The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour

Intro

ROBERT MacNEIL: Good evening. The Soviet disaster continues to dominate world news. Moscow insisted only two had died, with 197 injured and radiation levels going down. Western reports put the casualty toll much higher and said there may be a second reactor meltdown. As radiation spread, European countries ordered health precautions and protested to Moscow. Details in our news summary coming up. Jim?

LEHRER: After the news summary, it's the Soviet nuclear disaster. We hear what is known and what is still speculation from Senators Leahy and Wallop, Soviet expert Dimitri Simes, British nuclear official John Gittus, and retired Westinghouse executive Gordon Hurlburt, followed by summing-up commentary from former U.S. nuclear, defense and intelligence official James Schlesinger.News Summary

MacNEIL: The Soviets released a little more information about the nuclear accident in the Ukraine, but their version clashed with many Western reports. First, what the Soviets are saying. A Tass news agency statement insisted only two people had died and that 197 people had been hospitalized, 49 of them released after examination. Tass denied what it called Western rumors that thousands of people allegedly perished. It said radiation levels at the site were going down and that air and water in the region gave no cause for concern. The evening news report on Soviet television said technicians were cleaning up polluted areas around the plant, but nothing was said about the cause of the accident. The broadcast did show a photograph of the plant showing damage to the roof of the tower at the upper right. That could have been caused by the chemical explosion that Western analysts believe was the original cause of the problem in the reactor. A Dutch radio operator picked up a broadcast late yesterday from what appeared to be a Soviet ham operator near the disaster site. He reported that two reactors were on fire and many hundreds dead and wounded. That report could not be independently verified. An American professor in Kiev, 60 miles from the plant, told NBC her tourist guides had spoken of hundreds of casualties, but the city of Kiev still appeared normal. Jim?

LEHRER: Western versions of what happened were different than the Soviets'. News stories said dead and wounded may be as high as two to three thousand, that there had been a meltdown at a second nuclear reactor, Unit Three, which may still be in progress. They also said fires emitting smoke, vapors and radiation were still burning. The stories were attributed to U.S. intelligence sources and were carried by the Associated Press, Reuters and other Western news organizations. But officials involved in a U.S. government task force on the accident declined to go that far on the record. The task force is made up of representatives of the nuclear regulatory agency, the Department of Energy, the State Department and the Environmental Protection Agency. They briefed members of Congress this afternoon.

HAROLD DENTON, Nuclear Regulatory Commission: There have been press reports this afternoon that Unit Three may be affected. I've been unable to confirm that report back through the technical staff. So to the best of our knowledge the accident occurred in one unit. I guess there is the potential for fires, conventional fires, that might affect Unit Three or the fact that they can't get people in to control Three. But as of the last time I touched base with the people following it, there was no indication that Three was involved.

LEHRER: U.S. officials said the United States had offered to assist the Soviet Union in coping with the accident. That assistance ranged from technical advice to sending doctors and other medical personnel who are experts on radiation exposure. Thus far the Soviets have not accepted the offer.

MacNEIL: The U.S. Embassy in Moscow warned Americans to leave the city of Kiev. Britain, France and Finland prepared to evacuate their citizens. But West Germans returning from the Kiev area were tested and found to have insignificant levels of contamination. A Swedish communications company received a picture of the Chernobyl plant taken by a U.S. commercial satellite. The Swedish company said two bright red spots were visible beneath a cloud of bluish smoke, indicating two meltdowns at Chernobyl. Soviet officials again today asked the West German nuclear industry for information on robots designed to measure contamination levels after nuclear emergencies, but had not yet actually asked for the robots. As radiation spread over much of Europe, increased levels were detected in Austria, Yugoslavia and Switzerland. Several countries took health precautions. Here are reports from Sweden, Austria and Poland.

MIKE SMARTT, BBC [voice-over]: Outwardly the traditionally unemotional Swede seemed to be enjoying today's public holiday in April sunshine, but the radiation scare from Russia has deeply worried many amongst a population which voted six years ago to scrap Sweden's own nuclear industry by the year 2010. This family is considering leaving Sweden's east coast for the west until they're sure the danger is over.

SWEDISH WOMAN: I'm very afraid of nuclear after this, I must say. I feel very frightened after this.

SMARTT [voice-over]: Other Swedes find themselves in two minds about nuclear power.

2nd SWEDISH WOMAN: I think we need it, but I don't like it.

SMARTT [voice-over]: High levels of radiation have been found in some stagnant water, and children have been warned not to play in it. So far, though, tests on milk have shown no dangerous concentrations. Generally, radiation levels, which went off the graph on Sunday, are gradually decreasing. However, if radioactivity increases again, there are contingency plans.

SWEDISH OFFICIAL: And we might have to consider restrictions on milk consumption, maybe asking people in some parts of Sweden to stay indoors and so on.

ROD STEPHEN, Visnews [voice-over]: The authorities were taking the crisis seriously in Austria. In the village of Villach the south of the country officials were out on the streets monitoring the radiation levels with Geiger counters. The results were alarming: significantly higher than normal levels were recorded. And although the official line is that there is no real danger to life from the fallout, many parents have been taking their children home from kindergarten.

