banned the sale of milk
from sheep and goats and issued a warning that pregnant women and
children under 10 should not drink milk. Farmers were asked not to
give animals hay or other feed produced outdoors. In the Adriatic
coastal city of Macerata, officials indefinitely banned the sale of
sheep's milk and cheese.
A week after the accident, the Italian government had banned the
sale of leafy vegetables and warned pregnant women and young children
not to drink milk. The ban was rescinded three weeks later.
U.S. bone marrow specialist Dr. Robert Gale, who has been assisting
doctors in Moscow treat radiation victims, meanwhile geared up for a
trip to the Ukraine on Monday.
Gale has said he planned to visit Kiev and the accident area to
check on hospitalized radiation victims and prepare a program for
treating victims for the rest of their lives. He has said 23 people
have died as a result of the accident.
In interviews last week, Gale said he wants to set up a program for
following up on 50,000 to 100,000 people to study long-term health
consequences of the accident. He said he hoped his plan would be
approved by medical authorities in the Soviet Union and the United
States.
AP-NY-06-01-86 1409EDT
- - - - - -
a244 1426 01 Jun 86
AM-Chernobyl-Nuclear, SUB, a215,0201
MOSCOW: To UPDATE with Sunday television report, INSERT 4 grafs after
12th graf pvs: Soviet officials... Pick up 13th graf pvs: In Italy...
Soviet officials have given no estimates of when the towns in the
danger zone might be habitable again. Kiev regional government
officials have indicated that some evacuees face long waits before
they can return home.
On the national television news program Vremya, Deputy Premier Lev
Voronin said the government is confident that the No. 1 and No. 2
reactors housed in buildings away from the accident site will be
reactivated this year and workers would be able to return to their
homes near the power plant.
''But this work is complex and connected with the fact that people
living there should have all services secured,'' Voronin said. Some
housing areas have already been decontaminated, but others still
require additional measures, he said.
The Vremya report showed workers clad in white cotton shirts and
slacks, caps and surgical masks heading into the area of the ruined
No. 4 reactor and the reportedly undamaged No. 3 reactor. The report
did not specify the tasks those workers were performing.
In Italy, 13th graf
AP-NY-06-01-86 1724EDT
***************
a223 1154 01 Jun 86
AM-Poland-Bujak, Bjt,0734
Thousands Protest Arrest of Underground Leader
By CHARLES J. GANS
WARSAW, Poland (AP) - Thousands of Poles demonstrated in Krakow and
Gdansk on Sunday to protest the arrest of Solidarity underground
leader Zbigniew Bujak.
Lech Walesa, a founder and chairman of the now outlawed free trade
union movement, urged Solidarity supporters to fill Bujak's place and
carry on the struggle against ''lawlessness'' in Poland.
The demonstrations came one day after authorities announced that
police captured Bujak, the most wanted fugitive Solidarity leader,
who headed the union's clandestine Provisional Coordinating
Commission.
Bujak, 31, had eluded capture several times since the December 1981
martial law crackdown that crushed Solidarity, the first independent
union federation in the Eastern bloc.
Police have given no details regarding Bujak's arrest.
A senior Warsaw Solidarity figure, speaking on condition of
anonymity, said Bujak was arrested early Saturday morning at a Warsaw
apartment he had been using as a hiding place.
Two other fugitive Solidarity activists, Konrad Bielinski and Ewa
Kulik, were arrested with Bujak, the Solidarity leader said.
Western diplomats and Solidarity members said Bujak's arrest was a
severe blow to Solidarity and strengthened the authorities just four
weeks before a key Communist Party congress, the first since the
1980-81 labor upheaval.
''Lacking any other success the authorities boast of this capture as
an achievement,'' Walesa was quoted as telling a cheering crowd of
thousands who gathered in the courtyard of Gdansk's St. Brygida's
church after a Roman Catholic Mass.
''We have to do everything so that lawlessness does not imprison
people like Bujak who represent us all,'' Walesa said, according to
Western correspondents in the courtyard.
In the southern city of Krakow, a few thousand people chanted
Bujak's name and shouted ''Free political prisoners!'' as they
marched through the main market square following a midday Mass, said
a member of an unofficial peace group who took part in the
demonstration.
Police made no attempt to intervene, said the peace group member,
speaking on condition of anonymity.
The march was originally intended by its organizers, the independent
Freedom and Peace Movement, as an anti-nuclear protest in response to
the Chernobyl accident. But it turned into a pro-Solidarity
demonstration following the report of Bujak's arrest, the peace group
member said.
Bujak's wife, Waclawa, said she intended to go the main military
prosecutor's office in Warsaw on Monday to request more information
about the arrest, permission to visit her husband, and to deliver a
parcel.
''I can still hardly believe that he's been caught,'' said Mrs.
Bujak, wiping tears from her eyes at her mother's house in a Warsaw
suburb. ''When I heard the report on television I just cried. ... I
am afraid he will receive a very high sentence.''
A Western diplomat in Warsaw, insisting on anonymity, said he
expected Bujak's capture would discourage the opposition and give a
boost to communist authorities before the party congress scheduled to
open June 29.
The diplomat added, ''It destroys that Robin Hood-like myth about
Bujak, that he could never be caught, and it is a major psychological
blow because myths like that are not easy to replace.''
With four other fugitive Solidarity leaders, Bujak formed the
coordinating commission, known by its Polish initials TKK, in April
1982. He signed his name to underground appeals for demonstrations
against political repression, strikes to protest price hikes, and
boycotts of nationwide elections in 1984 and 1985.
The Polish news agency statement announcing his arrest did not
specify what charges Bujak faces, but accused him of ''carrying out
activities aimed at overthrowing the constitutional system of
Poland'' since going into hiding. It said the military prosecutor's
office issued the arrest warrant for Bujak.
If charged and convicted of acting to overthrow the government by
force, Bujak faces a minimum penalty of five years in prison and a
maximum penalty of death.
During the August 1980 nationwide strike wave that led to
Solidarity's birth, Bujak led a work stoppage at Warsaw's Ursus
tractor factory where he worked as an electrician. He was the elected
chairman of Solidarity's Warsaw branch during the federation's 16
months of legal existence.
Solidarity members said Bujak was among about 5,000 union activists
rounded up the night of the crackdown, Dec. 12-13, 1981, but somehow
slipped away.
AP-NY-06-01-86 1453EDT
- - - - - -
a242 1411 01 Jun 86
AM-Poland-Bujak, 1st Ld, a223,0501
EDS: to UPDATE with demonstration in third Polish city and DETAILS of
others, ADDS comments by Polish leader. Picks up 14th graf pvs
''Bujak's wife ...''
By CHARLES J. GANS
WARSAW, Poland (AP) - Thousands of people demonstrated Sunday in
three Polish cities against the arrest of Solidarity underground
leader Zbigniew Bujak.
Lech Walesa, a founder of the now outlawed free trade union
movement, urged Solidarity supporters to fill Bujak's place and carry
on the struggle against ''lawlessness'' in Poland.
The demonstrations in Gdansk, Krakow and Wrocklaw came one day after
authorities announced that police captured Bujak, the most wanted
Solidarity leader, who headed the underground movement's Provisional
Coordinating Commission.
Bujak, 31, had eluded capture several times since the December 1981
martial law crackdown that crushed Solidarity, the first independent
union federation in the Soviet bloc.
Police have given no details regarding Bujak's arrest.
A senior Solidarity figure, speaking on condition of anonymity, said
Bujak was arrested at 8 a.m. Saturday morning at a Warsaw apartment
he had been using as a hiding place.
Two other fugitive Solidarity activists, Konrad Bielinski and Ewa
Kulik, were arrested with Bujak, the Solidarity leader said.
Western diplomats and Solidarity members said Bujak's arrest was a
severe blow to Solidarity and strengthened the authorities just four
weeks before a key Communist Party congress, the first since the
1980-81 labor upheaval.
Polish leader Gen. Wojciech Jaruzelski told a Warsaw Communist Party
conference Saturday that the ''enemies of people's Poland .. . are
doomed to failure,'' the official PAP news agency reported Sunday.
It quoted him as saying, ''We shall refer with understanding to
everyone who will acknowledge the absurdity of further blundering
into a blind alley.... He who wants to be an enemy will be one. The
struggle will go on.''
Walesa told a cheering crowd of several thousand in front of St.
Brygida's Roman Catholic church in Gdansk that ''lacking any other
success the authorities boast of this capture as an achievement.''
''We have to do everything so that lawlessness does not imprison
people like Bujak who represent us all,'' Walesa said, according to
Western correspondents at the church.
In the southwestern city of Wroclaw, police used tear gas and clubs
to break up a demonstration by about 200 Solidarity supporters who
chanted ''Free political prisoners!'' following a Mass at St. Klemens
Dworzak church, a Wroclaw Solidarity activist said in a telephone
interview.
He said at least nine people were detained.
In the southern city of Krakow, police did not intervene as about
2,000 people, including many women with children, marched through the
main market square after a midday Mass, according to Western
reporters there. They said the marchers chanted anti-nuclear slogans
as well as Bujak's name.
The demonstration, organized by an unofficial peace group,
originally was called to protest the Soviet Union's Chernobyl nuclear
disaster last month.
Bujak's wife, 14th graf
AP-NY-06-01-86 1709EDT
- - - - - -
a259 1631 01 Jun 86
AM-Digest Advisory,0175
All the budgets have moved. Here is a listing:
WARSAW, Poland - Poland-Bujak, a242, a223.
MANILA, Philippines - Philippines, a214.
WASHINGTON - Phone Strike, a247, a241, LaserPhoto NY7.
ETNA, Pa. - Flash Floods, a245.
WALKER, Calif. - Bus Plunge, a248, a237.
JERUSALEM - Israel-Scandal, a226, LaserPhoto TLV2.
MOSCOW - Chernobyl-Nuclear, a244, a215.
WASHINGTON - Human Rights, a216.
PIERRE, S.D. - Primaries Rdp, a204, LaserGraphic NY9.
WASHINGTON - Reagan-Young Voters, moved in advance as a288 of May
SALT LAKE CITY - Polygamist Politics, a209.
ANAHEIM, Calif. - UAW Convention, a258.
NEW YORK - Heart Hormone, a207.
NEW YORK - Tony Awards, a203.
MINNEAPOLIS - Met Tour, a208.
NEW YORK - Poll-Finances, moved in advance as a268 of May 29.
MOUNT SCOPUS, Jerusalem - Byways-Cave People, moved in advance as
DARWIN, Ill. - Darwin Ferry, a205, LaserPhoto NY6.
AP-NY-06-01-86 1930EDT
a254 1557 01 Jun 86
AM-Digest Briefs,0980
Eds: This package does not contain the following items from the News
Digest: WASH - Phone Strike; WASH - US-Treaties; ETNA, Pa. - Flash
Flood; PIERRE, S.D. - Primaries Rdp; WASH - Reagan-Young Voters; SALT
LAKE CITY - Polygamist Politics; NEW YORK - Tony Awards; MINNEAPOLIS
- Met Tour; ANAHEIM, Calif. - UAW Convention; WALKER, Calif. - Bus
Plunge; NEW YORK - Poll-Fiances; MEXICO CITY - Mexico-Economy; PEKING
- Hundred Flowers; QUITO, Ecuador - Ecuador-Elect; MOUNT SCOPUS,
Jerusalem - Byways-Cave People; DARWIN, Ill. - Darwin Ferry.
WARSAW, Poland - Thousands of people demonstrated Sunday in three
MANILA, Philippines - About 3,000 supporters of Ferdinand E. Marcos
JERUSALEM - Israel's coalition Cabinet on Sunday replaced Attorney
---
MOSCOW - Army sandhogs have blasted a tunnel through to Chernobyl's
crippled No. 4 nuclear reactor, setting explosive charges so as not
to shake the ruined block and working quickly to avoid long exposure
to radiation, a newspaper reported Sunday.
The reactor, wrecked by an explosion and fire on April 26, now will
be entombed in cement to seal off radiation.
Engineers have fitted the tunnel with pipes through which the cement
will be poured beneath and around the reactor, said the Defense
Ministry daily Krasnaya Zvezda. Officials have said the reactor will
remain entombed for centuries until the fuel element decays.
---
WASHINGTON - Researchers studying the sexual habits of single women
WASHINGTON - The Romanian government, criticized in the West for
NEW YORK - Early experiments in humans show that a hormone secreted
BOSTON - Some 200 international bankers and government finance
AP-NY-06-01-86 1855EDT
a014 0010 02 Jun 86
PM-Poland-Bujak, Bjt,0605
Walesa Urges Solidarity Backers to Take Bujak's Place
By CHARLES J. GANS
WARSAW, Poland (AP) - Lech Walesa urged supporters of the banned
Solidarity labor federation to take the place of captured underground
leader Zbigniew Bujak and carry on his struggle against the communist
government's ''lawlessness.''
Walesa addressed thousands of cheering supporters Sunday in front of
St. Brygida's Roman Catholic Church in Gdansk. Demonstrators also
protested Bujak's arrest in Krakow and Wroclaw.
Police used tear gas and clubs to break up a demonstration by about
200 people in Wroclaw and detained at least nine people, said a
Wroclaw Solidarity activist.
In Krakow, about 2,000 chanted Bujak's name as well as anti-nuclear
slogans in a demonstration originally called to protest the Soviet
Union's Chernobyl nuclear accident, according to Western reporters.
Police did not intervene in that protest.
Authorities announced Saturday that they had arrested the
31-year-old Bujak, the most wanted Solidarity underground leader who
had eluded them several times since the martial law crackdown that
crushed the independent labor federation in December 1981.
Bujak led the underground movement's Provisional Coordinating
Committee.
''Lacking any other success the authorities boast of this capture as
an achievement,'' Walesa said, according to Western correspondents on
the scene. ''We have to do everything so that lawlessness does not
imprison people like Bujak who represent us all.''
''I hope that you all will fill the place of Bujak,'' Walesa told
the crowd. ''Sooner or later our peaceful means will lead to
victory.''
The official PAP news agency on Sunday quoted Polish leader Gen.
Wojciech Jaruzelski as telling a Communist Party gathering that the
government's enemies would fail.
''We shall refer with understanding to everyone who will acknowledge
the absurdity of further blundering into a blind alley. ... He who
wants to be an enemy will be one. The struggle will go on,''
Jaruzelski was quoted as saying.
A PAP statement announcing Bujak's arrest did not say what charges
he faces, but accused him of ''carrying out activities aimed at
overthrowing the constitutional system of Poland.'' It said the
military prosecutor's office issued the arrest warrant.
If charged and convicted of acting to overthrow the government by
force, Bujak faces a minimum penalty of five years in prison and a
maximum penalty of death.
Western diplomats and Solidarity members said Bujak's arrest was a
severe blow to Solidarity, and that it strengthened authorities just
four weeks before the first Communist Party congress since the
1980-81 labor upheaval that led to the birth of Solidarity.
Authorities have given no details of Bujak's arrest, but a senior
Solidarity figure who spoke on condition he not be identified said
Bujak and two other Solidarity activists, Konrad Bielinksi and Ewa
Kulik, were arrested Saturday morning at a Warsaw apartment.
Bujak's wife, Waclawa, said she planned to go the military
prosecutor's office in Warsaw today seeking more information about
the arrest, permission to visit her husband, and to deliver a parcel.
''I can still hardly believe that he's been caught,'' she said.
''When I heard the report on television, I just cried. I am afraid he
will receive a very high sentence.''
Her husband, an electrician, led a work stoppage at Warsaw's Ursus
tractor factory during the August 1980 strike that led to
Solidarity's birth. He was the chairman of Solidarity's Warsaw branch
during the federation's 16 months of legal existence.
Solidarity members said Bujak was among about 5,000 union activists
rounded up the night of the crackdown, Dec. 12-13, 1981, but somehow
slipped away.
AP-NY-06-02-86 0308EDT
a032 0254 02 Jun 86
PM-Chernobyl-Nuclear,0264
Army Opens Tunnel to Reactor
MOSCOW (AP) - Army workers blasted a tunnel through to the Chernobyl
nuclear power plant's stricken reactor and installed pipes through
which they will pour the cement that will entomb the reactor for
centuries, a military newspaper said.
The workers cautiously set explosive charges to avoid shaking the
reactor and worked quickly to limit their exposure to radiation. They
received commendation for their work, the Defense Ministry newspaper
Krasnaya Zvezda said Sunday.
The newspaper said workers had to blast through walls of ventilation
shafts to reach the foundation, and fitted pipes into the tunnel
through which they will pump cement to seal the reactor during the
centuries in which it will remain radioactive.
The reactor, located 80 miles north of the Ukrainian capital of
Kiev, was wrecked by an explosion and fire on April 26.
American bone marrow specialist Dr. Robert Gale, who has been
helping doctors in Moscow treat radiation victims, planned to travel
to the Ukraine today.
He has said he planned to visit Kiev and the accident area to check
on hospitalized radiation victims and prepare a long-term treatment
program for victims of radiation sickness. Gale said 23 people have
died as a result of the accident.
Ogonek, a weekly newsfeature magazine, said regional Communist Party
officials in the northern Ukraine expected to approve the design of
the reactor's ventilated tomb by June 20.
The magazine described the project as ''a gigantic, multilayered
sarcophagus with a complex ventilation system,'' but gave no other
details.
AP-NY-06-02-86 0552EDT
a043 0344 03 Jun 86
PM-Chernobyl-Nuclear,0425
Some Evacuees to Return Home, Life for Others Far from Perfect
By ALISON SMALE
MOSCOW (AP) - The first few hundred of 92,000 people evacuated from
around the Chernobyl nuclear power plant will return home soon, but
conditions for the remaining evacuees are ''far from desirable,'' the
Communist Party newspaper Pravda said today.
Pravda made clear that the estimated 25,000 people who lived in the
town of Pripyat, adjoining the Chernobyl power plant, will not be
among those returning home soon, and that they will not be home
before fall at earliest.
An explosion and fire stuck one of four reactors at the Chernobyl
plant 80 miles north of Kiev on April 26. An American bone marrow
specialist, Dr. Robert Gale, has said that 23 people have died as a
result of the accident and the radiation it released.
Pravda reported that the evacuees faced long lines for food and
other necessities, and printed a long list of complaints about the
failings of the Ministry of Energy to improve their living
conditions.
Authorities decided that the first 260 families from the hamlets of
Glinka, Zamoshche and Bychka within an 18-mile danger zone around the
plant could return home soon, Pravda said.
It said the return would take place after the villages are
decontaminated, but did not give further details or the exact
location of the villages.
Pravda pointed to an unfinished heating plant and an unfinished
apartment block in the town of Chernobyl, 11 miles from the plant, as
projects the Ministry of Energy should be thinking about completing
in order to provide a better life for evacuees.
''The organization of feeding (the evacuees) is far from
desirable,'' Pravda said. ''It is hardly possible to look at the very
long lines at these (evacuation) points. In a word, there is food for
thought.''
Local agricultural authorities have begun organizing decontamination
work on farms, it said. Fields that were supposed to be planted in
corn will be sown instead with long-life grasses, Pravda said,
suggesting these fields will not yield crops for many years.
A local Communist Party official said Monday that startup procedures
for two undamaged reactors at the four-reactor Chernobyl plant could
begin in October.
Pravda also said that the whereabouts of 177 of the 2,611 Communist
Party members in Pripyat are unknown more than a month after the
Chernobyl accident. The report was the first to suggest such a large
number of communists fled the disaster area.
AP-NY-06-03-86 0642EDT
- - - - - -
a082 0758 03 Jun 86
PM-Chernobyl-Nuclear, 1st Ld, a043,0385
Death Toll at 25, Doctor says Thousands Sought Hospital Care
URGENT
Eds: Leads with 10 grafs to UPDATE casualty figures, number
hospitalized. Incorporates from a071
By ALISON SMALE
MOSCOW (AP) - A Soviet doctor said today two more people injured in
the Chernobyl nuclear disaster have died, bringing the death toll to
25. He said 18,000 people initially were hospitalized after the
accident.
Dr. Leonid Ilyin, director of the Moscow hospital where some of the
severely injured are being treated, said the 18,000 people initially
hospitalized were released several days later when it was determined
they were not suffering from radiation sickness. He said they had
been hospitalized after complaining of various symptoms.
The new death toll of 25 includes two workers who were killed
immediately in the April 26 explosion, fire and radiation release at
the Ukrainian nuclear power plant, Ilyin said.
The doctor, who is director of the Soviet Institute of Biophysics,
said about 30 people remain in critical condition out of the nearly
300 patients who were hospitalized because of radiation exposure.
He said 18,000 people were hospitalized in Kiev and other cities and
were released because they were ''in perfect health.''
Asked if the 18,000 were hospitalized for ''spot checks'' or if they
had instead shown any alarming symptoms, Ilyin said most of them were
evacuees who had been subjected to severe psychological stress and
that one could expect them to react in different ways.
''So we wanted to examine any symptoms - coughing, respiratory
problems, blood problems - and wanted to check everyone who was
complaining,'' he said. Those patients were all released after two or
three days, he said. ''None of the 18,000 had problems.''
Ilyin said that in all, about 100,000 people - most of them evacuees
from the area around the nuclear plant - were checked by medics and
doctors after the accident.
Ilyin answered questions about Chernobyl at a news conference called
by an international doctors' group opposed to nuclear arms.
Also today, the Communist Party newspaper Pravda reported that
conditions were ''far from desirable'' for many of those evacuated
because of the nuclear plant accident. But it said several hundred
evacuees could return home soon.
Pravda made: 2nd graf
AP-NY-06-03-86 1056EDT
a071 0650 03 Jun 86
PM-Chernobyl Casualties,0297
URGENT
Chernobyl Deaths At 25, 18,000 Said Initially Hospitalized
MOSCOW (AP) - A Soviet doctor said today two more people injured in
the Chernobyl nuclear disaster have died, bringing the death toll to
25. He said 18,000 people initially were hospitalized after the
accident.
Dr. Leonid Ilyin, director of the Moscow hospital where many of the
injured are being treated, said the 18,000 people initially
hospitalized were released several days later when it was determined
they were not suffering from radiation sickness. He said they had
been hospitalized for various symptoms.
The new death toll of 25 includes two workmen who were killed
instantly in the April 26 explosion, fire and radiation release at
the Ukrainian nuclear power plant 80 miles north of Kiev, Ilyin said.
The doctor, who is director of the Soviet Institute of Biophysics,
said ''about 30'' people remain in critical condition out of the
nearly 300 patients who were hospitalized because of radiation
exposure.
At a news conference, Ilyin said that in all, about 100,000 people -
most of them evacuees from around the nuclear plant - were checked by
medics and doctors after the accident.
He said 18,000 people were hospitalized in Kiev and other cities and
released after they were found to be ''in perfect health.''
Asked if the 18,000 were hospitalized for ''spot checks'' or if they
had instead shown any alarming symptoms, Ilyin said the evacuees were
subjected to severe psychological stress and that one could expect
them to react in different ways.
''So we wanted to examine any symptoms - coughing, respiratory
problems, blood problems - and wanted to check everyone who was
complaining,'' he said. Ilyin said those patients were all released
after two or three days.
AP-NY-06-03-86 0947EDT
a041 0305 04 Jun 86
PM-Chernobyl-Nuclear,0396
Pravda Reports Contaminated Areas Beyond Danger Zone
By CAROL J. WILLIAMS
MOSCOW (AP) - The Communist Party daily Pravda indicated today that
more people were evacuated from isolated ''dirty spots'' of radiation
contamination beyond the 18-mile evacuation zone around the stricken
Chernobyl nuclear power plant.
The newspaper gave no figures for the number of people moved from
areas of the Gomel region of southern Byelorussia, or the exact
locations of the contaminated areas.
But in an article entitled ''A Red Line On The Map,'' Pravda said a
thorough review of the 18-mile danger zone and areas beyond it
''allowed us to make significant corrections in which people may
return to some areas, but from others additional evacuations were
needed.''
Soviets officials said 92,000 people were evacuated from an area
within 18 miles of the power plant after the April 26 explosion and
fire at its reactor No. 4. The four-reactor power station is 80 miles
north of the Ukrainian capital of Kiev, the Soviet Union's third
largest city with 2.4 million people.
On Tuesday, a Soviet doctor revealed that disaster had claimed two
more lives bringing to 25 the number who have died, including two men
killed at the scene. Dr. Leonid Ilyin, director of Moscow's Hospital
No. 6 where the most seriously ill patients were taken, said about 30
patients remained in critical condition.
He said 18,000 people were hospitalized for up to three days in Kiev
and other Ukrainian cities after the April 26 disaster. But he said
doctors found they were suffering only from anxiety.
About 300 severely ill people were brought to Moscow after the
disaster. It is not known how many others are hospitalized outside
the capital.
Today's edition of Pravda indicated that the danger zone drawn
around the Chernobyl plant had become less precise than the exact
18-mile radius established early, at least in Byelorussia to the
north of the plant.
The report also said produce being raised on the private plots of
farmers in the southern Byelorussian region was being purchased by
the state so that thorough checks on its safety could be carried out.
Some wells in the area have been closed and others have been
cleaned, the newspaper said, and new artesian wells are being drilled
to replace those that were sealed.
AP-NY-06-04-86 0604EDT
a035 0204 05 Jun 86
PM-News Advisory,0310
Also Moving for PMs
WALDHEIM - Say Soviets Knew About War Crimes
CHERNOBYL - Paper Says Long-Term Relocation Needed
MOSCOW - A Soviet newspaper says authorities must overcome
indifference and bureaucracy to plan for the long-term relocation of
evacuees from near the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. Slug
PM-Chernobyl-Nuclear.
BUDGET - Conferees Try To Keep Plan From Being Trampled by Tax
BOWEN - Insurance for Catastrophic Health Care Will Be Costly
ROOSEVELTS - Letters From Teddy To Alice Bared
BOYCOTT - Farm Workers Call Grape Boycott Over Pesticides
AP-NY-06-05-86 0503EDT
a046 0343 05 Jun 86
PM-Chernobyl-Nuclear,0432
Pravda Says Indifference, Fear Must Be Overcome to Aid Chernobyl
Evacuees
By ROXINNE ERVASTI
MOSCOW (AP) - Soviets must overcome indifference and bureaucracy to
help people evacuated from the Chernobyl accident site, as well as
fears that the evacuees themselves may be spreading radiation, the
newspaper Pravda said today.
The organ of the Communist Party said that while most children
evacuated from the officially designated danger zone after the
accident at the Ukrainian power plant are now in summer camp, ''still
the areas where evacuees live must remain in the center of special
attention.''
''It is impossible that even one family or one person should suffer
because of indifference, bureaucratism or because of absurd rumors
(that) evacuees are spreading radioactivity,'' the newspaper said.
Close to 100,000 people were evacuated from an 18-mile radius around
the No. 4 reactor, which was torn by an explosion and fire on April
26 that released a cloud of radioactivity that spread over much of
Europe.
Pravda earlier said about 260 families from three small hamlets
would be able to return to their homes this fall. That is only a
small portion of the forced exodus that left the area of the plant 80
miles north of Kiev.
''It is clear that by autumn only a small part will be able to
return to their native places,'' Pravda said today.
''It means it is necessary to take care ahead of time about
organizing apartments, trade, public catering, schools, nurseries and
kindergartens'' for the bulk of the relocated Ukrainians, Pravda
said.
Evacuees were scattered in villages, cities and state farms,
sometimes separated from relatives.
Pravda today printed excerpts from several letters about the
evacuees, including one from a woman who indicated that she was
evacuated from Pripyat, the main Chernobyl workers' town, to a
village in the region of Brest, about 200 miles west of Chernobyl, on
the Soviet-Polish border.
The writer appealed for help to send her children to summer camps
and said she wanted to return to work.
Another man said that he was unable to learn the whereabouts of
relatives evacuated from Pripyat.
''Of course, such things can happen,'' Pravda commented. ''But isn't
it possible to help people in such things on the spot?''
A writer from Gomel complained about rumors, saying, ''You can hear
anything, for example, at a bus stop.''
He said people tell of wild figures of radiation and ''stories about
round-the-clock sales of vodka with iodine in it.''
Doses of iodine can be administered to radiation victims to prevent
them from absorbing radioactive iodine, which can cause cancer.
AP-NY-06-05-86 0642EDT
a002 2119 05 Jun 86
PM-News Digest,1084
Friday, June 6, 1986
Here are the top stories for PMs. The General Desk supervisor is Ron
SAUDI ARMS DEAL:
ARMS CONTROL: Reagan Aid Warns Congress Against Bucking President on
SPY CONVICTION: Pelton Guilty On Four Counts
PHILIPPINES: Communist Rebels Make Peace Gesture, But Grab More Land
NAZI WAR CRIMINALS: Australia Launches Probe; Eye U.S. Role
ISRAELI INVASION: Aftershocks Remain from 1982 Raid into Lebanon
SPACE SHUTTLE: Experts Say Release of Report Could Trigger Lawsuits
CHERNOBYL: Western Europe Lifts Most Food Restrictions
ROME - Western Europe has lifted almost all restrictions on food
consumption imposed following the Chernobyl nuclear disaster, but
some countries are warning against eating mushrooms or game for fear
of radioactive contamination. Slug PM-Chernobyl-Europe. New, will
stand.
By Samuel Koo.
CONTRAS: House Panel to Review Evidence of Abuse of U.S. Aid
ANGLICAN BELIEFS: Bishops Defend Virgin Birth and Resurrection
BABY HEART: Hospital Puts Dying Baby On Transplant List
PHONE RULES: Say Measure in Congress Could Foster Competition
INSIDER TRADING: Wall Street Waits for the Other Shoe To Drop
MOSCOW THEATER: Children's Theater Makes U.S. Debut
UP UP AND AWAY: The President Will Get Two Jumbo 747s
AP ON TV: A Day in the Life of ABC's 'Nightline'
AP-NY-06-06-86 0017EDT
a020 2350 05 Jun 86
PM-Chernobyl-Europe, Bjt,0521
Checks Continue for Radiation From Chernobyl, But Most Precautions Lifted
By SAMUEL KOO
ROME (AP) - Forty days since the nuclear accident in the Soviet
Ukraine sent a radioactive cloud skyward, Western Europe has lifted
almost all of the restrictions placed on food to safeguard against
possible contamination.
In Italy, however, authorities have ordered the slaughter of rabbits
that fed on radiation-tainted vegetation, while West Germans have
been warned not to eat mushrooms or some game for fear that they
might be contaminated.
The April 26 reactor accident at Chernobyl, 80 miles north of Kiev,
spread radioactive fallout over wide areas of Europe, leading to
strict temporary health measures in many nations.
Shock over Europe's first atomic power plant catastrophe also has
fueled anti-nuclear sentiments in many countries, prompted demands
for tighter regulatory controls, more effective evacuation plans and
referendums to curb nuclear power.
Although fear of nuclear contamination from Chernobyl, once
widespread, has now dissipated, some nervousness still remains.
Matthew Gaines, a spokesman for the National Radiological Protection
Board in Britain, says his office is still getting 80 to 90 calls
daily from concerned people. But that number is down from 150 or so
in previous weeks.
In addition to measures adopted by individual countries on their
own, the 12-nation Common Market on May 12 imposed a ban on fresh
food imports from Eastern Europe.
The ban was lifted on May 31, and since June 1, Common Market
countries have been conducting spot checks on fresh food imports from
all countries.
Here, in brief, is the situation in the five countries still
enforcing controls of any consequence on foodstuffs:
-West Germany: The government has lifted warnings against the
consumption of fruit, grain, vegetables, potatoes and milk, which
were in effect during the first two weeks of May. On Thursday,
however, the head of a federal nutrition institute said West Germans
should avoid eating mushrooms and venison in the next few months
because of possible contamination.
-Italy: Although the official ban on fresh milk for children and
leafy green vegetables was withdrawn in late May, local authorities
in several regions issued new warnings this week. In northern
Lombardy, authorities ordered the killing of up to 600,000 rabbits
which fed on grass contaminated with radioactivity. Samples of rabbit
meat indicated levels of cesium up to 2.5 times the permitted limit.
Officials in two cities on Italy's central Adriatic coast have banned
the sale of local dairy products after detecting increased cesium.
-Sweden: The ban against grazing cows is still in effect in some
areas. Earlier this week, experts raised alarms over high radiation
levels in game, and authorities say they will continue to check moose
and deer meat.
-Switzerland: Authorities still advise against slaughtering sheep
and goats in southern regions. In the same areas, mothers are told
not to feed their babies sheep's milk and farmers have been urged to
reduce green fodder to livestock.
-Austria: Nationwide restrictions have been lifted. In Salzburg
province, however, authorities are still counseling caution in eating
leafy vegetables.
AP-NY-06-06-86 0249EDT
a033 0147 06 Jun 86
PM-News Advisory,0290
Also moving for PMs:
INDIA VIOLENCE - Sikhs Rally Again at Golden Temple
CHERNOBYL - Report Another Death; Detail More Evacuations
MOSCOW - Soviet officials say 20,000 people recently were evacuated
from areas of Byelorussia to the north of the Chernobyl reactor, and
that a 26th person has died as a result of the nuclear accident. Slug
PM-Chernobyl-Nuclear.
SUMMIT - Administration Steps Up Efforts
MIDEAST - U.S. Blocks Syria From Chemical Purchases
TV FLAP - Networks Contend Over ABC Rights To Liberty Show
MODEL ATTACKED - Woman Slashed Allegedly Over $850
AP-NY-06-06-86 0445EDT
a038 0231 06 Jun 86
PM-Digest Briefs,1103
Eds: This package does not contain the following items from the News
Digest: MANILA, Philippines - Philippine Rebels; CAIRO, Egypt -
Invasion Aftermath; WASHINGTON - Insider Trading-Street; WASHINGTON -
Air Force One; NEW YORK - TV-Nightline.
WASHINGTON - President Reagan narrowly saved his plan to sell
WASHINGTON - If Congress votes to compel continued U.S. compliance
BALTIMORE - Ronald W. Pelton's conviction of espionage for selling
SYDNEY, Australia - Concern over reports that Nazis migrated to
WASHINGTON - Aerospace legal experts are receiving inquiries about
---
ROME - Forty days since the nuclear accident in the Soviet Ukraine
sent a radioactive cloud skyward, Western Europe has lifted almost
all of the restrictions placed on food to safeguard against possible
contamination.
In Italy, however, authorities have ordered the slaughter of rabbits
that fed on radiation-tainted vegetation, while West Germans have
been warned not to eat mushrooms or some game for fear that they
might be contaminated.
The April 26 reactor accident at Chernobyl, 80 miles north of Kiev,
spread radioactive fallout over wide areas of Europe, leading to
strict temporary health measures in many nations.
---
WASHINGTON - A House panel has scheduled hearings next week to
LONDON - Anglican bishops reaffirmed their belief in Jesus' virgin
LOS ANGELES - The search for a donor heart has begun for a
ALBANY, N.Y. - Moscow's Musical Theater for Children has taken its
AP-NY-06-06-86 0529EDT
a050 0403 06 Jun 86
PM-Chernobyl-Nuclear,0652
Radiation Levels Remain High In Chernobyl Area Now Ravaged By Forest Fire
By ALISON SMALE
MOSCOW (AP) - A newspaper said today that fires caused by two months
of dry weather are adding to the problems near the
Ukrainian-Byelorussian border area, where high radiation levels from
the Chernobyl nuclear have forced the evacuation of 20,000 more
people.
The youth daily Komsomolskaya Pravda identified four soldiers who
had been decorated for their part in stopping a large peat fire near
the village of Pogonnoye, whose exact location was not specified.
It said forest fires also had burned, but gave no other details.
The report came a day after Soviet officials said 20,000 people had
recently been evacuated from areas of Byelorussia to the north of the
Chernobyl reactor crippled by an explosion and fire early on April
26.
Another report today in the Defense Ministry newspaper Krasnaya
Zvezda said radiation levels continue to be high around the crippled
No.4 reactor at the Chernobyl plant.
It showed a picture of an operator in white protective clothing with
a respirator over his mouth and nose at controls for a remote-control
bulldozer seen in the background.
These machines are being used for work in highly contaminated areas
of the Chernobyl plant. Krasnaya Zvezda said its picture was taken in
a training area and not at the plant because radiation levels are
still so high around the ruined reactor.
Soviet media Thursday said the ruling Politburo discussed the
''intensive effort'' to decontaminate the surrounding area. It was
the first report in a month of a Politburo discussion of Chernobyl.
Few details were given of the meeting, but the official news agency
Tass said: ''Measures were endorsed to ensure the employment,
provision of housing and improvement of social and everyday services
to the population evacuated from the danger zones.'' It said all
evacuees should have jobs by the end of June and ''well-appointed
housing'' by October.
The new evacuations were announced at a news conference given by six
government, health and environment officials who said 187 of the 299
people originally reported hospitalized with symptoms of radiation
sickness still were under treatment.
Oleg Shchepin, first deputy health minister, said 24 people
hospitalized with radiation sickness have died, raising the official
death toll to 26. Two people died in the explosion and fire.
This figure was printed in the Communist Party daily Pravda today,
the first time Soviet media have given the public an updated death
toll since Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev reported in a
nationally televised address May 14 that nine people had died in the
disaster.
Deputy Premier Yuri Batalin told the Thursday news conference about
20,000 people were evacuated from the contaminated areas recently
discovered in southern Byelorussia.
Pravda, the Communist Party newspaper, said Wednesday that the
''dirty spots'' were found in the Gomel area of southern Byelorussia
beyond the 18-mile danger zone declared around the plant earlier, but
gave no specific locations.
Official reports have said 92,000 people were evacuated from the
danger zone within a week after the accident.
Pravda said about 260 families would be allowed to return to
villages within the 18-mile zone because no health risks were found
in their hamlets, and Batalin said people eventually would return to
most towns in the evacuation zone around the plant 80 miles north of
Kiev, capital of the Ukraine.
Batalin said entombing the reactor in concrete will be a long
process. Experts have said centuries will be needed for the sealed
reactor to decay and its graphite core to deteriorate.
He and the other officials said the precise cause of the accident
has not been determined, but a report by the government investigating
commission was expected soon. Gorbachev said May 14 that it probably
began with a hydrogen explosion.
