Jimmy Carter

After a while Jimmy asked to be and was assigned to the dangerous submarine division of the Navy. Before he knew it, he found himself deep beneath the surface of the ocean on a constant Cold War patrol for Soviet ships. Then he was transferred to the paradise of Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. Rosalynn learned to hula and would dance while Jimmy played the ukelele. James Earl Carter III was soon born, and they called him Chip. Jimmy was at sea for months at a time in a submarine that was a claustrophobic steel tube with the recycled air often smelling of cigarettes, diesel fuel, body odor and vomit. Carter would listen for hours to the seemingly endless sounds on the sonar device for signs of enemy ships and, incidentally, was treated to the the high pitched squeal of dolphins and the peaceful, mesmerizing and otherworldly songs of gigantic humpback whales. The USS Pomfret was an early submarine assignment, an older boat that had served in World War II. Two days after Christmas in 1948 he departed on a long cruise to the western reaches of the Pacific Ocean. He was seasick for five straight days. Several ships were lost in very difficult weather. One night, while the sub was skimming on the surface of the pitch black ocean, Jimmy stood watch. Water splashed in his face as waves crashed violently over the deck of the sub. Standing alone, his hands gripped with all of his might the iron pipe handrail as a fierce storm raged around him. Then, suddenly, a giant wave raced across the deck of the ship, engulfing Jimmy and forcing his hands from the railing. The water raised him up and for a few seconds he was swirling hopelessly inside the wave. Then, as suddenly as it appeared, the wave receded and deposited him on top of a gun on the rear of the sub. He grasped the barrel for dear life and after a few seconds gingerly lowered himself to the deck and he staggered back to his station having, just barely, cheated death. Then came what he thought to be the chance of his lifetime. An unusual man was starting an amazing new project, and Jimmy wanted very much to be a part of it. The man, Hyman Rickover, was a visionary. He was also a tough and unsmiling perfectionist with zero tolerance for ignorance. A wiry figure with his white hair parted almost down the middle, this Captain, and later four-star Admiral, had a dream of a navy whose ships were powered by the recently harnessed nuclear energy. All told he would serve in the Navy for 63 years, the longest serving naval officer in U.S. History. He would become known as the “Father of the Nuclear Navy.” He lead the effort to develop the world’s first nuclear-powered submarine, the USS Nautilus, which was launched and commissioned in 1954. Jimmy applied to be one of the first to serve in this revolutionary new navy. Rickover ordered him into his office and subjected him to an intense interview lasting over two hours. Finally, Rickover asked about Jimmy’s career in the Naval Academy, and he (ever honest) had to admit that although he finished high up in his class, he did not always do his best. Rickover's face was stern, cold and deadly serious as he looked straight into Jimmy's eyes. Then he chillingly turned his back to him and tersely asked, “Why not?”. Rickover then resumed some paper work he had been toiling over when Jimmy had first walked in. He could find no answer and then he slowly and quietly exited the office. Jimmy was at a loss. “Why not the best?” he had to ask himself dejectedly as the door creaked and swung closed behind him and with it, he believed, his chances. However, Rickover, to Jimmy’s astonishment, did accept him into the program and he was transferred to Schenectady, New York, where he would study nuclear physics in the graduate program at Union College, becoming a nuclear engineer. He was then assigned the duty of directing the construction of one of the nation’s first nuclear submarines, The U.S.S. Sea Wolf. Jimmy worked closely with, but under, Rickover whom he both feared and respected like no one else except his own father. Rickover personally oversaw every detail of his command, a trait that Carter would embrace for the rest of his own career. One day Rickover said to Jimmy’s surprise, “I wish that nuclear power had never been discovered.” Jimmy blurted out, “Admiral, this is your life.” The old salt said, “ I would forego all the accomplishments of my life, and I would be willing to forgo all the advantages of nuclear power to propel ships, for medical research and for every other purpose of generating electric power, if we could have avoided the evolution of atomic explosives.”