Why Rickover resisted more nuclear surface combatants

Was Admiral Rickover right to resist repeated proposals for nuclear destroyers and cruisers?

Nuclear surface ships competed for scarce reactor-design and engineering capacity even though the Navy did build some beyond carriers and submarines.

The U.S. Navy did field nuclear-powered surface combatants, so the issue was not a categorical ban. Every additional cruiser or destroyer design added demands to a reactor-development and support chain already serving submarines and carriers. Specialist engineering capacity can govern fleet architecture as firmly as strategy or cost.