AP-NY-06-06-86 0701EDT
- - - - - -
a091 0842 06 Jun 86
PM-Chernobyl-Nuclear, 1st Ld, a050,0509
Gale Says 80 Patients Are In Serious Condition
Ed: UPDATES in top 13 grafs with Gale news conference, statement by
Soviet doctor
By ALISON SMALE
MOSCOW (AP) - An American doctor treating victims of the Chernobyl
nuclear disaster said today 80 patients are in serious condition,
more than double the number reported three weeks ago.
Dr. Robert Gale, a U.S. bone marrow specialist, spoke at a news
conference after returning from a three-day trip to the Ukraine where
he visited Kiev and the town of Chernobyl, about 11 miles from the
plant.
Gale said he was reluctant to predict future cancer rates as a
result of radiation exposure. He said about 100,000 people would be
monitored ''for the rest of their lives.''
He said doctors were ''seriously concerned'' about the prognosis for
80 radiation sickness patients, adding 78 of them had been at the
Ukrainian power plant April 26 when a fire and explosion wrecked the
No. 4 reactor and sent radiation into the air.
Of the remaining two patients, both residents of the nearby town of
Pripyat, one was exposed to radiation through soil and the other was
bicycling in a contaminated area, Gale said.
At a May 15 news conference, Gale said 35 people were in serious
condition. Figures provided by Soviet officials suggested the 2.4
million Kiev residents received doses of radiation equivalent to
about half the amount of radiation they would normally be exposed to
in one year, Gale said.
He said radiation levels in Kiev, 80 miles south of the plant, were
15 to 30 times above normal background level.
At a news conference Thursday, Oleg Shchepin, the first deputy
health minister, said 26 people have died as a result of the
accident. Officials said that of 299 people originally hospitalized
for radiation exposure, 187 still were receiving treatment.
Dr. Leonid Ilyin, the director of Moscow's No. 6 hospital where many
accident victims are being treated, said 230 teams of doctors and
other medical personnel were working in the Ukraine and the
neighboring republic of Byelorussia to monitor the effects of
radiation on thousands of evacuees.
Ilyin also said workers decontaminating the Chernobyl plant are
being monitored and pulled off the job as soon as they have been
exposed to a dose of 25 roentgens.
''According to voluminous research by specialists from different
countries, (this dose) cannot be dangerous to health,'' he told
Moscow News, an English-language weekly.
Meanwhile, fires fueled by two months of dry weather were reported
near the Ukrainian-Byelorussian border area. The youth daily
Komsomolskaya Pravda said four soldiers have been decorated for their
part in stopping a large peat fire near the village of Pogonnoye,
whose exact location was not specified. It said forest fires also had
burned, but gave no other details.
On Thursday, Deputy Premier Yuri Batalin told a news conference that
about 20,000 people were evacuated from contaminated areas recently
discovered in southern Byelorussia.
Pravda, the: 14th graf
AP-NY-06-06-86 1140EDT
a041 0152 07 Jun 86
PM-News Advisory,0296
Also moving for PMs:
IRWIN: Former Apollo Astronaut Suffers Heart Attack
HAITI - Justice Minister Says Elections By End Of 1987
CHERNOBYL - Another Benefit Concert Planned For Victims
MOSCOW - Soviet media report on the heroic firefighters and
helicopter pilots who battled to contain the Chernobyl nuclear
disaster, while Moscow variety artists plan another concert to raise
money for disaster relief. Slug PM-Chernobyl-Nuclear.
SHUTTLE - Physicist Report Will Criticize NASA Science Work
BUDGET - Military Buildup Buildup Hinges On Tax Deal
ANDREW: Winds From Year's First Tropical Storm Hit Carolinas
AP-NY-06-07-86 0450EDT
***************
a064 0459 07 Jun 86
PM-Chernobyl-Nuclear,0647
Soviet Media Laud Chernobyl Heroes; Another Concert Set for Disaster
Relief
By ALISON SMALE
MOSCOW (AP) - A Soviet newspaper today lauded an air force general
who oversaw efforts to smother the fire-swept nuclear reactor at
Chernobyl, and implied that the radiation danger was known on the
very day of the accident.
Soviet officials have not explained why it took 36 hours from the
time of the April 26 reactor explosion and fire for people to be
evacuated from Pripyat, a town with a population estimated at between
25,000 and 40,000 people located 2 1/2 miles from the atomic power
plant.
The town was cleared in just over two hours on April 27, the day
after the accident, with evacuees leaving in a column of 1,800 buses,
mostly brought from the Ukrainian capital of Kiev, 80 miles to the
south.
The military newspaper Krasnaya Zvezda indicated today that the
gravity of the radiation risk was well known by the evening of April
26 at the latest.
A Soviet television program on Friday night which lauded the heroism
of the firefighters who battled the flames that engulfed Chernobyl's
No. 4 reactor after the explosion also suggested the radiation risk
was clear.
It said radiation-measuring devices carried by firefighters went off
the scale as the men tried to gauge the radioactivity spewing from
the open reactor.
Two people were killed instantly in the disaster and 24 have died
since of radiation-related complications, according to official
Soviet count.
Extolling the role of air force Maj. Gen. Nikolai Antoshchkin, whom
it said oversaw the smothering of the reactor fire with materials
dropped from military helicopters, Krasnaya Zvezda said he was
alerted to the nuclear disaster on the evening of April 26.
''Leave urgently for the town of Pripyat. They have decided to
smother the accident-stricken block (reactor) there with sand. . .
Obviously no other technique besides helicopters can work. . .,'' the
newspaper said Antoshchkin was told.
This description suggested officials were aware on the day of the
accident that the reactor was so dangerous that it needed smothering
and could only be approached from the air because of the radiation
danger.
Krasnaya Zvezda indicated Antoshchkin then had to spend several
hours preparing for his mission, arriving in Pripyat on the evening
of April 27.
There, he was reportedly told by Deputy Premier Boris Shcherbina,
head of the government commission set up to investigate and deal with
the accident, that ''everything depends now on you and your
helicopter pilots.''
Beginning at dawn on April 28, the pilots worked continually on
their dangerous mission to weave in ''a slalom in the air'' toward
the reactor and drop bags of sand on it, the newspaper said.
In other developments, the official news agency Tass reported that
Moscow variety artists would stage a concert on Saturday night to
raise funds for a national fund to cope with the Chernobyl disaster.
Popular variety singer Iosif Kobzon and master of ceremonies Boris
Brunov were among the artists listed as taking part.
Eight days ago, some of the Soviet Union's most well-known rock
stars got together for the nation's first rock benefit, raising funds
to deal with the aftermath of the Chernobyl disaster.
On Friday, U.S. bone marrow specialist Dr. Robert Gale, who has been
helping Soviet physicians treat victims of the Chernobyl disaster,
indicated at a news conference that some pregnant women exposed to
radiation from Chernobyl had since had abortions.
But when asked about persistent rumors that pregnant women in Kiev
and the northern Ukraine had been given abortions, both Gale and
Soviet blood expert Dr. Andrei I. Vorobyev said cases were dealt with
on an individual basis, with obstetricians advising pregnant patients
of potential risks of giving birth and reaching decisions based on
these consultations.
AP-NY-06-07-86 0757EDT
a201 0852 07 Jun 86
AM-News Digest, 2 Takes,0910
Sunday, June 8, 1986
Here are the top stories at this hour from The Associated Press. The
AUSTRIA ELECTION: Waldheim Campaign Touched Off International Furor
SHUTTLE: Panel Wants Rocket Tests That Could Delay Next Launch
CHERNOBYL: Moscow Provides New Details On Who Knew What When
MOSCOW - A Soviet newspaper reveals new details about when officials
knew the gravity of the Chernobyl nuclear accident, but leaves
unanswered lingering questions about why the Kremlin took almost
three days to tell the world of the disaster. Slug
AM-Chernobyl-Nuclear. Developing.
SPYING:
DEAVER: Aides of Seven Presidents On Why Deaver's Case Is Different
LaROUCHE: Weekly Magazine Is Centerpiece of LaRouche Operations
TAXES: Rich Americans Get Richer Under Tax Plan
PHILIPPINES:
INTERRACIAL MARRIAGE: A Year Later For South Africa's First Legal
AGING: Scientists Seek Clues To What Makes It Happen
YELLOWSTONE: The Oldest Park Is More Wilderness Now Than 80 Years Ago
MAYOR'S TROUBLES: After Female Chief Resigns, Mayor At Crossroads
BAPTIST CONVENTION: Primed for Factional Struggle
AP-NY-06-07-86 1150EDT
***************
a227 1229 07 Jun 86
AM-Chernobyl-Nuclear, Bjt,0592
Money Pouring In For Chernobyl Victims
By ALISON SMALE
MOSCOW (AP) - The official Chernobyl accident relief fund has
increased nearly sixfold in three days, with about $14 million coming
in daily, the government newspaper Izvestia said Saturday.
The state-run Account No. 904 grew from $9 million on Tuesday to
$53.6 million on Friday, the newspaper said. It did not explain the
increase.
''Every day now, about 10 million rubles ($14 million) is
transferred to the bank,'' the newspaper said.
The official news agency Tass said Moscow variety artists planned a
benefit concert Saturday to raise money for the fund. On May 30, top
Soviet rock stars staged the nation's first rock benefit, called
''Account No. 904.'' The concert was expected to raise up to $1.5
million for Chernobyl.
Officials have not said exactly how the money will be spent. Some
money is expected to be spent on decontamination work at and around
the plant and some funds are likely to go to the more than 100,000
evacuees.
Officials have said 26 people died as a result of the April 26 fire
and explosion. About 190 people remain hospitalized, with 80 in
serious condition.
A Soviet newspaper indicated Saturday that some Soviet officials
were aware of the gravity of the accident less than 24 hours after it
occurred.
It took Soviet authorities three days, until the evening of April
28, to announce the accident in a four-sentence statement. Deputy
Premier Boris Shcherbina said last month that local officials in
Chernobyl had underestimated the scope of the disaster, implying that
that was the reason for the delay in the announcement.
The Defense Ministry daily Krasnaya Zvezda said helicopter pilots
were ordered on April 26 to smother the fire by dropping sand from
the air, indicating that at least some officials were aware the plant
was spewing radiation and was so dangerous it could only be
approached from above.
Authorities contacted Air Force Maj. Gen. Nikolai Antoshchkin, who
commanded the helicopter pilots, late on April 26, the newspaper
said.
Antoshchkin was told to ''leave urgently for the town of Pripyat.
They have decided to smother the accident-stricken block there with
sand. Obviously no other technique besides helicopters can work,''
the newspaper said.
The commander had to spend several hours preparing for his mission
and arrived in Pripyat, 2 1/2 miles from the plant, on April 27, the
newspaper said.
Shcherbina, head of the government commission set up to deal with
the accident, told Antoshchkin in Pripyat that ''everything depends
now on you and your helicopter pilots'' and that the only way to
approach the reactor was from above, the newspaper said.
The pilots began flying over the reactor on April 28, measuring
radiation, taking photographs and dropping sand.
Shcherbina was initially dissatisfied with the pilots' performance,
the newspaper said. The amount of material dropped on the crippled
No. 4 reactor was so insignificant that Shcherbina compared it to a
hunter taking ''small shot to an elephant,'' the newspaper said.
By May 2, the pilots had improved their efficiency and won praise
from Shcherbina, the report said. Officials have said 5,000 tons of
sand, lead and boron were dropped on the reactor.
In a report Friday, Soviet television also indicated there were
early signals that the accident was very serious.
In a broadcast about the firefighters battling the blaze, a
commentator quoted firefighters as saying that needles in
radiation-measuring devices went off scale.
AP-NY-06-07-86 1527EDT
***************
a201 0832 08 Jun 86
AM-News Digest,1198
Monday, June 9, 1986
Here are the top stories at this hour from The Associated Press. The
AUSTRIA ELECTION: Waldheim Appears Headed For Victory
PHILIPPINES:
SPACE SHUTTLE:
CONGRESS: Tax Overhaul Headed for Senate Approval
BAY OF PIGS: Cuba To Release Officer For Family Reunion
SOVIET BRIBES: Run From Car Washers To Transport Officials
SOUTHERN BAPTISTS: Power Struggle Ahead Between Moderates,
CAMPAIGN '86: South Carolina, Maine, North Dakota Hold Tuesday
AFGHAN FIGHTING: Islamic Guerrillas Say Soviet Air Base Hit
AFRICAN FAMILIES: Leaders Worried About Population Growth
PARIS - Cohabitation, the French term for power sharing between
SCOTTISH NUCLEAR: Chernobyl Brings Questioning of Planned Plant
THURSO, Scotland - From the looks of it, most of the 9,500 people of
Thurso are behind a plan to build a nuclear processing plant near
here. But since the Chernobyl accident opponents have come forth with
a new range of questions. Slug AM-Scottish Nuclear.
An AP Extra by Larry Thorson. Moved in advance as a269 of June 7.
NUCLEAR: Congressman's Bark Said Worse Than His Bite
ALONG THE BORDER: Federal Cuts Reduce Likelihood of Prosecution
BALLET COMPETITION: Dancers From 'Round The World Converge In
AP-NY-06-08-86 1...
(End missing.)
a208 0939 08 Jun 86
AM-Chernobyl-Nuclear,0365
Pravda Says No Traces of Contamination Found in Dnieper Fish
By CAROL J. WILLIAMS
MOSCOW (AP) - The Communist Party daily Pravda said Sunday that fish
in the Dnieper River show no traces of contamination from the
Chernobyl nuclear accident and anglers will be allowed to fish in the
river once the spawning season ends next Saturday.
Fish taken from the Dnieper, which flows from a reservoir just south
of the damaged power station in the northern Ukraine, showed no
traces of higher radiation in their gills, interior organs, fins or
tails, Pravda said.
Soviet officials have asserted that the radiation released after the
April 26 explosion has not contaminated any drinking water and that
new wells are being drilled only as a precaution in case the rainy
season washes contaminants into existing water sources.
Pravda said swimming, fishing and berry and mushroom picking are
still prohibited within the 18-mile danger zone surrounding the
Chernobyl station.
The newspaper said rumors about dangers from swimming or fishing in
other areas are understandable, since part of the river flows through
the danger zone. But it said regular checks of the water are being
conducted and that the Ukrainian Ministry of Health has deemed it
safe to swim, fish and otherwise relax around the waters of the
Dnieper.
Sunday newspapers reported few new details of the accident, which
has killed at least 26 people, or the massive decontamination effort
under way.
Sovietskaya Rossiya, a party publication, carried a story about the
warm welcome accorded one evacuated Chernobyl family in Omsk, where
the head of the family, Valentin Kornienko, has been given work at
another power station.
The labor newspaper Trud published an article on work being done to
seal the ruined No. 4 reactor in concrete, and mentioned that a new
construction department chief, Vladimir Gora, has been appointed at
the power station. The report gave no indication whom Gora replaced
or why the change was made.
Previous newspaper reports said army sappers have completed a tunnel
and pipeline to carry cement below the No. 4 reactor, but no
estimates have been made public on when the salvage workers expect to
have the reactor entombed.
AP-NY-06-08-86 1239EDT
a210 1008 08 Jun 86
AM-Markey Profile, Bjt,0809
The Congressman Who Oversees the Nuclear Overseers
By JILL LAWRENCE
WASHINGTON (AP) - Given to hot rhetoric and flashy one-liners, Rep.
Edward Markey doesn't come across as a consensus builder. But as
chairman of a House panel on energy, he's surprising wary utilities
and conservatives by balancing theatrics with conciliation.
The behind-the-scenes negotiating skills of the brash Bostonian, as
well as his ability to keep his own strong views in check, are being
tested by bills that could determine whether the U.S. nuclear power
industry has a future.
But his work backstage has not eclipsed Markey's propensity for
publicity. Two of his pet issues - nuclear arms control and nuclear
plant safety - are much in the news lately and so is he, particularly
in his role as a congressional overseer of the federal agencies that
regulate the nuclear industry.
The liberal Democrat, an ambitious lawyer in his sixth term, was a
leader in the 1982-83 fight for a nuclear freeze resolution in the
House. He has used the Chernobyl accident in the Soviet Union as a
jumping off point for allegations of lax regulation and too much
secrecy at domestic plants.
In the glare of television lights, right after Chernobyl, Markey
even dressed down a Soviet diplomat whom he had invited to testify
about the accident. He said the Kremlin should have issued a Mayday
distress call instead of celebrating May Day after Chernobyl.
In his typically blunt fashion, he has called the Nuclear Regulatory
Commission a lapdog instead of a watchdog and once told a Department
of Energy official to clear away all the ''folderol'' in her
responses.
Rep. Howard Nielson of Utah, a pro-nuclear Republican on Markey's
energy conservation and power subcommittee, says Markey ''beats up''
on the NRC and DOE and is guilty of hyperbole in trying to link
Chernobyl with U.S. reactors.
But Nielson adds: ''His bark's worse than his bite. ... I think he's
quite a good chairman.''
NRC spokesman Joseph Fouchard says, ''He certainly has pursued our
activities very aggressively.'' But Fouchard calls that healthy and
notes the five commission members are accustomed to fierce rhetoric
at congressional hearings.
Lobbyist Walker Nolan of the Edison Electric Institute, a utility
trade group, echoes the views of his colleagues, saying: ''He's made
quite an effort to be seen as a serious and effective legislator.''
Markey, 39, resists the label anti-nuclear. He says he is critical
of nuclear safety and believes Wall Street will determine whether
utilities invest in new reactors. Meanwhile, Markey says, the
country's 100 operating reactors should be allowed to finish their
operating lives over the next 30 to 40 years.
''Nuclear power exists and it will continue to exist. So the
question becomes, what is the standard of commitment to safety and
public participation?'' he says.
Markey's chief accomplishment as a consensus builder was a
hydroelectric relicensing bill, approved in April, that had started
out with public and private utilities at loggerheads. But the nuclear
power bills facing Congress this year pose an equal if not greater
challenge.
One measure raising the amount of insurance coverage nuclear
utilities must provide in the event of reactor accidents is expected
to come before Markey's subcommittee later this year. Another,
already before the panel, would standardize nuclear plant design and
streamline the licensing system for reactor construction and
operation.
The nuclear industry contends the standardization bill is essential
if nuclear energy is to remain viable in this country. But Markey,
anti-nuclear groups and environmental groups see flaws in provisions
that would limit safety-related changes at plants and that would make
it harder for the public to raise objections to plants after the
early stages of the licensing process.
Under pressure from nine subcommittee members to act on the bill,
Markey told his staff to meet weekly with lobbyists on both sides to
work out compromises.
Environmental and anti-nuclear groups have found in Markey a
spokesman, a platform and a source of information.
''At most committees on (Capitol) Hill we get at most bare
toleration. At least before Chairman Markey, we get a fair hearing,''
says Ellyn Weiss, counsel for the Union of Concerned Scientists. ''I
think Ed understands that right now he is the most important conduit
to the public for information about the NRC.''
Markey says he is glad to be able to spotlight the issues he feels
strongly about, and denies trying to attract attention for its own
sake. ''I can't tell the media what is important or isn't
important,'' he says. As for his critics, he responds, ''To the
extent that people disagree with me (on substance), fine. To the
extent that we're effective in advancing a point of view that I
believe in, that's fine, too.''
AP-NY-06-08-86 1308EDT
a288 1914 08 Jun 86
AM-Chernobyl-Doctor,0503
American Doctor Suggests U.S. Science Research Agency May Join Study
By RICHARD HOLGUIN
LOS ANGELES (AP) - A study of 100,000 evacuees from the Chernobyl
nuclear disaster probably will be joined by the National Institutes
of Health and National Academy of Sciences, an American bone marrow
specialist says.
If those organizations join, it would represent participation by a
U.S. government agency, through the NIH, and a major scientific
adviser to the government, the NAS.
Dr. Robert Gale, a University of California at Los Angeles physician
who treated radiation victims from the April 26 Chernobyl nuclear
reactor disaster, returned home Saturday from his second visit to the
Soviet Union.
Gale told reporters at Los Angeles International Airport that only
two or three more deaths due to radiation were expected in the
immediate future.
The accident has killed 26 people, two in the initial blast and 24
who succumbed to the effects of heavy radiation, he said. ''I believe
the (death toll) figure will remain relatively stable and not change
by (more than) 10 percent.''
Gale said he would return to the Soviet Union on July 21 with an NIH
delegation to begin working out details of the study he estimated
would take about 35 years.
The NAS and experts from other countries also will take part, he
said.
Before leaving Moscow, Gale and a Soviet blood specialist announced
Thursday that a preliminary agreement to monitor the health of the
100,000 evacuees had been signed.
Long-term health consequences of the accident are more difficult to
gauge, he said, because little is known about the effects of
low-level radiation exposure except that it statistically increases
cancer risk.
''Certainly projections that go into the hundreds of thousands (of
cancer deaths) are incorrect,'' he said.
Modern research equipment will make the Chernobyl study more
valuable than the study of hundreds of thousands of Japanese who were
affected by the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki during
World War II, Gale suggested.
Any cancer as a result of the Chernobyl accident will begin
appearing in about five years.
Based on data provided by the Soviets, Gale said 1,000 to 2,000
people were screened for exposure immediately after the accident. Of
those, 400 to 500 required closer medical attention, and 100 to 200
received dangerous doses of radiation.
All who were seriously exposed were within 30 kilometers of the
plant, Gale said.
He said the city of Kiev, 80 miles south of the plant, received 15
to 30 times the normal level of atmospheric radiation when the
initial radioactive plume passed over or about 1 1/2 times the radiation
it would receive in a normal year, he said.
The National Institutes of Health, part of the federal Public Health
Service, finances a major portion of biomedical research in the
United States. There are 11 institutes within the NIH, each dealing
with a major medical field.
The National Academy of Sciences was established by Congress but is
not a government agency. It promotes research and advises the
goverment.
AP-NY-06-08-86 2214EDT
a003 2130 08 Jun 86
PM-Musicians-Chernobyl,0391
Two Skip Prestigious Tchaikovsky Musical Competition
By JIM IRWIN
DETROIT (AP) - Two musicians invited to compete in this week's
Tchaikovsky Festival in Moscow have decided to skip the prestigious
competition because of fears about the Chernobyl nuclear accident.
Pianist Laura Kargul of Ann Arbor said she decided Saturday not to
participate, four days after singer Edith Diggory of Detroit
withdrew.
Kargul had planned to fly Sunday from Toronto to Moscow for the
five-week international musical competition.
But she said during a telephone interview she changed her plans
after receiving conflicting reports about radiation levels in Moscow,
500 miles from the Chernobyl nuclear plant, which caught fire April
26, sprewing radiation thousands of miles.
The accident has killed 26 people, two in the initial blast and 24
who succumbed to the effects of heavy radiation, said Dr. Robert
Gale, a University of California at Los Angeles bone marrow
specialist who has gone to the Soviet Union to treat victims of the
accident. All who were seriously exposed were within about 20 miles
of the plant, Gale said.
''I haven't received enough information to make a decision that it's
safe to go,'' Kargul said. ''Sources at the State Department are
saying that it's not safe to go, although the official line is that
it's safe.''
Kargul, citing Dutch media reports that food being sold in Moscow is
highly contaminated, said Soviet officials would not let her bring
her own food and water into that country.
Kargul, who is single, and Diggory, married and mother of a
2-year-old son, said they feared exposure to radiation would impair
their ability to bear healthy children.
Both women are 30 years old and will not qualify for the 1990
quadrennial competition, which is limited to persons 32 and under.
Kargul, a suburban Detroit native who earned a doctorate in music
from the University of Michigan, said she had trained more than a
year for the competition and was invited to the event in mid-April.
Diggory, a soprano, said she decided June 3 not to travel to the
Soviet Union after talking to her doctor about potential long-term
effects of radiation exposure. She said her doctor told not to go if
she wanted to have more children.
''It appears that (radiation) is significantly more dangerous than I
was previously led to believe,'' Diggory said.
AP-NY-06-09-86 0030EDT
a036 0236 10 Jun 86
PM-Gorbachev-Hungary,0350
Gorbachev Calls for Agreement to Aid Victims of Nuclear Accidents
By MATTHEW C. VITA
BUDAPEST, Hungary (AP) - Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev called
for the establishment of an international program to provide free
medical care, homes and financial aid to victims of nuclear accidents
such as the Chernobyl disaster in the Soviet Ukraine.
Gorbachev discussed the Chernobyl accident at length Monday in a
speech to Hungarian workers at the Csepel machine tool factory in
Budapest.
Today, Gorbachev and the leaders of other Warsaw Pact countries hold
a meeting in the Hungarian capital, and the Soviet leader said he
would propose deep cuts in conventional military forces that both
East and West keep in Europe.
Members of the Warsaw Pact are the Soviet Union, Hungary, Poland,
East Germany, Czechoslovakia, Romania and Bulgaria.
Western diplomats who spoke on condition of anonymity said the
Warsaw Pact countries were expected to issue a specific proposal on
troop reductions, and some said it might help break a deadlock in
talks that have been going on in Vienna for the past 12 years.
The Soviet leader also reiterated an offer to begin talks with
Britain and France on a reduction of medium-range nuclear missiles
separte from the talks the Soviet Union is holding with the United
States in Geneva.
About 100,000 were evacuated from the area around the Chernobyl
nuclear plant, located about 80 miles north of Kiev, after the April
26 reactor explosion and fire. At least 26 people have died as a
result of the accident.
A transcript of Gorbachev's comments on Chernobyl was given
reporters by the official Hungarian news agency MTI.
''Particular attention is to be paid to the material and
moral-psychological damages caused by (a) nuclear accident,'' he
said. ''We believe that a legal order should be set up under which
states would oblige themselves to provide free medical assistance,
dwellings and other kinds of financial aid to victims.''
Gorbachev repeated his call for an international forum to coordinate
the peaceful uses of nuclear energy.
AP-NY-06-10-86 0535EDT
a060 0536 10 Jun 86
PM-Finland-Radioactivity,0346
Finnish Station Detects High Radiation Level
HELSINKI, Finland (AP) - A monitoring station on Finland's southern
coast near the Soviet Union detected radiation levels higher than any
registered after the Chernobyl nuclear accident, officials said
today.
The cause of the high levels recorded Monday night was not
immediately known, and the readings declined today. Swedish radio
said faulty instruments had not been ruled out as a possible cause.
Finnish national radio said the Interior Ministry was investigating
the radiation readings and assured Finns there was no cause for
concern or special precautions. No emergency precautions were
imposed.
The readings of 1.8 milliroentgen per hour Monday night were four
times the highest levels known to have been recorded in Finland
because of radiation from the Chernobyl nuclear accident.
The readings were made at a monitoring station at Kotka on the
southern coast, about 120 miles from the Soviet city of Leningrad,
and were reported to have declined to 0.8 milliroentgen by early this
afternoon.
Officials in Sweden, Finland's neighbor to the west, said monitoring
stations there had recorded no unusual readings.
Swedish nuclear power plants were asked to make special checks
because of the elevated radiation levels reported by Finland.
Forsmark, the Swedish plant that alerted the West to radiation from
the April 26 Chernobyl accident, reported nothing unusual, officials
said.
''We don't have any good explanation because there is only one
station which is reporting higher levels,'' said Ragnar Boge, an
official of Sweden's Radiation Institute.
Asked in a radio interview if the reading could have been caused by
radiation escaping from a nuclear power plant, Boge said, ''it could
be something like that.''
Finland's Lovisa nuclear power station reported no abnormal
readings, officials said.
Kotka is about 60 miles north of Soviet Estonia, from which it is
separated by a branch of the Baltic Sea. Leningrad is to the east.
Winds in the area of Kotka this afternoon were reported to be from
the southwest, blowing from the direction of the Soviet Union, over a
corner of Finland and on toward the Soviet Union again.
AP-NY-06-10-86 0835EDT
- - - - - -
a069 0656 10 Jun 86
PM-Finland-Radioactivity, 1st Ld - Writethru, a060,0418
Eds: UPDATES throughout with higher radiation detected at two other
stations, levels declining, meter failure ruled out, quotes from
officials
Finnish Station Detects High Radiation Level
HELSINKI, Finland (AP) - A monitoring station on Finland's southern
coast near the Soviet Union detected radiation levels higher than any
registered in Finland after the Chernobyl nuclear accident, officials
said today.
Officials said they did not know the cause, but ruled out faulty
instruments.
Readings of 1.8 millirontgens per hour were taken Monday at a
monitoring station in Kotka, a city about 120 miles west from the
Soviet city of Leningrad and 60 miles north of Soviet Estonia.
The levels declined to 0.03 milliroentgen, or near normal, by this
afternoon, said Esko Koskinen, an Interior Ministry official.
A milliroentgen is one-thousandth of a roentgen, the standard
measure of ionizing radiation. Experts say exposure to 50 roentgens
or more per year is dangerous and 400 roentgens per year can be
fatal.
Leif Moberg, head of Sweden's Radiation Institute, said two other
Finnish monitoring stations near Kotka also registered higher than
normal readings, but not as high as in Kotka.
Finland's Lovisa nuclear power station, just to the west of Kotka,
reported no abnormal readings, officials said. Moberg said monitoring
stations in neighboring Sweden also did not detect unusual levels of
radiation.
''We don't know where the cloud came from, where it went or what
could be the reason,'' Moberg.
''It was not a meter fault,'' Koskinen said in a telephone
interview.
Finnish officials said aircraft were trying to find the source of
the radiation which was detected Monday night when winds were blowing
onto the Finnish coast from the Soviet Union.
Finns were advised that they did not have to take precautions.
Koskinen said it would be several days before officials could
determine the extent of the contamination, if any, to crops in the
region.
Antti Vuorinen, head of Finland's Bureau of Nuclear Radiation
Safety, said authorities had not contacted the Soviet government
''because we don't have a system for this sort of immediate contact
with them.
''Since it is a short peak which came and went it is difficult to
establish where it came from,'' he said.
Following the reports of high radiation levels, Finnish officials
asked Sweden to check its nuclear power plants. Forsmark, the Swedish
plant that alerted the West to radiation from the April 26 Chernobyl
accident, reported nothing unusual, officials said.
AP-NY-06-10-86 0953EDT
- - - - - -
a081 0818 10 Jun 86
PM-Finland-Radioactivity, 1st Ld, Insert, a069,0149
HELSINKI, Insert 1 graf after 4th graf to give previous reading. SUB
7th graf: Finland's Lovisa xxx radiation to say Finland has two
nuclear power plants.
After the Chernobyl nuclear accident, radiation levels in Finland
reached 0.45 milliroentgens.
A milliroentgen is one-thousandth of a roentgen, the standard
measure of ionizing radiation. Experts say exposure to 50 roentgens
or more per year is dangerous and 400 roentgens per year can be
fatal.
Leif Moberg, head of Sweden's Radiation Institute, said two other
Finnish monitoring stations near Kotka also registered higher than
normal readings, but not as high as in Kotka.
Finland has two nuclear power stations. At the Lovisa station, just
to the west of Kotka, no abnormal readings were reported, officials
said. Moberg said monitoring stations in neighboring Sweden also did
not detect unusual levels of radiation.
''We don't: 8th graf
AP-NY-06-10-86 1118EDT
a036 0254 11 Jun 86
PM-Finland-Radiation,0525
Finns Say Instruments Probably to Blame For Radiation Peak
By RISTO MAENPAA
HELSINKI, Finland (AP) - Finland's Bureau of Nuclear Radiation
Safety today said faulty instruments probably were responsible for a
mysteriously high radiation reading at a coastal monitoring station
near the Soviet Union.
''The most likely explanation for the peak measurements at Kotka is
at the moment a fault in the measuring devices,'' a five-paragraph
government statement said.
On Tuesday, officials said the measuring instruments were not to
blame for Monday's six hours of unusually high recordings of
radioacitivity. For 10 seconds the readings were even higher than
those recorded after the Chernobyl nuclear accident in the Soviet
Ukraine.
''The other slight increases detected in the Kotka area on June 9
may have been caused by local weather conditions and changes in
normal background radiation,'' it said.
''If later analysis gives cause, the Bureau of Nuclear Radiation
Safety will advise about the situation immediately,'' it said.
The monitoring station at Kotka is on Finland's southeastern coast
only about 60 miles from the coast of Soviet Estonia.
A 10-second peak Monday night showed a reading of 1.8 milliroentgen
per hour, four times greater than any recorded in Finland after the
Chernobyl nuclear power station accident.
Other stations near Kotka also recorded higher levels of radiation
but none as high as the reading at Kotka.
The mysterious reading touched off alerts at nuclear power stations
in both Finland and Sweden, where checks showed only normal levels of
radiation. No public safety warnings were issued.
Finnish officials said Tuesday that radiation would have had to be
more than 10 times higher than that indicated by the Kotka peak
reading before public precautions were called for.
Monitoring stations in neighboring Sweden reported no unusual
readings during the Finnish incident and officials in Stockholm today
indicated support for the Helsinki explanation.
''We have good relations with the radiation authorities in Finland
and believe what they say'' said Hans Edvall, a department head at
Sweden's National Radiation Protection Institute.
Edvall said in a telephone interview that weather factors such as
rains, bringing lingering airborne radiation down to the ground, had
at times caused changes in background radiation in Sweden as well.
The Finnish statement said military aircraft sent up after the
reading had collected four air dust samples Tuesday and that
inspection of the samples showed no radioactive elements that were
not already there from the Chernobyl accident.
It said a measuring vehicle was at work in eastern Finland, close to
the Soviet border, and it too had not found anything new in air or
ground checks.
The Kotka readings had dropped back to 0.03 milliroentgen, which
officials said was close to normal, less than 24 hours after the
sudden peak.
Finland and Sweden were the first two western countries to report
the discovery of radioactivity that the Soviet Union later said was a
result of the April 26 accident at Chernobyl.
Finnish officials were widely criticized in both Finland and Sweden
for not being more forthcoming in their information about the
Chernobyl radiation.
Finland, however, has an especially sensitive political relationship
with the neighboring Soviet Union.
AP-NY-06-11-86 0554EDT
a076 0716 13 Jun 86
PM-Chernobyl-Experts,0547
Chernobyl Victims' Radiation Sickness Horrifying, Doctor Says
By WILLIAM C. HIDLAY
CHICAGO (AP) - An American doctor recently returned from Moscow says
he was horrified to see the injuries suffered by some of the victims
of Chernobyl nuclear disaster.
Dr. Michael McCally said the faces and bodies of some of the victims
were scarred by dusky red radiation burns and peeling skin.
''The burns are like nothing I'd ever seen before. I was just
horrified,'' said McCally, a clinical professor at the University of
Chicago's Pritzker School of Medicine and a member of Physicians for
Social Responsibility, an anti-nuclear group.
At a news conference Thursday, McCally said he visited Moscow's
Hospital Six and was allowed to examine two Chernobyl workers who
suffered radiation sickness and burns from the April 26 accident.
Citing Soviet statistics, he said 299 patients - all but two of them
workers at the nuclear plant - were admitted to the hospital after
the accident, suffering from radiation sickness. Twenty-six have
died, 80 are in critical condition and 89 have been discharged, he
said.
McCally and about 25 other doctors also met with Dr. Robert Gale, an
American blood and bone-marrow-transplant specialist helping to care
for Chernobyl victims.
McCally visited Moscow June 4-10 after going to West Germany for the
International Congress of International Physicians for the Prevention
of Nuclear War.
''It really isn't appreciated here what a disaster, what a tragedy
this was in the Soviet Union and Europe,'' he said. ''In Europe, it
has become a symbol of the dangers of nuclear technology, the danger
of nuclear war.''
Meanwhile, in Urbana, an expert on nuclear power in the Ukraine,
where the Chernobyl plant is located, said the Soviet Union's
depletion of accessible coal and oil reserves has forced it to embark
on an aggressive nuclear power program.
''They have no alternative. As a result, there are certain safety
conditions being neglected,'' said David Marples, a researcher from
the Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies at the University of
Alberta.
Marples presented a paper on Soviet nuclear power Thursday during a
weeklong Ukrainian conference at the University of Illinois.
''Chernobyl is a warning, but I don't think it's going to change
anything,'' said Marples, who was working on a book about nuclear
power in the Ukraine when the accident occurred. The book is due out
in the fall.
Among other findings, Marples said the Soviet Union had targeted the
Ukraine to be a heavy exporter of power to other parts of the country
as well as its satellites.
None of the satellite countries in the nuclear program has been able
to meet its timetable, which has put added pressure on the Ukraine's
young and inexperienced workforce, Marples said.
''The pressure placed on the Ukrainian workers engaged in building
nuclear plants has, in turn, led to some major and dangerous
problems,'' Marples said.
Hazards include short-cuts in the building of plants, shoddy
workmanship and low morale among workers, he said, citing evidence
from Ukraine newspapers and Moscow television.
Nuclear power now provides about 12 percent of the nation's power
and will account for 33 percent of all electricity generated by the
year 2000.
AP-NY-06-13-86 1016EDT
a201 0915 14 Jun 86
AM-News Digest,1268
Sunday, June 15, 1986
Here are the top stories at this hour from The Associated Press. The
SOUTH AFRICA: Government Says Soweto Anniversary Will Be 'Normal' Day
Apparent Deadlock Between Government And Determined Black Activists
Thousands Jam Central Park, Jackson Demands Sanctions
LEBANON FIGHTING: At Least 100 Dead Or Wounded
QUEEN'S BIRTHDAY: Elizabeth Rides Through London
CHERNOBYL'S CHILDREN: They Recall Being Rousted From Sleep, Moved
ARTEK PIONEER CAMP, U.S.S.R. - Chernobyl's children remember.
Natasha remembers ''a kind of smoke'' in the air. Misha recalls his
mother rousing him and saying they were going go to Kiev. It was
April 26, night of the Chernobyl nuclear accident. Slug AM-Chernobyl
Children. New, will stand. 1,000 words.
An AP Extra by By Alison Smale. LaserPhoto MOS13, children of
firefighter who fought Chernobyl fire; MOS14, child gets medical
check.
MEDIA TRANSPLANTS: Critics Debate Media's Role In Organ Donations
INFIGHTING: Administration Airing Its Differences in Public
TAXES: Final Senate Vote on Tax Overhaul Due Next Week
MONEY TROUBLES:
Mexico Seeking Fresh Loans To Get Through Money Crunch
Industrial Countries Differ on Money Matters
US-AFGHANISTAN: Guerrilla Leaders Meeting With Reagan
AMA CONVENTION: Policymakers to Consider Issues From Medicare to
RURAL CO-OPS: When Refinancing Debt Could Cost Taxpayer
WOMEN SPIES: Novelist Says The Female Is Better Than The Male
CAPTAIN TESTRAKE: TWA Pilot Recalls Hijacking, Hostage Ordeal
TRACK TRAGEDY: Family, Friends Try to Understand Jump From Bridge
a214 1020 14 Jun 86 AM-Chernobyl Children, Bjt,0981
Chernobyl Children Describe Life after Nuclear Accident
An AP Extra
By ALISON SMALE
ARTEK PIONEER CAMP, U.S.S.R. (AP) - Chernobyl's children remember.
