UNSINKABLE HYMAN RICKOVER

By Jimmy Carter's account, Admiral Hyman Rickover, 77, has had a "profound effect on my life, perhaps more than anyone else except my own parents." The President took the title of his autobiography, Why Not the Best?, from a question asked by the curmudgeonly architect of the U.S. nuclear submarine fleet during their first meeting in 1952, when Carter was a junior officer. After Carter's Inauguration, one of his first guests for lunch at the White House was the admiral, who presented the President with a desk plaque that read: O, GOD, THY SEA IS SO GREAT AND MY BOAT IS SO SMALL.

So what has Jimmy Carter done lately for his mentor? Not much. As one of his first major acts, he moved to spike the admiral's guns by slashing from the Navy's proposed budget $733.3 million --to be used to convert the nuclear-powered cruiser Long Beach into an antimissile defense ship and to begin building a nuclear strike cruiser and a fifth nuclear aircraft carrier. The President apparently agreed with other Navy brass that money for new surface ships would be better spent on less costly oil-fired craft, such as frigates. This would leave Rickover with little more than the nuclear submarine program, which, important though it is, no longer fully captures his imagination.

The House restored $ 187 million for the second cruiser, but what Rickover wanted most of all was the fifth carrier. Although he had complained privately to Carter, he voiced no public protest. But the admiral had only begun to fight; he quickly called upon his ally of a quarter-century, Washington Democrat Scoop Jackson, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee. Two weeks ago, at the committee's urging, the Senate added $81.6 million to the Navy's budget for research on the carrier --enough to keep the project afloat.

Jackson and other congressional admirers have been saving Rickover's programs--and Rickover--from the Pentagon ax since 1953. The Navy had devised a none too subtle ploy to force the crusty, cantankerous then captain into retirement by reducing him to working out of a converted ladies' room and twice passing him over for promotion. But many on Capitol Hill shared his dream of an all-nuclear fleet, no matter what the cost. At their insistence, the Navy moved him to better quarters and eventually promoted him to full admiral. Since 1965, when he reached retirement age, his congressional supporters have forced the Navy to reclassify him every two years as a retired officer recalled to active duty.

Even after years of victory, the outspoken admiral refuses to batten down his lip. He has criticized defense contractors for not knowing ships from "horse turds," urged Congress to issue most admirals coloring books to while away their time, complained about the training at Annapolis. The Navy brass still harbors hopes of getting rid of him, but it is no match for his powerful friends on the Senate and House Armed Services committees. One of them, Democratic Representative James Lloyd of California, came to his defense last week with a broadside of marvelously mixed metaphors: "I am not prepared to sail into the teeth of Rickover's excellent batting average compared to that of the others with braid on their sleeves. He is a different drummer." The brass is outgunned.

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