Rickover, Hyman G. (1900–1986), U.S. naval officer. Hyman George Rickover is generally known as the “father of the atomic submarine,” having been head of the U.S. Navy's nuclear submarine program from 1948 until his retirement in 1982.
Born in Makow (now Maków Mazowiecki), Poland, then a province of Czarist Russia, Rickover came to America at age four, his family settling in Chicago. A good student, he earned an appointment to the U.S. Naval Academy. Although Jewish in a highly prejudiced service, he was generally liked at the academy. (Later, would he renounce Judaism and became an Episcopalian.) He graduated in 1922 and as a young officer served in a destroyer and then a battleship. He received a postgraduate degree in electrical engineering and in 1929 entered the submarine service. Though qualified to command a submarine, Rickover was not given a command and in 1935 returned to surface ship duty.
For less than three months in 1937, he commanded a minesweeper operating in China. He then became a specialized engineering duty officer. Rickover was assigned to the Bureau of Ships in Washington, D.C., in August 1939, and remained there through World War II until mid‐1945, most of the time responsible for the electric equipment installed in navy ships.
After the war, Rickover was one of several naval officers and civilian engineers sent to Oak Ridge, Tennessee, to study nuclear energy. Returning to Washington, he was assigned to the navy's nuclear propulsion program (begun as early as 1939). On 4, August 1948, Rickover was named head of the nuclear power branch in the Bureau of Ships. The following February, he was also appointed director of naval reactors in the new Atomic Energy Commission, making him “double‐hatted” in naval terminology.
Under Rickover's direction, the navy developed the world's first nuclear propulsion plant, which was installed in the submarine
Nautilus. She got underway for the first time on 3 January 1955, and in 1958 became the first ship to reach the North Pole (traveling submerged under the arctic ice pack). Rickover subsequently directed a large number of nuclear submarine and surface ship projects.
After being passed over for selection to rear admiral by navy selection boards, Rickover used the press and his congressional contacts to force his selection to rear admiral (1953). He was subsequently promoted to vice admiral (1958), and when he reached the statutory age for retirement, he was retained on active duty by order of the secretary of the navy. He was later promoted to full admiral (1973).
Rickover took exclusive control of the selection and training of all officers for nuclear‐propelled
submarines and of engineers for surface ships. His interviews became notorious, often pitting a four‐star admiral against a midshipman or junior officer in his twenties. The admiral was frequently bombastic and rude as he sought to determine what made the candidate “tick.” Answerable to no one because of his support in Congress, the admiral attacked his peers when their programs threatened funding for his own; he also attacked members of the administration, seniors in the
Department of Defense, and even officials of the shipyards that built the nuclear fleet.
His efforts resulted in a high degree of safety in the U.S. submarine force and, initially, a high degree of innovation as new designs and concepts were developed and innovative nuclear submarines were built. Rickover‐trained officers and enlisted men were soon in high demand by America's nuclear power industry. His close relationship with members of Congress who had submarine shipyards, submarine bases, or nuclear facilities in their states led to extensive support and funding of navy nuclear programs.
Under Rickover's direction the United States initially led the world in nuclear submarine development. However, in the 1960s, following the loss of the U.S. nuclear submarine
Thresher, Rickover became increasingly conservative in his approach to submarine design. Subsequently, the Soviet Union overtook the United States in numbers of submarines and in many areas of submarine technology.
Rickover's self‐centered, petulant, and tactless attitudes earned him the contempt of many naval officers and officials of the government. After the retirement of most of his congressional supporters, the Reagan administration in 1981 ended Rickover's tenure. He left active duty on 31 January 1982 after sixty‐four years of naval service.
Rickover received numerous citations for his efforts in the field of nuclear propulsion. He was awarded a Gold Medal by Congress (1959), was the first nonengineer to receive the prestigious Enrico Fermi Award from the Atomic Energy Commission (1965), and was a recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom (1980), as well as numerous military decorations, including the Legion of Merit for his wartime work in the Bureau of Ships. The main engineering building at the Naval Academy is named Rickover Hall (1974) and a nuclear‐propelled submarine is named the
Hyman G. Rickover (1983).
[See also
Atomic Scientists;
Navy, U.S.: 1899–1945;
Navy, U.S.: Since 1946;
Navy Combat Branches: Submarine Forces.]
Bibliography
Richard G. Hewlett and and Francis Duncan , Nuclear Navy, 1946–1962, 1974.
Elmo R. Zumwalt, Jr. , On Watch, 1976.
Norman Polmar and and Thomas B. Allen , Rickover: Controversy and Genius, 1982.
Francis Duncan , Rickover and the Nuclear Navy, 1982.
Theodore Rockwell , The Rickover Effect, 1992.
Norman Polmar
