The gossip I heard was the commanders of the P-3 Orions were authorized to destroy a Soviet ballistic missile submarine if they heard (through their sonorbuoys) the submarine pressurizing a missile launch tube. Those Soviet submarines needed to be destroyed immediately if they were about to kill millions of Americans. I have also been told that the P-3's magnetic anomoloy detector was not all that accurate in terms of pinning down a sub's exact location. If one combines those two bits of gossip then it's easy to conclude what sort of weapons the P-3 used to insure the immediate destruction of a Soviet submarine.

The trigger to start World War III has remarkably hair fine. It's a miracle that we survived. We probably will not survive if the next set nuclear armed enemies are religious fanatics rather than atheist Communists. Bush's intent to significantly reduce the nuclear weapons inventory is wise as is his desire to de-fang the Iraqis.

Gary