Sandwiched between these briefings and testimony was the decision on how to transport U.S. and Soviet inspection and escort teams. Understanding the airlift requirement was critical. Because of the structure of the treaty, the need would be especially intense during the first 60 days of inspections, the period known as the INF baseline. During that period, U.S. inspection teams would need daily flights into and out of Moscow and flights two or three times a week into and out of Ulan-Ude. At the same time, the U.S. portal monitoring team would be establishing its permanent inspection base at the Votkinsk Machine Building Plant in the Udmurt Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic. This team also needed airlift support into and out of Moscow on a continuing basis.

U.S. escort teams for Soviet inspectors also required airlift. When a Soviet team arrived at one of the entry points (for example, Frankfurt, Washington, or San Francisco), the U.S. escort team was obligated under the treaty to get them to the INF site within nine hours. This deadline began once the Soviet team chief specified the site to be inspected. For most Soviet inspections, OSIA would need a combination of air and ground transportation. In Europe U.S. missile sites were located in five nations--West Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands, Italy, and Great Britain. Commercial airline schedules would not meet the nine-hour time requirement.

Air Force airlift planners and OSIA's transportation expert, Lt. Colonel Gerald J.K. Heuer, examined other options: leasing a fleet of commercial aircraft, using military airlift from the Air Force, or a combination of the two. The cost of leasing, over $50 million per year, was deemed excessive. The alternative was to assign the mission to the Air Force's Military Airlift Command (MAC). Following a briefing to the joint chiefs in late March, General Lajoie, Colonel McConnell, and Lt. Colonel Heuer flew to Scott Air Force Base, Illinois, on April 6, and met with General Duane H. Cassidy of MAC. General Cassidy said that MAC would take responsibility for transporting U.S. and Soviet teams, their equipment, and other logistical supplies.

Within days of General Cassidy's decision, General Lajoie was able to incorporate this airlift arrangement into the April technical talks in Washington. There, discussions turned to practical issues such as military and civilian logistical flights, aircraft call signs, and housing requirements for the air crews.¹⁸

"READ, DIGEST, MEMORIZE THE TREATY. All of us have to be THE EXPERTS."

Captain Olsen

General Lajoie thought otherwise. He forced the issue, directing that the practice inspections must begin on April 7 at Greenham Common Air Base, England, and end by May 11 at all 31 sites. The Senate Foreign Relations Committee had completed its hearings with a favorable vote of 17 to 2 on March 30, 1988. Treaty approval by the full Senate could come within weeks. Once ratified, the treaty would enter into force quickly. Lajoie believed that the mock inspections were the key to readiness. They would test not only OSIA's inspection and escort teams, but also the Army and Air Force, which operated the INF missile sites, as well as the industrial corporations that owned the missile assembly plants. As the exercise progressed, it incorporated the use of military airlift, the new communications networks, and the provisions for operational security at every step in the inspection process. With Lajoie's decision, the pace of activity accelerated.

Colonel McConnell notified each team chief and member immediately. He challenged them to "get it right the first time" and set up OSIA exercise controllers to critique each inspection.²¹ OSIA' s director of inspections, Navy Captain David E. Olson, penned a personal note to his team: "READ, DIGEST, MEMORIZE THE TREATY. All of us have to be THE EXPERTS."²² All 31 U.S. INF missile and missile-related sites listed in the Memorandum of Understanding participated in these mock inspections. Once a mock inspection began, the inspection teams communicated in Russian and conveyed their requests only to escort team chiefs and linguists. The inspection team used actual treaty site diagrams; they followed the treaty and its protocols. The entire site was usually inspected twice, with the escort team accompanying the inspectors at all times. By the end of the six weeks of mock training inspections nearly all of the American inspectors and escorts (with the exception of the portal monitoring teams) had been through one or more inspections.²³