Natasha Zheryubkina, 9, remembers ''a kind of smoke'' in the air and
that the town ''smelled of burning.''
Misha Telyatnikov, 10, remembers his mother rousing him and his
12-year-old brother, Oleg, at 3:30 a.m. and telling them they were
going to Kiev.
''She didn't tell us why.''
It was Saturday, April 26, the night of the Chernobyl nuclear
accident.
The children were in their homes and apartments in Pripyat, the city
for the Chernobyl nuclear plant workers two miles from the No. 4
reactor that blew up and burst into flames at 1:23 a.m., nearly two
hours before Misha and Oleg Telyatnikov were awakened. Their father,
Leonid, was a firefighter at the No. 4 reactor. He is now in a Moscow
hospital for treatment of radiation exposure.
The two boys are here now at this summer camp on the Black Sea,
among the 110 children who lived in Pripyat, for rest and medical
supervision.
Not all the children left as soon as Misha and Oleg. The official
order to evacuate Pripyat was given 36 hours later and convoys of
buses took out the thousands of residents.
Other children in the camp said they went off to school as usual in
the morning; children go to school on Saturdays in the Soviet Union.
They remember trucks watering down the streets.
At school, they said, they listened to teachers instruct them on
steps to take against radiation: Stay indoors when you get home, tape
up the windows, close the balcony doors, wash shoes, change clothes
and warn your parents.
Olya Demidova, 14, said that at school children were given tablets
and told to take them. Dima Sokolov, also 14, said lessons previously
given about civil defense were taught again.
''The teacher told us everything to do after school,'' she said.
''The main thing was that there should be no panic.''
Misha Telyatnikov remembers, ''I asked mama why they didn't evacuate
people. She said, 'So there won't be panic.' ''
The children and Artek camp officials reinforced the picture given
in Soviet media of calm, courage and bravery in the face of the
disaster, which has so far claimed 26 lives.
''Of course it was a shame to leave our homes,'' said Oksana
Arzhantsova, 16. ''But we knew that we had to.''
She and others said most of the Pripyat residents were taken about
125 miles from the plant to the Polessk region and welcomed ''like
relatives'' by those at whose houses they were billeted.
Selected for a stay at this coveted summer camp primarily because
their fathers work at the Chernobyl plant, the Pripyat children
arrived at Artek on May 18 and will be staying at least until August,
said Nikolai Pervukhin, deputy head of Artek's educational
department.
The children seemed happy with the rare chance to spend the summer
at Artek, considered the nation's best camp for the Communist Party's
Young Pioneers, the Soviet equivalent of Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts.
''We gave them everything they didn't have - sport shoes, bathing
suits - the things they didn't have time to grab,'' Pervukhin said.
The children also received medical examinations, which revealed that
25 had above-normal radiation readings, according to Dr. Sergei
Lavarev, the camp physician. He described all the increased readings
as insignificant.
But Kostya Avramenko, a 15-year-old who lived just a half mile from
the plant and was found to have the highest radiation reading of 1.1
milliroentgens, is under orders not to stay in the Crimean sun for
more than 30 minutes a day, Pervukhin said.
Blood tests taken when the children arrived showed five had slightly
abnormal blood-cell counts, Lavarev said. Weekly examinations and
weekly blood tests taken from all the children showed, however, that
cell counts were back to normal after two weeks, he added.
Lavarev and camp counselors said the accident has left no apparent
psychological scars on the children.
''The first day, the kids were a little bit more down than other
children,'' said camp counselor Olga Sakruto. Now, she added, ''they
have no worries; their parents write letters regularly, and many of
their relatives and parents come'' to visit.
Two children, Oleg and Larisa Khodemchuk, have their mother with
them at Artek, Pervukhin said. Viktor Khodemchuk, their father, was
one of two plant workers killed instantly in the Chernobyl accident.
Pervukhin said Mrs. Khodemchuk is working at Artek and watching her
daughter, who underwent an appendectomy while in camp care. He said
all three were fine but are still carrying the psychological burden
of the death in their family.
Olya Demidova and Dima Sokolov both said there had been worry in
their families because their fathers had worked at the Chernobyl
plant during and after the accident. Dima said his father was ''a
little bit sick'' and hospitalized for a week, but is fine now.
The Telyatnikov boys seemed buoyant about the prospects for the
future once their father gets out of the hospital.
Oleg talked, however, of two other firemen, Vladimir Pravik and
Viktor Kibenok, who died after receiving massive radiation doses
battling the Chernobyl fire.
''They were almost like my best friends,'' he said. ''I played chess
with them.''
Oleg added that his father ''writes me letters in his own hand'' and
that he and his brother Misha would soon join their parents,
grandfather and aunt in Moscow.
No one knows when, if ever, these children will return home.
''Our town is really very beautiful,'' said Oksana Arzhantsova.
''There are many, many roses in our town, and that's what I
remember.''
AP-NY-06-14-86 1320EDT
- - - - - -
a240 1348 14 Jun 86
AM-Chernobyl Children, SUB, a214,0069
ARTEK PIONEER CAMP, U.S.S.R.: CORRECTS 6th graf bgng: The two boys...
The 110 children were those evacuated. They were not all of the
children in the town but unhave total number.
The two boys are here now at this summer camp on the Black Sea. They
were among the 110 Pripyat children who were evacuated for rest and
medical supervision.
Not all, 7th graf
AP-NY-06-14-86 1647EDT
- - - - - -
a254 1558 14 Jun 86
AM-Digest Advisory,0188
All budgets have cleared. Here is a listing.
ARTEK PIONEER CAMP, U.S.S.R. - Chernobyl Children, a240, a214.
WASH - Bureaucratic Infighting, a216.
WASH - US-Afghanistan, a220.
CHICAGO -AMA Convention, a221.
WASH - Tax Overhaul, a222.
BEIRUT, Lebanon - Lebanon, a225. LaserPhoto BEI3.
JOHANNESBURG, South Africa - South Africa-Deadlock, a226.
LONDON - Queen's Birthday, a227. LaserPhotos LON1,4.
JOHANNESBURG, South Africa - South Africa, a241, laserphoto JOH10.
JOHANNESBURG, South Africa - Soweto: 10 Years moved in advance as
NEW YORK - Apartheid Protest, a252.
LOS ANGELES - Media Transplants, a242.
MEXICO CITY - Mexico-Economy, a238.
WASH - Monetary Crisis, a243.
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - US-Afghanistan, a220.
WASH - Refinancing Coops, moved in advance as a260 on June 13.
BOSTON - Women Spies, a234.
RICHMOND, Va. - Testrake Looks Back, moved in advance as a259-a260
ROCKINGHAM, N.C. - Track and Tragedy, moved in advance as a264 on
AP-NY-06-14-86 1858EDT
a232 1235 14 Jun 86
AM-Doctors Protest,0650
Doctors Call for Nuclear Weapons Test Ban
Laserphoto WX10
By JILL LAWRENCE
WASHINGTON (AP) - White-coated, banner-waving doctors from more than
a dozen states held a ''Code Blue'' rally Saturday on the Capitol
steps, urging Congress to save lives by cutting off money for nuclear
weapons testing.
''Code Blue means human life is at risk and immediate intervention
is necessary,'' said Dr. Jack Geiger, a New York internist and
epidemiologist, professor of community medicine at the City
University of New York medical school, and president of the
50,000-member Physicians for Social Responsibility.
Geiger said he and several colleagues recently returned from Moscow
where they visited ''young men with dreadful radiation burns peering
out from life bubbles'' - among the most seriously injured of 200
people hospitalized after the April 26 nuclear accident at the
Chernobyl reactor.
''To look at these frightened, suffering patients was to learn once
again what the nuclear arms race really is about. It's not just about
throw weights, it's not just about missile types or telemetric
encryption, it's not just about warhead numbers. At the bottom, it is
about human life,'' Geiger told some 200 doctors wearing blue
armbands that said ''Stop Nuclear Tests.''
A nuclear war would be ''Chernobyl magnified not a million times but
a hundred million times . . . a disaster that would threaten not 200
people, not 100,000 people, but all of the people of the Northern
Hemisphere and perhaps more around the globe,'' Geiger said. ''We
have a responsibility . . . to see to it that that doesn't happen.''
The Soviet Union has not tested nuclear warheads since August 1985,
and has said it will continue its unilateral moratorium past an Aug.
6 deadline if the United States agrees to stop its weapons tests. The
Reagan administration has dismissed the offer as grandstanding.
Before the rally, Geiger and other PSR officials met for an hour
with Oleg Sokolov, charge d'affaires at the Soviet Embassy, and two
other Soviet diplomats. Geiger said the U.S. doctors urged the
Soviets to continue observing the testing moratorium and the weapons
limits of the unratified SALT II treaty, which the administration
says it is no longer using to guide its defense decisions.
Three House members plan to introduce an amendment in the next few
weeks to cut off money for nuclear tests as long as the Soviets
continue their moratorium.
Members of PSR, the American chapter of the Nobel Peace
Prize-winning International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear
War, have been deluging the White House with prescription forms made
out to the president, prescribing a halt to nuclear tests.
Participants in the rally, some coming from as far as Seattle and
Atlanta, signed a resolution calling for a U.S.-Soviet testing
moratorium and resumption of negotiations toward the Comprehensive
Test Ban Treaty.
''We're sick and tired of preparations for war to preserve the
peace,'' said Rear Adm. Gene R. LaRocque, director of the Center for
Defense Information, which frequently criticizes Reagan
administration nuclear arms policies. ''There is nothing we want -
there is nothing we want to avoid - which under any circumstances
would be worth a nuclear war.''
PSR members say they are practicing the ultimate in preventive
medicine by urging a nuclear test ban. They say they would have no
help to offer - no miracle technology, no bone marrow transplants -
if a nuclear attack occurred.
''People shouldn't have illusions about an untreatable disorder,
particularly if it can be prevented,'' said Dr. Daniel Fine, an
internist from New Kensington, Pa.
Dr. Doug Riggs, 71, a physiologist from Brattleboro, Vt., said
enormous strides have been made during his lifetime to preserve life
and health. ''These strides will undoubtedly continue unless the
world decides to blow itself up,'' he said. ''And then the whole
thing will have been useless.''
AP-NY-06-14-86 1535EDT
a251 1535 14 Jun 86
AM-Digest Briefs,0813
Eds: This package does not contain the following items from the News
Digest: JOHANNESBURG, South Africa - South Africa; JOHANNESBURG,
South Africa - Soweto: 10 Years Later; JOHANNESBURG, South Africa -
South Africa-Deadlock; NEW YORK - Apartheid Protest; BEIRUT, Lebanon
- Lebanon; ARTEK PIONEER CAMP, U.S.S.R. - Chernobyl-Children; LOS
ANGELES - Media Transplants; MEXICO CITY - Mexico-Economy; WASH -
Monetary Crisis; WASH - Refinancing Coops; BOSTON - Women-Spies;
UNDATED - Testrake Looks Back; ROCKINGHAM, N.C. - Track and Tragedy
LONDON - Queen Elizabeth II ignored the possibility of a terrorist
NEW YORK - Oscar- and Tony-winning lyricist, playwright and composer
GENEVA - Jorge Luis Borges, an Argentine whose poems and prose
WASHINGTON - Before the Senate gives a solid endorsement to the
---
WASHINGTON - White-coated, banner-waving doctors from more than a
dozen states held a ''Code Blue'' rally Saturday on the Capitol
steps, urging Congress to save lives by cutting off money for nuclear
weapons testing.
''Code Blue means human life is at risk and immediate intervention
is necessary,'' said Dr. Jack Geiger, a New York internist and
epidemiologist, professor of community medicine at the City
University of New York medical school, and president of the
50,000-member Physicians for Social Responsibility.
Geiger said he and several colleagues recently returned from Moscow
where they visited ''young men with dreadful radiation burns peering
out from life bubbles'' - among the most seriously injured of 200
people hospitalized after the April 26 nuclear accident at the
Chernobyl reactor.
---
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - Four Afghan guerrilla leaders will ask for
CHICAGO - Policymakers for the nation's largest organization of
a201 0826 15 Jun 86
AM-News Digest,1082
Monday, June 16, 1986
Here are the top stories at this hour from The Associated Press. The
SOUTH AFRICA: Death Toll Rises, Police Brace For Soweto Riots Anniversary
Tutu, In Guarded Church, Speaks of Freedom
CHERNOBYL: Soviets Fire Plant Director, Aides Over Nuclear Disaster
MOSCOW - Pravda says Chernobyl's power station director, other aides
were fired for irresponsibility in the April 26 nuclear disaster. It
criticizes by name five top managers, the Komsomol youth organization
chief, the trade union leader. Slug AM-Chernobyl-Nuclear. Developing.
By Carol J. Williams.
CHINA-SATELLITES: U.S. Company In Agreement With Peking For Two
ECONOMY: Economic Growth Not Following Reagan's Script
SALT: House to Vote This Week on SALT Compliance
Senators Glenn and Cohen Change Positions On The Treaty
TAXES: Tax Overhaul Bill Finding Strength in Its Broad Scope
MUNICIPAL BONDS: Mayors Fear Tax Overhaul's Fallout On Bonds
LAMPEDUSA BASE: Last Year Pool Parties, This Year Wire Enclosure
WAR CRIMES: Death Camp Guard's Trial Takes Soviets Through History
MARLIN PERKINS: 'Wild Kingdom' Host Dead Of Cancer At 81
CAMPAIGN '86: Nebraska Legislator Threatens to Challenge Two Women
HEARTBEATS: Girl Who Received Friend's Heart Trying For Normal Life
CELEBRATING LIBERTY: The Irish Make Their Way To U.S. In 19th Century
STACY KEACH: Actor's 'Christmas With Her Majesty' Was No Holiday
AP-NY-06-15-86 1124EDT
a289 2101 15 Jun 86
AM-Chernobyl Exam,0260
U.S. Doctor Sees Chernobyl Victims In Moscow
BOSTON (AP) - The Chernobyl nuclear power plant disaster in the
Soviet Union has created ''a new generation of the living dead,''
said a cardiologist who examined some of the victims in a Moscow
hospital.
Dr. Sidney Alexander of Newton, a staff member of the Lahey Clinic
in Burlington and an anti-nuclear weapons activist, said the
Chernobyl radiation victims ''literally have a time bomb ticking
within,'' like survivors of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima in World
War II who later came down with cancer.
In an interview Saturday from Washington, where he participated in
an anti-nuclear rally, Alexander told the Sunday Boston Herald he and
other doctors from the Physicians for Social Responsibility examined
seven Chernobyl victims during their June 7 visit to a Moscow
hospital.
He said he examined a 60-year-old plant engineer whose ''bone marrow
was completely wiped out. He suffered severe radiation burns, a
nearly lethal infection and lost all his hair.
''He was a rather stoical guy who expects to go back to the plant
and continue working.''
''I'm not sure if this man was aware of the serious nature of his
illness, but as doctors we must give patients hope. Maybe he will
survive,'' Alexander said.
''The other patients ranged from a 26-year-old man who looked
absolutely normal but had suffered nausea to an older man who had a
bone marrow transplant and is now ill with liver and lung problems.''
The April 26 explosion and fire at the Soviet reactor is the worst
nuclear power plant accident.
AP-NY-06-15-86 2358EDT
a002 2126 15 Jun 86
PM-News Digest,1357
Monday, June 16, 1986
Here are the top stories for PMs. The General Desk supervisor is Ron
SOUTH AFRICA: Tensions Soar on Today's 10th Anniversary of Soweto
PHILIPPINES: Marcos, In an Exclusive Interview, Fears Violence in
No Room Left in Philippines Children's Cemetery
CHERNOBYL: Disaster Created Heroes, But Villains Now Hold Center
Stage
MOSCOW - In a country that lauds the collective deed and comradely
concern, the Chernoybl disaster created heroes. It also created
villains - those who panicked, fled, ignored the dangers of the
accident or chose not to help. Slug PM-Chernobyl-Villains. New,
should stand. 690 words.
By Alison Smale.
EAST-WEST: Reagan Seeks to Renew High-Level Talks With Soviets
AFGHANISTAN: Rebels Leaders Lobby Administration for More Aid
GRAMM RUDMAN: Report Supreme Court Will Strike Key Provision
CAPITOL HILL: Senate Ready to Give Tax Overhaul Overwhelming Approval
OIL PRICES: OPEC Not Likely to Reach Voluntary Limits Soon, Sources
CATHOLIC vs. ORTHODOX: Reunion Effort Hits a Snag
SMOKING AT WORK: Survey Says Nearly One-Third of Employers Have
SEX AT WORK: Most Americans Say It's Still a Man's World - At Least
INSURANCE LOSSES: House Panel Boss Says Industry Not that Bad Off
WASHINGTON TODAY: The Name Game Involving Political Action Committees
POLICE DRUG TESTING: Solution to a Still Undefined Problem?
AMERICAN FAMILY: An African Warrior's Descendants
HOSPITAL SHIPS: Vessels Could Aid Relief Efforts, Navy Says
ANOTHER LOOK: Proxmire Fought Chicago Move To Divert Great Lakes
a005 2152 15 Jun 86
Names in the News
SYDNEY, Australia (AP) - Eleven-year-old Eamon Burke says he plans
to avoid bringing up the Chernobyl nuclear accident when he meets
with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, who has invited him to visit
the Soviet Union.
The freckle-faced, red-haired youngster left his home in a Sydney
suburb Sunday for the Soviet Union after saying, ''It is dumb how
much red tape there is around dismantling nuclear weapons.''
He planned to present the Soviet leader with a peace scroll signed
by more than 1,000 Australian schoolchildren.
''But I won't be talking to him about Chernobyl because I think he
might be a little upset about that at the moment,'' he said.
---
GROSSE POINTE FARMS, Mich. (AP) - Chrysler Corp. Chairman Lee
HONOLULU (AP) - Frank Sinatra is scheduled to make 1 1/2-hour singing
LOS ANGELES (AP) - Actors Dean Martin and Chuck Connors,
CAMBRIDGE, England (AP) - Prince Edward, youngest of Queen Elizabeth
AP-NY-06-16-86 0046EDT
a022 0045 16 Jun 86
PM-Chernobyl-Villains, Bjt,0733
Chernobyl Managers Fired as Inefficiency, Panic, Exposed
By ALISON SMALE
MOSCOW (AP) - In a country that lauds collective deeds and comradely
concern, the Chernobyl nuclear disaster has created heroes, but also
individual villains - those who panicked, fled, ignored the
accident's dangers or declined to help.
On Sunday, the Communist Party daily Pravda reported the most
serious punishments meted out so far to those who performed poorly
during and after the April 26 explosion and fire at the atomic power
station.
Chernobyl's manager, chief engineer and other officials have been
fired, Pravda reported. Poor management also has been blamed for
allowing other workers to run away. Many still have not been found.
Five top managers and leaders of the plant's Communist youth group
and trade union all were criticized by name in one report. It did not
make clear how many had been expelled from their posts.
Word of the firings rounded out the picture of calm and courage that
emerged from the Soviet media with accounts desertions, inefficiency
and confusion in the face of the world's worst nuclear power
accident.
Pravda did not say, however, if the management shortcomings could
have caused or contributed to the accident at the plant 80 miles
north of Kiev. The cause of the accident has not been disclosed.
At least 26 people died and hundreds were hospitalized with
radiation sickness as a result of the disaster. More than 100,000
people were evacuated from contaminated areas in the Ukraine and
Byelorussia, and a massive cleanup is under way.
The Communist Party exacted its first punishments in early May,
when, according to Pravda, the chief engineer of the Chernobyl
plant's building and transport section was expelled from the party
and two other section officials were reprimanded.
On May 6 Deputy Premier Boris Shcherbina, head of the government
commission investigating the accident, placed the blame on local
officials, saying, ''those on the spot did not give the necessary
evaluation to what took place.''
Since then, the criticism has spread from those who were at the
scene when Chernobyl's No. 4 reactor was torn open by the explosion
and fire to those who dealt with the disaster and resulting
evacuation.
The words of criticism, however, never have touched officials in
Moscow.
On at least three occasions, Pravda has attacked bureaucrats in the
Ukraine. It says their indifference delayed the departure of hundreds
of mothers and children for summer camps and left other evacuees in
''far from desirable'' conditions.
Although most villagers were reported to have taken in evacuees
gladly, Pravda has said that at least one man refused to allow anyone
in his large home, arguing they would ruin the polished floors.
On June 3, Pravda disclosed that 177 of 2,611 Communist Party
members in the town of Pripyat, next to the stricken plant, still
were unaccounted for. This implied a much higher rate of desertion
than suggested in previous reports.
Grigory Revenko, head of the Communist Party in Kiev, announced last
month that there would be ''a sharp examination of each individual''
and said some leading officials had already been fired and expelled
from the party.
This was in keeping with the drive under Soviet leader Mikhail S.
Gorbachev to cleanse party ranks of those who fail in their assigned
role as members of the vanguard of Soviet society.
Pravda's account of the Chernobyl firings on Sunday, however, was
noticeably more delicate in criticizing the Communist Party
organization at the plant than in detailing the failings of
management. Soviet media have customarily exercised caution in
attacking party organizations.
To date, Moscow-based leaders have had only a positive role in
official accounts of the disaster.
Two top Kremlin officials, Premier Nikolai I. Ryzhkov and ideology
boss Yegor K. Ligachev, visited the disaster area on May 2 and
ordered ''additional measures'' taken.
Gorbachev, who first addressed the nation 18 days after the
Chernobyl disaster, struck a tone of assured concern at the time and
pledged, ''The Soviet government will take care of the families of
those who died and who suffered.''
Any consequences for top leaders in Moscow and Kiev may emerge from
an expected meeting this week of the Communist Party's Central
Committee, the body which approves all major personnel shifts and
policy.
AP-NY-06-16-86 0343EDT
a044 0408 16 Jun 86
PM-Digest Briefs,1246
MOSCOW (AP) - In a country that lauds collective deeds and comradely
concern, the Chernobyl nuclear disaster has created heroes, but also
individual villains - those who panicked, fled, ignored the
accident's dangers or declined to help.
On Sunday, the Communist Party daily Pravda reported the most
serious punishments meted out so far to those who performed poorly
during and after the April 26 explosion and fire at the atomic power
station.
Chernobyl's manager, chief engineer and other officials have been
fired, Pravda reported. Poor management also has been blamed for
allowing other workers to run away. Many still have not been found.
---
WASHINGTON (AP) - President Reagan, who has sent a conciliatory
WASHINGTON (AP) - Afghan rebel leaders arrived here seeking
BRUSSELS, Belgium (AP) - OPEC has failed to meet its spring target
VATICAN CITY (AP) - Discussions about ending the 900-year-old rift
WASHINGTON (AP) - While the insurance industry maintains its pockets
SAN DIEGO (AP) - Two huge former tankers being converted into the
WEATHERFORD, Texas (AP) - The nickel cup of coffee is alive and well
(End missing.)
- - - - - -
a036 0254 16 Jun 86
PM-Washington in Brief,0596
WASHINGTON (AP) - White-coated, banner-waving doctors from more than
a dozen states held a ''Code Blue'' rally Saturday on the Capitol
steps, urging Congress to save lives by cutting off money for nuclear
weapons testing.
''Code Blue means human life is at risk and immediate intervention
is necessary,'' said Dr. Jack Geiger, a New York internist and
epidemiologist, professor of community medicine at the City
University of New York medical school, and president of the
50,000-member Physicians for Social Responsibility.
Geiger said he and several colleagues recently returned from Moscow
where they visited ''young men with dreadful radiation burns peering
out from life bubbles'' - among the most seriously injured of 200
people hospitalized after the April 26 nuclear accident at the
Chernobyl reactor.
''To look at these frightened, suffering patients was to learn once
again what the nuclear arms race really is about. It's not just about
throw weights, it's not just about missile types or telemetric
encryption, it's not just about warhead numbers. At the bottom, it is
about human life,'' Geiger told some 200 doctors wearing blue
armbands that said ''Stop Nuclear Tests.''
A nuclear war would be ''Chernobyl magnified not a million times but
a hundred million times ... a disaster that would threaten not 200
people, not 100,000 people, but all of the people of the northern
hemisphere and perhaps more around the globe,'' Geiger said. ''We
have a responsibility ... to see to it that that doesn't happen.''
---
WASHINGTON (AP) - The FBI is investigating the T. Bear Foundation, a
WASHINGTON (AP) - New means of tracking financial deals are helping
AP-NY-06-16-86 0553EDT
a002 2135 16 Jun 86
PM-News Digest,1416
Tuesday, June 17, 1986
Here are the top stories for PMs. The General Desk supervisor is Ron
SOUTH AFRICA: Government Says that Despite Intimidation Day Was Calm
SOVIET ARMS: Gorbachev Lays Out Arms Plan in Speech to Party
TAX OVERHAUL: Senate Likely to Keep Scores of Special Tax Breaks
BUDGET BATTLE: Talks Will Continue Despite Reagan Rejection of Offer
GRAMM-RUDMAN: Plans in the Works for Cuts Even if Measure is
TERRORIST TAPES: NBC News Shows Abbas Interview To Justice Department
AFGHANISTAN: Reagan Rejects Request to Break Ties with Kabul
SALVADOR: Duarte Says New Talks May Ease Tensions, But Not Solve
NICARAGUA: Street Gangs Keep Police Busy in Managua
SMOKING: Doctors Ask AMA to Step up Assault on Tobacco
AIDS: Yearly Cost Could Reach $16 Billion, But Who Pays?
BAD ADS: Consumer Groups Say the Government is Dropping Its Guard
NUCLEAR AGREEMENTS: International Scientists To Confer on Accidents
RENO, Nev. - In the wake of the Chernobyl accident, nuclear experts
will meet next month to work out agreements for international
response to serious reactor accidents, says an official of an
international nuclear agency. Slug PM-Nuclear Agreements. New, should
stand. 500 words.
By Science Writer Malcolm Ritter.
CUTTING THE PURSESTRINGS: HUD Chief Warns The Nation's Mayors
SPACE SHUTTLE: Say Main Engines May Be More Vulnerable than Thought
SUPREME COURT: Schools in Norfolk, Va., Get OK to End Busing
MILITARY PAY: Congressional Study Says Service Has Much to Offer
ON THE FARM: Slide in Farmland Value is Easing But Likely to Continue
a023 0034 17 Jun 86
PM-Nuclear Agreements, Bjt,0453
Energy Agency Considers Early-Warning Pact For Future Chernobyls
By MALCOLM RITTER
AP Science Writer
RENO, Nev. (AP) - International experts will meet next month to
draft an agreement requiring nations to warn their neighbors if a
nuclear accident spews radiation outside their borders as the
Chernobyl accident did, an official of an international nuclear power
agency says.
The proposed agreement, and another pact covering emergency aid
after such an accident, could be endorsed as early as September when
the 112-nation International Atomic Energy Agency holds a general
meeting, said Morris Rosen, director of the agency's division of
nuclear safety.
Nuclear experts will meet July 21 in Vienna, where the agency is
based, to work out drafts of the agreements to be submitted to the
general meeting Sept. 29, Rosen said in an interview Monday.
''There is a consensus we should have the agreements,'' he said,
adding that he was optimistic that if approval doesn't come in
September, ''it will be a reasonable period afterward.''
Rosen, who also spoke Monday to a session of the American Nuclear
Society annual meeting, said the energy agency had drafted guidelines
for early warning and accident assistance before the Chernobyl
disaster.
But the move toward the agreements is ''clearly a result of the
accident,'' he said. The fact that radiation from the Soviet reactor
crossed national boundaries ''emphasized the need for more
international cooperation,'' he said.
The Soviet Union, which is a member of the international agency,
came under sharp criticism after the April 26 Chernobyl disaster for
not warning other nations of the drift of radiation. Western nations
first learned of the accident after radiation was detected in Sweden.
Rosen also said Soviet officials have promised to send a team of
experts to Vienna the week of Aug. 25 to present a detailed review of
the accident and its consequences.
''I think right now they don't have all the answers,'' he said.
''They're still doing the analysis.''
Rosen said reactors outside the Soviet Union are different from the
Chernobyl reactor. Other reactors that use graphite rather than water
to aid in the nuclear chain-reaction are different from the Chernobyl
reactor in size and other key aspects, he said.
''You cannot in any way draw immediate implications from that
accident'' for American reactors, which differ substantially in
design, he said. For example, the Chernobyl reactor building's roof,
which was destroyed by a hydrogen explosion, was not as strong as the
''containment'' walls and roof that surround American commercial
reactors to prevent radiation escape, he said.
But any accident can teach lessons, he said, and the Chernobyl
incident stresses the need for containment structures, control of
explosive hydrogen within the reactor, and training for plant
personnel in managing accidents.
AP-NY-06-17-86 0333EDT
a055 0506 17 Jun 86
PM-Digest Briefs,1277
Eds: This package does not contain the following items from the News
Digest: JOHANNESBURG-South Africa, a033; MOSCOW-Soviet-Arms, a037;
WASHINGTON-Tax Overhaul, a015; WASHINGTON-Budget Rdp, a016;
WASHINGTON-Gramm-Rudman, a017; MANAGUA-Nicaragua-Gangs, a065;
WASHINGTON-Bad Ads, a020; WASHINGTON-Shuttle Engines, a032; NEW
YORK-Liberty Family-Abby, a068; WASHINGTON-Scotus Rdp, a029; LOS
ANGELES-Grossman-Abbas, a035.
---
WASHINGTON (AP) - President Reagan has rejected a request by Afghan
SAN SALVADOR, El Salvador (AP) - President Jose Napoleon Duarte says
WASHINGTON (AP) - The people and government of the United States are
RENO, Nev. (AP) - International experts will meet next month to
draft an agreement requiring nations to warn their neighbors if a
nuclear accident spews radiation outside their borders as the
Chernobyl accident did, an official of an international nuclear power
agency says.
The proposed agreement, and another pact covering emergency aid
after such an accident, could be endorsed as early as September when
the 112-nation International Atomic Energy Agency holds a general
meeting, said Morris Rosen, director of the agency's division of
nuclear safety.
Nuclear experts will meet July 21 in Vienna, where the agency is
based, to work out drafts of the agreements to be submitted to the
general meeting Sept. 29, Rosen said in an interview Monday.
Rosen, who also spoke Monday to a session of the American Nuclear
Society annual meeting, said the energy agency had drafted guidelines
for early warning and accident assistance before the Chernobyl
disaster. But the move toward the agreements is ''clearly a result of
the accident,'' he said.
---
SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) - Samuel R. Pierce Jr., the secretary of
WASHINGTON (AP) - A career in the military offers many people an
WASHINGTON (AP) - The slide in farmland values is slowing but
WASHINGTON (AP) - The population of state and federal prisons rose
a026 0154 18 Jun 86
PM-Supreme Soviet, Bjt,0735
Soviet Vice President Retires, Culture Minister Named Replacement
By ROXINNE ERVASTI
MOSCOW (AP) - The oldest man in the Soviet leadership, 85-year-old
Vice President Vasily V. Kuznetsov, was retired today and replaced by
Culture Minister Pyotr N. Demichev.
The change was announced at a session of the Supreme Soviet, the
national parliament. It convened one of its semi-annual sessions in
the presence of Communist Party chief Mikhail S. Gorbachev and other
Kremlin leaders to approve a new five-year economic plan.
Demichev, 68, appeared likely to give up the position he has held in
the Culture Ministry since 1971 for the largely ceremonial vice
presidency because it rarely has been combined with the tenure of a
key ministry.
Some Soviet intellectuals say a ''fresh wind'' has blown through the
arts since Mikhail S. Gorbachev took power last year. However, some
changes detected in literature, film and the theater are said to have
encountered resistance at the Culture Ministry.
Demichev, who has been a candidate member of the Politburo since
1964, has been viewed as a constraining influence on artistic
freedom.
Politburo member Yegor K. Ligachev, who oversees personnel policy,
said Kuznetsov asked to retire for health reasons.
Kuznetsov had held his title since 1977. His retirement marked
another move to revamp the Kremlin leadership and send the ''old
guard'' into retirement.
Together with another octagenarian, Boris N. Ponomarev, long-time
head of the party Central Committee's international department,
Kuznetsov lost his seat as a non-voting member of the Politburo after
the 27th party congress ended March 6.
Ligachev also announced that former Moscow Communist Party chief
Viktor V. Grishin had lost his membership in the presidium of the
Supreme Soviet, his last official post.
Grishin's reputation was tarnished with rumors of corruption, and he
was ousted as Moscow party boss last December. Ligachev named Boris
N. Yeltsin, Grishin's sucessor as head of the Moscow party
organization, to succeed him on the presidium.
The new five-year plan before the Supreme Soviet bears the stamp of
Gorbachev's efforts to streamline the bureaucratic Soviet economy.
The Communist Party Congress approved guidelines for the plan during
a 10-day session that ended March 6 and approval by the 1,500-member
parliament is a formality.
The five-year plan covers the first third of a blueprint, also
approved by the party congress, to double industrial output by the
year 2000.
Guidelines for the next five years adopted by the party call for
increased farm and industrial output, and increases spending to
modernize plants and improve life for citizens.
Gorbachev wants to make the Soviet economy more efficient by cutting
red tape and by rebuilding and modernizing existing facilities rather
than building new ones.
In a speech Monday to the Communist Party Central Committee,
Gorbachev said industrial performance was up, and praised some party
organizations and enterprises as models.
However, he attacked some officials in the central planning
committee and party leaders outside Moscow for resisting reforms, and
said their actions could damage public support for his program.
''Sometimes words are substituted for deeds, practical action does
not follow criticisms, and self-criticism resembles
self-flagellation,'' he said. ''Thus, the restructing mirage takes
shape - everything is all right in words, but no real change follows,
and the restructuring process marks time.''
Gorbachev criticized several ministries which he said had proposed
spending large sums to build new plants or expand operating
capacities while appropriating little to apply new technology.
Premier Nikolai I. Ryzhkov, when he unveiled the plan to the party
congress, said grain output would rise to 250 million to 255 million
tons a year by 1990. The Soviets have not published a grain harvest
figure for several years, but the U.S. Department of Agriculture has
estimated this year's harvest at around 185 million tons, down 5
million tons from last year's harvest.
In his speech to the Central Committee, Gorbachev said losses of
farm produce are as high as 20 percent because of storage and
transport problems.
The draft plan also calls for nuclear power plants to double the
output of electric power by 1990, and account for more than 20
percent of the country's total power production.
Soviet officials have said that the April 26 accident at Chernobyl
in the Soviet Ukraine will not alter those plans.
AP-NY-06-18-86 0454EDT
- - - - - -
a063 0646 18 Jun 86
PM-Supreme Soviet, 1st Ld - Writethru, a026,0713
Soviet Vice President Retires, Culture Minister Named Replacement
Eds: New thruout to UPDATE with Demichev removed as culture minister,
Ryzhkov saying nuclear power plans will go forward, more details from
his speech. No pickup.
By ROXINNE ERVASTI
MOSCOW (AP) - Pyotr N. Demichev, the conservative culture minister
who enforced the Communist Party's rules for Soviet arts for 12
years, was removed today and named to the largely ceremonial position
of vice president.
Demichev, 68, took the place of 85-year-old First Deputy President
Vasily Kuznetsov, the oldest man in the Soviet leadership, who
retired for health reasons.
The shifts are part of Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev's efforts to
replace the party's old guard. They were announced at a session of
the national Parliament, the Supreme Soviet, which convened one of
its semi-annual sessions to approve a new five-year economic plan.
Premier Nikolai I. Ryzhkov, addressing the delegates today,
reaffirmed previous pledges that the Chernobyl nuclear accident would
not effect Soviet plans to increase reliance on nuclear energy.
But Ryzhkov said that safety was paramount. ''The determination of a
technical policy which ensures a high reliability of nuclear power
stations is of importance here as in no other sector,'' the official
news agency Tass quoted him as saying.
''The accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power station has shown the
exceptional importance of the observance of such requirements,''
Ryzhkov said.
The April 26 explosion and fire at the Chernobyl plant, 80 miles
north of Kiev, caused at least 26 deaths and sent hundreds more
people to hospitals with radiation sickness.
The draft five-year plan, already approved by the Communist Party
Congress, calls for nuclear power plants to double the output of
electrical power by 1990, and account for more than 20 percent of the
country's total power production.
There was no word on who would replace Demichev as head of the
Culture Ministry, but his removal was expected to pave the way for
more of the changes recently detected in the Soviet arts.
Demichev was viewed as a constraining, conservative influence. Under
Gorbachev, who took power in March 1985, Soviet intellectuals say a
''fresh wind'' has blown through the arts, but that the Culture
Ministry resisted or blocked some changes.
Demichev, who trained as an engineer, became culture minister in
1974 and a deputy Politburo member in 1964.
Kuznetsov, whom he replaces as vice president, asked to retire on
health grounds, said Politburo member Yegor K. Ligachev, who oversees
personnel policy. Kuznetsov had held his post since 1977.
Together with another octagenarian, Boris N. Ponomarev, long-time
head of the party Central Committee's international department,
Kuznetsov lost his seat as a non-voting member of the Politburo after
the 27th party congress ended March 6.
Ligachev disclosed that former Moscow Communist Party chief Viktor
Grishin had lost his membership in the presidium of the Supreme
Soviet, his last official post.
Grishin's reputation was tarnished with rumors of corruption, was
replaced as Moscow party boss last December. Ligachev named Boris N.
Yeltsin, Grishin's successor in the Moscow party job, to succeed him
on the presidium.
The new five-year economic plan before the Supreme Soviet bears the
stamp of Gorbachev's efforts to streamline the bureaucratic Soviet
economy.
The party Congress approved guidelines for the plan during a 10-day
session that ended March 6. Approval by the 1,500-member Supreme
Soviet is a formality.
The congress also approved a blueprint for doubling industrial
output by the year 2000.
