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Historical Documents
On-Site Inspections Under the Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces Treaty
CHAPTER 9
EPILOGUE: CONTINUITY OF ARMS CONTROL AMIDST REVOLUTIONARY CHANGES
President Mikhail Gorbachev and President George Bush sign
the Threshold Test Ban Treaty in the White House on June 1,
1990.
| On June 1,1990 at the
Washington Summit President Bush and President Gorbachev
signed the new Protocols to the Threshold Test Ban Treaty
(TTBT) and the Peaceful Nuclear Explosions Treaty (PNET).1
These treaties, first signed in 1974 and 1976, limited
the size of each signatory's underground nuclear explosions
to 150 kilotons or less. The new Protocols authorized
reciprocal verification rights, including monitoring
nuclear tests through on-site inspections, seismic measurements,
and under certain conditions, hydrodynamic measurements.2 |
| President Bush Directs OSIA
Expansion |
| These treaties and their new protocols
were the first of several significant, new bilateral
and multilateral arms control agreements in 1990-1991.
Recognizing that the U.S. Government was entering into
a new phase of cooperative arms control agreements,
President Bush issued an executive directive just prior
to the Washington Summit. He expanded the On-Site Inspection
Agency's charter to include operational planning and
preparations for four arms control agreements under
negotiation: Conventional Armed Forces in Europe, Chemical
Weapons, Strategic Arms Reductions, and Nuclear Testing.3
The President cited three reasons: OSIA's extensive
experience in conducting on-site inspections under the
INF Treaty, the long lead times associated with identifying,
assigning, and training linguists, and the pending series
of new arms control treaties. With this directive, President
Bush changed the On-Site Inspection Agency from a single-
to a multi-treaty agency. Within the United States
government, all treaties moved through a sequence
of actions from treaty negotiation to implementation.
The process began with diplomatic negotiations to
develop the treaty text, protocols, and annexes. Presidential
approval and formal signature, usually at a summit
meeting, were followed by a presidential directive
defining roles and missions for carrying out each
aspect of the treaty. The Constitution required the
President to submit the signed treaty to the U.S.
Senate for its advice and consent. Following Senate
hearings, debate, and ratification, the treaty was
returned to the President for his signature and a
formal exchange with the other signatories. Actual
entry into force and implementation of the treaties
began after the formal constitutional provisions had
been met.
For the two Nuclear Testing Treaties, TTBT and PNET,
and their new protocols, the initial phases, diplomatic
negotiations and presidential signature concluded
with the Washington Summit of June 1, 1990. In defining
which government departments and agencies would carry
out the provisions of the treaties, the President's
National Security Council staff surveyed existing
laws, directives, and precedents. They incorporated
President Bush's directive to expand the On-Site Inspection
Agency with the laws and policies governing the Department
of Energy's and the Department of Defense's conduct
of underground nuclear tests. The result was President
Bush's directive in mid-July l990. In defining the
roles and missions for those departments and agencies
responsible for the nuclear testing treaties. The
Department of Energy would carry out all of its statutory
obligations in planning, scheduling, and conducting
the U.S. underground nuclear tests at the Nevada Test
Site. The On-Site Inspection Agency would manage and
support the on-site monitoring of the nuclear tests
conducted under the Threshold Test Ban Treaty. Management
included providing for team leadership, linguists,
logisticians, and administrative support personnel.
Support included responsibility for treaty training,
funding, communications, logistics, and the construction
of facilities including inspector housing and treaty-required
seismic stations. Because of the technical nature
of conducting controlled, underground nuclear tests
and the complex rights and obligations under the new
protocols to the treaty, the President stated that
extensive coordination would be necessary between
the Department of Energy, the On-Site Inspection Agency,
and the other agencies of the Department of Defense
involved in nuclear testing.4 |
| President Bush submitted
the treaties and new protocols to the U.S. Senate in
early July, 1990. From July to September, the U.S. Senate
Foreign Relations Committee held hearings on the new
protocols. Following hearings and debate, the full Senate
consented to ratification in late September by a vote
of 98-0. The Soviet Union's legislative body, the Supreme
Soviet, voted unanimously in early October to ratify
the two treaties and the new protocols. For the next
ten weeks, the treaties and accompanying documents were
readied for the formal exchange.5
While the Bush administration was working through
these Nuclear Testing Treaties decisions and constitutional
processes, negotiations on the Conventional Armed
Forces in Europe (CFE) Treaty were moving toward a
conclusion in the summer and fall of 1990. This was
a complex, multinational treaty with multiple protocols
for inspections, reductions, notifications, reclassificiation,
and categorization. Personnel from OSIA, who had extensive
experience in implementing the INF Treaty, advised
American treaty negotiators working on the CFE Treaty.
