Leslie Groves

Northwest exposure showing construction of the Pentagon, 1 July 1942

Groves was promoted to major on 1 July 1940. Three weeks later, he became special assistant for construction to the Quartermaster General, Major General Edmund B. Gregory.[16] The two men had known each other a long time, as Groves' father was a close friend of Gregory's. At this point, the US Army was about to embark on a national mobilization, and it was the task of the Construction Division of the Quartermaster Corps to prepare the necessary accommodations and training facilities for the vast army that would be created. The enormous construction program had been dogged by bottlenecks, shortages, delays, spiralling costs, and poor living conditions at the construction sites. Newspapers began publishing accounts charging the Construction Division with incompetence, ineptitude, and inefficiency.[17] Groves, who "had a reputation as a doer, a driver, and a stickler for duty",[1] was one of a number of engineer officers brought in to turn the project around. He was tasked with inspecting construction sites and checking on their progress.[1]

On 12 November 1940, Gregory asked Groves to take over command of the Fixed Fee Branch of the Construction Division as soon as his promotion to colonel came through. Groves assumed his new rank and duties on 14 November 1940.[17] Groves later recalled:

During the first week that I was on duty there, I could not walk out of my office down the corridor to Hartman's office without being literally assailed by the officers or civilian engineers with liaison responsibility for various camps. It is no exaggeration to state that during this period decisions involving up to $5,000,000 [$104,000,000 with inflation[18]] were made at the rate of about one every 100 feet of corridor walked.[17]

Groves instituted a series of reforms. He installed phone lines for the Supervising Construction Quartermasters, demanded weekly reports on progress, ordered that reimbursement vouchers be processed within a week, and sent expediters to sites reporting shortages. He ordered his contractors to hire whatever special equipment they needed and to pay premium prices if necessary to guarantee quick delivery. Instead of allowing construction of camps to proceed in whatever order the contractors saw fit, Groves laid down priorities for completion of camp facilities, so that the troops could begin moving in even while construction was still under way.[17]

By mid-December, the worst of the crisis was over. Over half a million men had been mobilized and essential accommodations and facilities for two million men were 95 per cent complete.[17] Between 1 July 1940 and 10 December 1941, the Construction Division let contracts worth $1,676,293,000 ($33,351,400,000 with inflation[18]), of which $1,347,991,000 ($26,819,500,000 with inflation[18]), or about 80 per cent, were fixed-fee contracts.[20]

On 19 August 1941, Groves was summoned to a meeting with the head of the Construction Division, Brigadier General Brehon B. Somervell. In attendance were Captain Clarence Renshaw, one of Groves' assistants; Major Hugh J. Casey, the chief of the Construction Division's Design and Engineering Section; and George Bergstrom, a former president of the American Institute of Architects. Casey and Bergstrom had designed an enormous office complex to house the War Department's 40,000 staff together in one building, a five-story, five-sided structure, which would ultimately become the Pentagon.[21]

The Pentagon had a total square footage of 5,100,000 square feet (470,000 m²) – twice that of the Empire State Building – making it the largest office building in the world. The estimated cost was $35 million ($696,400,000 with inflation[18]), and Somervell wanted 500,000 square feet (46,000 m²) of floor space available by 1 March 1942. Bergstrom became the architect-engineer with Renshaw in charge of construction, reporting directly to Groves.[22] At its peak the project employed 13,000 persons. By the end of April, the first occupants were moving in and 1,000,000 square feet (93,000 m²) of space was ready by the end of May.[23] In the end, the project cost some $63 million ($1,253,400,000 with inflation[18]).[24]

Groves steadily overcame one crisis after another, dealing with strikes, shortages, competing priorities and engineers who were not up to their tasks. He worked six days a week in his office in Washington, D.C. During the week he would determine which project was in the greatest need of personal attention and pay it a visit on Sunday. Groves later recalled that he was "hoping to get to a war theater so I could find a little peace."[25]

Groves ran the Manhattan Project from the fifth floor of the New War Department Building.

