That opportunity arose in the fall of 1964, when McNamara, on a visit to the Bettis Nuclear Laboratory in Pittsburgh, was shown by Rickover the mock-up of a reactor capable of 70,000 shp and designed to serve as a single reactor propulsion plant for a destroyer. This reactor had twice the power of an Enterprise reactor. McNamara asked Rickover if two of them could power an aircraft carrier. The proper answer should have been, “It depends on the size of the carrier.” The Enterprise was driven by 280,000 shp. But before anyone else could answer, Rickover responded with a loud yes, and McNamara then turned to Admiral McDonald, the CNO, and said, “Send me a memo on this on Monday.” I was among the small party accompanying McDonald, Rickover, and McNamara on the Bettis trip, so I was aware of the exchange.
In my capacity as coordinator for both carriers and nuclear propulsion in Rivero’s office, I was following up on the invitation from McNamara when I intercepted a draft memo going back up the chain of command to the CNO before it got to the Office of Program Planning, where it would come for staffing. The proposed response to SecDef McNamara, to be signed by CNO, was a shock. In essence, the memo read, “No. The Navy wants the four-reactor carrier we have been planning as the follow-on to the eight-reactor plant.” This response would have ended the Navy’s nuclear carrier program with the Enterprise.
The responsibility for preparing the reply to McNamara had been preempted by the Naval Material Command, whose four-star admiral had been bypassed regularly in Rickover’s dealings with Rivero and the CNO. The Naval Material command’s staff had not a single nuclear-trained person, yet they hadn’t consulted the Office of Naval Reactors in drafting their reply. I immediately prepared a separate memo, without reference to the Material Command’s draft, for Admiral Rivero to sign out to the CNO. This version stated, “Yes, Secretary McNamara, the Navy thinks your proposal of a two-reactor carrier is the way to go, and we stand ready to move ahead as soon as you give it the okay.”
This, of course, was checked out with Dave Leighton, Rickover’s carrier propulsion plant expert, and then taken to Vice Admiral Rivero, or “Rivets,” as he was known to his friends. Rivets was a quick study, and he read the draft memo twice, made no changes, and initialed it on the spot. In his job Rivets had immediate access to the CNO, so he then took the memo in to Admiral Dave McDonald, who signed it as Rivero waited. Both Rivero and McDonald were aware of the pressing need to seize the moment. They wanted to get a commitment from SecDef before his staff could get to him to change his mind. Instead of an approval to go ahead with construction, the CNO felt sure that Enthoven’s staff recommendation would be to conduct a new series of studies on a two-reactor carrier. Secretary of Defense McNamara did approve the two-reactor carrier, and promptly. It became the Nimitz, the first of a class of ten twin-reactor carriers of that design.
Leighton later confided to me that initially he had been concerned about the technical feasibility of the twin-reactor design. He would have preferred to go with a four-reactor version first, just because of the research and development involved. Each of the two reactors would have to produce 120,000 shp. One of the Enterprise’s reactors generated only 35,000 shp. That was an enormous jump in scale. There were possibilities of unforeseen radiation patterns with so much nuclear flux in such a confined environment. But when Rickover agreed to take it on, all doubts among the scientists and engineers in the Naval Reactors Branch evaporated. That was the faith they had in Rickover.
THE ENTERPRISE
In July 1964 I was ordered to command of the Enterprise, which was scheduled for a November overhaul in the Newport News Shipbuilding and Dry Dock Company’s yard for the refueling of its eight reactors. This was a fourteen-month job and had never been done before. Rickover wanted me there for the final buttoning-up of the ship and to be on board during the sea trials, but not to relieve as CO until the Enterprise had been pronounced by the yard and the Navy as ready for sea in all respects.
I moved on board the carrier while it was undergoing overhaul and refueling in the shipyard, leaving my family behind in our home in Arlington. It has been customary in the Navy for the oncoming CO not to arrive on the scene more than a week before the change of command. The idea is to let the outgoing commander savor the final days with his crew without having his successor on hand to confuse the issue of who is actually in command. Admiral Rickover, however, in his typically pragmatic approach, uncomplicated by such things as precedents and naval customs, insisted on a two-month turnover on board. I resolved the differences by holing up in the Enterprise’s flag cabin, working an eight-to-five day and taking all my meals ashore. I stayed completely away from the commanding officer and the running of the ship. The then-current CO, Capt. Mike Michaelis, had his hands full with the refueling operation and getting the ship ready to return to the operating fleet. In addition to reviewing the reactor technical manuals, I needed to study the current tactical publications and operational procedures that would govern the operation of the ship and air wing in the environment of a tactical unit in combat when the Enterprise rejoined the fleet. Rickover probably never knew such procedures existed. In any case, he would look upon that as my problem, not his.
Almost since the introduction of carriers into the U.S. Navy in the 1920s, and certainly since the beginning of World War II, the carrier commanding officers were limited to tours of about one year. There were two main reasons for this. The first, and probably the original, justification was that the intensity of the carrier operations, due to the dangerous nature of flying aircraft off of ships, was considered so stressful for a commander that the exposure to such stress should be limited. A second reason, and probably the most important, was that command of a carrier was the sine qua non of the naval aviator. It was absolutely essential for a Navy pilot to have command of an aircraft carrier in order to be eligible to even be considered for promotion to rear admiral.
So for career purposes, the carrier was essentially the turnstile for the advancement of naval aviation officers to flag rank. The same situation did not prevail in the case of other line officers, who could be selected for flag rank after command of a battleship, a cruiser, or a squadron of destroyers or submarines.
In the years following World War II, the force levels of attack carriers in the United States had stabilized at about fifteen. But there were, in addition, nine antisubmarine warfare carriers. That meant that if a carrier skipper were given a two-year tour as commanding officer, there would be only twelve naval aviator captains eligible for consideration for promotion to flag rank each year. By limiting the command tour to twelve months, that number was doubled. Of course, not all of the carrier commanding officers were promoted. One might not be selected on the basis of a poor performance in command of a carrier, such as a grounding, a collision, or, in fact, any tour of duty in which the carrier did not perform up to the very high standards established in the fleet. So it became well established after World War II that the tour of duty for a carrier captain would be one year. This policy seemed to be satisfactory until Admiral Rickover became involved in the selection of the commanding officer of the Enterprise.