George Washington, along with the later Ethan Allen, Lafayette, James Madison, and Benjamin Franklin classes, comprised the "41 for Freedom" group of submarines that represented the Navy's main contribution to the nuclear deterrent force through the late 1980s.

The commissioning of George Washington on 30 December 1959, the first submarine Polaris launch on 20 July 1960, and her first deterrent patrol November 1960 – January 1961 were the culmination of four years of intense effort.

[4][5] However, at the Project Nobska submarine warfare conference in 1956, physicist Edward Teller stated that a compact one-megaton warhead could be produced for the relatively small, solid-fueled Polaris missile,[6] and this prompted the Navy to leave the Jupiter program in December of that year.

To accomplish this conversion, Electric Boat persuaded the Navy in January 1958 to slip the launch dates for two Skipjack class fast attack submarines, the just-begun Scorpion (SSN-589) and the not-yet-started Sculpin (SSN-590).

[8] Material and equipment ordered for Scamp and Sculpin were used to build Patrick Henry (SSBN-599) and Theodore Roosevelt (SSBN-600) at Electric Boat and Mare Island Naval Shipyard, respectively.

Newport News Shipbuilding and Portsmouth Naval Shipyard built Robert E. Lee (SSBN-601) and Abraham Lincoln (SSBN-602) without any components ordered for Skipjack-class submarines.