But McGinley was not to be denied: somewhere he had read the Chernobyl fire-fighters were admirers of British soccer. Using his local contacts he persuaded the players of Celtic and Rangers, Scotland’s premier soccer teams, to sign two footballs which McGinley said he wanted to present personally to the heroes of Chernobyl.
One bright morning he walked up the imposing driveway of the Soviet embassy in Kensington Palace Gardens, London, and knocked on the door. A startled security guard eventually showed him into an imposing reception room dominated by a large, ornate desk.
Sitting behind it was a dapper little diplomat who had carefully placed McGinley’s two soccer balls into the ‘In’ tray (they had been removed from McGinley to be security scanned).
With a quizzical expression he listened to the Scotsman’s request to personally deliver the objects to the heroes of Chernobyl. He looked at McGinley, then at the footballs. Finally he reached for the telephone.
Within a week the Soviets granted a special visa for McGinley to make the trip as the “honoured guest” of the Soviet people. Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev, who had taken a personal interest in directing events at Chernobyl, apparently authorised the trip after speaking directly to the British newspaper magnate Robert Maxwell who wanted the story for his newspapers.
Maxwell, a well-known eccentric and business buccaneer, lived up to his billing by personally telephoning McGinley at his home to inform him: “You are going to Russia!” McGinley was taken aback when the tycoon went on to ask him how long he had been a member of the Communist Party!
The bemused Scot recounting the call later said, “I told him I was a Catholic, and that seemed to satisfy him.”
Within a fortnight McGinley landed at Moscow’s Sheremetyevo international airport to the sort of reception usually given to a visiting world leader.
He was met by various apparatchiks from the Moscow Mayor’s office who whisked him off in some splendour in a convoy of sleek Russian Zil limousines to his hotel, where a dinner had been prepared in his honour.
After a visit to the Bolshoi ballet and the Moscow State Circus he was taken to see Telyatnikov and the rest of the Chernobyl survivors at Hospital Six.
The third floor of the hospital had been set aside for dozens of survivors of the Chernobyl disaster who were cocooned in isolation units. For the most part the victims lay motionless in beds, covered in creams and sterile sheeting that swathed their bodies including their heads.
Only their eyes were uncovered as they stared up at the ceiling. There was little hope for some as they quietly waited for death. For others, those that had handled radioactive equipment, extensive skin grafts were the only answer. And, of course, they all faced the near-certainty of contracting cancer later in life.
Half a million people, mainly women and children who had been evacuated to safe areas in the countryside, faced the same uncertain fate although the State authorities insisted it was just a precautionary measure.
McGinley, who bizarrely was greeted as ‘Dr McGinley’ wherever he went, was bombarded with assurances from various scientists and government officials that the radiation plume had only touched the city briefly when there was a sudden wind change, but there was little residual fallout.
Kiev was now considered safe and the scientists were keen for him to encourage the large numbers of foreign students and tourists who had fled in panic in the immediate aftermath of the disaster to return.
Before he knew it McGinley was escorted to the airport and two hours later touched down at Kiev’s Borispol airport. In keeping with his new-found status as international envoy he was placed in glorious isolation at the front of the plane, while the rest of the passengers were herded to the back.
He was the first off the plane and soon on to a smart little mini-bus (his fellow passengers disembarked from the rear onto an open cart pulled by a tractor) and was whisked through customs controls without the usual formalities.
The first thing he saw on stepping out of the terminal building was a tanker truck spraying water across the forecourt. In the distance another tanker was similarly spraying the approach road.
McGinley walked across mats foaming with detergent through the arrivals hall, and was “swept” by a uniformed official with a radiation monitor before being escorted to his car.
On the approach road to Kiev, his car passed a large crowd of schoolchildren, the girls with gaily-coloured ribbons, and the boys wearing sashes, all lined up in regimental fashion waiting to board a convoy of buses. He was told they were being taken to summer camps far away in the mountains “for their own safety.”
Five miles from Kiev, the car was stopped at a checkpoint while a soldier sprayed the car tyres with detergent. All along the route huge convoys of military vehicles rumbled north toward Chernobyl, laden with sand and cement. It was explained these were for the vast concrete tomb being built around the stricken reactor.
Kiev city, usually a bustling metropolis of some three million people, was spookily quiet. The sidewalks were mostly deserted and what traffic there was seemed to scurry like beetles between buildings as though to avoid the invisible enemy in the air.
The city’s entire transport system had disappeared almost overnight as more than 1,000 buses, trucks and cars were commandeered to help in the huge evacuation of Chernobyl and the surrounding villagers.
Only a few days before, loudspeaker announcements all over the city had ordered the bewildered population to stay indoors and shower every day. No fresh vegetables were to be eaten and milk supplies had to be dumped.
McGinley’s small entourage pulled up at the impressive six-storey Dneiper Hotel, and stepped into an eerily silent world. The cavernous foyer echoed to his footsteps as he made his way to the reception desk where a single clerk stood nervously to attention.
McGinley and an official cum minder from Intourist, the State travel agency, and a couple of journalists were the only guests in the hotel, and that night they dined in splendid isolation in the huge dining room beneath magnificently ornate chandeliers. As they ate, a ceaseless convoy of tankers, spraying water, patrolled the roads and pavements just outside.
McGinley was later joined by Mr Nikolaj Lavrukhin, First Vice Chairman of the Kiev City Soviet. A very important man indeed, but who now seemed tired and dispirited.
Mr Lavrukhin was at pains to assure that all danger from Chernobyl had passed. He produced radiation charts and figures. He said radiation levels had now dropped from a dangerous 0.5 in the early days of the disaster, to a safe 0.06.
He was joined by Mr Victor Dobrotvor, Soviet head of culture and tourism for Ukraine, who arrived with an entourage of three. He frankly admitted that the bottom had dropped out of the tourist trade for Kiev.
In an aggrieved voice he said a total of 61 parties representing more than 1,800 people had cancelled their holidays because of Chernobyl. Mr Dobrotvor was at pains to impress upon McGinley that all danger had now passed and that people shouldn‘t be afraid of coming to his great city. “Even the grass cut out in the fields is being stored and checked for contamination,” he said reassuringly.
McGinley realised by now that his importance and status had somehow been grossly inflated and that the “Chairman of the British Nuclear Test Veterans’ Association” had different connotations in the Soviet Union. But who was he to argue?
He decided to sit back and enjoy the experience. He recalled: “I’m not sure who they thought I was, but they obviously believed I had a lot of clout. I think Robert Maxwell must have given me star billing. It was obvious they were working to a very well rehearsed script with the objective of getting the message across to the outside world that all was well in Kiev.”