Admiral Rickover summarized his position by stating, “the man of the future on whom we shall depend more and more is the technical expert.Today he is still subservient to non-technical leaders in government and industry, and his work is hampered and sometimes destroyed by men in whom is vested great power but who cannot understand the realities of the new, artificial, technological age.
But the ‘verbal’ men are on the way out… We have taken cognizance of this demand for a different kind of man…”
From Admiral John Harvey's speech to the American Society of Naval Engineers (ASNE).
4 comments:
That was a good speech.
Captain Lambert,
Admiral Rickover was indeed a dedicated individual and in his position required the senior administrators of all nuclear powered submarines to be nuclear power engineers. On the nuclear powered submarine that I was stationed on the Commanding Officer normally would give all Officers and Chiefs a pre-patrol briefing prior to making each deterrent patrol. During the first one of these that he gave on our submarine, he said that “reactor safety” was the mission of this patrol, and he went on about that mission. I do not remember to this day if the Commanding Officer asked if there were any questions, but I raised the question by saying “ Captain, I always thought the primary mission of an FBM Submarine was to be the major deterrent to nuclear war, and half of our crew are Sailors other than nuclear engineers, and you left them out today”. The Captain said “ you are right COB and then went on to give the rest of the crew some words that would encourage them.
The Captain never made me suffer for my questioning, but it sure made the Assistant Weapons Officer and the other Officers from the Weapons Department put on a grin at that time. It is my opinion that many engineers are so focused on their own specialty that they can overlook what the overall objective of the Navy should be.
Very Respectfully,
E. A. Hughes, FTCM (SS)
USN (Retired)
Navyman834
Admiral Rickover was cool and all, but he should have supported the Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactor design over the FBR currently used.
Dear Anon,
I do trust that is proper to refer to you by a subtitle. If Adm. Rickover ever heard the word cool he would not associate it with anything other than the relative temperature of the core. I am not a nuc but I suggest you check the decommissioning problems of the LFTR over the FBR. Of course, I have had nucs that did not know it was improper to walk across a wet deck, so I will not be astonished at whatever you may deduce from that.
Navyman834
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