In Poland, the government is advising people not to drink milk from cows that graze outdoors. Contaminated milk has been found already in Scandinavia. And in Warsaw the authorities are distributing protective iodine doses to be given to babies and young children. People have been reluctant to buy fresh vegetables, because officials have advised consumers to wash everything thoroughly.

MacNEIL: On Wall Street, the stock market, continuing the fall that began after news of the Soviet disaster yesterday, recorded the biggest one-day drop in history. The Dow Jones industrial average fell almost 42 points to close at 1784. The utilities' average, which includes stocks most likely to be influenced by the disaster, also fell but not as sharply as the industrials.

The government reported today that the U.S. trade deficit, the difference between imports and exports, rose last month by 16 to $14.5 billion. The deficit with Japan jumped 27 to an all-time high of $5.5 billion, nearly 40 of the total U.S. trade deficit. A big surge in imports of manufactured goods, including Japanese cars, caused the trade gap to widen.

LEHRER: The U.S. Supreme Court had a busy decision day. It made two involving race and juries and one on abortion. It overturned the conviction of a black defendant by an all-white jury, because prosecutors used challenges to deliberately keep blacks off the jury, and it said potential jurors in a death-penalty case can be asked about their racial views. On abortion the court used technical grounds to throw out an attempt to reinstate an anti-abortion law in Illinois.

MacNEIL: President Reagan sent his deep regrets to Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev over the nuclear accident and set up a special White House group to monitor developments. The day after his arrival in Bali, Indonesia, the President took it easy today with a stroll on the beach after being briefed on the Chernobyl accident. Tomorrow Mr. Reagan will meet Indonesian President Suharto; on Friday he flies to the Tokyo economic summit.

LEHRER: Libya today expelled more than 100 European workers. The move was in retaliation for the European Economic Community's sanctions against Libyans in their countries. Also today the EEC stopped shipments of butter to Libya. It was the second European food product cut off from Libya since the U.S. bombing raid.

In India, at least 11 people died in rioting outside a religious shrine 250 miles from New Delhi. Police fired on a crowd of Moslems that was protesting the use of the shrine by Hindus. There was also violence in the Punjab when Indian police raided the Golden Temple in Amritsar. They arrested some 200 Sikh radicals who had earlier proclaimed Punjab an independent nation.

MacNEIL: There was a major earthquake in Mexico today. It shook buildings but caused little damage. But memories of the disastrous earthquake last September created mass panic. In Mexico City, thousands of residents rushed into the streets in their nightclothes. Today's quake measured 6.5 on the Richter scale, compared to 8.1 for the quake which killed up to 10,000 people last fall.

LEHRER: And that's it for the news summary. Now it's on to the nuclear accident in the Soviet Union with two U.S. senators, a Soviet expert, a British nuclear safety official, a retired Westinghouse executive, and former cabinet official James Schlesinger. What We Know

LEHRER: The accident is in the Ukraine, 6,000 miles from Washington, D.C. But from the Soviet Union's archcompetitor's capital city came much of the news about what happened at the Chernobyl nuclear plant. Western news agencies quoted U.S. intelligence officials saying casualties number two to three thousand, that there had been a second reactor meltdown, that fires were still burning and spewing smoke and radiation into the sky. And it was a U.S. official task force that held the public on-the-record briefings.

LEE THOMAS, EPA administrator: We know that a major accident occurred at the Chernobyl nuclear facility. We know that that major accident resulted in an explosion and major damage to Unit Four at that facility. We know that a fire occurred, and then we have a continuing fire at that facility and that we have damage and the fire at that one unit. We know that as the fire continues we do have continuing emissions, radioactive emissions, but they would be diminished releases over time from the initial emission release.

Mr. DENTON: We can only speculate about what the initiating event was, but it's quite clear that whatever happened caused the loss of coolant accident in this plant. The fuel was cooling, the core began to heat up, fuel melting began to occur. As water and steam got to the fuel, there was the reaction between the steam and the cladding; the pressure tube failed and steam began to attack the graphite. Graphite will react with water and produce hydrogen and carbon monoxide and some other combustible products. There is every indication that as a result of this interaction beween the cladding and the graphite and the steam and air, a violent explosion occurred inside the reactor core. This explosion led to breaching the containment and dispersal of considerable amounts of fission products. There are still very high temperatures existing in the core. The radiation levels within the plant itself are so very high that I would expect it'd be very difficult to take any corrective action there.

MacNEIL: There were no public briefings in Moscow today. Most of what was said about the accident was said on the night's news broadcast from Moscow and a statement from the Soviet news agency Tass. This is what Tass said, "Work to eliminate the consequences of the accident continues at the Chernobyl atomic power station. As a result of the measures taken in the past 24 hours, the emanation of radioactive substances decreased. The radiation levels in the area of the atomic power station and in the settlement at the station lowered." Tass went on, "Measurements taken by specialists by means of control equipment show that the chain reaction of fission of nuclear fuel does not take place. The reactor is shut down. Work is underway to clean polluted sections of the adjoining locality. Specialized units supplied with the necessary up-to-date equipment and effective means are employed in this work."

