Early History of CGN 9 - The First Nuclear Surface Ship

USS Long Beach (CGN-9) was the United States Navy’s first nuclear-powered surface warship and the first major surface combatant designed from the keel up as a guided missile ship. Developed at the same time as USS Enterprise, Long Beach represented the Navy’s effort to apply nuclear propulsion not only to aircraft carriers, but also to fleet escorts capable of accompanying nuclear carriers at sustained high speed without dependence on oilers.

The Eisenhower administration and Congress approved three major nuclear surface ships in consecutive fiscal years: the guided missile cruiser Long Beach in fiscal year 1957, the attack carrier Enterprise in fiscal year 1958, and the guided missile frigate Bainbridge in fiscal year 1959 [1]. Together, these ships became the first practical test of Rickover’s proposition that nuclear propulsion could change the operating logic of the surface fleet.

Where Enterprise tested nuclear power in the capital ship of the postwar Navy, Long Beach tested it in a missile cruiser. She combined three new ideas: nuclear propulsion, all-missile armament, and long-range fleet air defense. Duncan emphasizes that Long Beach was “something special”: the first cruiser designed by the Navy since World War II, the first large ship armed only with missiles, and the first nuclear-powered surface ship [2].

Origins: Nuclear Propulsion, Missiles, and the Future Fleet

The origins of Long Beach lay in two converging postwar developments: the Navy’s search for nuclear-powered surface ships and its shift from gun cruisers to missile-armed fleet escorts. The cruiser type had a long history in steam navies, but by the 1950s the Navy faced a problem of obsolescence. Almost half the active fleet had been built during World War II, and new aircraft, radar, sonar, missiles, and nuclear weapons were accelerating the aging of existing ships [2].

The Navy’s long-range planners saw nuclear propulsion as one way to overcome that obsolescence. Admiral Arleigh Burke’s 1958 “Navy of the 1970 Era” projected a large active fleet in which six carriers, twelve guided missile cruisers, and eighteen guided missile frigates would be nuclear powered. That force would permit six all-nuclear-powered task forces, each centered on an attack carrier and escorted by nuclear cruisers and frigates [3].

The cruiser also reflected Burke’s interest in missile warfare. Before Long Beach, the Navy was converting existing cruisers to carry surface-to-air missiles and was considering Regulus surface-to-surface missiles for cruisers and carriers. The CNO, Admiral Burke, also saw a possible role for surface ships in fleet ballistic missile warfare before Polaris became firmly associated with submarines. His request for studies of nuclear-powered cruisers reflected this interest in missile development [4].

Thus, Long Beach was not simply a nuclear-powered cruiser. It was intended as a future fleet escort and missile platform. Its original armament concept included Talos and Terrier surface-to-air missiles for air defense and Regulus, an air-breathing surface-to-surface missile, for attacks against targets several hundred miles away [5].

USS Long Beach (CGN‑9) was originally ordered as CLG (N)‑160. She was reclassified CG (N)‑160 in early 1957, but was again reclassified as CG (N)‑9 on 1 July 1957. [46]

Design Concept: The C1W Plant and an All-Missile Cruiser

The propulsion design for Long Beach used two C1W reactors. The C1W plant was derived from the broader surface-ship reactor development effort centered on the A1W prototype in Idaho. Although A1W was designed primarily for the aircraft carrier program, it also produced data for the design of the C1W plant for Long Beach [6].

The need for careful plant layout was significant. Surface ships required much more shaft horsepower than submarines, and going to higher power brought new problems in reactor physics, metallurgy, shielding, and plant arrangement. Long Beach and Bainbridge each required two reactors, while Enterprise required eight [8].

As a warship, Long Beach was designed as a guided missile cruiser rather than a traditional gun cruiser. Her initial weapons concept included Talos, Terrier, and Regulus missiles [5]. The Regulus feature is important because it shows how much the ship’s design was affected by rapid missile evolution. The Eisenhower administration later cancelled further development of Regulus, one of the weapon systems planned for Long Beach [35]. Shortly before the Kennedy administration took office, Burke won approval to install Polaris on the nuclear cruiser, provided the Navy could find the funds [36]. Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara decided that installing Polaris on Long Beach was not worth the cost, reasoning that a Polaris submarine could do the mission better and with less vulnerability [37]. President Kennedy accepted that recommendation [38], and Long Beach was completed with Talos and Terrier surface-to-air missiles [39].

This shifting weapons picture was one of the ship’s defining design challenges. The nuclear propulsion plant performed well, but the combat-system side of the ship lagged and changed as missile programs evolved.

