Soviet Thrust in the Mediterranean

NOW the spy will appear," murmured the signal officer of the cruiser Dzerzhinsky as the Soviet vessel cautiously approached the Bosporus on its voyage from the Black Sea to the Mediterranean.

"What spy?" asked the man at his side, an Izvestia correspondent who was aboard the cruiser because Defense Minister Andrei Grechko, Fleet Admiral Sergei Gorshkov and General Aleksei Yepishev, the top political commissar for the Soviet military, were paying a visit to Moscow's Mediterranean fleet.

"The American destroyer," said the signal officer. "It always glues itself to us as soon as we pass through these narrows." Sure enough, the Dzerzhinsky had no sooner passed Istanbul when a Sixth Fleet destroyer, the U.S.S. Ricketts, took position alongside. Surveillance was so close that the exasperated captain of the Dzerzhinsky finally flashed a message: "Sir, this is not Broadway. Please find a safer place for your promenade."

Formidable Force. The skipper of the Ricketts was acting out of habit. Since World War II, the Mediterranean has been an American promenade from the Dardanelles to Gibraltar, 2,330 miles to the west. A formidable task force of warships and combat-ready Marines was posted in the Mediterranean to protect the southern flank of NATO, to "project force ashore" in the event of political crises,* and simply to show the U.S. flag. For a long time the Mediterranean was an American lake; any warship sighted was bound to be either friendly, neutral or innocuous.

Since 1964, however, the U.S. has increasingly had to share its mare nostrum with a constantly growing Russian fleet. Today the two forces are very nearly equal. The Sixth Fleet, commanded by Vice Admiral Isaac C. Kidd Jr. (who will shortly move upward to become head of the Naval Material Command and be replaced by Vice Admiral Gerald E. Miller), consists of 45 ships, including three aircraft carriers, along with four submarines, 200 planes and 25,000 men. Under Vice Admiral V.N. Leonenkov, the Soviet force, an arm of the Black Sea fleet, consists of 40 to 60 ships, ten to 13 submarines and as many as 10,000 men--but no aircraft except those aboard the helicopter carriers Moskva or Leningrad. U.S. combat ships on the average are 19 years old; the Russian fleet averages only seven years. Of all Soviet warships serving in international waters, fully one-half are assigned to the Mediterranean. Says Kidd: "We walk a tightrope of adequacy."

In the Battle Zone. U.S. officers are understandably alarmed by this shifting of balances. Soviet naval strength on all oceans has been growing with remarkable rapidity for several years now (TIME cover, Feb. 23, 1968). "Nothing stops them," admits Admiral Thomas H. Moorer, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. "They are moving in everywhere." Nowhere is this more true than in the Mediterranean. Warns U.S. Admiral Horacio Rivero Jr., the diminutive (5 ft. 3 in.) commander of NATO forces in southern Europe: "What was traditionally NATO's southern flank has developed into its southern front. The Mediterranean, which was for NATO part of the zone of the interior, a rear area, is now within the battle zone." Concern filters down to officers at sea with the fleet. "There is no feeling now of being on a second team," says Captain John E. Hansen, skipper of the 62,000-ton carrier Franklin D. Roosevelt. Says Commander Richard Hopper, who heads the Roosevelt's 75-plane air group: "This used to be a sunshine cruise. Pilots volunteered from here for Viet Nam. Now the action is here."

The Russians have become a constant threat in the Mediterranean because they have learned to keep their ships on station and, as the U.S. does, resupply them at sea with the four essential b's--bombs, bullets, beans and black oil. At the same time. Soviet diplomacy has carved out several important auxiliary ports for the fleet along the Mediterranean coasts. Among them are Latakia in Syria and Alexandria and Port Said in Egypt. The Russians, who now sail the western Mediterranean more frequently, have also shown an interest in using the Algerian seaport of Mers-el-Kebir. Last week they got another potential port of call when Malta's Labor Party won a one-vote majority in the island's Parliament. Malta has long been the unsinkable aircraft carrier of the British Mediterranean defense system, but Labor Party Leader Dom Mintoff won the election partly by promising the island's 320,000 inhabitants that he would relax this link to the West. The Russians do not really need another naval base, but they may find irresistible the idea of just showing the red flag on an island that was long a NATO bastion and won Britain's George Cross for heroism in World War II.