Tass then said, "Some news agencies in the West are spreading the rumors that thousands of people allegedly perished during the accident at the atomic power station. It has already been reported that in reality two persons died, that only 197 people were hospitalized; 49 of them were discharged from the hospital after a medical examination. Enterprises, collective farms and state farms and institutions are functioning normally." Tass concluded, "The Council of Ministers of the Ukraine reported that according to the governmental commission, the radiation situation at the Chernobyl atomic power station and in the adjoining locality is improving. The state of the air basin over the remaining territory of the Kiev region and the city of Kiev evokes no concern. The quality of the drinking water as well as of the water in rivers and water reservoirs is in keeping with standards." And that's the end of the Tass statement.

LEHRER: The Soviet people, at least those in Moscow, appear to accept the official explanation of events. That is the report from Donald Kimelman, Moscow correspondent for the Philadelphia Inquirer. I talked with him earlier this evening.

DONALD KIMELMAN [by phone]: What we're getting now is the information by nightly communique, you know, each night giving us a little more information and always raising at least as many questions as they answer, and of course providing nobody to provide the answers.

LEHRER: The 197 figure, the injured figure, is there any reason not to believe that? Any reason to believe it? What's your feel for it?

Mr. KIMELMAN [by phone]: Well, you know, there's something about a specific number that you tend to want to believe. Of course, they don't say "injured;" they say "hospitalized," and I think the question in everybody's mind is, how many people were exposed to very heavy doses of radiation that they're going to suffer from for years to come, people who may not need to be hospitalized?

LEHRER: Much information has come out here in Washington today. One wire service story, a Reuters story, quotes U.S. intelligence sources saying total victims may number two to three thousand. That's dead and injured. Anything you can add or subtract from that?

Mr. KIMELMAN [by phone]: Well, you know, it's hard to know where those numbers come from. Again, you know, a victim, if you say somebody who's received a heavy dose of radiation and could come down with cancer in x-number of years is a victim, but it's conceivable, and there's really nothing in the Soviet statement that would contradict that.

LEHRER: What about, is there any increased awareness among the ordinary people of Moscow today? Anything you can add or subtract from that?

Mr. KIMELMAN [by phone]: Yeah, I can. I went and talked to people on the street today, as I guess a lot of us did, and of course we're in Moscow now, about four to five hundred miles from the reactor. So people are not exactly fearing for their lives. You know, what's always fascinating around here is how people are very willing to accept the leisurely way in which the government is giving out information. The whole idea of the public's right to know is not a particularly developed concept around here, and people are satisfied that they don't have to be told all the details, that the important people know what's going on and they're doing whatever is necessary to protect life and to clean up the mess.

LEHRER: So there's no panic or even what you'd call concern about it?

Mr. KIMELMAN [by phone]: Yeah, there's concern, there's worry. People are hoping that the government will give them more information. I had one woman say that, well, you know, this is a new time, there's more openness, we'll receive more information. But of course it's much too early to expect something like that. The government commission was just reported; they're just beginning their work. It'll come. You know, they're just much more patient about getting information. The important thing the government has told them, is that everybody in danger has been evacuated and everybody who hasn't been evacuated is not in danger. And I think people tend to believe that.

LEHRER: As a reporter do you feel a little strange, being, as you say, 400 to 500 miles from the story and yet there's more information seems to be coming out here in Washington, 6,000 miles away?

Mr. KIMELMAN [by phone]: Well, I have to tell you, I've been in Moscow now for over three years and you get pretty used to this. I think most of the big stories that I've been on we've had more information coming out of Washington. The Korean airliner was the classic example of that.

MacNEIL: The administration began privately briefing key members of Congress, the leadership and the intelligence committees yesterday afternoon. Today officials gave public briefings to the members of Congress. To discuss what the administration has been telling Congress, we go now to two senators, Patrick Leahy, Democrat from Vermont, ranking member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, and to Malcolm Wallop, Republican from Wyoming, a former member of the Intelligence Committee and a member of the Energy Committee. They both join us from a studio on Capitol Hill.

Senator Leahy, based on what you've been told, from what U.S. intelligence knows, what do you understand the situation to be at the Chernobyl plant today?

Sen. PATRICK LEAHY: I think that first I want to emphasize that everything that I say will be based on those things that we've been told in an unclassified session. And I might say in that regard that the press has in many instances been giving us information a lot quicker than any way that we've received it in any kind of briefing. But there's no question that this is the worst disaster -- nuclear reactor disaster ever in history. It's hundreds of thousands, perhaps a million times worse than anything at Three Mile Island. It's also -- it also shows a real sense of irresponsibility on the part of the Soviet Union, irresponsibility to their own people, to people that may be tourists in their country and to neighboring countries in trying to hold this secret and in trying to hold it within themselves, which sort of throws the Gorbachev idea of openness out the window. But also not really saying anything about it until the Swedes detected it. I think that there will ultimately be dozens, probably hundreds, maybe even more Soviet citizens who will die as a result of the fact that their own government wouldn't warn them of the enormous danger they're facing.

MacNEIL: Senator Wallop, do you understand that the reactor is still burning?

Sen. MALCOLM WALLOP: I do understand it. I've heard reports, as you have heard, that the Soviets say it's now out. It's inconceivable that that's the case. I have not been able to all day, and cannot confirm even now, that the second reactor is in a state of meltdown or any critical state, but given what we know took place in the unit number four, it is not conceivable that that fire is out.

LEHRER: Senator Leahy, I'm sorry I mispronounced your name earlier. Senator Leahy, how firm is this evidence about a second meltdown? How strong is that evidence?

