Chapter 1 - A New Treaty, A New Agency

Within 7 months of its creation in January 1988, the new agency
set up field offices and continous inspection sites worldwide.

Initial Organization

Frankfurt, West Germany.

The INF Treaty mission largely determined the new agency's initial organizational structure. Responsibility for planning, operational training, and conducting on-site inspection and escort missions was lodged in OSIA's operations directorate. The directorate had two components: an inspection division, which prepared for and conducted U.S. on-site inspections at the 130 Soviet INF missile sites in the Soviet Union, East Germany, and Czechoslovakia; and an escort division, which was responsible for coordinating the escorting of Soviet on-site inspection teams at the 31 U.S. INF missile sites located in Western Europe and the United States. The new agency's portal monitoring directorate had responsibility for conducting and managing the continuous on-site portal inspections. The treaty stipulated that each nation had the right to place a team of up to 30 on-site inspectors at one former INF missile assembly or rocket motor production facility to monitor continuously--24 hours a day, 365 days a year--the entrance portal and to patrol the perimeter. U.S. inspectors would go to the former SS-20 missile assembly plant in Votkinsk, USSR, and Soviet inspectors would go to a former Pershing II rocket motor plant in Magna, Utah. OSIA's support directorate was responsible for personnel, budget, acquisition, travel, and coordination for military airlift.¹¹

The INF Treaty mission also affected the geographical placement and function of the agency's field offices. One section of the treaty's protocol on inspections stipulated that INF on-site inspectors had to enter the nation to be inspected at "the point of entry that is closest to the inspection site." INF escort teams would meet the inspectors at these designated entry points and accompany them throughout the inspection. Eleven points of entry were designated in the treaty: Washington D.C. and San Francisco in the United States, Frankfurt in the Federal Republic of Germany, Brussels in Belgium, Schiphol Airport in the Netherlands, Rome in Italy, RAF Greenham Common Air Base in Great Britain, Moscow and Irkutsk (later Ulan Ude) in the USSR, Leipzig-Schkeuditz Airport in the German Democratic Republic, and Ruzyne International Airport in Czechoslovakia.¹²

The United States was responsible for having INF escort teams ready to meet Soviet INF inspection teams at seven entry points, two in the United States and five in Western Europe. At two of these points, Washington and Travis AFB, the On-Site Inspection Agency established field offices. For European operations, OSIA established a field office in Frankfurt, which was the point of entry for Soviet INF teams inspecting missile sites and facilities in West Germany. This office could also dispatch U.S. escort teams to meet Soviet inspection teams arriving at designated points of entry in Belgium, the Netherlands, Italy, and Great Britain.

The European field office also played a major role in the United States' inspection operations. Most of the American on-site inspection teams met in Washington, flew as a team to Europe, and then traveled into the Soviet Union. They were required by the treaty to enter the Soviet Union at Moscow, the designated point of entry. In Europe, the inspection teams used the field office as a "gateway." In Frankfurt, the inspectors would be placed in 10-person teams, issued treaty-permitted inspection equipment, and given final instructions before departing for Moscow.

A second OSIA gateway field office was established at Yokota Air Base near Tokyo, for U.S. teams inspecting INF missile sites in the eastern USSR. This OSIA field office functioned like the one in Frankfurt--it was an assembly point where U.S. inspection teams would complete their final preparations before departing for Ulan-Ude, the Soviet Union's eastern point of entry.

Initially, all U.S. inspection teams flew to and from the Soviet Union, East Germany, and Czechoslovakia aboard USAF aircraft. The INF Treaty created a special category of individuals, "aircrew members," who had to be identified on an official list before the flight to the point of entry. No more than 200 individuals could be identified as aircrew members at any one time.¹³

INF Treaty requirements were also responsible for placing an Arms Control Implementation Unit in the U.S. embassy in Moscow. The treaty stipulated that a "diplomatic aircrew escort" accredited to the Soviet government (or to the government of the basing nation in which the INF site was located) shall meet the INF inspection teams and aircrew at the point of entry "as soon as the airplane of the inspecting Party lands."¹⁴ This meant that U.S. embassy officials had a treaty obligation to meet each arriving American inspection team and aircrew. The United States anticipated it would conduct more than 150 on-site inspections in the first treaty year. Consequently, in the U.S. embassy in Moscow a new organization, the Arms Control Implementation Unit (ACIU), was set up to assist arriving and departing inspection teams and aircrews. The State Department and OSIA provided people, funding, and logistics for this new embassy unit. For American inspection teams arriving in Ulan-Ude, a representative from the ACIU subunit met each team and aircrew.

When its headquarters, field offices, and embassy units were in place, OSIA's organizational structure stretched across 19 time zones. The United States and the Soviet Union had produced, tested, deployed, and stored ground-based INF intermediate- and shorter-range missiles on sites on three continents: North America, Europe, and Asia. By signing the INF Treaty, the U.S. government, and specifically the people in its newly created On-Site Inspection Agency, had to be prepared to travel to every site to carry out inspections and escort missions.

U.S. Embassy, Moscow, site of the new Arms Control Implementation Unit (ACIU), the small embassy office which assisted American INF Treaty inspection teams arriving and departing from Moscow.