I reckon Clancy spotted this bit of real-life news (quoted from the Sea Breezes website):
"It is perhaps significant that with the provision having been made for future military use if required by the US Government that after a licence was granted to Valmet Oy of Finland they were contracted to build two Seabee carriers for the Soviet Ministry of Merchant Marine."
And this is a clipping from the Sarasota Herald-Tribune, Oct. 29, 1975, on the same subject:
http://news.google.com/newspapers?id...2387%2C5750191
From the
Red Storm Rising excerpt I read, the Soviets used their own Seebee and repainted it to pass for one of the Lykes Lines ships, for ex.:
