Notes

Valery Legasov, head of the Soviet delegation at the Chernobyl Review Conference in Vienna, Aug. 29, 1986.

Valery Alekseyevich Legasov (1936 – 1988) was a prominent Soviet inorganic chemist and a member of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR. By the time of the Chernobyl disaster on April 26, 1986, Legasov was the First Deputy Director of the Kurchatov Institute of Atomic Energy. He became a key member of the government commission formed to investigate the causes of the disaster and to plan the mitigation of its consequences. He took the most important decisions to avoid repeat accidents and informed the government of the situation in the disaster area. He did not hesitate to speak to his fellow scientists and to the press about the safety risks of the destroyed plant and insisted on the immediate evacuation of the entire population of the city of Pripyat nearby. In August 1986, he presented the report of the Soviet delegation at the special meeting of International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in Vienna. His report displayed a depth of analysis and honesty in discussing the extent and consequences of the tragedy.

On April 27, 1988, one day after the second anniversary of the Chernobyl NPP accident and one day before he was due to announce his results of the investigation into the causes of the disaster, Legasov committed suicide by hanging himself (some sources say in his apartment or the stairwell of his apartment; others in his office). A personal pistol remained in a drawer, but the professor chose to hang himself. He was buried at the Novodevichy cemetery in Moscow. Before his suicide, Legasov wrote documents revealing previously undisclosed facts about the catastrophe. According to an analysis of the recording for the BBC TV movie Chernobyl Nuclear Disaster, Legasov claims political pressure censored the mention of Soviet nuclear secrecy in his report to the IAEA, a secrecy which forbade even plant operators having knowledge of previous accidents and known problems with reactor design. The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists also stated that Legasov had become bitterly disillusioned with the failure of the authorities to confront the design flaws. Legasov's suicide caused shockwaves in the Soviet nuclear industry. In particular, the problem with the design of the control rods in Chernobyl-type RBMK reactors was rapidly admitted and addressed. On September 20, 1996, then-Russian president Boris Yeltsin posthumously conferred on Legasov the honorary title of Hero of the Russian Federation for the "courage and heroism" shown in his investigation of the disaster.