As the treaty negotiations grew progressively more
detailed and intense, General Lajoie succeeded in
placing some of the agency's most experienced INF
team chiefs and inspectors as technical advisors on
key backstopping committees and treaty working groups
in Vienna, and Washington.6
When CFE Treaty negotiators in Vienna began focusing
on inspection and reduction protocols, Lt. Colonel
Paul Nelson, an experienced Army foreign area specialist
and INF Treaty team leader, went to Austria and served
as technical advisor to the U.S. delegation. After
a month, Colonel John C. Reppert, US Army, a senior
Soviet specialist and INF team leader, lent his expertise
to the delegation. While these CFE negotiations were
underway, General Lajoie dispatched Irene Nehonov,
OSIA's Russian Language Coordinator, and Lt. Colonel
Vitali Mostovoj, USAF, an OSIA team chief, on an extensive
round-the-world trip to California, Hawaii, Japan,
and Europe, to interview and evaluate hundreds of
linguists for training and then assignment to the
agency. More than one hundred and fifty linguists
would be needed by 1992 to carry out the inspection
and escort provisions of the new treaties. The first
group of a continuing stream of these military linguists
were entering formal training when the CFE Treaty
was signed in Paris in mid-November 1990.
President Bush went to Paris on November 19, 1990,
where he joined the leaders of 21 nations in the formal
signing ceremony for the CFE Treaty.7
Immediately thereafter, the President's National
Security Council began the process of defining the
roles and mission of those U.S. Government departments
and agencies responsible for implementation. Since
this was a treaty which focused exclusively on conventional
arms--tanks, artillery, aircraft, and other military
equipment--the U.S. Department of Defense was assigned
principal responsibility. Within DOD, the U.S. European
Command (EUCOM) and the On-Site Inspection Agency
received specific missions in managing and carrying
out the United States' treaty rights and obligations.
At OSIA, General Lajoie acted quickly, instituting
a major internal restructuring of the agency less
than three weeks after the treaty was signed.
In their preparations for implementing
the Conventional Armed Forces in Europe Treaty, OSIA
inspectors and escorts participated in a series of
site visits and trial inspections at U.S. Army sites
in Europe.
|
| On December 1, 1990, OSIA's Field
Office Europe was elevated to be the OSIA-Europe with
responsibility for conducting all of the United States'
CFE Treaty inspections.8
OSIA-Europe retained responsibility for serving as a
gateway office, supporting both the INF Treaty and Threshold
Test Ban Treaty missions. The CFE Treaty mission, however,
meant a significant expansion. To carry out all aspects
of the European operation, the command would be increased
from 20 to 150 people. In Europe, three senior officers,
Colonel Frederick E. Grosick, USAF, Colonel Lawrence
G. Kelley, USMC, and Lt. Colonel Scott G. Lang, USA,
directed the selection and recruitment of new team chiefs,
deputies, linguists, inspectors, and support personnel.
Training for these new inspectors required a rigorous
regime because the CFE Treaty differed from other treaties
in several important respects. There were five types
of equipment--tanks, armed combat vehicles, artillery,
aircraft, and helicopters--and approximately 188,000
treaty-limited equipment items. There were six official
treaty languages: English, Russian, French, German,
Spanish, and Italian. The number of treaty parties (22
in 1990), and the anticipated use of multinational inspection
teams, also differed from the experience of the INF
Treaty. At OSIA-Europe, Colonel Kelley and his staff
concentrated their efforts on developing in each new
inspection team a thorough knowledge of the treaty,
skills to recognize the types and variations of treaty
equipment, and a linguistic vocabulary for communicating
and understanding treaty-specific information in multiple
languages. At the same time, Colonel Grosick and Colonel
Kelley worked with the U.S. European Command in devising
and scheduling a series of CFE Treaty trial inspections.
These trial inspections were conducted with the operational
military forces and multinational inspection teams from
the NATO alliance.9 |
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Drilling crew maneuvers large drilling
bit into emplacement hole at the Nevada Test Site. |
