Archives for October 2019

Oct 24 2019

Two Tales of a City, 2015 – Part 2

Fast forward to 2015. Not only were Sally and I looking forward to a nostalgic trip back to Germany and a visit with friends in Augsburg and Ansbach, but we also had the pleasure of sharing this journey with our sixteen-year-old grandson Gavin. Forty-two years from our first visit, we landed in Berlin on December 7, excited to see how the city had changed. We could never have imagined how great that change would be.

Our new Marriott hotel was located near Potsdamer Platz, a section of the city that was once behind the Wall in the former East Berlin. As we walked about the area we were stuck by the vibrancy, prosperity, new development, and excitement of locals and visitors. Busy stores, restaurants, and businesses abounded. As we crisscrossed the city the brick trace of the Wall, laid out in brass, could be seen meandering along the pavements and streets. Except for chunks here and there the Wall was gone but its history not forgotten.

Checkpoint Charlie now existed only as a tourist stop, the guard house remaining but actors in quasi military dress now playing the crossing guards. Museums to recall the Nazi era, the Holocaust, Cold War, East German gadgets and lifestyle were all available to the public to visit and to remember, with sobering clarity and sometimes with humor. We’ll never forget walking past Trabi World Tours.

Sally by a Trabant tourist rental Dec 2015

The old Trabant had made a comeback! An enterprising and apparently successful Berliner provided rentals for tourists. Who could resist travelling the city and experiencing a ride in this unforgettable “classic”!? It was another great example of entrepreneurial capitalism popping up in unexpected places.

Perhaps our most enduring memory came at the start of our trip. When we landed in Berlin it was late afternoon, and as our taxi sped into the city the early December night had fallen. The lights along the streets showed a city alive with activity and the Christmas season beginning. Straight ahead we could see in the distance the Brandenburg Gate brightly lit. Through its arches were clearly visible an enormous Christmas tree, a large Menorah and Star of David. All three were brightly shining and spoke in such a powerful way of reconciliation in a city once torn by hatred and oppression. We will always be grateful for the blessing of this gracious memory, a beautiful benediction to our Berlin experiences. Indeed, “… it was the best of times.”

Inside the Brandenburg Gate in former East Berlin

P.S. From co-authors, Eric and Sally: for excellent reference, we recommend the book

The Collapse, The Accidental Opening of the Berlin Wall, by Mary Elise Sarotte.

Oct 24 2019

Two Tales of a City, 1973 – Part 1

INTRODUCTION:

November 9, 2019, marks the 30th Anniversary of the Fall of the Berlin Wall.

In 1961 when most of the West Point Class of 1969 were enjoying their first heady experiences of high school, construction began on a wall that would split Berlin into two distinct and isolated sectors. This event, emblematic of the greater divide between Communist Europe and the free West, was probably little noticed by those teenagers, but it had huge implications in the way they would come to see the world and serve their country over the next thirty plus years.

Part I

With apologies to Charles Dickens for playing on the title of his classic novel, “A Tale of Two Cities,” our story is two tales of a city divided and ultimately reunified. Dickens began his tale with the memorable line, “It was the best of times. it was the worst of times…”. Our story begins, “It was the worst of times…”

SIDEBAR: The Wall

By 1961, more than 3.5 million East Germans (about 20% of their population) had fled communist occupation for freedom in the West, frequently exiting through Berlin. The Soviets and East Germany, fearing the exodus would only get worse, began a second blockade of the city, dividing Berlin into two cities. This time they succeeded.

Construction of a barrier began on 13 August 1961, sealing off West Berlin into a virtual island within Soviet controlled East Germany. Consisting of concrete walls, barbed wire, guard dogs, bunkers, guard towers with machine guns and a death strip or no-mans-land of anti-vehicle trenches, this impenetrable Wall dramatically symbolized the “Iron Curtain” that separated East Germany and other Soviet bloc countries from the West.

Over the next 28 years, approximately 5,000 citizens of East Berlin managed to escape and at least 140 were killed attempting to gain freedom. Then, on 9 November 1989, when East German authorities, through an extraordinary confluence of events, announced that it would allow limited visits to West Berlin, masses descended on the Wall, breaching the barrier. On 22 December 1989, the Brandenburg Gate was opened. Official demolition of the Wall began on 13 June 1990 and finally ended on 3 October 1992.

