25 Technicians ‘Willing to Sacrifice’ Will Go to the Soviet Union : Hughes to Monitor Treaty Compliance

Hughes Aircraft announced Thursday that it has been awarded a key role in the U.S. program to monitor Soviet compliance with the new intermediate-range missile treaty.

The defense contractor said 25 Hughes employees will be sent to Votkinsk, about 600 miles east of Moscow, to monitor the factory where the Soviets built their SS-20 intermediate-range missiles. The U.S. team there also will include five military representatives.

Hughes’ selection came in the form of an Air Force contract, under which Hughes will receive $1.6 million for the first two months of service and up to $24.1 million if the Air Force extends the contract for five years.

The landmark treaty, which bans both nations’ intermediate-range weapons, is formally known as the Intermediate-range Nuclear Force, or INF, Treaty and was signed May 28 by President Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev. It was the first cut in offensive nuclear weapons in history.

The pact also calls for an unprecedented monitoring program, in which U.S. technicians will travel to Soviet weapons sites to ensure that weapons covered by the treaty are destroyed and no new ones are built. In addition to Votkinsk, American teams will monitor Soviet missile bases and test sites.

Soviet technicians will do the same at American weapons locations, including Magna, Utah, where U.S. Pershing intermediate-range missiles were produced.

The Hughes team, which will include technicians, translators and cooks, will use video cameras, weight scales and infrared equipment to inspect trains and trucks leaving the Votkinsk factory.

The conditions will be less than ideal for the team. Votkinsk, with a population of 100,000, is in the foothills of the Ural Mountains, where the temperature can reach 100 degrees in the summer and 30 below zero in the winter.

The Hughes inspectors must stray no farther than 30 miles from the factory, and “we assume every movement will be observed,” said Jerry Porter, who will lead the inspection team for Los Angeles-based Hughes, which is part of General Motors’ Hughes Electronics subsidiary.

The team’s surveillance of the factory--which will begin Sept. 1--will be around the clock. Inspectors will work 12-hour shifts, seven days a week for nine weeks. Then the workers can take three weeks off in Western Europe, if they wish.

For some team members, that will be the only way they can see family and friends--none will allowed to join the workers in Votkinsk. But Porter, who is still in the process of choosing Hughes employees for the trip, said it appears that the team will be made up mostly single people whose average age is 33 or 34.

And despite the relatively harsh conditions, Porter, 49, who works out of Hughes’ Technical Services division in Long Beach, said he has received more than 300 resumes from Hughes workers interested in joining the team.

“They all have a sense of being part of history,” he said. “They are willing to sacrifice.”

Yet because of the difficult environment, Porter said he’s placing “a lot of emphasis on the personality of the people” on his team, and that he’s choosing “patient, personable” recruits.

Building Apartments

“I could have gotten better technical people, but I would have had to sacrifice personality, and this time I didn’t do it that way,” he said.

Hughes and the Air Force said they are hoping the team members will not have to sacrifice all of their American tastes. Although the inspectors at first will live in temporary quarters on the Votkinsk site, the Soviets are building four, two-story apartment buildings that will be furnished with modern appliances by Hughes, said Hughes spokesman John Harris.

The buildings will also have common meeting and eating areas, a kitchen, library and gymnasium. The team’s cooks will use “American-style food” flown in from Western Europe, “except for the most common staples, such as milk and eggs,” Harris said.

Although Hughes’ current contract extends up to five years, each nation may post inspectors near the gates of the other’s missile factories and conduct surprise inspections of their missile sites until the year 2001.