European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - September 28, 1991, Darmstadt, Hesse                                Hunger in the soviet Union canadians conduct Post coup inspection by Joseph Owen Stuttgart Bureau capt. Patrick a. Rechner dined with men he had trained to fight observed a troop exercise that did t occur and visited Canadian Graves perhaps no Canadian had seen in half a Century. But the Canadian army Captain had known from the Start that visiting Russia s Northwest Arctic Region would be anything but routine. Rechner 28, an infantry officer from Toronto is one of six russian speaking officers assigned to the Canadian forces arms control verification group at the Canadian base in Lahr Germany. He and three other team members flew to the soviet City of Murmansk on sept. 5 to conduct a Challenge inspection of soviet forces under the terms of the 1990 Vienna agreement on Confidence and Security building measures. The agreement a pact among All 38 countries attending the conference on Security and cooperation in Europe requires a signatory to notify All its counterparts at least 42 Days in Advance when scheduling a military exercise in which troop Levels will exceed 13.000 or the number of Battle tanks will exceed 300. It also empowers one country to inspect another s military forces at a single site or area for up to 48 hours provided that at least 36 hours notice is Given. In mid summer the soviets announced plans to conduct an exercise involving More than 13.000 troops on the Kola Peninsula East o Northern Finland later they said they had scaled Down the exercise so that troop Levels were below the notification level but Canada giving nearly two full Days notice said it would hold a Challenge inspection in the area. The canadians Mission was to make sure the exercise represented no threat to nato countries. Other nato nations have conducted inspections in the soviet Union under the 1990 Vienna agreement but this was Canada s first said air Force maj. Russ Konyk the group s Deputy commander. And it was the first foreign inspection of the soviet military alter the Short lived August coup against Mikhail Gorbachev a a government. The team hew overnight to the soviet City of Murmansk on a c-130 Hercules cargo plane arriving at about 6 . Quot we had breakfast on Board our aircraft which turned out to be a mistake because our soviet hosts had a breakfast for us in the vip lounge when we got there Quot Rechner said adding that the team received a third breakfast at the military Garrison at Pechenoga. There turned out to be Little for the canadians to inspect. The soviets had cancelled the scaled Down Maneu vers reducing the event to a command Post exercise. A soviet lieutenant general said the now defense minister had cancelled All Large scale military events until at least the end of september because of Quot August s events Quot an oblique reference 1o the coup attempt. The team split into two parties and began the inspection anyway they travelled mostly in helicopters because of the area s size about 180 by 60 Miles and the Lack of Good roads soviet escorts went out of their Way to make people available for questioning Rechner said and they allowed unrestricted Aerial photography of military installations scattered across undulating Shrub covered Tundra that reminded him of Northern Canada. Rechner said the escorts made grateful references to the fact that Canada had notified the soviets of the inspection nearly 12 hours earlier than required. Quot it saved them a lot of time and running around waking people up to prepare for this Quot he said. Rechner s party landed about noon at a site near the town of Pechenoga where soldiers from a motorized Rifle battalion were engaged in weapons training. The unit seemed to be full of soldiers Between 18 and 20, representing Many of the vast country s ethnic groups he said. A they reminded me of my own soldiers that i had commanded Quot Rechner said. He said he consciously avoided discussing soviet internal political problems with them. Quot we kept most of our questions on the polite. Military  air Force maj. Michael g. Tepplo 34, remained in Murmansk with the air Crew to Monitor communications. In his free time he toured the City of 500,000 people the largest City in the world North of the Arctic Circle. Quot we had free rein anywhere in the City Quot he said adding that the store windows seemed fairly Well stocked. Quot Murmansk is probably a lot better off than a lot of soviet cities because it s a fishing  on the second Day following a tank live fire exercise the canadians departed Murmansk Overland for sever Omorse a restricted town near the Barents sea coast. There they visited a Small cemetery containing the Graves of seven Canadian troops and