been meaning to write about this for a couple of days

did you ever read a thriller, like a clancy book, and say...no friggin' way!?
well, it seems the soviets left 20 nuclear torpedoes in and around naples harbor during the cold war. for non-navy types, naples is one of the key hubs for american naval forces in the mediterranean.

“The torpedoes were used to mine an area where units of the U.S. marine corps were stationed.” Therefore the torpedoes should still be where the submarine left them and the question of removal and disarming them is being studied by military forces and secret services.

more info here.
imagine the scenario: nukes left on the bay floor, world tensions heat up, the american's send a fleet to the med. the fleet makes a pit stop in naples, (not unexpected), weapons detonated, and voila, an american free mediterranean, easy pickings for the soviet fleet. far fetched? i thought so until i read the articles. my mind has been spinning multiple story lines. hell, i could write a book, but nobody would have bought the setup until now. kind of makes you wonder what other little surprises there are in various ports and even cities the u.s. used as waypoints. hell, what about san francisco bay? or san diego? makes me shudder to think just how close we came during the cold war to actually annihilating each other.

the russians have responded stating "I deny vigorously the reports as utterly groundless".

According to several 5th Squadron commanding officers who led the force at different times, the Soviet warships had never entered the territorial waters of other countries because this was prohibited by relevant SOPs and orders governing the operations in the Mediterranean, Igor Dygalo said, adding that any violators of the orders would have faced harsh punishment.

ok. considering we as a nation had (some of us should say STILL HAVE) a paranoia streak about 15 meters wide when it comes to the soviets, i think i'll reserve judgement. it really does sound far-fetched, as in crazy shit made up to spin the citizenry up, but then... i know of at least one submarine that operated in locations that would have caused maximum international furor. there was even a book written about u.s. espionage, and i can't imagine the russian's not doing similar types of operations. for the brass to state they would never violate territorial waters is par for the course, and the reflexive action is to state "yeah, right".
hey, i can remember listening to a running dialog by the OOD once, where he was telling us about the guy standing on the beach with a surf pole, fishing at 0600 in the morning. we all got a big laugh when we heard the dude unzipped, and was pissing in the ocean while fishing. i won't say where we were, but i will say the dude's language was not english, and he probably used a bottle of vodka to keep warm with while fishing.