re: #237 Killgore Trout

Reagan’s actions can’t be seen in a vacuum. Gorbochev was dealing with a bunch of different issues - hardliners at home, the moribund economy, and then in April of 1986, the Chernobyl disaster. More than anything else, it was the government’s failures in Chernobyl that hastened the demise of the Soviet Union. Lying for days on end about the nature of the disaster and spiking radioactivity sensors across Europe, lying to the people living closest to the power plant, and trying to manage the propaganda about how they were handling the disaster all showed how empty the government’s promises and statements were.

The Ukraine is still dealing with the fallout from the disaster, and efforts to build a new secure containment facility has been slowed by the lack of funding.