The Manhattan Engineer District (MED) was formally established by the Chief of Engineers, Major General Eugene Reybold on 16 August 1942. The name was chosen by Groves and MED's district engineer, Colonel James C. Marshall. Like other engineer districts, it was named after the city where its headquarters was located, at 270 Broadway. Unlike the others, it had no geographic boundaries, only a mission: to develop an atomic bomb. Marshall had the authority of a division engineer head and reported directly to Reybold.[26]

Although Reybold was satisfied with the progress being made, Vannevar Bush was less so. He felt that aggressive leadership was required, and suggested the appointment of a prestigious officer as overall project director. Somervell, now Chief of Army Service Forces, recommended Groves.[26] Somervell met Groves outside the hearing room where Groves had been testifying before a United States Congress committee on military housing and informed him that "The Secretary of War has selected you for a very important assignment, and the President has approved the selection ... If you do the job right, it will win the war." Groves could not hide his disappointment at not receiving a combat assignment: "Oh, that thing," he replied.[27]

Groves (left) and Robert Oppenheimer

Groves met with Major General Wilhelm D. Styer in his office at the Pentagon to discuss the details. They agreed that in order to avoid suspicion, Groves would continue to supervise the Pentagon project. He would be promoted to brigadier general, as it was felt that the title "general" would hold more sway with the academic scientists working on the Manhattan Project.[28] Groves therefore waited until his promotion came through on 23 September 1942 before assuming his new command. His orders placed him directly under Somervell rather than Reybold, with Marshall now answerable to Groves.[26]

Groves was given authority to sign contracts for the project from 1 September 1942. The Under Secretary of War, Robert P. Patterson, retrospectively delegated his authority from the President under the War Powers Act of 1941 in a memorandum to Groves dated 17 April 1944. Groves delegated the authority to Kenneth Nichols, except for contracts of $5 million or more that required his authority. The written authority was only given in 1944 when Nichols was about to sign a contract with Du Pont, and it was found that Nichols's original authority to sign project contracts for Marshall was based on a verbal authority from Styer, and Nichols only had the low delegated authority of a divisional engineer.[29] Groves soon decided to establish his project headquarters on the fifth floor of the New War Department Building, now known as the Harry S Truman Building, in Washington, D.C., where Marshall had maintained a liaison office.[30] In August 1943, the MED headquarters moved to Oak Ridge, Tennessee, but the name of the district did not change.[31]

Groves at his desk, 1945

Construction accounted for roughly 90 percent of the Manhattan Project's total cost.[32] The day after Groves took over, he and Marshall took a train to Tennessee to inspect the site that Marshall had chosen for the proposed production plant at Oak Ridge. Groves was suitably impressed with the site,[33] and steps were taken to condemn the land. Protests, legal appeals, and congressional inquiries were to no avail. By mid-November U.S. Marshals were tacking notices to vacate on farmhouse doors, and construction contractors were moving in.[34]

Meanwhile, Groves had met with J. Robert Oppenheimer, the University of California, Berkeley physicist, and discussed the creation of a laboratory where the bomb could be designed and tested. Groves was impressed with the breadth of Oppenheimer's knowledge. He had a long conversation on a train after a meeting in Chicago on October 15, when Groves invited Oppenheimer to join Marshall and Nichols on the 20th Century Limited train returning to New York. After dinner on the train they discussed the project squeezed into in Nichol’s one-person roomette, and when Oppenheimer left the train at Buffalo, Nichols had no doubt that he should direct the new lab.[35] Groves saw that Oppenheimer thoroughly understood the issues involved in setting up a laboratory in a remote area. These were features that Groves found lacking in other scientists, and he knew that broad knowledge would be vital in an interdisciplinary project that would involve not just physics, but chemistry, metallurgy, ordnance, and engineering.[36]

In October 1942 Groves and Oppenheimer inspected sites in New Mexico, where they selected a suitable location for the laboratory at Los Alamos. Unlike Oak Ridge, the ranch school at Los Alamos, along with 54,000 acres (22,000 ha) of surrounding forest and grazing land, was soon acquired.[37] Groves also detected in Oppenheimer something that many others did not, an "overweening ambition" which Groves reckoned would supply the drive necessary to push the project to a successful conclusion. Groves became convinced that Oppenheimer was the best and only man to run the laboratory.[36]

