FIRST U.S. LIAISON MISSION

The first U.S. liaison activity during baseline occurred in England on July 20, 1992, just three days after entry into force. Captain Ellen Merkle, USAF, and Petty Officer First Class (PO1) David E. Sparks, USN, were the liaison team that met the British escort team chief, RAF Wing Commander Griffiths and his nine-person team at the POE, RAF Scampton. The Russian inspection team arrived on July 20th at 1730 GMT and declared a challenge inspection near Catterick Garrison at Richmond; the team continued with sequential declared site inspections at Roman Barracks at Colchester, Meany Barracks at Colchester, and finally Carver Barracks at Wimbish. The Russians were in England for seven days during this four-site inspection trip. The inspection team did not come upon any U.S. facilities on these British Army installations, so it was a quiet mission for the American liaison team. Captain Merkle and PO1 Sparks stayed in contact with the British escort team from the time the Russian team arrived in country through its departure. They then returned to their staging area, the East Gate Hotel in Lincoln, to wait for the next mission.¹⁶

"BACKDOOR" COMMUNICATIONS

Formal communications proved to be a problem during this first liaison mission and continued to be a source of concern throughout baseline. An informal communications system developed among the Allies that enabled them to complete their missions. As an example, Russia notified the United Kingdom that a Russian inspection team intended to arrive in the United Kingdom on the evening of July 20, 1992, to conduct one challenge and three declared site inspections during a CFE mission in England. Russia satisfied its treaty notification responsibilities with the single message to the United Kingdom because it intended to inspect only English sites. Diplomatic channels, however, failed to carry out the treaty requirement to notify allies within a group of states when a state received a notification of intent to inspect. The United States would have been unaware of the impending inspection had it not been for the informal, "backdoor," communications system.

This system operated as an informal network among the arms control verification organizations throughout Europe. It developed during the coordination of mock inspections, grew as entry into force approached, and matured during baseline when the various inspection organizations came to rely on it. For the United States, assigning personnel with linguistic skills to OSIA's European Operations was a key to the development of the communications network. Colonel Kelley looked not only for Russian-speaking inspectors but also for personnel conversant in the six CFE languages when filling assignments. For instance, Captain William C. Plumlee, USA, and Major John D. Monahan, USA, were combat arms officers and West European FAOs. Their language skills proved invaluable as they directed the Command's Operation Center in communicating with the European verification agencies. It was these skills that enabled OSIA personnel to establish professional and personal relationships with their counterparts throughout Europe.

U.S. Master Sergeant William N. Chesney, Jr., participates in a French-led reduction inspection.

When baseline began it soon became apparent that the formal treaty notification system would not be 100 percent reliable. Most verification agencies did not transmit the official notifications to other states-other agencies within their governments were responsible for these formal notifications. The verification agencies, however, relied on accurate and timely information to properly implement the treaty. The "Big Four"--the French, English, German, and American verification agencies--called each other daily and faxed situation reports to each other. In the first U.S. liaison mission, discussed above, the United States received notification of the Russian inspection only because the Joint Arms Control Implementation Group (JACIG), the United Kingdom's verification agency, faxed a copy of the notification to OSIA's European Operations Command on August 18th, two days before Russian CFE inspectors would arrive in England. This gave the American inspectorate sufficient time to notify one of the two OSIA liaison teams prepositioned in England and to notify Headquarters EUCOM of the impending inspection.¹⁸

Lt. Colonel Thomas C. Fiser, U.S. Army

Lt. Colonel Thomas C. Fiser, U.S. Army, was one of the original American CFE team chiefs during the baseline and reduction phases of treaty implementation. He holds a master's degree in Russian area studies. An armor officer (tanks) and a foreign area officer (Russian), Lt. Colonel Fiser served with the 1st Cavalry Division in the Gulf War prior to reporting to OSIA European Operations in Frankfurt, Germany.

On preparing the team for its inspection mission: "The first thing I always do is give my operations order. This is pretty much a standard, five paragraph, U.S. Army operations order: situation, mission, execution, administration/logistics, and command, control, communication, coordination. I lay out all the deployment information so everybody knows where we're going, when we're going, what we're going to do when we get there, and how we're going to do it. They know who is on what subteam, when we break down into two- or three- person subteams, who carries what equipment, and any specific instructions covering a myriad of issues, like drinking water or specific team equipment. It also covers individual tasks like who does the voice format reports to the embassy or who's responsible for laying on transportation.

"Following the operations order, we have a period of training on all the inspection equipment. The only thing that presented a challenge for anybody was our photographic equipment, the video or 35mm cameras, and the dictaphone. Those are really the only pieces of equipment that required any training. We'd also have training, usually two or three hours, on the signature piece of equipment that we expected to see at that particular type of unit, so everybody was well versed in what we were going to be seeing, whether it be ground or air equipment."

On use of the CFE Treaty's database: "The point of departure was always the submitted data: Charts one, three and five data, and their submission photos. We'd usually expand on that quite a bit. I'd assign my weapons specialist the job of presenting classes on the declared TLE and other types of vehicles, equipment that we expected to see in the unit, be it a motorized rifle regiment or an air regiment. We studied both order of battle and equipment types and we'd expand our study from there."

On CFE team chiefs and inspectors serving as soldier-diplomats: "That is a very important aspect of being a treaty inspector. It was something I wasn't really prepared for until I arrived here. First, I did some mock inspections, and then had one or two real CFE Treaty inspections under my belt. I found, especially in the Eastern bloc nations, that at meals, and often at the report-signing ceremony, you would be expected to speak, to some extent, about the opening of relations between our countries, and how the CFE Treaty was binding us closer together. There were variations on that theme, but you are almost invariably expected to say something along those lines. That was a new experience in my career. There is definitely a diplomatic side to being an inspector."

On the differences between being an inspector and an escort: "I have to be careful here. The main thing that makes being an escort more difficult is that you are defensive as opposed to being on the offense. You have to react to the inspector. The treaty requires that you aid him whenever necessary in carrying out his inspection. At the same time, obviously, we have U.S. interests that we are trying to protect. So there's a fine line you have to walk. There have been many times when we have had disagreements covering the interpretation of certain treaty points with representatives from different U.S. military headquarters here in Europe. We've also had confrontations or issues arise with the inspectors from various countries at U.S. sites. That makes escorting more difficult. Another aspect of escorting is the logistics. They are much more difficult during the escort mission because you're also dealing with the host nation escorts. You are trying to make lodging arrangements, many times off post, for 20 to 25 people, sometimes as many as 28 to 29 people. Going from site to site, there is an extreme amount of coordination that has to be done. It makes for a very difficult time, and some very, very long nights. I've had some escort missions where if you got a couple of hours sleep a night you were doing well."