What is with that BB 66 ryme? BB-66 was not evens started for 3 more years. It is not a 56 which was launched earlier this year. As far as I can tell no battleships were lanched anywhere near this time.
My guess is Wouk was making a statement about defense spending in general and didn't want to single out a particular project. Maybe he picked 66 as a number we couldn't possibly reach in the foreseeable future. As far as recent launchings, we saw that of Indiana a few weeks ago.