THE MEDITERRANEAN: Out of the North

Across the Black Sea, through the Dardanelles, and into the Mediterranean last week moved a big Soviet floating drydock, the second in a month. Likely destination: satellite Albania, Soviet Communism’s only Mediterranean base. Last month a Soviet cruiser, the Mikhail Kutuzov, so new that it is unlisted in the 1957 edition of the authoritative Jane’s Fighting Ships, passed through the Dardanelles under escort of three destroyers. Earlier, three Soviet submarines entered the Mediterranean by way of Gibraltar (and were turned over to Egypt). Russia was telling the world that Mare Nostrum means Russia’s as well as NATO’s sea.