Journey to Chernobyl

August 1, 2005
In 1991, Cheney, who teaches writing at Connecticut College, went to Ukraine to learn the circumstances of the world's deadliest nuclear accident and to interview the people who were affected by it. In this brief, informal report, this self-appointed investigator describes his travel adventures (with an expired visa) and his encounters with officials and victims of the Chernobyl catastrophe. Cheney made a daring visit to the nuclear ghost town of Propyat, originally built for Chernobyl's workers, and relates how they were forced to abandon their homes and possessions to escape the effects of nuclear radiation. The statistics are not yet confirmed, but evidence Cheney gathered indicates that at least 8000 people died as a result of the meltdown, with another 30,000 presently suffering from diseases related to radiation. His poignant account humanizes the events of April 26, 1986, at Chernobyl. Photos.

September 1, 1995
Cheney (composition, Connecticut Coll.) traveled to Russia and Ukraine on a UN-sponsored mission in December 1991, at the time the USSR formally split apart. The ensuing confusion made it easier for him to come and go as he pleased and to talk freely with persons near Chernobyl who were eager to share their experiences of the 1986 explosion and their fears for their futures. Neither a nuclear nor a Soviet expert, he discerns no pattern among these stories except a probable government cover-up; his evidence for this allegation is nothing new. Even the medical personnel he interviewed admitted that the health problems they saw could have been caused as much by poverty, malnutrition, and alcohol abuse as by radiation exposure. At times Cheney's primary interest in describing his arduous travels causes his focus to drift from the effects of radiation exposure on the populace. Not recommended. [For another account, see Alla Yaroshinskaya's Chernobyl, reviewed on p. 204.--Ed.] --Marcia L. Sprules, Council on Foreign Relations Lib., New York