Leslie R. Groves

Leslie Richard Groves Jr. (1896-1970) was a United States Army Corps of Engineers officer who directed the Manhattan Project, the top-secret program that developed the atomic bomb during World War II.[1][2] Groves' biographer, Robert S. Norris, dubbed Groves "The Manhattan Project's Indispensable Man."[2]

Early Life and Family Background

Leslie Groves was born in Albany, New York on August 17, 1896, to Leslie Richard Groves Sr., a Presbyterian Army chaplain who served with the 14th Infantry for most of his Army career, and Gwen Griffith Groves.[2][6] Leslie Jr., nicknamed Dick, was the third of four children and spent his formative years on various Army posts across the country.[6]

His father introduced core values to his children, constantly urging them to be strong, brave, and honest, frequently writing letters and urging them to learn their lessons.[4][6] Dick and his siblings were raised by their mother and her sister Jane, as Chaplain Groves was often absent due to his military duties.[6]

During his time at Fort William Henry Harrison near Helena, Montana in December 1911, Dick came under the tutelage of Lieutenant Edmund B. Gregory, the future Quartermaster General during World War II, who taught a course for enlisted personnel preparing for the West Point entrance examination.[6] It was also during this time when Dick met his future wife, Grace Hulbert "Boo" Wilson, the daughter of Colonel Richard Hulbert Wilson, commander of the 14th Infantry.[6]

Education and Early Military Career

Groves attended the University of Washington for one year and then Massachusetts Institute of Technology for two years before entering West Point.[5] After receiving a presidential nomination but not scoring high enough on the West Point entrance exam initially, he enrolled at MIT and retook the entrance exam in 1916, which he passed.[4]

Groves entered the U.S. Military Academy at West Point on June 15, 1916, as part of the class of 1920, but was graduated early in November 1918 due to the need for officers during World War I. He ranked fourth in his class and was commissioned in the Corps of Engineers.[6] Of his appointment Groves said, "entering West Point fulfilled my greatest ambition."[4]

For the next 20 years, he was assigned various engineering duties throughout the United States and Hawaii. He also attended Engineer School, the Command and General Staff School, and the Army War College, completing the schooling of those expected to hold high command and staff positions.[1] His early Army career helped him refine the skills and build the relationships needed for the Manhattan Project. He took part in construction projects in Hawaii, Texas, New Jersey, and Delaware. He even deployed to Nicaragua to conduct a survey for the Inter-Oceanic Nicaragua Canal.[4]

Pre-War Construction Leadership

During the mobilization period for World War II, from 1940 to 1942, Groves eventually oversaw all army construction in the United States, a mammoth task involving building camps, munitions plants, airfields, depots, and the Pentagon to support an army that grew from 135,000 during the interwar period to an eventual 8,000,000 during World War II.[1]

The projects included the building of camps, depots, air bases, munitions plants, hospitals, airplane plants, and the massive Pentagon, which he completed building in less than a year and a half. Groves oversaw a million men and spent $8 billion on Army construction with a peak month in July 1942 of $720 million, the equivalent of fifteen Pentagons.[2] Groves' proven record of managing complex undertakings made him a logical choice to lead the Manhattan Project.[2]

Appointment to the Manhattan Project

In mid-1942, the Army Corps of Engineers was put in charge of the U.S. atomic bomb project—known as the Manhattan Engineer District (MED) or Manhattan Project—and Groves was selected as its head. In September 1942, Groves was appointed to head the Manhattan Project with the rank of Temporary Brigadier General.[2][1]

US Army Colonel Leslie Groves was appointed head of the Manhattan Engineer District on September 17, 1942. Upon his appointment to lead this top-secret project, Groves wasted little time getting to work.[7] The following day he acquired 1250 tons of uranium mined from Africa's Belgian Congo. One day later, September 19, he approved Oak Ridge, Tennessee, as the location of Site X, a secret uranium-enrichment facility.[7]

Manhattan Project Leadership and Organization

As project leader, he was in charge of all of the project's phases, including scientific, technical and process development; construction; production; security and military intelligence of enemy activities; and planning for use of the bomb.[2] Under General Groves' direction, atomic research was conducted at Columbia University and the University of Chicago. The main project sites were built at Los Alamos, Oak Ridge, and Hanford.[2]

He chose the site and the key personnel for an isolated laboratory at Los Alamos, New Mexico, to research, develop, and fabricate the bomb.[1] He personally selected J. Robert Oppenheimer as leader of the Los Alamos laboratory, disregarding the latter man's Communist associations and waiving his security clearance process, due to his all-around understanding of physics, chemistry, metallurgy, ordnance, and engineering.[2][6]

