Former Academy President Aleksandrov on Chernobyl, Sakharov

This document is a transcript of an interview conducted by OGONEK correspondent Vanda Beletskaya with Academician Anatoliy Petrovich Aleksandrov, the former President of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR. The interview, published in August 1990, covers a wide range of topics including the Chernobyl disaster, the history of Soviet nuclear science, and the political climate surrounding scientific research. Aleksandrov discusses his role in the development of Soviet atomic power, his interactions with historical figures such as Kurchatov, Kapitsa, and Sakharov, and his experiences under the Soviet leadership, including Beria. Regarding the Chernobyl disaster, Aleksandrov asserts that the catastrophe was caused by an unauthorized and poorly planned experiment conducted by the organization Donenergo, which violated safety instructions and bypassed the expertise of the plant's own engineers. He emphasizes that the reactor design itself was not the primary cause, noting that similar reactors operated elsewhere without such incidents. Throughout the interview, Aleksandrov reflects on the moral and political pressures faced by scientists in the Soviet Union, the importance of maintaining rigorous safety standards in nuclear power, and his concerns regarding the current state of scientific research and the emergence of 'parascientific' directions, such as the study of unidentified flying objects, which he views as a distraction from serious scientific work. He also addresses his personal history, his awards, and his resignation from the Academy of Sciences, expressing a desire for the normalization of the legal and public aspects of nuclear power engineering in the country.