In Europe, at the 12 Pershing II and GLCM missile bases and depots, the mock inspections were seen as critical because most Soviet inspections would take place at these bases. In February and March, Air Force Colonel John Fer and Army Lt. Colonel Scott G. Lang had set up OSIA's European field office at Rhein-Main Air Base at Frankfurt, West Germany. In the United States, Air Force Colonel Gerald V. West and Army Lt. Colonel Claesen D. Wyckoff had set up an OSIA field office in Washington at Dulles International Airport. Near San Francisco, Colonel Thomas E. Smalls, U.S. Army, and Lt. Colonels Robert Yablonski and Stephen B. Boyd, USAF, established an OSIA field office at Travis Air Force Base. Each of these field offices participated extensively in the mock exercises.

Lt. Colonel Robert Yablonski, USAF, remembered participating in the mock inspections in the spring of 1988. An experienced field grade officer, he had been an air attaché in the American Embassy in Moscow, an Olmstead Scholar to France, and a RAND Fellow prior to his work at OSIA's San Francisco Field Office. As one of the American senior escorts, Colonel Yablonski participated in many of the initial inspections.

"The mock inspections were, no doubt, one of the wisest things we did. Whoever decided to do it, I give them great credit. They performed a number of functions internally in terms of identification with the mission, the escort mission, what it really meant to escort inspectors, and it helped reveal a lot about how inspections should go."

"By actually doing the inspections, by making mistakes, it helped us immeasurably. In fact, it was in the interest of the United States to make mistakes, so that when the treaty went into force on June 1, 1988 and the real inspections began, the U.S. would have its act together."

"The other very important thing about the mocks was the face-to-face contact between the inspectors and the escorts with the treaty-in-hand. I really felt that they had a great didactic and educational function in letting the people at the air bases and army sites learn what the Soviets were going to be like."

"We acted on the principle that it was reasonable to expect a consistency of treatment across the gamut of Air Force installations, both in the United States and in Europe."

"We found out that as you undertake anything, it helps to have a plan, it helps to have a schedule. What really emerged was the necessity to communicate to a broad spectrum of people. The inspection process involved a great deal of coordination to the logistical infrastructure. Then there was another infrastructure for security. All these things had to be done."

"So what became evident during these mock inspections in 1988 was that OSIA didn't own any resources of its own, but that it had the charter to, pardon the word, influence all of these other people to do what had to be done under the requirements of the INF Treaty."

Source: Interview, April 4, 1989

For Colonel McConnell the inspections were a real turning point.²⁴ For General Lajoie they signaled "the most useful training that had been done."²⁵ For the escort team chiefs and site commanders the inspections were a chance to work through coordination issues, especially with the military services and commands in Europe.

The American military officers who would lead the teams into the Soviet Union also found the mock inspections useful, but still felt a measure of uncertainty.²⁶ Apprehension ran high in the weeks following the final mock inspection at Comiso, Italy. In less than six weeks, Americans would be traveling into the Soviet Union to conduct inspections of Soviet military forces and missile sites never before visited by U.S. officials. Among the team chiefs, linguists, and inspectors, tensions increased rather than lessened as the date for the first on-site inspections approached.

"Trust everybody, but always cut the cards."

President Reagan

From the beginning, OSIA's operational concept called for the forward deployment of inspection teams at agency field offices in Europe and Japan before departing for inspections in the Soviet Union. In mid-June, teams of inspectors departed from OSIA headquarters in Washington and flew east to Frankfurt, or west to Tokyo. At Rhein-Main and Yokota air bases, each team received inspection equipment, supplies, and final instructions before embarking on Air Force planes for the flights to Moscow or Ulan-Ude. U.S. portal monitoring inspection teams entered the Soviet Union in the same way, from Frankfurt through Moscow to Votkinsk.²⁷

Just before their departure, President Reagan invited General Lajoie and 15 INF inspectors and escorts to the White House. The President listened to their plans in the Oval Office. There, surrounded by the departing American inspectors and escorts, he commented on their forthcoming mission: "Trust everybody, but always cut the cards."²⁸