The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour

Intro

JIM LEHRER: Good evening. The Soviet nuclear accident dominates the news of this day. The Soviets said two people are dead. The United Press International put the figure at more than 2,000. There are reports of massive evacuations and requests to Sweden and West Germany for medical supplies and scientific advice. We'll have the details in our news summary. Robin?

ROBERT MacNEIL: After the news summary our entire focus tonight is the Soviet nuclear disaster. We hear from experts in Germany and the United States on how the Russians are handling the accident, how the population may have been affected. We examine the long-term consequences and whether such a disaster could happen in the United States. News Summary

LEHRER: The Soviet nuclear accident has become a tragedy, but how large a one remains very much in doubt. The official news agency Tass said two people had died and four communities had been evacuated. But United Press International said 2,100 people were dead and other news sources suggested there may have been massive injuries and evacuations. The accident occurred at the Chernobyl station in the Ukraine 60 miles from Kiev. We have a report from Brian Hanrahan of the BBC in Moscow.

BRIAN HANRAHAN, BBC [voice-over]: A brief official statement repeated word for word on television, on the Tass news agency and again in this afternoon's statement is all that the Soviet Union has so far been willing to say officially. The blank face of Soviet officialdom has been maintained while Western experts say the evidence is mounting that the Soviet Union is trying to deal with one of the world's worst nuclear accidents. In the city of Kiev, 50 miles from where it seems the nuclear reactor is on fire, life is going on normally. Westerners I contacted said there was no sign of alarm or the disruption that would go with a large-scale evacuation. There are estimated to be about 15 light-water reactors of a similar design operating in the Soviet Union. Western scientists have always had their doubts about their safety, but even today Soviet commentators have been defending nuclear energy as safe and essential. But what's angered some diplomats in Moscow is the Soviet refusal to supply any information about what's gone wrong that allowed alarming rates of radioactivity to fall on their countries.

LEHRER: We add to that report the perspective of Donald Kimelman, Moscow correspondent for the Philadelphia Inquirer. We talked to him a short while ago about the differing death tolls.

DONALD KIMELMAN, Philadelphia Inquirer [by phone]: Well, you know, the 2,100 figure seems to be coming from one wire service, and I would be skeptical of that. The Soviet government put out a statement saying two people killed, and I suspect that that's correct, because if they didn't want to give the casualty figures they would have just said nothing. I don't think they want to give a figure and then have it contradicted a little ways down the road.

LEHRER: All right. What about on the evacuation figures? There are conflicts there, too. The Soviets say officially four communities have been evacuated. Another figure that's been used is 25,000, and then of course there is a Reuters report earlier which said there have been massive evacuations. What do you know about that?

Mr. KIMELMAN [by phone]: Well, again, you know, four communities, 25,000, that's all in the same ballpark. You know, if you look at a Soviet map at Chernobyl it's really the only town on the map in that area. It's just not a very heavily populated area. So unless they're evacuating a very large region, which at this point they don't seem to be doing, I would think that, you know, the figure of four communities and 25,000 is probably correct.

LEHRER: So from your perspective there is no reason to disbelieve what the Soviets are saying officially about this accident?

Mr. KIMELMAN [by phone]: Yeah, I think that they're not going to lie about this thing. You know, what's important to look at is what they don't say in this report. For instance, they tell how many people died but they don't give any information on the extent of the radiation, the extent of the injuries and, most importantly, they don't say whether or not the reactor core has been shut down.

LEHRER: Is there a crisis atmosphere in Moscow either in official or unofficial circles?

Mr. KIMELMAN [by phone]: Hardly. I mean, I think people -- Muscovites at this point are probably just beginning to take notice. I think, you know, the report that was read on tonight's news is going to have people talking, and I suspect there'll be a lot of talk about it tomorrow, a lot of speculation. I'm sure there's a crisis atmosphere in the Kremlin right now, trying to figure out how to manage this thing.

LEHRER: Why would you say there would be a lot of talk about it after tonight's report? What was there in tonight's report specifically that would trigger that kind of talk?

Mr. KIMELMAN [by phone]: Well, that they actually admitted deaths and admitted evacuating an area around the plant, whereas last night's report was only three sentences long and it simply said that an accident had taken place.

LEHRER: The head of the U.S. arms control agency disagrees with Donald Kimelman's view of what to believe on the extent of the accident. Kenneth Adelman said in Washington late today the Soviets' claim of only two dead is "frankly preposterous in terms of an accident of this magnitude." Robin?

MacNEIL: The Soviets asked West Germany and Sweden for assistance in fighting a graphite fire in a nuclear plant. Announcing this, Frigyes Reish, a reactor inspector at Sweden's state nuclear power inspection board, said he was certain that there had been a core meltdown in the Soviet plant. A core meltdown occurs when heat in the core rises faster than it can be carried away, possibly boiling off radioactive fuel into the atmosphere. Poland today banned the sale of milk from cows feeding on fresh grass and said children in the northeast would be treated for possible radioactive contamination. Radiation levels in Sweden, Denmark and Finland, abnormally high yesterday, appeared to fall today.

LEHRER: The United States has offered to assist the Soviet effort to cope with the disaster. State Department spokesman Charles Redman described the U.S. reaction.

CHARLES REDMAN, State Department spokesman: Assistant Secretary Ridgeway met with Soviet charge Sokolov this morning and expressed on behalf of the President the United States' deep regret over the accident at the Chernobyl atomic energy station. We hope casualties and material damage are minimal. The United States is prepared to make available to the Soviet Union humanitarian and technical assistance in dealing with this accident. The U.S. is seeking additional information on the accident and requests the closest possible coordination among all concerned countries. We hope the Soviet Union will provide information about the accident in a timely manner.

