WASHINGTON -- The Navy has been trying to ship Hyman Rickover's oars for 17 years but the irascible four-star admiral doggedly rowed on -- until now.
Now President Reagan has agreed with the Navy's decision to oust its oldest salt in January when his latest two-year extension is up for renewal. The dismissal will coincide with Rickover's 82nd birthday.
Civilians and officers in the uniformed Navy plus top-ranking members of the administration are united in their feeling the time finally has come for Rickover to retire, administration sources said.
'The feeling is he's done his country a great deal of service but that now it's time he went,' said one source.
Announcing the decision, Navy Secretary John Lehman said it is time to begin an 'orderly transition' in the nuclear program headed by Rickover.
The Pentagon said the president has offered Rickover a newly created post on his staff as an adviser on civilian uses of nuclear energy. But Rickover has not decided whether to accept, Lehman said.
Although Rickover, the Russian-born son of an immigrant tailor, did not agree with Reagan's decision, he will obey the commander-in-chief, the Navy secretary said.
Before deciding not to extend Rickover's active service, Lehman met with Rickover and with his congressional supporters, including Rep. Samuel Stratton, D-N.Y., and Sen. Henry M. Jackson, D-Wash.
In the past, such powerful congressional allies have given Rickover the support that has kept him in active service beyond the age of 62 but now their numbers in Congress are dwindling.
The white-haired Rickover, the nation's oldest active duty warrior, has served for 59 years and is credited with masterminding the creation of America's nuclear seapower -- beginning with the launching of the submarine Nautilus in 1954.
Probably because the Nautilus was the first of the nuclear ships to join the fleet, Rickover is best known as the father of the atom-powered submarines. He has exerted such an iron rule over the boats and their men that often he has been charged with running a navy within the Navy.
Officially, Rickover is deputy commander for nuclear propulsions in the Sea Systems Command. The reach of his power far outweighs the title.
The crusty admiral long has been at odds with his superiors, and such is the outspokenness of the country's most notable military maverick that even the Navy dissociates itself from his prepared testimony to Congress.
'This statement reflects the views of the author and does not necessarily reflect the views of the secretary of the Navy or the Department of the Navy,' is the typed preface affixed to the title page of Rickover's prepared and often controversial remarks to congressional committees.
The reason is that Rickover often goes public with the kind of unmentionables reserved for the private cocktail party circuit. No other admiral dares do this because no other admiral would survive.
For example, during testimony May 5 about cost overruns, Rickover charged the nation's two submarine builders -- the Electric Boat Division of the General Dynamics Corp. and the Newport News Shipbuilding and Drydock Co. -- with soaking the Navy.
'Both yards have a battery of lawyers whose sole job is to file claims,' he told the defense subcommittee of the House Appropriations Committee. 'I deal with hundreds of contractors and I only have this problem with two contractors. They know they can get away with it.'
Rickover also has stirred controversy over the years with his persistent charges that American educational methods are inadequate to meet the nation's needs.