For four decades the West spent whatever it took to match the Soviets' nuclear prowess. The recent offer of $200 million from the Group of Seven leading industrialized nations to close Chernobyl, one unsafe reactor site among dozens in the former Soviet Union, is evidence that we may remain hostage for as many years more to its nuclear incompetence.


The money, part of a $1.8 billion package, is an attempt to induce Ukraine to close the three remaining reactors at Chernobyl, where, eight years ago, the world's worst nuclear accident occurred. The fallout outside Ukraine, which reached from Greece to northern Sweden, was roughly equivalent to that of a one-megaton explosion (70 times Hiroshima).


Because of official falsification of data, scientific uncertainties and the long latencies of cancer and other radiation effects, the accident's true costs are still unknown and will remain so for some time. Estimates of past and expected deaths inside and outside the former Soviet Union range into the tens of thousands.


Two hundred thousand people have been permanently evacuated, but tens and possibly hundreds of thousands more are believed to be still living on dangerously irradiated land. Fifty thousand square miles were contaminated, much of it rich farmland, and half a million people are under permanent medical observation.


Yet the reasons for concentrating on closing Chernobyl are largely emotional, because the conditions there, which have so alarmed Europeans, are commonplace in the former Soviet Union.


There are 13 other Chernobyl-type reactors and additional equally unsafe reactor designs operating in the former Soviet Union. True, at Chernobyl the sarcophagus containing the remains of the exploded reactor is crumbling and may collapse. But that risk is unaffected by whether the other units are on or off. The big danger comes from the lack of spare parts, routine maintenance and skilled operators, many of whom have left in search of more certain pay in Russia.


They will not find it. "We are on the brink," worried a Russian reactor director in April. "I just paid the back wages for January. The workers are in a very bad mood and, God forbid, something might happen." A minister was blunter: "Today the plants work in an emergency regime. It's impossible. It's like a bomb."


The lesson that America's Three Mile Island nuclear reactor taught was that human error can confound the most elegant engineering. Badly designed reactors put an even greater premium on good operators. People who are tired, angry, poorly trained, unpaid, unsupervised or sneaking time off to make some money or look for other work are a prescription for disaster.


For several years, the G-7 governments have tried to figure out how to reduce the risk of another accident in the face of the Russian nuclear establishment's contention that its plants are safe and with only a tiny (relative to the size of the problem) amount of money to spend. They want to correct the worst hazards at the most dangerous reactors, while at the same time trying to convince Russia and Ukraine that these plants cannot be made safe and should be shut down.


The other stumbling block is what to replace a closed reactor with. Russia and Ukraine favor newer reactors. The United States, the World Bank and others believe that fossil fuel plants, efficiency improvements and renewables are less costly as well as safer. The G-7 decided after a stiff battle to opt for completing Ukraine's newer reactors. The real problem, though, is that the offer does not forge a hard link between the aid and a certain shutdown. Without such a hard link, reactor safety could become a rathole for Western money.


Better ways must therefore be found to push for change while firmly leaving the responsibility for safety with local authorities. Spending more on people is part of the answer. Like other types of Western aid to the former Soviet Union, the G-7 offer spends far too little on training in the West, where people can be immersed in a wholly different technical and managerial culture.


Huge as it is, reactor safety is just the tip of the nuclear mess in the former Soviet Union that will affect other countries. Rivers, underground aquifers and the Arctic Ocean have been -- and are being -- contaminated on an almost unbelievable scale. Lots of Western money could be sucked in. That puts a very high premium on clear goals and hard-headed spending. The Chernobyl bailout is not an encouraging start.





Jessica Matthews is a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. She contributed this comment to The Washington Post.