I have read reports that Gdansk was directly in the path of the radioactive cloud. The Polish government seems to have implemented measures to try and protect its population (specifically children), but they were a few days late. Why they were late is likely never to be known, but one thing is known for sure; the Soviet Union did not admit to the accident until the Swedes pressured them into it (radiation levels at a nuclear power plant in Sweden set off alarms).
By far the best report I've read on the Polish government's response to the disaster is by L.V. (I don't have the full name), which is a part of a larger report entitled "Eastern Europe and Chernobyl: The Initial Response". I have copied the relevant section here.
While denying any serious threat to the health of the population, the Polish government treated the Chernobyl crisis more like an emergency than any of its neighbors, including the Soviet Union, where the dangers would seem to have been more immediate.
Doses of potassium iodide were administered to a reported 11,000,000 children under the age of 16. The sale of milk from pasture-fed cows was banned, and officials urged that fresh vegetables be carefully washed or avoided entirely. A government commission issued frequent communiques noting the consistent decline of radiation in the air, water, and soil. On May 2 it issued measurements made between April 28 and May 2 showing the degree of contamination of the air and milk. Panels of scientists and doctors discussed the dangers of radiation on Polish television, and the public was alerted to a Ministry of Health hot-line that provided information around the clock. Government officials assured Warsaw residents that water from the Vistula River was no more contaminated than usual and that they should refrain from hoarding water in their bathtubs.[1] These measures were effected to a chorus of official claims that at no time had anyone's health been in danger. As the government spokesman Jerzy Urban colorfully, if not entirely sensibly, described it, "if a man keeps his face under water for 10 minutes he is dead. If he keeps it there for 10 seconds he has washed his face. That is what happened here."[2] The distribution of iodine was described as purely a "prophylactic measure"; some doctors implied that it was basically an elaborate placebo.[3]
Yet there were some worrying revelations. The head of the Central Laboratory for Radiological Protection, Zbigniew Jaworowski, commented at a news conference that within the next 30 years there would be an increase "at the level of a few percent" in thyroid cancer cases. Certain regions of Poland were exposed to relatively high levels of radiation, for example the town of Mikolajki, where 500 times the normal background radiation was recorded. Data released by the government commission showed that in northeastern Poland the iodine content of milk samples exceeded by up to 72% the recommended "emergency levels" for children.[4] It assured the public repeatedly that such milk would be "processed for industrial purposes." Reports from Zielona Gora, however, suggested that at least some farmers were failing to heed government appeals to their "civic responsibility." Local radio reported that milk supplied to a dairy there had "an increased level of active iodine caused by suppliers who did not comply with instructions not to feed green fodder to cows."[5]
The flurry of government activity and the steady stream of reassuring government communiques should not obscure the essential similarity here to the information policies of other East bloc countries with respect to Chernobyl. The salient fact is that the Polish authorities did nothing, at least publicly, until after the release of the initial TASS communique on the evening of April 28. A few hours after this had been broadcast on Radio Warsaw, the first Polish statement alerted listeners that on Monday, April 28, as a result of the accident in the Ukraine, "a radioactive cloud passed over the northeastern regions of our country at a high altitude." It announced the formation of a government commission headed by Prime Minister Zbigniew Szalajda and composed of prominent officials and specialists, including the Minister of Health. Further reports the following day said that 200 additional sites for monitoring radioactivity in Poland had been established.
