Russians To Inspect Submarine Base `The World Is Upside-Down,’ Cold War Veteran Says

Russian military experts are planning a visit that once would have been unimaginable. They’re going to tour the Trident submarine base here and check out some of America’s most sophisticated nuclear weaponry.

“The world is upside-down, it seems like. To me, all this is still mindboggling,” said Senior Chief Petty Officer Glendon Witt, a missile technician and 22-year Navy veteran who will show them around.

The team of 10 Russian military specialists is inspecting 34 U.S. military installations between March 1 and June 28 under the 1991 Strategic Arms Reductions Treaty (START I).

American inspectors have made similar trips to Russia. Witt himself has traveled throughout the former Soviet Union under other arms-limitation agreements.

“It’s unsettling when I sit down and think about it,” he said. “Such a short time ago, I would have been shot for having seen what I’ve seen.”

The visit comes on short notice, but Capt. Paul Cochran said he and his work force at Bangor are prepared.

“We have some leftover Cold War veterans here, and I’m one of them,” he said. “But they are not upset. We all agree that strategic arms agreements are a good idea.”

The treaty signed by President Bush and Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev was the first armscontrol agreement to reduce strategic nuclear arsenals. It requires elimination of 40 percent of the bombers, ICBM silos and ballistic missile submarine launch tubes that carried more than 9,000 of the 21,000 warheads the United States and former Soviet Union declared when the treaty was signed.

The inspectors will see what is called for under the treaty, but not much more of the Strategic Weapons Facility Pacific on Hood Canal, Navy officials said.

There are strict timetables for each inspection, including a 15-minute limit to count the warheads on a selected missile.

“By treaty, we don’t have any obligation to show them anything except rocket motors,” said David Rigby, spokesman for the On-Site Inspection Agency, the federal agency organizing the inspections.

“The inspectors will see what we want them to see and we will endeavor to see that they see nothing else,” Rigby said. “We’re not going to have Russians running amok out here like mice.”

Key points of the inspection at Bangor will include the first and largest stage of the Trident I missile - the rockets that launch nuclear warheads out of Trident submarines.

Members of the media on Thursday were given a preview of what Russian inspectors will see. Reporters were given an unprecedented opportunity to walk around an inert Trident I missile inside the 10-foot cyclone fencing marking Bangor’s most restricted area.

The treaty allows inspectors access to any building with doorways as wide or wider than 74 inches. Classified documents and equipment will be shrouded with brown paper and masking tape, Cochran said.