52 I CHRONICLESnpanics that are approved, and thenUSDA won’t give us a working Hstnbecause they say they don’t want ton’endorse’ any companies. So we havento use trial-and-error to find manufacturersnthat are USDA-approved andnwill go to the trouble of getting us anletter of guarantee from their homenoffice.”nBeef jerky is what cowboys on trailndrives used to carry in their saddlebagsnto snack on; by definition, it doesn’tnneed refrigeration. Still, the law saidnthat C & I had to have a walk-in coolernin which to store their jerky in jarsnbefore they delivered it to the bars andnstores to sit at room temperature. Theyninstalled a cooler but didn’t put thenlabels on the jars until they were readynto ship, because the humidity in thencooler made the labels wrinkle. (Thensaga of designing the label to governmentnsatisfaction is a story in itself)nThe inspector told them that they hadnto put the labels on before the jars wentninto cold storage, because the labelnshows that the jerky has been inspected.n”Except that it hasn’t,” says Nodland.n”He never actually looks at thenjerky. When we first opened for business,nhe sent some of our jerky away tonbe tested to make sure it was drynenough that it wouldn’t spoil, but henhasn’t looked at the jerky since then. Inknow he’s only following the rules,”nshe continues, “and I do believe thatnmeat inspection is important. But ifnthe USDA is trying to make sure of thenquality of our jerky, wouldn’t younthink they’d look at it once in a while?”nC & I goes through about 600npounds of ground beef a week, lessnthan is in the average supermarketnmeat section. Have Knutson and Nodlandnever seen the bible of regulationsnthat runs their lives? “Oh, yes, it’snabout four inches thick,” Nodlandnsays. “And when we complain aboutnany of this, our inspectors say, ‘This isnthe law, and if you don’t like it, go tonDC and get it changed.'”nI called the local office of the meatninspector in question, and he told mento call the USDA in Billings, Montana,nand talk to a Dr. Bowman (I’mnnot sure of the spelling). Dr. Bowmannanswered all of my questions carefully,npolitely, and with skillful bureaueratese,nexplaining why all of this wasnnecessary: basically, because the regu­nlations say so. When we had coveredneverything, I asked him for his fullnname and title so that I could quotenhim. “Oh, you don’t need to do that,”nhe drawled. “I usually spell my namenU-S-D-A o-f-f-i-c-i-a-1.”nJane Greer edits Plains Poetry Journal,njust on principle.nLetter From Albionnby Andrei NavrozovnSpetsnaznThis month I am reporting from Londonnon the recent publication here ofnwhat is undoubtedly one of the mostnimportant books ever written on thensubject of totalitarian expansionism. InoflFer this judgment because, althoughnthe accident of birth and intellectualncuriosity have made Soviet Russia ansubject of special interest for me, Inhave never read anything as powerfulnas Spetsnaz; certainly not since 1973n(when I first read my father’s book inntypescript) and perhaps not since 1968n(when, at age 12, in Moscow, I firstnleafed through Robert Conquest’snGreat Terror).nWere the reading public more interestednin the immediate prospects fornthe survival of our civilization than innthe opinions of the Nobel committee,nthe name of Viktor Suvorov—on thenstrength of this book alone—wouldndoubtless eclipse that of AleksandrnSolzhenitsyn, while the exotic termnthis pseudonymous defeetor-turnedauthornuses as his title — spetsnazn—would become commonplace innour speech. Yet the term “gulag”nworked its way out of italicized obscuritynthanks to the international publicityncarelessly ignited by Khrushchevnaround Solzhenitsyn; needless to say,nthe author of Spetsnaz (or Westernncivilization, depending on which waynyou look at it) can count on no suchnboon. As a matter of fact, one has thendistinct impression that this book (publishednby a subsidiary of Penguin) hasnhad an inadequate translator, only anperfunctory editor, no copy editor, andnhardly a proofreader, which can onlynmean that the publisher’s estimate ofnits chances of commercial success coincidesnwith mine.nnnWhat makes Spetsnaz so unusualnand compelling is that it is not “history”n(that is, “truth about the past,” ancommodity dispensed, at times, evennby the Soviet regime for tactical purposesnof its own). It is the story of thenpresent, of the current threat to Westernnsurvival, told by an insider whonhappens to possess extraordinary commonnsense, great powers of observationnand induction, as well as a fine understandingnof history.nThe Russian abbreviation spetsnaznstands for “special purposes” and designatesnelite strata of specially trainednfighters integrated into each of the 41narmies the Soviets are ready to field. Atnthe XII World Parachuting Championship,nheld in France in 1984, thenSoviet “team”—spetsnaz—won 22nout of 26 gold medals. “France is thenonly country in Europe,” Suvorov observes,n”that stores strategic nuclearnmissiles in underground silos. Thensilos are an extremely important target,npossibly the most important in Europe.nThe force that will put them outnof action will be a spetsnaz force.”nWith bitter irony and in a woodenntranslator’s English, Suvorov adds:nIt is often claimed that sportnimproves relations betweenncountries. This is a strangenargument. If it is the case, whyndid it not occur to anyonenbefore the Second World Warnto invite German SS parachutistsnto their country to improvenrelations with the Nazis?nSystematically, and basing his conclusionsnon personal experience ofnspetsnaz service, Suvorov sketches outnthe recent history of the contingentnslated to fight in the vanguard of Sovietnworld conquest. He discusses its compositionn(currently, ethnic Russiansnand “the Other People,” namely, Sovietncitizens born to displaced German,nSpanish, Italian, Greek, Turkish,nKorean, or other foreign parents);nits methods of selection and trainingn(frequently intertwined with the nationalnsports program, Soviet Olympicnchampions in such events as the biathlonnall being in spetsnaz); the agentnnetwork on which it relies abroad, thenweapons and equipment it uses, andnthe kinds of missions in which it isninvolved (nearly always the objective isnto neutralize resistance by striking atn