One of the real beauties of the Scooter was that the original concept was for a huge monster of an airplane. Ed Heinemann came up with the Bantam Bomber instead, just 'cuz he could; as things happened, it was coincident with a revolution in computer/electronics miniaturization that allowed nukes to get smaller and smaller. So the Navy told Saint Ed, "yeah, man, run with your little airplane deal". Just to hedge bets, they built the Whale as well. It was the spirit of the age. Can you imagine such a thing happening now? DoD puts out a Request for Proposals and a major defense contractor comes back with, "Here's something completely opposite of what you asked for, but it'll do the job."
Just to illustrate how desperate the Navy was to keep in the Nuke game, during the same period (mid-50's) they also developed the P6M Seamaster Heavy Attack jet seaplane - one way to get into the intercontinental bomber game, since anything with the lift and range would be too huge for flying off the Boat.
The period of about 1946-1964 is really fascinating - this perfect mix of rapidly advancing technology and a shitload of money. Kind of the same cool-gadgets thing that's happening nowadays with cel phones and mp3 players, but with toys that can kill lots of people.
