29 Million Soviets Hear Voice of America News
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WASHINGTON — Western news about the Chernobyl nuclear accident, including reports of more casualties than the Soviets acknowledge, are reaching up to 29 million radio listeners in the Soviet Union, a Voice of America spokesman said Thursday.
But the region around Kiev, the biggest city near the disaster, may be blacked out. The Soviets have spent huge sums to jam Western broadcast signals around major cities, according to a U.S. report prepared last November.
Since reporting on the nuclear reactor accident began Monday, there has been no noticeable increase in jamming, according to the Voice of America.
Fred Quinn, a Voice of America spokesman, said that despite the jamming, the service’s estimated listening audience is 29 million people in the Soviet Union and 28 million elsewhere in Eastern Europe.
What they have been hearing about the accident is basically what listeners in the United States have been hearing on the radio: Soviet statements that the situation is not dangerous and under control and Western reports of a major disaster with global implications.
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