Prototype Support: A1W and C1W Development

The A1W prototype at the National Reactor Testing Station in Idaho supported both Enterprise and Long Beach. Construction of A1W began in April 1956 [9]. Although it was the first Westinghouse aircraft-carrier reactor plant, it was not a full eight-reactor Enterprise plant. Instead, it consisted of two reactors and associated steam equipment for one shaft [7].

A1W served three principal purposes relevant to Long Beach. First, it tested surface-ship reactor materials and operating characteristics at higher power than submarine plants. Second, it provided experience with multi-reactor surface-ship propulsion arrangements. Third, it generated design data used for the C1W plant installed in Long Beach [6].

The prototype schedule was closely tied to the shipbuilding schedule. A1W’s first reactor reached full power on 17 January 1959, the second on 4 September 1959, and both operated together at full power on 15 September 1959 [9]. By then, Long Beach was already well into construction at Bethlehem Steel’s Quincy yard.

This overlap reflected Rickover’s standard method but also created schedule risk. Prototype and ship construction were proceeding in parallel. Lessons from the prototype had to be incorporated into shipboard engineering while the ship was already under construction.

Construction at Bethlehem Steel, Quincy

Long Beach was built at the Quincy, Massachusetts, yard of Bethlehem Steel Company. Her keel was laid on 2 December 1957, making her the first of the nuclear surface ships to enter construction. She was launched on 14 July 1959 and commissioned on 9 September 1961 [10].

The ship was under construction before the A1W prototype had completed full-power operation. The sources also show that Long Beach had completed the first year of a troubled construction history by the time Enterprise was laid down in February 1958 [11].

The Quincy yard became a major concern for Rickover and Naval Reactors. Rickover believed Quincy had problems with work quality, labor relations, material control, accounting practices, engineering strength, and supervisory aggressiveness. Corrective actions, in his view, had been sporadic and short-lived [12].

Late in 1959, Rickover sent a four-man team to Quincy: Panoff from Naval Reactors headquarters, John W. Crawford, Jr. from the Newport News Naval Reactors field office, James W. Carpenter from Electric Boat, and John I. Stiefel from Bettis [13]. For thirteen days, they studied the yard’s organization, observed work, and interviewed supervisors. Their conclusions were severe: material control was antiquated, responsibility was fragmented, communication between management levels was poor, and it was difficult to find anyone who had a complete picture of the work to be done [14].

The team also identified an important cultural difference. Quincy management tended to see the unique demands of nuclear propulsion as the main source of trouble. Naval Reactors saw the trouble as lying largely in conventional shipyard deficiencies—poor welding, poor brazing, and inadequate planning [15]. This finding is important: Rickover did not believe nuclear work failed because it was exotic; he believed it exposed weaknesses in ordinary industrial practice.

Budget, Cost, and Schedule Pressures

Cost escalation was one of the central issues in Long Beach. Nuclear surface ships were controversial because they cost more to build, man, operate, and maintain than oil-fired ships. Unlike nuclear submarines, whose tactical advantages were obvious, nuclear surface ships were always politically vulnerable [44].

Long Beach became the most notorious cost example in the early nuclear surface program. In June 1959, Admiral Burke told Rear Admiral Ralph K. James, Chief of the Bureau of Ships, that building time had to be cut, changes minimized, and more research and engineering completed before new developments were placed in ships [16]. Burke cited Long Beach as the worst example: an original estimate of about $80 million had risen to $250 million [17].

The Hubbard committee later gave a more detailed cost history. Its February 1960 report found that Long Beach’s original total cost estimate was almost $85 million, while the latest projected cost was $313 million, an increase of 3.7 times [18]. The original estimate for nuclear propulsion equipment was $26 million, while the latest projected estimate was $41 million, an increase of a little over 1.5 times [19].

This distinction mattered. The overall ship cost grew far faster than the nuclear propulsion equipment cost. The Hubbard committee therefore found that the cost of everything was rising and that the rate of increase for nuclear propulsion was not out of line when compared with other categories [20].

Schedule pressure also interacted with international prestige. AEC Chairman John A. McCone considered speeding up Long Beach because the Soviet nuclear icebreaker Lenin appeared to be having difficulties. If Long Beach could be accelerated, the United States might claim the first nuclear-powered surface ship, alongside the first nuclear submarine and first nuclear power plant. Rickover thought the propulsion plant could meet a faster schedule with an additional $1–2 million, but Burke and McCone ultimately rejected the acceleration effort. Burke suspected it would require more money than anticipated, and McCone thought the chance of success too slim to justify the additional expenditure [21].