Sen. LEAHY: Well, I am not aware of a second meltdown. But just on the material that's been released by our government you know that there are four reactors there. There is no question that the whole area is so radioactive that as a practical matter, as far as any effective use, all those reactors are now out. I agree very much with Malcolm that there is no way that the fire could have been put out in the one that has blown out, but I am not aware of any more reactors that have had a blowout.

MacNEIL: Senator Wallop, are U.S. agencies now convinced that without any question of doubt there was a meltdown in the first reactor?

Sen. WALLOP: Oh, I think absolutely. There is no question at all about that, and one of the reasons why it is a plausible scenario, and I asked Dr. Denton that this afternoon, that the second one could be in a critical state is because the explosion at the plant was so significant, the heat generated, the Fahrenheit heat, was so intense as well as the radioactive heat. The radioactivity in the vicinity of the plant that blew, the number four unit, is sufficient that survival is something in the neighborhood of 1 seconds. So the scenario would go rather simply like this, that there is nobody left alive in the vicinity of it, and anything that was supposed to be automatic that did not succeed in being automatic in shutting down the other reactors could lead to a similar kind of event in one of those unoccupied ones.

MacNEIL: Senator Leahy, how does what you know square with the latest Soviet statement, which we've just quoted at some length, particularly the lines that the radiation level is going down and that no chain fission reaction in the nuclear fuel was going on. What does that say to you? I mean, isn't that an inevitable part of a meltdown?

Sen. LEAHY: It's a blatant lie, and you see, that's why I say it's so irresponsible, not only to their neighbors, other nations, but it's totally irresponsible to their own people. It's a blatant lie. They have to know that. There couldn't possibly be a nuclear scientist in the Soviet Union who would ever believe that. And we know that they have some extremely good nuclear scientists. I cannot understand why they would try to cover up something like that. In a country that is only 500 miles from Moscow, word of this will eventually start getting out. There have to be a lot of people who have died, a lot more people who are dying now. They know that they can't go near there. They're going to have some remarkable problems with their food chain in that area. You'll probably see a power struggle that may see the ouster of Shcherbitskiy, the boss of the area. I mean, all of these things are going to come out. I cannot understand what they think they gain by flat-out lying about what's happened now.

MacNEIL: Do you go along with that, Senator Wallop, that this is a blatant lie, that it could not be possible that there was no chain fission reaction in the nuclear fuel?

Sen. WALLOP: Oh, absolutely. The ridiculous thing about it is that they claim that it's out, but to my knowledge they've not sent out to either Sweden or West Germany and said don't come and help us anymore. You know, the first thing that I think that happens was that they waited to inform not only their own people but the rest of the world, and they have an obligation, a solemn obligation to do that. It was described as not absolutely compulsory under the IAEA, the International Atomic Energy Agency, to inform the rest of the world, but by any civilized standard, by the standard of international law and by the standard of practice under the IAEA and the expectation which they subscribe to, they were obliged to notify the rest of the world. Did not do it. My feeling is that they kept that quiet to see how much they could find so cynically about our intelligence capability. They will find out a lot of things that we know by denying in public and we having to contradict it.

MacNEIL: I see. Well, Senators, thank you. We'll come back. Jim?

LEHRER: Some perspective now on the Soviet government's approach to this accident. It comes from Dimitri Simes. He was born in the Soviet Union and worked at the Institute on World Economy and International Relations in Moscow until emigrating to the United States in 1972. He is now a senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

First, do you believe the Soviet Union is lying about this?

DIMITRI SIMES: I have no question about that. Moreover, most people in the Soviet Union have no question about that. I talked today to somebody in Kiev. It was very difficult to get through, but I managed to talk to --

LEHRER: That's 60 miles from where the accident is.

Dr. SIMES: Exactly. I talked to this person who is a Jewish refusnik, so presumably he feels that he has little to lose by being outspoken. The first question was, "Dimitri, what is going on? What is happening?" Because locally in Kiev they have no information whatsoever beyond what was announced in Moscow. But most people assume that the government simply would not make these revelations unless it was a total unqualified disaster.

LEHRER: Okay. Why are they lying in such a blatant way, telling blatant lies, as the senators said?

Dr. SIMES: Well, Jim, could I remind you of the Korean airliner tragedy several years ago? The first Soviet reaction was to say that nothing has happened. Then the second reaction was to cover it up and to invent all kinds of preposterous explanations. They have a very different philosophy of news. They believe that information belongs to the state, that people are subjects of the state, not citizens, and you share as much information with them as is absolutely necessary for purposes of the state. It is paternalistic attitude to people. They're small children; you do not know what they are going to do with information. So you issue orders. You tell them where to go, what to do, how to protect themselves. But you do not release any information which would allow them to make independent decisions.

LEHRER: Does it surprise you at all what Don Kimelman of the Philadelphia Inquirer told me earlier this evening, we just heard, that the people at least that he talked to on the streets of Moscow believe what the government says and that's fine with them?

Dr. SIMES: Well, in Moscow it may be true because also, let's face it. When people in Moscow hear about this tragedy in Chernobyl it is something which does not immediately affect them. They know very little about nuclear power, about radiation, so I'm sure they are concerned but they are not frightened. In Kiev, my impression is that people do not believe government information, that they are very concerned and, remember, many residents of Kiev have relatives in the suburbs close to Chernobyl and the whole area is blockaded, and those who attempted to visit their relatives confronted army troops, KGB, the police. So they do understand that something terrible is happening behind this Iron Curtain inside the Soviet Union.

