Rickover - (Military Profiles (Hardcover)) by Thomas B Allen & Norman Polmar (Paperback)

About the Book

Highlights Rickover's effect on the Navy's development of nuclear power and records one of the most extraordinary tours of duty in naval history

Book Synopsis

Hyman G. Rickover was not long removed from his Jewish roots in Poland when he graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy in 1922. After a respectable career spent mostly in unglamorous submarine and engineering billets, he took command of the U.S. Navy's nuclear propulsion program and revived his career, being retired--involuntarily--some thirty years later in early 1982. He was not only the architect of the nuclear Navy but also its builder. In the process, he erected a network of power and influence that rivaled those who were elected to high office, and that protected him from them when his controversial methods became objectionable or, as critics would suggest, undermined the nation's vital interests. Authors Thomas B. Allen and Norman Polmar, whose full-length biography of Rickover (in manuscript in 1981) was consulted by the Reagan Administration during the decision to remove him from active duty, are eminently qualified to write an essential treatment on the controversial genius of Admiral Rickover.

Review Quotes

"Allen and Polmar have demonstrated that Rickover's life reflects one of the most notable American success stories of the twentieth century. From his immigrant childhood to one of the most remarkable and competent leaders of the military industrial complex, Admiral Rickover was the driving force behind making military and commercial nuclear power practical and safe. Allen and Polmar have provided a well-balanced and interesting profile of a great American."--K. J. Moore, editor of Fire at Sea: The Tragedy of the Soviet Submarine Komsomolets and co-author of Cold War Submarines: The Design and Construction of U.S. and Soviet Submarines, 1945-2001