Dead in the Water

Soviet nuclear-powered submarines routinely ply the heavily trafficked sea-lanes off the U.S. East Coast, but few ever surface. Thus Navy pilots patrolling the Atlantic in a P-3C Orion antisubmarine aircraft early last Tuesday morning were astonished to sight a Soviet attack sub moving through rolling seas some 470 miles off the coast of South Carolina in the infamous Bermuda Triangle. The 341-ft.-long vessel was clearly having mechanical troubles, but it issued no international distress signal. Instead, the ship and its crew of about 90 men braved the winds and waves, bobbing, in the...