FLASHBACK 1988: Magna gets the datelines while West Valley gets Hercules 

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In commemoration of City Weekly's 40th anniversary, we are digging into our archives to celebrate. Each week, we FLASHBACK to a story or column from our past in honor of four decades of local alt-journalism. Whether the names and issues are familiar or new, we are grateful to have this unique newspaper to contain them all.

Title: The Russians Aren't Coming
Author: Lance Gurwell
Date: July, 1988

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In the future, everyone will be famous for 15 minutes. —Andy Warhol

Magna, Utah— One would hardly expect this crusty and decaying 135-year-old mining town to have much impact on world peace—and it doesn't. And perhaps Warhol wouldn't mind the twisting of his quote to include places, as well as people. If so, Magna's time is up.

The precedent-setting Intermediate Nuclear Forces Treaty between the Soviet Union and the United States went into effect July 1, and while only the most pessimistic curmudgeon would argue that eliminating a few thousand missiles capable of carrying nuclear warheads is a worthless endeavor, one must also realize that it makes little difference whether you're nuked by a medium-range missile or an Inter-Continental Ballistic Missile (ICBM), which both countries have more than enough to destroy the world a few times over.

The INF treaty has resulted in dozens of reporters from around the world visiting Magna to see how residents felt about having new Russian neighbors. But those days are over. Now reporters are focusing on West Valley City.

Under the treaty, a team of 24 Soviet inspectors assigned to monitor missile production—or the lack of it—will rotate shifts and roam between two barbed wire fences on the Hercules Aerospace plant in West Valley City. They may stay up to 13 years.

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At the Bomb Shelter—a bar beneath an abandoned building—bartender Sherrie Dea says her customers think "it's great" that the Soviets are here.

"They think it's a good idea. It's a good idea to end this nuclear madness. I have never run into anyone who has any hostility to the Russians here—not even the ones that are all tooted up."

Right now Russian inspectors are walking around the two-mile circumference of a 185-acre parcel of the Bacchus East facility, where production of Pershing II missile motors was halted over a year ago. Under terms of the treaty, the Soviets are entitled to inspect any vehicle leaving or entering the area large enough to carry motors the size of the Pershing 2 stage one or larger.

And, one assumes, U.S. inspectors in Votkinsk in the USSR are doing the same thing. The Soviets will no longer produce the SS-20 missile.

"They won't see anything out here," said a Hercules employee who refused to give his name for fear of losing his job." Those areas are clean and nothing of importance is going to be going in there—or out.

"But they'll [the Soviets] be here doing their spying," he said. "That's why they've been giving us all this security training. We're not supposed to take on any new friends—and we're watching out for broads and money."

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There are no Pershing II missile parts on plant for the Soviets to inspect, said David Thompson, plant manager, adding it's costing taxpayers more than $2 million to implement this seemingly unimportant portion of the treaty.

"There are no rocket motors—Pershing II rocket motors—on plant, the tooling is not on plant, there are no components on plant, and we don't intend to have any in the future," Thompson said.

So why are the Soviets wandering around the narrow dirt road peeking into the plant site, and measuring vehicles leaving the "portal"? "The facilities are available, and starting up a production line is not that big a deal, it's not a big effort. It's merely on-site inspection," Thompson said.

But while the Russians are doing their cursory inspections here, other parts of the plant are bustling with activity, producing components for other missiles. Hercules also makes motors for the Poseidon Polaris, A-2 and A-3, Minuteman, the long-range Trident I and Trident II, the Peacekeeper, and is doing development work on ICBM missile motors.

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"Now that's what peace is all about," said Salt Lake County resident Trevor Barker. "The Russians and the United States are willing to spend 13 years walking around an area which obviously isn't going to make any more motors while they continue to crank out far more effective rockets at record pace."

But enough of the naysaying. People here in Magna have a real problem. The town, which boasts seven bars on its short main drag, has become the ugly girlfriend again.

Last year West Valley City annexed some 3,000 acres of Hercules' 7,000 acre plant—including the Bacchus East portion of Plant 1 where the Soviet inspectors are traipsing around. So while hordes of reporters from around the world have swarmed Magna doing people stories about how "Magnatites" feel about having the Russians in town, residents have learned the Soviets aren't coming to town—in fact, they're going to upstart West Valley City.

The On-Site Inspection Agency, a newly-formed branch of the Department of Defense set up to handle the Soviet verification team, said it's removing Magna's name from all its information sheets and news releases, and hereafter when referring to the Bacchus facility will mention West Valley City.

"It's disgusting. It looks like we're the bridesmaid again," said Dale Nielson, a reporter for the 3,000-circulation weekly Magna Times.

Having written hundreds of inches of copy about the Russians coming to Magna and having been interviewed by scores of reporters about the Soviet invasion, Nielson is frustrated about Magna's sister city getting credit he believes the tarnished copper town is due.

"It looks like Magna is a loser again. I feel like the ugly girlfriend. It's another in the series of backhands Hercules has given Magna," said the disappointed Nielson. "It's like a guy asks a girl out for a date and she gets all excited, then he tells her he wants somebody else. We're a bridesmaid again, not the bride." Or, vice versa.

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For years Hercules had petitioned Salt Lake County to restrict home building in what's called an "over-pressure zone." Within this zone, buildings could be destroyed and people killed in the event of an explosion at the plant, officials said. People at Henderson, Nevada, where a company producing chemicals for rockets recently vanished in a deadly explosion, can attest to that.

But Salt Lake County continued to drag its feet, and Hercules even threatened to leave the state if it wasn't offered protection. Finally, a deal was worked with West Valley City, which promised a moratorium on residential construction in the over-pressure zone. Thus, nearly half of Hercules, and the tax base that goes along with it, became part of the state's second-largest city. (Salt Lake County has finally agreed to restrict residential construction in the balance of the Hercules plant still in the county.)

West Valley City officials wasted no time in taking advantage of the situation. Last month it moved to set up a sister-city relationship with Votkinsk, where American inspectors are stationed.

"Sure, we're disappointed. Whenever anything comes along, Magna is the last to get it. Now it looks like they're taking it away," said Tony Doutis, owner of Magna's Bomb Shelter Lounge.

So, Magna, get out of the spotlight. The Russians aren't coming.