Rickover: Controversy and Genius [Paperback]

Having worked for Admiral Rickover for 30 years, I know much about his policies. And I understand why his policies were what they were. Rickover's whole thrust was to insure safety on nuclear submarines. The authors failed to understand this, perhaps because neither of them has experience in the Navy nuclear power division, and from a reading of the book, neither appears to have technical training.

The US Congress and the "other Navy" understood very well how important a contribution Rickover was making to America's strategic weapons arsenal. Both understood very well that an immaculate safety record on US nuclear submarines was the primary reason the public supported ship born nuclear power. But the authors did not grasp this.

It is important to note that, while Rickover had a lock on all aspects of nuclear power use on US Navy ships, and hundreds of reactors were used, the first land based reactor not under Rickover's control (Three Mile Island) had a melt down, and killed land based nuclear power generation in the minds of the public. Had Three Mile Island been Rickover's responsibility, we might to this day be getting significant electric power from nuclear reactors.

An example of the blatantly false claims made by the authors in an apparent effort to discredit Rickover, they claimed that the submarine Thresher sank because the reactor scrammed. The Congressional Investigating Committee and the Navy found that the probable cause was a failed pipe joint in a system subject to submergence pressure. That the Committee and the Navy thought the root cause lie outside the nuclear power plant is best seen by looking at the corrective action taken. The corrective action was to establish what came to be known as the Subsafe Program. The Subsafe Program changed the way all parts of the submarine that affect safety, starting the pressure hull itself, were manufactured, inspected, certified, and maintained. Notably, the nuclear power plant procedures were not changed because Rickover's policies were considered sufficient. The authors do not mention the Subsafe Program in this book.

The authors even attacked the personal life of Rickover's wife after she passed on.

The book is also poorly written. The two authors appear to have written different chapters without comparing notes, because much of the chapters rehash the same material. Many of Rickover's quotes are stated two times. This makes for tiresome reading.

Less would have probably been better for this book, however, as the last 200 pages seem to drag with an increasingly vindictive assessment of Rickover's impact through the 1970s. Not that Rickover didn't turn from "yesterday's visionary" to "today's conservative," and eventually "tomorrow's reactionary." He did. It's just that the point is hammered home relentlessly.

Many have said that Rickover advanced the Navy by 20 years, while others claim he set it back 20 years. You'll see why by reading this book.