National Affairs: Strong Presumption

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Six days after the U.S. Navy sent a boarding party from the radar picket ship U.S.S. Roy O. Hale to the Soviet trawler Novorossisk in the North Atlantic to investigate the cause of breaks in five transatlantic submarine cables (TIME, March 9), the Russians lodged a predictable protest. Charges that the Novorossisk had cut the cables were a "fabrication," said the Soviets. Moreover, the U.S. action was based on "provocative aims." From the U.S. last week went a cool reply that 1) dismissed the protest as unfounded, 2) pointedly documented the "strong presumption" that the Russian trawler had indeed cut the cables.

A U.S. cable repair ship, said the U.S. note, had found in preliminary investigations that one cable had been badly scraped and scuffed for about a mile east of the break. The cable itself had obviously got fouled in the Novorossisk's trawling gear, been raised to the deck, then cut to release the nets. In all, there were twelve cuts in the five cables (nine tension breaks and three man-made cuts), all made in the vicinity of the trawler's operations. The U.S. reserved the right to make claims for damages and demanded that the Soviets take "such measures as are necessary to punish those who may be found to be guilty."