Documents / FOIA release
This Central Intelligence Agency JPRS report, dated 1 August 1990, translates an OGONEK interview by Vanda Beletskaya with Academician Anatoliy Petrovich Aleksandrov, former president of the USSR Academy of Sciences. Aleksandrov blames the Chernobyl accident on an ill-considered experiment prepared by Donenergo that violated operating instructions. He also describes earlier nuclear plant defects, Legasov's suicide, and his dealings with Beria and Kapitsa. He argues for continued atomic power engineering and a law on nuclear power.
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## UNCLASSIFIED Document 6 of 16 143. A.P. Aleksandrov: It is very important to normalize the legal aspect and to make accessible to the public literally everything--the discussion of the design of nuclear power plants and the choice of the construction site-- and it is necessary to publish information on all breakdowns at nuclear power plants, including on those that do not have any harmful consequences. The population of the regions, where nuclear power plants operate, should benefit from this, which it is necessary to stipulate in the law. Both a material benefit and a benefit in the sense of the distribution of and payment for electric power. It is also necessary, in my opinion, to envisage privileges in medical examination and medical assistance to the population. 144. I am talking about the choice of the site for nuclear power plants because there were shortcomings precisely here. The first thing is that natural conditions, seismic surveying, and so on were not always taken into account. (Although during the designing of the Armenian Nuclear Power Plant they consulted with the Japanese, the latter are also building in localities where 9-point earthquakes are frequent. But, as they say, they have nowhere to go.) Second, the opinion of the population of the republic was absolutely not taken into account. In the legislation it should be clearly specified: If the republic wants it, it is to be built, if the republic does not want it, it is not to be built. But it will not be as follows--I do not want a nuclear power plant nearby, but I want to get (and at a low price!) electric power from another republic. 145. It is very important, in my opinion, to make provision in the law for the study of the radioactive conditions at the site before the construction of a nuclear power plant, so that it would be clear what radiation there was earlier and what radiation there is from the nuclear power plant. Incidentally, it is also necessary to take this into account in case of any construction. There can be natural radiation in any construction material, water, and so on. 146. The choice of the site and the design of the plant should be approved not only by the minister, as was the case earlier, but also by specialists, the Academy of Sciences, the Commission of the republic Supreme Soviet... 147. OGONEK: Will provision be made for the training of more skilled personnel for nuclear power plants, which today particularly worries everyone? 148. A.P. Aleksandrov: Yes, both the establishment of special courses and the introduction of new occupations at higher educational institutions are here. It is necessary to allow to work at nuclear
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FOIA release, from the cia-readingroom collection. The PDF is mirrored here; the original link is above. The text was read from the page images by GLM-OCR; expect the odd misread word. 22 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.