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LESLIE R. GROVES
(Commanding General, Manhattan Engineer District, 1942-1946)
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Leslie R. Groves was born in Albany, New York, on August 17, 1896, shortly before his father, a Presbyterian minister, became an Army chaplain. Growing up on a succession of Army posts, Groves had always hoped to attend the United States Military Academy at West Point. After studying engineering at the University of Washington and at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, in 1916 Groves enrolled at West Point. He graduated in 1918 ranked fourth in his class. He joined the Army Corps of Engineers and distinguished himself through a succession of assignments relating to construction and administration. In the early 1940s, Groves served in a variety of capacities in Washington. One of his most noted tasks in this period was supervising the construction of the Pentagon--a tremendous engineering and administrative effort. Groves was eventually appointed the Army's Deputy Chief of Construction, and after the United States entered into the Second World War he hoped for a combat assignment overseas. Instead, in September 1942 he was ordered to take command of the Manhattan Engineer District. 
Groves was no stranger to the project. As Deputy Chief of Construction, he followed the Army's initial organization of the project under Colonel James C. Marshall in June 1942 and participated in the selection of the Stone & Webster Engineering Corporation as the principal contractor. He reviewed the orders establishing the Manhattan Engineer District in August. He knew, as early as June, about the recommended acquisition of the Clinton (Oak Ridge) site in Tennessee, and he grew increasingly concerned about Marshall's delay in acting as the summer wore on. By August, he requested Marshall to submit weekly reports and urged the selection of sites and the start of construction. When the call came for a stronger, more aggressive commander, he was an obvious candidate. He did not want the position, but following his sense of duty, his orders, and a promotion to the rank of Brigadier General, compelled him to take the new assignment. As commanding general of the Manhattan Project, Groves was brusque, plainspoken, and goal-oriented-a "decider" with little interest in the subtleties of diplomacy. His aide, Colonel Kenneth D. Nichols, years later reflected on Groves's tough yet effective personal approach and management style during the war: 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… And in summary, 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. Groves's tendency toward unilateral decision made him a decisive leader. The same day he took formal charge of the Manhattan Engineer District, Groves arranged to buy 1,200 tons of uranium ore and the next day signed a directive to acquire the Clinton, Tennessee, site. Within a week, he made a personal inspection of the site, and in early October he traveled to the University of California at Berkeley to tour Ernest Lawrence's Rad Lab and to plan and discuss the design and development of the weapon itself. Here he met Robert Oppenheimer for the first time. 
Choosing Oppenheimer to head the new weapons laboratory at Los Alamos was perhaps Groves's most controversial decision. A theoretical physicist rather than an experimental one, with no administrative background, Oppenheimer was an unlikely choice to win Groves's trust to head the laboratory. Groves's political conservatism and affinity for tight security made Oppenheimer an even more surprising choice. Groves was aware of Oppenheimer's background of political activism and association with left leaning organizations and people through the 1930s. The Federal Bureau of Investigation had first opened a file on Oppenheimer in March 1941. If Oppenheimer's "leftwandering" was sufficient to give military officials pause in granting him a security clearance, making him director of the weapons lab seemed risky at best. Yet years later, Groves would recall being impressed by Oppenheimer's charisma, ambition, brilliance, and discreetness with sensitive information. In personal style, Groves was very different than Oppenheimer and most of the scientists that worked for him on the Manhattan Project. This was the source of some friction, but Groves benefited from a layer of civilian administration he placed between himself and the majority of the technical personnel. In particular, he and Robert Oppenheimer, lauded for his technical skill, made for a very effective, if highly unlikely, team. 
Groves remained in command of the Manhattan Engineer District following the end of the war. Anticipating that the Manhattan Project's infrastructure would be turned over to and managed by a largely civilian commission soon after the ending of hostilities, his strategy for interim management of the complex was one of "hold the line," where he sought to maintain the essential soundness of the physical plant and the personnel that ran it, complete ongoing construction, and promote efficiency and economy. By early 1946, realizing that the Manhattan Engineer District's trusteeship of the complex might last for an extended period of time, Groves decided to abandon the hold-the-line policy and begin making longer range plans for the complex, even though this might restrict the freedom of action for any future commission. Following the passage of the Atomic Energy Act of 1946, Groves oversaw the transition of the nation's nuclear weapons program to the new civilian agency, the Atomic Energy Commission (a predecessor to the Department of Energy). Manhattan Project assets transferred to the Atomic Energy Commission at midnight, December 31, 1946. On February 29, 1948, Groves retired from the Army as a Lieutenant General to take up work at the Sperry Rand Corporation until his retirement in 1961. On July 13, 1970, Groves died of heart disease. He was buried at Arlington National Cemetery.
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The text for this page is original to the Department of Energy's Office of History and Heritage Resources. Major sources consulted include the following, Richard G. Hewlett and Oscar E. Anderson, Jr., The New World, 1939-1946: Volume I, A History of the United States Atomic Energy Commission (Washington: U.S. Atomic Energy Commission, 1972), 71-83, 626-37; Vincent C. Jones, Manhattan: The Army and the Atomic Bomb, United States Army in World War II (Washington: Center of Military History, United States Army, 1988), 73-79, 579-596. See also Leslie M. Groves, Now It Can Be Told: The Story of the Manhattan Project (New York: Harper, 1962), and Kenneth D. Nichols, The Road to Trinity (New York: William Morrow and Company, 1987). The quotation "Groves is the biggest S.O.B…" is from Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin's American Prometheus: the Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer (New York: A.A. Knopf, 2005), p. 185. Gregg Herken, Brotherhood of the Bomb: The Tangled Lives and Loyalties of Robert Oppenheimer, Ernest Lawrence, and Edward Teller (New York: Henry Holt, 2002), p. 55, details Groves's early leadership of the Manhattan Project and his decision to choose Oppenheimer as Los Alamos director. Bird and Sherwin, American Prometheus, on pp. 185-186, also offers a useful description of Groves's personality and leadership style. The portrait of Leslie Groves is courtesy of the Los Alamos National Laboratory. The photograph of Nichols (left) with Groves is courtesy the Oak Ridge National Laboratory. His wartime badge photograph appears courtesy of Los Alamos National Laboratory. The photo of the February 27, 1970, White House ceremony includes, left to right: Glenn T. Seaborg, Richard M. Nixon, Leslie R. Groves, Vannevar Bush, and James B. Conant. It appears courtesy of the Department of Energy, via Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory's web page.