Hyman George Rickover was an officer in the U. S. Navy who played a significant and controversial role in ushering the Navy into the nuclear age.
Background
Ethnicity:
His father was Jewish and his mother was of Polish descent.
Hyman George Rickover was born on January 27, 1900 (1898 according to school records), in the village of Makow, then in the Russian Empire, now Poland, some 50 miles north of Warsaw. His father, Abraham, a tailor, emigrated to New York at the turn of the century. Around 1904 the senior Rickover sent for his family, wife Rachel (née Unger), daughter Fanny, and Hyman. Four years later they moved to the Lawndale neighborhood of Chicago.
Education
Hyman graduated from John Marshall High School in Chicago and entered the U. S. Naval Academy in 1918. Then he completed requirements for a Master's degree in electrical engineering at Columbia University in 1930.
During his career, Rickover received 15 honorary degrees, including those from Colby College in 1954, Stevens Institute of Technology in 1958 and Columbia University in 1960.
After four years of naval career, Rickover was commissioned an ensign in 1922. He joined the destroyer La Vallette on 5 September 1922. Rickover impressed his commanding officer with his hard work and efficiency, and was made engineer officer on 21 June 1923, becoming the youngest such officer in the squadron. He next served on board the battleship Nevada.
Rickover spent four years (1929-1933) qualifying for submarine duty and command aboard the submarines S-9 and S-48. By the time his tour as engineer and officer and then executive officer of S-48 was completed in 1933 Rickover hoped to receive command of a submarine. Instead, he did a two-year tour at a naval facility in Philadelphia, after which he served two years in engineering on the battleship New Mexico.
In 1937 Rickover was promoted to lieutenant commander and given command of the antiquated minesweeper Finch. His hard-driving ways seem to have caused resentment, and he was relieved after three months. Convinced by his assignment to Finch that his aspirations for a conventional career of command at sea would not be fulfilled, Rickover had already requested a transfer to the status of "Engineering Duty Only." His first billet as an EDO was at the Cavite Navy Yard in the Philippines, where he spent nearly two years. From Cavite he returned to the United States for assignment to the Bureau of Engineering, consolidated with another shore establishment into the Bureau of Ships (BuShips) in 1940. The navy was expanding rapidly, and Rickover's duties as head of the Electrical Section of BuShips put him in a key post to develop and improve electrical apparatus. His style of command-which in time would become a major part of his public persona - was considered unconventional as he ignored rank among his section's personnel and thought nothing of working on Sundays and late into the evenings. Rickover, after 1942 was a (temporary) captain, appealed for duty in a combat zone and in 1945 went to Okinawa with orders to develop and operate a ship repair base. The war ended soon thereafter, and, like many other officers in a postwar navy due for retrenchment, Rickover's future was in doubt.
In 1946 Rickover was sent as one of a team of engineering officers to Oak Ridge, Tennessee, to learn about nuclear technology. Rickover then served as Mills' assistant for nuclear matters until 1948 when the navy made a firm commitment to develop nuclear propulsion. Then Rickover received two choice assignments: head of the Nuclear Power Branch of BuShips and, in 1949, chief of the newly established Naval Reactors Branch of the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC). These dual posts gave Rickover a great deal of autonomy in that he could initiate action from either his naval billet or from his post in the civilian-run AEC chain of authority. He gathered around him a group of bright and loyal officers who worked diligently to overcome the myriad problems in harnessing a nuclear reactor for shipboard power.
By the early 1950s Rickover, still a captain, had succeeded in making himself known to the media and to influential congressmen as an officer who got things done, presumably indispensable to the navy's nuclear propulsion program. Although he was twice passed over for promotion to rear admiral-meaning that by navy regulations he would have to retire-pressure from congressional leaders led the secretary of the navy to order a reconsideration of Rickover's status, and he was promoted to rear admiral in 1953.
As the navy added more nuclear submarines to the fleet, and then surface ships, Rickover was retained on active duty through a series of special two-year reappointments that allowed him to serve long past the mandatory retirement age of 64. He was promoted to vice admiral in 1963 and a decade later to admiral. By insisting that safety considerations required him to personally approve officers of all nuclear-powered ships Rickover exerted influence far beyond his official position. As later assignments took these officers throughout the navy, Rickover's impact was felt in many quarters. By no means was his reputation confined to the navy. His organization, with some private funding, developed the nation's first nuclear-powered electrical generating facility at Shippingport, Pennsylvania, in 1957. Rickover himself had little more to do with it following completion, but many men who learned their trade with the Naval Reactors Branch went on to become major figures in the growing nuclear power field in the 1960s. After the launching of Russia's Sputnik satellite called into doubt America's supremacy in science, Rickover for a while also gained recognition as an authority on American education. He wrote several books criticizing what he considered its shortcomings and calling for standards of excellence like those he had always imposed upon himself. Not until 1981 was he retired from active duty, and even then he remained well-known, ironically making the news several times in 1984 when it was revealed that he had received-indeed requested-expensive gifts from many contractors he had dealt with.
Rickover's unorthodox views and aggressive presentations made him unpopular in certain Navy quarters.
He also aroused intense partisanship in the field of education by criticizing programs in both service and civilian schools.
Quotations:
"The more you sweat in peace the less you bleed in war."
"I do not have regrets. I believe I helped preserve the peace for this country. Why should I regret that? What I accomplished was approved by Congress — which represents our people. All of you live in safety from domestic enemies because of security from the police. Likewise, you live in safety from foreign enemies because our military keeps them from attacking us. Nuclear technology was already under development in other countries. My assigned responsibility was to develop our nuclear navy. I managed to accomplish this."
Personality
Quotes from others about the person
As Lehman stated in his book, Command of the Seas:
"one of my first orders of business as secretary of the navy would be to solve . .. the Rickover problem. Rickover's legendary achievements were in the past. His present viselike grip on much of the navy was doing it much harm. I had sought the job because I believed the navy had deteriorated to the point where its weakness seriously threatened our future security. The navy's grave afflictions included loss of a strategic vision; loss of self-confidence, and morale; a prolonged starvation of resources, leaving vast shortfalls in capability to do the job; and too few ships to cover a sea so great, all resulting in cynicism, exhaustion, and an undercurrent of defeatism. The cult created by Admiral Rickover was itself a major obstacle to recovery, entwining nearly all the issues of culture and policy within the navy. "
Connections
Rickover met Ruth Masters, a student in international law and subsequently a scholar of some distinction. The two carried on a correspondence courtship and in 1931 were married by an Episcopal minister. They had one son, Robert Masters Rickover. Two years after his wife's death in 1972, Rickover married Eleonore Bednowicz, a navy nurse who retired thereafter and who survived him.