JERUSALEM – The largest naval confrontation of the Cold War occurred 39 years ago this month and it was not the Cuban missile crisis.
As fierce land and air battles raged between Israel and its Arab neighbors in the Yom Kippur War of October 1973, the US Sixth Fleet and the Soviet Mediterranean Squadron circled each other a few hundred miles out to sea, their commanders' fingers on the button.
Neither fleet was directly involved in the war but with their client states ashore engaged in the largest tank battles since the Second World War, the superpower fleets inexorably found themselves drawn into confrontation mode.
The Soviets rode herd on the American vessels so aggressively that Adm. Daniel Murphy, the Sixth Fleet commander, sent a semaphore message to his Soviet counterpart asking him to adhere to an accord obliging their vessels not to point guns or missiles at the other.
Read Full Article »
