Ms. Yaroshinskaya's telling of her struggle to publish the truth about the Chernobyl disaster ranks among the best of this type. Very good, very true story. Well translated. The forward by John Gofman is a self praising, out-of-place, anti-nuclear discussion on how to conduct a type of research. The book would have been improved by its omission.

Chernobyl: The Forbidden Truth is about the inadequate care of the victims of Chernobyl, the inadequate immediate response to the accident, the inadequate records-keeping of the investigaters, and the continuing cost in human and animal suffering caused by this tragedy. Dr. Gofman's foreward is an important addition that ties the book's litany of problems together with a description of what should be done instead regarding investigating the exact size of the calamity. Millions of Curies of various radioactive substances were released (some long-lived, some not so long-lived), but no one really knows where it all went and who is absorbing a dose right now. This is, however, a chronic problem with nuclear activities around the world, and not limited to Chernobyl.

In particular, Gofman's NINE ESSENTIAL RULES OF INQUIRY should be required reading for everyone involved in such research. It outlines important requirements for all such testing. Gofman is a Professor Eme! ritus of Medical Physics at the University of California at Berkeley. He is a co-discoverer of Uranium-233 and isolated the world's first "working quantities" of plutonium at Robert Oppenhiemer's personal request for the Manhattan Project during WWII. Since that service to America he has continued to research radiation and its effect on human health and is referred to as "brilliant" by even his adversaries.

His comments belong not only in the foreward of this important book, but they also belong pasted to the desks of every nuclear scientist who ever tried to answer the question of just how low a level of radiation is actually "safe".

Perhaps if/when they find an answer to that question Gofman's comments will no longer apply, but that day appears to be far off, when our best "research event" ever in the field of human radiation experiments (at least, the best "research event" since Hiroshima and Nagasaki) is as poorly han! dled as it was -- and is -- being handled, as is made clear! in Alla Yaroshinskaya's monumental book.