Ryzhkov, in presenting the five-year plan to the Parliament, said
machine-building will account for two-thirds of the increase in heavy
industrial output through 1990.
''We cannot put up with the fact that only 29 percent of
serially-made engineering products are now up to world standard,''
Tass quoted Ryzhkov as saying. This level would be increased to 80 to
95 percent by 1990, he said.
Ryzhkov also said grain output would rise to 250 million to 255
million tons a year by 1990. The Soviets have not published a grain
harvest figure for several years, but the U.S. Department of
Agriculture has estimated this year's harvest at around 185 million
tons, down 5 million tons from last year's harvest.
AP-NY-06-18-86 0945EDT
a053 0425 19 Jun 86
PM-Chernobyl-Nuclear,0305
Farming Resumes in Chernobyl Area, Tass Says
MOSCOW (AP) - Six farming enterprises that shut down after the
nuclear accident at the Chernobyl power plant have resumed work
because officials have determined there is no danger, the official
Tass news agency said today.
Tass gave no indication in its brief dispatch from Kiev, the
Ukrainian capital 80 miles south of the atomic power station, of the
exact location of the farms or the number of people working there.
Most farming in the Soviet Union is done on large-scale collective
or state farms.
All farming was halted within an 18-mile radius of the Chernobyl
power plant after an explosion and fire in its No. 4 reactor on April
26 spewed radiation over a large area of the northern Ukraine and
Byelorussia.
At least 26 people have died as a result of the accident, and
hundreds have been hospitalized with radiation sickness.
''Farmers at six enterprises in the Chernobyl area of the Kiev
region have restarted field work, cut off after the accident on April
26 at the nuclear power station,'' Tass reported today.
''Now they are fully carrying out potato cultivation and laying in
of fodder,'' it said. ''Having checked the fields, specialists came
to the conclusion that there is no danger and production of crops and
fodder can proceed.''
Regular monitoring of the soil, air, water and health of farmers
will continue, Tass said.
New work brigades are expected at the farms in 10 days, Tass said.
It gave no other details of the work under way.
More than 100,000 people were evacuated from the zone surrounding
the Chernobyl power station after the accident, the worst in the
history of nuclear power.
Soviet media have said some people are returning, but there has been
no official word whether any evacuated regions are being resettled
permanently.
AP-NY-06-19-86 0725EDT
a009 2238 19 Jun 86
Names In The News LaserPhoto NY14
SIOUX CITY, Iowa (AP) - This weekend's 50th reunion at Central High
LOS ANGELES (AP) - Comedian Joan Rivers, who underwent surgery for a
NEW YORK (AP) - Ella Fitzgerald takes the stage at Avery Fisher Hall
LOS ANGELES (AP) - UCLA bone-marrow specialist Dr. Robert Gale, who
led a team of doctors helping victims of the Chernobyl nuclear plant
disaster, was awarded the city's Humanitarian Award from Mayor Tom
Bradley.
Joining Gale in a ceremony Thursday was Occidental Petroleum Corp.
chairman Armand Hammer, who used his influence with the Soviet Union
to get Soviet officials to accept Gale's help in performing
bone-marrow transplants.
Fatal bone-marrow destruction occurs when humans are exposed to high
levels of radiation.
''In accepting the mayor's award, I am really accepting it on behalf
of the international community of physicians who aided the victims of
the disaster,'' Gale said. ''Although I was highly visible,
physicians from more than 20 countries assisted in these efforts.''
AP-NY-06-20-86 0138EDT
a062 0726 20 Jun 86
PM-Oil-Energy Research, Adv 26,1182
For Release Thurs PMs, June 26, and Thereafter
Energy Research Continues Despite Oil Price Plunge
An AP Extra
With LaserPhoto
EDITOR'S NOTE - The focus of research into alternative energy
sources is changing now that oil prices have dropped sharply. Less
money is going into renewable energy sources such as sun, and more
money is going into traditional fuels such as coal. This is another
in a continuing series on how the oil price slide has affected
individuals and the economy.
---
By PETER COY
AP Business Writer
NEW YORK (AP) - On a 100-acre farm outside Naples, Fla., J.C.
Caruthers and some friends are working on a Rube Goldberg-like plan
to make white yams into lighter fluid for backyard grills.
The farm's cattle produce manure. The manure gives off methane gas,
which fires a boiler. The boiler runs a still, which makes alcohol
from the yams. And the gunk left in the still feeds the cattle, which
produce more manure. And so on.
The part-time entrepreneurs have not actually sold any yam-based
lighter fluid yet, but Caruthers says their Energy Research Institute
will be well-placed for the inevitable rise in the price of oil - and
oil-based lighter fluid.
''The public is very lethargic. Next time we're hit, it's going to
be hard,'' he said.
The Energy Research Institute, founded by Caruthers in 1980, is a
non-profit organization of individuals and companies with an interest
in alternative energy sources. Its specialty is making alcohol for
fuel.
Visionaries such as Caruthers, who makes his living as an architect,
are scarce these days. The halving of world oil prices since November
has boosted the American economy but weakened the nation's resolve to
develop alternative sources of energy.
The drop-off in research and development concerns energy experts,
especially since it comes at a time of a rising appetite for energy,
a sharp cutback in exploration for oil and natural gas and the
plugging of low-volume wells whose output has become uneconomical.
''I think we're designing our next energy crisis,'' said Charles
Hook, editor of the Review of New Energy Technology in Littleton,
Colo.
Fred Ohr, an energy analyst for Alliance Capital Management Corp. in
New York, said, ''I hate to join the industry alarmists, but the fact
of the matter is that ... our energy self-sufficiency is going to
decline.''
Elihu Bergman, executive director of Americans for Energy
Independence, argues that the government should prop up development
of alternative energy sources more.
''We're really not dealing in breakfast cereals and laundry
detergent. This is an issue of economic security, an issue of
national security,'' Bergman said.
But Ohr argues that government subsidies tend to create white
elephants, pointing to the remnants of President Jimmy Carter's grand
plans for oil shale and coal gasification. Carter's Synthetic Fuels
Corp. officially died April 18, killed by cheap oil and technological
glitches.
Most of the big spenders in energy research and development have
reduced or flattened their budgets in recent years.
The petroleum industry's R&D budget, including projects unrelated to
energy, has leveled off since the early 1980s at $2 billion or so a
year, according to McGraw-Hill Inc.'s annual survey.
The federal Energy Department proposes to cut its spending on
non-military energy research next fiscal year by about $340 million
to slightly less than $1.5 billion, according to the department's
budget office. The Gramm-Rudman deficit-reduction act and weapons
research spending have taken a toll.
Running against the trend, the nation's electric utilities, which
benefit from cheaper fuel, boosted their research budget about 10
percent this year. The dollar amount spending, however, is far less
than the oil companies'; the industry-financed Electric Power
Research Institute in Palo Alto, Calif., is spending about $200
million in 1986 for research on energy generation, fuel sources and
environmental controls.
Meanwhile, the focus of research is changing. Less money is going
into renewable energy sources such as sun, wind and yams, which have
never provided more than a fraction of 1 percent of the nation's
energy needs. More money is going into traditional fuels such as
coal, which produces 57 percent of the nation's electricity.
Favorite research projects these days range from a steam boiler that
runs on a mixture of water and ammonia to a furnace that burns a
coal-limestone blend roiled by giant jets of air. The latest
experimental plants burn far more cleanly and cheaply than their
predecessors.
Coal's contribution to U.S. electricity needs could rise to 70
percent by the end of the century, so building better coal plants
could mean big savings in the nation's bill for energy and
environmental cleanup.
Combustion of high-sulfur coal in older plants has been blamed by
many scientists as a major factor in acid rain, which damages the
environment.
In the high desert of Daggett, Calif., an experimental coal plant
producing electricity for Southern California Edison Co. is burning
cheap and dirty high-sulfur coal and still producing far less
pollution than ordinary coal plants.
The plant converts pulverized coal into a gas, a process that throws
off heat to power a steam turbine. The coal gas is cleansed of 97
percent of its sulfur and then burned to power a second turbine.
In another plant design, fluidized-bed combustion, coal is mixed
with limestone and burned while suspended off the floor on jets of
air. The churning helps the limestone absorb sulfur from the coal,
reducing pollution.
After more than 20 years of study and setbacks, the first
large-scale commercial use of the process for coal should begin this
year at Northern States Power Co.'s Black Dog plant near Minneapolis.
Oil remains the nation's No. 1 source of energy, even though it
produces just 6 percent of the electricity, according to the federal
Energy Information Center. More than half of oil goes into
transportation fuels, so the biggest savings in oil are coming from
less thirsty engines in cars, trucks, trains and planes.
The accident at the Soviet nuclear plant near Chernobyl deepened the
gloom over nuclear energy, but even there research is continuing. The
nuclear industry is looking at radical new designs for the 21st
century while pinning its hopes for the remainder of this century on
designing smaller, simpler plants with interchangeable parts.
Solar heating and wind projects were driven to the brink of
destruction with the expiration of federal tax breaks at the end of
the 1985. Cheap oil is deterring new projects, although some existing
ones may continue to make money, said Jon Sesso of the National
Center for Appropriate Technology in Butte, Mont.
Although rooftop solar panels are now out of fashion, judged too
inefficient for their high cost, photovoltaic cells that convert
sunlight directly into electricity still show promise.
Within a decade, power plants of photovoltaic cells could produce
power as cheaply as coal- or oil-fired plants in places with lots of
sunshine such as the Southwest, the Electric Power Research Institute
says.
In April, Stanford University researchers tested the most efficient
photovoltaic cell yet, one that converts into electricity 27.5
percent of the solar energy...
(End missing.)
a005 2145 20 Jun 86
PM-Chernobyl-Pictures, CORRECTIVE,0103
Editors: Members who used PM-Chernobyl-Pictures, transmitted May 15
under a New York dateline and subsequently that same day under a Rome
dateline, are asked to use the following story.
NEW YORK (AP) - The Associated Press, in a story May 15 about the
sale to ABC and NBC of film which fraudulently purported to show the
Chernobyl nuclear plant, erroneously identified the seller of the
film as an Italian photo agency named Albatross.
The seller was not Albatross. A Frenchman was arrested in Italy and
charged with the sale, but was released after the networks decided
against pressing charges.
AP-NY-06-21-86 0043EDT
a034 0208 21 Jun 86
PM-Gale-Chernobyl,0370
Chernobyl Shows Folly of Nuclear War, Gale Says
By LEE SIEGEL
AP Science Writer
LOS ANGELES (AP) - A physician who helped victims of the Chernobyl
disaster in the Soviet Union says the tragedy shows the impossibility
of properly aiding victims of a nuclear war.
''Events of the last two months indicate our limited ability to
respond to nuclear (power plant) accidents and put to rest any notion
of an adequate medical response to a thermonuclear war,'' Dr. Robert
Peter Gale said Friday.
Safety requirements should be tightened and building programs slowed
for nuclear power plants, while construction of nuclear arms should
be stopped completely, said Gale, a 40-year-old associate professor
of medicine at the University of California at Los Angeles.
''It cannot be a good idea'' to build more nuclear warheads, he said
in answer to a question from former California Gov. Edmund G. ''Pat''
Brown at a luncheon sponsored by the Los Angeles World Affairs
Council.
The April explosion and fire at the Chernobyl power plant has killed
26 people so far. Gale said only four to nine more deaths from acute
radiation exposure are likely.
''I don't think more than 30 or 35 individuals will die immediately
as a consequence of Chernobyl,'' said Gale, who twice visited the
Soviet Union to perform bone marrow transplants on radiation victims
and plans a third trip next month.
However, he declined to estimate the number of people who would die
from radiation-linked cancer, but said, ''It's reasonably clear that
estimates of tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands of cancer
deaths are overestimates.''
Between 100,000 and 200,000 people living in the Ukraine will
require medical surveillance to determine the rate of cancers during
the next five to 30 years, he said.
The main cancers would include leukemia and malignancies of the
thyroid, lungs, liver and bones, he added.
The Chernobyl disaster created radiation fears among citizens of
Kiev, the largest Soviet city near the power plant, but Gale said
they face little danger.
During the first year after the nuclear accident, inhabitants will
be exposed to radiation only 50 percent greater than normal
background levels, he said.
AP-NY-06-21-86 0507EDT
a052 0406 21 Jun 86
BC-Quotes,0149
Current Quotations
''Events of the last two months indicate our limited ability to
respond to nuclear accidents and put to rest any notion of an
adequate medical response to a thermonuclear war.'' - Dr. Robert
Peter Gale, who helped victims of the Chernobyl disaster in the
Soviet Union.
---
''What we would like to see is that people take a look at what lies
on the other side of that precipice and decide they don't want to go
over it.'' - Secretary of State George Shultz, expressing a desire
for negotiations and an end to violence in South Africa.
---
''The GRU will routinely attempt to make contacts with American
military representatives in the greater Washington area around the
Beltway.'' - Dana E. Caro, special agent in charge of the FBI's
Washington field office, referring to Soviet military intelligence in
discussing the latest spy case.
AP-NY-06-21-86 0706EDT
a215 1048 21 Jun 86
AM-News Advisory,0238
In addition to the stories listed on the AM-News Digest, we are
planning the following for AMs:
RAWALPINDI, Pakistan - The political opposition issues a united call
WASHINGTON - Negotiators for American Telephone & Telegraph Co. and
WASHINGTON - About a third of all the telephone calls made by
NEW YORK - Christy Cunningham is an art conservator who has spent
SCHENECTADY, N.Y. - Saluting the courage of six firefighters killed
in the Chernobyl nuclear accident in the Soviet Union, a group of
American firefighters will present a plaque in their honor this week
to Soviet officials. AM-Chernobyl Firefighters.
The AP
AP-NY-06-21-86 1348EDT
a204 0908 22 Jun 86 M-Chernobyl-Nuclear,0443
Six Farms Near Chernobyl Plant Return to Planting Crops
MOSCOW (AP) - Work has resumed on six farms near the disabled
Chernobyl nuclear power plant, with farmers working 10-day shifts
before being replaced by other crews, a newspaper reported Sunday.
''Working in shifts, the farmers started inter-row potato
cultivation and fodder preparation,'' the English-language,
tri-weekly Moscow News reported. ''After examining the fields,
experts determined there was no danger and that it was possible to
start crop cultivation and fodder preparation.''
The newspaper said authorities constantly were monitoring the health
of the farmers and testing soil, air and water samples. ''New teams
will come in to change them (the workers) in 10 days' time,'' the
report said.
The report did not say how many farms were shut down after the April
26 explosion and fire which killed at least 26 people and spewed a
cloud of radiation that was detected around the world.
The newspaper said the six farms are in the Chernobyl district, but
did not say how close they are to the plant or how many acres are
being cultivated.
The report concluded that ''life, with its summer cares, is
returning to normal in the countryside.''
There has been no word on when the more than 100,000 people
evacuated from the northern Ukraine and southern Byelorussia would be
allowed to return home.
Two villages in a zone extending 18 miles around the plant
reportedly have been declared safe for occupation. Other reports said
additional housing was being built for some evacuees. Some evacuees
have left the northern Ukraine to live and work elsewhere, newspapers
said.
Thousands of children from the northern Ukraine, including more than
250,000 children from Kiev, the Ukrainian capital 80 miles south of
the plant, have been sent to Black Sea resorts or camps in other
parts of the Soviet Union for the summer.
A Friday edition of the Ukrainian newspaper Pravda Ukraini, which
reached Moscow on Sunday, reported that residents of Kiev have given
more than $5.7 million to a national fund set up to help cope with
the accident.
The government newspaper Izvestia reported June 7 that the fund was
receiving about $14 million a day in donations.
There has been no official word for more than two weeks on the
number of people killed and injured by the accident.
On June 5, Soviet officials said 26 people had died. A day later,
Dr. Robert Gale, a U.S. bone marrow specialist who has helped treat
radiation victims, said the condition of 70 to 80 patients seriously
concerned doctors. He did not elaborate.
AP-NY-06-22-86 1209EDT
a213 1057 22 Jun 86
AM-News Advisory,0192
Eds: In addition to the items listed on the News Digest, the
following are planned for AMs:
WASHINGTON - Emergency measures enabling the South African
MOSCOW - Work has begun again on six farms near the Chernobyl
nuclear power plant after the April 26 explosion and fire there, but
farmers are allowed to till the land only for 10 days before other
workers replace them. AM-Chernobyl-Nuclear.
NEEDHAM, Mass. - Women from the United States and the Soviet Union
BLOOMINGTON, Ind. - Indiana University researchers hope using radio
AP-NY-06-22-86 1358EDT
***************
a026 0148 23 Jun 86 PM-TV-Women's Summit,0600
U.S., Soviet Women Quiz Each Other in Satellite Hookup
LaserPhoto BX1
By CHRISTOPHER CALLAHAN
NEEDHAM, Mass. (AP) - U.S. and Soviet women linked by satellite for
a television program disagreed on political issues but found they had
common family problems like getting husbands to help around the
house.
''A working woman is an extremely busy person. We have husbands. We
have children,'' a Soviet woman said. ''I think right now this is a
universal problem.''
Two hundred women in Leningrad, including doctors, housewives and
laborers, and 200 of their American counterparts in this Boston
suburb quizzed each other for three hours Sunday on issues ranging
from nuclear war to a lack of available men.
The event, billed as a ''Citizens' Summit,'' will be televised in
most major U.S. cities beginning Wednesday, producers said. Soviet
national television also is expected to air the program in a one- or
two-hour segment.
The first satellite summit linked men and women in Seattle and
Leningrad in December.
TV talk show host Phil Donahue served as moderator in the
Massachusetts studio, while Soviet commentator Vladimir Pozner was
the Leningrad moderator. The women exchanged views while watching
each other on large-screen monitors and listening to translators.
In their exchange, some of the Boston-area women noted the renewed
opposition to nuclear power plants in the United States following the
Chernobyl accident and wondered why the Soviets were not protesting
to try to close down atomic plants in their country.
''Calm down, comrades,'' one Soviet woman chided the Americans.
''Everything is back to normal. We coped with it as an entire
people.''
Others said shutting down the plants was impractical.
''We cannot stop the development of science that is going on now in
the world,'' a Leningrad woman said. ''Our entire development depends
on nuclear energy.''
With a show of hands, all the participants indicated both
governments should be working to end the nuclear arms race.
''We are really trying to save our species from extinction. How can
we resolve conflict between our nations ... without resorting to
violence?'' asked a U.S. woman.
''We are actually one big family. Not just friends, family,'' said a
Leningrad woman.
The women shared family problems, including high divorce rates and
the difficulty of juggling the responsibilities of a job, husband and
children. And a Soviet woman agreed with U.S. participants who said
husbands were not pulling their fair share of work around the house.
''The majority of men in our country do very little at home,'' she
said. ''Men today have been a little infantile, perhaps.'' Her
remarks drew nods of approval and applause from the Massachusetts
audience.
Some of the U.S. mothers complained about the lack of day care in
their country, while the Soviet women told of round-the-clock
nurseries close to home.
The Soviet women criticized their American counterparts for carrying
misconceptions about Soviet life. Stories Americans had heard about
huge lines to get food and clothing were false, they said.
They also brushed off questions about human rights violations
against Soviet Jews. ''Americans should take a good look at
themselves,'' said one of the women. ''We've heard of incidents of
anti-Semitism and vandalism taking place in the United States.''
Outside the WCVB-TV studio where the show was taped, members of the
Jewish Community Council of Metropolitan Boston urged participants to
push the Soviets on human rights questions.
Council spokeswoman Carol Saivetz said the Soviet participants were
handpicked to defend their government's positions.
But WCVB spokesman Burt Peretsky said both audiences were selected
by U.S. and Soviet producers through random questioning of women in
public places.
AP-NY-06-23-86 0446EDT
a072 0659 25 Jun 86 PM-Religion Roundup, Adv 27,0626
$adv27 For release Fri PMs June 27, and thereafter
CHICAGO (AP) - One of a six-member committee reviewing the Roman
BALTIMORE, Md. (AP) - The big issue for the American Jewish
WASHINGTON (AP) - The proportion of Roman Catholics favoring
VALLEY FORGE, Pa. (AP) - Ezra Taft Benson, president of the Church
MINNEAPOLIS (AP) - The head of the American Lutheran Church says
---
NEW YORK (AP) - A group of 140 U.S. Christians are on a 17-day
ecumenical peace-making trip in the Soviet Union but Kiev was dropped
from the original itinerary because of its nearness to the nuclear
accident at Chernobyl.
Even so, about 20 people initially planning to go canceled.
Planners of the travel seminar, sponsored by the National Council of
Churches, said it was deemed wise not to include Kiev among nine
cities to be visited.
But ''we have assurances from the U.S. State Department that it is
safe for us to travel in the Soviet Union,'' says the Rev. Eileen
Lindner, associate council secretary for unity.
She says the the June 17-July 3 trip is ''in a spirit of Christian
friendship.''
AP-NY-06-25-86 0959EDT
a033 0230 26 Jun 86 PM-Ireland-Divorce, Bjt,0643
Ireland Votes in Bitterly Contested Divorce Referendum
By MARCUS ELIASON
DUBLIN, Ireland (AP) - Torn between its allegiance to Roman
Catholicism and its liberal democratic tradition, Ireland votes today
in a bitterly contested referendum on whether to legalize divorce.
Polling stations open for the 2.4 million eligible voters at 9 a.m.
and close 13 hours later, with the first results due Friday.
With the latest poll predicting defeat for the proposed
constitutional amendment by a 55 percent to 45 percent margin, Prime
Minister Garret FitzGerald appealed Wednesday to voters to back the
reform initiative he launched nine weeks ago.
The most recent poll, published in the Irish Times on Wednesday,
left the anti-divorce camp confident of victory, although Deputy
Prime Minister Dick Spring said the soundings of his Labor Party
pointed to a 53 percent vote in favor of divorce.
The coalition government, composed of the Labor Party and
FitzGerald's larger Fine Gael party, is asking voters to drop the
1937 constitution's outright ban on divorce, which makes Ireland the
only Western European country except Malta where marriage is legally
indissoluble.
The government insists the new divorce law will be extremely
restrictive, requiring couples to show a court that their marriage
has been irretrievably broken for at least five years, that no
reconciliation is possible, and that spouses and children are
provided for.
But in a 97 percent Catholic country with 87 percent Sunday church
attendance, divorce, along with contraception and abortion, remains
widely opposed.
Catholic bishops have warned that divorced people will be refused
church marriages, and the influential Archbishop of Dublin, the Rev.
Kevin Macnamara, has gone as far as to liken divorce's effect on
society to the Chernobyl nuclear disaster in the Soviet Union.
The Divorce Action Group, which led the pro-amendment campaign, says
70,000 people in Ireland are trapped in broken marriages and deserve
a second chance.
FitzGerald, in his final appeal to the electorate, tied the issue
directly to the Northern Ireland conflict.
He said Protestants in that British-ruled province had a record of
denying the Catholic minority its rights, and urged his own people
not to behave likewise by denying basic rights to its own minority of
unhappily married citizens.
FitzGerald, who was elected four years ago promising a
''constitutional crusade'' to modernize his country, believes its
image of church domination alienates Protestants and makes
unification with Northern Ireland harder.
But his stand on divorce is shared more by the young urban
population than by those who live in the countryside.
Dublin, with 30 percent of the electorate, is the key to victory,
needing to provide a 2-1 yes vote to offset the expected negative
vote in rural areas.
The Anti-Divorce Campaign, a secular group campaigning for a no
vote, says it is convinced Dublin will not produce the necessary
margin.
It has run a vocal, catchy campaign that appeals to Ireland's pride
in being different as well as stressing the material consequences of
divorce, rather than the religious strictures.
The anti-divorce group's message has been that in every country
where divorce has been legalized, the rate of marriage breakup has
accelerated. It claims the change would affect the rights of women,
cutting them out of wills, and harm children.
The pro-divorce lobby accuses the Anti-Divorce Campaign of
distortion and outright lies, and leading lawyers and sociologists
have written to newspapers challenging the group's statistics.
On the eve of the referendum, Dublin's lampposts were adorned with
posters, ''Put Compassion into the Constitution - Vote YES'' vying
with ''It's Jobs We Want, Not Divorce - Vote NO.''
The latter message reflected FitzGerald's predicament. His high-tax,
high-unemployment policies have disenchanted many of the Irish, and
the Anti-Divorce Campaign hopes to capitalize on this unpopularity.
AP-NY-06-26-86 0530EDT
a034 0241 26 Jun 86 PM-Europe-South Africa, Bjt,0606
European Leaders Meet on South Africa Crisis; Stringent Sanctions
Doubtful
By DAVID MASON
Chief European Correspondent
THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) - Western European leaders open a
two-day summit today, preoccupied by the South African crisis and
what steps to take to push the Pretoria government to abandon
apartheid and negotiate with the black majority.
Despite calls from black leaders and a special study group from the
British-led Commonwealth for tough measures against South Africa,
British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher was standing firm against
mandatory economic sanctions.
Britain, expected to take the lead in any Common Market measures
directed at its former colony, was said to favor financial help,
including education and legal aid, to assist victims of the apartheid
system of forced racial separation.
Aides to Mrs. Thatcher, speaking on the eve of the summit, said the
British leader also favors a Common Market mission to South Africa,
led by British Foreign Secretary Sir Geoffrey Howe, to make one more
attempt at persuading President P.W. Botha's government to change its
ways.
West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl and French Premier Jacques Chirac
were expected to line up with Mrs. Thatcher against stringent
economic sanctions. Other members of the 12-nation trade bloc, such
as the Netherlands, Denmark, Spain and Greece, were believed to favor
some sort of punitive measures.
A preliminary attempt to unite the Common Market on how to defuse
the South African crisis, highlighted by the nationwide state of
emergency declared on June 12, will be made by the trade bloc's
foreign ministers during a pre-summit meeting.
Officials said they hoped the ministers in their scheduled two-hour
session would be able to draw up a list of proposals to submit to
their leaders, who are scheduled to meet after a lunch given by Queen
Beatrix of the Netherlands, whose country currently holds the
revolving Common Market presidency.
But observers saw little hope of quick agreement.
Earlier this week, both opposition and government parties in the
Dutch Parliament called on Foreign Minister Hans van den Broek to
again urge his colleagues to stop imports of South African wine,
vegetables and fruit as an ecnomic sanction.
But Mrs. Thatcher was said by her aides to oppose such a measure
because it would hit South Africa's black workers most.
Van den Broek told Parliament sanctions should not cause the
collapse of the South African economy, but force the Pretoria
government into negotiations. He said the pressure ''should be
increased slowly, but steadily and effectively.''
Other suggestions considered in meetings prior to today's summit
include a ban on direct air travel between European capitals and
South Africa, but opponents have pointed out that non-Common Market
airlines would certainly fill the gap.
A ban on new investments in South Africa has also been suggested,
but this has been labeled ''gesture politics'' by opponents who point
out that most new investment has already dried up.
The Common Market in September adopted a list of mild sanctions
against South Africa, including a continued ban on arms shipments,
withdrawal of military attaches, discouraging of cultural and
scientific exchanges and a ban on cooperation in the nuclear field.
The trade bloc does $15.4 billion in two-day trade with South Africa
annually, with Britain and West Germany accounting for half that sum.
In addition to South Africa, the summit will review East-West
relations, the Common Market's farm trade dispute with the United
States, the state of the European economy and nuclear safeguards
following the April 26 atomic accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power
plant in the Soviet Ukraine.
AP-NY-06-26-86 0541EDT
a245 1601 29 Jun 86 AM-Chernobyl-Nuclear,0234
Firefighters Visit Graves Of Colleagues Killed At Chernobyl
MOSCOW (AP) - Firefighters injured in the Chernobyl nuclear accident
placed flowers on the graves of six colleagues who died in the
disaster, a Soviet newspaper reported Sunday.
The daily Sovietskaya Rossiya said Maj. Leonid Telyatnikov, 35, the
commander of the unit which was first called on April 26 to fight the
blaze, and seven other firefighters visited Mitinskoye Cemetery
outside Moscow Friday.
In all, 23 Chernobyl victims are buried there.
Soviet officials have said 26 people, including six firefighters,
died as a result of the accident.
The newspaper said the surviving firemen were discharged from a
Moscow hospital last week and will spend months at Lunyovo Sanitorium
near Moscow.
Sovietskaya Rossiya said the Ministry of Internal Affairs, which is
in charge of the country's firemen, gave the discharged firefighters
gifts of track suits.
Radio Moscow meanwhile reported that planes were spraying special
powder mixtures in the skies over Chernobyl to prevent heavy rainfall
which would wash contaminated soil into nearby rivers and lakes.
The broadcast, monitored by the British Broadcasting Corp. in
London, said a ''whole group of heavy AN-12 planes'' was ''using
special equipment and powder-like mixtures'' to disperse clouds from
an 18-mile zone around the plant in the northern Ukraine.
More than 100,000 people were evacuated from that zone after the
accident.
AP-NY-06-29-86 1900EDT
a227 1400 29 Jun 86 Soviets-Jackson,0345
Soviets Say U.S. Told Michael Jackson Not to Come to Moscow
MOSCOW (AP) - The official Tass news agency claims the State
Department advised singer Michael Jackson not to come to Moscow for
the opening of the Goodwill Games, saying radiation from the
Chernobyl accident could damage his vocal chords.
Tass, in a dispatch Saturday, also said the State Department,
''while giving approval to its athletes for the trip to Moscow,''
advised them to take their own food because of the explosion at the
Chernobyl nuclear power plant on April 26.
Independent checks by Western embassies on food for sale in Moscow
have turned up at least one sample of milk and another of veal that
showed radiation levels above those recommended as safe by Western
health authorities.
Soviet authorities have repeatedly stated, however, that all food on
sale in Moscow and elsewhere in the country is safe and is thoroughly
checked before going on to store shelves.
''Someone in the White House would like to blacken the festival of
goodwill,'' Tass said, referring to the Goodwill Games that will
begin with opening ceremonies in Moscow on Saturday.
Turner Broadcasting System, the company based in Atlanta, Ga., that
is co-sponsoring the games, said in a statement issued in Atlanta
Sunday that ''TBS has been assured by the U.S. government and by
independent sources that there is no cause for concern over the
safety of food supplies in Moscow.''
The statement, read to The Associated Press in Atlanta by spokesman
Alex Swan, said, ''We believe the Soviet news agency Tass has been
misinformed regarding the decision by Michael Jackson not to
participate in the opening cermonies of the Goodwill Games.
''To the best of our knowledge, Michael Jackson's decision was a
personal one and not in any way influenced by the U.S. government.''
Tass, commenting about the alleged warning of possible damage to
Jackson's vocal chords, noted that hundreds of musicians and singers
from around the world are in Moscow for the Tchaikovsky music
contest.
AP-NY-06-29-86 1700EDT
- - - - - -
a229 1410 29 Jun 86 AM-Soviets-Jackson, 1st Ld, a227,0051
MOSCOW: Inserts State Department's no comment in new 3d graf.
In Washington, The Associated Press asked State Department spokesman
Pete Martinez about the Tass report on Jackson. He said he had not
heard about it and added, ''I wouldn't have any comment.''
Independent checks, 3rd graf
AP-NY-06-29-86 1709EDT
a079 0905 30 Jun 86 Gorbachev Says United States Sabotages Arms Control
WARSAW, Poland (AP) - Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev today accused
the United States of sabotaging arms control efforts by ignoring Soviet
reduction proposals.
''What is worse, Washington unblocks the last brakes which still halted
the arms race - the SALT II treaty and other Soviet-American agreements,''
Gorbachev told the Polish Communist Party Congress.
''American politicians generously spread declarations full of nice
words about striving for peace and disarmament while they act in an
absolutely different way,'' the Kremlin leader told the Polish delegates.
''They try to justify sabotaging this highly important issue by
inventions about violations by us of particular points in the agreements,''
he said.
In Washington, meanwhile, officials said the Reagan administration was
weighing a Soviet compromise offer on medium-range nuclear missiles in
Europe.
The proposal was contained in a private letter delivered to President
Reagan last week by Yuri Dubinin, the new Soviet ambassador to the United
States, said the officials. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity.
The New York Times reported in today's editions that the Soviet Union
had proposed that American and Soviet officials meet in Geneva next month
to discuss Reagan's decision not to abide by SALT II any longer. The
newspaper quoted unidentified U.S. officials as saying no decision had
been made on how to respond.
Gorbachev told the delegates in Warsaw that in the last six months,
the Soviet Union has proposed imposing a nuclear weapons test ban,
reducing nuclear arms and limiting troop levels in Europe.
''It would seem to be enough,'' he said. ''Unfortunately, the problem
of disarmament has not moved an inch because of the clear obstruction on
the part of the American administration.''
Gorbachev said the Soviet Union would oppose ''the adventurous,
destructive actions of the United States,'' but would continue to pursue a
''responsible policy, patiently building the basis for normalizing
Soviet-American relations.''
He said the Soviet Union wants ''a dialogue in which both sides
desire to achieve concrete results.''
In an apparent reference to a proposed second superpower summit, he
said: ''One cannot allow negotiations to become transformed into a
smokescreen masking the arms race. In such cheating of the world
community we are not partners for Washington.''
Gorbachev criticized the United States' Western allies, saying that
although they had verbally distanced themselves from ''the dangerous
extremes of U.S. policies, they had nonetheless yielded to American
pressure and shared responsibility for intensifying the arms race.
''There is an impression that it (Western Europe) has been kidnapped
and some of the independent policies of Western European states are being
taken overseas ... that under the pretext of defending security...the fate
of the 600 million people on our continent ... is being held for ransom,''
he said.
Gorbachev said his remarks were not meant ''to drive a wedge between
the United States and its Nato allies.''
The Soviet leader said the April 26 accident at the Chernobyl nuclear
reactor showed ''how dangerous a force is inherent in the atom'' and that
there is a need to eliminate nuclear weapons.
''We honestly believe that (after Chernobyl) responsible circles in
Western Europe will be reached by the voice of concern, both our voice
and that of public opinion in those countries,'' he said.
a053 0447 03 Jul 86 PM-Chernobyl Recovery,0241
Doctor Says Five Chernobyl Marrow Recipients Live
NEW YORK (AP) - Five of 13 Chernobyl nuclear accident victims who
received bone marrow transplants are still alive and will likely
survive, says the California doctor who assisted Soviet physicians
with the operations.
Because of the severity of the patients' injuries and the difficulty
in performing the transplants, ''we're pleased with the results,''
Dr. Robert P. Gale told The New York Times in an interview published
today.
He also said he had signed an agreement on behalf of his
institution, the University of California at Los Angeles, to
cooperate with Soviet scientists in a long-term study of the health
effects of the accident on about 100,000 people who lived around the
stricken reactor in the Ukraine, near Kiev.
He predicted ''a small but perceptible increase in cancer'' among
those people over the next 30 years, and an even smaller increase in
disease among people living farther from the plant.
The Soviets say 26 people died as a result of the April 26 explosion
at the reactor. Gale said that figure was credible.
Based on what happened at Chernobyl, several new measures should be
instituted at all nuclear power plants, Gale said. Emergency planners
have focused on small accidents or big disasters, he said, and have
not planned adequately for treating 100 to 200 severely exposed
victims of a medium-sized accident like the one at Chernobyl.
AP-NY-07-03-86 0747EDT
a055 0453 03 Jul 86 PM-BRF--Australia-Chernobyl,0138
Australia to Test Imported Food for Radiation
CANBERRA, Australia (AP) - Australia will screen food imported from
nine Eastern European countries for any radioactive contamination
caused by the Chernobyl nuclear accident, the health minister said
today.
The minister, Dr. Neal Blewett, said food from the rest of Europe
would be subject to random sampling.
The nine countries from which all food will be screened are the
Soviet Union, Albania, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, East Germany,
Hungary, Poland, Romania and Yugoslavia.
To enter Australia, food from those countries would need to be
accompanied by certification from the respective government or
importer on its radioactivity level.
Food without documentation would be prohibited.
The April 26 accident at the Chernobyl power plant in the Soviet
Ukraine sent a cloud of radiation over much of Europe and sparked
widespread measures to safeguard against radioactivity.
AP-NY-07-03-86 0753EDT
a042 0223 04 Jul 86 PM-Chernobyl-Britain,0316
Britain Partially Lifts Ban On Sheep Marketing After Chernobyl
LONDON (AP) - A precautionary ban on marketing millions of British
sheep because of contamination from the Chernobyl nuclear disaster in
the Soviet Union was partially lifted today after the government
reported decreased radiation in some areas.
Agriculture Minister Michael Jopling said there had been ''an
encouraging reduction in certain parts of the areas'' affected by
wind-borne radiation that spewed from the Ukrainian power plant after
an explosion and fire destroyed one of its nuclear reactors April 26.
Jopling's move, announced Thursday in the House of Commons, means
the ban on the movement and slaughter of 550,000 sheep in parts of
Wales and northwest England has been lifted. But the ban remains in
force for the 2.16 million other sheep in the other areas affected.
On June 20, Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher's government banned the
movement and slaughter of 1.25 million sheep in parts of Wales and
northwest England because of increased levels of radiation found in
grazing areas. On June 24, the ban was extended to another 1.46
million sheep in Scotland.
Jopling last month stressed that the ban was a precaution to prevent
contaminated lamb and mutton from reaching meat markets, and that
there was no reason for anyone to be concerned about the safety of
food in shops.
He said the ban was necessary so that the sheep could be monitored
until levels of radiation became safe.
But the ban, one of the toughest domestic measures taken by a West
European nation dusted by radioactivity from the Chernobyl accident,
caused an immediate slump in demand for sheep meat.
The only previous precaution in Britain before the ban was a
government warning not to drink rainwater in parts of the country
that had heavy rainfall.
Some other European countries dumped milk or banned the sale of
leafy vegetables in the weeks after the Chernobyl accident.
AP-NY-07-04-86 0523EDT
a048 0322 05 Jul 86 PM-Chernobyl-Nuclear,0580
Pravda Complains Work With Chernobyl Evacuees Still Too Slow
By ALISON SMALE
MOSCOW (AP) - The newspaper Pravda today charged that some efforts
to help Soviets evacuated because of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster
were snagged in red tape, and complained that information on health
precautions was being made public too slowly.
The authoritative Communist Party daily stressed that most Soviet
citizens had rallied to help evacuees and to clean up after the April
26 accident at the Ukrainian atomic power station that forced the
resettlement of more than 100,000 people.
