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Originally Posted by geetrue
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Originally Posted by Heibges
I think the military policies of the United States in the second half of the 20th Century was a battle between the follower of Curtin LeMay and the followers of Hyman Rickover.
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Now don't get me wrong Heibges I'm on your side, but I thought Hyman Rickover was non-polictical or did you just mean his thought's on nuclear power usage?
Rickover was one strange dude. He interviewed people for the nuclear power porgram and always had them sit in a chair with the front two legs two inches shorter so the person he was interviewing was uncomfortable. When he made captain he just sewed another new stripe on his coat sleeve. Three old faded gold stripes and one new gold stripe made him an unusal looking fellow. |
Basically, Rickover thought the entire surface fleet was obsolete, and would be destroyed in a few days in a real war. At the same time, manned bombers were being viewed as obsolete. The crossroads came during Jimmy Carter's (Rickover's protege) presidency.
Like Clinton gets credit for the drive to balance the budget which actually started under Bush, Reagan gets credit for a defense buildup that actually started under Carter.
Carter was going to build the Ohio with the D-5 and Los Angeles Class submarines, but he was not going to fund the MX Missle or the B-2 Bomber. And in retrospect they both turned out to be huge pork barrel projects along with Star Wars. It is doubtful we would have much of a surface fleet at all if Carter had won a second term.
But when Reagan got elected there was that push for a 600 fleet Navy, and the MX Missle, B-2 Bomber, and Star Wars were heavily funded.