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Rickover: Controversy and Genius: A Biography

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The book is a criticism of Admiral Rickover. It paints a negative image of Rickover. Having worked for Rickover for 30 years, I can say I don't think the authors made an effort to understand the man. But the authors give no hint about their motivation, except perhaps that Rickover refused to grant them interviews.

A few things are clear: (1) the authors have little technical training, (2) they did not appreciate why Rickover exercised close control over all Naval ship nuclear work, and most unfortunate (3) the authors drew false conclusions. For example, the authors concluded that the USS THREASHER was lost due to a scrammed reactor. But when you look at the corrective recommendations coming out of the Congressional hearings on the THREASHER loss you see that the consensus was that the reactor plant was not suspect, and several areas outside the reactor plant may have been causes. The recommendations were made in what evolved as the SUBSAFE program. The authors made no mention of the SUBSAFE program.

The book is a huge assembly of information, apparently put together by two authors who did not compare notes. Throughout the book, Rickover quotes and other information is given twice. This makes for tedious reading. Finally, it is beyond my understanding why the authors chose to falsely malign Rickover's deceased wife.

Rod Hug

Worth reading if this is your area. The book describes Rickover as dominating, selfish, obsessed, power-hungry, dictatorial - but of immense value to our country because of the way he directed his ambitions. Interesting: How he exploited Congressmen to support him; how his superiors and peers despised him, yet envied his brilliance, how he interviewed and selected staff. Not interesting: Endless details on appropriations; differences between various sub propulsion designs. The book is solid and well-written, but unless you are interested in this arcane area, you can find more interesting biographies. And beware: Because this was unauthorized, Rickover and his staff did not participate and many of the inputs from others are of the vicious, jealous type, so the whole man does not come through in this book very well.