The schedule was also affected by the weapons systems. At the beginning of 1961, Long Beach’s propulsion plant had reportedly been ready for almost a year; the weapons system was holding up the ship [22]. Rear Admiral John T. Hayward urged getting the cruiser to sea to provide technical data for Bainbridge and future single-reactor destroyer plants [23].

Major Naval Reactors and Navy Contributors

As with Enterprise, Long Beach was strongly associated with Admiral Hyman G. Rickover, but several other figures were central to the cruiser’s development.

Admiral Hyman G. Rickover directed Naval Reactors and controlled the nuclear-propulsion standards. He oversaw the use of A1W data for the C1W plant, pressed Quincy to improve quality and management, resisted reductions in spare parts, and used the performance of Long Beach to support the case for nuclear surface ships.

Milton Shaw (NRHQ 1950-1961) was Rickover’s principal surface-ship propulsion engineer during this period. Shaw and Rickover participated in drafting a January 1961 document on surface-ship nuclear propulsion issues [24]. Shaw’s surface-ship role also connected Long Beach to the broader A1W, Enterprise, and Bainbridge effort.

John I. Stiefel, Westinghouse manager of surface-ship projects at Bettis, was part of Rickover’s four-man Quincy review team and represented the Bettis engineering side of the effort [25].

John W. Crawford, Jr.(NRHQ 1952-1963), Rickover’s representative at Newport News, was also sent to Quincy as part of the special review team. His inclusion suggests that Rickover used experienced field representatives from one yard to diagnose problems at another [26].

James W. Carpenter (NRHQ 1956-1961), Rickover’s Naval Reactors representative at Electric Boat, also joined the Quincy team [27].

Robert Panoff (NRHQ 1950-1964) senior Naval Reactors engineer and Rickover’s principal assistant for submarine propulsion plants, was included on the Quincy review team because of his broad technical and shipyard-construction experience. [28].

Captain Eugene P. Wilkinson was Long Beach’s commanding officer. His role was historically significant because he had also commanded USS Nautilus during the first nuclear submarine sea trials. Duncan explicitly compares the July 1961 Long Beach trials with the earlier Nautilus trials, noting that Rickover and Wilkinson were again present for a first-of-kind nuclear ship [29].

Admiral Arleigh Burke, Chief of Naval Operations, was a major sponsor of nuclear surface ships and long-range fleet planning, but he also worried about rising shipbuilding costs [16].

John A. McCone, AEC chairman, considered accelerating Long Beach to beat the Soviet nuclear icebreaker Lenin as the first nuclear surface ship, but later withdrew from that plan [21].

Rear Admiral Miles H. Hubbard led the 1960 committee that investigated cost escalation at Quincy and Newport News [18].

Testing and Sea Trials

Long Beach’s sea trials began on 5 July 1961. At 6:30 that morning, she was moored in the Fore River off the Quincy yard. Rickover and Captain Wilkinson were aboard, and the occasion recalled the Nautilus trials six and a half years earlier [30].

Once past the Boston Lightship, the cruiser began a long and complicated series of tests. That evening, the main engines were shut down so that the main condensers could be cleaned of marine growth that had accumulated during the ship’s long time at the dock. The sea chests had also taken in fish while the ship moved through shallow water, and these had to be removed [31].

Shortly after midnight, Long Beach began a four-hour full-power run. Just as that evolution ended, heavy fog closed in and reduced visibility at times to 200 yards. When the fog lifted enough, Wilkinson conducted maneuvers to determine the ship’s characteristics. On 7 July, still in poor visibility, Long Beach returned to dry dock [32]. She had been at sea for about fifty hours, steamed roughly 820 miles, and made part of the run at more than 30 knots. Duncan’s conclusion is direct: the propulsion plant “performed beautifully” [33].

The formal trial record cited by Duncan identifies builder’s sea trials and preliminary acceptance trials on 5–7 July 1961, 18–19 July 1961, and 28–29 August 1961 [34].

The successful trials were important not only for Long Beach, but also for the broader surface nuclear program. Hayward had urged getting the cruiser to sea so the Navy could obtain technical data for Bainbridge and future surface-ship reactor plants [23].

