The godfather of the nuclear Navy may finally get his due, in a blockbuster new film about Admiral Hyman Rickover, one of America’s lesser known and under-appreciated heroes.
Michael Pack, who directed Rickover: The Birth of Nuclear Power, tells Breitbart News Executive Chairman Stephen K. Bannon that Rickover’s “huge influence” on society has “largely been forgotten” and is “one of those stories that needed to be told.”
Pack noted that Rickover was born in a small Jewish village in Poland and his family survived pogroms before Rickover came to America when he was six. It was unthinkable for Rickover to question the greatness of America or why this country was worth defending. In what Pack calls a quintessential immigrant story, Rickover only spoke Yiddish when he first arrived in America and he ended up at the Naval Academy, where he dealt with some anti-Semitism.
Decades after graduating from the Naval Academy and serving in war, Rickover, whom Pack describes as a “flamboyant maverick” and “a unique American hero,” drove the first nuclear-powered submarine and “built the world’s first nuclear power plant.” He achieved much of his acclaim later in life — in his 40s and 50s and beyond.
Rickover: The Birth of Nuclear Power will be shown on PBS stations on Wednesday evening.
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