LEHRER: All right, let's assume that you're right and the senators are right, that the Soviet government is lying about this. Don't they risk something, that eventually they're going to be found out, that the truth will be found out and the whole world will know they lied?

Dr. SIMES: Well, first of all, this fear that the truth eventually will bediscovered never in the past discouraged the Soviets to lie. That comes rather naturally to them. Second of all, let's face it. They're primarily concerned now about their own domestic order, and they're deeply uncomfortable about releasing information as long as the situation is not under control. If it would be an air crash they would say, well, the disaster took place, the injured are being helped, the dead are being attended, the government commission is working on it. But to say that nuclear radiation is being released every minute and Comrade Gorbachev and company don't know what to do about it, this is deeply embarrassing. That contradicts the self-image of people who can handle about any issue. That contradicts the social pact between the rulers and the ruled. The rulers protect the people; the people do not ask questions. When the rulers cannot protect the people, the social contract begins to disintegrate. And the government officials, of course, are very uncomfortable with something like that, and they prefer to cover the truth.

LEHRER: What about the risk they're running with the outside world, Western Europe, Eastern Europe, their own allies, for not giving this information out?

Dr. SIMES: Jim, I always wondered how sophisticated is Mr. Gorbachev and people around him about the outside world. They know a great deal of facts. They met Western leaders. They know who is who in Western politics. But I think that they grossly misunderstand how Western political process works. They do not understand concerns and preoccupations of Western societies, and every time they are deeply surprised when their lies are confronted with deep resentment. And I am sure they're surprised today. And you could see that Tass was spending time during this great disaster essentially trying to prove that the Western media was exploiting this situation for political advantages. And the Soviet Embassy, incidentally, is already spreading the story around town --

LEHRER: Around this town, Washington?

Dr. SIMES: Around this town, around Washington, that the Reagan administration is trying to exploit this situation for cynical political purposes. That tells you something about Soviet priorities.

LEHRER: Thank you. Robin?

MacNEIL: Throughout Europe concern has been mounting steadily since word of the Soviet accident came out. European nuclear power officials have been scrambling for details both about the accident itself and the amount of radiation entering their countries. For a European view we turn to John Gittus, safety director of the British Atomic Energy Authority. He joins us tonight from London.

Mr. Gittus, how do you read the latest statement from Tass about the Chernobyl situation?

JOHN GITTUS: Well, I nd it extremely difficult to reconcile that statement with calculations that we have made based on radiation measurements in Western Europe. These certainly would tend to indicate that a very serious accident has occurred, the kind of accident that would give rise to many deaths.

MacNEIL: I see. Is your reading of the situation consistent with the Tass statement that there is no chain reaction, fission reaction in the nuclear fuel?

Mr. GITTUS: Oh, certainly it would be consistent with that. I would have expected them to shut down the chain reaction on Friday when the accident commenced. The release of radiation from the reactor does not depend on the continuation of the chain reaction.

MacNEIL: I guess what I'm trying to get at is, what does that say about whether or not there was a meltdown?

Mr. GITTUS: We can have a meltdown without the chain reaction continuing.

MacNEIL: I see.

Mr. GITTUS: In other words, heat is given off by the decay of radioactive materials in the reactor core, and that decay process continues even after the chain reaction has been shut down.

MacNEIL: I see.

Mr. GITTUS: And so the decay heat is capable of heating the core to such a high temperature that volatile fission products will be given off, and that has happened, and to the even higher temperatures at which the core material will melt.

MacNEIL: What do you make of the stories emanating from American intelligence sources and given some plausibility, perhaps, by this Swedish picking up of the American satellite photo showing two red spots? What do you make of the idea that there may have been or be a second meltdown?

Mr. GITTUS: Well, indeed when we heard of the first accident we asked ourselves, how are the operators able to maintain safe operation of the three other reactors on this site? Given the high radiation fields coming from reactor number four, we thought it quite conceivable that they would have to leave the site or even be killed by the radiation and that in that case one of the other reactors or perhaps even more might itself go into an accident condition.

MacNEIL: How would that happen?

Mr. GITTUS: The reactors have to be brought to a state of safe shutdown. Now, that can to some extent be accomplished automatically, but there are manual actions and checking operations which have to be undertaken by the operators who want to be totally certain that a safe shutdown condition has been obtained.

MacNEIL: Going to the casualty figures which Tass put out today, what does the amount and quality of the radiation detected in Western Europe tell you about the probable casualties?

Mr. GITTUS: Well, it indicates to me that there is likely to have been some tens of deaths during the few days since the accident commenced, and that number might even extend to hundreds. It depends how effective has been the evacuation process.

MacNEIL: I see. Since Britain experienced, on a much smaller scale, a similar fire, a graphite fire, in the Windscale plant in 1957, have the Soviets approached Britain for advice as they have the West Germans?

Mr. GITTUS: No, they have not. The British government has indicated in a public statement that we are prepared to give advice, and during the day in a number of broadcast transmissions I have indicated the nature of the advice that we would be prepared to offer. But to my knowledge so far the British government has received no official request from the Soviet Union.

