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Because the Soviets kept details secret, Moscow and the Western press contradicted each other with pronouncements that left the world mystified about the actual developments at Chernobyl. While one U.S. news agency reported 2,000 dead and others emphasized the serious dangers the radiation created, the Soviets insisted that only two people had died. When some Western papers carried increasingly sensational but unconfirmed accounts of the reactor's condition, TASS reported that the fire was under control. At week's end the official Soviet news agency buttressed earlier claims of the plant's safety by reporting that Politburo Members Nikolai Ryzhkov and Yegor Ligachev had toured the damaged facility.
Stung by the Western reporting, the Soviet media launched a week-long counterattack. Each limited disclosure about Chernobyl was followed by a shrill TASS account of nuclear problems in the U.S. and Europe. On Wednesday the Soviets went further. In a three-minute news brief carried on all three Moscow channels, an announcer lashed out at the foreign coverage. Said he: "Some news agencies in the West are spreading rumors that thousands of people allegedly perished during the accident at the atomic power station. It has already been reported that in reality two people died and only 197 were hospitalized." Viewers then saw a grainy black-and-white photo of what was described as Chernobyl's stricken Unit No. 4. Commentator Alexander Galkin said the photo proved that the damage was less severe than Western reporters had claimed. In fact, the photo showed that part of the reactor's roof had blown off and that there was substantial damage to the walls.
One Soviet official made an unprecedented appearance before a House committee Thursday to give Moscow's view of events. In a deft and tough- minded performance, Vitali Churkin, 34, second secretary of the Washington embassy, offered little new information but acknowledged that the crisis was not yet over. "Definitely there has been an accident which has not been liquidated yet and theoretically poses a threat to people outside the Soviet / Union," Churkin said. "We are still trying to manage the situation." He added that the Soviets initially withheld news of the disaster because they wanted to know the extent of the damage before making an announcement. When pressed by sometimes testy Congressmen about the meagerness of Soviet disclosures, Churkin replied blandly, "We have been very forthcoming."
Soviet citizens received vastly less information about Chernobyl than was available to the outside world. In Kiev, foreigners were the first to learn of the seriousness of the accident when authorities warned West German technicians on Tuesday that the Chernobyl area was being sealed off. Most of the Soviet Union spent last week in a festive mood for the annual May Day pageant, which combines celebrations of international worker solidarity with the rites of spring. Amid the red flags and bunting that adorned Moscow's bridges and thoroughfares for the four-day holiday, headlines about the ruined reactor would have been unwelcome indeed. Wearing a hat and light topcoat, Soviet Leader Mikhail Gorbachev waved frequently at the hundreds of thousands of marchers who went past him in Red Square and showed no sign whatever of being preoccupied with other matters.