1964 - SSN 625 (HENRY CLAY) Sea Trial letter

This is the sea trial letter for SSN 625 on January 7, 1964:

At Sea - North Atlantic

7 January 1964

USS HENRY CLAY (SSBN-625)

Dear Mr. Natcher:

We have just successfully completed the first sea trials of the USS HENRY CLAY, our seventeenth Polaris-type nuclear submarine.

The HENRY CLAY was built by the Newport News Shipbuilding and Dry Dock Company. We also have in operation eighteen attack-type nuclear submarines, making a total of thirty-five. When all nuclear submarines authorized by Congress are completed, the United States will have forty-one Polaris and forty-seven attack submarines.

This ship, a powerful instrument of peace and the enforcement of right dealing among nations, is most fittingly named for Henry Clay. Virginian, Kentuckian, American—his aphorism "I would rather be right than be President" has become part of our political heritage. His reputation as "the great compromiser" has been universally recognized, not as a yielding to any pressure to abandon principles but as a constant desire to sacrifice personal interest where the national interest required it.

At the end of his own life of service, the eulogy of a one-time political opponent aptly quoted the poet's lines:

"Long when freedom her Stars and Stripes unfurled,When revolution shook the startled world,

Heroes and sages taught his brilliant mind

To know and love the rights of all mankind."

Respectfully,

H. G. Rickover

The Honorable William H. Natcher

U.S. House of Representatives

Washington, D.C.