Editor’s Note: We lurch into the second day of the Federal Government Shutdown. Days ago, we wondered if anyone would notice if the Feds were not working. It suddenly comes to a dramatic revelation: the Commonwealth of Virginia maintains it historic blue laws on the commercial sale of bonded spirits on Sundays.Naturally, this does not apply to federal reservations like the Shoppette/Class 6 store are Fort Myer. But with the Government shutting down, suddenly this is a crisis….
In the meantime, Point Loma visits us with a two-part tale from the days after the Soviet Union collapsed…and some useful travel, cultural and career tips for our young naval officers…
– Ed
A Tale of Two Cities – Part One
I will try my best here to keep closer to being true to the spirit of providing value-added to the almost lost art of Naval Operational Intelligence, in addition to tales of liberty and other tomfoolery. So, here is the story of my experiences in dealing with the Russians, who have reappeared as our primary adversaries once again. It’s sort of like the lyrics from the Jackson Browne song:
“Last night I watched the news from Washington, the capitol
The Russians escaped while we weren’t watching them, like Russians will
Now we’ve got all this room, we’ve even got the moon
And I hear the USSR will be open soon
As vacation land for lawyers in love”
I will tell the entire story in two parts during two visits to Russia in 1994 and 1995; two very different experiences. I will try to put these into the proper context and shed some light on what we are experiencing today in dealing with these very worthy and worrisome opponents.
Red Square at Sunset
Like all good sea stories, let me start it off properly – “This is no shit…”
In November of 1993, I arrived in Newport, RI, as a student in the College of Naval Command and Staff at the Naval War College. In the process, I was re-visiting my commissioning site of 13 years previous; now married, mid–career, perfect. I was coming off what was a very satisfying Westpac combat tour of duty aboard USS MIDWAY and USS INDEPENDENCE. I was feeling pretty good about getting a second bite at the educational apple – and it was time. I liked it so much that I signed on for a three-year shore duty tour at the War College after graduation.
Note: For you young JO readers out there, here is some career advice. First, you want to go to junior and senior service schools. They are a good deal and it is beyond nice to be able to take a year off to think and re-charge. Second, you want to do at least one of these at Newport. Disregard what BS the detailer is telling you and insist on Newport. If all of those other pretenders out there (i.e., Carlisle, Leavenworth, Montgomery) are the “good deals” on the plate, extend for a year. I wound up doing a three-year tour in Japan, just to get to Newport – because it’s a GREAT deal. And in going to Newport, for us Navy guys there is the option of inserting yourself into the rotation in March or November and getting to “summer over.” You want to do this, because summers in Newport are terrific. It’s not a party foul to game the system and remember, it’s you career and you need to manage it, the Navy doesn’t give a shit. And if you want a GREAT deal, don’t be afraid to ask – they may say “no” but they also may say “yes.” Pick and choose your moments as only the detailers get to write their own “good deal” orders, at least once. And the real estate principle applies – location is everything. Now, I have to put it into context since I did senior service school at Harvard. Bottom line: you have to be fucking shit-hot during your sea duty tours to get to grab the brass rings when they are offered. And when they are, take them.
During the summering over at Newport, we were offered via e-mail with the opportunity to go to Russia for two weeks, Moscow and St. Petersburg, sponsored by the Russian Academy of Sciences USA and Canada Institute to learn about Russia, and the Russian Navy. There were eight open spaces and the competition was War College wide for those of us summering over; we had to submit an application accompanied by a short essay on why we should be chosen. I was selected.
The progenitor of this good deal was a Navy Captain on the staff who had supported START negotiations while on the OPNAV staff in a past life, and who also had knowledge of Nunn-Lugar and how to get funding. Our chosen team met a couple of times to go over the ground rules before we left for Moscow. All of the Navy war fighting and support communities were represented. I was the token intel officer, and quickly bonded with a former Tomcat pilot with whom we had some common friends; I got to be his wingman for most of the trip, and vice versa.
