USS CALIFORNIA DEPLOYED TO COUNTER DRUG SMUGGLING

BREMERTON, Wash. (AP) -- The USS California, a nuclear cruiser scheduled
for decommissioning next year, has left its Bremerton base for a five-month
voyage to fight drug smuggling in the Caribbean and tropical Pacific.

The 596-foot ship left Tuesday from its berth at the Puget Sound Naval
Shipyard and is scheduled to arrive in Panama for a port call Jan. 22.

The 24-year-old California, one of only two nuclear-powered cruisers left
in the Navy, will return to Bremerton in late May. It is scheduled for
decommissioning in early 1999.

Most of the deployment will be spent monitoring vessel traffic and
intercepting suspected international drug smugglers.

Tentative plans call for a goodwill port visit to Ecuador in early February
and back to Panama later in the month.

The ship will pass through the Panama Canal in early March, then spend time
in the Caribbean carrying out counter-drug operations there.

Port calls are tentatively planned at the island of Curacao and at
Cartagena, Colombia. Then more drug-fighting operations are planned in the
Pacific before the USS California returns to Bremerton.

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