Jared Harris credited as playing...
Valery Legasov
- [first lines]
- Valery Legasov: What is the cost of lies? It's not that we'll mistake them for the truth. The real danger is that if we hear enough lies, then we no longer recognize the truth at all. What can we do then? What else is left but to abandon even the hope of truth and content ourselves instead with stories? In these stories, it doesn't matter who the heroes are. All we want to know is: "Who is to blame?"
- Boris Shcherbina: [over the phone] This is Boris Shcherbina, Deputy Chairman of the Council of Ministers and head of the Bureau for Fuel and Energy. There's been an accident at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant.
- Valery Legasov: How bad is it?
- Boris Shcherbina: No. No need to panic. There was a fire. It's mostly put out. The system control tank exploded.
- Valery Legasov: Control system tank. And the core?
- Boris Shcherbina: We've ordered them to continuously pump water.
- Valery Legasov: Yes, I see. Any contamination?
- Boris Shcherbina: It's mild. The plant manager, Bryukhanov, is reporting 3.6 roentgen per hour.
- Valery Legasov: That's actually significant. You should evacuate the sur...
- Boris Shcherbina: You're an expert on RBMK reactors, correct?
- Valery Legasov: Yes, I've studied...
- Boris Shcherbina: General Secretary Gorbachev has appointed a committee to manage the accident. You're on it. We'll convene at two this afternoon.
- Valery Legasov: That late? Forgive me, but don't you think given the amount of radiation that it would be...
- Boris Shcherbina: Legasov, you're on this committee to answer direct questions about the function of an RBMK reactor if they should happen to arise. Nothing else. Certainly not policy. Do you understand?
- Valery Legasov: What is the cost of lies? It's not that we'll mistake them for the the truth. The real danger is that if we hear enough lies, then we no longer recognize the truth at all. What can we do then? What else is left but to abandon even the hope of truth and content ourselves instead with stories?
- Valery Legasov: And now Dyatlov will spend the next ten years in a prison labor camp. Of course, that sentence is doubly unfair. There were far greater criminals than him at work. And as for what Dyatlov did do, the man does not deserve prison. He deserves death
- Valery Legasov: What is the cost of lies? It's not that we'll mistake them for the truth. The real danger is that if we hear enough lies, then we no longer recognize the truth at all. What can we do then? What else is left but to abandon even the hope of truth and content ourselves instead with stories? In these stories, it doesn't matter who the heroes are. All we want to know is: who is to blame?