ABSTRACT
The shadow of the Chernobyl disaster had closed any prospects for the future that people had. Most of the children had thyroid problems. Chronic complaints had become much more common; there was plentiful incidence of eye pathology. It was none other than Yevgeny V. Kachalovsky himself who was the Ukrainian head of the government commission for dealing with the accident at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant. The Politburo members, chairman of the USSR Council of Ministers, Nikolai Ryzhkov, and Communist Party Central Committee secretary, Yegor Ligachev, arrived from Moscow in Chernobyl on May 2, 1986. But it was not until then, that the Ukrainian leadership finally plucked up courage to visit the accident site and approach the reactor that radiated terror and death. The hot controversy unfolded in full view of the stunned people's deputies and the whole country, ripping off the shroud of secrecy surrounding Chernobyl risks.
