European Stars And Stripes (Newspaper) - July 6, 1988, Darmstadt, Hesse                                Wednesday july 6, 1988 the stars and stripes Page 3 welcoming the soviet inspectors is photo by Gus Schuettler a handful of americans turned out at Rhein main a s flight line tuesday to Welcome a 19-Man soviet team coming to West Germany to inspect two . Missile Sites. The soviet inspectors Are Here to begin monitoring compliance of the recently signed arms treaty eliminating medium Range nuclear missiles. Alone am responsible skipper says Manama Bahrain a it s widely said in the . Navy that any warship sooner or later takes on the character of its skipper. But there s Little about capt. Will c. Rogers Iii to suggest he commands what he Calls the most sophisticated ship in the world bar  the ship the guided missile Cruiser Vincennes and its skipper a soft spoken grading Man in his mid-40s, Are at the Center of the storm Over the shooting Down of an iranian jetliner Over the persian Gulf on sunday. Rogers reportedly insists that i alone am response  it was Rogers from his console in the ship s dark ened command information Center who ultimately gave the shoot order that sent two sm-2 Standard missiles roaring off their deck launcher to blast the plane from the sky. Only later did the United states admit that what the Vincennes officers had identified As an iranian f-14 fighter diving on their ship was in fact an Iran air a300 Airbus with 290 people aboard. Inquiry set the Captain and his tactical action officers will be called to answer questions under oath before a team of top military and technical experts who were to arrive in the Gulf tuesday to investigate the incident. In Rogers they will find a Man who As one Navy officer said has probably aged ten years in the last two  you cannot help but feel for the Man said another. The first priority is protecting the ship and it was his decision. Once you fire them you can t get pm  the officers spoke on condition of anonymity. Rogers a native of fort Worth Texas has a dry wit and so much of the american Southwest in his manner and voice that he spends a lot of time deny Irig he s related to the famous Oklahoma Cowboy humorist will Rogers. I Don t know How that Rumor got started but it a photos the guided missile Cruiser Vincennes commanded by capt. Will c. Rogers Iii insets one of the Navy s most sophisticated warships. In t True. Even my Mother says so he said recently when reporters visiting his ship asked. The Vincennes launched at the Ingalls shipyard in Pascagoula miss., three years ago wednesday is the third of the Navy s billion Dollar Aegis Type missile cruisers designed to defend an american Battle Fleet from air and missile attack. Its computer linked surveillance and missile system is built around phased array radar which can simultaneously identify and evaluate the threat if any from dozens of targets. In the command information Center the targets appear not on the usual round screens swept by a lighted Wand but As fixed blips on huge Blue video screens where display features can be expanded or reduced in size to provide a variety of instantaneous data. The Vincennes gee Whiz merchandise As Rogers Calls it is tailored for multiple functions at the same time. Its powerful radar system can help plan a Battle or head off Aerial threats developing hundreds of Miles away. But Rogers said no technology is foolproof or Imper Vious to failure. He said that if an attacker were to disable his ship s computerized system we re basically Back to rocks and  the Vincennes arrived in the Gulf on May 27. As the first Aegis Type Cruiser assigned to the waterway sailed into it Rogers had difficulty in explaining for reporters Why such a potent warship is needed Here. Battle management finally he said that putting this ship with its radar into the Gulf will put a lot of Battle management on the scene. Maybe we will be Able to reduce the Force level in the Gulf and Back away from recent tensions in the  the iranian threat he said let s face it it s a Low level threat. We Don t consider the iranians an enemy. We re not at War with  As the six Man team headed Here to investigate the Iran air disaster sources in Washington quoted Rog ers As telling superiors he had followed procedures and that if he again faced the same situation he would take the same action. This is a Burden that i will carry the rest of my Lite but i took this action to defend my ship and my Crew. 1 alone am responsible he was reported As saying