But Pravda noted at least two instances where people from Tyumen in
Siberia and Astrakhan on the Caspian Sea had been unable to trace
relatives from the Chernobyl area more than two months after the
accident.
''Bureaucratic lack of thought'' prevented an old woman evacuated to
the southern Russian town of Saratov from getting her pension because
she left her pension book at home in the rush to leave Pripyat, a
town of 50,000 adjacent to the plant, Pravda said.
Another evacuee complained that authorities in Baku in the southern
republic of Azerbaijan had failed to provide his three children with
meat and butter rations, and a woman wrote complaining about housing
for evacuees in the town of Tula about 120 miles south of Moscow.
The letters quoted or summarized by Pravda revealed how widely the
Chernobyl evacuees have been scattered across the Soviet Union.
Previous reports and interviews with children from Pripyat who are
now at summer camp on the Black Sea have revealed that evacuees are
now living throughout the Ukraine and in the Baltic republics, as
well as being housed in summer camps around Moscow.
A Western reporter who visited the Estonian capital of Tallinn a
week ago was told that the city is now hosting hundreds of evacuees
from the region of Gomel in southern Byelorussia.
Pravda also complained that ''it is impermissible to allow any lag
in information about the situation in areas'' affected by the
accident, in which the Soviets have said 26 people died.
Information about health and sanitation is especially important in
those areas, Pravda noted, adding that ''it is clearly being worked
out too slowly.''
It cited as an example two letters from Ukrainian towns asking what
foods are safe to eat and a third letter from two girls in the
Ukrainian industrial town of Kharkov.
The girls, who said they feared to sign their letter because of
their parents, reported rumors that anybody who works on the
Chernobyl clean-up gets a vodka ration of 200 grams.
They said this was bad because it gave their fathers, who were
described in the letter as drunkards, an excuse to drink.
Newspapers have repeatedly denied widely circulated reports that
there are vodka rations being given out, and have stressed that
alcohol does not counter the effects of radiation.
An upbeat note was struck in a letter signed by 33 Chernobyl victims
who thanked doctors at Moscow's hospital No. 6 for fighting ''for our
lives and health.''
Among those signing the letter was Maj. Leonid Telyatnikov,
commander of the firemen who were the first to fight the blaze that
engulfed the plant's No. 4 reactor following an explosion.
Telyatnikov and five other firemen were reported last weekend to
have been discharged from the hospital where about 200 Chernobyl
victims have been treated.
AP-NY-07-05-86 0622EDT
a201 0952 05 Jul 86
AMs AP News Digest Sunday, July 6, 1986
Here are the top stories at this hour from The Associated Press. The
Refurbished Statue Of Liberty Reopens To The Public
Reagan Says Vote On Nicaragua Rebels Would Make Miss Liberty Smile
Fourth Of July Weekend Celebrations ...
SOUTH AFRICA: Death Toll In 22 Months Passes 2,000 People
Rechristening Streets With Revolutionary Names
POPE: Warns Against Bringing Politics Into Church
JAPAN-ELECTIONS: Liberal Democrats Favored To Win Parliament Majority
SUPREME COURT: No Success For Reagan on Abortion, Prayer, Quotas
GORBACHEV: Charming East European Allies
CHERNOBYL: Europeans Still Haunted By Cancer Predictions
FRANKFURT, West Germany - Ten weeks after the Soviet nuclear reactor
explosion, many Europeans still cope with restrictions on their
eating habits and are haunted by predictions of increased cancer
rates. Slug AM-Europe-Chernobyl. New, may stand. 800 words.
An AP Extra by Mark Heinrich.
TWILIGHT ZONE: Trial at Hand in Landmark Movie Set Deaths Case
TEACHERS CONVENTION: Will NEA President Be A Lame Duck Or Run Again?
PHILIPPINE BASES: Issue Could Ignite Political Wars
CAMPAIGN MONEY: Reagan Can Raise Funds, But Can He Make A Winner?
ACADEMIC PORK: Universities Lobby Congress For Research Dollars
SOCIAL SECURITY: Impact of Student Aid Cuts Uncertain
TEEN STRIPPER: Dreams and Despair Lead to Suicide
a211 1101 05 Jul 86 AM-Europe-Chernobyl, Bjt,0705
Precautionary Health Measures Remain in Force; Cancer Risks Cited
An AP Extra By MARK HEINRICH
FRANKFURT, West Germany (AP) - Ten weeks after the Chernobyl nuclear
accident, many Europeans still have to choose carefully what they eat
and are haunted by predictions of increased cancer rates.
Since the Soviet reactor spewed a radioactive cloud over central and
Western Europe following an explosion and fire on April 26 in the
Ukraine, the short-lived radioactive element iodine has dissipated.
But some researchers are warning about the long-term threat of
cesium, an element which can persist for decades in the environment
and is a known cause of cancer.
Heinz Helmers, a physicist at West Germany's Oldenburg University
who helped test soil and produce after the accident, said cesium
levels would have to be thousands of times above normal to pose an
''acute'' health hazard.
However, he added, ''Over the long term we're going to see thousands
of cancer cases in both Germanies that could be traced to
Chernobyl.''
Various studies have found that fallout levels remain high in parts
of Europe.
Soil samples taken in parts of the West German state of Bavaria
turned up cesium contamination hundreds of times above normal.
Other West German studies have found higher-than-normal levels of
cesium in game meat, mushrooms, fresh-water fish, berries and some
dairy products such as buttermilk, radiation researchers say.
A June study in East Germany commissioned by West German television
found radioactivity 30 to 50 times above normal milk, meat and soil
in the nation's north. Milk and meat samples in the Plauen region of
southern East Germany showed radioactivity 30 to 300 times normal.
In France, official and private assessments of radiation levels and
potential health hazards differ sharply.
A consumer magazine, Que Choisir (What To Choose), accused officials
of lying about the health consequences of Chernobyl. In an article
titled ''Autopsy of a Lie,'' it said radiation levels measured in
Alsace-Lorraine state near the West German border would lead to a
rise in thyroid cancer among young children.
French officials were slow to acknowledge that the Chernobyl cloud
had passed over France, and then emphasized that it posed no serious
health hazard.
In Britain, the Department of Health and Social Security said in a
report that the nuclear accident is likely to trigger some increase
in cancer deaths over the next 50 years. It said more precise
predictions could not be made until better data were available on how
much radioactivity Britain absorbed.
Officials in Soviet-allied East European nations, such as Poland and
Czechoslovakia, acknowledge high counts from the fallout continue in
game meat and wild berries. Possible long-term health risks have not
been mentioned.
''According to the tests we have carried out on thousands of people
we should not expect any genetic effect or increased cancer rate due
to the accident,'' said Tadeusz Rzymkowski, head of Poland's Central
Laboratory for Radiological Protection.
Restrictions on the consumption of some foods meanwhile remain in
effect in several countries.
In Britain, the government on Friday lifted a ban on the movement
and slaughter of 550,000 sheep in parts of Wales and northwestern
England, but similar restrictions on 2.16 million sheep in other
areas remain in effect.
In sheep-raising regions of Britain, tests in late June found that
some substances were emitting as much as 2,000 becquerels, a measure
of radioactivity. The internationally recommended safe level is 1,000
becquerels.
In Sweden and Finland, health officials have recommended that people
eat as little as possible of certain fresh-water fish.
In Austria, sheep's cheese is banned from grocery shelves.
In southern Switzerland, authorities have recommended that children
under age 2 and pregnant or nursing women not drink goat's or sheep's
milk.
In the Netherlands, radioactivity in surface water remains three
times normal, and cesium in some fresh vegetables is 50 times the
usual level. But Health Ministry spokesman George Dankmeijer
dismissed the readings as ''no cause for concern.''
In West Germany, authorities have asked people not to eat venison or
wild mushrooms. Some Bavarian farmers are still keeping livestock
indoors, away from radioactive pastures.
AP-NY-07-05-86 1401EDT
a212 1113 05 Jul 86 AM-Chernobyl-Nuclear,0693
Pravda Readers Say Some Bureaucrats Failed To Help Evacuees
With AM-Europe-Chernobyl, Bjt By ALISON SMALE
MOSCOW (AP) - Pravda on Saturday criticized unnamed bureaucrats for
failing to help some of the more than 100,000 people evacuated from
their homes around the Chernobyl nuclear plant 10 weeks ago.
The Communist Party newspaper also said officials issued inadequate
advisories about what food and drink to avoid after the April 26
disaster in the northern Ukraine.
Pravda stressed that many citizens have offered their help by
letting evacuees into their homes or volunteering to clean up in and
around the plant.
The newspaper said, however, that its mailbag has turned up
incidents in which ''bureaucratic lack of thought'' by local
authorities added to the plight of the evacuees from the northern
Ukraine and southern Byelorussia.
Pravda cited the case of an old woman who was evacuated from
Pripyat, a town of 50,000 near the plant. The woman who now lives in
the southern town of Saratov was unable to receive her state pension
because she left her pension book behind in Pripyat, the newspaper
said.
Citing an example of bureaucratic inefficiency, the paper said that
weeks after the accident, residents of the Caspian Sea port of
Astrakhan and the Siberian oil town of Tyumen were still unable to
track down relatives who had been evacuated from Pripyat.
An evacuee complained that authorities in the Azerbaijani capital of
Baku on the Caspian Sea failed to provide his three children with
meat and butter rations. A woman wrote to Pravda, complaining about
housing for evacuees in the Russian town of Tula, about 120 miles
south of Moscow.
Pravda mentioned one case involving a citizen. It quoted from a
letter by a Pyotr Artemenko, a resident of the hamlet of Blidzha. The
newspaper wrote May 23 that Artemenko refused to let evacuees into
his home because he feared they might spoil his polished floors.
Saturday's edition quoted Artemenko as saying he was misunderstood
and was willing to accept any evacuee.
The different locations given for evacuaees showed for the first
time how widely scattered they are across the Soviet Union.
Previous media reports mentioned evacuees being taken to other parts
of the Ukraine, Black Sea resorts and to Baltic republics. Pravda for
the first time mentioned evacuees living as far away as Baku, more
than 1,800 miles southeast of the reactor.
It was not clear if authorities organized moves to such distant
places or if evacuees chose to go there to stay with relatives or
friends.
Pravda said at least 500 people from Pripyat now live in the town of
Yuzhni Bug near a large nuclear power plant in the southern Ukraine.
The dispersion of evacuees is likely to make it harder for
authorities to follow their medical histories.
Soviet and American doctors agreed last month that at least 100,000
people should be monitored for the rest of their lives for possible
health effects from the disaster.
Dr. Robert Gale, the U.S. bone marrow specialist who helped treat
Chernobyl victims, is due to arrive in Moscow July 25 to help set up
the follow-up program.
At least 26 people have died as a result of the accident and about
300 were hospitalized. Thirty-three of those hospitalized in Moscow
wrote to Pravda, thanking doctors who saved them.
Among the signatories was Maj. Leonid Telyatnikov, commander of the
Pripyat firefighters who first battled the blaze that engulfed the
No. 4 reactor after it was sundered by an explosion. At least two
signers were women.
Pravda said a lack of information still existed on health
precautions in some areas affected by the accident.
People wrote from the Ukraine, asking what food they should or
should not eat, the newspaper said.
In a related development, rumors have persisted that vodka rations
were being given to cleanup workers at Chernobyl and that vodka is
good for fighting the effects of radiation exposure.
Two girls writing from Kharkov in the Ukraine said their fathers
were drunkards and such rumors encouraged their drinking.
Newspapers and officials have denied the vodka ration rumors and
stressed that alcohol does not counteract the effects of radiation.
AP-NY-07-05-86 1413EDT
a252 1530 06 Jul 86 AM-Soviet-Ecology,0626
Writer Says Soviets Must Overcome ''Ecological Illiteracy''
By ALISON SMALE
MOSCOW (AP) - A biologist and writer, indignant over attempts to
present Soviet life as being relentlessly rosy, admonished officials
on Sunday to do something about what he dubbed the Soviet Union's
''ecological illiteracy.''
The letter from Anatoly Onegov published in the daily newspaper
Sovietskaya Rossiya did not mention the Chernobyl nuclear disaster,
but it reflected growing concern about the environment among Soviet
intellectuals.
It also demonstrated a tendency, which began after Mikhail S.
Gorbachev came to power in March l985, toward more openness in
discussion of Soviet society and ways to improve it.
The April 26 explosion and fire at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant
led to unprecedented public discussion here of the effects of
low-level radiation. It also led some Soviets to express concern
about their ignorance of potential hazards of nuclear power and other
industrial and technological advances.
In his letter, scientist and author Onegov said he often lectures on
biology and is always asked by members of the audience, ''Why aren't
we told anything about the pollution of the air, of rivers and of
food?''
Onegov took the newspaper to task for an article it printed on June
29 which quoted Yuri Izrael, head of the State Committee of
Hydrometereology and Environmental Control, as saying:
''Moscow is an absolutely clean city. Its atmosphere and reservoirs
are clean. There can be no discussion of any impurities in the
cleanliness of its food products.''
The article was intended to counter what Sovietskaya Rossiya said
was State Department advice to U.S. athletes competing here in the
Goodwill Games to bring their own food, because local food might have
been affected by radiation from Chernobyl.
''For one thing, there cannot be such a thing as an absolutely clean
city,'' Onegov said. ''Secondly, if you know Moscow, if you go around
the town on foot, then you must know that so-called smogs have long
visited or even taken up permanent residence in our capital.
''People with weak lungs or heart would have difficulty breathing in
whole neighborhoods of Moscow,'' the letter said.
Onegov pointed out that the newspaper printed a critical article
last week about smog in West Germany, but had ignored the problem at
home.
He said he often saw people gathering flowers and herbs from beside
Moscow streets heavy with traffic. He said the plants would be used
to make herbal medicines - widespread and popular in the Soviet Union
- and complained that herbs polluted by exhaust fumes are more likely
to infect than to heal.
''Who needs such declarations (as Izrael's)?'' the writer asked.
''The West? The West knows well that Moscow really is a comparatively
clean city ... But Sovietskaya Rossiya is read by Soviets. That man
who was collecting cowslip for the treatment of indigestion from the
curb of a main street reads it, that woman who was collecting another
plant for lung treatment reads it, too ...
''Think about whether such declarations are of any real use,'' he
urged.
''Aren't we just showing our citizens once again the rosy quality of
our life that needs absolutely no improvements? How can we reconcile
that position with our life today?'' he asked.
Onegov noted that efforts had recently been made to curb alcoholism
and advocated a similar drive to make people more aware of health and
the environment.
''Ecological education is necessary,'' he said. ''Unfortunately, it
is very much lacking.
''There is no need to convince us of this need - there is a huge
interest in ecological questions, and there are plenty of ecological
tragedies ... I am sure that we are on the verge of a wave of
ecological literacy similar to the recent wave of sobriety.''
AP-NY-07-06-86 1829EDT
a251 1536 05 Jul 86
AM-Digest Advisory,0192
All budgets have cleared. Here is a listing.
WASH - Reagan-Liberty, a217, a206.
WARSAW, Poland - Gorbachev-East Europe, a208.
WASH - Scotus-Reagan Agenda, a209.
FRANKFURT, West Germany - Europe-Chernobyl, a210.
LOS ANGELES - Twilight Zone, a214. Laserphoto LA2 of July 2.
JOHANNESBURG, South Africa - South Africa, a216.
NEW YORK - Liberty Rdp, a248.
UNDATED - Fourth Rdp, a243.
JOHANNESBURG, South Africa - SAfrica-Comrades, moved in advance as
a267 on June 30.
MEDILLIN, Colombia - Pope-Colombia, a246.
TOKYO - Japan-Elections, a235, laserphoto TOK2.
LOUISVILLE, Ky. - Teacher-Conventions, a233.
ANGELES CITY, Philippines - Philippines Bases, moved in advance as
a264-a265 on June 30.
LAS VEGAS, Nev. - Reagan-Fundraising Champ, moved in advance as a266
on July 2.
WASH - Academic Pork, moved in advance as a265 on July 2.
WASH - Social Security-Students, moved in advance as a256-a257 on
June 24, laserphoto DT2 of June 24.
CORAL SPRINGS, Fla. - Stripper Suicide, moved in advance as
a264-a265 on July 1, laserphotos MH4,5 of June 26.
AP-NY-07-05-86 1836EDT
a230 1406 08 Jul 86 AM-Chernobyl,0380
Kiev Given Backup Water Supply Because Of Chernobyl
By ANDREW ROSENTHAL
MOSCOW (AP) - Engineers have provided a backup water supply for
Kiev's 2.4 million people and will divert all ground water around the
stricken Chernobyl nuclear plant to prevent radiation pollution, an
official said Tuesday.
Vladimir Borisovsky, Ukrainian minister for special construction
projects, did not say in the interview with the news agency Tass
whether experts had found high radiation levels in the Dnieper River.
The Dneiper supplies drinking water to the Ukrainian capital 80
miles south of the nuclear power plant, where a reactor explosion and
fire April 26 sent up a huge cloud of radiation that spread over
Europe and gradually worked its way around the world.
According to the latest official count issued June 5, the disaster
has caused the deaths of 26 people.
Borisovsky's comments to the official news agency indicated
authorities have taken more stringent precautions against radiation
pollution than had been reported earlier.
A report in the government newspaper Izvestia implied that
above-normal radiation had been found in at least some parts of the
Dnieper, but it was not specific.
Soviet officials expressed fear soon after the reactor accident that
radiation would pollute the Pripyat River. It flows past the plant
into the Dneiper, a major waterway that feeds a reservoir north of
Kiev and runs through the city.
Tass quoted Borisovsky as saying nearly half the people of Kiev
drink only Dneiper water, but he did not say whether the rest get
their water from the newly installed backup supply or from some other
source.
''The accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant has raised the
risk of radioactive substances getting into the river, so we have
taken prompt measures to prevent this,'' he said.
In addition to banking the Pripyat at the Chernobyl plant, he said,
work crews spent a month building a pumping station to move water
from the nearby Desna River to the collection station at the
reservoir north of Kiev.
The Desna originates in Byelorussia, flowing through the town of
Chernigov, about 100 miles northeast of Kiev, to the Ukrainian
capital. Chernigov is approximately 48 miles northeast of the
four-reactor Chernobyl plant.
AP-NY-07-08-86 1706EDT
a077 0715 11 Jul 86 PM-Survival '86, Adv 14 - 2 Takes,0770
Fad Passes, But Survivalists Still Stand Prepared An AP Extra
Eds: Note language in 16th graf, ''It came to. . .''
With LaserPhoto By LISA LEVITT RYCKMAN
ASHLAND, Ore. (AP) - For 30 years, Dean Ing has conducted
experiments in staying alive that have left him modestly equipped to
survive the end of civilization.
But please don't brand him survivalist; call him self-reliant
instead. That's the byword of today's mainstream survivalism, the
kind quietly practiced by writer-scientist Ing, some of his Rogue
River Valley neighbors and thousands of others across the United
States.
These are people who may store freeze-dried food and cans of water
in their basements. They may keep solar-powered radios and kerosene
heaters against an electrical failure. They may have some knowledge
of field medicine and how to live in the wilderness.
They run the gamut from rainy-day survivalists who make minimal
preparations to hard-core types who have left society, according to
those involved. They share a reluctance to talk about this aspect of
their lives and a relief that the stereotype of the late '70s -
survivalists armed to the eyeballs with paranoia and paramilitary
paraphernalia - dropped out of sight about the same time as
double-digit inflation.
''When you are better off economically and financially and when you
perceive your leader is stronger, the survivalist movement goes down
the tubes,'' said John Metzger, one-time editor of the now-defunct
Survive magazine. ''If you have a weaker leader, you're scared. And
fear is a big part of the survivalist movement.''
Observers of survivalism say companies that sold survival products,
along with publications touting hard-core survivalism, have virtually
disappeared.
''Survivalism became a fad. The fad flourished for a while, and then
people lost interest,'' Metzger said.
Relative economic prosperity was the death of Survive, published by
the Omega Group of Boulder, Colo., best known for Soldier of Fortune.
It did well when it began in 1981, peaking with a monthly circulation
of 60,000, Metzger said.
In the next two years, however, its advertising base eroded.
Companies devoted to big-ticket items such as fallout shelters sold
all they were going to sell and went belly up. In 1983, Survive
became Guns and Action to try to attract a broader readership. This
year, it folded for good.
''People have real short memories,'' said Bruce Bogart, advertising
manager for American Survival Guide, an Anaheim, Calif.-based
publication that has increased readership by expanding the scope of
its articles. ''In a good economy, things like survivalism tend to be
on a back burner. When things are going bad, our readership goes up.
They need us.''
It only takes a Chernobyl to stir up some stopgap survivalism. After
the Soviet nuclear accident, Ing said, his phone rang with callers
asking the author what they could do to protect themselves from
fallout.
At Survival Inc., a Los Angeles-based mail order company offering
everything from freeze-dried food to home birthing kits, supplies of
iodine tablets and radiation detectors, goods that normally would
have stayed on the shelves for months, sold out within hours. But
that was a respite from generally sluggish sales of recent years.
''In 1980, (demand was so high) we could hardly get enough food and
equipment to sell,'' manager Eldon Morgan recalled. ''(Reagan) has
brought a more secure feeling to the people. And as people fear or
don't fear for their future existence, they do what they need to
do.''
Do what needs to be done, and do it yourself, is Ing's credo. His
hillside home is a jumble of survivalist stuff. There's a pair of
handmade snowshoes fashioned from green wood; a radiation detector
made from a tin can, thread, aluminum foil and bits of gypsum
wallboard; the car he built himself, a sporty two-seater that any
fumble-fingered mechanic could fix, the kind you want when a
breakdown could mean your life.
Few neighbors in this quiet residential area are aware of his
survivalist bent. That proves it's possible to practice self-reliance
without seeming like a ''kook, one of those strange things called a
survivalist,'' he said.
''It came to mean some crazy bastard who hates the human race in
general, keeps an arsenal and runs around playing paramilitary games
all the time,'' said Ing, a 55-year-old behavioral scientist,
engineer and science fiction writer.
''But a truly self-reliant person doesn't go looking for trouble,''
he added. ''They just want to be able to survive when trouble comes
looking for them.''
a295 2101 13 Jul 86
AM-France-Nuclear,0289
Luxembourg Protests Nuclear Plant Start-Up
METZ, France (AP) - Luxembourg on Sunday protested the start-up of a
French nuclear power station at Cattenom, and about 150 demonstrators
from those two countries and West Germany protested near the plant.
Late Saturday, French engineers began loading 118 tons of enriched
uranium fuel into the first of four 1,300 megawatt reactors at the
site near the borders with West Germany and Luxembourg. The first
reactor is to be coupled to the national electricity grid in October.
Ecologists from Luxembourg and West Germany have been demonstrating
against the plant for months. On Sunday, they staged portrayed mass
deaths by radiation on the road near the French and Luxembourg
frontier posts, about 12 miles from the plant.
Luxembourg's secretary of state, Ronald Goebbels, said his country
was ''shocked and disappointed by the French decision to load the
reactor without waiting for the outcome of a court action by some 30
communities in Luxembourg'' and the nearby German Rhine and Saar
areas.
He said that ''two-thirds of Luxembourg's population lives within a
30-kilometer (18-mile) radius of Cattenom, which also includes most
of our hospitals.''
''If there was an accident like Chernobyl, how could irradiated
people be treated if all the hospitals had to be evacuated,'' he
asked. ''We are saddened by the fact that France ignores the
principles of the equality of nations and the brotherhood of
peoples.''
The world's worst nuclear accident occured last April at the Soviet
atomic power plant at Chernobyl in the Ukraine. A fire and explosion
at the plant sent a radioactive cloud over most of Europe, and Soviet
officials said 26 people in the immediate area died from radiation
exposure.
AP-NY-07-13-86 2338EDT
***************
a214 1137 15 Jul 86
AM-News Advisory,0246
In addition to the stories listed on the AM-News Digest, we are
planning the following for AMs:
US-SOVIET:
WASHINGTON - President Reagan, in a meeting with Republican
congressional leaders, is quoted as saying he thinks there will be a
U.S.-Soviet summit before the end of the year. AM-US-Soviet.
CHERNOBYL:
MOSCOW - A leading newspaper says thousands of families evacuated
from the Chernobyl area will move to new, apparently permanent, homes
farther from the ruined nuclear plant this fall, and indicates
continued concern about the evacuees' radiation exposure.
AM-Chernobyl.
NETHERLANDS-GRAHAM:
AMSTERDAM, Netherlands - Along with community sing-alongs, mass
prayer sessions, and an array of prominent speakers, 8,000 itinerant
evangelists hone their preaching skills at a training conference
sponsored by Billy Graham. AM-Netherlands-Graham. Sent as a0593.
OIL:
NEW YORK - Oil prices strengthen slightly after declining on reports
that OPEC has raised output. But many analysts call it a temporary
rebound and some predict prices could fall to the $8 a barrel level,
underscoring the failure of world producers to agree on restraints
necessary to reduce excess supplies. AM-Oil.
TELEVISION ADS:
NEW YORK - The three major television networks are finding
advertisers more tight-fisted than ever as the fall season approaches
and two of them have taken the unprecedented step of cutting ad rates
for advance sales of prime commercial time below last year's levels,
industry executives and analysts say. AM-Television Ads.
AP-NY-07-15-86 1437EDT
***************
a245 1638 15 Jul 86
AM-Chernobyl,0557
Paper Says Chernobyl Evacuees To Be Moved Farther Away
By ANDREW ROSENTHAL
Associated Press Writer
MOSCOW (AP) - Thousands of families evacuated from the Chernobyl
area will be moved farther away, Izvestia said Tuesday, contradicting
previous reports that the radiation danger had lessened and some
could return home soon.
The government newspaper said new houses will not be built in areas
just north of the evacuation zone, where the people now live, but in
regions farther from the Ukrainian power plant whose No. 4 reactor
exploded and burned April 26.
A concrete shell is being built around the ruined reactor, which
spewed radiation that spread over Europe and eventually around the
world. The latest official report, issued early last month, put the
death toll at 26.
''At this time, perhaps the main problem is living space,'' Izvestia
said, adding that some evacuees were unhappy about the decision to
move them. ''Every family that was evacuated from the 30-kilometer
(18-mile) zone should receive an individual house or apartment by
winter.''
Izvestia did not say how long the evacuees would be in their new
homes, but suggested the relocation would lengthy, if not permanent.
It quoted Yuri A. Puplikov, a spokesman for the state construction
agency, as saying: ''We are not just building houses, we are building
people's lives.
''The kind of life this will be depends to a large extent on us. We
would like it if people would forget quickly the unhappy events
connected with the accident.''
Officials said after the disaster that more than 100,000 people were
evacuated from an 18-mile zone around the plant 80 miles north of
Kiev, a city of 2.4 million that is the Ukraine's capital.
Subsequent reports indicated many were sent to new homes and jobs in
distant regions of the Soviet Union, but many remained in temporary
housing near the zone.
Izvestia said most of those evacuated want to remain near their own
homes and once were promised they would not be taken far away. It did
not say how many people would be moved or mention the villages
reported earlier to be ready for resettlement.
The newspaper did report that 4,000 houses were to be built by Oct.
1 in just one region, the Gomel area of southern Byelorussia, the
Ukraine's northern neighbor.
Most of the houses are prefabricated units containing three rooms,
Izvestia said.
Its report mentioned only the areas north of Chernobyl. Other
evacuees were taken to temporary homes south of the plant.
Izvestia said news of the moving plan had inspired rumors that
radiation levels were climbing near the evacuation zone, but quoted
Puplikov as saying the rumors were unfounded.
Puplikov added, however, that health concerns were involved in the
decision.
''In recent days, there has been a detailed consultation with
scientists, especially doctors,'' he said. ''They said the evacuated
part of the population came under the influence of radiation, even
though in doses that are not life-threatening.
''Why should they get even more increased background radiation,
especially since the children are soon going to return from Pioneer
camps?''
Evacuated children were sent to summer camps soon after the reactor
accident.
Puplikov also cited economic reasons.
''The northern parts of the areas that did not suffer from radiation
are densely populated,'' he said. ''At the same time, there are
regions where there aren't enough working hands.''
AP-NY-07-15-86 1938EDT
***************
a043 0353 16 Jul 86
PM-Chernobyl,0327
Paper Says Chernobyl Evacuees To Be Moved Farther Away
By ANDREW ROSENTHAL
Associated Press Writer
MOSCOW (AP) - The newspaper Izvestia, contradicting previous reports
that the radiation danger from the Chernobyl accident had lessened,
said thousands of families evacuated from the area of the power plant
will be moved farther away.
The Ukrainian atomic power station's No. 4 reactor exploded and
burned April 26, releasing radiation that spread over Europe and
eventually around the world.
According to the most recent official report, issued early last
month, 26 people died in the accident and its aftermath.
Izvestia, the Soviet government daily, said Tuesday that new houses
for evacuees will be built not in areas just north of the evacuation
zone, where the people now live, but in regions farther from the
power plant.
''At this time, perhaps the main problem is living space,'' Izvestia
said, adding that some evacuees were unhappy about the decision to
move them. ''Every family that was evacuated from the 30-kilometer
(18-mile) zone should receive an individual house or apartment by
winter.''
Izvestia did not say how long the evacuees would be in their new
homes, but suggested the relocation would be lengthy, if not
permanent.
It quoted Yuri A. Puplikov, a spokesman for the state construction
agency, as saying: ''We are not just building houses, we are building
people's lives.
''The kind of life this will be depends to a large extent on us. We
would like it if people would forget quickly the unhappy events
connected with the accident.''
Officials said after the disaster that more than 100,000 people were
evacuated from the 18-mile zone around the plant 80 miles north of
Kiev, a city of 2.4 million that is the Ukraine's capital.
Subsequent reports indicated many were sent to new homes and jobs in
distant regions of the Soviet Union, but many remained in temporary
housing near the zone.
AP-NY-07-16-86 0653EDT
***************
a018 0006 17 Jul 86
PM-Over-The-Line, Bjt,0664
Bawdy Beach Softball Tournament Tones Down
By ALAN L. ADLER
Associated Press Writer
SAN DIEGO (AP) - For two weekends a year, the men of the Old Mission
Beach Athletic Club take over an island in the middle of Mission Bay
for a massive beach party where almost anything used to go. Nowadays,
only most things do.
The Over-The-Line tournament is billed as the world championship of
three-person beach softball. Over the years, it's become known for a
good deal more, much of it bawdy, some of it illegal and most of it
unprintable.
''The real purpose is to have a tournament for 900 or so teams, but
the elements work together,'' said Mike Curren, a surveyor regarded
as the father of the Over-The-Line tournament, which has been held in
all but one year since 1954. The missing year was 1958, and no one
remembers why it didn't come off.
It has grown from 24 players in 1954 to 2,700 this year.
''The bawdy is still there and so is the body - lots of pretty boys
and girls. The first-timer that comes out might be a little
embarrassed, but he gets over it when they see that everybody is
doing it,'' Curren said.
Over-The-Line has been called the Woodstock of the beach, an image
that OMBAC members have taken steps to avoid - while allowing it to
remain risque enough to qualify as adult entertainment. Among the
rules for free admission to Fiesta Island: no babies, bottles or
bowsers.
''Finally, we've educated people that you can have a lot of fun, but
there are certain dos and don'ts,'' said club president Chuck
Millenbah. ''It basically comes down to look but don't touch.''
For purists, the game played on 36 courts is plenty of
entertainment; for others, boy- and girl-watching, beer-drinking and
sun-bathing take precedence.
The concept is simple. Over-The-Line involves no running, only
hitting a special softball ''over the line'' about 55 feet from where
the ball is pitched by the hitter's teammate. The goal is to hit it
where three opposition fielders can't catch it. If the ball clears
the last fielder on the fly without being touched, it's a home run.
Everything else that isn't caught is a single. The team with the most
runs after five innings is the winner.
Tales from the tournament's past include some R-rated entertainment,
like women who drop their tops to the urging of the crowd. OMBAC has
curtailed that, except for the time-honored tradition of letting
women ''win'' a free T-shirt by replacing their bikini top with it in
front of a panel of OMBAC members.
''It's all in good fun. It's not degrading,'' said one woman who
took the dare Saturday. ''You get butterflies, but you know that no
one's pressuring you to do anything.''
Then there's Ms. Emerson, the OMBAC-selected beauty queen of the
tournament. Criteria for that choice has primarily been limited to
physical attributes found between the neck and the waist. The name
Ms. Emerson grew from a knock-knock joke. The new Ms. Emerson will be
selected this weekend.
A slick full-color program for the tournament is a sought-after
item. Aside from photos displaying Ms. Emerson candidates and other
beauties - male and female - the program includes a run-down of team
names.
Many are tasteless sex jokes, some are topical, and very few are
printable.
Some this year include: ''Go Ahead Gorbachev, Melt My Day,''
''Chernobyl Night Lights,'' and ''Gadhafi Loves An Air Show.'' There
also are the ''Imelda Marcos Art Advisers,'' for the former first
lady of the Philippines.
Don Peterson, who announces each of the team match-ups, said players
take the game seriously.
But Pat McGaffigan, whose team's name can't appear here, said the
sideshow atmosphere can be a problem. ''When you play in this
tournament, you have to concentrate. The smaller tournaments have a
lot less distractions.''
AP-NY-07-17-86 0307EDT
***************
a288 2055 17 Jul 86
AM-Hanford Reactor,0222
Energy Department Team Warns of Complacency at Hanford Reactor
WASHINGTON (AP) - A special team of experts said Thursday the
nation's only nuclear reactor designed like the Chernobyl reactor is
operated safely, but issued a warning against complacency, listing 57
recommendations for improvement.
Among other things, the team said it found that the backup control
room at the N-reactor on the Hanford Nuclear Reservation near
Richland, Wash., could not be used in a severe accident.
The team said the staff did not adequately understand that the
reactor's graphite moderator could catch fire, and employees
generally did not believe it is possible to reduce radiation exposure
any further.
It was a fire in the graphite of the Chernobyl reactor in the Soviet
Union that threw radioactive materials high in the air and around the
globe on the wind.
The Hanford N-reactor, which makes nuclear weapons material as well
as electricity for the power grid of the Pacific Northwest, is the
only large U.S. reactor that uses graphite to slow down neutrons and
water to carry away heat, two important similarities with the
Chernobyl design.
Like Chernobyl, the N-reactor does not have a pressure-tight
containment structure designed to prevent radioactive substances from
escaping in an accident. Unlike Chernobyl, the area for 5 1/2 miles
around is empty.
AP-NY-07-17-86 2355EDT
***************
a042 0343 18 Jul 86
PM-Washington In Brief,0687
WASHINGTON (AP) - The House is considering legislation that would
permit a wide array of businesses, governments and associations to
insure themselves or band together to buy group coverage.
The Senate, by a vote of 96-1, approved the bill allowing
manufacturers, sellers and distributors to self-insure by forming
so-called risk retention groups - or buy group coverage against
product liability claims.
''This is a first step but only a first step in dealing with the
liability insurance crisis that all of us are aware of,'' Sen. Robert
W. Kasten Jr., R-Wis., the chief sponsor, said after Thursday's vote.
The Senate acted amid complaints from many organizations about
skyrocketing insurance premiums, and in some cases an unavailability
of coverage.
Sen. Frank Lautenberg, D-N.J., was the only lawmaker who voted
against the bill.
---
WASHINGTON (AP) - A consumer group is asking the Food and Drug
Administration to declare the popular artificial sweetner aspartame,
known as NutraSweet, as an ''imminent hazard'' to health.
The Community Nutrition Institute, which filed a petition Thursday,
based its claim on reports collected by two Boston researchers from
some 80 individuals who said they suffered seizures after consuming
the product.
Those reports, which were presented to the FDA in April, are
anecdotal rather than controlled scientific studies. But the
institute's petition contends they meet legal standards for proof of
''imminent hazard.''
The declaration of ''imminent hazard'' is a legal distinction that
allows the FDA to move against the substance without going through
the usual regulatory procedures of advance notice and public hearing.
---
WASHINGTON (AP) - The Navy plans to ask Congress for the right to
use $60 million in savings from aircraft production contracts for
other programs, says Navy Secretary John F. Lehman Jr.
The savings, when added to ones identified previously, brings to
more than $1.6 billion the amount the Navy has saved on major
aircraft programs compared to the approved budgets for fiscal years
1983, 1984 and 1985, Lehman said Thursday.
Congress approved procurement budgets for those Navy programs
totaling $14.37 billion during those three years, but the actual
contracts totaled $12.76 billion.
The additional $60 million in savings was recently calculated based
on the results of final negotiations with contractors for production
of jet fighters, helicopters and other planes authorized in fiscal
1984 and fiscal 1985, Lehman said.
---
WASHINGTON (AP) - The nation's only nuclear reactor similar in
design to the Chernobyl reactor is operated safely, but personnel at
the Hanford Nuclear Reservation must guard against complacency, says
a team of experts.
The 15-member team said Thursday it found that the backup control
room at the Hanford N-reactor, near Richland, Wash., could not be
used in a severe accident.
The team said the staff did not adequately understand that the
reactor's graphite moderator could catch fire, and employees
generally did not believe it is possible to reduce radiation exposure
any further.
After the April 28 disaster at Chernobyl, Energy Secretary John S.
Herrington ordered a speed-up of an already scheduled ''technical
safety appraisal'' by a team of experts.
---
WASHINGTON (AP) - The Pentagon will have to delay construction on
various medical facilities because of an amendment calling for
construction of a new hospital that the Defense Department doesn't
want to build, says an internal review.
The review concludes that the Pentagon will have to delay at least
18 projects scheduled for construction starts in fiscal 1989 and
possibly seven others because of an amendment authored by Rep. Tom
Loeffler, R-Texas.
The amendment, attached to the Pentagon's military construction
budget, directs the Pentagon to proceed with design and site
preparation work for a 450-bed replacement hospital for the Brooke
Army Medical Center in San Antonio, Texas.
The House Appropriations Committee's military construction
subcommittee did not increase funding to pay for the work and other
projects must be cut, according to the review.
The amendment survived House floor action and is awaiting a Senate
vote, said Bill Marinelli, an aide to the subcommittee.