“It was the worst of times.” Vietnam was winding down and the Army in Europe was suffering morale and serious drug problems when I arrived fresh from a combat tour in Vietnam for a three-year assignment at Herzo Base, Headquarters of 210^th Field Artillery Group, outside the town of Herzogenaurach, West Germany. In 1973, while commanding C Battery, 1^st Battalion, 33d Field Artillery (a nuclear-capable Honest John Rocket firing battery) I decided to give my troops a hands-on lesson to explain why we were in Germany and to see the face of our adversary, up close and personal. I knew there was no better place for troops to learn that lesson than Berlin, the epicenter of the Cold War. Having gained command approval for this “adventure training” and receiving official transportation orders, I gathered a group of soldiers and wives for a memorable trip … and my first view of Berlin.

During that time in order for active duty soldiers to travel to Berlin, special military travel authorization had to be issued by the US Army Europe Headquarters, translated in Russian and French. These “Flag Orders” (so called by the US flag header atop the orders – see inset, below) remained in our personal possession throughout our visit and were carefully checked by East German guards. With these orders in hand, we boarded the “Duty Train” at the Frankfurt Bahnhof (main train station) on 5 October 1973 late in the evening and traveled in darkness (as required by Communist authorities) through East Germany to West Berlin, arriving early morning on 6 October. We travelled with shades drawn at all windows and as we crossed into East Germany, the train stopped for our orders and ID cards to be checked. Although we each were assigned old-fashioned, private couchettes with bunk beds, no one fully relaxed, or, in my wife Sally’s case, changed out of street clothes.

On arrival in West Berlin, we checked into military lodging and began touring a vibrant city, whose citizens hustled energetically along busy streets to offices, restaurants, and homes brightly lit at night in stark contrast to her surrounding neighbors in East Berlin shrouded in darkness. Our first view of the famous Brandenburg Gate, blocked by the ugly Wall, was one I never forgot. For me, it embodied the hatred and fear of malignant Communist tyranny determined to oppress its people and to spread its cancer across the globe. I was proud then, as now, to be an American soldier dedicated to preserving the freedoms of the West and protecting those in need.

One highlight of the trip for all was a visit to Checkpoint Charlie, the best-known official crossing point between West and East Berlin. From the wooden observation platform, my troops and I looked directly across the Wall and the “death strip” into the eyes of East German guards in a gun tower with orders to shoot anyone attempting to flee East Berlin. It was a sobering experience.

Checkpoint Charlie Berlin Wall 1973 — Sally at Checkpoint Charlie – October 1973

Death Strip Berlin Wall — Looking across the Death Strip

American side warning Berlin Wall — Achtung! Warning at the border of the American Sector

One evening, Sally and I traveled from the American Sector to the French Sector for a special dinner at the French Officers’ Club. After a wonderful meal with the time now past 11 pm, we walked to the nearest UBahn (subway) station and hopped aboard the first train heading back to the American sector and our temporary lodging. Little did we know that we would find ourselves traveling through the bowels of East Berlin making 2 underground stops, where Grenztruppen (East German Border Guards) stood watch armed with the East German version of the AK-47. Darkened, littered and unwelcoming, the East German stations allowed passengers to leave the train, but no one got on. With a Top-Secret clearance, nuclear duty assignment, and my GI haircut, Sally sat holding her breath and I sat slumping in the seat hoping not to draw undue attention! Fortunately, our brief and unauthorized excursion into communist territory ended without drama and we once again entered the brightly lit, clean, and vibrant West Berlin station in the American sector.

UBahn map of West & East Berlin lines 1973

Although tourists could and did visit East Berlin, American military personnel with security clearances were not authorized to do so.

Interestingly, in 1984 on a second assignment to Europe, I did once again visit East Berlin while Aide to the SACEUR (Supreme Allied Commander of Europe) General Bernard Rogers (USMA Class of June 1943) – this time in an official status. General Rogers, along with a group of distinguished visitors and wives, was being given a VIP tour. Our guide proudly drove us through the city, many areas still in ruins from WWII bombing, and pointed out their officer housing area, reminiscent of inner-city subsidized housing with over-grown grass, trash, and windows partially covered with sheets or blankets. We were escorted into a Zeiss Optics store, where “shopping” consisted of standing at a counter and asking a clerk to retrieve the item you wanted. She would retrieve it for you to see, but not handle.

