A little research showed that Thomas Corcoran was known as “Tommy the Cork,” and he had the reputation of being the premier lobbyist — in any and all matters — in Washington, D.C. There was no indication of what he wished to discuss, but I guessed it was to do someone a favor. Several days later Tommy the Cork appeared on time for his ten o’clock appointment, bustling into the office in a very officious but friendly way, accepted a cup of coffee, and sat in the guest’s place of honor, a comfortable divan at the opposite end of the CNO’s office from the large working desk that was the CNO’s command post.
Tommy the Cork got right to the point. He said, “Admiral, I want you to send Admiral Rickover to Annapolis to be the superintendent of the academy. We all know how interested he is in education and this would give him an opportunity to exercise this very special preoccupation of his.” I was frankly surprised and I’m sure I showed it when I said, “But Rickover is now the director of Naval Reactors and an assistant secretary of energy on the Atomic Energy Commission. He has an enormous span of responsibilities in his position, and although he may be interested in education, he is not the man to administer the program at Annapolis in any way. It encompasses a great deal more than simply book-learning.”
Tommy the Cork replied, “Well as a matter of fact, that’s one of the main reasons I am proposing he go to the Naval Academy, because he has become a terrible thorn in the side of U.S. industry and a number of businessmen I represent. They are people who are doing business with the Navy, theoretically, but actually they are having to do business with Admiral Rickover, and they consider him an impossible problem in either getting or carrying out a contract with the Navy.”
I asked him in what way. He responded, “Well, I’m sure you know that Admiral Rickover is very cantankerous, and when a businessman comes into his office to discuss a business proposal, he demands to know his qualifications and why he thinks he can produce the high quality of material demanded by the nuclear standards. Admiral, you must remember that these are experienced businessmen and they are not used to being talked to in this rough fashion or having their credentials doubted. And those who do have contracts find that Rickover puts one of his staff in their plant to monitor the way the contract is being administered — whether the specifications are being fully adhered to. As you know, his standards are very, very tight and sometimes a production line may fall off just a little bit, according to my sources. Not enough to cause a problem, but just not quite up to the standards established by Rickover. You’ve got to find a way to ease up on these businessmen or you’re going to lose some of your contractors.”
I pointed out that as long as two bidders were involved, there was always competition and that in many cases the pricing was determined not on the basis of the bid but from a fixed-priced contract. Rickover felt that to be fair to the producers who were building something they had never before undertaken, to higher standards than ever before, they should be helped rather than hindered by Rickover and his people providing advice and negotiating terms. Tommy the Cork said, “But Rickover’s negotiating terms always end up to his advantage, and the established businessmen and their factories are not achieving the margins that they think are fair.” I replied that they nevertheless accepted the contracts — which they didn’t have to — and accepted the government inspectors in their plants.
With that, Tommy the Cork exploded in a controlled fashion and said, “Admiral, he is just rude and terribly demanding and my people are not used to that kind of treatment. They want to get in the nuclear business but it is just asking too much of them to have to deal with Admiral Rickover and constantly arguing about the quality of their product being up to government standards. Admiral Rickover won’t give them any slack.”
“Mr. Corcoran,” I replied, “I think we might as well end our discussion right now for two reasons. First, I admit that Admiral Rickover is irascible, but he is in a very important job that requires for safety’s sake very tight standards, and he is insisting on them because the lives of the sailors and people who would be affected by a nuclear accident must be protected. If your constituents want to get into the nuclear business that’s what they’re going to have to put up with. Rickover cannot be spared, and I would have no thought of moving him out of that position. Second, the very idea of using the young midshipmen at Annapolis as the recipients of this old man’s cantankerous ways in order to spare American industrialists from the unpleasant task of working with Rickover, and pushing the hardship off on four thousand young college students, is absolutely preposterous. You really are treating the midshipmen at the Naval Academy with contempt when you suggest that it’s okay for them to be picked on by Rickover but not appropriate that your financiers take the heat. Our session is ended.”
Corcoran stormed out, taking the turndown with what I thought was perhaps an inevitability in his own mind. At least he could go back to his constituents and collect his fee, telling them he had gone to the mat with the Navy but that the CNO was just as arrogant as Rickover.
In 1999 a definitive biography was written about Corcoran, titled Tommy the Cork, the Supreme Lobbyist. Tommy the Cork was enough of a character in his own — compared to Rickover — to have his bio on the New York Times bestseller list.
I finished up with Rickover in June 1964, but command of the Enterprise would not turn over until October. So I was ordered to OpNav to assist in setting up a new directorate on the CNO staff—“the Office of Navy Program Planning” under Vice Adm. Horacio Rivero, a brilliant officer who had stood number one in his class at the Naval Academy and later served six years as a four-star admiral. After retiring, he became U.S. ambassador to Spain for four more years. Rivero became very supportive of nuclear power and exerted a strong influence in the retired community in mobilizing support for me among this normally truculent caucus of retired admirals when I was CNO.
In August of that year, the Holloways suffered a personal tragedy when our son was killed in an automobile accident. Young Jimmy was to begin his sophomore year at the University of Virginia, which he was attending on a Marshall Scholarship. The first expression of sympathy to my family was a call from Admiral Rickover, who had read of the accident that morning in the Washington Post early edition.
TWO-REACTOR CARRIER
Among my responsibilities as special assistant to Vice Admiral Rivero were nuclear propulsion and aircraft carriers. Rickover had planned that the follow-on carrier to the Enterprise would have a four-reactor power plant, cheaper to construct and considerably less expensive to operate than the Enterprise’s eight-reactor plant. But Secretary of Defense McNamara had vetoed the very idea of any more nuclear-powered surface ships on the basis that his special Office of Program Appraisal under Alain Enthoven had concluded that nuclear-powered aircraft carriers were not cost effective. The Navy was in a bind. Congress, by now strongly influenced by Rickover through the Sea Power Subcommittee of the House Armed Services Committee — created at Rickover’s suggestion — would not consider authorizing a nonnuclear carrier, and McNamara would not approve a nuclear version. His refusal to change his position in the face of the Navy’s positive studies and overwhelmingly favorable analysis concerned his assistant secretary of defense for research, development, testing, and evaluation (RDT&E), Harold Brown (later to become secretary of the Air Force and the secretary of defense under Carter). As Brown said, “Bob has dug himself a hole and now has to find a way out of it.”