[Ending scene: As Legasov is driven away from Chernobyl by the KGB, his voice on tape is heard]
LegasovTo be a scientist is to be naive. We are so focused on our search for truth, we fail to consider how few actually want us to find it. But it is always there, whether we see it or not, whether we choose to or not. The truth doesn't care about our needs or wants. It doesn't care about our governments, our ideologies, our religions. It will lie in wait for all time. And this, at last, is the gift of Chernobyl. Where I once would fear the cost of truth, now I only ask: "What is the cost of lies?"
[April 26, 1988: Alone in his apartment in Moscow, Professor Valery Legasov replays his voice on a tape recorder]
Valery Legasov
What is the cost of lies? It's not that we'll mistake them for the truth. The real danger is that if we hear enough lies, then we no longer recognize the truth at all. What can we do then? What else is left to abandon even the hope of truth and content ourselves instead with stories? In these stories, it doesn't matter who the heroes are. All we want to know is: "Who is to blame?" In this story, it was Anatoly Dyatlov. He was the best choice. An arrogant, unpleasant man, he ran the room that night, he gave the orders... and no friends. Or at least, not important ones. And now Dyatlov will spend the next ten years in a prison labor camp. Of course, that sentence is doubly unfair. There were far greater criminals than him at work. And as for what Dyatlov did do, the man doesn't deserve prison. He deserves death.
[Legasov stops the tape, sips a glass of water, and then restarts the tape from where he left off.]
Legasov
But instead, ten years for "criminal mismanagement". What does that mean? No one knows. It doesn't matter. What does matter is that, to them, justice was done. Because, you see, to them, a just world is a sane world. There was nothing sane about Chernobyl. What happened there, what happened after, even the good we did, all of it... all of it, madness. Well, I've given you everything I know. They'll deny it, of course. They always do. I know you'll try your best.
[As Valery Legasov and Boris Shcherbina make their way to Chernobyl in a helicopter...]
How does a nuclear reactor work?
Valery Legasov
What?
Legasov
It's hardly a simple answer.
Of course, you presume I'm too stupid to understand. So I'll restate: Tell me how a nuclear reactor works, or I'll have one of these soldiers throw you out of the helicopter.
Legasov
A nuclear reactor makes electricity with steam. The steam turns a turbine which generates electricity. Where a typical power plant makes steam by burning coal, a nuclear plant...
[Legasov tries to find a pen in his pocket to draw a diagram. Scherbina hands his pen and a scratch paper to Legasov]
Legasov
[Draws diagram] In a nuclear plant, we use something called fission. We take an unstable element like Uranium-235, which has too many neutrons. A neutron is, uh—
Legasov
[Impressed] Yes, the bullet. So, bullets are flying off of the uranium. Now...if we put enough uranium atoms close together, the bullets from one atom will eventually strike another atom. The force of this impact splits that atom apart, releasing a tremendous amount of energy, fission.
Legasov
[Exhales] Ah, yes. The neutrons are actually traveling so fast we call this "flux"—it's relatively unlikely that the uranium atoms will ever hit one another. In RBMK reactors, we surround the fuel rods with graphite to moderate—slow down—the neutron flux.
Good. [Takes his pen back] I know how a nuclear reactor works. Now I don't need you.
[Legasov and Shcherbina's helicopter approaches the Chernobyl plant]
Legasov
[Sees the reactor, horrified] What have they done?
Legasov
I don't have to. Look. That's graphite on the roof. The whole building's been blown open. The core's exposed!
I can't see how you can tell that from here.
Legasov
Oh, for God's sakes! Look at that glow! That's radiation ionizing the air!
Well, if we can't see, we don't know. [to the pilot] Get us directly over the building!
Legasov
Boris, if we fly...
Legasov
...directly over an open reactor...
I didn't ask your advice!
Legasov
...we'll be dead within a week! Dead!
Get us over that building, or I'll have you shot!
Legasov
[to the pilot] If you fly directly over that core, I promise you, by tomorrow morning, you'll be begging for that bullet! [the pilot considers this, and turns away from the Chernobyl plant]
[Inside a military jeep, as Fomin and Bryukhanov prepare to meet Shcherbina; the Soviet military has arrived in force, led by Colonel-General Vladimir Pikalov]
It's overkill. Pikalov's showing off to make us look bad.
It doesn't matter how it looks. Shcherbina is a pure bureaucrat, as stupid as he is pigheaded. We'll tell him the truth in the simplest terms possible. We'll be fine. [Both exit the jeep] Pikalov!
[General Pikalov joins in with Fomin and Bryukhanov to welcome Shcherbina. Legasov is standing at a distance as Shcherbina, alone, is saluted by Pikalov]
Comrade Shcherbina, Chief Engineer Fomin, Colonel-General Pikalov, and I are honored at your arrival.
