No breathing room

Grigori Medvedev, former chief engineer at Chernobyl and author of the acclaimed The Truth About Chernobyl, now reveals for the first time how censorship has kept us from realizing the full extent of the nuclear disasters that the new republics are facing. In this chilling new book, Medvedev tells how even after Chernobyl, right through most of the Gorbachev era, censorship systematically sought to keep him and the Soviet people from learning key facts about their lethal nuclear power industry. News of accidents at other plants was carefully manipulated to "shield" people from full awareness of the terrible health and ecological consequences. Mismanagement was covered up. In August 1990, censorship was officially abolished and, as Medvedev puts it, "censorship, the hangman, died. Yet death from radiation is still with us and will pursue and torment people for years to come.". An in-depth analysis of the bureaucracy that developed in the Brezhnev period, this book is a personal account of one man's struggle against the system, and against the censor in particular. It is the story of an honest public servant whose work was constantly impeded and withheld from publication by government officials, even during the period known as "glasnost and perestroika." It presents a rare view of Gorbachev's government from the inside, portraying a deeply flawed system whose legacy remains with us. Even though the Soviet Union has collapsed, Medvedev's book remains relevant and vital, for many aspects of the government structure have remained, and the habits of secrecy and disinformation live on.