________________________________________________________________________Richard S. Kem
Forces in Germany, having coffee with him before we went on to talk to the First Army
folks, he said, "You know, it's really important that we French and you Americans are seen
together like this, not only from the standpoint of the Russians, but also from the standpoint
of the Germans." I thought that was an astute statement of the way things had worked out
over time. That's about the time frame that we got the ultimatum from the Germans: start
training like the others.
With the status of forces agreements, the Germans were meeting with the French and the
Brits and us, wanting to do it separately. We were all saying, "No, we've got to be in this
together because sending forces have common kinds of issues."
Well, then you swung to the Soviets and asked about our ability to predict. Other things were
happening at this time. The thaw in relationships was happening.
The President had met with Gorbachev. The Secretary of Defense had met with the Soviet
Defense Minister. The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs had met with his counterpart. The next
in that increment of exchanges was to be CINCUSAREUR.
Q:
Yes.
A:
So, the door was opened by the administration, the State Department, that we ought to be
facilitating and having this exchange. I need to backtrack a little bit, just to identify that the
Chief of Staff was the point of contact in USAREUR for the Soviet military mission in
Frankfurt. Also then was the point of contact for our own military missions in Potsdam and
Berlin.
Now, our military mission would have a point of contact with the Chief of Staff, Group of
Soviet Forces, Germany, as well.
I had a lot of interaction with the Soviet military mission at Frankfurt. I visited them there
and had them down to the headquarters in USAREUR. Likewise, Brigadier General Greg
Govan--he was a colonel then--was our chief of mission in Potsdam, and he did the same
with them.
Out of all this came an invitation from General Snetkov to the CINCUSAREUR to come up
and visit them at their headquarters. I flew up to Berlin, drove over to Potsdam to our
military mission headquarters, and met with their Chief of Staff, Major General V. Fursin, to
make the arrangements for this get-together.
That was a rather interesting meeting. At that meeting we made the arrangements for a
USAREUR visit to their headquarters. We decided on a delegation of six principals, and they
would match with six principals.
General Saint, of course, led our delegation. I went along. The DCSOPS went, along with
two division commanders and the command sergeant major.
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