an unknown soviet Soldier killed in the area during world War ii. The five canadians who had been identified died in september 1941 and september 1942 while trying to ship supplies to the soviets to help them resist nazi Germany a invasion. The team members Laid a Wreath they had brought irom Germany As Well As Cut Flowers the soviets had Given them. Quot we asked the caretaker who takes care of the site and he believed we were the first westerners there since the War Quot Rechner said the Vienna agreement was designed to Foster a growth of Trust among the 38 signatories Konyk said the work his inspectors and those of the other countries do seems to be enhancing National Security for each country and thereby enabling them to disarm further. We re Likely to have a Job for a while in other words Quot Konyk a d the canadians already have trained for inspections under the pending conventional forces in Europe treaty by practising on their own forces and those of the Netherlands Germany the United kingdom and the United states they plan a cafe trial inspection this fall m Hungary a former Warsaw pact nation of course if the treaty gets ratified m the interim the whole thing gets called to a halt and the real thing  Konyk said. Page 14 Herbert Hoover pictured Here in Poland in 1946, worked for famine Relief after both world wars. Hoover led Relief Effort in 1921 by Joseph Albright Cox news service in a Creaky microfilm Cabinet at the National archives is the record of an almost forgotten episode in which american sex military officers and other Aid workers travelled into the soviet Union and fed several million starving russians following a Harvest failure. During the cold War neither Moscow nor Washington seemed eager to commemorate their first fling with International cooperation that began 70 years ago. But now As Washington worries anew about the Prospect of soviet famine this Winter the forgotten events seem suddenly relevant. It was a muggy August of 1921 in Washington when the cables brought news of the calamity in the soviet wheal Fields the communist Central committee admitted that crops had failed in a Broad band of Russia Aid the Ukraine inhabited by 18 million people. The rest of 11,0 soviet Union had no Grain to Send the soviet rulers of appealing to the rest of the world for help. The republicans in the White House had their minds in the Domestic Economy which was in recession. After a it me american people were still recovering from a War. Ine president a the now a lamented Warren g. Heng decided that it would be unchristian and 1 Quot Oral to let the russians starve. It a a hers irom Harding s diplomats sketched the horror l a it was already happening in Russia. One dispatch quoted a Moscow newspaper saying Quot crowds of starving both children and adults ail under the open ski. All begging and gathering up scraps and wandering m and direction often dying on the Way of typhoid or cholera russian peasants ate roots horses hooves and entrails from Slaughter houses russian news puppis reported instances of cannibalism the Job of overseeing russian Relief fell to Hardma s Commerce Secretary future president Herbert Hoover who already wore a second hat As head of a big now York private Charity organization int had supervised food distribution in Western Europe after world War i in a few weeks Hoover pulled together a team of 180 american Aid workers headed by retired  army officers and including a corps of Rhodes scholars borrowed from their studies in England. They would become the first american representatives inside the communist state at a time Moscow and Washington had no diplomatic relations. The communist newspaper pravda reported on sept 21, 1921, that the first american ship the Phoenix arrived with an initial cargo of Cocoa milk and sugar. Taking Charity trom the capitalists was t pleasant for the Moie doctrinaire bolsheviks Quot let us take the gifts of american Charity without gladness Quot pravda continued Quot alms taking is  a gradually the soviet press warmed up to the american envoys. One Moscow article described them As Quot Young men in starched collars and neckties Quot who managed to get things done a the americans differ from us russians Quot the soviet commentator wrote. Quot we in tackling any task a commence with a plan. The plan is . Extending Over dozens of years. The americans do not reckon with years but with weeks and  with the help of hired russian employees the americans set up thousands of soup kitchens in an area extending from the Ukraine to soviet Asia american cargo ships carrying surplus american Corn and pork began streaming into soviet ports under the Protection of american Navy destroyers. The scale of the american Enterprise stunned everyone. Benjamin Weissman one of