There are few naval leaders who had a legendary reputation and such a long running - and not uncontroversial - record of service as Admiral Hyman G. Rickover, USN..
Talk to any submarine officer or surface nuclear power officer over the age of 60 and they will have a personal story directly or indirectly about the man who is generally seen as the "Father of the Nuclear Navy."
Was the man as he lived really in line with his reputation?
We now have a broad collection of Rickover in his own word is the just published collection of his papers, Rickover Uncensored, edited by Claude Berube, Samuel Limneos.
From the book's Amazon page;
"Nearly 250 archival boxes full of his personal papers were bequeathed to the U.S. Naval Academy Museum. Outside of his official biographer, no historian had access to these documents. In "Rickover Uncensored," the editors present a broad section of Rickover's life from love letters in the 1930s to his first wife, his speeches, transcripts of telephone conversations, and memoranda through his retirement.
Joining us for the full hour will be one of the editors of this collection - returning and founding guest of Midrats, Claude Berube.
Claude is the author or editor of five non-fiction books, three novels and more than eighty articles. He earned his doctorate from the University of Leeds, and is a retired CDR in the USNR.
He has worked as a navy contractor for NAVSEA and ONR, as a civil servant with the ONI, and as a staffer to two US Senators and a House member. He has taught in the Political Science and History Departments at the US Naval Academy since 2005.
You can get the podcast here or below;
I think one of the best things Reagan did was to refuse to extend Rickover's service. Rickover should have retired in the 50s.
I remember when ADM Rickover gave a Forrestall lecture at USNA regarding the incident at Three Mile Island. During the Q&A, one midshipman asked him a question. Rickover repeated the question and asked whether that was what the midshipman was asking. Sure enough, the midshipman answered in the affirmative.
ADM Rickover then replied “why don’t you ask your roommate—he probably knows more about that than I do!”
Needless to say that the entire Brigade of Midshipmen went wild. It been 40+ years and that remains one of the best memories of my time there.