Although the government spokesman repeatedly refused to tell reporters when or how the government became aware of the radioactive danger, it appears that the government preferred the public to believe that it moved into action as soon as it knew. Urban said he had been awakened early in the morning of April 29 to receive the news. There are, nonetheless, indications that the authorities may have been aware of a problem as early as April 26. One Warsaw correspondent reported that late that day government officials questioned doctors at a central Warsaw hospital about available iodine supplies.[6] It was also reported from Gdansk that the first atmospheric tests in the Baltic region were carried out on April 28-before the publication of the TASS communique-in response to requests from Swedish scientists concerned about higher levels of radioactivity.[7]
Once the Polish government had acknowledged the Chernobyl accident, its release of information was extremely selective and sufficiently after the fact to forestall the public's taking any action to escape especially contaminated areas. For example, although the government knew of the unusually high readings in Mikolajki on April 28, it did not make them public, even to residents in the area, until May 2. Several officials used a maxim they attributed to party leader General Wojciech Jaruzelski-"a maximum of safety with a minimum of panic"-to explain the government's reticence over such data.[8]
The Best Defense. The Polish press published material that played down the significance of the Chernobyl disaster in the context of the world's experience with nuclear power; as the title of one article in Trybuna Ludu suggested, "Accidents Do Happen."[9] TASS's claim that this was the first nuclear accident to take place in the USSR was repeated. Although TASS communiques were faithfully reproduced, equal space was devoted to quoting soothing Western reports that ratified Polish measures for dealing with the crisis (from Vienna's International Atomic Energy Agency, for example); and the Poles seemed less intent than their allies on attacking the West's record on nuclear safety.
Instead, Western Polish-language radio services were fiercely attacked for their reporting of the accident. Judging from comments reported by Western correspondents in Warsaw, many Poles were relying on such radio stations for information on the hazards to their health. The government spokesman charged the Western media with "ill will" and with attempting to "terrify the Polish public" through "inhuman" dispatches.[10] Radio Free Europe was the target for especially venomous attacks; it was accused of "making use of this misfortune to sow panic and conjure up the blackest prophecies."[11]
Public Protest. Opposition activists have already begun to channel public outrage at the government's handling of the accident into demonstrations and underground publications. Participants in independent rallies on May Day and May 3 shouted "Thanks for the contamination" and carried banners saying "Chernobyl, no." On May 2 a protest in Wroclaw demanding full information from the government gathered an appreciative crowd of 20012; a second demonstration was held there on May 9[13]; and an unofficial peace group, the "Movement for Freedom and Peace," issued a statement demanding full disclosure and urging the government to halt construction of Poland's first nuclear power plant.[14] Solidarity supporters grouped around the paper Robotnik distributed leaflets in Warsaw that said it is especially scandalous for Polish citizens that the Warsaw government prefers keeping silent to saving the population. We demand information and medical help for all Poles as well as international control over Soviet atomic energy."[15]
The Chernobyl accident and the government's response to it will undoubtedly be major topics of discussion in underground journals for some time to come. There are indications that radioactivity was being independently monitored; the release of such data by the underground will probably help constrain the authorities to disclose more information than they would like. Judging from the anger and frustration voiced by ordinary Poles, the Chernobyl crisis has deepened Polish distrust of the Soviet Union-if that is still possible. With government officials refusing to say exactly when the USSR informed them of the radiation danger, Poles have been left to guess who knew what when. Whatever the truth, the Polish authorities are bound to lose face. If they knew of the crisis on April 26, as their rumored attempts to assess iodine stocks suggest, they will be condemned for withholding vital information from the public; if they were informed only after the cloud of radiation had crossed the Polish border and the Swedes had pressured an admission from the Soviets, this will serve as proof of their incapacity to uphold the nation's interest even with their Soviet comrades.
L.V.
* * *
1 Radio Warsaw, 7 May 1986, 12:05 P.M.
2 Radio Wroclaw, 2 May 1986, 7:20 A.M.
3 Michael T. Kaufman, "Warsaw Assails Western Reporting of Nuclear Accident," The New York Times, 8 May 1986.
4 PAP, 3 May 1986.
5 Radio Zielona Gora, 2 May 1986, 5:10 P.M.
6 Robert Gillette, "Circumstantial Evidence Says Poles Knew of Chernobyl," Los Angeles Times, 6 May 1986.
7 AP, 1 May 1986.
8 See, for example, the interview with Prime Minister Zbigniew Messner, Radio Warsaw, 7 May 1986, 10:00 P.M.
9 Trybuna Ludu, 2 May 1986.
10 Radio Warsaw, 6 May 1986, 6:00 P.M.
11 "Evidence of Dissimulation," Trybuna Ludu, 3-4 May 1986.
12 UPI, 3 May 1986.
13 AP, 9 May 1986.
14 Ibid., 3 May 1986.
15 AFP, 1 May 1986.
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