In February and March 1990, the operational status of CargoScan reached a crisis point. Delegations from Moscow and Washington flew to Votkinsk to meet and discuss the issues and recommended solutions.		   Over the next two months the CargoScan system became a contentious issue at Votkinsk. In late February, Soviet officials raised several concerns about CargoScan operations, such as magnetic tape storage, joint operating procedures, and the X-ray safety procedures. The American site commander, Lt. Colonel Roy E. Peterson, U.S. Army, addressed the Soviet queries point by point. He cited the INF Treaty and the recently signed Memorandum of Agreement as authorization for use of the CargoScan system and the procedures for operating it. The Soviets disagreed.39

On March 1, the CargoScan issue reached a crisis point. Soviet officials declared that a missile-carrying railcar would be leaving the plant. When the railcar exited, Lt. Colonel Peterson directed that the customary visual and manual measurements be taken by U.S. inspectors. Ascertaining that the railcar contained a missile, he requested that it be scanned using the CargoScan system. Since the Soviets had not yet agreed that CargoScan was operational and ready for use by the U.S. inspectors, they did not agree to move the railcar into the CargoScan area. Instead, by mutual agreement, the railcar was moved into the special environmentally-controlled building within the U.S. portal compound, where it was kept under constant U.S. observation while the problem was reviewed by senior government officials in both nations. The railcar and missile remained in the building until the evening of March 9, when Soviet plant officials announced that the railcar and its contents would be moved out of the environmental building immediately and taken out of the American area. Simultaneously, the Soviets declared their intention to have additional railcars leave the plant without allowing the United States to image them.40

 

This was an extremely serious action. Colonel Peterson declared that the U.S. government had been denied its rights under the treaty to image the missile in the railcar. He directed that photographs be taken, in accordance with the treaty. He asked that the missile canister be opened for visual examination pursuant to paragraph 14(c) of Section IX of the treaty's Protocol on Inspections. It was. Later that same day, two additional missile-carrying railcars left the plant. These railcars were manually inspected, but they exited the American compound without being imaged by CargoScan, despite U.S. objections.41

This action was so serious that Secretary of State James A. Baker III lodged an official protest with Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard A. Shevardnadze.42 To resolve the impasse at the plant, the two governments agreed to dispatch a team of experts to Votkinsk to investigate the issue and make recommendations to the respective policy communities. From Washington, George W. Look, the Secretary of Defense's representative to the Special Verification Commission, led a small U.S. delegation to Votkinsk. Lev Kokurin, Soviet Defense Industry Representative for Votkinsk, led the Soviet Union's delegation. The two groups spent five days in Votkinsk reviewing the procedures and technical issues for operating the CargoScan system with Colonel George Connell, Director of Portal Monitoring at OSIA; Lt. Colonel Peterson, U.S. site commander; and Anatoly D. Tomilov of the Soviet Ministry of Defense Industries. As a result of these discussions, the two sides agreed to technical and operational steps that addressed Soviet concerns. These modifications did not alter CargoScan's ability to operate within the parameters of the treaty's Memorandum of Agreement. In turn, the Soviets agreed that the system could become operational.43 By the end of March, the American on-site inspectors had the CargoScan system operational at Votkinsk and Soviet railcars leaving the portal were being imaged in accordance with the new procedures.44

  
A table model of the American complex at Votkinsk.

 

    With the major exception of this CargoScan incident, INF portal monitoring inspections at Magna and Votkinsk developed in the second and third treaty years into the inspection regime that had been envisioned by the INF Treaty negotiators. Leadership changes occurred at both portal sites. At Magna, Colonel William R. McNally, USAF, became the senior escort and OSIA Chief of the Magna Portal Division. Colonel Connell left Votkinsk to become Director of Portal Monitoring at OSIA Headquarters. Colonel Englund became Chief of Staff, OSIA. In the fall of 1990, Colonel Laurence Burgess, USMC, became the new Director of Portal Operations.
U.S. Team Leaders at Votkinsk
July 1988 - May 1991
Colonel Douglas M. Englund, USA/
Colonel George M. Connell, USMC*		 July 1988 - October 1989
Lt. Col. Roy E. Peterson, USA October 1989 - December 1989
Lt. Col. Mark L. Dues, USAF December 1989 - February 1990
Lt. Col. Roy E. Peterson, USA February 1990 - April 1990
Maj. Thomas E. Michaels, USA March 1990 - May 1990
Cmdr. Charles N. Myers, USN May 1990 - June 1990
Lt. Col. Mark L. Dues, USAF June 1990 - July 1990
Maj. Thomas E. Michaels, USA July 1990 - September 1990
Lt. Col. Mark L. Dues, USAF September 1990 - November 1990
Maj. Thomas E. Michaels, USA November 1990 - December 1990
Lt. Col. Stephen J. Zolock, Jr. USAF December 1990 - January 1991
Lt. Col. Mark L. Dues, USA January 1991 - February 1991
Lt. Col. Nicholas Troyan, USA February 1991 - March 1991
Lt. Col. Warren C. Wagner, USA March 1991 - April 1991
Lt. Col. Stephen J. Zolock, Jr. USAF April 1991 - May 1991
*For 16 months, Colonel Englund and Colonel Connell rotated as the American Team Chief every three to four weeks.