MacNEIL: Do you believe yourself that the fire is still burning?

Mr. GITTUS: I think it quite probable that it will still be burning. This vast block of graphite, with limited access of oxygen from the atmosphere, would continue burning for several days or even weeks, unless they were successful in applying some kind of fire-fighting measures which would surely be very difficult to accomplish given the likely levels of irradiation around the plant.

MacNEIL: So what kind of advice, based on the British experience, could you give them or have you been giving them publicly?

Mr. GITTUS: Well, I believe that there are three methods that they could apply, but by far the most attractive would be the use of heavy-lifting military helicopters to lift sand. Amounts of about 100 tons or even more could be lifted in a single operation by means of helicopters that the Russians have at their disposal. And if it were moist, the kind of sand which used to be used in foundries, then I think if itwere dropped from a considerable height through the fractured roof of the reactor, it probably would succeed in controlling and eventually extinguishing the fire.

MacNEIL: What else could be done?

Mr. GITTUS: Another possibility would be to scoop up water, using the Canada type of aircraft which are used for putting out crop fires and bomb the reactor with that. I should emphasize that we think that the origin of the fire has been an interaction between small amounts of water and steam and the very large hot graphite block. And so if water were added in small quantities, that would intensify the blaze. The secret would seem to be to apply enough.

MacNEIL: Putting together your experience with the Soviets and what you've heard the senators and Dr. Simes saying here, is it your belief that the Soviets are simply lying tonight about the extent and nature of the accident?

Mr. GITTUS: Well, that is the conclusion that I have to draw from the calculations that we have made from the evidence available to us at the moment. But I do agree that it's extremely difficult to understand why they should tell barefaced lies when ultimately, and possibly in a very short time, Western intelligence will be able to find out the truth. That is anomalous.

MacNEIL: Mr. Gittus, we'll come back. Thank you. Jim?

LEHRER: Another view of it from Gordon Hurlbert, retired president of Westinghouse Power Systems who has visited several nuclear power plants in the Soviet Union. He is now a consultant on nuclear power. He joins us tonight from Pittsburgh.

Mr. Hurlbert, have the Soviets always been this secretive when it comes to their nuclear facilities?

GORDON HURLBERT: They invited us over as a member committee of the World Energy Congress. They took us to each of their nuclear power plants, including their breeder reactor, reviewed in great detail the design of a plant very similar to the one that had the accident. I would say that in the commercial nuclear end they have been quite open. I expect that they have some difficulty in their own mind, like we did in our accidents, oif finding out exactly what happened. I think that, technocrat to technocrat, that they will show us what happened, why it happened and what they're doing to prevent it and any lessons that we could learn.

LEHRER: Do you think they will do that?

Mr. HURLBERT: Yes, I do. The U.S. National Committee, which is a private body of the major energy users and producers in the country, our president sent a wire to the secretary of their committee offering any expertise or any help that we could give them to minimize the danger of this. Our other --

LEHRER: Excuse me. Has there been an answer to that telegram?

Mr. HURLBERT: We have not received an answer to that telegram.

LEHRER: Do you expect them to take you up on that offer?

Mr. HURLBERT: I don't think so. No, I don't think so. First, I think they would feel that the British people have more experience in graphite fires, and I doubt very seriously if they want to take the political risk of having American help.

LEHRER: You think what we're really talking about here is just politics right now? That's the reason they don't want the United States involved? That's the reason they're not telling more about what's going on?

Mr. HURLBERT: Well, I would guess that they've got big technical problems of their own determining the nature of the failure, what was the cause of the failure, how they can -- what the status of the reactors are at the present time. Every country and every organization is reluctant to speculate when they don't have all the information that's necessary.

LEHRER: Do you have any informed speculation based on -- you've been there. You're probably as familiar with the Soviet nuclear industry as any American is. Do you have informed speculation as to what happened?

Mr. HURLBERT: Well, somehow some -- by the way, that plant is designed really with three safety systems, very similar to American designs, although there's no containment in the event of an accident like this, and their electronic control systems, their ability to call up information isn't as good. And in addition to that they require more manual operation. Their electronics isn't as good. And so if they did get in trouble, whereas we would have more automatic operations, they might have had difficulty performing any manual operation to bring it to cold shutdown.

LEHRER: Well, comparing just in general terms the Soviet nuclear energy situation with the American one, how do they compare in terms of safety, in terms of technical knowhow and any other way you want to compare them?

Mr. HURLBERT: Well, they have a number of world-class engineers. They have a number of competent engineers. They don't have the computer power to do the design to the same degree of sophistication that we do. They don't have as serious an NRC inspection program as we do. They take safety seriously. If there's one good thing that's going to come out of this great tragedy is that those are well monitored both in the plant and external to the plant, and so we are going to get invaluable data both for long-term medical purposes and for what happens when you have a very serious accident like this.

LEHRER: And no question in your mind that we will eventually get that data?

Mr. HURLBERT: I wouldn't put it that we have no question, but I'm quite sure.

LEHRER: Okay.

Mr. HURLBERT: We technocrats have a very good relationship, and I think that they will try to help us and we'd try to help them solve a problem that involves human tragedy like this.

LEHRER: All right, thank you. Robin?

