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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# Concatenated JPRS Reports, 1990 Document 6 of 16 Page 8 of all, are vitally interested in the operating safety of nuclear power plants. 48. Operating safety is the only criterion of the existence of nuclear power plants. It is possible to fulfill it only by taking into account the already available experience of operation. Why destroy a sector of industry, in which scientists, engineers, and designers, who nevertheless were worth something, worked? For all the same one cannot do without atomic power engineering, and the new generation will inevitably have to return to this and to begin everything from scratch. 49. OGONEK: Were you a member of the commission on the causes of the Chernobyl accident? 50. A.P. Aleksandrov: No, from our institute Legasov was on the government commission. He helped greatly in eliminating the consequences of the catastrophe. 51. OGONEK: The suicide of the 50-year-old academician stunned everyone. Is he also a victim of Chernobyl? 52. A.P. Aleksandrov: There he became very tired and worn out. And, of course, he experienced very much, understanding the dimensions of the disaster. But to not extent did he himself have anything to do with the accident. This could not have influenced his decision. I was the director of the institute, he was merely a deputy. He, just as our entire institute, knew nothing about the experiment being readied at the plant. 53. I relied on Valeriy Alekseyevich as my successor. An excellent organizer, a young, very creative man. Not for a minute do I think that his elimination was advantageous to anyone. Such rumors also went around. 54. It is difficult with all this. Here one must take into account both heredity (his brother committed suicide) and the fact that earlier there was a suicide attempt. It is not ruled out, of course, that the situation, fatigue, and nervous strain prompted the tragedy. I would not want now to judge and lay down the law... 55. All the horror fell on me at once--Chernobyl, the loss of dear people--my wife and my student, to whom I wanted to turn over the institute, a part of my life... 56. OGONEK: Did you at that time also send in your resignation from the post of president of the Academy of Sciences?
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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.