Admiral Hyman G. Rickover 20th Century Genius

Admiral Hyman Rickover

Admiral Rickover was known as one of the most brilliant people to have ever become part of the U.S. Navy. He was rude to some, aggressive in his approach, unconventional in his ideas but was still the only man to serve the Navy for 63 long years. The man who blatantly ignored rules is known as the man behind the introduction of nuclear technology in Navy. This is believed to be his biggest achievement for which his services will never be forgotten because nuclear technology is now an inseparable part of the Navy and without him, this technology would have never made its way into this segment of the U.S. armed forces.

Admiral Rickover was four years old when his family moved to United States from Poland. His Jewish parents faced hardships initially and Rickover began working at Western Union after high school. But in 1918, he joined the Naval Academy where he was determined to prove his mettle. Unlike other students in his class, he completely refused to indulge in things like dating and sports but concentrated on his studies and thus graduated with flying colors. He became an electrical engineer in the Navy for more than 20 years when an opportunity came his way and he seized it without hesitation.

Achievements in Nuclear Technology

During his posting at Oak Ridge, Tennessee, he came across research in atomic research that resulted in the brainwave, which later transformed the face and shape and operations of United States Navy. Rickover believed that if Navy could be prepared to use nuclear power plants in submarines, then this move would save it the hassle of refueling. However his one idea resulted in a series of changes in the Navy, which included nuclear powered submarines to installation of first power reactor. The first submarine of this kind went into operation in January 1955 and after 50 years; a large number of naval vessels are using nuclear power.

But when the idea first came to Rickover and Navy accepted it, he knew that a proper system would be required to produce nuclear power and install such plants in submarines. He felt a need for technical transformation too whereby all technical facilities would coordinate with each other. Crawford (1998) writes "Very early in the development of naval nuclear power, H.G. Rickover, then a Navy captain, saw that this statutory division of responsibilities posed grave difficulties. He recognized that the development and utilization of this revolutionary new source of power should be treated as a series of closely related technical functions including research and development, detailed design, procurement of apparatus, maintenance and repair of equipment, and selection and training of personnel. With these considerations in mind, Rickover moved boldly and with remarkable political astuteness to arrange that a single organization be assigned the key responsibilities of both the Navy and the Atomic Energy Commission (the Department of Energy's predecessor)."

Rickover faced numerous challenges in his desire to introduce nuclear energy to Naval operations. For one, navy wasn't ready to embrace something new, secondly every one at Atomic Energy Commission was more interested in production of nuclear weapons than introducing this technology in submarines. Some naval staff was completely uncooperative while others passively resisted such a massive change. Navy did not want to follow the guidelines set by Atomic Energy Commission and thus coordination with the two bodies appeared almost impossible. Navy had its own strict organization structure and coordination with AEC meant changes in this structure, which looked like a daunting task to everyone.

Rickover managed to overcome such obstacles when he worked as a top official in both organizations. His first move was to win support for his idea of nuclear powers submarines. For this he needed Chief of Naval Operations on his side and when that was finally achieved, Rickover got a memo signed from the Chief "directing the Navy's ship design agency to undertake such an effort jointly with the Atomic Energy Commission." (Crawford, 1998) He then tried to win the Bureau of Ships that later assigned him the responsibility of negotiation with the Atomic Energy Commission on certain important agreements.

Rickover somehow managed to do all this with absolute finesse and when the program became a reality, he found himself working as the director of the program. (Duncan and Hewlett, 1974, 88-92) In this position, he first concentrated on establishing a strong relationship with the Congress. Crawford et al. (1998) write: "As a top priority, he set about quickly to establish a strong and enduring relationship with Congress, specifically the Joint Committee on Atomic Energy, which had comprehensive oversight of all nuclear matters during that era. It was, however, a consistent string of design and operational successes that solidified Naval Reactors' relationship with Congress. It is a relationship that served the program well and endures to this day." Page 159

Achievements in Education

Admiral Rickover changed the way Navy worked and also tried to help the government in the educational sector. He believed that a professional approach was needed for the improvement of technical education in the country. he felt that if technical graduates were given training in specialized areas, this could improve research and development section of the Navy. (Titsworth, 1999) Rickover believed that to improve the educational system we needed to know if the country, "the country really has a choice as between efficient education -- that is, separate schools above the elementary levels -- and democratic education which insists on the inefficient time-wasting comprehensive high school." He himself opted fro efficiency as he said," In my opinion we no longer have that choice. We must opt for efficiency."(Rickover, 89) Rickover maintained that this was another way United States could overpower the Soviets in the battle against socialism and communism.

Conclusion

But despite all his achievements, Admiral Rickover was not exactly astute in all matters. Duffy (1986) wrote: "Behaving like an ordinary bureaucrat, Rickover routinely demanded that a disproportionate share of Navy dollars go to his nuclear ship programs. Some naval analysts also say that Rickover's single- minded belief in large pressurized-water reactors drove the Navy to build bigger, if not necessarily better, submarines while overlooking possible alternatives in propulsion design. Soviet submarines can now dive deeper and go faster, and are narrowing U.S. advantages like quietness. Notes Norman Polmar, a Rickover biographer: "In the '50s, Rickover was a technical visionary. By the '60s, he was reactionary."