gdb c-c c-c break does not work in emacs (does work from xemacs and from bash)

[Jerry Asher]

Using a very vanilla Redhat 9, with the emacs and gdb that comes on
the RH 9 disks, emacs 21.2, and gdb 5.3..., I cannot c-c c-c out of my
program back into gdb.

I can do this when I run gdb from bash, and when I run gdb from
xemacs.  Under emacs, there is no indication that anything ever saw
the c-c c-c.

This also when I completely eliminate by .emacs and any non-standard
emacs initializations.

#include <stdio.h>
void main() {
    for (;;) {
       printf ("turn world\n");
    }
}

Of course, this used to work in prior versions of red hat and emacs. 
Is there something I should be setting?

Thanks,

Jerry