This post has been updated to correct the hull number of USS Thresher. Recently released documents about the sinking of attack submarine USS Thresher (SSN-593) show the lengths the Navy took to assure the public that the incident wold not result in an environmental catastrophe. The first director of Naval Reactors, Vice Adm. Hyman Rickover, worked to reassure the public and Congress that there was no danger of a nuclear explosion or a major radiation leak contaminating the seawater more than 200 miles off Cape Cod following the 1963 sinking of the attack submarine. “There is no way the nuclear material … Continue reading Newly Declassified Report Shows How Rickover Worked to Explain Radiation Risk from USS Thresher Loss