LEHRER: Members of the House of Representatives took to the House floor to express concern and annoyance at the Soviet Union for withholding information about the accident.

Rep. GEORGE GEKAS, (R) Pennsylvania: In my judgment the Soviet Union has committed an international crime in not reporting that tragedy that's occurring now in their backyard to the entire world.

Rep. EDWARD MARKEY, (D) Massachusetts: The Soviet accident could be a radioactive Mount St. Helens. The Russians could face contamination of a land area the size of Pennsylvania. This is not a Soviet tragedy. This is a world tragedy.

Rep. ROBERT WALKER, (R) Pennsylvania: I am prepared today to introduce a resolution, it has already had original co-sponsorship by about 50 members of this body which condemns the Soviet Union's failure to provide the world with notification and information about that nuclear accident, particularly since that catastrophe has such implications for many of the world's nations, particularly neighbors of the Soviet Union.

MacNEIL: The Reagan administration sought to reassure Congress that the Soviet accident would not harm Americans. James Vaughan, acting assistant secretary of energy, spoke to the House Interior Committee.

JAMES VAUGHAN, Department of Energy: Based on our good technical judgment that this particular event in that location with the circumstances we know should have no effect on the environment in the United States or the health and safety of our public.

MacNEIL: Opponents of nuclear power used the occasion to call for a further slowdown in nuclear energy development in this country. The Union of Concerned Scientists called a joint news conference with a coalition of environmental groups.

SCOTT DENMAN, Safe Energy Communications Council: Wecall on the Congress today and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission as well 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.

LEHRER: In other news, President Reagan arrived at the Bali, Indonesia, stop on his Southeast Asia trip. He will rest tomorrow and then meet Thursday with the foreign ministers of U.S. allies in the region. His arrival was marred by two incidents involving the press. The government of Indonesian President Suharto refused admittance to two Australian television reporters in the White House press corps. The ban was in retribution for anti-Suharto stories that appeared in a Sidney, Australia, newspaper. Also, a New York Times reporter, Barbara Crossette, was ordered out of Indonesia for stories she had written that were critical of the Suharto regime. White House officials acknowledged to the Associated Press Suharto's actions took the edge off the "winds of freedom" theme of Mr. Reagan's trip.

MacNEIL: In economic news, the government reported the biggest monthly rise in new home sales in two decades. Stimulated by falling mortgage interest rates, the sales of new homes rose 27.4 in March, the biggest percentage advance since 1963. At the same time, the Federal Housing Administration announced that it had stopped taking applications for government insured home mortgages because it had reached its debt ceiling. Until Congress extends the ceiling, the FHA said borrowers would have to rely on the private sector for home loans.

LEHRER: NASA officials said today they recovered a key part of the shuttle Challenger's booster rocket. Divers off the coast of Florida located the bottom half of the joint which caused the accident. Also today, the remains of the seven Challenger crew members were flown to Dover Air Force Base, Delaware. A group of NASA officials and an honor guard were there to greet the giant transport plane with its seven flag-draped coffins. It was a simple ceremony, no music, no speeches. The caskets were then placed in seven hearses and driven a short distance to the base mortuary. There the remains will be either cremated or prepared for burial in accordance with family wishes.

And that's it for the news summary. Now we devote the rest of the program tonight to the Soviet nuclear tragedy and its many fallouts. Nuclear Meltdown?

MacNEIL: There are still more questions than answers tonight about what really happened and may still be happening at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in the Ukraine. The Soviets have called it a disaster and said that two people have died, although some reports say thousands may have perished. The Soviets have given few details about the accident itself, but many Western experts say they believe that a meltdown occurred, releasing deadly doses of radiation into the environment.

A meltdown can occur when the level of water which is used to cool the fuel inside the reactor begins to drop, causing a buildup of steam. If the water continues to drop, the fuel rods get hotter and hotter, ultimately causing an explosion of radioactive steam and possibly a total meltdown of the radioactive fuel. The Soviet nuclear power plant differed from most Western plants in that it had no containment tower to prevent the radioactive cloud from escaping into the enviroment in case an accident occurred.

It's unclear just how many people may have been exposed to dangerous levels of radioactivity. The town adjacent to the plant, Pripyat, has a population of about 25,000. There are reports that many of them have been evacuated by bus out of the area. Sixty miles to the south the city of Kiev has an estimated 2.4 million people, but life was reported normal there today. The plant itself is located just to the north of a reservoir that provides much of the drinking water for Kiev, and there is fear that the water may have become contaminated. today the Soviets asked experts in both Sweden and Germany for advice in coping with the accident. One of the groups the Soviets turned to was the German Atomic Forum, an industry group of nuclear experts. This afternoon I spoke with its director, Thomas Roser, in Bonn, West Germany. I asked what specifically the Soviets had requested.

THOMAS ROSER: He asked for advice on fire protection for graphite fires.

MacNEIL: Did he ask for technical advice, or did he ask for assistance?

Mr. ROSER: He asked for technical advice, and we of course immediately related his request to the Chernobyl incident which had been already all over the news in the evening of the day before and the morning, and we tried to bring our Soviet colleague into contact with the different organizations able, on the one hand, to prevent or to stop the fires and, on the other hand, to handle graphite and, in particular, burning graphite. These people are obviously not all from the nuclear community. Some of them are from the purely conventional side, some were also from the nuclear side, since Germany's operating also some two graphite-moderated and gas-cooled reactors.