On the appointed date on a Saturday, we flew commercial from Providence to New York JFK and from there to Moscow Sheremetyevo airport, where we got held up for several hours while our bonafides were examined. It was our first welcome to Russian bureaucracy. After running the gauntlet through Russian customs and immigration aided by the US Embassy Naval Attaché’s office, we were ushered to our digs at the only US-sponsored and owned hotel at that time in town, the heavily-guarded Radisson Slavyanskaya, on the left bank of the Moscow River. I noted then that the square across from the hotel was populated by a large number of homeless-looking people, and it was going to get worse. Finally at the hotel, ensconced in our rooms and in a sanctuary of sorts, we of course rallied in the bar for the security briefing from the Naval Attaché. He told us that Moscow was “rough” and a little like the Wild West, he admonished us to use the “buddy system” when going out of the hotel compound on liberty.
The Bar at the Radisson Slavyanskaya in Moscow
The hotel featured a work-out gym and also a disco in the basement. We guys had already started to notice the very attractive young and mostly blonde women passing by the bar, which was in sort of a central atrium setting, and also the presence of a lot of serious-looking security dudes. As it turned out, the hotel was where all of the Russian mafia guys housed their girlfriends, justifying the quality of the spectacular eye candy. Since the timing of this trip was just after the spying revelations of Marine Corporal Clayton Lonetree, I engaged the attaché who was a former West Coast naval aviator:
“I think I can now see what the problem was with the Marines. Good Lord, look at these Russian chicks. I, myself could have the same problem keeping my dick in check. What is the deal?”
He thought for a moment just as the latest stunning blonde, supermodel specimen walked past, and said:
“Officially, the policy is that you can’t have “intimate relations” with a Russian. That said, the Marines have a disco at the Embassy Annex where they live and the Russian girls line up to get inside on the weekends, sort of like the WXOFF at Miramar or the MCRD club in San Diego back during the day. Here, the girls show up at the gate and tell the security folks that they are Ukrainians since they speak Russian down there – and there are no rules saying that you can’t fuck a Ukrainian.”
On Sunday, we met our counterparts. By and large, they were good folks. However, the leader of their group, the rough equivalent to the Center for Naval Analyses, was Sergei Rogov. Sergei was a tall, ugly, and imposing guy, of whom I could only describe as an arrogant prick.
Sergei Rogov, Director of the USA-Canada Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences
They had put together a quality curriculum for us to learn about the vagaries of the Russian government and social systems. It was an interesting week. His chief lieutenant for handling us was a young analyst named Igor Sutyagin, whom we got to know and like a lot. We sort of considered him a FSB guy based on his line of questioning but he was subsequently arrested and imprisoned a few years later for suspicion of being a spy. He was a good guy, albeit a bit pushy. He was released in the big trade of spies a few years ago in the Anna Chapman case. He now works for a Brit think tank group in London. We liked him, either way, and I am glad to see him and his family doing well now that he is a free man once again.
Anna Chapman – Sleeper Spy
On Monday, we began a week of serious instruction on how the Russian system operated, and in the process, gained an appreciation of how complicated their lives were. If you think living in the USA is hard, it pales in comparison. And by the way, every instructor we had was a PhD and was published, both male and female; they were well-schooled and good. If you think that these people are backwards and thereby lesser, then you make a huge mistake; they were good. Those were long days at the Institute, but we also were afforded afternoon tours at various landmarks around Moscow to include the Kremlin, Red Square, Lenin’s tomb, and Saint Cyril’s’ with its iconic turrets. These attractions were a short distance away, and we took buses for the most part. Otherwise, we stayed in the relative safety of the hotel. But we did make several sorties both supervised and not.
It was during one of these excursions that we were offered the chance to dump the bus and walk back from Red Square to our hotel, through the walking shopping mall that the Russians were establishing with western assistance. For once, we were free, after class hours, to do as we pleased so I wanted to get out and see the people; my wingman for this outing was another Navy LCDR. We strolled through the couple of miles or so through the shopping mall area back in the direction of our hotel. After the walking mall, we encountered numerous police cars with officers sitting in the back seats either dealing drugs or with hookers, and people wandering down the streets with bleeding head wounds, no doubt recently beaten. And by the way, the roads were shit, full of potholes and the traffic was hellish. We navigated all of this after exiting the relative calm of the walking mall area and were cruising across the bridge over the Moscow River with our hotel in sight. Then, we encountered one of the bands of marauding gypsy kids, who were holding up people all across the city. We had been warned about them and here they were – oh shit.
