On June 20, 1927, he received an appointment from the Honorable Felix Cordova Davila, Puerto Rico's Resident Commissioner, to attend the
United States Naval Academy. On June 4, 1931, he graduated third in a class of 441 from the U.S. Naval Academy in
Annapolis,
Maryland. Rivero's first assignment was aboard the . From 1932 to 1936 he served aboard the following ships: , , and . He earned his
master's degree in
electrical engineering from the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 1940 and in 1941 married Hazel Hooper.
World War II During
World War II, he served aboard the as a gunnery officer and was involved in providing artillery cover for
Marines landing on
Guadalcanal,
Marshall Islands,
Iwo Jima, and
Okinawa. For his service he was awarded the
Bronze Star with Combat "V". Rivero was reassigned to the . The
Pittsburghs bow had been torn off during a
typhoon and Rivero's strategies saved his ship without a single life lost. For his actions, he was awarded the
Legion of Merit. He also participated in the
Battle of the Santa Cruz Islands, the attack on
Bougainville in the
Solomons, the capture of the
Gilbert Islands and a series of carrier raids on
Rabaul. On June 5, 1945, Rivero participated in the first carrier raids against
Tokyo during operations in the vicinity of
Nansei Shoto. Rivero studied nuclear weaponry at the
National War College and in 1954 he became Assistant Chief of Staff for Naval Operations. In 1955, he was promoted to the rank of
rear admiral and was a member of the Staff of the Commander in Chief, Western Atlantic Area.
Cuban Missile Crisis The
Cuban Missile Crisis was a tense confrontation between the
Soviet Union and the United States over the Soviet deployment of nuclear missiles in Cuba. On October 22, 1962, Admiral Rivero was the commander of the American fleet sent by
President John F. Kennedy to set up a quarantine (blockade) of the Soviet ships in an effort to stop the
Cold War from escalating into World War III. On October 28,
Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev ordered the removal of the Soviet missiles in Cuba, and Kennedy ordered an end of the quarantine of Cuba on November 20, bringing an end to the crisis.
NATO commander From 1968 until his retirement from the Navy in 1972, Admiral Rivero was the
North Atlantic Treaty Organization's commander in chief of the Allied Forces in Southern Europe. He was responsible of the land, sea and air forces of five nations deployed in the Mediterranean area:
Italy,
Greece,
Turkey,
Britain and the United States. During his years as commander, some 215,000 of the 310,000 American troops in Europe were stationed in
West Germany. At the time, Rivero believed that any withdrawal of United States troops from West Germany might affect the strength of the United States Sixth Fleet in the Mediterranean.{{cite news|access-date=May 4, 2010 ==Post-Navy career==