Soviet Team Leaders at Magna, Utah
July 1988 - May 1989
Anatololiy Yevgenyevich Samarin July 1988 - September 1988
Vyacheslav Vasil'yevich Kharlamov September 1988 - December 1988
Vyacheslav Vasil'yevich Yevdokimov December 1988 - February 1989
Viktor Dimitryevich Kozlov February 1989 - April 1989
Vyacheslav Semenovich Lebedev April 1989 - June 1989
Aleksandr Vasil'yevich Kuznetsov June 1989 - August 1989
Anatololiy Yevgenyevich Samarin August 1989 - October 1989
Gennadiy Mikhaylovich Komogortsev October 1989 - December 1989
Vyacheslav Vasil'yevich Yevdokimov December 1989 - February 1990
Gennadiy Ivanovich Solntse February 1990 - March 1990
Vyacheslav Semenovich Lebedev March 1990 - May 1990
Gennadiy Mikhaylovich Komogortsev May 1990 - July 1990
Anatololiy Yevgenyevich Samarin July 1990 - September 1990
Vyachesalv Vasil'yevich Yevdokimov September 1990 - November 1990
Vyacheslav Semenovich Lebedev November 1990 - January 1991
Vladimir Ivanovich Tselishchev January 1991 - March 1991
Aleksandr Vasil'yevich Kuznetsov March 1991 - May 1991
Anatololiy Yevgenyevich Samarin May 1991

 

AN AMERICAN NURSE IN VOTKINSK

In February 1991, Phyllis Sanders, Registered Nurse, began working at Votkinsk for the Hughes Technical Services Company. In November 1992, she recalled her experiences at Votkinsk in nursing, inspecting, and participating in local, Russian cultural activities. Educated at Pennsylvania State University and the Samuel Merritt Hospital School of Nursing in Oakland, California, she worked in trauma centers, emergency and operating rooms prior to her Votkinsk duty.

I am an R.N. and came to Votkinsk in February 1991 as the person responsible for the medical care of 30 U.S. civilian and military portal monitoring inspectors.

I believe that we were in the vanguard as far as any group of Americans outside those in the Embassy in Moscow who were living in the then Soviet Union. Medical care in Russia was a virtual unknown to us, and in order to establish what our resources here might be, and to develop a policy for our own care. I did a lot of work investigating and evaluating the Russian medical system. Seeing that system from the inside out, writing my opinions about it, and interacting extensively with the Russian medical personnel, was a time in my career that I will always remember.

The routine, daily care of the inspectors here is a pleasant, new type of work for me. The inspectors are polite, healthy, intelligent, and conscientious individuals who are interested in staying healthy. Many of the medical problems encountered are athletic injuries. This is a far cry from gunshots, stabwounds, and drug overdose that I experienced as a nurse in a trauma center in Oakland, California.

Beyond the duties associated with our particular areas of expertise, each inspector "sits shift." This means that he or she sits several times a week for 12-hour periods, day or night, seven days a week, 52 weeks a year. The sitting is in a small metal building with a lot of high-tech equipment, monitoring the traffic coming out of the Russian missile assembly plant. One thing I did not get away from, then, is shift work. I am now spending my second Thanksgiving on site and will soon share my second Christmas with my fellow inspectors.

The inspectors, to a great degree, develop close relationships, not only out of common interests and disposition, but from the sharing of a common experience. However, we live under many restrictions. We are 30 people confined to a living area of about 2.5 acres. We can only leave this area by request, and that request must be made a full 24 hours in advance. It may then be "approved," but just as often it is not. When we finally do go out, we are always under escort, and we may not wander freely from the place, or the stated activity.

Despite all of this, being deep inside Russia is, in some convoluted way, the adventure of all adventures. In my wildest dreams I would never have pictured dinners with American generals and Soviet government officials at a dacha in a forest in Udmurtia. Or listening to hauntingly beautiful a capella music in the Russian Orthodox Church on Easter morning, with the elaborate service being performed by half a dozen priests dressed in rich brocades and silver vestments juxtaposed against hundreds of attending men, women and children. The Russians were wrapped in dark, colorless cloth coats, heavy woolen head scarves, and woolen stockings. Standing in the nave of the church for over two hours, the Russians worshiped their God openly after so many years of oppression.

Source: Letter, Phyllis Sanders, Votkinsk, Russia, November 27, 1992.

 

    Summary

At Votkinsk in the winter of 1988-1989, the American portal monitoring inspection team gathered one morning and framed this American flag in the snow.		   Throughout the first three years of the INF Treaty, Soviet and American on-site portal monitoring inspections were watched closely. Other arms control treaties were being negotiated; American and Soviet START Treaty negotiators in Geneva examined the INF experience carefully. On-site inspections of strategic missile armament plants would, in all probability, be a part of any final START Treaty. Thus, the experiences of the INF portal monitoring inspectors and escorts did not go unnoticed; the arms control community in both the Soviet Union and the United States kept a close watch on the process and the results of these unprecedented on-site inspections.

 

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