Fifty-Seven

The U.S. is caught flat-footed when the Soviet Union launches Sputnik in October 1957. The U.S. missile program is years behind. The U.S., however, had launched the first atomic-powered submarine, the Nautilus (SSN-571), in 1956 and raced to develop the capability to launch missiles while submerged by 1960. The Nautilus, and Seawolf (SN-21), had the same limitations. Although they could prowl the oceans longer than conventional submarines, when they required maintenance, they had to return to Groton, Connecticut, an ocean away from their patrol area. Enter Stavros Niarchos.Stavros Niarchos, a golden Greek, a wealthy shipping magnate, is a friend of the Americans. Niarchos buys a rundown shipyard near the Port of Piraeus and undertakes modernization to support his commercial enterprise. The new yard will also provide NATO atomic submarines with a secret maintenance bay in the eastern Mediterranean on the doorstep of the Soviets' Black Sea fleet. But the communists.