the few scholars who has studied the american Aid Mission has written that by the end of the first Winter 180 american Aid workers supervised 18,073 feeding kitchens in 25 provinces. In addition Hoover s organization a the american Relief administration a was supplying Medicine to 1,800 hospitals and 3,600 other soviet institutions. A the Money came not Only from charitable donations but from the american taxpayers. At president Harding s request Congress appropriated $20 million to buy surplus american farm commodities to teed starving russians the Navy department agreed to turn Over Quot surplus Quot food clothing and Medicine left Over from world War i. After the worst of the Winter passed some of the More doctrinaire soviet communists began peppering the Aid program with criticism. Why one article wondered did t the americans Send along some locomotives and some of their abundant Supply of automobiles As Well about the same time the american government s mistrust of communists began to reassert itself no locomotives until Russia Quot swings further to the right Quot Hoover wrote in the Spring of 1922 by the end of the first year the americans had fed 9.4 million russians the communists were eager to have the americans stay on a second year but Herbert Hoover decided to pull out. The soviet agents were beginning to pester the american feeding centers with Quot propaganda Quot his aides told him. Also there were signs that the 1922 Soviel Gram Harvest would be better than 1921. Quot the great famine in Russia is Over,1 Hoover declared a an achievement he would sometimes Point out to voters when he ran for president in 1928 one irony about his achievement is that by alluvial my soviet hunger in the Winter of 1921-22, the fiercely anticommunist Hoover helped save the shaky communist regime irom being overcome by the anger of the russian mobs Tople turn to bartering begging hoarding a Civ suck urls r9on user by Felicity Barringer the new York times a gloomy Rainy dusk was beginning to descend on . User when tour trucks each Laden with Loui cows pulled up at the Industrial City s huge Slaughter House a another ton of beef headed for cold storage but the delivery Icett the Sverdlovsk meat factory still some 15.000 tons shy of its 199 production goal and Vasily i Nazarenko tire Plant s general director said there was no Way the quota would be met the problem he said was an inability to pay ins suppliers he has Money bul that is not what the stockmen want. In return for the Promise of 4,000 tons of beet Lamb and pork irom farms and candies in 1 to Kurgan Region Southeast of the City he must deliver 10 to 15 Corn harvesting machines 12 electric Tor Kilts two Industrial meat mincers a sausage making apparatus and a Long list of other Industrial senders Quot now i have to run around among the Lactone Here to beg Lor this  he Sand Quot i come to a factory and ask give me this and i la teed your people and the reply is. What do we need you for we can handle our own exchanges directly. Quot Nazarenko is a middleman in the Middle of an economic maelstrom his suppliers Are in flight from the currency now derisively called Quot wooden  for him and tens of thousands of other businessmen in the soviet Union Metal Moat and wheat Are the currencies of Choice and. According to factory managers City officials storekeepers and Revenue police officers those with Access to these Basic currencies Are not in the mood to share whether an economic Patchwork Quill of bartering begging hoarding and haggling will keep the country s 290 million people led Over the coming Winter is a conundrum with immense implications a hungry country is unlikely to be politically stable. And a politically unstable country is less Likely to be Able to absorb outside Aid resentment of the current situation already runs High a now that bartering is allowed factories Are buying Tood and vegetables for their own people Quot said Vladimir s ral dug who Heads the regional militia division empowered to Quot fight against economic  Quot but they All forget that there Are also schools medical facilities transportation  Fie said these people Don t get anything from tins All they have is their salaries the spasm of Tierce protectionist regionalism that ruptured economic ties throughout tie country before and particularly after the failed August coup has been exceptionally painful Here it has been decades since the sprawling Sverdlovsk Region once a food exporter raised enough to feed itself All but 6 percent of the work Force has moved off the farm City officials say a Sver Lovite is a hostage of the old system Quot Ongory Tso Kher a City Council member said Quot eighty continued on Page 16 the stars and stripes saturday. 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