http://www.wsj.com/articles/obama-torpedoes-the-nuclear-navy-1432591747 By JOHN LEHMAN May 25, 2015 6:09 p.m. ET The president disregards a policy that for decades has ensured effective leadership of the nuclear fleet. @BrianFromWA Go Navy!
President Obama, possibly unaware of the implications, has made a mistake by nominating Adm. John Richardson as the new chief of naval operations. Adm. Richardson likely would do a fine job in that important role, but by trying to move him from his current position as director of the Naval Nuclear Propulsion Program, the president has crossed a line and created a precedent that could have grave consequences for the effectiveness of the nation’s nuclear fleet. First, a little history is in order. Adm. Hyman Rickover, the father of the U.S.Navy’s nuclear fleet and one of the fathers of commercial nuclear power, was a great man. Including his time at the Naval Academy, he served for 55 years on active duty and ran the Naval Nuclear Propulsion Program for three decades until his retirement in 1982. He created and oversaw a culture of personnel and engineering excellence that is unique in the world. While Adm. Rickover reported to the chief of naval operations and the secretary of the Navy, he had virtually absolute authority and accountability for the Navy’s nuclear submarine and surface-ship programs. Largely due to the culture of engineering excellence and quality control he created, nearly 300 U.S. Navy nuclear warships have operated flawlessly for 64 years without a single nuclear incident. They played a major role in giving the U.S. Navy command of the seas and victory in the Cold War. During the same period their Soviet counterparts had many nuclear accidents and incidents. I was the secretary of the Navy in the early 1980s when it came time for Adm. Rickover to retire at age 81. The challenge was to preserve his fail-safe personnel policies and the culture of engineering excellence he had created, while ensuring that it could be passed on from one capable successor to another without endangering its discipline even for a short period. Working with the bipartisan leadership of the Joint Committee on Atomic Energy, the Senate and House Armed Services Committees and the secretary of energy, we constructed a solution. We replaced Adm. Rickover’s personal rule with a position having executive power to prevent meddling from the layers of bureaucracy that were creating chaos in most defense programs. Importantly, we gave the new incumbent complete control of the selection and training of personnel. To ensure that such a powerful executive stayed long enough to execute programs and ensure accountability, a nonrenewable term of eight years was established. That successful effort was put into an executive order by President Reagan that has worked effectively for 34 years. Since Adm. Rickover’s retirement there have been five outstanding admirals in the job. All would have made fine chiefs of Naval Operations. But because each of them before Adm. Richardson stayed a full eight years and exercised the powers granted them by the executive order, the Navy nuclear program has been an island of success in line authority and line accountability. Unfunded overruns in other Pentagon programs total more than $400 billion, according to the Government Accountability Office. But the Navy’s nuclear submarine programs have been consistently on budget and on time. They have been protected from the 970,000 Pentagon bureaucrats whose paralyzing bloat has made a hash of most Army, Navy and Air Force weapon programs. The reason for Navy nuclear success is because there has always been one strong experienced person in charge and accountable, standing like a stone wall against the bureaucratic onslaught. But by far the most important benefit from this unique arrangement is the fact that there hasn’t been a single nuclear accident in the seven decades that the U.S. Navy has operated hundreds of nuclear submarines, carriers and surface combatants. President Obama’s nomination of a current director of the Navy’s nuclear program to be the next chief of Naval Operations puts this unique record at risk. If Adm. Richardson leaves the Naval Nuclear Propulsion Program, which he has headed for less than two years, all that was accomplished by the executive order will be swept aside. The job will become one more rung up the career ladder, a perch for ambitious admirals to use to interact with and please the politicians who have the power to elevate them to more glamorous positions. Worst of all, if the job is seen as a steppingstone, a fraying of the zero-defects culture may begin and the possibility of a nuclear accident within the U.S. Navy may increase. The consequences of a nuclear incident would be devastating and would threaten the Navy’s ability to continue to operate its current reactor designs. The president should reconsider, and with the help of the Senate’s advice and consent, should choose another nominee. The Navy has 10 other superbly talented four-star admirals and many more vice-admirals of similar experience to choose from. If President Obama fails to recognize the singular importance of the Naval Nuclear Propulsion Program and goes forward with the Richardson nomination, historians will have no trouble placing the date and the blame if our nuclear Navy comes to grief. Mr. Lehman was secretary of the Navy in the Reagan administration, and a member of the 9/11 Commission.