AP-NY-07-18-86 0643EDT
***************
a212 1119 18 Jul 86
AM-News Advisory,0182
In addition to the stories listed on the AM-News Digest, we are
planning the following for AMs:
LA PAZ, Bolivia - U.S. soldiers and Bolivian narcotics officers
begin raiding cocaine processing dens hidden in the tropical
flatlands of northeast Bolivia, U.S. and Bolivian sources said
Friday. AM-Bolivia-US Drugs.
MOSCOW - The Kremlin removed the head of the state atomic safety
committee Friday, nearly three months after the Chernobyl nuclear
disaster, and a news weekly said the accident has forced a review of
atomic power policy. AM-Chernobyl-Nuclear. Developing.
WASHINGTON - Officials of eight cities begin formal pitches for the
1988 Democratic National Convention, guaranteeing friendliness,
convenience and even a $6 New York City dinner ''that will make you
proud.'' AM-Democratic Convention. Sent as a0597.
SANTA CRUZ, Calif. - Gov. George Deukmejian, who last year vetoed a
relatively mild anti-apartheid bill, asked University of California
regents on Friday to sell off $3.1 billion in investments with firms
doing business in South Africa. AM-Divestment.
The AP
AP-NY-07-18-86 1419EDT
***************
a222 1242 18 Jul 86
AM-Chernobyl-Nuclear,0618
Atomic Safety Committee Chairman Removed
By ANDREW ROSENTHAL
Associated Press Writer
MOSCOW (AP) - The Kremlin removed the head of the state atomic
safety committee Friday, nearly three months after the Chernobyl
nuclear disaster, and a news weekly said the accident has forced a
review of atomic power policy.
The magazine New Times indicated radiation still is leaking in small
amounts from the crippled Chernobyl reactor, about 80 miles north of
Kiev in the Soviet Ukraine.
In a one-sentence announcement, the official news agency Tass said
the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet, the nation's nominal Parliament,
had ''released from his duties'' Yevgeny V. Kulov, 57, chief of the
State Committee for Safety in the Atomic Power Atomic Industry since
1983.
It gave no reason for the move and did not list any new assignment,
indicating he was fired. It did not mention the Chernobyl accident or
say who was replacing Kulov.
He is the first national atomic energy official to be removed from
office since the April 26 chemical explosion and fire at the plant's
No. 4 reactor, which spewed radioactivity over much of Europe.
The plant director and several other local officials have been fired
or thrown out of the Communist Party because of alleged incompetency
during the accident.
The New Times article did not shed any new light on what caused the
disaster, which it called ''the most serious one in the history of
nuclear power engineering.''
It also did not update the official casualty figure of 26 dead.
The magazine quoted Valery Legasov, deputy director of a state
atomic energy institute, as saying Chernobyl ''forced us to revise
once again the concept of the development of nuclear power
engineering in the country, the location of nuclear power plants, the
level of technical preparedness and the skill of personnel.''
Many Soviet nuclear reactors were built close to towns and even
large cities, and small communities often are built next to the
reactors for plant workers and support industries.
The article did not specify what new policies were being considered.
Yuri V. Sivintsev, identified as the institute's laboratory chief,
was quoted as saying the thousands of tons of sand, boron, lead and
other material dumped on the ruined No. 4 reactor have ''practically
stopped'' the leakage of radiation from the reactor.
This indicated some radiation still is leaking, but Sivintsev did
not give any figures.
Despite very high levels of radiation, experts in protective
clothing are able to go inside the damaged reactor building to
install equipment to monitor radiation and control air temperature,
the magazine said.
''So far, we cannot approach closely the center of the reactor,'' it
quoted Sivintsev as saying. He was quoted as saying the project to
encase the reactor in concrete should be completed this fall.
Today's issue of the newsweekly Nedelya, meanwhile, quoted doctors
as saying the local clinic ran out of blood tranfusion equipment and
pajamas in the first days after the accident.
The article said the wife of Vladimir Shashenok, one of two men who
died instantly or shortly after the accident, was a nurse who tended
her badly burned husband during the last hours of his life.
At least one nurse and one doctor who helped treat accident victims
are being treated at a Moscow hospital, it said.
The report did not identify the doctor, but quoted one physician,
Valentine Belokon, as saying he worked for three hours near the
burning reactor and felt ''a metal taste in the mouth, a headache,
sickness.''
''I understood everything and asked permission to leave,'' Belokon
was quoted as saying.
AP-NY-07-18-86 1542EDT
***************
a055 0419 19 Jul 86
PM-South Korea-Kim,0409
Dissident Leader Placed Under House Arrest
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) - The government placed dissident leader Kim
Dae-jung under house arrest today, hours before a scheduled
anti-government rally protesting the alleged sexual abuse of a
dissident in police custody, Kim's aides said.
Security officials came to Kim's Seoul home shortly before 8 a.m.
and told him to stay home and not attend the rally which has been
banned, the aides said. The house was surrounded by about 400
plainclothes police officers and a police car blocked Kim's garage,
they said.
Kim, who has been put under house arrrest on several occasions this
year alone, is banned from political activities under a 20-year
suspended sentence he was given on sedition charges in 1980.
Meanwhile, the government reportedly rounded up more than 30 members
of the opposition New Korea Democratic Party and confiscated
thousands of leaflets intended for distribution at the rally.
Party members said the rally would take place at the Myongdong
Catholic cathedral despite the police ban.
The National Police claimed in a statement distributed to foreign
news services that the rally was intended for ''fabricating and
disseminating malicious false rumors'' about the case.
The rally was banned because ''it is likely to cause a conspicuous
breach of social stability by disseminating falsified information,''
the statement said.
At issue are allegations that 23-year-old Kwon In-suk was sexually
abused by a police investigator in early June.
Ms. Kwon sued. The investigator and three of his superiors were
later fired.
The government has said the allegations of sexual abuse were
exaggerated.
It confirmed, however, that Ms. Kwon was beaten ''in the breasts
three or four times'' on two occasions after being forced to remove
her jacket and T-shirt. She was beaten while being interrogated a
police station in connection with a violent demonstration, the report
said.
The report also said Ms. Kwon's case has been dealt with ''in a fair
fashion.'' It noted that the police officer involved has been
dismissed and that Ms. Kwon has been cleared of making false charges.
The government said special efforts were being made to educate
investigators to prevent physical abuses or torture of suspects and
also to protect human rights of the people.
The opposition party has disputed the police report and pledged to
continue its own investigation into the case together with civil
rights groups and lawyers.
AP-NY-07-19-86 0720EDT
- - - - - -
a072 0644 19 Jul 86
PM-South Korea-Kim,a055,0365
Riot Police Foil Anti-Government Rally
Eds: UPDATES 1st 12 grafs with foiled demonstration, injured
dissident, sit-in
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) - Riot police fired tear gas today to
prevent thousands of opposition activists from holding an
anti-government demonstration at a downtown church.
More than 2,000 security officers ringing the Myongdong Roman
Catholic Cathedral repelled the demonstrators, who were led by
dissident leader Kim Young-sam.
Earlier, about 400 police surrounded the house of opposition leader
Kim Dae-jung to prevent him from attending the rally.
Officials of the main opposition group, the New Korea Democratic
Party, said they did not know if party members or dissidents were
arrested during clashes around the cathedral. Some demonstrators
approached police lines to shout anti-government and anti-Amrerican
slogans.
The dissidents oppose the authoritarian policies of President Chun
Doo-hwan. They also are critical of Washington's economic and
military aid to the government.
Scores of activists who managed to sneak into the cathedral before
police lines went up shouted through loudspeakers slogans such as,
''Down with military dictatorship.'' Police did not enter the
cathedral.
The New Korea Democratic Party said its vice president, Yang
Sung-jik, was severely bruised when struck in the side by a tear gas
cannister. No other injuries were reported.
After beind dispersed, Kim Young-sam, an adviser to New Korea
Democratic Party President Lee Min-woo, and about 50 opposition
lamwakers returned to party headquarters and began a sit-in.
Government forces were reported to have detained more than 30 New
Korea party members Friday night and to have confiscated thousands of
leaflets intended for distribution at the demonstration. Those
detained were later released without being charged, party officials
said.
Opposition spokesmen said it was the 25th time Kim Dae-jung was
placed under house arrest since returning home from a self-imposed
exile in the United States on Feb. 8, 1985.
He is barred from political activities under a 20-year suspended
sentence he received in 1980 on sedition charges.
The foiled rally was called by the opposition party and other groups
to protest alleged sexual abuse of a dissident woman by a police
investigator.
The National: 6th graf
AP-NY-07-19-86 0944EDT
- - - - - -
a211 1018 19 Jul 86
PM-South Korea-Kim, 1st Ld, CORRECTION, a055,0038
SEOUL, South Korea SUB 16th graf: Ms. Kwon xxx later fired to
CORRECT that three superiors were suspended, not fired
Ms. Kwon sued. The investigator was fired and three of his superiors
were suspended.
AP-NY-07-19-86 1318EDT
- - - - - -
a228 1217 19 Jul 86
BC-Chernobyl, CORRECTION, a211,0058
MOSCOW SUB 4th graf to CORRECT damage total to $2.8 billion, sted
million
The disaster, the worst in the history of civilian nuclear power,
caused a 2 billion rubles worth of damage - $2.8 billion at the
official exchange rate - and contaminated 400 square miles, the
Politburo said.
Tass said: 5th graf
AP-NY-07-19-86 1517EDT
***************
n999 0748 19 Jul 86
. . .
ion, center of the
Philippines' 5 million-strong Moslem minority. More than 50,000
people died in a Moslem revolt in the 1970s .
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PM-Chernobyl-Nuclear,0275
Atomic Safety Committee Chairman Removed
MOSCOW (AP) - The chief of the state atomic safety committee has
been removed by the Kremlin, nearly three months after the Chernobyl
nuclear power plant accident.
The official news agency Tass, in a one-sentence announcement
Friday, said the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet, the nation's
nominal parliament, ''released from his duties'' Yevgeny V. Kulov,
57, chief of the State Committee for Safety in the Atomic Power
Atomic Industry since 1983.
The announcement did not give a reason for the move and did not list
any new assignment, indicating Kulov was fired. It did not mention
the Chernobyl accident which occurred about 80 miles north of Kiev in
the Soviet Ukraine and killed 26 people.
Kulov is the first national atomic energy official to be removed
from office since the April 26 chemical explosion and fire at the
plant's No. 4 reactor, which spewed radioactivity over much of
Europe.
The plant director and several other local officials were fired or
thrown out of the Communist Party because of alleged incompetency
during the accident.
The Friday issue of the newsweekly Nedelya, meanwhile, quoted
doctors as saying the local clinic ran out of blood tranfusion
equipment and pajamas in the first days after the accident.
The article said the wife of Vladimir Shashenok, one of two men who
died instantly or shortly after the accident, was a nurse who tended
her badly burned husband during the last hours of his life.
At least one nurse and one doctor who helped treat accident victims
are being treated at a Moscow hospital, it said.
AP-NY-07-19-86 1048EDT
***************
a212 1020 19 Jul 86
BC-Chernobyl,0072
BULLETIN
Politburo Blames Human Error, Says 28 Now Dead in Chernobyl Accident
MOSCOW (AP) - The ruling Politburo on Saturday blamed ''gross
breaches'' of operating regulations by Chernobyl nuclear plant
workers for the accident there, and said the death toll from the
April 26 disaster now stands at 28.
The last official death toll, which was issued early last month,
said 26 people had died in the accident.
AP-NY-07-19-86 1320EDT
- - - - - -
a213 1021 19 Jul 86
BC-Chernobyl, 1st Add, a212,0068
URGENT
MOSCOW, the accident.
In a report issued by the official news agency Tass, the Politburo
said 203 people suffered radiation disease from the accident and 30
remain hospitalized.
The disaster, the worst in the history of civilian nuclear power,
caused a total of 2 billion rubles in damages ($2.8 million at the
official exchange rate) and contaminated 400 square miles, the
Politburo said.
AP-NY-07-19-86 1321EDT
- - - - - -
a216 1048 19 Jul 86
BC-Chernobyl, 2nd add, a213,0270
URGENT
MOSCOW: Politburo said
Tass said the Politburo met in special session to discuss the
results of a government inquiry into the accident at the power
station 80 miles north of Kiev, which released a radioactive cloud
that spread around the world.
''It was established that the accident had been caused by a series
of gross breaches of the reactor operational regulations by workers
of the atomic power station,'' the Politburo statement said.
It said the accident in the No. 4 reactor of the four-reactor
complex occurred during ''experiments with the turbogenerator
operation.''
The reactor had been shut for planned repairs, the Politburo said.
Earlier reports said the accident began when the reactor surged out
of control and the cooling system failed to handle the heat.
Radioactive steam was released and reacted with the graphite reactor
core to produce a hydrogen pocket that exploded, the reports said.
The Politburo said the reactor is now ''under dependable control and
causes no worry. The site of the power station is being cleaned of
radiation and the surrounding territory, buildings, structures and
equipment decontaminated on a large scale.''
The Politburo noted that some officials were fired in connection
with the accident and said the prosecutor general's office had
started criminal cases against ''persons guilty of the accident.''
Among those fired over the accident, the report said, was Yevgeny V.
Kulov, the head of the state atomic power safety committee; G.A.
Shasharin, deputy minister of power and electrification; and Ivan Y.
Yemelyanov, deputy director of the institute that designed the
Chernobyl reactor.
AP-NY-07-19-86 1348EDT
***************
a240 1406 19 Jul 86
AM-Chernobyl,0779
Poliburo Blames Gross Negligence For Chernobyl
By ANDREW ROSENTHAL
Associated Press Writer
MOSCOW (AP) - The Politburo on Saturday blamed the Chernobyl
disaster on gross negligence, said three government officials were
fired, and increased the official death toll from history's worst
civilian nuclear accident to 28.
In a statement distributed by the official Soviet news agency Tass,
the Politburo said those who caused the accident would be put on
trial.
The Communist Party's ruling body said the Chernobyl reactor
exploded on April 26 as workers conducted improperly supervised and
badly prepared experiments on a turbine generator without proper
safety precautions.
It indicated that safety procedures and technical training also were
inadequate at the nation's other nuclear plants, which include 13
graphite-moderated reactors like the one at Chernobyl.
Painting the most graphic picture yet of the scope of the disaster,
the Politburo said 28 people were dead, 30 still hospitalized and 173
others stricken by radiation sickness.
The accident caused the equivalent of $2.8 billion in damage,
disrupted the nation's power supply, forced closing of local
factories and contaminated 400 square miles of land in the northern
Ukraine and southern Byelorussia, the Politburo said.
The area reported contaminated appears to be much smaller than the
zone from which residents were evacuated following the accident,
which measures at least 1,000 square miles.
The Politburo concluded with a political statement calling for arms
control and adding: ''The world community is awaiting a positive
answer from the American side to the unilateral Soviet moratorium on
nuclear testing.''
Tass said the Politburo, headed by Mikhail S. Gorbachev, met in
special session Saturday to study the results of a government inquiry
into the Chernobyl disaster, which occured in the northern Ukraine
about 80 miles north of Kiev.
The Politburo made a sweeping condemnation of the local, Ukrainian
and national officials responsible for operating the Chernobyl
reactor.
''It was established that the accident had been caused by a series
of gross breaches of the reactor operational regulations by workers
of the atomic power station,'' it said, repeating earlier reports
that the disaster occured while the number 4 reactor at the
four-reactor complex was nearly shut down.
''Irresponsibility, negligence and indiscipline led to grave
consequences,'' the Politburo said. It singled out the Ministry of
Power and Electrification and the State Atomic Power Safety Committee
for special blame.
Press reports and government statements have said the reactor surged
out of control. The cooling system failed, radioactive steam was
vented and combined with the reactor's graphite core to produce
hydrogen that exploded in a giant fireball, ripping open the reactor.
The radioactive cloud that spewed into the atmosphere was eventually
detected around the world.
''Experiments with turbo-generator operation regimes were (being)
conducted,'' the Politburo said.
''The managers and specialists of the atomic power station
themselves had not prepared for that experiment, nor agreed (on) it
with appropriate organizations, although it had been their duty to do
so,'' it said. ''Finally, proper supervision was not organized when
those experiments were carried out, nor proper safety measures
taken.''
The Politburo said the Soviet prosecutor general was investigating
''persons guilty of the accident'' and that they will be brought to
trial.
Yevgeny Kulov, head of the State Atomic Safety Committee, was fired
for ''bad errors and shortcomings,'' the statement said, along with
G.A. Shasharin, deputy minister of power and electrification, and
Ivan Y. Yemelyanov, deputy director of the institute that designed
the Chernobyl reactor.
The Politburo said the government also fired a man identified only
by his last name, Meshkov, who was listed as a deputy minister of
medium-size machine building. Western references do not list the
ministry, apparently a new one.
The report said those officials were ''subjected to rigorous party
penalties'' and the former director of the Chernobyl plant,
identified only as Bryukhanov, was expelled from the party.
Bryukhanov's dismissal had been reported in the official press
earlier.
The Politburo said Anatoly Mayorets, minister of power and
electrification, deserved to be fired but was given a reprieve since
he had been in office only since March 1985.
Radiation has been reduced to normal levels everywhere except the
plant and ''a few nearby localities,'' the Politburo said. A 12-mile
long embankment is being constructed along the Pripyat River, which
flows near the reactor, to prevent pollution.
The more than 100,000 people evacuated from an 18-mile radius around
Chernobyl are being compensated and given housing and jobs, the
report said. It made no prediction about as to when, if ever, they
would be able to return home.
AP-NY-07-19-86 1706EDT
***************
a201 0836 20 Jul 86
AM-News Digest,0863
AMs AP News Digest
Monday, July 21, 1986
Here are the top stories at this hour from The Associated Press. The
General Desk supervisor is Mary MacVean (212-621-1602). The
Laserphoto Desk supervisor is Jerry Mosey (212-621-1900).
For repeats of AP copy, the Service Desk can be reached at
212-621-1595 or 1596.
CHERNOBYL: Soviets Approve Of Punishing Those Responsible For Tragedy
MOSCOW - The Politburo report has revealed extensive political,
economic and human costs of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster, and
Soviets react by approving strict punishment for those whose
negligence caused the accident. Slug AM-Chernobyl. New, may stand.
750 words.
By Alison Smale.
COCAINE IN BOLIVIA: Police Try To Recoup After Three Raids Fizzle
LA PAZ, Bolivia - Federal anti-narcotics police in American-piloted
U.S. military assault helicopters try to recoup after three attempted
raids fizzle out in an operation against cocaine traffickers in
remote northeastern Bolivia. Slug AM-Bolivia-Cocaine. Developing.
By Reid Miller. LaserPhoto staffing.
IT WAS SO HOT ... Temperatures Hit 100 Degrees Again
UNDATED - Sporadic thunderstorms have done little to ease the
drought in the Southeast that threatens to drive some farmers off
their land, and have brought little relief in the two-week heat wave
is blamed for 22 deaths. ''It's already stressful and distressing
enough for farmers with the way things are, without the lack of
cooperation from the weather,'' says one official. Slug AM-Heat Wave.
Developing.
By Roger Petterson.
REBELS: Lobbyists for Distant Uprisings Set up Shop in Washington
WASHINGTON - Howard W. Pollock, big game hunter, former Alaska
congressman and past president of the National Rifle Association,
takes his orders these days from a guerrilla leader deep in the
African bush. Slug AM-Washington's Rebels. Moved in advance as a0267
on July 16.
By Joan Mower.
CONGRESS: House Expected to Approve Impeachment of Nevada Judge
WASHINGTON - The House, in what will be the 14th impeachment vote in
its history, is expected this week to recommend ousting a convicted
federal judge who is collecting his $78,700 salary while in prison.
Slug AM-Congress Rdp. New, will stand. 660 words.
By Larry Margasak.
SOCIAL SECURITY: New Chief Wants to Do 'More with Less'
WASHINGTON - Dorcas R. Hardy, the first woman to head the Social
Security Administration, says she wants to apply conservative
administration principles to make the huge retirement system ''a
stellar business,'' an effort she expects to face resistance from
parts of the bureaucracy. Slug AM-Social Security-Hardy. New, will
stand. 960 words.
By William Kronholm. LaserPhoto WX4 upcoming.
CRIME: Study Finds Special Units Could Increase Repeat Offender
Arrests
WASHINGTON - Urban police departments could substantially increase
the arrest, prosecution and conviction of career criminals by
establishing special units to huntrepeat offenders, a new study
concludes. Slug AM-Repeat Offenders. New, will stand. 640 words.
By Larry Margasak. For release 6 p.m. EDT.
TESTING: Behind the Private Effort to Install Monitoring Sites in
U.S.S.R.
WASHINGTON - Unless the Reagan administration changes its mind, it's
probably a meaningless exercise for a group of American scientists to
try to end 30 years of doubt over whether there could be fool-proof
verification of a comprehensive nuclear test ban treaty. Slug
AM-Weapons Testing. New, will stand. About 850 words.
Analysis by Diplomatic Writer R. Gregory Nokes.
OIL TROUBLES: Oklahoma Social Workers Struggle to Help Victims
OKLAHOMA CITY - ''The hurting that is going on is tremendous'' among
Oklahomans caught up in the disastrous collapse of oil prices, but
the social agencies meant to help them are themselves struggling
because the state has had to slash appropriations and federal aid is
down. Slug AM-Oil-Oklahoma Services.
An AP Extra by Jennifer Jones. Moved in advance as a270-a271.
WHITE SUPREMACISTS: Despite Arrests, Movement Still Alive, Experts
Say
SPOKANE, Wash. - The white supremacy movement is very alive although
its numbers are small and its ranks thinned by the government's case
against members of one organization, say experts on extremist groups.
Slug AM-Aryan Future. New, will stand. 700 words.
By Bernie Wilson.
ON TRIAL: Murray Gold Undergoes Fourth Trial In Slaying
WATERBURY, Conn. - As a law student in 1977, John A. Connelly
studied one of the most celebrated murder cases of the time: State of
Connecticut vs. Murray R. Gold. Nine years later, Connelly is
Waterbury state's attorney and prosecuting Gold in an unprecedented
fourth trial after two mistrials and a conviction overturned on
appeal. Slug AM-Gold Trial. New, will stand. 650 words.
By Brent Laymon.
BORDER JOURNALISTS: Unknown Killers Hit Two Editors
MATAMORAS, Mexico - Colleagues who paid final respects to two
journalists shot to death by unknown killers in this border city
insist they they won't be intimidated, but they're wondering who's
next. Slug AM-Editors Shot. New, will stand. 700 words.
By David Cedeno.
AP-NY-07-20-86 1135EDT
***************
a223 1146 20 Jul 86
AM-Chernobyl, Bjt,0648
Soviets Read Chernobyl Report, Want Harsh Punishments
By ALISON SMALE
Associated Press Writer
MOSCOW (AP) - Soviets on Sunday read the Politburo report on the
extensive political, economic and human costs of the Chernobyl
nuclear disaster and reacted by urging strict punishment for those
whose negligence caused the accident.
Three government officials and a man involved in designing the No. 4
reactor at Chernobyl were fired, and several people may face criminal
charges as a result of the Ukrainian nuclear explosion and fire.
The report said the April 26 accident killed 28 people, that 30
people are still hospitalized, and 173 others suffered radiation
sickness.
The ruling body discussed history's worst nuclear power disaster in
special session Saturday.
The Politburo report, published Sunday in official news media, said
the accident resulted from gross negligence when workers conducted
poorly supervised, badly planned and unapproved experiments on a
turbine generator.
It said the accident caused $2.8 billion in damage.
The nation's power supply was disrupted, local factories and farms
forced to close, and 400 square miles of land in the northern Ukraine
and southern Byelorussia were contaminated. At least 100,000 people
were evacuated from their homes around the plant.
Officials fired included Yevgeny T. Kulov, head of the State
Committee on Safety in the Nuclear Power Industry, G.A. Shasharin, a
deputy minister of power engineering and electrification and
Alexander G. Meshkov, a deputy minister of medium-sized machine
building.
A reference book published by the Central Intelligence Agency says
the ministry to which Meshkov was attached runs some military-related
programs. Kulov also worked there before being named to head the
safety committee when it was established in 1983.
Soviet media have not mentioned any military function of the
Chernobyl plant. Planecon Inc., a private group of economic analysts
in Washington, has said Chernobyl-type graphite-moderated reactors
can produce varying grades of plutonium. High-grade plutonium can be
used in nuclear weapons.
The fourth man sacked was Ivan Y. Yemelyanov, deputy director of the
institute that designed the reactor.
His dismissal implied possible faults in the design of the 13 other
graphite-moderated reactors in the Soviet Union.
The Politburo report did not specify how much power was lost because
of the accident, which prompted immediate shutdown of the other three
reactors at Chernobyl. Two of them are scheduled to be working again
by October.
Nuclear energy official Andranik Petrosyants has said that a plant
such as Chernobyl should produce 28.5 billion kilowatt-hours of power
a year, or about 16 percent of the 170 billion kw-hours of
electricity produced by Soviet nuclear power plants last year.
The official news agency Tass said on June 26 that thermal power
stations had made up 10.4 million kw-hours of power lost from
Chernobyl in two months.
The figures suggest that the Chernobyl disaster may virtually wipe
out a projected 13.5 percent increase in Soviet nuclear power output
this year.
Two dozen Soviets questioned about the report Sunday in Moscow's
Gorky Park seemed less concerned with the accident's economic
consequences than with the punishment of those responsible.
''I'd give them all the highest punishments they could get,'' said a
young man walking with his toddler son. ''If the death penalty is
possible, that would be OK,'' added the man, who was in civilian
clothes but said he was a member of the military.
''The measures taken could have been sterner,'' said Yevgeny, a
history student visiting from the town of Kalinin north of Moscow.
''This is something that affects not just our generation, but future
generations as well,'' added his companion Ira, also a student.
All those interviewed were more than willing to discuss the disaster
report with foreigners. In the past, official secrecy about accidents
has made citizens reticent in talking about them.
AP-NY-07-20-86 1445EDT
- - - - - -
a242 1352 20 Jul 86
AM-Digest Advisory,0110
Editors: All the budgets have moved. Here is a list:
MOSCOW - Chernobyl, a223.
LA PAZ, Bolivia - Bolivia-Cocaine, a240.
UNDATED - Heat Wave, a229.
WASH - Washington Rebels, moved in advance as a267 on July 16.
WASH - Congress Rdp, a212.
WASH - Social Security-Hardy, a213, LaserPhoto WX4.
WASH - Repeat Offenders, a214.
WASH - Weapons Testing, a217.
OKLAHOMA CITY - Oil-Oklahoma Services, moved in advance as
a270-a271.
SPOKANE, Wash. - Aryan Future, a220.
WATERBURY, Conn. - Gold Trial, a219.
MATAMOROS, Mexico - Editors Shot, a241.
The AP.
AP-NY-07-20-86 1651EDT
***************
a266 1602 20 Jul 86
AM-Digest Briefs,0657
By The Associated Press
MOSCOW - Soviets on Sunday read the Politburo report on the
extensive political, economic and human costs of the Chernobyl
nuclear disaster and reacted by urging strict punishment for those
whose negligence caused the accident.
Three government officials and a man involved in designing the no. 4
reactor at Chernobyl were fired and several may face criminal charges
as a result of the Ukrainian nuclear explosion and fire.
The report said the April 26 accident killed 28 people, that 30
people are still hospitalized, and 173 others suffered radiation
sickness.
---
TRINIDAD, Bolivia - Dense clouds and light rain swept over Bolivia's
tropical Beni region Sunday, blocking further helicopter raids by
Bolivian police and U.S. support troops against cocaine-processing
centers.
The joint anti-drug strike force used the day to review intelligence
reports after three straight failures.
The American-piloted U.S. Army Black Hawk helicopters that
transported the Bolivian forces in raids the two previous days
remained on the ground as the rainclouds settled across the Beni
flatlands where most of the illicit drug processing laboratories ars
concentrated.
---
There was no respite Sunday from the lethal 2-week-old heat wave in
the Southeast as temperatures rebounded toward 100, and sporadic
thunderstorms have done little to ease the region's drought that has
caused crop damage estimated at up to $700 million.
''The drought is destroying wealth,'' said Chris Alstrin of the
First Union Bank in Charlotte, N.C. ''If you're a farmer, you could
be dying right now, and if you're a banker, that's not good either. A
major event such as this drought is going to reduce everybody's
income.''
Temperatures sizzled above 100 across much of Georgia, including a
record 104 at Augusta and 103 at Macon, Waycross and Alma, and some
adjoining sections Sunday, with humidity in Georgia easing from well
above 50 percent to between 30 percent and 40 percent.
---
WASHINGTON - The House, in what will be the 14th impeachment vote in
its history, is expected this week to recommend ousting a convicted
federal judge who is collecting his $78,700 salary while in prison.
One hour of debate will precede the impeachment vote on Harry E.
Claiborne, the chief U.S. district judge in Nevada, who was convicted
on two counts of income tax invasion. He was given a two-year prison
term.
The vote is tentatively set for Tuesday. The House last voted for an
impeachment resolution 50 years ago, in the case of another federal
judge whose difficulties also included tax evasion.
---
WASHINGTON - Urban police departments could substantially increase
the arrest, prosecution and conviction of career criminals by
establishing special units to hunt down repeat offenders, a new study
concluded Sunday.
The study, based on the experience of the Washington, D.C., police
department, said such units may be the answer to combating career
criminals - those who commit five or more serious crimes a week.
But the report cautioned that a new unit could be costly, and warned
its undercover tactics may threaten civil liberties if not carefully
supervised.
---
LONDON - Queen Elizabeth II was plunged into a welter of claims and
denials Sunday over reports that she is at odds with Margaret
Thatcher over the prime minister's South Africa policy, her economic
strategies and her role in the U.S. bombing raid on Libya.
Britain's constitutional monarchy has since Victorian times provided
only symbolic and nominal governmental authority to the king or
queen, who is enjoined from expressing political opinions. The
reports about Elizabeth have raised a furor.
Accounts of royal displeasure with Mrs. Thatcher had been filtering
out during the week as press speculation, but the Sunday Times was
the first to report outright, with attribution, that the 60-year-old
monarch ''is dismayed by many of Mrs. Thatcher's policies.''
AP-NY-07-20-86 1901EDT
***************
a284 1744 20 Jul 86
AM-Soviet Economy,0328
Economy Grows But Problems Remain
MOSCOW (AP) - Soviet oil production rose to 312 million tons in the
first half of 1986, putting the industry on target for passing the
600 million-ton level after two years of falling output, according to
figures published Sunday.
The six-month figures showed a generally improving economy, but
recorded a 4 percent drop in foreign trade and only slight gains in
light industry, construction, the electrotechnical industry,
chemicals and some metals.
Areas targeted in Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev's modernization
drive made sharp increases, with the production of industrial robots
up 25 percent, calculators up 16 percent and metal-cutting tools up
28 percent.
In keeping with Gorbachev's 14-month-old anti-alcohol campaiagn,
production of alcoholic drinks fell 35 percent, sales of fruit juices
increased 55 percent and production of non-alcoholic beverages was up
41 percent.
No figures were given for the 1986 harvest, which the U.S.
Department of Agriculture has estimated at 180 million metric tons,
down 10 million tons from last year.
The report, published by the Communist Party newspaper Pravda, said
special care was needed with the harvest in Siberia and the
breadbasket republic of Kazakhstan. Other republics, including
Azerbaijan, Moldavia, Armenia and Tadzhikistan, were said to have
sown less grain than last year.
The 312 million tons of oil pumped during the first half of the year
puts the Soviets on course for topping their 1985 production of 595
million tons and the 1984 output of 613 million tons.
Sunday's figures showed the natural gas industry continuing to
expand, with production 9 percent above that of the same period last
year.
No figures were given for power production. The Politburo said
Saturday in a report on the Chernobyl nuclear plant accident that the
April 26 disaster caused difficulties with the nation's power supply.
It said the accident cost the equivalent of $2.8 billion in direct
damage alone.
Sunday's report also said the population had increased to 280.1
million by July 1, 1986.
AP-NY-07-20-86 2043EDT
***************
a030 0216 21 Jul 86
PM-Chernobyl,0614
Soviet Citizens Urge Strict Punishment For Officials in Chernobyl
Disaster
By ALISON SMALE
Associated Press Writer
MOSCOW (AP) - Kremlin leaders, blaming gross negligence for the
Chernobyl nuclear accident, fired four officials, but some Soviet
citizens suggested that those responsible should be punished more
severely.
According to a report from the ruling Politburo published Sunday, 28
people were killed as a result of the April 26 accident, 30 remain
hospitalized and 173 others suffer from radiation sickness.
The report said the accident at the nuclear power station in the
Ukraine caused $2.8 billion in damage.
The nation's power supply was disrupted, local factories and farms
forced to close, and 400 square miles of land in the northern Ukraine
and southern Byelorussia were contaminated.
At least 100,000 people were evacuated from their homes around the
plant.
Three government officials and a man involved in designing the No. 4
reactor were fired and several may face criminal charges as a result
of the reactor explosion and fire at Chernobyl, the Politburo report
said.
The report, published in the official media the day after the
Politburo met in special session to discuss history's worst atomic
power disaster, said the accident resulted from gross negligence when
workers conducted poorly supervised, badly planned and unapproved
experiments on a turbine generator.
Two dozen Soviets questioned about the report Sunday in Moscow's
Gorky Park seemed less concerned with the economic consequences than
with the punishment of those responsible.
''I'd give them all the highest punishments they could get,'' said a
young man walking with his toddler son. ''If the death penalty is
possible, that would be okay,'' added the man, who was in civilian
clothes but said he was a member of the military.
''The measures taken could have been sterner,'' said Yevgeny, a
history student visiting from the town of Kalinin north of Moscow.
''This is something that affects not just our generation, but future
generations as well,'' added his companion Ira, also a student.
Officials fired included Yevgeny T. Kulov, head of the State
Committee on Safety in the Nuclear Power Industry; G.A. Shasharin, a
deputy minister of power engineering and electrification; and
Alexander G. Meshkov, a deputy minister of medium-sized machine
building.
A reference book published by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency
says the ministry to which Meshkov was attached runs some
military-related programs. Kulov also worked there before being named
to head the safety committee when it was established in 1983.
Soviet media have not mentioned any military function of the
Chernobyl plant. Planecon Inc., a private group of economic analysts
in Washington, has said Chernobyl-type graphite-moderated reactors
can produce varying grades of plutonium. High-grade plutonium can be
used in nuclear weapons.
The fourth man fired was Ivan Y. Yemelyanov, deputy director of the
institute that designed the reactor.
His dismissal implied possible faults in the design of the 13 other
graphite-moderated reactors in the Soviet Union.
The Politburo report did not specify how much power was lost because
of the accident, which prompted immediate shutdown of the other three
reactors at Chernobyl. Two of them are scheduled to resume operating
by October.
Nuclear energy official Andranik Petrosyants has said that a plant
such as Chernobyl should produce 28.5 billion kilowatt hours of power
a year, or about 16 percent of the 170 billion kilowatt hours of
electricity produced by Soviet nuclear power plants last year.
The official news agency Tass said on June 26 that thermal power
stations had made up 10.4 million kilowatt hours of power lost from
Chernobyl in two months.
The figures suggest that the Chernobyl disaster may virtually wipe
out a projected 13.5 percent increase in Soviet nuclear power output
this year.
AP-NY-07-21-86 0516EDT
***************
a279 2052 21 Jul 86
AM-Gale-Life,0201
Doctor Says He Brought Can-Do Attitude to Soviets
LaserPhoto NY19
NEW YORK (AP) - An American doctor who helped treat radiation
victims from the deadly nuclear power plant accident at Chernobyl
says he helped bring an American ''can-do'' attitude to the Soviet
Union.
''In time, we got the Russians to think like American businessmen.
We said 'Nothing is impossible,''' Dr. Robert Gale said in an
interview published in the August issue of Life magazine.
At one point, he said, the Americans wanted an electrical socket
changed to accommodate a piece of medical equipment. Ten Soviet
technicians examined the socket for a half-hour and pronounced the
change impossible.
''We said, 'Gotta have it. That's it.' And I have to hand it to
them. They rewired the room,'' Gale said.
Gale said that when the doctors did not receive equipment that had
been sent from around the world, they went to the Sheremetyevo
airport and used crowbars to open crates until they found what they
wanted.
When one doctor ''began to come unglued'' for lack of American
sports results and western beer, colleagues arranged to have two
cases of Watney's Ale flown in, Gale said.
AP-NY-07-21-86 2351EDT
***************
a078 0719 22 Jul 86
PM-Gale-Life,0471
Doctor Says He Brought Can-Do Attitude to Soviets
NEW YORK (AP) - The American doctors who helped treat victims of the
Chernobyl disaster eventually had their Soviets counterparts thinking
like American businessmen - that nothing is impossible, says Dr.
Robert Gale.
While teaching the Soviets about ''can-do'' attitudes, the leader of
the American team said he learned from having to struggle with the
awesome challenge of treating the largest group ever exposed to a
reactor accident.
It was a ''battlefield situation,'' in which doctors had to decide
quickly who could be saved, said Gale. But Soviet and U.S. doctors
worked well together, he said, and there was no language problem.
Gale, currently in Moscow, told Life magazine in an interview for
the August issue that when the Americans needed an electrical socket
changed so it could accommodate a centrifuge, 10 Soviet technicians
examined the outlet for a half-hour and pronounced the task
impossible.
''We said, 'Gotta have it. That's it.' And I have to hand it to
them. They rewired the room,'' Gale said.
''In time, we got the Russians to think like American businessmen.
We said, 'Nothing is impossible.'''
When one doctor ''began to come unglued'' for lack of American
sports results and Western beer, his colleagues arranged to have two
cases of Watney's Ale flown in, Gale said.
And when the doctors did not receive equipment sent from around the
world, they went to the Sheremetyevo airport and used crowbars to
open crates until they found what they wanted.
Gale said he had told Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev that the
accident and the tremendous medical response it demanded ''should put
to rest any notion that we could respond effectively to a nuclear
accident of a greater magnitude.''
But before returning to the United States, Gale said, he was allowed
to see Chernobyl by helicopter. ''The eerie part was this dramatic
lack of things happening. This huge industrial complex was devoid of
people,'' he said.
The same was true of the nearby city of Pripyat.
''I thought: This is a tremendous lesson. I felt a sense of awe and
a pressing need to try to memorize this. Supermarkets, schools, a
stadium - empty. This was something terribly important, like
Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Dachau - and somehow I felt I had to transmit
this message,'' he said.