Naturally, we regret the circumstances of your visit, but as you can see, we are making excellent progress in containing the damage. [Pulls out his notepad] We have begun our own inquiry into the cause of the accident, and I have a list of individuals who we believe are accountable.
[Shcherbina reads through the note and gestures Legasov to join them]
Professor Legasov, I understand you've been saying dangerous things.
Very dangerous things. Apparently, our reactor core exploded. Please, tell me how an RBMK reactor core explodes.
Legasov
I'm not prepared to explain it at this time.
As I presumed, he has no answer.
It's disgraceful, really. To spread disinformation at a time like this.
[Legasov, in a tense situation, says nothing and looks to Shcherbina]
[Notices Legasov and turns to Bryukhanov] Why did I see graphite on the roof?
[Bryukhanov and Fomin's smug expressions dissolve.]
Graphite is only found in the core, where it's used as a—neutron flux moderator. Correct?
[beat] Fomin, why did the Deputy Chairman see graphite on the roof?
Well, that—that can't be. Comrade Shcherbina, my apologies, but graphite... that's not possible. Perhaps y—you saw burnt concrete.
Now there you made a mistake. Because I may not know much about nuclear reactors, but I know a lot about concrete.
I understand. [Points to Legasov] You think Legasov is wrong. How shall we prove it?
GPGeneral Pikalov
Our high-range dosimeter just arrived. We could cover one of our trucks with lead shielding, mount the dosimeter on the front.
[all of them look at Legasov]
Legasov
Have one of your men get as close to the fire as he can. Give him every bit of protection you have. But understand that even with lead shielding, it may not be enough.
PPikalov
[grimly] Then I'll do it myself.
[Colonel-General Pikalov returns from driving a high-level dosimeter close to the fire.]
PPikalov
It's not three roentgen. It's fifteen thousand.
[Legasov closes his eyes.]
[Scherbina just looks at him, and he shuts up instantly.]
[Turns to Legasov] What does that number mean?
Legasov
It means the core is open. It means the fire we're watching with our own eyes is giving off nearly twice the radiation released by the bomb in Hiroshima. And that's every single hour. Hour after hour, [looks at his watch] 20 hours since the explosion, so forty bombs worth by now. Forty-eight more tomorrow. And it will not stop. Not in a week, not in a month. It will burn and spread its poison until the entire continent is dead.
[Turns to the soldiers] Please escort Comrades Bryukhanov and Fomin to the local Party headquarters. [Turns to Bryukhanov] Thank you for your service.
[As he's being taken away] Dyatlov was in charge. It was Dyatlov!
Tell me how to put it out.
PPikalov
We'll use helicopters. We'll drop water on it like a forest fire—
Legasov
No, no, no. You don't understand. This isn't a fire. This is a fissioning reactor core burning at over 2,000 degrees. The heat will instantly vaporize the water or worse—
Legasov
[Sighs] You are dealing with something that has never occurred on this planet before. [Shcherbina begins to speak] Boron. Boron and sand. It'll create problems of its own, but I—I don't see any other way. Of course, it's going to take thousands of drops, because you can't fly the helicopters directly over the core, so most of it is going to miss.
Legasov
[Scoffs] Well, I can't be—
Legasov
Five thousand tons. And obviously, we're going to need to evacuate an enormous area—
Never mind that. Focus on the fire.
Legasov
I am focusing on the fire. The wind, it's carrying all that smoke, all that radiation. At least evacuate Pripyat. It's three kilometers away.
That's my decision to make.
Legasov
Then make it.
Legasov
Is it or is not your decision—
I'm in charge here! This will go much easier if you talk to me about the things you do understand and not about the things you do not understand. [Walks back to the tent]
Legasov
Where are you going?
I'm going to get you 5,000 tons of sand and boron.
[Polissya hotel, Pripyat: Helicopters dropping sand and boron to extinguish the fire in the Chernobyl plant]
It's been smooth. Twenty drops. [notices Legasov's expression] What?
Legasov
There are fifty thousand people in this city.
Professor Ilyin, who's also on the commission, says the radiation isn't high enough to evacuate.
Legasov
Ilyin isn't a physicist.
Well, he's a medical doctor. If he says it's safe, it's safe.
Legasov
Not if they stay here.
Legasov
[impatiently] Yes, we are, and we'll be dead in five years! [Shcherbina looks shocked] I'm sorry, I'm... I'm sorry.
