Progressive Management - Nuclear Navy 1946-1962: History of Navys Nuclear Propulsion Program--Hyman Rickover, Nimitz, Nautilus, AEC, Nuclear Submarines, Reactors, Atoms for Peace, Thresher, Polaris Missile

Nuclear Navy 1946-1962: History of Navy'sNuclear Propulsion Program - Hyman Rickover, Nimitz, Nautilus, AEC,Nuclear Submarines, Reactors, Atoms for Peace, Thresher, PolarisMissile

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CONTENTS

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Richard G. Hewlett and Francis Duncan

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United States Atomic Energy CommissionHistorical Advisory Committee

Chairman - Alfred D. Chandler, Jr. -Harvard University

John T. Conway - Consolidated EdisonCompany

Lauchlin M. Currie - Carmel,California

A. Hunter Dupree - BrownUniversity

Ernest R. May - Harvard University

Robert P. Multhauf - SmithsonianInstitution

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Foreword

Preface

Chapter 1 - Control of the Sea

Chapter 2 - The Idea and the Challenge

Chapter 3 - The Question of Leadership

Chapter 4 - The Structure ofResponsibility

Chapter 5 - Emerging Patterns of TechnicalManagement

Chapter 6 - Prototypes and Submarines

Chapter 7 - Toward a Nuclear Fleet

Chapter 8 - Nuclear Power Beyond the Navy

Chapter 9 - Propulsion for the Fleet

Chapter 10 - Building the Nuclear Fleet

Chapter 11 - Fleet Operation andMaintenance

Chapter 12 - The Measure ofAccomplishment

Appendix 1: Table of Organization

Appendix 2: Construction of the NuclearNavy

Appendix 3: Financial Data

Abbreviations

Notes

Sources

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Foreword

The members of the Historical AdvisoryCommittee of the United States Atomic Energy Commission haveclosely followed the writing of this volume and find the completedstudy an honest, scholarly, and balanced history of the Navy'snuclear propulsion program. We enjoyed the opportunity to reviewthe draft and final chapters and to discuss them at length with theauthors. At our meetings we had access to all the information theyused, both classified and unclassified, and also had theopportunity to inspect the plants, laboratories, andnuclear-powered vessels whose development they were describing andanalyzing. In the reviews of the draft and the final chapters wedid not, of course, attempt to verify the accuracy of the details,based as they were on voluminous files of documents, many of whichhad been opened for historical research for the first time. Nor didwe try to influence the authors' interpretations of the documentaryrecord. The review did, however, permit us to say with certaintythat this study in all respects meets exacting canons of historicalscholarship.

The story told here has significance for menof affairs as well as scholars. It says much about the innovationand development of a basic new technology under the guidance of thefederal government. It describes the complex relationships amongthe scientists who handled the basic research, the civilian andmilitary officials (usually technically trained engineers), whowere responsible for carrying out the programs, and the contractors(usually private corporations), who built the plants, equipment,components, and ships. The study suggests both the problems raisedin the process of putting a new technology to work and thetechniques and procedures devised to solve these problems. In thisway it provides a rare insight into the inner workings of themilitary and civilian governmental offices carrying out the task.Above all this history emphasizes the critical role played byindividual personalities in the execution of a highlysophisticated, impersonal technological program within a large andsometimes impersonal bureaucracy.

Alfred D. Chandler, Jr.

Chairman, Historical Advisory Committee

June 25, 1973

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Preface

This book had its origins in a series ofdiscussions with Admiral Hyman G. Rickover beginning in the springof 1962. Having read The New World, the first volume in the AtomicEnergy Commission's historical series, Admiral Rickover urged theauthors to undertake a history of the naval nuclear propulsionprogram. Such a study, he believed, would reveal for the first timethe truly significant aspects of the development of nucleartechnology in the United States, a subject which, in his view, TheNew World had merely skirted. Although the authors of The New Worldfound Admiral Rickover's suggestion an exciting possibility, workhad already started on the second volume in the series and it wasnot feasible to take on another book. However, discussions with theadmiral continued over the next six years with growing interest onboth sides.

By 1968 the authors of the present book werecompleting Atomic Shield, the second volume in the Commission'shistorical series. Our research had reinforced our earlierimpression that the Navy project deserved careful study. More thanever we were intrigued by the suggestion that Admiral Rickover andhis group might have devised some especially effective approach toreactor development which others had not found. If Rickover hadsuch a "magic formula," would it not be sensible to find out whatit was so that others could use it?

The chance to write history that might havepractical as well as intellectual value was certainly attractive,but we could foresee problems. The first was the obvious difficultyof defining Rickover's "formula." The challenge of trying toelucidate something Rickover and his own staff were unable todefine was reason enough to hesitate. Even more serious in our viewwas the stress on administrative methods and engineering practiceswhich such a study would seem to require. We were not specialistsin public administration, management, or engineering. We couldbring to the project only our talents and experience as historians.Rickover himself discounted this objection with the observationthat the task required generalists rather than specialists. In hisopinion the only person better qualified for the job would be asociologist with exceptionally broad intellectual interests andexperience.