Well, at his (alleged) age, you never know...
ETA - actually, you could be on to somthing there, I've read a couple of very good books on it in the last few months and IIRC the plant (or possibly shift) manager refused to believe what was blatantly obvious around him and what the remaining plant operatives were telling him (i.e. the reactor & most of the reactor hall had 'gone') and blatantly lied - and kept lying to Moscow in the face of mounting evidence, thereby delaying the evacuation of Pripryat and 'proper' assistance for several crucial days - just the sort of thing Bogsy or one of his twice (or maybe thrice) dead family would do.... regardless of the consequences to others. - that sort of dit?
More like
“I was living in Berlin, capital of the DDR, when the “newclear” reactor went wrong at Pripryat, which is close to Chernobyl, as the Western media chose to name it. Everyone in Germany was worried about what might happen, and after a few days the word went round for anybody with relevant experience who could help. They were casting around for specialists in the fraternal socialist countries, but didn’t want to have to go cap in hand to any Western gobment, it being the height of the Cold War.
I thought I’d volunteer to help, and when they found out I’d been a CMT in the British Army, they leapt at the chance to take me, as not only was our medic training far higher than anything they had, but as an Newclear warfare instructor in the British Army (it’s called NBC training) I was already pre-trained.
In fact, they didn’t let me go to the actual reactor, they said I’d be too valuable providing training to the rest of the volunteers from the DDR, as by that time I’d already mastered several Eastern German dialects.”
Or something like that, but probably with a few umlauts thrown in...