MacNEIL: Did the Soviets ask for West German personnel or equipment to help?

Mr. ROSER: Up to now no formal request for anything has been formulated, neither towards private industry nor towards government, neither for technical aid nor for medical assistance or things like that.

MacNEIL: I understand West Germany has robot equipment which can fight such fires, is that correct?

Mr. ROSER: We have robot equipment which could be used to fight also such a fire. It's not exclusively for that use, but it could be used for that, yes.

MacNEIL: Is a graphite fire in a reactor very hard to put out?

Mr. ROSEN: In principle, no. As soon as you cut off the oxygen the fire stops almost immediately, so the problem is how to stop the oxygen, and apparently the Soviets have a problem there because, as you certainly know, Soviet reactors, at least of that type, have neither a pressure vessel nor a safety containment.

MacNEIL: Would that mean that it is open to the open air in some part and therefore lots of oxygen could get at the graphite?

Mr. ROSEN: That's at least the only explication we have for the time being. We have no confirmation of all this, of course, from the Soviet Union, but it's pretty obvious that there must be a direct contact to the air and there is a sort of -- the reactor building is a sort of a stack from where the air is pulling through.

MacNEIL: A scientist at the University of Bremen, Jens Scheer, was quoted today as saying that it was possible that an accident like this could cause as many as 10,000 lung cancer deaths in a three-mile radius around a plant over the next 10 years. How does that sort of speculation sound to you?

Mr. ROSEN: Well, that is typically what was used to be called in the United States in the olden days the "orange ball syndrome." It is obvious that if you take the quantity of fission products and you distribute them evenly to the total population without one single molecule being lost, then youcan arrive at such a result. But in practical practice, first of all, the population in the surrounding of the Chernobyl station seems to be not very dense; secondly, the Soviets have proceeded to measures of evacuation; and thirdly, there is -- of course not each and every molecule of fission product hits the lung of an inhabitant. Therefore, this seems to me extremely exaggerated. It is an extremely pessimistic and unlikely hypothesis.

MacNEIL: What have your scientists concluded, given the history of nuclear accidents so far, about how serious this one was?

Mr. ROSEN: Well, from what we know now, it appears quite clearly that the history of the peaceful uses of nuclear energy this is the most serious known incident.

MacNEIL: And, finally, do I gather from what you said earlier that your scientists believe, on the information available or on the nature of the requests the Soviets have made to you, that they have it under control?

Mr. ROSEN: Well, we conclude from the fact that the Soviet authorities, after asking for advice have never asked for real help, that apparently they have succeeded in mastering the incident.

MacNEIL: Well, Mr. Rosen, thank you very much for joining us this evening.

Mr. ROSEN: You're welcome, Mr. MacNeil.

LEHRER: Next the view of Richard Wilson, a professor of physics at Harvard University. He headed a 1983 government investigation of the various effects of potential nuclear accidents. He joins us from public station WGBH in Boston. Dr. Wilson, what do you believe happened in that reactor?

RICHARD WILSON: Well, it's very hard to tell, but it's quite clear there was either a meltdown or there was a major fire. In either case the result would be the same. The fuel would be damaged and all the gaseous radioactivity would be released.

LEHRER: Would that involve an explosion of some kind?

Dr. WILSON: Well, from the report this afternoon from the Soviet Union it seems there was major damage to the building. It could only have been caused by an explosion of some kind. It could perhaps have been a hydrogen explosion from a buildup of hydrogen somewhere in the water system.

LEHRER: Okay. If there was an explosion then which makes more sense to you, two dead or 2,100 dead?

Dr. WILSON: Well, either makes sense. It really depends how much of the critical radionuclides, iodine, cesium and tellurium actually escaped from the fuel into the surrounding area. If very little escaped from the fuel or less than a few percent, then I think two makes more sense. But if a lot of those escaped then I think 2,100 makes more sense. But 2,100 dying immediately rather than during the week also seems a little high.

LEHRER: Now, why is that, sir?

Dr. WILSON: Because radiation injuries, although someone is about to die, sometimes it takes a week for him to actually die because the first thing that happens is the radiation basically destroys the immune system and all sorts of nasty things to the body, and he actually dies of other causes.

LEHRER: So if two people died, that means they probably died in the explosion itself? Is that what you're saying, sir?

Dr. WILSON: That could well be, and that's what I guessed from the way the Soviet statement was worded.

LEHRER: I see. I see. All right, now, what does it say to you -- you heard what the gentleman in West Germany told Robin about fighting the fire. How do you read that and their request for help, etc.?

Dr. WILSON: Well, I presume it's still burning or it was slow to put out. We have had fires in graphite reactors before. The one well known in the West was one at Windscale in 1957 in England, where a plutonium production reactor was destroyed, and there is privately reported rumors of five out of nine Russian reactors in the '40s [in] which also the graphite reactors caught fire.

LEHRER: What was the end result of those fires?

Dr. WILSON: The Russian one reported several deaths. The English one, a lot of radioactive iodine was released and it was measured in the air about 100 miles away, but the only thing that had to be done to safeguard the population was impound the milk for about 50 miles.

LEHRER: All right, now, the fact that this reactor in the Soviet Union is a graphite reactor, what effect does that have on the potential problems created by this?