Gale recalled seeing a Soviet television show that featured profiles
of the victims of Chernobyl.
''I knew all of them - but as patients. It's very easy to lose the
context, that they were normal human beings until this happened,'' he
said. ''Now I saw them as people who were regarded as heroes. And I
was close to tears as I watched our failures roll by, one by one.''
AP-NY-07-22-86 1018EDT
***************
a079 0728 22 Jul 86
PM-Chernobyl,0487
Soviets Appoint New Minister of Atomic Energy
By ALISON SMALE
Associated Press Writer
MOSCOW (AP) - A nuclear power station manager experienced in the
type of reactor wrecked in the Chernobyl nuclear power plant disaster
will head the newly created Ministry of Atomic Energy.
The Kremlin appointed Nikolai Lukonin on Monday to head the
ministry, designed to improve the nation's nuclear energy program
after the April 26 accident that left 28 people dead and forced the
evacuation of at least 100,000.
His appointment came two days after the ruling Politburo announced
the new ministry would be created. It also said three ranking
government officials and the deputy director of an institute that
designed the Chernobyl reactor had been fired.
According to the official news agency Tass, Lukonin, born in 1928,
served as director of the Leningrad nuclear power station from 1976
to 1983 when he transferred to Ignalina, a huge nuclear power station
in Lithuania.
Both stations are run on the same type of graphite-moderated reactor
that blew up at Chernobyl, spewing radiation that stretched
worldwide. The Politburo statement said the explosion occurred as
workers were conducting poorly planned experiments with an
electric-generating turbine.
In its statement Saturday, the Politburo said the disaster has now
claimed 28 lives. Thirty of the 203 people stricken with radiation
sickness are still hospitalized, it said.
But Dr. Robert Gale, a Los Angeles bone-marrow transplant specialist
who has helped treat victims of the disaster, said Monday in Moscow
he believed that at least some of the remaining 173 people must be
undergoing hospital treatment.
The American will be traveling to the Ukrainian capital of Kiev, 80
miles south of Moscow, this week to discuss details of a medical
study of 100,000 to 200,000 people from the Chernobyl area to gauge
the health consequences of the disaster.
More than 100,000 people were evacuated from an 18-mile zone around
the plant, local farms and factories were closed, a 400-square-mile
area of the northern Ukraine and southern Byelorussia was
contaminated by radiation and the nation's power supply disrupted.
The Politburo said the accident has cost $2.8 billion in direct
damage alone.
The Kremlin has so far tapped two of its most expert nuclear energy
managers to deal with the Chernobyl disaster.
Erik Pozdyshev, the new director of Chernobyl, is a 26-year veteran
of the nuclear power industry and previously ran the atomic plant at
Smolensk.
Tass said Lukonin previously had been awarded a Lenin Prize, given
by the state for outstanding scientific or cultural achievement, but
gave no further background.
Neither Tass nor the Politburo has said whether the new ministry
will incorporate existing bodies running nuclear energy, such as the
State Committee for Safety in the Nuclear Power Industry.
The head of that committee, Yevgeny Kulov, was one of the four
officials fired because of the Chernobyl accident. The Politburo
pledged that those deemed responsible for the disaster will be put on
trial.
AP-NY-07-22-86 1027EDT
***************
a053 0505 23 Jul 86
PM-Chernobyl,0640
New Township To Be Built For Chernobyl Workers
By ALISON SMALE
Associated Press Writer
MOSCOW (AP) - A new township is being built south of the stricken
Chernobyl power station for 10,000 plant workers, and a giant effort
is under way in the Ukraine to house evacuees from the nuclear
disaster, the newspaper Pravda said today.
The report in the Communist Party daily indicated that most of the
100,000 people evacuated from an 18-mile radius of the plant after
the April 26 reactor explosion and fire will not return home.
Twenty-eight people died in the accident and its aftermath, the
Soviets have said.
Pravda noted, however, that two villages west of the plant in the
evacuated zone were reinhabited last week after it was determined
that radiation posed no danger there and the settlements had been
decontaminated by the military.
Decisions about whether to return other evacuees to their homes,
including to the city of Chernobyl about 10 miles from the plant,
have yet to be made, Pravda said.
In a separate report from southern Byelorussia, Pravda quoted a
local civil defense official identified only as I. Burov as saying
that radiation levels are still above normal in Bragin, a town 26
miles north and slightly east of the plant.
The report indicated that the radiation cloud from the ruined
reactor was carried directly north after the accident, and had less
effect on areas to the west and south of Chernobyl's ruined No. 4
reactor.
Pravda said the new settlement for plant workers, to be called
Zelyeny Mys (Green Cape), would be on the banks of the Kiev water
reservoir about 26 miles south of the plant.
Pravda said it would house 10,000 construction and operations
personnel at the plant.
The workers' families, meanwhile, will live either in Kiev, the
Ukrainian capital 80 miles south of the Chernobyl plant, or
Chernigov, a city about 55 miles west of the plant, Pravda said.
In Kiev, 7,500 apartments have been set aside for workers' families,
while there are 500 apartments for them in Chernigov, Pravda said.
Workers will pay regular visits to their families but live in
Zelyeny Mys while on shift, Pravda quoted Alexander Gamanyuk, head of
the Communist Party in Pripyat, as saying.
Pripyat is the town close to the Chernobyl nuclear plant where its
workers formerly lived. Children evacuated from there with other
residents 36 hours after the Chernobyl disaster have said the city
had a population of some 50,000.
It was not clear from the Pravda account how many of those who
worked at the plant before the disaster would be working there once
its No. 1 and No. 2 reactors come back on line, which is planned by
October.
There have been reports in the Soviet media of some plant workers
being sent to other power plants in the Ukraine and elsewhere, and of
other workers from Pripyat being given work in regions as distant as
the Baltic republics.
Pravda said that some workers now cleaning up at the Chernobyl plant
have been housed in a settlement dubbed ''White Boat,'' a group of
eight former river cruise ships presumably anchored near the plant.
A newspaper report had previously suggested that Chernobyl workers
would live on converted cruise ships.
Pravda did not say why that plan had apparently been abandoned, but
the previous report had noted that it would be difficult to heat and
supply power to the cruise ships if they were permanently inhabited.
The newspaper said a massive building program involving more than
50,000 construction workers is underway to house evacuees by fall.
It said that 7,250 individual homes of the kind found in Soviet
villages are under construction in the regions around Kiev and the
city of Zhitomir, some 80 miles west of the Ukrainian capital and
about 100 miles southwest of the Chernobyl plant.
AP-NY-07-23-86 0800EDT
***************
a213 1224 23 Jul 86
AM-News Advisory,0232
In addition to the stories listed on the AM-News Digest, we are
planning the following for AMs:
MOSCOW - More than 25,000 families evacuated in the Chernobyl
nuclear accident are being rehoused outside the disaster area and
officials are not sure if the rest of the evacuees will ever be
allowed to return home, press reports show. AM-Chernobyl.
LA PAZ, Bolivia - U.S. military forces and Bolivian police gear up
for a resumption of raids on jungle cocaine laboratories as local
debate goes on over their claims of success and whether the american
armed forces presence is legal. AM-Bolivia-Cocaine.
WASHINGTON - The House Foreign Affairs Committee voted Wednesday to
increase this year's aid to the Philippines by $250 million to help
President Corazon Aquino combat economic problems and communist
insurgents. AM-US-Philippine Aid. Sent as a0656.
WASHINGTON - Pregnant women who are overly concerned about
controlling their weight may risk their unborn child, a new
government study says. Women who gain less than 16 pounds during
pregnancy have about 2.8 times the rate of fetal death as women who
gain between 26 and 35 pounds. AM-Pregnancy-Weight.
ATLANTA - Five Americans and two Libyans have been indicted in a $50
million scheme to sell two Lockheed transport planes and spare parts
to Libya. AM-Libya-Planes.
AP-NY-07-23-86 1521EDT
***************
a238 1623 23 Jul 86
AM-Chernobyl,0531
Massive Project to Build New Homes for Evacuees, Plant Workers
By KENNETH JAUTZ
Associated Press Writer
MOSCOW (AP) - A huge construction project is under way so more than
25,000 families evacuated from around the wrecked Chernobyl nuclear
reactor can be be given new homes elsewhere by fall, the newspaper
Pravda said Wednesday.
The Communist Party daily also said a new settlement for 10,000
Chernobyl workers is being built outside the evacuation zone.
About 100,000 people were evacuated from an 18-mile radius around
the plant in the Soviet Ukraine after a chemical explosion and fire
in the No. 4 reactor on April 26 spewed radioactivity into the air.
It was not clear how many of the evacuees were accounted for in the
Pravda figure of 25,000 families.
However, the newspaper indicated that its figure did not include all
the evacuees, saying others existed whose fate had not been decided.
Pravda quoted a civil defense official identified only as I. Burov
as saying radiation levels still had not returned to normal in
Bargin, about 26 miles north of the plant.
The report indicated that because of wind patterns, towns north of
the crippled reactor received more radioactive fallout than those to
the south, east or west.
More than 50,000 construction workers are taking part in the evacuee
relocation program, Pravda and other news reports said.
The program includes building 7,250 homes around Kiev, 80 miles
south of the plant, and Zhitomir, about 100 miles southwest of it,
and repairing another 6,000 existing homes, presumably empty, for use
by evacuees, Pravda said.
The government newspaper Izvestia said last week that about 4,000
new homes were being built in nearby southern Byelorussia to house
Chernobyl evacuees.
The Chernobyl evacuees now are spread throughout the southern Soviet
Union. Many families have been divided, with the children, sometimes
accompanied by their mothers, placed in summer camps at Black Sea
resorts and other places.
Pravda said a settlement was being built about 25 miles south of the
Chernobyl plant for 10,000 contruction and operation workers at the
facility. Most of the plant's workers had lived in Pripyat, the town
closest to the plant and one of the communities that was evacuated.
The newspaper said the workers' families will be housed either in
Kiev, where 7,500 apartments have been reserved for them, or in
Chernigov, about 55 miles west of the plant, where 500 apartments are
available.
Plant employees will be able to visit their families regularly,
Pravda quoted Alexander Gamanyuk, Communist Party chief in Pripyat,
as saying.
Officials have not said how many people worked at the four-reactor
Chernobyl plant before the accident, and it was not clear how many of
the employees would return if the plant's No. 1 and No. 2 reactors
begin operating again in October, as planned.
The accident ruined No. 4 reactor and reportedly also damaged No. 3.
Several Soviet reports have said that some Chernobyl workers are
being sent to other nuclear power plants. Some Pripyat evacuees have
been given work in regions as distant as the Baltic republics,
according to the reports.
AP-NY-07-23-86 1922EDT
***************
a056 0428 24 Jul 86
PM-Chernobyl,0288
URGENT
Experiments Conducted In Turbines Led To Chernobyl Accident
MOSCOW (AP) - Badly prepared experiments conducted to see if a
turbine generator could provide energy to an atomic power plant in
case of an accident caused the Chernobyl nuclear disaster, a Soviet
offical said today.
Foreign Ministry spokesman Gennady I. Gerasimov, responding to
questions at a news conference, said he could not provide full
technical details of the experiments.
He said specifics would be published in a report ''hundreds of
pages'' long, to be presented to the Vienna-based International
Atomic Energy Agency by September.
Soviet authorities have said the April 26 accident at the Ukrainian
power plant occurred as workers were taking down the station for
scheduled maintenance work. They said the plant was at a 7 percent
power level at the time.
''When you shut the station, the generator is still working,''
Gerasimov said. ''The experiment (was) ... if there is an accident,
could the generator provide energy for the station for 40 to 45
minutes.''
''The capabilities of the generators were studied, the generators
that generate kinetic energy,'' he said.
Gerasimov said the experiment was ''a purely technical experiment,
nothing special about it.'' He denied what he said were suggestions
in the Western media that it had military significance.
''The point is not that the experiment was conducted, the point is
that it was conducted without the necessary precautions,'' Gerasimov
said.
The ruling Politburo said in a report issued Saturday that
Chernobyl's No. 4 reactor exploded as workers conducted improverly
supervised and badly prepared experiments on a turbine generator.
The report said 28 people were killed and more than 100,000
evacuated after the accident.
AP-NY-07-24-86 0727EDT
- - - - - -
a063 0544 24 Jul 86
PM-Chernobyl, 1st Ld - Writethru, a056,0556
Eds: NEW thruout with more detail on previous Soviet report on
accident, other background, statement on Shcherbina's role as head of
government commission. No pickup. ADDS byline.
By ALISON SMALE
Associated Press Writer
MOSCOW (AP) - Badly prepared experiments conducted to see if a
turbine generator could provide enough electricity to run an atomic
power plant in case of an accident caused the Chernobyl nuclear
disaster, a Soviet offical said today.
Foreign Ministry spokesman Gennady I. Gerasimov, responding to
questi
BUST BUST BUST
AP-NY-07-24-86 0840EDT
- - - - - -
a070 0701 24 Jul 86
PM-Chernobyl, 1st Ld - Writethru, a056,0623
Eds: NEW thruout with more detail on previous Soviet report on
accident, Gerasimov saying in later interview he said 40-45 seconds,
not minutes, other background, statement on Shcherbina's role as head
of government commission. No pickup. ADDS byline.
By ALISON SMALE
Associated Press Writer
MOSCOW (AP) - Badly prepared experiments conducted to see if a
turbine generator could provide enough electricity to run an atomic
power plant in case of an accident caused the Chernobyl nuclear
disaster, a Soviet offical said today.
Foreign Ministry spokesman Gennady I. Gerasimov, responding to
questions at a news conference, said he could not provide full
technical details of the experiments.
He said specifics would be published in a report ''hundreds of
pages'' long, to be presented to the Vienna-based International
Atomic Energy Agency by September.
In a later telephone interview, Gerasimov said the experiment was
intended to test how long the turbine generators that produce
electricity at the Chernobyl plant would keep operating after a
reactor shut down and before a backup power supply took over.
''When you shut the station, the generator is still working,''
Gerasimov told the news conference, according to an official English
translation of his comments. ''The experiment (was) ... if there is
an accident, could the generator provide energy for the station for
40 to 45 minutes.
''The capabilities of the generators were studied,'' he said.
However, in the telephone interview, Gerasimov insisted he had said
40 to 45 seconds.
Gerasimov said the experiment was ''a purely technical experiment,
nothing special about it.'' He denied what he said were suggestions
in the Western media that it had military significance.
''The point is not that the experiment was conducted, the point is
that it was conducted without the necessary precautions,'' he said.
Previous Soviet reports have said the No. 4 reactor at the Ukrainian
nuclear power plant was being shut down for routine maintenance at
the time of the April 26 accident.
The reactor surged from 6 percent of capacity to 50 percent in 10
seconds, reports have said.
The cooling system could not handle the overload, and water combined
with graphite and produced hydrogen which exploded, ripping open the
reactor core, setting fire to the building around it, and spewing
radiation into the atmosphere, reports have said.
The disaster claimed 28 lives, injured at least 203 people who
suffer from radiation sickness and forced the evacuation of more than
100,000 people from the area around the faciility. The plant is some
80 miles north of Kiev.
The ruling Politburo said in a report issued Saturday that the
reactor exploded as workers conducted improverly supervised and badly
prepared experiments on a turbine generator.
In a related issue, Gerasimov denied what he said were Western
reports that Deputy Premier Boris Shcherbina, head of the government
commission investigating the accident, had been demoted.
Speculation about Shcherbina's demotion was prompted by a July 3
report by the official news agency Tass identifying Deputy Premier
Vladimir Gusev as head of the commission.
Gerasimov said Shcherbina still was head of the commission. He did
not explain the Tass report, but he said Gusev is now in charge at
the disaster site. Gusev will return to Moscow on Sunday and will be
replaced by another official, Gerasimov said.
At least two other deputy premiers, Ivan Silaev and Lev Voronin,
have spent time at Chernobyl directing cleanup operations, according
to Soviet reports.
Gerasimov said Shcherbina spent 10 days at the Chernobyl site
immediately after the disaster. A Soviet government official has said
Shcherbina spent ''about a day'' in hospital in May after returning
from Chernobyl and was then discharged.
AP-NY-07-24-86 1001EDT
***************
a201 1034 24 Jul 86
AM-News Digest,1019
AMs AP News Digest
For Friday AMs
Here are the top stories at this hour from The Associated Press. The
General Desk supervisor is John Daniszewski (212-621-1602). The
Laserphoto Desk supervisor is Rich Kareckas (212-621-1900).
HEAT: Aid Rushing To Drought-Parched South, Death Toll Climbs to 43
UNDATED - President Reagan headed for drought-parched South Carolina
on Thursday, after storms poured more precious rain on Dixie.
Shipments of hay for starving livestock came from the North and
Midwest and services have been offered free by train, trucking,
telephone and ice companies to help Southern farmers. Slug-AM-Heat
Wave. Developing.
By Deborah Zabarenko. LaserPhoto staffing.
AGRICULTURE:
Some Farm Operators Reaping Multimillions in Subsidies ...
WASHINGTON - A single California farm will harvest $20 million in
federal subsidies this year, part of a bumper crop of
multimillion-dollar payments that the government is laying out in
America's struggle to regain its former dominance in farm exports.
Such payments in rice and cotton ''will not be uncommon,'' says
Robert Thompson, the Agiculture Department's chief economist. ''It
will get obscene.'' Slug AM-Reaping Subsidies. Should stand. 1,050
words.
An AP Extra by Jim Drinkard.
... As Drought-Stricken Growers Get Promise of Federal Help
WASHINGTON - The Agriculture Department is shifting gears on getting
more help to farmers in the drought-stricken Southeast, says
Agriculture Secretary Richard E. Lyng. A special task force,
telephone hotline and efforts to move more hay to hungry livestock
are in the works. Slug AM-US-Drought. Developing.
By Farm Writer Don Kendall. LaserPhoto staffing.
SOUTH AFRICA:
Black Freedom Said Possible Without Majority Rule
WASHINGTON - Reagan administration officials say freedom for blacks
in South Africa might be possible without black majority rule or a
system of one-man, one-vote. Slug AM-US-South Africa. Developing.
By Diplomatic Writer R. Gregory Nokes. LaserPhoto staffing
Howe 'Wrong Man,' Say South African Unions
JOHANNESBURG, South Africa - South Africa's largest trade
federation, the Congress of South African Trade Unions, refuses to
meet British Foreign Secretary Sir Geoffrey Howe, saying he was the
wrong man to negotiate an end to apartheid. Slug AM-South Africa.
Developing.
By Laurinda Keys. LaserPhoto upcoming.
MENTALLY ILL HOMELESS: Psychiatrists Recommend Involuntary Commitment
CHICAGO - Calling the homeless mentally ill one of society's
greatest problems, the American Psychiatric Association recommends
enactment of laws that will allow authorities to commit such people
against their will for treatment. Slug AM-Homeless Mentally Ill. New,
should stand. 550 words.
By Lindsey Tanner.
MIDEAST TALKS: Peres Says Meeting With Hassan Step Toward Peace
JERUSALEM - Prime Minister Shimon Peres says his summit with
Morocco's King Hassan II moved the Middle East a step closer to
peace, despite disagreement on key issues. Slug AM-Israel-Morocco.
May develop. 650.
By Allyn Fisher. LaserPhoto NY9, Hassan and Peres.
CHERNOBYL: Accident's Legacy: Ghost Towns, Firings and Health Fears
MOSCOW - The Chernobyl disaster has created ghost towns, cost top
officials their jobs and triggered a review of the Soviets' ambitious
nuclear program. Three months after the reactor exploded, a clean up
is still going on. Slug: AM-Chernobyl-3 Months. May stand. 1,100
words.
An AP Extra by Andrew Rosenthal.
GOODE TIMES: Hard-Line Labor Stance Revives Mayor's Political
Fortunes
PHILADELPHIA - The sinking political image of the city's first black
mayor, battered by last year's MOVE eviction in which 13 people died,
may have been revived when he stood tough in tons of garbage. Mayor
W. Wilson Goode, who wants a second term, surprised friend and foe
when he forced 13,000 blue collar municipal workers to end a 20-day
strike. Slug AM-Philly-Goode. New, should stand. 700 words.
By Lee Linder.
MISSING DOCUMENTS: Lockheed Chief Admits Laxity in Handling Secrets
WASHINGTON - The chairman of Lockheed Corp. admits to Congress that
the defense contractor has been lax in handling secret documents, but
says there's no evidence that any of the top-secret papers have been
turned over to the Soviet Union. Slug AM-Lockheed. Developing.
By Tim Ahern. LaserPhoto staffing.
CLAIBORNE: Panel Dusts Off Rule Book for Judge's Senate Trial
WASHINGTON - The Senate Rules Committee, preparing for the first
impeachment trial in 50 years, dusts off procedures that were
intended for a historic proceeding that never was: the trial of
Richard M. Nixon. Slug AM-Claiborne. Developing. Will move after late
afternoon committee meeting.
By Larry Margasak.
PERILS AT SEA:
Camera Heading Into Ship's Once-Splendid Interior
WOODS HOLE, Mass. - Deep-sea scientists begin their final dive to
the Titanic wreckage Thursday, with a repaired camera-equipped robot
and renewed hopes to get a last photographic view of the once
splendid interior sections. Slug AM-Titanic. Developing.
By Chris Callahan.
Terrifying Memories for Survivors of Andrea Doria
FALMOUTH, Mass. - Each member of the Gifford family, from the
73-year-old parents to the now middle-aged sons and daughter, vividly
remember the night they all nearly died when the Andrea Doria sank 30
years ago after colliding with another ship. Slug AM-Andrea Doria.
Developing.
By Chris Callahan. LaserPhoto NY26, Andrea Doria sinks.
TALKING COMPUTER: Program to Help Adult Illiterates
STATE COLLEGE, Pa. - Adults who cannot read or write have a new
friend in a talking computer program that can teach them basic skills
without making them feel ashamed about slipping up, researchers say.
Slug AM-Adult Illiteracy. New, will stand. 550 words.
By Maud S. Beelman.
LESSON IN HATRED: Anti-Semitism Erupts After 'Merchant of Venice'
Study
TORONTO - Classmates throw money at Jewish students, scrawl
swastikas on desks after ninth graders begin studying William
Shakespeare's ''The Merchant of Venice.'' Teaching the play is banned
until a decision on whether it is anti-Semitic. Slug AM-Merchant of
Venice. May stand. 800 words.
By Jeff Bradley.
AP-NY-07-24-86 1333EDT
***************
a219 1233 24 Jul 86
AM-Chernobyl-3 Months, Bjt,1137
Three Months After Chernobyl: Ghost Towns and Firings
An AP Extra
By ANDREW ROSENTHAL
Associated Press Writer
MOSCOW (AP) - The Chernobyl nuclear accident has created ghost
towns, cost top government officials their jobs and triggered a
review of the ambitious nuclear program that is the cornerstone of
the Kremlin's future energy policy.
Three months after the reactor exploded in a radioactive fireball
April 26 in the Ukraine, workers are still cleaning up and the
nation's highest authorities are undertaking an unusual public
accounting of an unprecedented disaster.
On July 19, the ruling Politburo blamed the accident on gross
negligence of plant workers and officials it said ignored safety
procedures and undertook experiments without proper precautions.
Most of what is known about the accident comes from official Soviet
accounts; few foreigners have been allowed near the plant.
But a picture of some proportions has emerged of what happened at
1:23 a.m., Saturday, April 26, in Chernobyl's No. 4 reactor near the
town of Pripyat, 80 miles north of Kiev, in the Ukraine.
---
THE ACCIDENT
The No. 4 reactor had been shut down. Without notification, and in
violation of safety rules and without proper supervision, workers
began experimenting on one of the electricity-producing turbines,
according to the Politburo account.
The reactor, cooled by water and moderated by graphite, surged from
6 percent of capacity to 50 percent in 10 seconds. The water cooling
system couldn't handle the overload. Water combined with the graphite
and produced hydrogen that exploded. The blast ripped open the
reactor core and set fire to the building around it.
One official said the first blast was equivalent to a ton of
dynamite and was followed by lesser explosions. Two plant workers
were killed.
Intense heat turned the graphite into glowing embers that burned for
two weeks.
Firefighters battled flames for four hours, some dying, to stop fire
from spreading to the adjacent No. 3 reactor building and to a
central core of cables, the lifeline for both reactors.
Radioactive particles, including iodine-131, cesium and strontium,
formed a cloud that spread across northern and central Europe and
eventually around the world in varying degrees.
---
THE EVACUATION
The 50,000-plus residents of Pripyat, the closest to the reactor,
weren't evacuated until Sunday afternoon, April 27. About 1,800 buses
were brought from Kiev; officials said later the exodus took just a
few hours, but it took eight more days to evacuate the rest of the
18-mile danger zone; no one has explained why.
In all, more than 100,000 people were evacuated, along with
thousands of animals. Some went far away to new jobs and new homes.
Children were sent to summer camps. Some reports say a few evacuees
were allowed back to villages near the edge of the danger zone but
that Pripyat is a ghost town with abandoned wash flapping from
clotheslines. Other reports say thousands of people will get new
homes this fall farther away from Chernobyl.
No one has said when or if the reactor area will be habitable again.
---
THE KREMLIN'S REACTION
For almost 72 hours, the Kremlin told its own people nothing.
Diplomatic queries in Moscow and Europe met curt denials.
But the spreading radiation, detected abroad, couldn't be kept
secret. On Monday, April 28, in late evening, the government
acknowledged the accident.
---
THE CLEANUP
Military pilots dumped sand, lead, boron and dolomite onto the
reactor, choking off the radiation almost completely.
Miners and soldiers dug and blasted a tunnel to build a concrete and
lead platform beneath the reactor block.
Workers are now making a concrete shell for the reactor that is
slated to be in place by late autumn - a tomb that will remain
radioactive for hundreds of years.
Embankments 12 miles long were built to protect the Pripyat River,
which flows by the plant and into the Dnieper, which feeds a
reservoir north of Kiev, and then runs through the city itself.
A new water supply system was built for Kiev, although officials say
water there is safe. Underground streams are to be diverted from the
plant area to avoid washing radiation into the Pripyat River.
Chemical sprays and synthetic ground covering are being used to
decontaminate the plant, the soil and the surrounding villages. Some
topsoil is being removed.
Scientists hope contaminated soil can be planted again, but it is
not clear how.
---
THE HUMAN COST
The latest official toll is 28 dead and 30 hospitalized. An
additional 173 are listed as having radiation disease. Doctors,
including three U.S. physicians and an Israeli, performed 13 bone
marrow transplants and six fetal liver transplants.
One of the Americans, Dr. Robert Gale, has said 50,000 to 100,000
people risk contracting radiation-related diseases, but that the
actual number of cases will be much lower. Yet, he and his Soviet
colleagues are discussing ways to monitor 200,000 people for life.
---
THE ECONOMIC IMPACT
The Politburo said the accident has caused the equivalent of $2.8
billion in damage, shut down factories and farms and contaminated 400
square miles of land.
Western experts say the reactor itself was worth $1.4 billion. The
cleanup also cost hundreds of millions. Losses in farm produce, work
time and factory production are difficult to assess.
The Washington-based research group Planecon says Chernobyl will
cost the Soviets $2.7 billion to $4.3 billion.
Soviet officials say two of the three undamaged reactors will be
working again by October, but there's no word on the third.
An official said alternate sources have been able to make up only a
fraction of the energy lost by Chernobyl's shutdown.
Soviet officials say they're still committed to nuclear energy. But
the entire Soviet program is under review.
The Politburo said safety procedures at nuclear plants, including th
other 11 Chernobyl-type reactors, must be reassessed and workers
retrained.
The practice of locating plants near towns and cities is under
review and safety improvements are planned for all reactors.
---
POLITICAL FALLOUT
The Chernobyl disaster was a test for Mikhail S. Gorbachev's
promises to extend accountability into the Kremlin itself and to
carry out investigations and punishment publicly.
No top party officials have been fired but the Politburo's report
said a state committee chairman, a rank equal to a government
minister, was fired, along with two deputies. A second chairman was
given a strict warning.
Lower down, the plant manager and local party and industry officials
have been sacked. The Politburo has said those responsible for the
accident will be tried.
AP-NY-07-24-86 1532EDT
***************
a235 1408 27 Jul 86
AM-Chess Championship,0544
Experts Predict The Closest Of Matches In Chess Championship
Eds: Leontxo Garcia is cq for Spanish chess champion
By DAVID GOODMAN
LONDON (AP) - Preparations for Monday's opening game between world
chess champion Garri Kasparov and challenger Anatoly Karpov have
included badminton and weight lifting, and experts predict a close,
hard-fought match.
It is the third championship battle between the two Soviet citizens
in two years, and both appear to be in top physical shape.
Kasparov, 23, had a badminton court installed at the house where he
and several members of his training team are staying.
At his Friday news conference, Karpov, 35, who is slightly built,
said he scored well on a Soviet weight lifting test.
''Better probably than most of you would do,'' Karpov told about 400
journalists at London's Park Lane Hotel, where the first half of the
24-game championship match will be played. The second half will be
played in Leningrad.
Both players said the rigors from lengthy championship matches
require top physical training.
Spanish chess master Leontxo Garcia said the outcome is difficult to
predict.
''Of course they know each other's play very well, and the pre-game
preparation will be very important. Kasparov has a very slight
advantage but it's really very hard to predict who will win,'' he
said.
The two Soviet grandmasters first clashed in September 1984 in a
marathon struggle that went to 48 games and lasted almost six months.
Rules for that contest said the winner would be the first player to
win six games, with draws not counting.
Karpov quickly took a 5-0 lead but was unable to win the sixth game
to retain his title.
Kasparov fought back, making the score 5-3. The match was stopped by
the president of the World Chess Federation, Florencio Campomanes, of
the Philippines, leaving Karpov world champion.
At the time, Moscow was rife with rumors that Karpov was on the
brink of a psychological breakdown.
At a stormy news conference in Moscow on Feb. 15, 1985, Kasparov
condemned halting the match and in later interviews accused
Campomanes of interfering to save Karpov, a claim Campomanes denied.
The federation president said he ended the match because all those
concerned were exhausted.
The bitter professional and personal struggle resumed with a new
title match in September in Moscow, which was limited to a best of 24
games.
The contest was decided in the last hour of the final game, and
Kasparov won the world title, 13 games to 11.
The bout that starts in London Monday afternoon is a result of a
decision by the World Chess Federation to give Karpov the ''right to
a revenge match.''
Kasparov protested, noting that previous world champions had an
interval of more than a year, and normally two or three years, to
enjoy their title.
Both players have said they will donate the prize money to the
Chernobyl disaster fund, set up by Soviet authorities for victims of
the April 26 accident at the Soviet nuclear plant that left a
reported 28 people dead.
The Greater London Council pledged $450,000 in prize money, and
Soviet authorities will offer an undisclosed sum.
AP-NY-07-27-86 1707EDT
- - - - - -
a252 1601 27 Jul 86
AM-Chess Championship, 1st Ld, a235,0128
Experts Predict The Closest Of Matches In Chess Championship
Eds: UPDATES with Karpov drawing white
By DAVID GOODMAN
LONDON (AP) - Challenger Anatoly Karpov won the advantage Sunday of
having the first move in his world chess championship match against
fellow Soviet grandmaster Garri Kasparov.
Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher observed the drawing of lots, with
Karpov gaining the white - for the first move - and champion Kasparov
the black.
Neither commented on the luck of the draw as a brass band played for
the crowd of several hundred people invited to the champagne
reception.
Preparations for Monday's opening game between the Soviet rivals
included badminton and weight lifting, and experts predicted a close
match.
It is, 2nd graf
AP-NY-07-27-86 1901EDT
***************
a280 1914 27 Jul 86
AM-Peace Cyclists,0411
International Bicyclists Conclude Journey for Peace
By LEWIS COHEN
Associated Press Writer
NEW YORK (AP) - Cyclists from the Soviet Union, Czechoslovakia,
Canada and the United States ended a five-week, 1,400-mile journey
for peace Sunday in front of the United Nations, where they will
appeal for an end to the arms race.
''Bike For Peace '86'' was organized by Teamworks Inc., a Westport,
Conn.-based group whose goal is to promote civilian diplomacy and
international cooperation.
''We got caught up in the dream of getting together people from
different ideologies who spoke different languages in a non-political
event where the goals are the same,'' said Allyson Senie, 25, a
member of Teamworks and one of the 33 main riders who participated.
''In this case, the goal was to ride the 1,400-miles safely in the
name of peace - to get up the hills, fix the flat tires and put the
Band-aids on the cuts,'' she said.
The journey, made by 11 riders from the United States, 10 each from
the Soviet Union and Czechoslovakia and two from Canada, began in
Kiev June 22 and concluded Sunday outside the United Nations.
The U.S. delegation joined the tour June 30 in Czechoslovakia
because the U.S. State Department had advised Americans to avoid
areas of the Soviet Union after the Chernobyl nuclear plant disaster.
Participants biked an average of 40-50 miles a day through the
Ukraine to Prague, Czechoslovakia, flew to Montreal, and took to
their bikes again for the trek through Vermont, New Hampshire,
Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut and into New York.
''In this troubled age when nuclear technology threatens our
civilization as a whole, it's high time for everyone to make their
contribution to peace, no matter how small it is,'' said Pyotr
Gladkov, 28, a member of the Soviet contingent. ''It showed that
representatives from different cultures ... can work together in a
spirit of cooperation and can push each other uphill, not downhill.''
Gladkov said the cyclists brought with them an appeal with
signatures gathered during stops along the route, which they intend
to give to United Nations Secretary General Javier Perez de Cuellar.
''The appeal's three main slogans are to stop the arms race, to
maintain outer space only for peaceful uses, and to enter the 21st
century without nuclear weapons,'' he said.
Organizers said the journey, similar to a 1983 bike tour from Moscow
to Washington, D.C., was intended to coincide with the United
Nations' International Year of Peace.
AP-NY-07-27-86 2214EDT
***************
a050 0435 02 Aug 86
PM-Visit-a-Nuke, adv 04,0550
adv04
For Release PMs Mon Aug 4
Vacation Idea: Drop in on Your Neighborhood Nuclear Plant
With LaserPhoto Cartoon
Eds: The pamphlet is available through the Atomic Industrial Forum,
Inc., Public Affairs and Information Program, 7101 Wisconsin Ave.,
Bethesda, Md. 20814-4891; 301-654-9260.
By GUY DARST
Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) - The Atomic Industrial Forum wants you to visit a
nuclear power plant on your vacation trip this summer.
Are you sure?
Honest.
How long has this been going on?
Well, last year. And the year before that. At least they mailed out
press releases about it both times, and again this year.
And what happened?
''Before, it disappeared without a trace,'' said spokesman Scott
Peters. ''But this year the three of us have probably done a dozen
radio and television interviews.''
And what do people say?
''The reaction is, 'Are you crazy? I don't want to go near a nuke
plant.'''
And what does you say to that?
''Absolutely, go visit one. Demystify it. There's a lot you can
learn.''
What can you learn?
Well, according to the press release Peters and his colleague put
out, ''Many Americans are concerned about the accident at the Soviet
nuclear power plant. A visit to one of ours will provide an
opportunity to learn first-hand about U.S. safety features,'' to
quote Carl Walske, president of AIF.
Surely there's more to it than that?
To quote Walske again: ''One of the reasons Americans are taking to
the highways this summer is the abundance, and low cost, of gasoline.
OPEC officials themselves acknowledge that nuclear energy is
responsible for the permanent loss of market for about 6 million
barrels a day of OPEC oil. What better time than this to learn how it
happened?''
The forum, a major trade group of utilities, supplier companies and
others involved in nuclear power, has published a pamphlet listing 89
''energy information centers'' in the United States and Canada, most
of them at utility plants, 54 of them nuclear.
The pamphlet advises calling or writing ahead for information about
fees, hours and facilities - some places have picnic tables and
things like that available.
Of the nuclear plants, the Three Mile Island visitors' center was
the most popular in 1984, the most recent year for which figures have
been compiled, with 85,000 visitors. Overall, a million people
visited nuclear plants that year and half a million visited other
utility installations.
Don't want to visit a nuke?
Then you can pick from the other visitor centers: 10 general, eight
research, six hydroelectric dams, six coal plants, three pumped
storage plants, two museums, one general fossil, two nuclear breeder
centers, one of them a historic site, one solar and one distribution
center (this doesn't add up to 89 because of duplications).
''Distribution center?''
Yes. The New York Power Control Center at 3890 Carman Road in
Schenectady. It got 2,000 visitors in 1984.
And what will I see if I go there?
''It's a big control room with dozens of computer screens, and guys
sitting there watching the flow of electricity,'' said Les Ramsey of
AIF.
End Adv for PMs Mon Aug 04
AP-NY-08-02-86 0730EDT
- - - - - -
a084 0917 02 Aug 86
PM-Advance Advisory,0102
Sent today for PMs
WASH - Visit-a-Nuke, Aug. 4, a050
UNDATED - Insurance Wars, Aug. 4, a054
UNDATED - Insurance War-States, Aug. 4, a057
LONDON - AP Arts: Blow Monkeys, AUG. 5, a061
CAMBRIDGE, N.Y. - Monastery Dogs, Aug. 5, a063
ERIE, Pa. - Erie Sand, Aug. 6, a064
TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras - Contra Code, Aug. 6, a065
DENVER - Colorado Governor, Aug. 7, a066
CHANGBAISHAN, China - China-Lake Monster, Aug. 7, a068
SAN FRANCISCO - AP Arts: Wave Organ, Aug. 8, a071
STOCKHOLM, Sweden - Sweden-Carlsson, Aug. 8, a072
AP-NY-08-02-86 1216EDT
***************
a079 0833 02 Aug 86
PM-Chernobyl Graves,0511
Two New Graves Found, With Dates After Last Official Toll
By ANDREW ROSENTHAL
Associated Press Writer
MOSCOW (AP) - Two new graves were found today in a cemetery section
reserved for Chernobyl victims, indicating that the worst nuclear
accident in history had claimed two more lives since the government
issued its last official death toll of 28.
The graves were found with those of 23 other Chernobyl victims in a
special area of Mitinskoye Cemetery, a half-hour drive from the
center of Moscow near the village of Mitino.
