Sherry Sontag;Christopher Drew by Blind Man's Bluff: The Untold Story Of American Submarine Espionage Page B
top priority. Everyone was working such ungodly hours that the submariners came to believe that the new boats were designated SSBNs not because "SS" stood for submersible ship, "N" for nuclear power, and "B" for ballistic missiles, but because the initials stood for "Saturday, Sunday, and a Bunch of Nights."
While Raborn and his team labored to ensure that the subs were built, it was up to Rickover to oversee the installation of the nuclear reactors and the crews that would run them. Rickover was looking for men who would be unflinching in a crisis, men willing to pay attention to exact detail, men who were as meticulous as he was. He was convinced that was the only way to ensure reactor safety, and he knew that reactor safety was the only way to maintain public support for his nuclear-powered submarines. With all of this, he was helping to create a submarine force that would be unparalleled. Now Rickover's men were about to drive the most lethal subs ever built, subs that would prove crucial to the balance of power in the cold war.
The first Polaris subs were 382 feet long, about 60 feet longer than nuclear attack subs, and they carried sixteen nuclear-tipped missiles that could be aimed at targets more than 1,000 nautical miles away. They also were given two crews, blue and gold, who went out on alternating 60-day cruises-keeping the subs at sea as much as possible. The duty was tough. The 1,000-mile missile range forced these boats to ride the rough waters off the northern coast of Europe to stay near targeting distance of Moscow. Their job was to "hide with pride," to be an intercontinental missile force lurking and ready to fire a second strike if the nation were attacked and land missiles destroyed."
For their part, the Soviets had only a few nuclear-powered subs, and those so ill designed that men were dying. One submarine suffered such a horrible reactor accident that it was redubbed the Hiroshima by survivors. By the time the Soviets tried to locate missile launchers in Cuba in 1962, the United States had moved so far ahead that it was able to quickly scramble several Polaris submarines, ultimately nine in all, to points within shooting distance of the Soviet Union."
The United States had the clear advantage, but for how long? The crisis might have taught Soviet leaders that it would be impossible to build a nuclear missile force on land near U.S. shores. But by scrambling the Polaris subs into firing position, the United States had also shown the Soviets a better way to accomplish the same thing.
Three - Turn To The Deep
Flying on the wild success of his Polaris program, Admiral Red Raborn began looking ahead, thinking about new, imaginative ways of furthering nuclear deterrence. He quickly turned to the dreamer within his ranks, a young civilian whom the admiral had plucked from obscurity a few years earlier and anointed the chief scientist for Polaris.
John P. Craven was only in his midthirties when Raborn found him, but it was his job to look over the shoulder of everyone involved in the development of the missile subs, to find the problems, to come up with the answers. He was, as he put it, "chief kibitzer."
The moniker fit. Talking a torrent, his ideas usually overflowing, Craven was the kind of man who could dissect a blueprint and still have time to spout a few lines of poetry, biblical verse, or one of his endless series of self-scripted maxims of the sea. Sometimes he'd mix verse with maxim and sing the result aloud. He preached fantasy amid military discipline; he carried romance to the mechanics of nuclear war.
It was a role Craven had been bred to. He was the product of a family that reached back to Moorish pirates on his mother's side and was divided on his father's between Presbyterian ministers and Navy officers yawning in the family pew.
The Navy brass was the part of the lineage that most of the Cravens liked to boast about, the part that went back to Tunis Agustas MacDonough Craven,
While Raborn and his team labored to ensure that the subs were built, it was up to Rickover to oversee the installation of the nuclear reactors and the crews that would run them. Rickover was looking for men who would be unflinching in a crisis, men willing to pay attention to exact detail, men who were as meticulous as he was. He was convinced that was the only way to ensure reactor safety, and he knew that reactor safety was the only way to maintain public support for his nuclear-powered submarines. With all of this, he was helping to create a submarine force that would be unparalleled. Now Rickover's men were about to drive the most lethal subs ever built, subs that would prove crucial to the balance of power in the cold war.
The first Polaris subs were 382 feet long, about 60 feet longer than nuclear attack subs, and they carried sixteen nuclear-tipped missiles that could be aimed at targets more than 1,000 nautical miles away. They also were given two crews, blue and gold, who went out on alternating 60-day cruises-keeping the subs at sea as much as possible. The duty was tough. The 1,000-mile missile range forced these boats to ride the rough waters off the northern coast of Europe to stay near targeting distance of Moscow. Their job was to "hide with pride," to be an intercontinental missile force lurking and ready to fire a second strike if the nation were attacked and land missiles destroyed."
For their part, the Soviets had only a few nuclear-powered subs, and those so ill designed that men were dying. One submarine suffered such a horrible reactor accident that it was redubbed the Hiroshima by survivors. By the time the Soviets tried to locate missile launchers in Cuba in 1962, the United States had moved so far ahead that it was able to quickly scramble several Polaris submarines, ultimately nine in all, to points within shooting distance of the Soviet Union."
The United States had the clear advantage, but for how long? The crisis might have taught Soviet leaders that it would be impossible to build a nuclear missile force on land near U.S. shores. But by scrambling the Polaris subs into firing position, the United States had also shown the Soviets a better way to accomplish the same thing.
Three - Turn To The Deep
Flying on the wild success of his Polaris program, Admiral Red Raborn began looking ahead, thinking about new, imaginative ways of furthering nuclear deterrence. He quickly turned to the dreamer within his ranks, a young civilian whom the admiral had plucked from obscurity a few years earlier and anointed the chief scientist for Polaris.
John P. Craven was only in his midthirties when Raborn found him, but it was his job to look over the shoulder of everyone involved in the development of the missile subs, to find the problems, to come up with the answers. He was, as he put it, "chief kibitzer."
The moniker fit. Talking a torrent, his ideas usually overflowing, Craven was the kind of man who could dissect a blueprint and still have time to spout a few lines of poetry, biblical verse, or one of his endless series of self-scripted maxims of the sea. Sometimes he'd mix verse with maxim and sing the result aloud. He preached fantasy amid military discipline; he carried romance to the mechanics of nuclear war.
It was a role Craven had been bred to. He was the product of a family that reached back to Moorish pirates on his mother's side and was divided on his father's between Presbyterian ministers and Navy officers yawning in the family pew.
The Navy brass was the part of the lineage that most of the Cravens liked to boast about, the part that went back to Tunis Agustas MacDonough Craven,
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