As we crossed a major city street, I will never forget the discordant racket and dense exhaust smoke of traffic, consisting mainly of Trabants, the flimsy East German car with a 2-cycle engine, once described by a well-known automotive journalist as “loud, slow, poorly designed, and badly built.” This automotive gem, I learned, was available to East-Bloc customers after waiting only 13 years to buy their own car.

When in West Berlin with General Rogers, we stayed at the beautiful “Wannseehaus” which had been the site of the infamous Wannsee Conference held in January 1942 (where Nazi high officials met to decide and coordinate plans for Hitler’s “Final Solution”). After the war its reputation was somewhat redeemed as an Allied war reparation asset, and later as a museum to the Holocaust.

One evening while there, the SACEUR hosted a dinner party for various dignitaries, which included the Swedish Ambassador to East Berlin. The ambassador obviously enjoyed his posting and regaled us with stories of the lifestyle of Communist party officials entertaining him and other dignitaries. It was quite busy, he said, with frequent lavish dinner parties, featuring the choicest foods and finest wines, cruises, and social events. When asked how these luxuries were available in East Germany, he laughed and said the Communist officials sent a truck daily to West Berlin to stock up at the KaDeWe, the city’s enormous department/grocery store, second only to Harrods in London. For all of the deprivations of the average East German citizen, Communist officials lived the life of luxury, all enabled by the bounty of the West. As the old saying goes, some Communist comrades were “more equal than others!”

Oct 22 2019

An Adventure in the “Socialist Paradise” – 1990

In 1990, as an exchange officer serving in the State Department, I was involved in arms control negotiations and treaty compliance issues between our country and the Soviet Union. One aspect was the a diplomatic “tit for tat” unspoken rule – whatever we allowed or did – they did.

Under the ABM Treaty we constantly met on compliance issues and a “big” one at the time was the legal placement of Long-Range Phased Array (LPAR) radars. They were by treaty to be on each’s periphery and facing “out.” They complained about our upgraded one at Thule, Greenland as not being on our soil (we said it was “grandfathered” before the treaty and could be upgraded). We complained about theirs at Krasnoyarsk as not being on the periphery and overlooking Siberia (in truth their construction of such massive buildings had to be not on permafrost and its location may have been chosen for that reason.)

Russia Radar Site — Pechora Radar Site, Russia

In the relaxed tensions after the fall of the Berlin Wall, we engaged in “confidence building measures” with our Soviet counterparts. One such was the idea of trips to each other’s LPARs to demonstrate only early warning capabilities. In the Fall of 1990, we engaged in one that I had a part in developing. We took them to Thule and they took us to Pechora above the Arctic circle in Russia. Both radars had essentially the same capability but were quite different in size and construction. Since theirs was clearly “legal” then we got the added admission that ours at Thule was too – reciprocity in action.

LPAR site Greenland — US LPAR, Thule Greenland

We went first and hosted them in Washington for a week of sightseeing, shopping, and meals. Their delegation was populated, as was ours, with intel and military experts and not the standard diplomatic types. That was interesting as most had never traveled to the West before and exposure to our country was quite the shock.

We put them up at the Dulles Hilton and took them to the Tysons Mall for a shopping experience. They thought the mall was a “Potemkin Village.” (A Potemkin Village was a Russian Czarist era phony “show place” created to deceive the viewer.) So, we took them to the Springfield mall the next day to show them the reality of the commercial shopping. The DC area traffic also amazed them – so many privately- owned vehicles of all types. They could not believe the abundance in the stores – or the wide variety of products.

Socialist grocery — American Abundance Evident to the Visitors

We then flew them to the US base at Thule, Greenland with the Danish Embassy Deputy Chief of Mission along to further emphasize the “legality” of the Thule radar although not on “our territory” but on Danish territory.

Soon it was our turn and we went to the Soviet Union for a week of sightseeing and dining in Moscow – followed by a flight to Pechora. It was eye opening as the Soviet economic system was still in place – although the black market thrived.

Our Russian hosts were very accommodating allowing us the same ability to see and even video things at the sites we had given them. So, we saw the socialist paradise at its best. A few anecdotal events were illuminating – and central control of economy exposed. They needed a cost mechanism called “price.”

