Robert Michael O'Connor Interview, 23 February 2005

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TT:	But I mean, was there a routine maintenance schedule on each of those—?
MO:	Oh, absolutely. A checklist, you know, on different pieces of equipment that you went through and you had to take this apart and that apart and check this, make sure this functioned that functioned and that it all worked.
TT:	Now, most of your duties were in the Soft Support—you never went into the silo?
MO:	Oh yeah, I went into the silo.
TT:	What was in there to maintain?
MO:	Air conditioning, generators, stuff like that.
TT:	OK, the batteries in there too backup batteries?
MO:	The backup batteries were down actually in the missile part, where they had the missile next to the—I don't know if I should be telling you all that stuff (laughs)—but they had certain people that were allowed to go this far, and certain people who had this responsibility and there was checks and balances.
TT:	Where do you get your keys and codes?
MO:	We had to go in and we had to pick all that up. We had what was called a "prebrief" and then they'd tell us what we were going to do, and then we'd get all our stuff, pack it up, go out to the site, fix it and then we'd debreif when we come back.
TT:	What was the process by which you accessed the site?
MO:	Well I had to go into the support building and get on the phone to the capsule.
TT:	So they would give you keys to the front padlock for the gate and a key for the Soft Support Building?
MO:	Right. And then if there was anything technical going on they had another team of people that would meet us at the site if you needed to access the silo.
TT:	The missile wing would have to send somebody out to open that up, right?
MO:	Oh yeah. I couldn't I couldn't get in there without them.
TT:	That's what I'm trying to figure out because in the documents they talk about a hatch being opened and the combination lock was turned off of its setting which triggered an inner alarm.
MO:	On another missile site?
TT:	Yeah, at Oscar-6.
MO:	Yeah! 'Cause when I went by there—
TT:	But before we talk about that—on top, you open the Navy hatch and then there's two combination dials down there?
MO:	That's right and two people had to have the separate combinations.
TT:	Was that Navy hatch padlocked?
MO:	No, there was a waterproof cover on it.

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