Dr. WILSON: Well, the fact that it's a graphite reactor is one of the reasons it is enabled to burn, and if it's burning rather than having water around, that makes it seem more likely to me that radioactive iodine could escape. When we studied this question in the last couple of years, we realized that if radioactive iodine comes out of the fuel in the presence of water it is very much likely to make a chemical reaction and not get out to the air. And so that means a graphite reactor burning is probably more dangerous than a water reactor melting down.

LEHRER: And based on the previous graphite reactor accidents that you've mentioned, you think that is most likely what has happened, correct?

Dr. WILSON: If radioactive iodine is coming out -- there is not any really definite report yet -- then in fact that's what I think happened.

LEHRER: What do you make of the evacuation reports -- 25,000 people just in the immediate area? Do you think that's all that is called for based on what information that we have thus far?

Dr. WILSON: Well, again, if you look at a map of the area there'll be about 2,000 people in the workers city immediately near the plant, and there's the nearby community, three nearby communities of about 25,000.

LEHRER: And that's where the immediate danger area is?

Dr. WILSON: Oh, yes. I would say the idea -- 10 to 15 miles is the danger if you release all the radioactivity, and it's that distance which is what the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and FEMA have set as the distance for planning purposes for our nuclear accidents, just on the assumption that a bad accident would release all this radioactivity.

LEHRER: I see. FEMA being the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

Dr. WILSON: That's correct.

LEHRER: Yes, sir. Thank you. Robin?

MacNEIL: To tell us about the medical effects of radiation exposure we have Dr. Henry Wagner, a professor of radiology at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine at Baltimore. He heads a center there for radiation education and research. Dr. Wagner, which substances are the medically dangerous ones which can be released by such an accident?

HENRY WAGNER: The most dangerous ones to the environment are, first, radioactive iodine, secondly cesium and strontium, and less dangerous to biological systems are zirconium and neptunium and ruthenium. All of these radioactive tracers have been detected in Stockholm and in Copenhagen. I've been very fortunate in being able to stay in close contact today with colleagues both at Uppsala University and at Copenhagen University.

MacNEIL: These have been, iodine, cesium, strontium and the other less dangerous ones, have already been detected as far as Sweden and Denmark? Is that --

Dr. WAGNER: Yes, that's correct.

MacNEIL: What does that say about the likelihood of there being intense concentrations in the miles around the plant?

Dr. WAGNER: Well, at the present time the levels that are being found in Stockholm are between 10 and 20 times background radioactivity in water. It hasn't rained in Copenhagen, so the only radioactivity that has been measured is in air and is being monitored on grass. At the present time the levels in Copenhagen are about 10 above background.

MacNEIL: Are they dangerous levels so far?

Dr. WAGNER: At the present time they're not dangerous. They are falling. The levels today are significantly less than the levels yesterday.

MacNEIL: Because the prevailing winds apparently changed and went back over Siberia?

Dr. WAGNER: Yes.

MacNEIL: What about near the plant itself? If that kind of the radiation with those substances had been carried as far as Scandinavia, what does it say about the intensity of radiation likely to be found in the 15- or 20-mile radius around the plant?

Dr. WAGNER: As Professor Wilson said, the most dangerous area is within one-mile radius of the plant. The next most dangerous area would be the plume area about 10 miles out from the plant, and ingestion dangers would extend at least out as far as 50 miles from the plant. So I think there will be major biological, socio-economic effects of the contamination in the immediate area. Of particular concern is the fact that the plant is close to the Dnieper River, which is a major river 1,400 miles long that drains past Kiev and goes into the Black Sea.

MacNEIL: Starting with the worst effects, what are the medical effects of the dangerous substances you mentioned, iodine, cesium and strontium?

Dr. WAGNER: Well, immediately adjacent to the plant one has concerns about acute radiation syndrome. As Professor Wilson said, it's quite possible that the deaths that have occurred have not come from acute radiation syndrome, although this is possible. It's possible that it was due to blast or burns. So I think it's very, very important for us to get the information as to whether the immediate deaths were due to blast or to radiation. Out beyond that one is more concerned with the long-term effects such as the effect of radioactive iodine on the thyroid gland or the effect of cesium and strontium on the bone marrow and bones. The thyroid problems could result in nodules in the thyroid. The isotopes that accumulate in bone could result in cancer of the bone.

MacNEIL: What about the scientist we quoted earlier in West Germany, Dr. Scheer, saying that there could be 10,000 deaths from lung cancer over 10 years? Why lung cancer?

Dr. WAGNER: Because if there are transuranic elements that are released that are alpha-emitters, these are very serious if ingested into the lungs. And this was pointed out. It depends on what the distribution of those particular substances would be.

MacNEIL: The Soviets have said that they're treating the affected people. How can you treat people with radiation sickness?

Dr. WAGNER: Well, one can monitor very carefully the symptoms, looking for nausea, vomiting, gastrointestinal disorders. It's possible to do blood tests looking at the lymphocytes in the blood, which are very sensitive to radiation effects, and can predict what's going to happen later to the persons. In extreme radiation exposure one can look for reddening of the skin or exfoliation of the skin; chromosomal abnormalities can be detected; and again, all of these are dose-related, so that although it would be very helpful information from the Russians as to what the measured radiation levels were, one can infer the degree of radiation by monitoring the symptoms and signs in laboratory tests in the persons that are exposed.

MacNEIL: From what you know, from the information you have so far, what would the range of possibilities be in your mind, both the sort of worst case and the best case, as to what the nature and number of injuries could be?