My first observation was at a dinner at our hotel, a Stalin-era structure. We could not get service or the attention from any waiter, and those who did around us got it very slowly. The waiter got paid whether he served us, or did not serve us, I guess. We loudly complained that we thought that our host (a KGB general) would not be very pleased with our treatment. We were then served immediately.

Our rooms were quite spartan. The toilet paper was soft as a paper bag. We had brought several rolls of our own and these proved to be very well received “tips” for the maids. The floor had an old woman seated in the hall. Our room keys were tied to a very large object and we had to give them to her when we left. I guess so they could be sure when we were out and were free to “inspect” our rooms. Also, there were no shower curtains around the tub and shower. This concerned our female members of the delegation.

Moscow hotel — Ukraina Hotel, Moscow (today)

Going to dinner in Moscow, we noticed the embassy van had the windshield wiper rubber blades removed. Apparently, these were in short supply in the community and would be taken if left on the vehicle. As currency rates were grossly inflated officially (rubles were worthless except “officially”), we had to be very careful of the use of dollars and rubles. So, we also carried Marlboro cigarettes, a very favorite of the many chain-smoking Russians. A few packs were offered to bystanders to watch over our vehicle while we dined in the restaurant.

Our shopping trip was not to GUM (state department store in Red Square) but along the Arbot. A street allowed to trade in basically black market and bartered exchanges. There were many lines along the state shops and stores with many empty shelves. Folks would line up when any shipment came into a state store. For instance, if boots arrived all would be gone in a moment – even if the customer did not need boots or they were not his size. They were material for bartering for what he did need.

One very interesting site was a Pepsi-Cola vending machine. The Soviets had purchased the rights to bottle it as an alternative to the national drink – vodka. But the system had its planning flaws as there was a shortage of paper cups. So, there was a metal dipper chained to the machine as a drinking cup. One dropped in the kopeks and used the dipper to catch the Pepsi and drink from it. There were not many takers for the community ladle.

We spent some time at the old American Embassy. The newly constructed one could not be used for any sensitive business as the Russian and Polish construction crews had managed to make listening devices part of the concrete pour. The new one did have housing, a bowling alley, and recreation areas. During the week, I observed a road repair crew fixing a single pothole in the street we crossed each day. It was probably an hour job, but these guys managed to take four days – no incentive to getting the job done early.

Much of the trip dealt with information gathering on their radar capabilities and answering our questions on their massive structures. Suffice it to say, the separate transmitter and eleven-story receiver buildings housed massive tubes and floors of old 1960s computer racks. They essentially got the same definition on their screens as our smaller arrays and laptops, but at what a cost! They simply did not have cost or efficiency measures to worry about. And all designs were the same, no matter where they were built. I used the restroom on the top 11^th floor at Pechora site and it would not flush. Embarrassed, I reported the problem to my escort. He had a soldier go down and get a bucket of water. Apparently, the local water tower was well below the 11^th floor level – but the state design called for a restroom on each floor!

So, as we contemplate any socialist state these days, we must beware of central planning, and its consequences and inefficiencies. Incentive is lost and the lack of the simple valuable element called “real price” makes for poor allocation of resources.

Oct 22 2019

CAPS – Detecting and Defeating Foreign WMD Threats 1992-2008

In the late 1980s the Cold War seemed to be coming to an end, and my work as a nuclear weapons designer was about to lose a lot of significance. My boss at the Lawrence Livermore Laboratory asked me to take an assignment at the Pentagon to be the nuclear weapons advisor to the Secretary of Defense, and I did. It was during those two years at the Pentagon that I realized that Congress was going to end nuclear testing. I knew enough about nuclear weapons that without testing, one does not design and develop a nuclear weapon. When I returned to the Lawrence Livermore Laboratory, I took over two groups within the Analysis Division and I had to come to grips with the fact that we would no longer be designing nuclear warheads.

One of the missions of my analytical groups was to design a more effective nuclear weapons complex for the country. So, I had a group of experts who knew how to build a nuclear weapon from scratch. I held a meeting with my analysts and said that instead of analyzing how to better build an American nuclear warhead, I wanted to know how to stop a foreign country from creating one. To get things started, I went to see a midlevel bureaucrat in the Department of Energy and got a grant for two hundred thousand dollars to study how North Koreans were trying to build a nuclear weapon. The year was 1993.