MacNEIL: We go next to a man who can look at this story from several perspectives. He's James Schlesinger and during his career in government he's been chairman of the old Atomic Energy Commission, director of the Central Intelligence Agency, secretary of defense and secretary of energy. He's now at the Georgetown University Center for Strategic and International Studies.

Dr. Kissinger [sic], you've directed the agencies dealing with nuclear energy and intelligence. How do you assess the conflicting facts we're juggling tonight, or conflicting reports?

JAMES SCHLESINGER: The Soviets are utilizing what is politely referred to as a cover story. One can say more sharply that they are indulging in blatant or barefaced lies. Well, the story that they are putting out is obviously wrong because they are stating that there are people now at the plant site in a cleanup operation. That is impossible, given the level of radiation, and is inconsistent with their requests to the British [sic] and Scandinavian governments for aid, and inconsistent with their inquiries in West Germany for robots that would monitor the radiation levels at the plant. If you need robots, you probably can't use human beings.

MacNEIL: I'm told in my ear that I just called you Dr. Kissinger. I'm having a tough time with names tonight. Anyway, Dr. Schlesinger, is U.S. intelligence good enough? Is the kind of information that can be obtained in this sort of situation, is it good enough to be definitive? Should we believe every detail of the reports attributed to U.S. intelligence today about danger or probability of second meltdown and the sequence of events and so on?

Dr. SCHLESINGER: If the intelligence reports are indeed what they are purported to be in the press, I think that for those things that can be observed and particularly observed from satellites that one can believe the outcome. If the intelligence community says that the sites are burning and the Russians say that the fires have been extinguished, one can bet that the sites are indeed burning. With respect to those things that are speculative, the number of casualties, we do not have enough information; indeed, I suspect that the intelligence communities are very, very careful and that it is press reports picked up from sources in the Soviet Union that are at issue here.

MacNEIL: One of the details attributed to U.S. intelligence sources today said that they'd observed that the number of Soviet personnel around the plant was limited. I mean, is the satellite observation good enough you could actually count the number of people who were out in the open around such a plant?

Dr. SCHLESINGER: Well, that of course is a prying question, but the brief answer to that is that we can estimate the number of personnel, and I would think that, given the radiation levels that that would be a very low number if it's more than zero.

MacNEIL: Kenneth Adelman, the director of the Arms Control and Development Agency who presumably has access to all this information, said yesterday that Soviet statements that only two people had died were preposterous. How do you react to that?

Dr. SCHLESINGER: I would say that it is unlikely and that indeed the Soviets are covering up what may be a massive catastrophe. But we do not know that for sure. We do not have important pieces of information, such as how long the fuel has been in the reactor. The radioactivity of the fuel after a meltdown depends upon how long that has been irradiated, and if this reactor is producing plutonium for military purposes, then the uranium is quickly removed, so that the amount of decay heat would be less. We need more information.

MacNEIL: How do you feel about the way the Soviets are handling the matter? You heard what Dr. Simes said about their own public opinion being more important to them than any embarrassment suffered by being later found out to be wrong in the West.

Dr. SCHLESINGER: Well, that of course is true. As our Soviet friends would say, their handling of this episode is no accident. They are engaged in a cover, indeed a coverup, of what is happening in-country. It is no accident because this is the way the Soviets behave. When the system produces a disaster, everybody is instructed in effect to say nothing until there is an official sign that one can say something. And I suspect that the people in Moscow generally know less than we do in this county.

MacNEIL: Is it conceivable that the Soviets are actually telling the truth in this case? In the range of possibilities, is that one of them, that there are only two dead and only 197 who went to hospital?

Dr. SCHLESINGER: When the Soviets are informing us that there are people on the site cleaning it up, that is a palpable mistake, a generous statement. And as indicated by Mr. Gittus, when they say that the chain reaction has ceased, that is simply a way of misleading their own public. It's the decay heat that is at fault here, not the chain reaction after the shutdown of the reactor.

MacNEIL: Does the world community, the United States included, have grounds for demanding -- a way of demanding more information in this case, because it is not just simply a Soviet internal matter?

Dr. SCHLESINGER: I think that our capacity to demand information is very limited, but our capacity to get information is significant. The world is a more open place than in the days of Joseph Stalin. Stalin's procedures would have been to clamp a lid on this entire story; that is not possible for the governors of the new Russia.

MacNEIL: What do you think the political fallout of this is going to be in Western Europe and in Eastern Europe, for that matter?

Dr. SCHLESINGER: Well, I think Eastern Europe is an easier case. The East Europeans will be distressed once again to discover that they are dependent, particularly with respect to nuclear technology, on inferior technology from the Soviet Union. They will be worried about their own reactors that have been exported based upon Soviet design. And Western Europe, I suspect that after a while the knowledge that the Soviet Union indulges in deception will lose its novelty, the shock will wear off, and there will be a wave of sympathy, I suspect, for the victims of this very human tragedy.

MacNEIL: Thank you. Jim?

LEHRER: Mr. Gittus, in London, do you agree with that, that that's what will happen in Western Europe?

Mr. GITTUS: Well, yes, I do believe that. Certainly there's been a very distinct reaction in Western Europe, the different countries, the occupants of those countries here are individually concerned about the potential dangers from their own nuclear power plants. But I think that with the passage of time, as public memory of this particular incident retreats and is replaced by other concerns, so other nations in Europe will come to terms with it, and we shall find that the countries' nuclear programs are restabilized.

