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America’s nuclear navy owes much to Admiral Hyman Rickover, who rose through the ranks by a mixture of tenacity and unmilitary thinking. In The Rickover Effect (Wiley, $19.95, ISBN 0 471 12296 3), Theodore Rockwell recounts how Rickover created the first nuclear submarine and built the first atomic power station. Accompanied by anecdotes – Rickover’s hiring techniques encouraged interviewees to purloin files and climb into zoo enclosures to get a job on his staff – it’s a riveting piece of recent history.