The ruling Politburo said July 19 that 28 people had died from the
April 26 accident, including two killed in the initial explosion and
26 who died later of burns, radiation sickness and other injuries. It
said 30 other people were in critical condition.
But the two new graves bore white cards indicating the victims had
died since the Politburo statement was issued.
The cards identified the victims as A.V. Novik, who died July 29,
and Y.A. Vershinin, who died July 23.
It did not give their cause of death, but the graves were located in
the same two rows as those of 23 other Chernobyl victims.
The older graves are topped with marble headstones with gold
inscriptions. A cemetery official told The Associated Press in late
June that they were the graves of Chernobyl victims. Some of the
names on the older graves also were given in the official media as
Chernobyl victims.
It was impossible to verify officially whether Novik and Vershinin
also died from injuries suffered in the nuclear accident.
The government has said that Chernobyl plant workers were conducting
an experiment without proper precautions when a chemical explosion
occurred at the facility 80 miles north of Kiev in the Ukraine. The
explosion triggered a fire and released a radioactive cloud that
spread over Europe and eventually much of the world.
In Tel Aviv, American Dr. Robert Gale, who helped treat Chernobyl
victims, told The Associated Press today that the officially
recognized death toll remained at 28 and was unlikely to exceed 30,
adding that Soviet openness in allowing follow-up visits made him
believe they were not concealing victims.
Gale said only 30 of the 500 initial victims remained in hospitals
and nearly all were expected to survive.
One of the bodies of the Chernobyl victims has never been recovered,
that of a plant worker who was crushed by falling debris and died
inside the shattered reactor building. It is not known where the
other Chernobyl victims are buried.
Both of the new graves were heaped with identical piles of flowers
and wreathes bearing inscriptions of mourning.
A small crowd ebbed and flowed in front of the double row of
tombstones today.
''Who are these people? From Afghanistan?'' asked one man.
''No, they're from Chernobyl,'' responded another.
An elderly woman who passed along with flowers for another grave
stopped for a moment, looked somberly at the tombstones and said,
''How sad.''
AP-NY-08-02-86 1132EDT
- - - - - -
a202 0945 02 Aug 86
PM-Chernobyl Graves, Sub, a079,0125
MOSCOW SUB 3 grafs for graf 10: In Tel Aviv xxx concealing victims
to UPDATE with futher Gale comment
In Tel Aviv, American Dr. Robert Gale, who helped treat Chernobyl
victims, told The Associated Press that when he last saw patients in
Moscow, only two of the survivors seemed likely to die.
Gale flew to Kiev on July 23 and returned to Moscow for a day before
he left for Israel on Friday. He said in Tel Aviv that the new graves
at Mitinskoye were almost certainly the men he feared would die.
''I doubt very much there will be any more deaths,'' he said. ''I am
praying there will be no more deaths.''
Gale said: 11th graf
AP-NY-08-02-86 1244EDT
***************
a228 1321 02 Aug 86
AM-Chernobyl Graves, Bjt,0679
Two New Graves At Moscow Cemetery For Chernobyl Victims
Eds: Stands for Moscow-dated item on AMs news digest
By ANDREW ROSENTHAL
Associated Press Writer
MITINO, U.S.S.R. (AP) - Two more Chernobyl victims, whose graves
bear dates after the announcement of the last official death toll,
have been buried in a heroes' plot near Moscow with most of the
others killed by the nuclear disaster.
The deaths in late July apparently raise to 30 the toll from
history's worst nuclear power accident, but no official confirmation
was available Saturday.
Dr. Robert Gale, an American bone marrow specialist who treated some
of the worst radiation cases, said in Tel Aviv, Israel, that when he
last saw patients here, only two appeared in danger of dying. He said
he did not know of more deaths, but that the new graves in the
Mitinskoye cemetery almost certainly were for those two.
''I doubt very much there will be any more deaths,'' Gale told The
Associated Press. ''I am praying there will be no more deaths.''
The cemetery, which lies just outside this sleepy village 30
minutes' drive from central Moscow, contains a special plot for
Chernobyl victims about 200 yards from the main gate.
In the first of two rows of graves were two recently dug graves
Saturday. Both were heaped with piles of real and silk flowers and
ribbons bearing inscriptions of mourning that were fading in the
blazing summer sun.
A simple white card on one read: ''Novik, A.V., July 29, 1986,'' and
on the other: ''Vershinin, Y.A., July 23, 1986.''
The last official death toll was issued July 19 by the ruling
Politburo, which said 28 were dead from an accident that it blamed on
gross negligence.
Neither Novik nor Vershinin has been listed as dead in official
accounts, although many of the other names at the gravesite are
familiar from press reports of heroism at Chernobyl.
Gale, who left Moscow on Thursday, had examined the Chernobyl
patients before flying to Kiev on July 23. He returned to the capital
for one day before leaving for Israel.
There is no sign or plaque to show that these are the victims of the
April 26 accident in the northern Ukraine that stunned the world.
Still, it is clearly a special place and most of those who passed by
stopped for a moment.
''Who are these people? From Afghanistan?,'' one man asked his
companion.
''No, they're from Chernobyl,'' came the reply.
An elderly woman carrying flowers for another grave looked somberly
at the rows of marble headstones and said, ''How sad.''
On one grave, a woman wearing a simple black shift and a black head
scarf was erecting an ornate lamp with the help of a younger woman
and a man.
They worked in silence, occasionally glancing at the small crowd.
Twenty-five graves lie in two rows, 15 in the back and 10 in the
front. They are divided into two groups of five each by an empty
space - perhaps intended for the monument planned for the site,
perhaps reserved in fear of more deaths.
Twenty-three of the graves have identical marble headstones with
names, birthdays and death dates inscribed in gold. For the six
firefighters who perished battling the flames at Chernobyl, there is
also a gold star.
The 23 older graves are adorned with fresh flowers, and in some
cases the cookies, cake and bits of food that ancient custom dictates
should be left on a grave.
Two American reporters and a Swedish correspondent stood with the
crowd for about 10 minutes before a uniformed militiamen strode up
and asked for their documents.
He took the group into his office and said the names of all
foreigners visiting the cemetery were being taken down. At first, he
said that was standard practice at all cemeteries.
But when a reporter noted that it was never done at other
graveyards, he said, ''The families don't want any publicity, so we
just want to know who you are.''
Photography is forbidden at the request of the relatives of the
victims, he said.
AP-NY-08-02-86 1621EDT
- - - - - -
a236 1438 02 Aug 86
AM-Chernobyl Graves, Sub, a228,0064
MITINO, U.S.S.R.: To tell how new graves were discovered, SUB 21st
graf, ''Two American,'' with 1 graf.
Two American reporters and a Swedish correspondent, who spotted the
two new graves by chance during a Saturday outing, stood with the
crowd for about 10 minutes before a uniformed militiaman strode up
and asked for their documents.
He took, 22nd graf
AP-NY-08-02-86 1737EDT
***************
a256 1707 02 Aug 86
AM-Soviet-US Round,0171
End regular round of non-proliferation consultations
MOSCOW (AP) - U.S. and Soviet delegations have completed their
regular round of consultations on non-proliferation of nuclear
weapons, the U.S. Embassy and official Tass news agency reported
Saturday.
The meetings are held about every six months, alternating between
Moscow and Washington. Few details were given on the latest round,
which Tass said began Monday and ended Friday.
U.S. Embassy spokesman Jaroslav Verner said the American delegation
was headed by Ambassador Richard Kennedy. Tass reported the Soviet
team was led by Deputy Foreign Minister Vladimir Petrovsky.
Tass said that in addition to non-proliferation of nuclear weapons,
the two sides discussed ''questions pertaining to the establishment
of an international regime for the safe development of the nuclear
power industry.''
After the April 26 disaster at the Soviets' Chernobyl nuclear power
plant, the Kremlin called for the creation of an international
network to provide accident alerts and monitor nuclear power
reactors. Similar proposals had been made previously in the West.
AP-NY-08-02-86 2006EDT
***************
a204 0916 03 Aug 86
AM-Chernobyl-Doctor,0547
Gale Says Hundreds of Chernobyl Victims May Die of Radiation-Caused
Cancer
By NICOLAS B. TATRO
Associated Press Writer
TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) - A U.S. doctor who treated victims of the
Chernobyl nuclear disaster said Sunday that hundreds, and perhaps
thousands, of survivors may die from leukemia and other cancers
caused by exposure to radiation.
''There have been some estimates in the press of tens of thousands
or hundreds of thousands (of deaths from cancer),'' Dr. Robert P.
Gale of Los Angeles said in an interview. ''These are clearly wrong.
It will be a much lower number. It may be in the hundreds or
thousands, something like that.''
Gale, an expert on bone marrow transplants from the University of
Southern California at Los Angeles, said leukemia was likely to be
the first cancer to appear among the 100,000 people who were within
20 miles of the reactor site. Most were evacuated in the weeks
following the April 26 accident.
Other cancer forms, such as lung cancer, may take 30 years or more
to develop, he said.
''We may see cancers as soon as two or three years after exposure,''
said Gale, 40, who arrived here after a two-week visit to the Soviet
Union during which he saw Chernobyl patients in Moscow and Kiev
hospitals.
Based on the experience of Japanese victims of the U.S. atom bombs
dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Gale said radiation significantly
increases the incidence of cancer.
There may also be a danger to unborn children, both those in the
womb at the time of the disaster and those who will be conceived in
the future.
''Genetic abnormalities may be apparent already. We haven't begun
those studies,'' said Gale.
The Soviets are expected to present data on radiation levels, both
at the nuclear power station and in the nuclear cloud created from
the explosion and fire at the plant's No. 4 reactor, at a meeting of
the International Atomic Energy Agency that starts Aug. 25 in Vienna.
Gale said the information would be helpful in calculating the danger
to the evacuees. ''This will allow us to calculate the dose to
people,'' he said.
The American specialist has traveled to the Soviet Union three times
since the nuclear accident and has toured Chernobyl.
Gale said he has offered the Soviets the help of a 10-nation group
of scientists who met last month in Los Angeles to formulate
suggestions about follow-up health studies of the 100,000 evacuees,
who are now scattered throughout the Soviet Union.
He said both private and government experts from the United States
were involved in the proposed study group along with scientists from
Japan, Scandinavia and Western Europe. The Soviets are expected to
respond to the offer soon, he said.
Gale said only 30 of 500 victims remained in hospitals and nearly
all were expected to survive. He said the death toll, officially 28,
was unlikely to increase beyond 30.
Gale said that he did not know about any more deaths. But he said
two new graves seen by reporters Saturday at the cemetery where the
previous victims of the accident were buried were almost certainly
those of the last two patients expected to die.
AP-NY-08-03-86 1214EDT
- - - - - -
a274 1824 03 Aug 86
AM-Chernobyl-Doctor, 1st Ld, a204,0169
Eds: CORRECTS school name to UCLA graf 3, Gale, an expert...
By NICOLAS B. TATRO
Associated Press Writer
TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) - A U.S. doctor who treated victims of the
Chernobyl nuclear disaster said Sunday that hundreds, and perhaps
thousands of survivors may die from leukemia and other cancers caused
by exposure to radiation.
''There have been some estimates in the press of tens of thousands
or hundreds of thousands (of deaths from cancer),'' Dr. Robert P.
Gale of Los Angeles said in an interview. ''These are clearly wrong.
It will be a much lower number. It may be in the hundreds or
thousands, something like that.''
Gale, an expert on bone marrow transplants from the University of
California at Los Angeles, said leukemia was likely to be the first
cancer to appear among the 100,000 people who were within 20 miles of
the reactor site. Most were evacuated in the weeks following the
April 26 accident.
Other cancer, 4th graf
AP-NY-08-03-86 2123EDT
***************
a237 1436 03 Aug 86 AM-Soviets-Trust Group,0323
Two Americans, Soviet Detained Handing Out Leaflets
MOSCOW (AP) - Two Americans associates of an unofficial Soviet peace
group said police detained them and a Soviet member of the
organization for an hour Sunday after they handed out leaflets
warning of radiation dangers from the Chernobyl nuclear accident.
Anne-Marie Hendrickson, 29, and Bob McGlynn, 30, both of New York
City, told The Associated Press they were detained by Soviet police
as they handed out the Russian-language leaflets at the entrance to
Moscow's Gorky Park.
Nina Kovalenko, a Soviet member of The Group to Establish Trust
between the U.S.S.R. and the U.S.A., also was detained although she
was not distributing leaflets, the two Americans said.
Ms. Hendrickson said she was holding a placard which said in
Russian, ''Peace and environmental safety for all. No more Hiroshimas
and no more Chernobyls.'' She said police confiscated the placard and
about 30 leaflets.
The two Americans arrived here Friday with four Britons, all
associates of the Soviet peace group.
A British member of the group, Malcolm Corbett, said the six planned
the Gorky Park action in advance and brought with them several
hundred Russian-language leaflets containing advice about precautions
to take after the April 26 Chernobyl accident.
The disaster has claimed 30 lives, according to an unofficial death
toll. About 100,000 people have been evacuated from an 18-mile zone
around the Ukrainian nuclear power plant and Soviet authorities have
estimated direct costs of the accident at the equivalent of $2.8
billion.
Corbett said the group planned to leave the Soviet Union on Monday.
He said the distribution of leaflets at Gorky Park ''is not an
anti-Soviet action. It's simply to build trust between East and West.''
Some of the members of the Soviet group have emigrated since it was
formed in 1982. Others have been harassed by Soviet authorities. One
member, Vladimir Brodsky, was convicted last August of malicious
hooliganism and sentenced to three years in prison.
AP-NY-08-03-86 1734EDT
a206 1058 06 Aug 86 BC-Hanford Reactor,0408
GAO Report Finds Technical Systems Deteriorating At Hanford Reactor
WASHINGTON (AP) - Many technical systems are deteriorating at the
Energy Department's power and nuclear weapons reactor in Washington
State, according to a report by congressional investigators released
Wednesday.
Sen. Mark Hatfield, R-Oregon, who released the report by the General
Accounting Office, said he would try to win support for closing the
reactor sometime in the future before a lot of money is spent on
rehabilitation.
The reactor, the N-reactor at the Hanford nuclear reservation near
Richland, Wash., is the only one in the United States designed at all
like the Chernobyl reactor in the Soviet Union with a graphite core
and water cooling, although there are some important differences.
It is operated by UNC Nuclear Industries under contract to the
Energy Department, making electricity as a byproduct of its primary
output, material for nuclear weapons.
The reactor was opened in 1963 with an expected 20-year life, the
GAO noted.
''According to DOE and UNC Nuclear Industries officials, many
systems and components have aged and are deteriorating,'' GAO said.
As examples of systems that have aged, GAO said:
-Piping inside one of two boilers used to provide steam for
generating emergency power has corroded so badly that five tubes have
failed since Jan. 1 ''and more are expected.'' Eighteen percent of
the tubes are ''at or below minimum acceptable thickness.''
-Discs in a key valve in each of the 1,003 fuel tubes are
deteriorating.
-Automatic water sampling equipment is inoperative.
-Lines measuring the flow through each pressure tube are showing
signs of stress corrosion cracking.
-Primary coolant pumps are so badly worn they must be overhauled
every two years, and the reactor has sometimes had to run at reduced
power because of the worn pumps.
-Motors used to activate valves on the steam bypass system are
wearing out and ''are no longer procurable.''
Hatfield said in a statement, ''While the report does not make the
case that a present danger requiring urgent corrective measures now
exists, it does clearly indicate that any extension of the life of
the N-reactor would be foolish from an economic standpoint.''
''While there are probably not enough votes in Congress to terminate
the N-reactor immediately, I believe I can build a coalition of
support for a predetermined shutdown date,'' he said.
AP-NY-08-06-86 1356EDT
a079 0833 09 Aug 86 PM-Chernobyl,0458
Premier and KGB Chief Visit Chernobyl Reactor
MOSCOW (AP) - Premier Nikolai I. Ryzhkov and KGB chief Viktor M.
Chebrikov flew over the ruined Chernobyl nuclear reactor and called
for greater efficiency in cleanup efforts, the official Tass news
agency said.
Ryzhkov, who is in charge of dealing with problems stemming from the
April 26 explosion and fire at the reactor, also visited it in May.
Chebrikov's role was not clear.
Tass said the two men met Friday with experts working to encase the
reactor in concrete and took part in a conference in the area.
''It was noted that the implementation of large-scale and vigorous
measures had made it possible to improve considerably and within a
brief period the situation at the atomic power plant and in the
adjoining area,'' Tass said.
It said cleanup work ''is being carried out in an organized way,''
but added, ''It was underlined that it was necessary to use more
effectively the extensive forces and resources directed at
eliminating the consequences of the accident and at restoration
work.'' The report did not elaborate.
The devastated reactor is one of four at the Chernobyl nuclear power
plant, 80 miles north of Kiev in the Ukraine. Soviet officials have
said that once the No. 4 reactor is sealed off to prevent further
release of radioactivity, they plan to restart the No. 1 and No. 2
reactors.
The future of the No. 3 reactor, which was damaged in the accident,
has not been announced.
Tass said Ryzhkov and Chebrikov also visited a new town being built
30 miles south of the plant to house workers who will operate the
reactors.
Soviet television Friday broadcast an hour-long documentary on
Chernobyl, its first such film about the disaster. It provided a more
detailed look at the cleanup operation and praised those taking part.
Neither the documentary nor the Tass report updated the casualty
toll from the accident, which the ruling Politburo blamed on
negligence.
The Politburo said July 19 that 28 people were killed, but three new
graves since have been found in a section of a cemetery near Moscow
that is reserved for Chernobyl victims, indicating the toll is 31.
Earlier this week, the Communist Party daily Pravda complained that
a shortage of concrete was slowing construction of the vault around
the No. 4 reactor.
Soviet officials indicated last month that dumping lead, sand and
other materials on the reactor had ''practically stopped'' radiation
leakage, but gave no measurements.
Pravda also criticized some of the construction work at villages
being built to relocate the 100,000 people evacuated from an 18-mile
radius around the plant. Media reports have indicated that most won't
return home for a long time, if ever.
AP-NY-08-09-86 1132EDT
***************
a080 0841 09 Aug 86 PM-Chernobyl-Oregon,0412
Pravda Attacks Bill from Oregon for Costs of Radiation Monitoring
MOSCOW (AP) - The Communist Party daily Pravda today dismissed as
''absurd'' the bill sent to Kremlin leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev by
the State of Oregon for expenses incurred while monitoring radiation
levels after the Chernobyl nuclear accident.
The Oregon Health Division sent Gorbachev a bill for $73,060 this
month, saying that amount was spent to monitor air, rain, drinking
water, plants and milk after radiation from the April 26 disaster
drifted over the Pacific Northwest.
Soviet officials have denied that the Chernobyl accident posed a
health risk to other countries.
The explosion at the reactor 80 miles north of Kiev spewed a cloud
of radiation that was eventually detected around the world. The
disaster forced the evacuation of at least 100,000 residents from an
18-mile zone around the plant. Soviet government reports estimated
direct damage at the equivalent of $2.8 billion.
The Soviet government has not updated the accident's death toll of
28 since July 29, but three new graves since have been found in a
section of a cemetery near Moscow reserved for Chernobyl victims,
indicting the toll is 31.
Pravda suggested that any increase in radiation in Oregon could be
traced to the Nevada nuclear test range, or to the Hanford, Wash.,
nuclear reactor that produces plutonium for nuclear weapons.
''It is hard to find on the map of the U.S.A. a state so far removed
from the Chernobyl nuclear power plant and so close to the U.S.
nuclear test range in Nevada as Oregon,'' it said.
''Yet, when a noticeable increase in the radiation level occurred
over the northeast Pacific coast of the U.S.A., the health
administration of Oregon did not miss a chance to draw the conclusion
that it was 'Soviet radiation,' '' the paper said.
It said Oregon officials who ordered radiation monitoring
overreacted and then ''could think of nothing better than to send
(the bill) to . . . Mikhail Gorbachev.
''Only this way, the initiators of that absurd undertaking believed,
was it possible to prove they had not wasted the money,'' Pravda
said.
Pravda quoted a U.S. journal called Nuclear Times as saying
radiation from the Hanford plant is ''one of the sources of permanent
radioactive contamination of the Columbia River Valley.''
''Thus,'' the paper concluded, ''Wouldn't it be better to send the
account from Oregon . . . to the White House?''
AP-NY-08-09-86 1139EDT
***************
a223 1200 09 Aug 86 AM-Kiev-Chernobyl, Bjt,0936
The Specter of Chernobyl Hangs over Kiev
KIEV, U.S.S.R. (AP) - As intangible as radiation itself, the specter
of Chernobyl hangs heavily over this beautiful city splashed in
summer green.
On the highway from the airport to the center of town, as on all
roads into Kiev, every vehicle must make a slow pass through a
radiation-measuring device. Those registering suspect levels are
flagged down by men in white or blue-gray overalls for a closer look.
The vehicle check is one of the more visible signs that this city of
2.5 million people lies just 80 miles south of the Chernobyl No. 4
reactor that caught fire and blew up early on April 26.
But 15 weeks after the accident, many other reminders exist of the
disaster that spread a cloud of radiation and is believed to have
caused 31 deaths.
The official death toll as of July 29 was 28, but three new graves
have been found since then in a section of a cemetery near Moscow
reserved for Chernobyl victims.
As many as 2,000 people were screened for radiation exposure, and
about 300 of those were hospitalized.
Now, water trucks rumble along the Kreshchatik, Kiev's tree-lined
main avenue, spraying to remove dust that might contain
radioactivity.
In the central department store, rubber-booted old women sprinkle
water on the floor with straw brooms. Anyone entering a public
building steps on cloths soaked in water to get dust off their shoes.
At the market, peasant women wearing scarves and men in cloth caps
get their farm produce tested every morning at special laboratories.
They must show documents proving that their produce is radiation-free
before their fruits and vegetables can be sold.
Following special yellow signs directing them to Chernobyl, dozens
of trucks traverse Kiev laden with building materials, evidence of a
construction program the official news media say involves 50,000
workers.
In conversations, residents sometimes talk freely of such taboo
topics as the war in Afghanistan or old Stalinist purges. But at the
mention of Chernobyl, people fall silent.
Some of the defensive attitude seems rooted in embarrassment that
the accident happened near Kiev, where residents are eager to show
off their attractive city, and in the Ukraine, whose people take
pride in being resilient.
''No people like to discuss their shame,'' said one Kiev man.
Traditional Soviet secrecy and caution in discussing domestic
failures add to the defensiveness.
A man who said he had been in Chernobyl two weeks ago, a few miles
from the reactor, refused to give any details to a foreigner. ''Look
at me, I'm still alive,'' he said.
Soviet officials would not help The Associated Press arrange
meetings with some of the 100,000 evacuees or a trip to a settlement
being built for those who will work at the plant.
A Ukrainian Foreign Ministry official said there wasn't time to
organize meetings, and evacuees were beginning to tire of such
sessions. He declined to be interviewed about cleanup operations,
pleading a busy schedule.
Residents were cautious about going beyond the dominant picture
painted by the state-run media of courage and calm in the face of
disaster.
''There was no panic, but there was concern,'' conceded one man,
recalling early May when many parents scrambled to get their children
out of Kiev.
He sent his 10-year-old daughter alone on a plane to her grandmother
in Siberia.
''It looked like a flight for a children's home,'' he said. ''One
adult for six or seven children.''
Besides the children sent out of town, vacations were organized
hastily for about 200,000 youngsters from Kiev and other parts of the
northern Ukraine and for many thousands of mothers with young
children. They went to summer camps on the Black Sea, nearly 300
miles to the south, and elsewhere.
The children will return around Aug. 21, for the school year
beginning Sept. 1.
Many are back already, playing on the sandy banks of the Dnieper
River, swimming in its waters, lining up with their mothers for
peaches, eggplants and tomatoes on sale in the streets; and eating
ices at street cafes that closed briefly after the accident.
The contented outward picture contrasts with some residents'
lingering doubts about the safety of children in Kiev.
Western tourists have avoided the city, but residents draw comfort
from the knowledge that U.S. bone marrow specialist Robert P. Gale,
who helped treat some Chernobyl victims, brought his children to Kiev
during a visit a week ago.
Uncertainty and some lack of public knowledge about what is going on
in the cleanup zone have bred rumors, none substantiated, including
one that half the city's militia was taken to patrol the 18-mile
evacuation zone around the reactor.
Those who volunteer for a longstanding work program of two or three
years in Siberia or other remote regions are rumored to have lost the
traditional right to keep their Kiev apartments while they are away,
because accommodations are needed for Chernobyl evacuees.
For Ukrainians, Chernobyl is one more struggle in a turbulent
history.
In this century alone, they have seen post-revolutionary civil war
battles, the brutal collectivization of peasants' farms, and mass
destruction by the Nazis during World War II.
But the struggle now is with a new and unknown enemy.
''This is the first time in the world anything like this has
happened,'' said one resident. ''Who knows what will come?''
AP-NY-08-09-86 1458EDT
***************
a251 1608 09 Aug 86 AM-Seabrook Sit-In,0544
Protesters Launch More Civil Disobedience At Nuke Plant
SEABROOK, N.H. (AP) - About 90 anti-nuclear protesters blocked a
gate to the Seabrook atomic power plant Saturday, the ninth
demonstration at the reactor this year.
Police were called to the 3:50 p.m. protest at the south gates of
the nearly completed plant, but the sit-in had no effect on
operations, said plant spokesman John Kyte. No construction crews
were present, he said.
Before the sit-in, about 300 protesters listened for about two hours
to politicians from Massachusetts and New Hampshire who said they
must ''never surrender'' in their fight against the all-but-finished
project.
''We are in the final battle of Seabrook and it is a tough one,''
said Burt Cohen, who is seeking the Democratic nomination for the 1st
Congressional District. ''We have only one moral choice - to resist,
to fight back, and never surrender.''
Evelyn Murphy, a Democrat running for lieutenant governor in
Massachusetts, marched to the rally with about 175 people from
Newburyport, Mass. She said nuclear power is not cheap and not safe,
as the industry had promised, and called for demonstrations at all
nuclear plants.
''We cannot let up one minute on the local efforts. They are too
important,'' Murphy said. ''We've got to drag out our neighbors and
relatives and friends to get out here.''
She also said Congress should repeal the law that places limits on
nuclear plant liability in case of accidents.
The demonstration fell on the 41st anniversary of the dropping of
the second atomic bomb during World War II, and demonstrators said
they were protesting nuclear weapons as well as nuclear power.
The Clamshell Alliance, a regional umbrella organization for
anti-nuclear groups, planned the ninth civil disobedience action at
Seabrook since May.
More than 2,100 arrests have been made in 24 mostly peaceful
protests since construction began at the marshy site on New
Hampshire's seacoast in 1976.
The demonstrations have made Seabrook a focus of the nation's
anti-nuclear movement, especially a May 1977 sit-in that ended in
1,414 arrests, with protesters spending up to two weeks in armories.
After a six-year lull, the Clamshell Alliance resumed using civil
disobedience to fight Seabrook this spring after the Chernobyl
nuclear disaster in the Soviet Union.
About 1,200 people attended a rally outside Seabrook on May 24, and
74 were arrested in the sit-in that followed. Seven more sit-ins
since then have resulted in another 51 arrests.
When they unveiled plans for the project in 1968, Seabrook's owners
planned to build two reactors at a combined cost of nearly $1
billion. Seabrook Unit 1 was to produce power by 1979 and Unit 2 was
to begin commercial operation by 1981.
Today, Unit 2 has been mothballed, the rusting shell of its
containment dome looming next to the virtually finished Unit 1.
Seabrook owners now peg the first reactor's cost at nearly $5 billion
if it wins licensing by spring.
Officials at Public Service Company of New Hampshire, the plant's
lead owner, have blamed much of repeated licensing delays, which they
say cost the plant $50 million a month, on the work of plant foes.
AP-NY-08-09-86 1906EDT
a067 0700 11 Aug 86 PM-Gale-Chernobyl,0502
Chernobyl Victims' Doctor Says Another Nuclear Accident Will Happen
BUFFALO, N.Y. (AP) - The American doctor who treated victims of the
Chernobyl accident says an international response team should be
formed to deal with inevitable future nuclear disasters.
Dr. Robert P. Gale, in a speech Sunday to a group of scientists,
also criticized the Soviet Union for responding slowly to the
Chernobyl accident. And he said that while the consequences of
Chernobyl are horrible enough, they pale in comparison to those of
nuclear war.
The world's worst nuclear power accident presented an international
team of physicians with incalculable problems. An exchange of nuclear
weapons would multiply those problems many times over, he said.
''So if anybody thinks there can be an adequate response to planned
nuclear war they had better rethink that stand,'' said Gale.
Drawing a parallel between Chernobyl and the less-serious nuclear
accident at Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania, Gale said operator
confusion and error apparently occurred in both places.
He attributed the more serious consequences of Chernobyl to the
plant's design, especially its lack of a containment structure above
the reactor core and its use of graphite, rather than water, as the
main coolant. Most of the 100 U.S. nuclear plants use water, he said.
''I think we've demonstrated that at least in the fields of
experimental hematology and bone marrow transplants, there are no
political considerations,'' Gale said. ''However, we will never be
completely successful in preventing these accidents. They're
inevitable.''
Gale predicted that the first full report on what happened at
Chernobyl on April 26 will be delivered by Soviet physicists in
Vienna starting August 25. In his address to 500 researchers from 22
countries at meeting of the International Society for Experimental
Hematology, he declined to speculate on what the report would say.
Gale, 40, a bone-marrow transplant specialist, was invited to the
Soviet Union on May 2, in an unprecedented action by the normally
secretive regime.
The doctor said the Chernobyl accident claimed 30 lives. The
official death toll as of July 29 was 28, but three new graves have
been discovered since then in a cemetery near Moscow reserved for
Chernobyl victimes.
Gale, chairman of the International Bone Marrow Registry and a
practicing physician at the University of California at Los Angeles,
said he will make his fourth trip since the disaster to the Soviet
Union on August 30.
In his speech, Gale faulted Soviet authorities for not evacuating
thousands of people from the Chernobyl area sooner than the 36-48
hours officials waited.
But Gale said he has had complete co-operation from Soviet
authorities, and said he hopes the Soviet attitude will help lead to
better international understanding of nuclear energy and its
consequences.
''What we need is a cadre of physician-scientists ready to respond
anywhere in the world to this type of accident,'' Gale said.
Gale is chairman of the International Bone Marrow Registry and a
practicing physician at the University of California at Los Angeles.
AP-NY-08-11-86 1000EDT
***************
a018 0026 13 Aug 86 ::-Reagan, Bjt,0769
Soviet Domestic Problems Bode Well for Summit Progress, Reagan Says
WASHINGTON (AP) - President Reagan says problems gripping the Soviet
Union bolster chances that Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev will be
interested in making progress at the next superpower summit.
Reagan, who flew home from Chicago late Tuesday after a rare,
out-of-town news conference, also expressed interest in South African
President P.W. Botha's offer for limited talks with Western allies
and neighboring countries.
He said such a meeting might determine ''if we couldn't bring about
some coming together of these responsible leaders of the black
community'' in South Africa.
Fielding a wide array of questions from White House and Chicago
reporters, Reagan defended his call for voluntary drug tests as a
step that poses no threat of punishment or job loss for drug users.
And, he said the United States has believed many times that the
release of the American hostages in Lebanon was imminent, only to
have hopes dashed. ''We've had some broken hearts,'' the president
added.
The news conference came as a top-level team of American negotiators
flew home from two days of talks in the Soviet Union on key arms
control issues.
While saying he had not received any report from his negotiators,
Reagan said he was hopeful about a summit.
''Yes, I am optimistic,'' Reagan said. ''And I'm optimistic that
we're going to make more progress than probably has been made in a
number of years because of some of the problems that are concerning
the general secretary at this time.''
He did not elaborate. Gorbachev has been struggling with a faltering
economy and the political and environmental damage from the world's
worst nuclear accident, at Chernobyl.
Discussing South Africa, Reagan said ''some of the most prominent of
the black leaders'' are ''all solidly opposed to sanctions'' designed
to punish the white-minority government for its system of racial
segregation, known as apartheid.
He said the one group in South Africa that supports imposition of
sanctions - the outlawed African National Congress - was ''the most
radical'' and had been infiltrated by the Communist Party.
At the same time, Reagan said he did not mean to suggest that only
radical groups want sanctions to be imposed. In particular, he
exempted Bishop Desmond Tutu, the black South African cleric who won
the Nobel Peace Prize and has been outspoken in his criticism of
Reagan's policy toward South Africa.
While expressing continued opposition to sanctions, Reagan noted
Botha's suggestion for meetings involving the United States, West
Germany, Britain and France, along with countries bordering South
Africa.
But in his speech Tuesday in Durban, South Africa, Botha said the
Pretoria government would not be forced into negotiations with
radical elements, a reference to calls from the Commonwealth and the
European Community to lift the ban on the African National Congress,
the main guerrilla group fighting to overthrow the government.
''You can't go in and dictate to them (South Africa) and tell them
how they must run their country,'' Reagan said. ''But if we could be
of help in bringing together various groupings there to discuss and -
with the government as to how something could be planned to bring
along an end to apartheid earlier, this we would be pleased to do.''
On other subjects at the news conference, Reagan:
-Said Secretary of State George Shultz ''has mellowed considerably''
since being outspoken in his criticism of the president's decision
Aug. 1 to subsidize wheat sales to the Soviet Union. Shultz had said
the Soviets must be ''chortling'' and ''scratching their heads' about
being able to buy American grain at prices less than U.S. housewives
would pay.
''We didn't do it for the Soviet Union. We did it for our farmers,''
Reagan said of the subsidized wheat sales.
-Declared he would ''have no hesitation whatsoever'' in holding a
summit meeting with Gorbachev to discuss tearing down the Berlin
Wall.
-Playfully said he was not in Illinois to do battle with political
extremist Lyndon LaRouche, whose followers were victorious in state
primaries on the Democratic ticket. He said his suggestion to voters
was to ''play it safe and vote Republican.''
-Said he was not worried about the results of the urine test he took
last Saturday as part of the White House campaign to lead the way on
drug tests. While the results are not in yet, he said, ''I can bet on
what it is. I know what I put in.''
AP-NY-08-13-86 0325EDT
a023 0116 14 Aug 86 PM-Nuclear Waste,0401
Senate Panel Slashes Spending For Nuclear Waste Disposal
WASHINGTON (AP) - A Senate supporter of the Energy Department's
nuclear waste disposal plans, which are now in jeopardy, says he
thinks he can convince the House to delay the work for a year.
Sen. James McClure, R-Idaho, made the comment Wednesday after the
Senate Appropriations Committee voted without dissent to provide only
$380 million for disposal of highly radioactive waste from the
nation's nuclear power plants and weapons manufacturing.
The vote followed back-room bargaining among the lawmakers, and was
a sharp reduction from the panel's energy and water subcommittee's
earlier decision to provide $619 million for waste activities.
The Reagan administration sought $769 million and the House voted
$678 million for the program. The money is part of a $14.5 billion
appropriation for water projects and the Energy Department.
McClure has long said there are no major technical problems to be
solved in nuclear waste disposal, which he says must eventually go
forward. But he conceded Wednesday that a delay would be appropriate
because of emotional opposition that has been raised against the site
by residents of the states where it might eventually be built.
The earlier House Appropriations Committee report described
administration of the nuclear waste program as ''satisfactory,'' and
McClure was asked if the House would go along with a year's delay.
''I think we can sell them,'' he replied.
The three sites are at Yucca Mountain near the Nevada nuclear test
site, Deaf Smith County, Texas, and the Hanford nuclear reservation
near Richland, Wash. The department is supposed to recommend one in
1991 after years of study.
''Based on the Chernobyl incident, and what happened to (the space
shuttle) Challenger, I have become concerned about these so-called
experts,'' said Sen. Paul Laxalt, R-Nev., whose state has one of the
potential sites.
''If there is a nuclear accident, it's not going to be confined, any
more than it was at Chernobyl, at the boundary lines of Nevada, Utah
or Washington or anywhere else,'' Laxalt said.
McClure said Laxalt was appealing to emotion, and an accident on
that scale was not possible with waste.
But McClure added: ''Emotions are legitimate reasons for political
action. If you push against the emotions too hard, you destroy the
very thing you are trying to do.''
AP-NY-08-14-86 0416EDT
a063 0558 14 Aug 86 PM-Chernobyl,0357
Two Party Officials Expelled, Four Others Reprimanded
MOSCOW (AP) - The Communist Party expelled two senior nuclear power
officials and reprimanded four others for negligence in the Chernobyl
nuclear accident, the official party newspaper Pravda reported today.
Pravda said the party's control committee took the actions after
''considering questions of responsibility of some leading workers.''
G.A. Veretennikov, head of the Atomic Power Workers Industrial
Association, and Y.V. Kulikov, a department chief in the Medium
Machine-Building Ministry, ''showed irresponsibility in their work to
secure safe exploitation of the nuclear power plant and their
management of these organizations was unsatisfactory,'' Pravda said.
''Serious failures and mistakes were made in their work with
personnel,'' the newspaper said, but did not elaborate.
Pravda gave no indication whether the party members would also lose
their jobs.
Three officials were given severe reprimands by the party control
committee - M.P. Alexeyev, vice chairman of the State Committee for
Utilization of Atomic Energy; Viktor A. Sidorenko, a deputy chairman
of the committee and for 11 years head of its nuclear reactor
division; and A.N. Makukhin, first deputy power minister.
Also reprimanded was Leren P. Mikhailov, director of the power
ministry's Hydroproject Institute.
Pravda said Mikhailov was reprimanded for ''failing to secure proper
supervision over the testing of a turbogenerator at the Chernobyl
nuclear power station.''
The April 26 explosion that ripped open the power plant's No. 4
reactor occurred during an experiment to test how long a generator
could keep the reactor operating in the event of a power failure.
At least 31 people have died as a result of the accident that
released a huge cloud of radiation that circled the globe. About 300
others were hospitalized with radiation-related illnesses.
In June, Pravda announced the firings of top power station managers,
including the station director, the head of its Komsomol youth
organization and its trade union leader.
The chief engineer at Chernobyl, identified in the Ukrainian party
newspaper only as Fomin, was expelled from the party in late July.
The party's ruling Politburo announced last month that a new
Ministry of Atomic Energy has been created, with Nikolai Lukonin
named to direct it.
AP-NY-08-14-86 0858EDT