Dr. WAGNER: Well, again, I think it's important to separate fact from rumor. One of the rumors is that there were a lot of construction workers at that site because two new reactors are being built. It's possible that if there were an explosion and a serious fire that some of those construction workers as well as the workers in the plant were injured. So I think it's very, very important to get the details to help separate whether it was blast, burn or acute radiation syndrome that resulted in the deaths.

MacNEIL: Well, Dr. Wagner, thank you for joining us. Jim?

LEHRER: We move to the Soviet politics and government questions involved in this tragedy now with Soviet expert Marshall Goldman, associate director of the Russian Research Center at Harvard University. He is the author of several articles on Soviet energy. He also joins us tonight from public station WGBH in Boston.

Dr. Goldman, why, in your opinion, are the Soviets being so close-mouthed about this?

MARSHALL GOLDMAN: Well, generally problems of this sort, they don't like to acknowledge. Earthquakes, general accidents always happen in the capitalist world, and they don't like to convey this kind of news. Certainly this kind of news in particular could cause and probably is causing enormous panic. I think I disagree with Mr. Kimelman. The Russians read between the lines, and there have been some very thick lines in this case for them to read between.

LEHRER: So you think there will be widespread panic as a result of this?

Dr. GOLDMAN: I certainly do. The fear of nuclear destruction, the fear of nuclear fallout has always bothered the Russians. That's one of the reasons why they're so concerned about arms control. This has been a perennial problem, and they have given enough tidbits on Soviet television, including last night, not just tonight, to indicate that there were people affected by it. And this must cause enormous panic.

LEHRER: Kimelman also told me -- it wasn't in the little piece of tape that we ran in the news summary, but Kimelman also told me that those who were waiting for the great new openness of the Gorbachev regime, the door closed on this incident. Do you agree?

Dr. GOLDMAN: I certainly do. Gorbachev has been calling for openness, he's been calling for more discussion, and he himself has been trying to do it. If you wanted an example of a public relations debacle, this is probably the best. We saw that they did such a great job before Geneva. It's nice to see, in effect, that they are human and can make mistakes on public relations. It's a tragedy of enormous proportions. A Soviet diplomat said today that he was concerned that in all the discussions that have taken place on American media, nobody has expressed concern for the Soviet population. I hope we have and will tonight, but one of the reasons why there was not more concern yesterday is we didn't have the information. They just didn't tell us what was happening.

LEHRER: Well, why would Gorbachev not understand what the negative reaction would be in the world, particularly in Scandinavia and in Europe where this kind of information was crucial to have?

Dr. GOLDMAN: Well, again, we don't know to what extent he himself was directly involved, but there have been other incidents in the past, and they basically got away with it. It turned out, unfortunately for them, that the winds were blowing in the wrong direction. And so maybe they thought it would pass, nobody would notice it and they would get away. What it says, by the way, about the way the Soviets treat their own people and the way they treat East Europeans and the way they treat the West Europeans is not a very nice conclusion.

LEHRER: And they're going to pay a price for that, you think, diplomatically and etc.?

Dr. GOLDMAN: I think they are. I think that there will be, by the way, probably the growth of a genuine environmental movement now inside the Soviet Union. There will be enormous pressure from the East. You heard that the Poles have already warned about drinking milk. I think that, by the way, there may be some other results that we may call now -- some people will call for international discussion. I think that's going to be a useful thing. I think the Russians may also feel it necessary now to go back to a discussion between Shultz and Shevardnadze, first about arms control but then also about energy.

LEHRER: And what about a summit?

Dr. GOLDMAN: I think that will be the next stage, and that may be probably the one positive thing that will come out of this, and I think it would be very good for President Reagan to be outspoken where he is in Asia and say let's meet together. Already our government has said let's offer them help, but I think indeed we should go and say this is just too crucial. Don't ask for whom the reactors toll; they toll for everybody.

LEHRER: Yeah. How important is nuclear power to the Soviet Union, Dr. Goldman?

Dr. GOLDMAN: Well, they have been trying to do their best to increase the quantity. About eight to 10 percent of all their energy now is generated by nuclear reactors. Their goal is to increase it to 20 . Because they've not had an environmental lobby of any significance before, there's been no opposition, and that's one of the reasons why they were building the reactors without containment vessels. They're hoping in particular in the area west of the Urals to build only nuclear reactors for their electric generating plants.

LEHRER: So do you think this could be a setback to those plans?

Dr. GOLDMAN: Oh, certainly. Even in the Soviet system there is going to be a protest about this, and I think that Gorbachev, who I do think is concerned, is going to call for some re-examination of the whole thing. It is going to have shift power plans around, and it's going to mean that they're going to have to rely more on conventional forms of energy generation.

LEHRER: All right, Dr. Goldman, thank you. Robin?

MacNEIL: We turn now to a question many Americans began asking today. Could a similar accident happen here? As we've said, the most visible difference between Soviet and American nuclear power plants is the containment dome. That's the thick concrete-and-steel building housing the reactor. It's designed to prevent the escape of radioactive material if there's an accident. Except for a few plants like the one at Hanford, Washington, all U.S. nuclear power plants have this dome. That is apparently not true of most Soviet plants, including the damaged plant at Chernobyl, which could be one reason for the high radiation measurements in the atmosphere hundreds of miles away. The Soviet accident is now thought to have begun with a chemical explosion. Such a meltdown has never happened in this country, although some accidents are thought to have come close. In 1975, a fire at the Brown's Ferry reactor in Decatur, Alabama, burned out electrical controls and lowered the cooling water to dangerous levels, but no radioactive material was released. The worst nuclear accident in this country happened at Three Mile Island near Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, in 1979. That accident involved a partial meltdown of the nuclear fuel, but because of the containment building very little radioactivity was released. No one was killed or directly injured by that release. But the Soviet accident raised new questions about the risk here, and they surfaced today at a hearing of the House Interior Committee. The key witness was James Vaughan, acting assistant secretary of energy, who said U.S. nuclear plants are safer than those in the Soviet Union.