LEHRER: I see. Mr. Hurlbert in Pittsburgh, you called yourself a technocrat. Do you agree with James Schlesinger's reading of this that when they talk about a cleanup operation, that's a telltale sign of lying?

Mr. HURLBERT: Two things that I would like to comment on. One, we had information from one of our committee members that they probably have only had two deaths and that they probably have less than 100 that have very serious radiation problems. I think that that may be true. It may not be true, also. I ought to say that the Eastern bloc countries do not have nuclear reactors like the one that's in trouble. The nuclear reactors that they have exported are very similar to the United States pressurized water reactors. They do not have graphite. They do have containment. And they will be able to point out that this is a unique design that is in trouble and the other units are as safe as Western reactors.

LEHRER: All right, thank you, sir. Back to Capitol Hill, Senators Leahy and Wallop. On the question that Mr. Schlesinger raises, what price, if any, Senator Leahy, do you think the Soviet Union will pay if they are in fact caught lying once this thing finally runs its course?

Sen. LEAHY: Well, I agree completely with what Dr. Schlesinger said. They have been lying. I think that most of the people who analyze this with any objectivity will realize they're lying. The price they pay, though, will probably tend to be a short-term one. We'll go on somewhere else. It is not so much the concern even on nuclear power but just what kind of a society claiming a new openness is willing to lie on a catastrophic accident and one that greatly endangers their own citizens, to say nothing about people who are traveling in their country and people who neighbor their country. That's the issue thatwill probably sit there and be a burr under the saddle, so to speak, long after the question of this particular design of this nuclear plant has almost been forgotten.

LEHRER: Dr. Simes?

Dr. SIMES: Well, Mr. Gorbachev tried to persuade us that his is a new leadership with a new style, with a new openness. And after we look at this very traditional Soviet behavior you have to ask one simple question. Are you willing to buy an arms control agreement from Mr. Gorbachev?

LEHRER: What about that, Dr. Schlesinger? Does it really have that kind of implications down the line?

Dr. SCHLESINGER: Some may draw that inference. I think that if we proceed to an arms control agreement, which at this time looks very doubtful, that it would have to be based upon clear support of American interests, not because Mr. Gorbachev is a nice fella.

LEHRER: Well, Marshall Goldman, a Soviet expert, was on this program last night, Dr. Schlesinger, and he said that he thought this would make the Soviet Union more willing to sit down and talk to the United States about arms control, more willing to participate in a summit meeting, etc., make them a little softer once they get caught lying. Do you agree?

Dr. SCHLESINGER: Well, I think that it's not just a question of being caught lying. The Soviets, who believe in the correlation of forces, will recognize that an episode of this sort has the same psychological impact, indeed greater psychological impact, than the shootdown of the KAL airliner some years ago and that their position as for bargaining purposes will be weakened. They will take that, and they need -- they will need outside assistance. That's a confession of weakness.

LEHRER: Senator Wallop, what's your view of this, that what the Soviet Union is going -- if they really are in fact lying and they get caught, is it going to be a problem for them or they're going to be able to shrug it off?

Sen. WALLOP: Oh, one would like to think it was a problem for them, but I see no indication, and I agree with Dimitri Simes. I see no indication that they worry about this sort of thing in their past behavior, and I see no reason for them to worry about it in the future. There'll be an uproar. I think Jim Schlesinger's comment that we would like to think that there would be a reaction in Europe that would last, but he thought that pretty soon the novelty of a new Soviet lie would wear off and it would be pretty much business as usual.

LEHRER: Back to the nuclear reaction itself, finally. Mr. Gittus in London, is it your feeling, just based on information that you're getting, that the worst is over there on the site itself?

Mr. GITTUS: Yes, I think it probably is. There was always the possibility that the accident might proceed to a stage at which the core material would become so hot that actinides such as plutonium would be released in substantial quantities. It seems to me that that possibility has retreated.

LEHRER: Do you agree with that, Dr. Schlesinger, that just based on time, etc., that the worst is probably over?

Dr. SCHLESINGER: We do not know at the moment whether or not the second reactor, Unit Three, is burning. If it is burning, this may get a lot worse.

LEHRER: Now, why?

Dr. SCHLESINGER: Simply because Unit Three will also release a fair amount of radioactive materials into the environment, and the Soviets I think are in severe trouble, may be in severe trouble. As yet, all we have heard about is that radioactivity that is carried by the atmosphere. But Kiev is downstream. Its water supply depends upon upstream sources. And if that water supply turns radioactive, they are going to have some difficulty just handling the three million people involved. So I think that they ought to start worrying about emergency measures and stop worrying about the coverup.

LEHRER: Okay. Well, Dr. Schlesinger and Mr. Simes here in Washington; Senators Leahy and Wallop on Capitol Hill, thank you for being with us; Mr. Hurlbert in Pittsburgh and Mr. Gittus in London.

MacNEIL: Once again, the main story of the day. Moscow reported 197 people were injured in the Ukraine nuclear disaster, in addition to two who died. Western reports put the casualty toll much higher and said there may be a second reactor meltdown. As radiation spread, European countries ordered health precautions and protested to Moscow. Good night, Jim.

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