In summation: rewarding competence is bad. Dear Lord - these people are so determined to disagree with *everything* Obama does, they have gone barking mad.
Yeah, Obama nominated Richardson for promotion without ever talking to him, or anyone else in the Navy. Obviously. We are just lucky Obama didn't randomly nominate say, Ruth Ginsberg or John Hinckley to be be chief of naval operations. I'm sorry that BrianFromWA's career has been destroyed, as well as the security of the nation. It's a black, black day for America when someone gets promoted. barfo
That's the number of U.S. military personnel in the whole world, all of whom he calls "bloat." He's whitewashing. Rickover would normally have retired 20 years before he turned 81, but was kept on because things were going well in the sub service. He famously had a prickly personality (watch him testify to congressional committees, if any old C-SPAN videos are online...he gets sarcastic) and his enemies in the bureaucracy kept increasing. All through the 1970s, I read negatives about his surliness. Finally, Reagan's assistants got rid of him in 1982 at age 81, possible only on the strength of the Administration's conservative reputation. If I were him, I wouldn't put that on my resumé. Okay, on the issue: If 8-year assignments are good in this case, why not for many more? In the Canadian military, people stay at the same location for many years at a time. But the U.S. has lots of debt to spend, so military families are moved around constantly. Why doesn't Lehman approach the issue of assignment duration consistently instead of making a special case, an exception.
In summary, using THIS position as a stepping stone to promotions is bad. The case he makes is the position requires leadership to remain in the position for considerable time, not a couple years.
Unintended consequences of an idea with good intentions. The case is made by a guy who ran the entire Navy. He might know a teeny bit more about how the Navy should run its nuclear program than a community organizer.
But if that particular program is running better than the navy as a whole, wouldn't you want to spread their effective methods/ideas to other programs?
The point I see him making is that the Navy's nuclear program has 300 nuclear vessels and no accidents in 64 years. It's a rather important distinction about this position. I'm hoping @BrianFromWA might chime in. He worked on nuclear subs.
Maybe, but the leap from that to "and therefore, the head of the program must serve for 8 years" is a rather large one. What exactly is the argument for an 8 year (rather than a 2 year or 16 year) tenure? barfo
That doesn't even make sense. The 8 year stay is a (fairly recent) tradition, not a term of office. The president can fire the head of the nuclear program any time he wants. Or promote him. barfo
Promote him, maybe. Seems like a loophole, which is exactly what the former Secy. of the Navy is saying is bad. http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=42931 Sec. 3. The Secretary of the Navy (through the Secretary of Defense) and the Secretary of Energy shall obtain the approval of the President to appoint the director of the Naval Nuclear Propulsion Program for their respective Departments. The director shall be appointed to serve a term of eight years, except that the Secretary of Energy and the Secretary of the Navy may, with mutual concurrence, terminate or extend the term of the respective appointments.
Ok, so if the Secretaries of Energy/Navy can fire him... who do the secretaries of Energy/Navy report to? Etc. It's not an elective office. He's in the president's chain of command. barfo
Wouldn't have to be. The secretaries might decide they want the guy out. Or, heaven forbid, the guy might actually want out himself, either as a promotion like this case, or to retire, or because he's bored. If the organization is not strong enough to withstand losing the chief, the organization has big problems. What if the guy has a heart attack or gets hit by a bus? The idea that our nuclear safety depends on one guy keeping his job is actually pretty scary. Luckily I'm sure it's not true. BrianFromWA can probably continue to do his job just fine under the new boss. barfo
If the secretaries want him out, that's their right. If they won't because Obama wants them too, he'll have to fire them and nominate replacements. Good luck with that.