JAMES VAUGHAN, Department of Energy: The commercial reactors in this country are, by and large, light-water-cooled reactors and light-water-moderated reactors, which are built with a concept which we call, sometimes, defense in depth. We build high-quality machines, well-designed. The first line of defense is the integrity of the fuel cladding itself. Beyond that, there are safety systems which assure protection and shutdown in the event of abnormal events. Beyond that, there is emergency cooling capability if those protective systems don't work. And, finally, there is the containment and control systems to prevent the release of radioactivity. The safety record of American nuclear power plants is excellent.

Rep. JOHN SEIBERLING, (D) Ohio: Mr. Chairman, first of all, I understand that the reactor at Hanford has no significant containment and is a graphite reactor. Is that correct? Hanford, Washington?

Sec. VAUGHAN: The reactor at Hanford is a pressurized water reactor, not an open-cycle, boiling-water reactor. And there are as many differences in that reactor as there are similarities.

Rep. SEIBERLING: Is there a containment structure around it?

Sec. VAUGHAN: There is not the type of containment structure similar to that which is around the large commercial reactors.

Rep. SEIBERLING: So it's possible that this Soviet catastrophe could have a bearing on that particular reactor, is that correct?

Sec. VAUGHAN: It is possible that there could be a bearing, but not having any knowledge of what initiated or caused the event in the Soviet Union, I think it'd be premature to speculate on that.

MacNEIL: Anti-nuclear groups raised new warnings today, among them the Union of Concerned Scientists, a public interest group based in Washington. With us is James MacKenzie, a senior staff scientist with the Union. He holds a doctorate in nuclear physics from the University of Minnesota.

Dr. MacKenzie, what do you see as the risk of an accident similar to that in the Soviet Union happening in the United States?

JAMES MacKENZIE: Well, I would have to say it would be much less because of the containments that we have. I mean, that was the principal difference between something like Three Mile Island, where there's an enormous amount of radioactivity got into the containment, but relatively little to the environment, and in this particular one. There are, in addition, however, to the Hanford reactor, there are four in South Carolina which also do not have containments, and I think that if -- these reactors could not be licensed by the NRC. So I think they do pose a risk which has to be dealt with, and the risk could well be of an accident of the magnitude that we've seen here.

MacNEIL: Is Three Mile Island a good advertisement for nuclear safety in this country?

Dr. MacKENZIE: I wouldn't think so. I wouldn't think losing a couple-of-billion-dollar reactor -- and it's been all these years now, and they still haven't made much progress in cleaning it up. I mean, that's --

MacNEIL: I meant in the sense that there was an incident, perhaps similar to parts of what's happened in the Soviet Union, but because of the systems and the containment very little radioactive material escaped.

Dr. MacKENZIE: In that sense you're right. We made it through. But we have submitted comments to the NRC on the problems with containment buildings in U.S. reactors.

MacNEIL: The Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

Dr. MacKENZIE: Yes. There are many problems, especially during fast accidents where there might be steam or hydrogen explosions which could very well rupture containments in this country. So it is by no means certain that our reactors will always survive these accidents. Moreover, in a number of cases they have done surveys and found that the containments have not been sealed. There have been purge valves open, doors open, you know, vents and so forth. So that in one case they found about 25 of the time that these containments weren't sealed.

MacNEIL: But your group is interested, is it not, not in making nuclear power -- peaceful nuclear power safer here but eliminating it as a source of --

Dr. MacKENZIE: That's not true.

MacNEIL: That is not true?

Dr. MacKENZIE: That is absolutely not true. Our position has been, since we got involved in this issue in 1970 -- and I was involved with it at that time -- that we see no technical reason why nuclear power cannot be made safe. And what we have tried to do over the past 16 years is to make the Nuclear Regulatory Commission enforce its own regulations. And we think that it hasn't done that, and we think in many respects the safety problem in the U.S. is an institutional problem with technological symptoms.

MacNEIL: I see. So what, with the little we know about the Soviet accident so far, what is the lesson in that for the United States?

Dr. MacKENZIE: Well, I think there are two lessons. For the Soviets, I think they made a monumental blunder 20 years ago when they started building these by not putting containments on. I think they have a real dilemma now as to whether to continue running those reactors until they put containments on. I think in this country the lesson is that if a containment fails, that the consequences could be very large indeed. And therefore I would strongly argue against things like reducing the evacuation zone or in any way weakening our safety standards with respect to reactor design and operation.

MacNEIL: So what immediate action is the Union of Concerned Scientists calling for in the American nuclear program?

Dr. MacKENZIE: Okay. We have called consistently for two actions. One, the installation of an inspector general to ensure that the Regulatory Commission enforces its own regulations and, secondly, the establishment of a nuclear oversight group as has been established after the NASA accident to investigate all accidents independently of the Commission. We think that those two steps will go a long way toward beginning the process of improving the safety of U.S. reactors.

MacNEIL: So, in a word, are you saying Americans cannot be complacent that such an accident could not happen here?

Dr. MacKENZIE: I'd say that's exactly true. We've had a number of close calls in this country since Three Mile Island, accidents where reactors have failed to shut down and accidents where the reactor has been almost out of control for a number of hours.

