Though Dan Summitt retired from the U.S Navy years ago, he still 
regrets not receiving clearance to fill a submarine missile tube with 
thirty-five thousand pounds of wet grits and launch it at a very pesky 
Russian spy ship.

    In Tales of a Cold War Submariner, Summitt tells the story of his
military career, proving that navy life at the height of the Cold War as
commander of two nuclear submarines kept him on his toes. He 
relates his work with Adm. Hyman Rickover, recounts the efforts to 
stay undetected while patrolling for Soviet submarines, and shares
the everyday dangers faced by a submarine crew.

    Summitt graduated from the Naval Academy in 1947, entered 
Submarine School, and rose to become deputy chief of staff for the 
commander of the Submarine Force Atlantic Fleet and chief of staff 
for the Submarine Flotilla 8. He served as commander of the USS 
Seadragon on its secret mission to the North Pole, where he 
rendezvoused with the USS Skate to conduct experiments under the 
ice.

    Summitt later took command of the USS Alexander Hamilton, 
one of forty-one Polaris-class nuclear submarines, which carried 
sixteen thirty-five-foot-tall missiles. Summitt takes the reader on
a tour of this vessel, describing daily life and the routine and 
not-so-routine missions in close quarters with no outside contact 
for days or even months.

    Through it all, the fear of mechanical malfunctions, detection, 
or imminent attack always lingered. Summitt's anecdotes and 
descriptions capture this tense era in history.

_________________________________________________________

DAN SUMMITT retired in 1974 and now makes his home in San Antonio, 
Texas.


Number Ninety-five: Texas A&M University Military History Series