By mid-October 1942, Groves had secured a contract with the DuPont corporation to oversee plutonium production, visited the Met Lab at Chicago, and chose physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer to lead Project Y, of which Groves would approve its location in Los Alamos, New Mexico on November 25, 1942. On January 16, 1943, Groves approved Hanford, Washington as the site for the Manhattan Project's massive plutonium-production facility.[7]

Security and Intelligence Operations

To ensure secrecy, he oversaw a vast security, intelligence, and counterintelligence operation with domestic and foreign branches. He became involved in many key high-level domestic policy issues and in several international ones as well.[1] Remarkably, during this entire period, no major breaches of security took place.[10]

Groves was given extraordinary power to achieve his objectives. As one of his assistants put it after the war, "General Groves planned the project, ran his own construction, his own science, his own army, his own State Department and his own Treasury Department."[10]

Work Ethic and Management Style

Groves' relentless drive to complete the project gave it momentum. Groves worked six days a week, 12 to 14 hours a day. He tirelessly traveled between sites in New York, Tennessee, New Mexico, and Washington state.[4] As Col. Kenneth D. Nichols, district engineer of the Manhattan Engineer District described him, "He abounds with energy and expects everyone to work as hard, or even harder, than he does."[4]

Colonel Kenneth D. Nichols wrote of Groves: "First, General Groves is the biggest S.O.B. I have ever worked for. He is most demanding. He is most critical. He is always a driver, never a praiser. He is abrasive and sarcastic. He disregards all normal organizational channels. He is extremely intelligent. He has the guts to make timely, difficult decisions. He is the most egotistical man I know. He knows he is right and so sticks by his decision. He abounds with energy and expects everyone to work as hard, or even harder, than he does… if I had to do my part of the atomic bomb project over again and had the privilege of picking my boss, I would pick General Groves."[2]

Trinity Test and Atomic Bomb Deployment

On July 16, 1945, under his direction, the Manhattan Project completed the first successful detonation of the atom bomb, known as the Trinity test.[4] To prepare for the combat missions, he had several dozen B-29 aircraft specially modified to carry the five-ton atomic bombs, initiated the creation of a special air force unit (known as the 509th Composite Group) to deliver them, and saw to establishing a domestic training base at Wendover, Utah, and an overseas staging base at Tinian, an island north of Guam in the Pacific Ocean. These actions put Groves at the centre of the planning, targeting, and timing of the attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945.[1]

Less than a month later, the U.S. deployed two atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan. The war against Japan ended a short time later on August 14, 1945.[4] The decision to drop the atomic bomb has been much debated. Groves' role is usually not emphasized, but in fact it was his operational timetable that made two bombs available in early August, 1945. Only an extraordinary challenge to the momentum surrounding the bombs would have prevented their use, and none was forthcoming.[10]

Post-War Transition and Retirement

On December 31, 1946, Groves turned over the MED to the civilian Atomic Energy Commission, created by the Atomic Energy Act of 1946.[1] He was appointed chief of the Armed Forces Special Weapons Project to control the military aspects of nuclear weapons in February 1947.[2]

Groves was promoted to Temporary Lieutenant General in January 1948 and retired a month later on February 29.[2] Groves himself, however, did not adapt well to peacetime. The high-handed methods which had kept the mammoth project on a tight schedule were not appropriate afterwards and Groves found himself with powerful enemies.[10]

After a final assignment as chief of the Armed Forces Special Weapons Project, he retired from the army in February 1948 and took a position with Remington Rand.[1] From 1948 to 1961, he was vice president of the Sperry Rand Corporation.[2] There he had responsibility for developing the commercial potential of the UNIVAC computer.[19]

Later Years and Legacy

He also served as president of the West Point alumni association.[2] He wrote Now It Can Be Told (1962), describing his experience of running the Manhattan Project.[1] In February 1970, Groves, Vannevar Bush, and James B. Conant were awarded the Atomic Pioneer Award by President Richard M. Nixon for their contributions to nuclear development and research during World War II.[6]

Groves was awarded a Distinguished Service Medal for his efforts on behalf of the Manhattan Project as well the Legion of Merit for the Pentagon construction.[4] Groves died of heart disease on July 13, 1970, and was buried in Section 2 of Arlington National Cemetery. His wife, Grace Hulbert Wilson Groves, whom he married on February 10, 1922, is buried with him.[5]

Historical Assessment

Many of Groves' policies, such as running large projects through corporate contractors and shielding decisions from outside scrutiny, were continued at the successor organization to Manhattan Engineer District, the Atomic Energy Commission.[10] The Manhattan Project's successful development, deployment, and mass production of nuclear weapons changed the world. The emergence of nuclear weapons created new superpowers, alliances, and enemies and would color American foreign policy for the next fifty years. The project's success is in large part attributed to Groves, whose drive and determination pushed the project to completion.[4]