Scott Ritter - Disarmament in the Time of Perestroika: Arms Control and the End of the Soviet Union

An absorbing account of how the US verified the key agreement that ended the Cold War. Should be read and absorbed by all who wonder how we can overcome the rush to war today.

JACK MATLOCK, former US Ambassador to the Soviet Union

Ritters riveting personal history of nuclear arms control as seen from the inside, with its intense personal and institutional conflicts, could not come at a more propitious moment. Ritter is telling us that Americas dispute with Russia today must not prevent the renewal of serious arms talks, with all of their difficulty.

SEYMOUR HERSH, Pulitzer Prize-Winning Investigative Journalist

Scott Ritters book could not be timelier. He transports us back to an era where the world stood on the brink of a nuclear apocalypse. With an intimacy and eye for detail that only comes from having experienced the events he describes firsthand, Ritter walks us through the threat posed to the world by intermediate-range nuclear missiles, and the amazing work done by the American inspectors and Soviet factory workers tasked by their respective governments to eliminate them. In the process, Ritter and the characters in his narrative help create the conditions for one-time enemies to learn to live together in peace.

DANIEL ELLSBERG, author of The Doomsday Machine: Confessions of a Nuclear War Planner

Scott Ritters page-turner focuses on his role as inspector monitoring Soviet implementation of the US-Russia INF treaty of 1987a near-miraculous agreement under which an entire class of short- and intermediate-range nuclear missiles was actually destroyed . Scott gives us a fascinatingly intimate account of the bumpy on-site road to effective inspection/verification. Bumpy even in the presence of the mutual trust existing at the time. That trust is now squandered. God help us.

RAY McGOVERN, former senior CIA analyst for Soviet/Russian affairs

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Arms Control and the End of the Soviet Union

A Personal Journal

SCOTT RITTER

Clarity Press, Inc.

2022 Scott Ritter

ISBN: 978-1-949762-61-7

EBOOK ISBN: 978-1-949762-65-5

In-house editor: Diana G. Collier

Book design: Becky Luening

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED: Except for purposes of review, this book may not be copied, or stored in any information retrieval system, in whole or in part, without permission in writing from the publishers.

Library of Congress Control Number: 2022935660

Clarity Press, Inc.

2625 Piedmont Rd. NE, Ste. 56

Atlanta, GA 30324, USA

https://www.claritypress.com

This book is dedicated to the memory of George M. Connell and Douglas M. Englund, two ardent Cold Warriors transformed into Pioneers of Peace

Douglas Marz Englund
19402017

George Murdoch Connell
19422015

Zurab Tseretelis statue, Good Defeats Evil, outside United Nations Headquarters. The dragon is made of parts taken from SS-20 and Pershing II missiles.

Yet when I hoped for good, evil came;
when I looked for light, then came darkness.

JOB 30:26

I HAD HEARD ABOUT IT long before I first laid eyes on it. Entitled Good Defeats Evil, the bronze sculpture was of Saint George on horseback, slaying a Dragon that was made from missile partsa quintessential depiction of disarmament. The massive bronze statue (standing some 36 feet high and weighing in at 40 tons) had been presented to the United Nations by the Soviet Union on the world organizations 45th Anniversary on October 24, 1990. It was the work of Zurab Tsereteli, a renowned artist from the Republic of Georgia, and commemorated the landmark Intermediate Nuclear Forces (INF) treaty, signed by US President Ronald Reagan and Soviet General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev on December 7, 1987.

Tseretelis installation made use of metal bits and components from decommissioned US Pershing II and Soviet SS-20 missiles. These two missiles were the yin and the yang of the INF treaty. The Soviet deployment of the road-mobile SS-20, armed with three nuclear warheads, had, in 1979, tipped the nuclear balance of power in Europe to Moscow. The US had responded by deploying the Pershing II missile, which could reach Moscow from its launch sites in West Germany in less than 8 minutes, threatening the Soviets with nuclear annihilation.

Previous arms control treaties sought to limit the number of missiles in the respective arsenals of the US and Soviet Union. The INF treaty was differentit banned these missiles, and others like them, altogether. The Pershing II and SS-20 became the symbols of the INF treaty, paired together as a reminder of both the evil man could create, and the ability of man, if he had the will, to overcome that evil.

On the morning of September 23, 1991, I took advantage of my presence in New York City to examine Tseretelis sculpture up close and in person. I left the Helmsley Hotel and walked down 42nd Street, toward First Avenue. The sun was out, the sky was blue, and New York City was laid out before me in all its glory. I paused before crossing First Avenue, admiring the line of flag poles that fronted the United Nations compound, the colorful banners of its many member countries snapping in the breeze. Tseretelis statue was installed in a park just inside the gate to the UN compound.

Good defeats Evil. I agreed with the sentiment behind the title but was uncomfortable with the certainty it conveyed. The cause of disarmament was a pure oneof that there was no doubt. This was especially true regarding the INF treaty, where inspections, begun in July 1988, were at the time of my visit still ongoing and would continue until 2001, when the 13-year period set forth in the INF treaty expired.

The INF treaty, however, was more than a simple black and white construct. Like any experience derived from the human condition, it was far more nebulous in character, created from a palette of differing shades of grey. This was especially the case when observed from the Soviet perspective. The INF treaty was implemented during a time of great change in the Soviet Union. The deployment of the SS-20 missile represented the high-water mark of the Soviet missile production facilities involved in its manufacture. The elimination of the SS-20 missile under the terms of the INF treaty, conversely, signaled the start of a period of steady economic andgiven the hand-in-glove relationship between Soviet defense industry factories and the communities that supported themsocial decline.