Chapter 8 - INF Short Notice Inspections

The United States had fewer missile sites, but distances were similar. For example, the On-Site Inspection Agency was responsible for getting the Soviet inspection teams from Dulles International Airport in Washington, D.C., to one of five INF sites in the eastern half of the United States within nine hours. Those sites were in Oklahoma, Alabama, Florida, Texas, and Maryland. Only the site at the Martin Marietta plant in Middle River, Maryland, was readily accessible to Dulles International Airport. The other American INF sites--at Fort Sill, Oklahoma; Redstone Arsenal, Alabama; Longhorn Army Ammunition Plant, Texas: and Complex 16, Cape Canaveral, Florida, required a combination of air and bus travel to get the Soviet inspectors to the site within the treaty timelines.⁵ In Europe, OSIA's escort teams, operating from the agency's field office in Frankfurt, faced equally stringent timelines. The United States had 12 INF missile operating bases and facilities in five Western European nations: Great Britain, West Germany, Italy, Belgium, and the Netherlands. Each of these nations had a treaty-designated point of entry to which Soviet inspection teams would fly before declaring the site to be inspected. The Soviet teams had to be met by a U.S. INF escort team, which was responsible for arranging air and ground transportation to get the Soviet inspectors from the airport to the American INF site within the nine hours.

Brigadier General Lajoie, Director OSIA, walks with General Major Medvedev, Director, NRRC, and a team of Soviet inspectors. These inspectors had returned to Travis AFB, California, from an inspection site in the western United States.

When Soviet inspection teams flew to the United States, they arrived at either Washington Dulles International Airport or Travis AFB, California. A Soviet team, led by Colonel Kuznetsov debarks from a IL-62 Aeroflot aircraft in California.

The U.S. Air Force had agreed in the spring of 1988 to transport American INF inspection and escort teams on a priority basis. This meant that the Military Airlift Command (MAC) would have to be available on short notice to fly to either of the two treaty-designated points of entry in the United States--Dulles International Airport or Travis Air Force Base, California--pick up the INF teams and take them to the declared site. If mechanical or other problems arose, backup aircraft would be available for the mission. In Western Europe, the United States had 12 missile sites subject to short-notice inspections. MAC assisted in transporting Soviet inspection teams to American missile sites in Europe. In addition, the command would fly U.S. INF inspection teams in Frankfurt to and from the Soviet points of entry, Moscow and Ulan-Ude, on a priority basis.⁶

Before the treaty entered into force, both the United States and the Soviet Union stipulated the types of aircraft that would be used to transport INF teams. The United States indicated that it would use the following military aircraft: C-130s, C-141s, C-9s, and T-43s. The Soviet Union said it would transport the INF teams on IL-62, TU-134, and TU-154 aircraft.⁷ Two other larger transport aircraft--the USAF's C-5 and the USSR's AN-124--were reserved for transporting cargo for the portal monitoring inspection sites at Magna, Utah, and Votkinsk, in the Soviet Union. All aircraft flying INF Treaty missions were assigned standing call signs. OSIA worked with MAC and the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to develop special, new procedures for communicating air location, arrival, and departure times. The FAA worked with the International Civil Aviation Organization to coordinate flight routes, clearances, and communications over international airspace. Diplomatic approval for special flights into the Soviet Union usually required up to 30 days for each flight. For the INF Treaty, however, standard air routes and standing diplomatic clearances were developed for the flights bringing in and retrieving INF inspectors. In addition, both parties agreed to forgo the normal procedure of having a national pilot or navigator accompany each flight. The reason was the frequency of flights (daily in and out of Moscow during baseline and every other day into and out of Ulan-Ude) and the logistical burden it would have imposed. The exception to this innovative policy was the U.S. military airlift flights transporting cargo to Votkinsk; Soviet navigators flew with the Air Force crews on their flights from Moscow to Izhevsk.⁸

These flight arrangements were worked out during the technical talks held in the spring of 1988 and endorsed by Special Verification Commission in July 1988. The procedures remained in effect until a more comprehensive listing of aircraft, equipment, and procedural rules were agreed to by the commission, and codified in the December 21, 1989, Memorandum of Agreement. On-board navigation systems for each type of aircraft also were detailed in this memorandum.⁹

At the end of this inspection at an SS-20 missile base at Kansk, USSR, in March 1989, the American inspection team and their Soviet escorts posed for a group picture. The large map behind the group, displays the "Battle Path" of the Soviet military unit stationed at Kansk.