Army General and Physicist Helped Usher in the Atomic Age

By David Vergun, DOD News

No one person can be credited with producing the world’s first atomic bomb but two men had outsize achievements in that effort: physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer and Army Lt. Gen. Leslie Groves.

On Oct. 9, 1941, President Franklin D. Roosevelt approved the development of the atomic bomb, partly out of intelligence reports that Nazi Germany might acquire one first.

Roosevelt chose the Army to lead the project, as that service had much experience managing large-scale construction projects.

In September 1942, Groves was appointed director of the ultra-secret Manhattan Project, the code name for the vast effort to produce the bomb. Groves had extensive experience supervising big projects as an engineer, including construction of the Pentagon, and he was widely recognized as a leader who got jobs done on time no matter what.

Groves approved a number of critically important research and engineering endeavors; he also approved production sites for work on the bomb, including Oak Ridge, Tennessee; Los Alamos, New Mexico; and Hanford, Washington. As leader of theproject, Groves directed construction at those sites; made key decisions in the bomb’s manufacture process; directed intelligence on German efforts to produce a bomb; and, once the bombs were ready for delivery in 1945, selected targets in an effort to shorten the war.

Another one of Groves’ important decisions was selecting Oppenheimer to lead the physics aspects of making the bomb.

Both Groves and Oppenheimer had the talent, drive and leadership qualities that enabled production of the bomb on a very short timeline.

After the end of World War II, the Manhattan Project continued to support atomic weapons testing until the Atomic Energy Act of 1946 split the program into two parts: the Atomic Energy Commission, known today as the Department of Energy, and the Armed Forces Special Weapons Project.

The organization responsible for the aspects of the nuclear weapons remained under military control after the split. It was responsible for nuclear weapons maintenance, storage, surveillance, security and transportation, and conducting offensive and defensive military training in nuclear weapons operations and supporting nuclear tests.

The Defense Department’s Defense Threat Reduction Agency traces its roots back to the Manhattan Project in 1942, according to the agency’s website.

A large number of books have been written about the Manhattan Project and the people involved in it. A biography of Oppenheimer, “American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer,” was published in 2005. It was written by Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin.

That book was adapted into the film “Oppenheimer,” which was released 07/21/23

The first nuclear test occurred near Alamogordo, New Mexico, on July 16, 1945. The bomb was successfully used later that year.

Directed by Christopher Nolan, it stars Cillian Murphy as Oppenheimer, Emily Blunt as Oppenheimer’s wife, and Matt Damon as Groves.

Postwar Developments

Developments during World War II later led to harnessing the technology to produce:

• Nuclear-powered submarines and aircraft carriers.

• The U.S. nuclear-triad defense, consisting of nuclear delivery from submarines, strategic bombers and intercontinental ballistic missiles.

• Nuclear power for producing energy for peaceful purposes.