We were obviously the target. Their MO was out of Gulliver and the Lilliputians, where the smaller kids would surround and grab you, rendering you immobile, and then the older kids would snatch your wallet, camera, etc. I warned my buddy once I realized that we were in danger and assessing the situation, I told him that we should charge them and be aggressive, basically turning their attack tactics 180. I started running at them, swinging my arms wildly and giving them a good southern Rebel Yell; I tried my best to run the kids out into the bridge traffic where they would get hit by cars – I didn’t give a shit. My wingman, unfortunately, chose to not follow my lead (he was a shoe), turned tail and ran. The gypsies didn’t want any part of me and I blew through them like shit through a goose. They instead turned their attention to my former wingman, who got cornered a few blocks up the street later and had to fight them off by removing his belt and using it like a whip. I walked to the hotel and he showed up 30 minutes later, after taking a taxi back. We met up in the bar and after exchanging survival stories, we laughed this one off.
There were organized outings for the group – we went to the Moscow Circus one night, for example, and I braved the Moscow Metro another afternoon and went to the Moscow Museum of Art to see the Salvador Dali exhibit that was in town, when I got there, the line ran around the block, and after checking out the entrance and heading towards the end, I was grabbed by a couple of guys who were Georgians since I was so obviously American. They were really funny and no doubt hated the Russians. We were speaking Pidgeon English but I got it. They told me that they were Georgian, and driving it home by saying, “…you know Scheverdnazye?” I nailed them with my response “Stalin.” I got slapped on the back for that and after some more conversation, I asked them for some tips for a good place to go. They gave me the name and address of what turned out to be great Georgian bar and restaurant. Damn, was I having fun or what? My Tomcat friend was the only one willing to go out and brave the city after dark. We went, that night, and it was awesome.
At the end of that week, we took an overnight train to St. Petersburg. After the relative cosmopolitan Moscow, the Russian countryside offered a stark contrast – very poor. What we could see in the daytime portion of the trip was a lot of small homesteads with garden plots, very little signs of urbanization like streetlights, paved roads, etc. Upon arrival in St. Petersburg, we were taken to the Kempenski Hotel, which had recently been redone in anticipation of well-heeled guests in town for the upcoming Goodwill Games.
Our schedule in St. Petersburg was mainly focused on cultural events – visits to the Winter Palace, the Hermitage, the Aurora, etc., and mil-to-mil exchanges. We spent a couple of days in seminar at the Russian Naval War College and in the process, delivered a year’s worth of contraband anti-cancer drugs for the benefit of a senior Russian Navy captain named Viktor – I can’t remember his last name now). He was the first visiting Russian professor in Newport, and had been diagnosed with lung cancer shortly after his arrival during a physical. He wound up spending two years there due to his surgery and recovery time. The cancer drugs we smuggled into Russia were generally unavailable there, so we were very welcome guests indeed.
My personal cultural highlight was attending a Russian Orthodox Church service at the open-air Kazan Cathedral right up the road from the hotel. If you haven’t been, the service is sung, and hauntingly beautiful. Also, no kneeling – you stand during the entire service.
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Kazan Cathedral – St. Petersburg
The trip home was relatively uneventful except for having our aircraft break down in Helsinki. We were 15 minutes from crew rest necessitating an overnight there – which I definitely wanted since that is where my father’s family is from but alas, the goddamn Delta mechanics managed to rain on that parade. I did get to drink cold vodka and eat reindeer at a good restaurant in the airport, but I wanted more. So, we flew most of the day and night back to New York and from there to Providence – mission complete.
I did not know at the time that in a little over a year, I would be re-creating that same trip but in a different capacity after graduation from the war college. While the locations and some of the players were much the same, it was going to be a very different experience. To be continued…
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