We completed the study in six months and briefed the DOE official on what we had done with the grant money, and he was pleased. But I couldn’t expect to keep getting grants from him. So, I put together a briefing and began to show it to officers in the Joint Staff of the Pentagon. During my time at the Pentagon, I had built up a small coterie of friends on the Joint Staff who knew my background, and they spoke to their bosses about the work I had set out to do. I came to the attention of the newly appointed director of a brand-new Office of Counterproliferation headquartered in the National Defense University. He in turn introduced me to a very intelligent chief of staff of the House Armed Services Committee who was very interested in having the Defense Department conduct counterproliferation operations. He liked what I had to show him. The US Strategic Command (STRATCOM) had just opened a staff position within its Strategic Planning section to deal with counterproliferation, and Congress sent funding to it with a proviso to use the funding to support my program. It was the start of a program I called the Counterproliferation Analysis and Planning System (CAPS).

Now, having a more or less solid source of funding, I began to put together a team of analysts. I was careful to get some of the best talent I could recruit within the country. I particularly wanted chemical engineers who had extensive experience building production plants. I took my time and over the course of two years I put together an impressive group of engineers who understood process engineering. The group leader was a chemical engineer who had designed ninety-nine chemical plants around the world during his career. I also hired a chemical engineer from Chevron Corporation who had just retired as their chief designer of petrochemical plants. I brought in a biotech engineer who had designed the factory in Bakersfield, California that produced the bacteria sprayed on farm fields through California’s Central Valley; the bacteria is a cousin of the bacteria used to make the biological agent Anthrax. Then, too, I brought in the missile engineer who was the program leader for building the third stage of the Trident Missile system. These and other experts became the core of CAPS.

Once the program was established, I had to get the combatant commands to use it. (The Goldwater-Nichols Act of 1986 established “combatant commands,” in which regions of Earth were segmented by geo-location into military commands. Each of these Headquarters has a particular mission in their own region as they protect and defend U.S. interests. The combatant commanders become experts in those regions and by strengthening defense capabilities and making contacts in their own designated region, they are able to provide intelligence for and response to incidents in that region. For instance, Central Command held responsibility for the Middle East – during the Gulf War, General Schwarzkopf commanded Central Command, which is why he commanded US troops.)

General H. Norman Schwarzkopf with troops

Our baptism of fire, if you will, was during the Kosovo conflict. The way CAPS presented a country that posed a security threat to us was to thoroughly analyze its manufacturing capabilities, and using intelligence information, locate manufacturing sites within the country that could support a national WMD program. Then we presented how dropping ordnance on selected sections of those sites could cause significant collateral damage. Basically, we showed planners how to stop undesired activities without causing unwanted hazards. Air Force units in European Command had targeted and bombed a suspected chemical agent manufacturing plant and had caused liquid mercury to spill into the Danube River. It was an ecological and public relations disaster. Eventually, someone asked the Air Force why they hadn’t used CAPS in their planning, and that’s when the Air Force learned about CAPS. Once they became familiar with the program, the Air Force became a solid promoter of the program.

The commander of STRATCOM, Admiral Richard Mies (USNA ’67), greatly appreciated the work we did. He had a vision of adjusting the mission of his command to address the threat of proliferation, and he made CAPS an essential part of his new mission. To make better sense of his vision, he invited me to join him to Tampa to visit the commander of the Special Operations Command (SOCOM), General Charles Holland (USAFA ’68), and to brief the staff of SOCOM about CAPS. I remember standing before the two commanders and the senior staff of SOCOM, there must have been fifteen stars pinned to collars sitting around a conference table and showing them what we could do in counterproliferation. My briefing worked, and eventually SOCOM took over sponsorship of the program.

Especially in the beginning of the wars with Iraq and Afghanistan, CAPS was used extensively. We were asked not only to analyze and locate possible WMD program sites, but to also locate manufacturing sites in the war theater that could cause an environmental threat to troops in their vicinities. For instance, many small cities had fertilizer plants that possessed large storage tanks of ammonia, a highly dangerous chemical to breathe. During Operation Iraqi Freedom, we identified over four hundred sites that posed dangers to advancing Army units.

I led the CAPS program for seventeen years before moving on with my career at the Laboratory, and I am proud of what the program accomplished. At least on two occasions, data from CAPS was given to a US President to guide him with making decisions about combat operations. The program was cited by the Secretary of Defense as being the department’s premier counterproliferation planning tool.