MacNEIL: Thank you. Jim?

LEHRER: The other side of it now from Carl Walske, president of the Atomic Industrial Forum, a Washington-based trade and lobbying organization for the nuclear power industry. What do you see as the lessons for the U.S. nuclear power industry from what has apparently happened in the Soviet Union?

CARL WALSKE: Well, we've had a pretty good discussion of the fact that the technology being used there is different than the technology here. That is, the fact that we have a good containment building over our commercial power reactors, and that's a good final line of defense to work with. I think we've missed one important difference between the Soviet situation and ours, which is obvious, and that is we're operating in a glass house in the United States in the nuclear industry. And what we do about safety, what we have in the regulations is a matter of public record. It's there for people who are in academia, who are supportive, perhaps, of nuclear power and want to comment on it in some way or other. It's there for critics of nuclear power, like the Union of Concerned Scientists, and they can take shots at it, and they do take shots at it. And the criticism's sometimes valid and sometimes not valid in the eyes of third parties, if you like. But it's part of our system, a very important part. Now, here we are talking about an accident in the Soviet Union and we don't yet know exactly when it happened. We can speculate on when it happened, and we don't have more than a handful or two handfuls of data about it. If you contrast that with our accident at Three Mile Island, which wasn't as severe in terms of the release of radioactivity to the public, there's all the difference in the world. I think we had 250 or 300 reporters at the site at Three Mile Island within 24 hours. There was a lot of confusion, and some of the stories that came out had to later be shifted and changed a little bit as the thing evolved, but it was a free, open society dealing with it, and I think that makes all the difference in the world in terms of the assurance that you can ultimately have about having a safe system.

LEHRER: Have we been lulled into a false sense of security since Three Mile Island, as Dr. MacKenzie suggests?

Mr. WALSKE: No. He's been active and he and his organizaton have made their criticisms, but on the other hand the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the industry have taken great strides forward, too, and I think he should give credit for that. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has increased its regulations voluminously and they have toughened up on their enforcement of it. The industry has entered into self-improvement projects like the Institute of Nuclear Power Operations, which is superimposed on the whole system that we had before, and is an additional layer of industry inspections and consultations to try to upgrade and maintain safety at a high level at the nuclear power plants. So that, whereas Three Mile Island did happen, that's a matter of history, it's a record and so on, I believe that the situation we have in the United States today makes it 100 times less likely that a Three Mile Island can happen than it was in 1979.

LEHRER: He says, though, it would be a mistake to suggest that what happened, or apparently happened, in the Soviet Union could not happen in the United States. He mentioned -- he said there was the Hanford, Washington, plant; there are some plants in South Carolina, he said, that do not have these containment facilities. He also suggested that even some of those which have containment facilities, the containment facilities aren't properly sealed, etc.

Mr. WALSKE: The reactors that were being spoken about in South Carolina are DOE production reactors for producing military plutonium, and the one at Hanford that was being talked about is a dual purpose one which is also run by the Department of Energy and produces plutonium, but as a byproduct also produces electricity. Now, one thing about those reactors, and I'm certainly not expert on them, is that they are less stressed and strained in terms of the processes that go on in a reactor than a modern big commercial nuclear power reactor. So I think it would be not valid to jump to the conclusion that they need to have exactly the same kind of protection that a commercial nuclear power reactor has. But I'm not prepared to argue that in detail. But I think I would argue that it's premature to jump to that conclusion.

LEHRER: But what about just generally speaking, from your perspective, you're not saying -- the industry is not saying, oh, my goodness, look what happened in the Soviet Union and here's what we need to do in the United States tomorrow or the next day as a result of that?

Mr. WALSKE: Well, we don't see, from what's come out of the Soviet Union so far, a specific application to our situation in the U.S. where there is some change we need to make. But that doesn't mean that our minds are closed, and if the Soviets will be cooperative with the rest of the world and if they'll release good scientific information on what happened there, we'll approach that with an open mind. If there are lessons to be learned, we'll want to learn them.

LEHRER: Dr. Goldman, back to you in Boston, first. Do you think the Soviets will ever release everything that everybody would like to know about this accident?

Dr. GOLDMAN: Well, you put it in extreme terms, but I think that they're certainly going to release a lot more than they would have liked to have done. And I think we'll have a pretty fair picture by the time we're through. It's going to be demanded of them, if no other reason. I think they're going to be caught in an enormous international public pressure bind, and Gorbachev has kind of indicated he wants to do something more. And I do believe him in that sense.

LEHRER: All right. Dr. Wilson, sitting right next to Dr. Goldman, how do you feel about whether or not there are lessons in this thus far for the United States and the nuclear power industry?

Dr. WILSON: Well, we can't tell right yet exactly what lessons there are. I think it's very important we find out exactly what happened, exactly how much radioactivity got released, and then compare attempts to understand the process of releasing radioactivity in an accident against that actual measurement. For example, if this accident which did not have a containment vessel, released less than 1 of the total iodine, which is a possibility, then it means that in a serious accident like this they're safer than we thought. On the other hand, if they release all the radioac --

LEHRER: Excuse me, is less than what we thought, you said?

Dr. WILSON: Yes.

LEHRER: I'm sorry. Okay.

