In 1989, Grigori Medvedev wrote The Truth About Chernobyl, describing both what happened to cause the 1986 nuclear accident and what can be learned from it. In watching the continuing BP oil disaster, it is clear we are receiving exactly the same lessons in the fraility and vulnerability of life, both human and marine, and the price that hubris and pride exacts. Medvedev called for forceful truthtelling to avoid glossing over what happened in Chernobyl and to learn from it, and the accident in the Gulf demands exactly the same.