Well it seems Carter does have some nuclear experience.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jimmy_Carter wrote:
Carter long dreamed of attending the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis. Meanwhile, he enrolled at Georgia Southwestern College in nearby Americus. After taking additional mathematics courses at Georgia Tech, he was finally admitted to the Naval Academy in 1943.
http://www.jimmycarterlibrary.gov/documents/jec/jecbio.phtml wrote:He was educated in the public school of Plains, attended Georgia Southwestern College and the Georgia Institute of Technology, and received a B.S. degree from the United States Naval Academy in 1946. In the Navy he became a submariner, serving in both the Atlantic and Pacific fleets and rising to the rank of lieutenant. Chosen by Admiral Hyman Rickover for the nuclear submarine program, he was assigned to Schenectady, New York, where he took graduate work at Union College in reactor technology and nuclear physics, and served as senior officer of the pre-commissioning crew of the Seawolf, the second nuclear submarine.
http://www.jimmycarterlibrary.gov/documents/jec/jcnavy.phtml wrote:
16 OCT 1952 - 08 OCT 1953 -- Duty with US Atomic Energy Commission (Division of Reactor Development, Schenectady Operations Office)
From 3 NOV 1952 to 1 MAR 1953 he served on temporary duty with Naval Reactors Branch, US Atomic Energy Commission, Washington, D.C. "assisting in the design and development of nuclear propulsion plants for naval vessels."
From 1 MAR 1953 to 8 OCT 1953 he was under instruction to become an engineering officer for a nuclear power plant. He also assisted in setting up on-the-job training for the enlisted men being instructed in nuclear propulsion for the USS Seawolf (SSN575).
9 OCT 1953 -- Honorably discharged at Headquarters, 3rd Naval District. Discharge was at Carter's request. Total service: 7 years, 4 months, 8 days.
10 OCT 1953 -- Appointed to US Naval Reserve and placed on inactive duty.
7 DEC 1961 -- Transferred to retired reserve with rank of Lieutenant at his own request, but without pay and allowances in accordance with Title X, U.S.C. section 1376 (a).
Carter enrolled in the US Naval Academy in 1943 and graduated in 1946. At that time the curriculum was a war shortened 3 year program instead of a normal 4 year program.
Admiral Rickover didn't start the Nuclear Navy until 1949. From the beginning until now, the U.S. Government owned Bettis Atomic Laboratory has been the home of the US Naval Nuclear Propulsion Program. It wasn't even founded until about 2 1/2 years after Carter graduated from the Academy.
Since the Navy did not even have a nuclear program when Carter was a cadet, I doubt he was in a nuclear physics curriculum. It would be my guess the Navy would have been be using every bit of available classroom time, especially since it had been reduced by 25%, to teach the cadets about existing programs, not programs that wouldn't even be on the drawing board until years after Carter graduated.
According to his biography, Carter was in the Navy's nuclear program for about 11 1/2 months.
18 OCT 1952 to 03 NOV 1952
(two weeks, nothing listed)
03 NOV 1952 to 01 MAR 1953
Assigned to a billet where he claims to have assisted in the design and development of nuclear propulsion plants. About a month after reporting for this assignment, Carter was sent to help with the cleanup of the Chalk River Nuclear Power Plant. But, from Carter's own published biography he had no formal education in nuclear physics.
Are we to believe that someone with no background at all is going to be helping design nuclear propulsion systems?01 MAR 1953 to 08 OCT 1953
He's being taught how to be a engineering office at the same time he's helping set up an OJT program for sailors.
Why is he being taught to be an engineering officer, didn't he just spend about three month helping design the system? He was then transferred to inactive reserve status until his discharge from the Navy was approved.
By his own admission, he never served aboard an operating nuclear platform. In fact, the keel of the Seawolf to which he was attached as a member of the crew wasn't laid until about a month before he left active duty. It wasn't completed until July of 1955, almost two years after Carter was discharged.
At that is the extent of Jimmy Carter's self-proclaimed technical expertise in nuclear physics.
Jimmy Carter can claim to be a nuclear engineer if he wants, but the emperor can also claim to have new clothes.