Historic Roles. In connection with Grechko's visit last week, Izvestia emphasized Russia's ancient historic role in the Mediterranean, tracing its beginnings to a navigation treaty signed by the Principality of Kiev in the 10th century. The Russian presence in the Mediterranean was forcefully reaffirmed in 1770 when Admiral Orlov defeated the Turkish fleet at Tchesme. Later the Russians made a series of amphibious landings on the Ionian islands and even captured Corfu in 1799. "No, we are not guests in this sea," crowed Izvestia. "Many glorious victories of our people are connected with it." (Izvestia conveniently forgets, of course, that soon afterward the Russians gave up Corfu and were bottled up behind the Bosporus by the Crimean War.) The U.S. is equally insistent on its Mediterranean rights, which date back to Stephen Decatur's arrival in 1803 to fight the Barbary pirates.

With both superpowers patrolling the Mediterranean in force, the grim game of surveillance is played in dead earnest. Both sides are particularly vigilant for submarines, which are difficult to detect in the shallow waters where thermal layers and the screws of some 2,000 merchantmen on any day distort sound. The watch is most intense at six main "choke points," or "ticket gates," as Admiral Kidd calls them, through which maneuvering submarines must pass. These are Gibraltar, the sea south of Sardinia and Sicily, and the areas between Crete and Greece, Crete and North Africa, and Crete and Turkey. Both sides keep watch on the choke points. At the same time, surface ships frequently shadow one another. Cruising aboard the Roosevelt recently, TIME Correspondent John Shaw was startled to come on deck one morning to find that during the night a Soviet Kashin-class destroyer had taken station 500 yds. away.

Triple Trailers. The same shadow game is played aloft, but there are very special rules. Soviet TU-16 Badger bombers with Egyptian markings fly out of Cairo West airbase to follow the Sixth Fleet and look for Polaris submarines. Whenever they get near the U.S. carriers, a "fastback alert" is sounded, and Phantom jets are catapulted off the carriers to keep the Badgers from getting too close. The Phantoms always approach gradually and at an angle, sometimes drawing abreast of the Soviet planes. On one such occasion, a Phantom pilot was surprised to see his Soviet counterpart hold up a centerfold from, of all things, Playboy magazine.

The two fleets have one mission in common. Kidd estimates that much of his time, like that of the Soviets, is spent in showing the flag around the Mediterranean. Beyond that, however, the two forces have vastly different roles. The U.S. carriers and their Phantoms still have an offensive nuclear capacity against East bloc targets. Half the fleet's planes are kept in the air at all times in order to make certain that a surprise Soviet missile attack would not sink the entire Sixth Fleet strike force. The Russians, on the other hand, appear to be primarily intent on neutralizing the Sixth Fleet. For this purpose they have assembled an impressive array of missile power aboard their ships, including the 22-mile-range Styx aboard small gunboats, the 100-mile Strela aboard destroyers, and the 400-mile, supersonic Shaddock aboard Soviet cruisers.

To defend itself against the Russian missiles, the Sixth Fleet has patched together new responses in recent months. Two 240-ton patrol gunboats superpowered by jet engines have been transferred from Viet Nam as an experiment. The gunboats move so swiftly (top speed: 40 knots) that their crews must be strapped into their stations. Admiral Elmo R. Zumwalt Jr., who is Chief of Naval Operations, has dubbed them "triple trailers" because they are assigned to lurk behind the Soviet vessels that trail U.S. ships.

Rethinking Roles. The U.S. is also fitting out some ships with surface-to-surface standard missiles that have 35-to 60-mile ranges. In two or three years, after further research and development, more efficient Harpoon missiles will be introduced. In addition, in an unusual move for a nation that has traditionally developed its own weapons, the U.S. is considering buying either the Israeli surface-to-surface Gabriel missile or the French Exocet.

Ultimately the Navy and the Administration will have to make some new decisions about the Sixth Fleet's makeup and mission. It now defends NATO's supply lines, provides a small but sinewy landing force, supports and protects the Polaris nuclear submarines that operate out of the U.S. bases of Rota, Spain, and Holy Loch, Scotland, and furnishes a nuclear punch in ease of war. With aging ships and outmoded ordnance, it is difficult enough to carry out those assignments. Since the fleet is taking on the added mission of neutralizing the Russians, the job may be growing close to impossible.

* It happened only once, in 1958, when Marines waded onto Beirut beaches strewn with Coca-Cola bottles and suntanned bathing beauties to protect a pro-Western Lebanese government from a coup.

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