Weapons-System Changes and the Polaris/Regulus Problem

One of Long Beach’s main challenges was that her weapons concept changed while she was being built. The ship had been planned with Regulus surface-to-surface missiles, but the Eisenhower administration cancelled further Regulus development [35]. Burke later won conditional approval to install Polaris on Long Beach, but McNamara rejected the idea [36]. His reasoning was that a Polaris submarine could do the same mission better, with less vulnerability, and without the political ambiguity of a visible surface ship carrying strategic missiles during crises [37]. Kennedy accepted McNamara’s recommendation [38].

This left Long Beach as an air-defense cruiser armed with Talos and Terrier [39]. The result was still historically important, but narrower than some of the early design ambitions. Her nuclear propulsion plant was ready before the weapons systems, underscoring a recurring theme in first-generation nuclear surface ships: the nuclear plant was not always the pacing technical problem.

Congressional and Policy Significance

Long Beach entered service at a time when the Navy and Department of Defense were divided over whether nuclear surface ships justified their cost. The ship’s successful trials helped Rickover and his allies argue that nuclear propulsion worked at surface-ship scale. But the cost growth and construction difficulties also gave opponents powerful evidence against rapid expansion.

The Hubbard committee’s conclusions were mixed. It found that Newport News was doing better than Quincy and that Quincy suffered from inefficient management, poor lower-level supervision, bad labor relations, resistance to productivity improvements, and lack of pride in workmanship [40]. It also criticized the divided authority between the regular Supervisor of Shipbuilding and Rickover’s Naval Reactors representative [41].

This criticism reflected a persistent institutional tension. Rickover’s tight control produced high standards, but it also created conflict with ordinary Navy shipbuilding authority. The committee heard complaints that shipbuilders seemed to be working for two masters: the Supervisor of Shipbuilding and Rickover’s field representative [42].

Despite these tensions, Long Beach became part of the first nuclear-powered task force. In 1964, Enterprise, Long Beach, and Bainbridge conducted a 65-day circumnavigation independent of logistic support [43]. This demonstration, known as Operation Sea Orbit, offered visible proof of what Rickover, Burke, and other nuclear-surface advocates had promised: a high-speed task force not tied to oil logistics.

Challenges Faced

The first challenge was technical scale. Surface combatants required more power than submarines, and high-power surface plants raised new problems in reactor physics, metallurgy, shielding, and plant layout [8].

The second challenge was prototype overlap. Long Beach was under construction before A1W had completed full-power testing. Prototype data were needed for C1W design, but ship construction could not wait until all prototype lessons were complete [9].

The third challenge was shipyard performance at Quincy. Rickover and his review team found fragmented responsibility, antiquated material control, poor communication, weak planning, and conventional workmanship problems such as welding and brazing deficiencies [13]–[15].

The fourth challenge was cost escalation. Long Beach rose from an original estimate of nearly $85 million to a projected $313 million. Nuclear propulsion equipment rose from $26 million to $41 million, but the broader ship cost grew much more sharply [18]–[20].

The fifth challenge was weapons instability. The ship’s propulsion plant was ready well before the weapons systems, and the planned Regulus strike role disappeared. Polaris installation was considered and rejected [35]–[39].

The sixth challenge was institutional resistance. Even when senior officials acknowledged that nuclear-powered surface ships were superior, many questioned whether the extra cost and skilled personnel requirements purchased enough military advantage [45].

Conclusion

USS Long Beach was the Navy’s first nuclear-powered surface warship and the first large all-missile cruiser. Developed alongside Enterprise, she was central to the first generation of nuclear surface ships. Her two C1W reactors drew on data from the A1W prototype at Idaho, demonstrating how the carrier and cruiser programs were technically linked.

The ship’s construction at Quincy was troubled by cost escalation, schedule pressure, yard-management deficiencies, and changing weapons requirements. Yet her propulsion plant performed extremely well on trials. During her first July 1961 sea trials, she steamed roughly 820 miles in about fifty hours, including operation above 30 knots, and the propulsion plant performed successfully [33].

Long Beach also showed the limits of early nuclear-surface enthusiasm. She proved that nuclear propulsion could work in a surface combatant, but her cost growth and shipyard difficulties strengthened arguments against rapid expansion. Her missile systems changed faster than the ship could be built, and strategic missile roles migrated to submarines.

Nevertheless, Long Beach became a critical proof case. With Enterprise and Bainbridge, she formed the Navy’s first nuclear-powered surface task force and demonstrated in 1964 that a carrier group could circumnavigate the globe without logistic support [43]. If Enterprise proved that nuclear propulsion could transform the aircraft carrier, Long Beach proved that nuclear propulsion could also transform the escort—provided the Navy was willing to pay the cost and impose the industrial discipline required by the technology.