second time on 12 May, he was a changed man, suffering from severe grief and radiation sickness. Spending four months in and around Chernobyl, he received a high dose of radiation. He was assigned to compile a report for the International Atomic Energy Agency about the causes and aftermath of the accident. Some in the Ministry of Medium Machine Building (Sredmash) opposed his appointment, fearing Legasov would be difficult to control, since the nuclear establishment wanted to divert blame to others if possible. Legasov attended a turbulent meeting with the Politburo, on 3 July in which the causes of the accident and flaws in the RBMK reactor were discussed. In attendance was the former plant director Viktor Bryukhanov, RBMK designer Anatoly Alexandrov and Efim Slavsky of Sredmash. Bryukhanov was accused of mismanagement and that operator error was the primary cause of the accident, while design flaws were also a factor. Mikhail Gorbachev was furious and accused the nuclear designers of covering up dangerous problems with the Soviet nuclear industry for decades. Legasov only spoke up to admit that scientists had failed in their duty and that he had been warning about the safety problems of the RBMK reactor for years but nothing had been done. With the first draft of Legasov's report received by the Central Committee, some were shocked and one minister forwarded it to the KGB with the recommendation that the authors be prosecuted. To find fault with the reactor design would directly implicate senior members of the Soviet government. In August 1986, he presented the report of the Soviet delegation at the special meeting of International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in Vienna. His report was noted for its great detail and relative openness in discussing the extent and consequences of the tragedy, disclosed to Western media some defects in the RBMK reactor design such as the positive void coefficient, as well as problems with operator training. Some details were censored by the Central Committee, including the full extent of the design flaws, the institutional and cultural problems that led to the accident, the full extent of the fallout, as well as the ineffective efforts in dropping liquid nitrogen into the reactor. The report ran to 388 pages and was presented by Legasov to the conference in a 5-hour presentation, which many in the audience found disturbing. Legasov noted that the operators were able to disable the reactor