[sits in stunned silence as the phone starts to ring; after several seconds, he answers it] Shcherbina. [listens] Thank you. [hangs up] A nuclear plant in Sweden has detected radiation and identified it as a byproduct of our fuel. The Americans took satellite photos. The reactor building, the smoke, the fire. The whole world knows. The wind has been blowing toward Germany. They're not letting children play outside... in Frankfurt. [glances outside at the children playing]
[The Kremlin, Moscow: Legasov and Ulana Khomyuk explain the consequences of a nuclear meltdown with full water tanks]
When the lava enters these tanks, it will instantly superheat and vaporize approximately 7,000 cubic meters of water, causing a significant thermal explosion.
GGorbachev
How significant?
We estimate between two and four megatons. Everything within a thirty-kilometer radius will be completely destroyed, including the three remaining reactors at Chernobyl. The entirety of the radioactive material in all of the cores will be ejected at force and dispersed by a massive shock wave, which will extend approximately two hundred kilometers and likely be fatal to the entire population of Kiev, as well as a portion of Minsk. The release of radiation will be severe, and will impact all of Soviet Ukraine, Latvia, Lithuania, Byelorussia, as well as Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania, and most of East Germany.
GGorbachev
What do you mean, "impact"?
Legasov
For much of the area, a nearly permanent disruption of the food and water supply, a steep increase in the rates of cancer and birth defects. I don't know how many deaths there will be, but many. For Byelorussia and the Ukraine, "impact" means completely uninhabitable for a minimum of one hundred years.
GGorbachev
[visibly shaken] There are more than fifty million people living in Byelorussia and Ukraine.
Legasov
Sixty, yes.
GGorbachev
And how long before this happens?
Legasov
Approximately 48 to 72 hours. But we may have a solution. We can pump the water from the tanks. Unfortunately, the tanks are sealed shut by a sluice gate, and the gate can only be opened manually from within the duct system itself. So we need to find three plant workers who know the facility well enough to enter the basement here, find their way through all these duct ways, get to the sluice gate valve here, and give us the access we need to pump out the tanks. Of course, we will need your permission.
GGorbachev
My permission for what?
Legasov
Um, the water in these tanks... the level of radioactive contamination --
They'll likely be dead in a week.
Legasov
We're asking for your permission to... kill three men.
[Tense silence.]
GGorbachev
Well, Comrade Legasov... all victories inevitably come at a cost.
[Legasov and Shcherbina faces incredulous workers as they ask for volunteers in a suicidal mission to open the sluice gate valve]
NWNuclear Worker
Now you want us to swim underneath a burning reactor. Do you even know how contaminated it is?
Legasov
I... I don't have an exact number.
NWNuclear Worker
You don't need to have an exact number to know if it will kill us. But you can't even tell us that. Why should we do this? For what, for four hundred rubles?
You'll do it because it must be done. You'll do it because nobody else can. And if you don't, millions will die. If you tell me that's not enough I won't believe you. This is what has always set our people apart. A thousand years of sacrifice in our veins. And every generation must know its own suffering. I spit on the people who did this. And I curse the price that I have to pay. But I'm making my peace with it. Now you make yours. Go into that water. Because it must be done.
[Silence.]
AAAlexei Ananenko
[stands] Ananenko.
VBValeri Bespalov
[stands] Bespalov.
BBBoris Baranov
[stands] Baranov.
What will happen to our boys?
Legasov
Which boys? The divers?
The divers, the firefighters, the men in the control room. What does the radiation do to them precisely?
Legasov
At the levels some of them were exposed? Ionizing radiation tears the cellular structure apart. The skin blisters, turns red, then black. This is followed by a latency period. The immediate effects subside. The patient appears to be recovering. Healthy, even. But they aren't. This usually only lasts for a day or two.
Legasov
Then the cellular damage begins to manifest. The bone marrow dies, the immune system fails, the organs and soft tissue begin to decompose. The arteries and veins spill open like sieves, to the point where you can't even administer morphine for the pain, which is… unimaginable. And then three days to three weeks, you are dead. That is what will happen to those boys.
Legasov
Well, we've...We've gotten a steady dose, but not as much of it. Not strong enough to kill the cells, but consistent enough to damage our DNA. So, in time, cancer. Or aplastic anemia. Either way, fatal.
[beat] Well, in a sense, it would seem we've gotten off easy then, Valery.
[After a meeting with the Central Committee, Legasov confronts KGB official Aleksandr Charkov about Khomyuk's arrest]
Legasov
She was arrested by the KGB. You are the first deputy chairman of the KGB.
ACAleksandr Charkov
[amused] I am. That's why I don't have to bother with arresting people anymore.
Legasov
But you are bothering with having us followed.
I think the deputy chairman is busy...
CCharkov
No no, it's perfectly understandable. Comrade, I know you've heard the stories about us. When I hear them, even I am shocked. But we are not what people say. Yes, people are following you. People are following those people. And you see them? [indicates two agents behind him] They follow me. The KGB is a circle of accountability. Nothing more.
Legasov
You know the work we're doing here. You really don't trust us?
