Word: tempoed
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There was nothing tired about his playing. Instead of the brassy blare that comes from ordinary trumpets, Chefs horn usually sounded something like a clarinet with a frog in its throat-intimate, soft, agile. Starting at fast tempo, he doubled it to play his rapid-fire arabesques, never muffed a note right down to the pointedly abrupt ending...
Wildcat. Rickover's working schedule is hard and relentless. He arrives at Tempo 3 in mufti at 8 a.m. and sets to work at top speed. The telephone rings often, but conversations are brief. "Yes," he'll snap. "Send that guy over, but I won't sign on the dotted line." He starts to hang up, then, "No, no. You hear me? No!" and the conversation is suddenly ended. Subordinates come and go in streams. Carbons of every letter are read critically by Rickover and generally scrawled with comments...
About 4 p.m., Rickover usually hurries out of Tempo 3. He is not going home, but to the airport. He flies to Schenectady, Pittsburgh or New York and holds night conferences with government contractors. Then he takes a sleeper for Washington and shows up at Tempo 3 at 8 the next morning. On weekends he sometimes gets as far as California. Somehow, in his tightly packed schedule, he also manages to turn up occasionally for an evening at home with his wife (who holds a doctorate in international law and has written two books on the subject...
...this time the word had spread that something extraordinary was centered in Tempo 3. As confidence in Rickover grew in the Navy, a second nuclear submarine, the Sea Wolf, was scheduled, and General Electric was commissioned to build a different reactor for it. Named SIR (Submarine Intermediate Reactor), it will use neutrons of "intermediate" speed and molten sodium as a working fluid. It is now taking shape near Schenectady...
Time Bomb. But even though official Washington was growing enthusiastic, a time bomb was ticking under Tempo 3. Over the years the Navy has developed a kind of supreme court called selection boards to pass on promotions. The boards keep no records and need give no reasons for their decisions. Theoretically, they can be overruled, but they hardly ever are. If they "pass over" a captain, i.e., select his junior to be an admiral, there is normally no appeal...