In most other societies,an admission of human err o r m i g h t s e e m c o m m o nplace. But not in the SovietUnion, where for decades official failures have seldombeen acknowledged, officialsins seldom recognized. Disasters such as plane crashesa n d e a r t h q u a k e s a r e l i k etrees falling in the forest when no one ispresent. No one ever hears the crash

mic-power facility, Soviet officialsused the accident report as a platform fortheir campaign against the American nuclear-defense program. After first ignoring and then minimizing the mishap,Moscow has tried to establish a link between Chernobyl and atomic weapons.Said the report: "The accident at theChernobyl nuclear-power plant has againdemonstrated the danger of uncontrollednuclear power and highlighted the destructive consequences to which its military use or damage to peaceful nuclear facilities during military operations couldlead." And Petrosyants told the press conference, "The explosion of the smallestnuclear warhead would be equal to threeChernobyls." U.S. officials quickly pointed out that Moscow's attempt to linkChernobyl to the arms race was a predictable effort to divert attention from itsown failures.Indeed,

So far, 31 people whowere in or near the plant atthe time of the accident havedied, and that number onlybegins to state the extent ofthe health damage. Usingdata from the report on thelevels of human contamination, American experts conclude that a total of morethan 5,000 people are likelyt o d i e p r e m a t u r e l y f r o mradiation-induced cancer.There will be 10,000 cases ofthyroid cancer alone, the experts predict, resulting in1,500 deaths. Though there is still concernabout contamination in other Europeancountries, the information indicates thatall the premature deaths will be in the Soviet Union