Most of the nuclear fission stuff that is simple enough that you might hope to analyze with back-of-the-envelope QM has so much energy that it tends to act like a classical particle of negligibly short wavelength (but not enough energy to bring QM back into the picture by QED creating new particles upon collision). And while there is probably various quantum mechanical stuff deeply involved in a power reactor in one way or another --- e.g., electrical conductivity tends to involve band theory, and water is often used as a working fluid and at a fundamental level its thermal properties depend on stuff like hydrogen bonds --- I doubt it was helpful for a naval nuclear reactors guy to try to analyze things at that level in the middle of the last century.
Adm. Rickover [0] certainly set the standard with personal vetting of nuclear offices, but with the stakes of a reactor mishap being so high, who can really blame him?
Contrast Adm. Rickover's tough stance with the managers in charge of the shuttle program [1] that led to STS-51L Challenger disaster.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyman_G._Rickover
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Shuttle_Challenger_disas...
Strictly speaking, I think he was reviled because the rescue attempt came late and didn't work. He made a joke within the last year - when announcing his cancer diagnosis, I think - about how he'd have been reelected if he had sent a few more helicopters on that mission, and that that would have been a mixed blessing for him personally. Both points were true, I think.
(no idea why you were downvoted)
One of the better presidents was William Henry Harrison; didn't last long enough to mess things up.