ANSS Trip

THE SOVIET GENERAL IN BLUE JEANS

By Anna Edwina Lawson




If I had ever imagined meeting a General of the Soviet Union, I probably
would have imagined that our country had been invaded. I certainly would not
have imagined a short and slightly overweight man in blue jeans. And I would
not have imagined him here in Leonard Oklahoma taking his turn on a shovel
to dig a hole for planting an Oklahoma Redbud tree.

Two years before, my dad told me that Russians might be coming to record
vibrations from American underground hydrogen bomb blasts, just like they do
at the Oklahoma Geological Survey near Leonard. They also record
earthquakes, some of them in Oklahoma. I asked dad then if we would
"have to protect ourselves with machine guns".

The next thing I remember about the Russians coming, was a newscast of
President Bush and President Gorbachev at the White House signing many
different papers. Someone told me that one of the papers said the Soviet
Union would have a seismograph station at Leonard and at two other places in
America. Russia had to build three stations for Americans. All of these
places would be empty except when a bomb over a certain size was tested.

My dad named the dirt road running by the Soviet station "Glasnost Road".
Glasnost was a new word in their language that means something about "open".
Once the papers had been signed the plans were no longer secret, and a
Glasnost Road sign was put up. The sign was in Russian and English. Their
language is strange. The G is an upsidedown turned around L. L is an A without
a middle bar. For S they write C, for R they use P, and for N they write H.

The U. S. Army engineers came to put up a building, chip a seismograph
vault out of rock, and put a high fence around it. The fence was not there
to keep Soviet scientists inside, but to keep them from accusing Americans
of damaging their equipment. That is a strange reason for a high fence.

It was late October when I was in the seventh grade, when seven Soviets in
casual dress came to inspect the fenced station. They spent a whole week
measuring everything. They even checked to see that the electric plugs had
the different voltage Russian equipment uses. They said it complied with the
treaty, but they were unhappy that the Ladies room door stuck. There were
ten Americans in the American Escorts or Watchers building outside the
fence. They agreed that the United States would fix the door. The Americans
were in blue jeans. They looked just like the Soviets.

There was some smoking problem. Many Soviets smoke one cigarette after
another. Their little building is like their embassy in Washington.
Americans can not enter without permission, and Americans can't tell them
not to smoke. But the United States had provided no ash trays. The Oklahoma
Geological Survey came to the rescue with seven empty diet cherry coke cans
to act as ashtrays. Having an aluminum can recycle box helps save the
environment. On this odd occasion the can box helped solve an international
problem.

Dan Moss was a retired United States Air Force pilot. He worked part
time as a volunteer seismic analyst at the Observatory. Dan was also a
master gardner. He bought a redbud tree and raised it at his Bixby
home. He intended to present it to the Soviets. We were all sad when
Dan died one week before the first Soviets came.

My dad presented the Oklahoma Redbud tree to General Shedlovskii and
"honored guests from the Soviet Union" one Saturday morning that October.
The bright red and yellow Soviet flag was flying to the left of the American
flag at the Oklahoma Survey building. The individual Soviets were presented
with Oklahoma Rose rocks. The barite rose is the Oklahoma State rock.
I passed out copies of a Russian poetry book, which was translated into
English and published in Tulsa.

The General in blue jeans made a long speech in Russian, which another
Soviet translated. He talked of "shared victory in the World War". He also
said that religion was returning to the Soviet Union. He said that the
Oklahoma redbud tree should symbolize Soviet-American friendship, and
also be a memorial to Dan Moss.

Five months later five Russian Scientists were at the their Oklahoma
building to record a hydrogen bomb blast in Nevada. The blast was delayed
so long that they stayed three weeks. At night the U. S. escorts drove them
to a Tulsa Motel. I think things had changed. Their red flags were gone.
Their flag was the same colors as ours, only it had wide stripes of white,
blue, and red. I was told they wanted to be called Russian, and their
country called Russia, not Commonwealth, and not the Soviet Union.

This year the Russian's Redbud tree bloomed for the first time. It is sad
that they may never come back to see it's blooms. But it may be good that
they have not returned because it means hydrogen bombs are not being tested.
I was told that the General and others are busy planning with our Air Force
how to detect atom bomb tests in countries like Iran and Iraq. It's almost
as if they came to Oklahoma because America and Russia did not trust each
other, and now they may not return because we do trust each other more than
we did.

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Bobcat said:

The last few days were long ones and we didn't get much of a chance to post or stop by to see anyone. Mike was riding with me in my installation truck, but I have unloaded him so that he can fly off to his next assignment. Getting the smell out of the truck is another thing. Anyway, I've decided to hold up in Lincoln, NE for a few days to have the truck serviced. It is a GMC, ya know.

Kinda cool seeing the treaty monitoring bunker. Memory lane for me; one of my old jobs was related to CTBTO. There was lots of old gear that I recognised and I'll bet there was a device or two that had my paw prints on them in the way back. Turns out I know more about the gear in and over the bunker than the current owners/custodians and they've asked me to come back some day and help get some of it running for them. I think I may have wrangled a free dinner or two.

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