Rear Admiral Hyman Rickover, son of a Jewish immigrant who pioneered the Navy’s work in nuclear ship propulsion, was compensated today for a snub by Washington officials earlier this month when he was not invited to the White House for President Eisenhower’s presentation of a medal to Commander William R. Anderson, skipper of the atomic-powered submarine Nautilus.
Today Admiral Rickover, who is referred to as “the father of the atomic submarine,” boarded the Nautilus here as personal representative of President Eisenhower to share the greetings given by New York to the craft’s daring crew which completed the historic voyage through the Arctic Ocean, crossing under the North Pole and thereby marking a new age in man’s development. The Congress, which was greatly displeased with the “passing over” of Admiral Rickover at the White House reception, last week voted a gold medal for the admiral in recognition of his work. New York City will present medallions to Adm. Rickover and Comdr. Anderson tomorrow.
There have been indications that the repeated snubs by high Navy officers and the withholding of his promotion to Vice Admiral was due to the fact that he is a Jew. This has been denied by Assistant Navy Secretary Richard Jackson in a letter to the House Armed Services Committee.
Admiral Rickover, according to a statement this week by his father, an 83-year-old Jewish tailor of Chicago, is interested in Jewish problems and contributes to Jewish philanthropic institutions. He was born in the town of Makova, near Flock, in Poland, and was brought to this country as a boy of 6. He studied at Annapolis, from which he graduated in 1922 with the highest honors. He was later sent by the Navy to study at Columbia University as an electrical engineer and has been with the Navy since.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
