Imagine, Me, a Treaty Negotiator

OV-10 Bronco in the Air Force Museum in Dayton

I’ve never told my kids about one of the coolest things I did while on active duty in the Air Force. (My USAF career ended before they were were born.) They knew I flew airplanes and Diane told them I had “an attitude” when we first met, but other than the occasional “I remember when…” story, they really don’t know much about what I did. This post, in the off chance they might read it, fills part of that gap. I’m hazy on some of the details but I think the story is overall accurate.

Flashback to late 1988. I was a Lieutenant Colonel assigned to International Program Management in the Pentagon. I’d been working with The Netherlands (and other European Air Forces) for a couple of years helping them buy and support their F-16 fighter aircraft systems. I’d flown the F-16, was familiar with operational and logistics issues and they valued my experience. One day I received a request to meet with the Dutch Attaché, Col Sneke, at their embassy in DC. I was surprised, I was on the minion level compared to him but, what the heck, sure.

We met, he had a proposition…create a joint USAF and Dutch F-16 training program in the US. Holland would shut down their own program. He and his staff had it worked out…it was very expensive for a small country to maintain a training squadron and infrastructure diluting the operational capabilities of their Air Force. The USAF had a joint US/German F-4 training course at George AFB, CA, and Sneke proposed a similar operation for the Dutch F-16 at George. The Dutch would provide some aircraft, pilots and support personnel, the USAF would provide the lion’s share. US and Dutch students would train together as they might fight together. The George AFB program was run by the USAF’s Tactical Air Command (TAC), now Air Combat Command and Sneke wanted a similar setup. I was enthusiastic about the concept but told him I had less than a year left on active duty and so for continuity, we had to move quickly. Well, as quickly as bureaucracies can manage.

Colonel Sneke had access to the highest levels of Pentagon and TAC. He spent quite a bit of time talking with the very top staff but did not get the response he was hoping for. The USAF was not willing to start another joint fighter training program. Well…not the active duty Air Force, the Air National Guard was a different story. Colonel Sneke and the Arizona Air National Guard came to a conceptual agreement about creating the joint F-16 program at Tucson International Airport, (now the 162 Fighter Wing). USAF HQ and Arizona agreed and off we went. Lots of moving parts to this agreement and most of them were handled directly between the Air Guard and the Dutch. My role was to negotiate the treaty to make it legal.

Yep, this sort of thing didn’t just happen. Sharing airframes and pilots was one thing, flying high performance, armed aircraft over foreign lands is different. Since the Dutch pilots and aircraft were to be “permanently” stationed in the US, specific parameters needed to be worked out, similar to what our forces were living with when they were stationed in Europe. The Pentagon & the State Department decided that the best way forward was to negotiate an Amendment to the current Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA). The SOFA, with the other types of military agreements, establishes the rights and privileges of foreign personnel in a host country in support of the larger security arrangement and generally defines the host country’s responsibility. Somebody way up the food chain in the US government gave me a “warrant” to negotiate the modification to the SOFA with Holland. I was given a team of lawyers, accountants, Air Guard reps, and more. By the time we started, I had only a few weeks left on active duty but even more importantly, a critical budget decision in Holland had to be made and conclusion of the negotiations was the linchpin. Site of the negotiations was the Dutch Embassy in DC.

I was pleased to find my counterpart on the Dutch team was Colonel Benno Hemler. Col Hemler was the principal Dutch representative on many of the senior Multinational Fighter Program committees and knew the processes and people well. I had and have, a great deal of respect for him. But, he was a tough negotiator so I knew we would have a spirited time. Col Sneke was not directly involved but was always very close. Benno had only one or two people on his team, I would bring 3 or 4 each day depending on the sections under discussion. We’d finish in the late afternoon, go back to the Pentagon and debrief the senior people who were following the project. There were no cell phones.

We had pages and pages and pages to go through, suggest modifications, discuss and decide. In theory, I had the authority to decide on language, in practice, I knew I needed to take disputes back to the Pentagon for guidance. Most of the time, though, Benno and I hammered out or slogged through the minutiae to get the right language for both countries. But, it was taking a long time. Benno received a call from The Netherlands, his wife had been diagnosed with cancer and might have surgery. He chose to stay in the negotiations. During one particularly intense week, tensions were high among all the team members and we took breaks every hour or so to discuss things “in the margins” as well as just to take a breath. Col Sneke was not happy with our progress. Benno and I believed we were on track. During the break, Col Sneke told me I had a phone call. It was my general officer back at the Pentagon chewing me out for not expediting the negotiations. He suggested I hurry things up, he explained he had called because Col Sneke had called him complaining about the “lack of progress.”

I went back into the conference room, told my team to pack up their stuff, we were leaving. Benno asked why. I told him my general apparently thought I was mishandling the negotiations and I felt the lack of confidence was enough to compel my withdrawal. I told him this had started with a call from his embassy. By the time my team got back to the Pentagon, someone from the Dutch Embassy had called and said that progress was being made and that the US team should not be changed. My general challenged us to stay on track. I was happy. Until…

We finally found a clause in the SOFA upon which we could NOT agree. Significantly not agree. We went back and forth with options and alternatives but both sides were firm, neither willing to give an inch. And the clause was critical…under the SOFA with US forces flying over Holland, if there’s an accident, the host country (Holland) would pay for all the damages and the US would have no liability. Since that was the way it was over Dutch soil, that is what the Dutch wanted for RNLAF pilots flying over US soil. When I took this position back to the Pentagon, they said no…Holland had to pay for all damages, the US would pay for none. US policy people were not willing to budge. The Dutch were not willing to budge. The deal was near collapse. Sneke was very unhappy. Benno was firm. I was getting “short”…not much time left in the USAF.

After a couple of frustrating days trading ideas over this clause, I was back in the Pentagon in the evening in a meeting with my general and a senior DoD attorney, Susan Ludlow-McMurray. She’d been involved in the background since the beginning of negotiations and was very experienced in complex international agreements. After my dismal status update, we discussed alternatives that had already been rejected, paced the room, and then Susan said, “Why not just leave the clause out?” Perhaps this was the ultimate in “kick the can down the road” philosophy, but her point was, the issues won’t change should something happen but the people dealing with an event would be more familiar with the actual operation and not be dealing with a concept. The general and I heartily agreed. She called higher ups. It was approved.

The next day I went back to the embassy and proposed the exclusion, Benno thought, nodded his head. We were done. My last task in the Air Force.

That joint training program is still alive and well in Tucson but now it’s not just Dutch and US, it’s an international training program. I’m proud to have been a small, but unknown part of that project. One of the cooler things I think I’ve ever done.

The OV-10 image above was taken in the Air Force Museum in Dayton, OH. Of all the airplanes I flew in the USAF, I had the most fun in the OV-10. And actually, I’m pretty sure that this was one of the airframes I flew.