CCharkov
Of course I do. But you know the old Russian proverb: "Trust, but verify." And the Americans think that Ronald Reagan thought that up. Can you imagine? It was very nice speaking with you. [turns to walk away]
Legasov
I need her.
CCharkov
[turns back] So you will be accountable for her? [Legasov nods] Then it's done.
Legasov
Her name is --
CCharkov
I know who she is. Good day, Professor. [walks off; Legasov glances at Shcherbina]
No, that went surprisingly well. You came off like a naive idiot. And naive idiots are not a threat.
Legasov
Are you alright?
They didn't hurt me. They let a pregnant woman in with -- oh, it doesn't matter. They were stupid. I was stupid. Dyatlov won't talk to me. Akimov, yes, Toptunov, yes, but... Valery, Akimov... his face was gone.
Legasov
You want to stop?
Is that a choice I even have?
Legasov
Do you think the fuel will actually melt through the concrete pad?
I don't know. A forty-percent chance, maybe.
Legasov
I said fifty. [chuckles] Either way, the numbers mean the same thing: "Maybe". Maybe the core will melt through to the groundwater. Maybe the miners I've told to dig under the reactor will save millions of lives. Maybe I'm killing them for nothing. I don't want to do this anymore. I want to stop. But I can't. I don't think you have a choice any more than I do. I think, despite the stupidity, the lies, even this, you are compelled. The problem has been assigned, and you will stop at nothing until you find an answer. Because that is who you are.
Legasov
A scientist.
Legasov
[showing pictures of the damaged reactor] The atom is a humbling thing.
It's not humbling, it's humiliating. Why is the core still exposed to the air? Why have we not already covered it up?
Legasov
We want to, but we can't get close enough. The debris on the roof is graphite from the core itself. Until we can push it off the roof back into the reactor, it'll kill anyone who gets near it. You see the roof is in three levels. We've named them. The small one here is Katya, one thousand roentgen per hour. Presume two hours of exposure is fatal. The one on the side, Nina, two thousand roentgen. One hour, fatal.
We used remote-controlled bulldozers in Afghanistan.
Too heavy. They'd fall right through.
Legasov
Moon rovers. Lunokhod STR-1s. They're light. And if we line them with lead, they can withstand the radiation.
We couldn't put a man on the Moon. At least we can keep a man off a roof.
Legasov
That is the most important thing, General. Under no circumstances can men go up there. Robots only.
What about this large section here?
Legasov
Twelve thousand roentgen. If you were to stand there in full protective gear head-to-toe for two minutes, your life expectancy would be cut in half. By three minutes, you're dead within months. Even our lunar rovers won't work on Masha. That amount of gamma radiation penetrates everything. The particles literally shred the circuits in microchips apart. If it's more complicated than a light switch, Masha will destroy it.
It would be fair to say that that piece of roof is the most dangerous place on Earth.
[sits in stunned silence for a moment, before taking a draw from his cigarette] So... what do we do?
That's what we wanted to ask you.
[As the courtroom is at a recess, Legasov meets outside with Shcherbina, coughing into a handkerchief]
Do you know anything about this town, Chernobyl?
Legasov
Not really, no.
It was mostly Jews and Poles. The Jews were killed in pogroms, and Stalin forced the Poles out. And then the Nazis came and killed whoever was left. But after the war, people came to live here anyway. They knew the ground under their feet was soaked in blood, but they didn't care. Dead Jews, dead Poles. But not them. No one ever thinks it's going to happen to them. And here we are.
[Shcherbina shows Legasov his handkerchief, stained with his blood from radiation sickness]
Legasov
How much time?
Maybe a year. They call it a...[coughs] They call it a "long illness". It doesn't seem very long to me. I know you told me, and I believed you. But time passed, and I thought, it wouldn't happen to me. I wasted it. I wasted it all for nothing.
Legasov
For nothing?
Do you remember that morning when I first called you, how unconcerned I was? I don't believe much that comes out of the Kremlin, but when they told me they were putting me in charge of the cleanup, and they said it wasn't serious, I believed them. You know why?
Legasov
Because they put you in charge.
[dejectedly] Yeah. I'm an inconsequential man, Valera. That's all I've ever been. I hoped that one day I would matter, but I didn't. [pats Legasov on the shoulder] I just stood next to people who did.
Legasov
There are other scientists like me. Any one of them could have done what I did. But you... everything we asked for, everything we needed. Men, material, lunar rovers. Who else could have done these things? They heard me, but they listened to you. Of all the ministers, and all the deputies, entire congregation of obedient fools... they mistakenly sent the one good man. For godsakes, Boris... you were the one who mattered most.
[sees a small caterpillar on his lap and lets it crawl on his index finger] Ah, it's beautiful.
Chernobyl · 50 quotes
