When it comes to the safety of nuclear power plants, I am biased. And I'll bet that if President Barack Obama had been with me on that trip to Chernobyl 24 years ago he wouldn't be as sanguine about the future of nuclear power as he was Tuesday in an interview with a Pittsburgh television station: "Obviously, all energy sources have their downside. I mean, we saw that with the Gulf spill last summer."
Sorry, Mr. President, but there is a dimension of fear properly associated with the word nuclear that is not matched by any oil spill.
Even 11 months after what has become known simply as "Chernobyl" I sensed a terror of the darkest unknown as I donned the requisite protective gear and checked Geiger counter readings before entering the surviving turbine room adjoining plant No. 4, where the explosion had occurred.
It was a terror reinforced by the uncertainty of the scientists who accompanied me as to the ultimate consequences for the health of the region's population, even after 135,000 people had been evacuated. As I wrote at the time, "particularly disturbing was the sight of a collective farm complete with all the requirements of living: white farm houses with blue trim, tractors and other farm implements, clothing hanging on a line and some children's playthings. All the requirements except people."
Back then, working for the Los Angeles Times, I had been covering the nuclear arms race, and my invitation to be the first American newspaper reporter to visit Chernobyl came from one of Mikhail Gorbachev's top science advisers, Yevgeny P. Velikhov, whom I had interviewed on arms control issues.
Velikhov had led the effort to contain the damage at Chernobyl, risking his health in the immediate days after the incident by flying low over the contaminated reactor site in a helicopter, as well as by scaling the sidewall of the damaged reactor to more accurately evaluate the situation.
His point in arranging my visit was to demonstrate the terrifying consequence of a "peaceful" nuclear explosion, let alone one resulting from a weapon designed to inflict mass destruction. It was an argument he advanced with the military in his own country about the folly of nuclear war-fighting scenarios: "After two weeks of discussion with the army corps, I asked how you wish to survive a nuclear war if you have no possibility to clean this small piece of nuclear garbage."