Dr. WILSON: The present estimate is that in an uncontained accident, the worst accident, will be about 30 of the iodine will be released. That's what's assumed, for example, in the similar accidents in Rasmussen's report. On the other hand, we might find there's 100 of the iodine released, in which case it's worse than we thought. We really want to calibrate our knowledge against this accident. And I hope we will get that information. When I was chairman of the study for the American Physical Society I asked every country in the world which was engaged in nuclear activities to help us, andI asked officially and unofficially people in the Soviet Union. I asked personal friends, the vice president of the Academy of Sciences, in person. I asked Kapitiza, who runs a television program, "Look on Science," in the Soviet Union. I asked a number of people, and I asked them also officially. We got absolutely no information whatsoever either on previous accidents or on their research programs.

LEHRER: Now, Dr. Goldman, why is that? Why won't the Soviets talk about this?

Dr. GOLDMAN: Well, because as some people say, we only have problems in a society which strives for profits. You know, they've had a series of accidents and they've not acknowledged them. The only reason that they've started now to build containment vessels was after the Three Mile Island thing. You can read statements by the chairman, the president of the Academy of Sciences, Alexandrov, who says that the whole business of Three Mile Island was not anything serious; it was just a plot by the oil industry to denigrate nuclear energy.

LEHRER: I was just going to ask Dr. Wagner on the medical end. Do you have any, is there any cross-fertilization or sharing of information with the Soviet scientists and Soviet doctors about all of this?

Dr. WAGNER: There is some sharing in the field of nuclear medicine, which is the use of radioactive materials in medical practice. But there is not enough by a long shot. And, by and large, Russian physicians don't attend meetings that are international in this particular field. I think that one of the points that we would like to get from this terrible tragedy is better communication in the area of science and medicine between Russia, Scandinavian countries, Europe and the United States and Asia.

LEHRER: Let's say, for instance, within the next two or three days it's finally established as to what the casualties are, whether the number of dead, injured, whatever. Will there ever come a time where you or anybody in your American line of business can pick up the phone and call a counterpart in the Soviet Union and say let me have your data on the extent of the injuries, let me look at your slides, whatever? Is that ever going to happen?

Dr. WAGNER: I tried to call Ariadne Kramer, who is head of nuclear medicine at the Mechnikov Institute. I was told that all the lines to Russia are closed.

LEHRER: You mean today you tried?

Dr. WAGNER: Today. But I think it would be possible to do that.

LEHRER: Do you think they will always --

Dr. WAGNER: I think we should continue to make formal requests of the Russians to let the world learn from this tragic accident the same way we let the world learn from the tragedy that happened at Three Mile Island, the experience at Three Mile Island, which was not a tragedy in the same sense that this is.

LEHRER: What about from your organization's point of view, Dr. MacKenzie? Do you have avenues to try to get some information here?

Dr. MacKENZIE: No, we don't. We have not been in communication very much with the Soviet Union. We are also very much involved with arms control issues, and we have to be very careful about dealing with the Soviets in that respect. I mean, it's very easy to misinterpret intentions. So we have tried to keep basically at hand's length -- arm's length from the Soviets.

LEHRER: I see. What about industry to industry, Mr. Walske?

Mr. WALSKE: There is no particular exchange, although a few individuals do visit the Soviet Union from time to time; a few scientists visit the Soviet Union. And they open some of their nuclear power stations to visits, but it's really quite limited. Now, the Soviets do participate in the International Atomic Energy Agency, and there are some technical efforts that take place there, and it may well be that in a framework like that, especially if they feel that they can't conceal what happened, that they do reveal some good technical information. I would say a forum like that would be about our best hope.

LEHRER: Dr. Wilson, where do you come down on just the simple public question that arises in most minds tonight could this happen in the United States? Is this something we Americans should be concerned about just on a very practical level?

Dr. WILSON: I will never say it's absolutely impossible for an accident like this to happen. A big nuclear reactor of 1,000-megawatt electrical size, which we have, is the same size the reactor which has just had this accident. The total amount of uranium is about the same; the total amount of fission products is about the same. And I can conceive of ways in which those fission products can reach the environment. The only question is, how probable is that? And, as we've discussed several times on this program, if we have a containment vessel which is strong enough to withstand any steam pressure during an accident, it is very likely that that material will never reach the environment. So I would say that it's extremely unlikely that such an accident would take place in this country. But I think we have to be continually vigilant, make sure the containment vessels are good and make sure all the procedures are adopted to ensure that.

LEHRER: Do you agree with that, Dr. MacKenzie?

Dr. MacKENZIE: No, I don't. I think that there are real problems that persist. I think the analogy between that accident and our shuttle accident are very similar. There were problems that were known and ignored over a period of a long time by the people in charge until an accident occurred. And then the tendency is to focus on the O-rings or on the containment, but basically you have to go back and see how those decisions were made, and I think that's where the problem lies.

LEHRER: Well, gentlemen, all five of you, thank you very much; appreciate your being with us tonight and helping us sort through this very complicated story. Robin?

MacNEIL: Our Lurie cartoon tonight is another look at the Soviet nuclear accident.

[Lurie cartoon -- Two Swedish farmers watch a large cloud approach; it's the Soviet news blackout, not the radioactive fallout.]

Once again, the main story of the day. The Soviet Union said two people died in the nuclear accident there. Others put the figure much higher. Massive evacuations were reported from the area of the accident. Moscow asked Sweden and West Germany for technical advice, and Thomas Roser of the German Atomic Forum told the NewsHour the accident probably happened sometime between Thursday and Saturday, and he believes the Soviets now have the situation under control.

Good night, Jim.

LEHRER: Good night, Robin. We'll see you tomorrow night. I'm Jim Lehrer; thank you and good night.