The Taming of the Screw

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by Paul Forsythe<br>Johnston

Curator of Maritime History

National Museum of American History<br>I stopped<br>talking after about three minutes. Dead silence and utter stillness greeted<br>my proposal to a sizeable gathering of retired U.S. Navy admirals, former<br>submarine captains, experts in naval intelligence, nuclear propulsion<br>engineers, and current submariners of various ranks. Eventually, peoples'<br>eyes began to slide around the table, gauging each others' reactions to<br>what I had said. Maybe they thought I was joking or deliberately provoking,<br>but I wasn't.<br>Nobody<br>said a word, so I started in again, detailing my special interest in the<br>subject and describing its lowly 19th century origins. Finally, one of<br>the Pentagon representatives at the other end of the table raised his<br>hand rather tentatively, cleared his throat and voiced the collective<br>expert opinion I had already anticipated, "Excuse me sir, but all that's<br>classified." Others around the table immediately and unanimously confirmed<br>his appraisal of the situation.<br>I suspected<br>I would have only one chance to sell my idea, and the time was now. We<br>were in the early planning phase of a proposed exhibit on nuclear submarines<br>at the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of American History—a<br>joint venture between ourselves, the Navy Submarine League and the Navy—and<br>at this meeting, we were discussing various possibilities. At that point<br>in time, all ideas were worthy of consideration, however preposterous<br>they might appear on the surface.<br>We had<br>been told that the Navy might be willing to declassify certain aspects<br>of submarine technology and operations just for our exhibition. Details<br>were vague, but the offer was straightforward and sincere. However, they'd<br>had other things in mind when making that offer, and I had unexpectedly<br>taken aim at one of the most secret aspects of modern nuclear submarines.<br>It had never before been seen by the public and was even hidden at restricted-access<br>submarine bases worldwide, and now I was proposing that we share it with<br>the five million visitors that come to our museum each year. Hence the<br>quiet.<br>Hoping<br>the chap at the other end of the table who'd spoken knew the most about<br>my subject, I directed my next question to him. "Is there any way we could<br>look into this a bit further before giving up?" He smiled, gracefully<br>acknowledging he'd been hooked. I got his name, and we went on to other<br>topics. I was very pleased, as I had a fallback plan and an alternative<br>to that, and I hadn't needed to bring up either one.

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