The Oak Ridge K-25 Plant

Few agreed with him in 1942. Oppenheimer had little administrative experience and, unlike other potential candidates, no Nobel Prize. There was also concern about whether Oppenheimer was a security risk, as many of his associates were communists, including his brother Frank Oppenheimer, his wife Kitty, and his girlfriend Jean Tatlock.[38] Oppenheimer's Communist Party connections soon came to light,[39] but Groves personally waived the security requirements and issued Oppenheimer a clearance on 20 July 1943.[40] Groves' faith in Oppenheimer was ultimately justified. Oppenheimer's inspirational leadership fostered practical approaches to designing and building bombs. Asked years later why Groves chose him, Oppenheimer replied that the general "had a fatal weakness for good men."[41] Isidor Rabi considered the appointment "a real stroke of genius on the part of General Groves, who was not generally considered to be a genius ..."[36]

Groves and Brigadier General Thomas Farrell in 1945

Groves made critical decisions on prioritizing the various methods of isotope separation and acquiring raw materials needed by the scientists and engineers. By the time he assumed command of the project, it was evident that the AA-3 priority rating that Marshall had obtained was insufficient. The top ratings were AA-1 through AA-4 in descending order, although there was also a special AAA rating reserved for emergencies. Ratings AA-1 and AA-2 were for essential weapons and equipment, so Colonel Lucius D. Clay, the deputy chief of staff at Services and Supply for requirements and resources, felt that the highest rating he could assign was AA-3, although he was willing to provide an AAA rating on request for critical materials to remove bottlenecks.[42] Groves went to Donald M. Nelson, the chairman of the War Production Board and, after threatening to take the matter to the President, obtained a AAA priority for the Manhattan project. It was agreed that the AA-3 priority would still be used where possible.[43]

The Combined Development Trust was established by the governments of the United Kingdom, United States and Canada in June 1944, with Groves as its chairman, to procure uranium and thorium ores on international markets. In 1944, the trust purchased 3,440,000 pounds (1,560,000 kg) of uranium oxide ore from companies operating mines in the Belgian Congo. In order to avoid briefing the Treasury Secretary, Henry Morgenthau Jr., on the project, a special account not subject to the usual auditing and controls was used to hold Trust monies. Between 1944 and the time he resigned from the Trust in 1947, Groves deposited a total of $37.5 million into the Trust's account.[44]

Worried by the heavy losses occurring during the Battle of the Bulge, in late December 1944 President Roosevelt requested atomic bombs be dropped on Germany during his only meeting with Groves during the war.[45] Groves informed him the first workable bomb was months away.

Groves and Oppenheimer at the Trinity test site in September 1945. The white overshoes were to prevent fallout from sticking to the soles of their shoes.

In 1943, the Manhattan District became responsible for collecting military intelligence on Axis atomic research. Groves created Operation Alsos, special intelligence teams that would follow in the wake of the advancing armies, rounding up enemy scientists and collecting what technical information and technology they could. Alsos teams ultimately operated in Italy, France and Germany.[46] The security system resembled that of other engineer districts. The Manhattan District organized its own counterintelligence which gradually grew in size and scope,[47] but strict security measures failed to prevent the Soviets from conducting a successful espionage program that stole some of its most important secrets.[48]

Groves met with General Henry H. Arnold, the Chief of U.S. Army Air Forces, in March 1944 to discuss the delivery of the finished bombs to their targets. Groves was hoping that the Boeing B-29 Superfortress would be able to carry the finished bombs. The 509th Composite Group was duly activated on 17 December 1944 at Wendover Army Air Field, Utah, under the command of Colonel Paul W. Tibbets.[49][50] A joint Manhattan District – USAAF targeting committee was established to determine which cities in Japan should be targets. It recommended Kokura, Hiroshima, Niigata, and Kyoto.[51]

At this point, Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson intervened, announcing that he would be making the targeting decision, and that he would not authorize the bombing of Kyoto. Groves attempted to get him to change his mind several times and Stimson refused every time. Kyoto had been the capital of Japan for centuries, and was of great cultural and religious significance. In the end, Groves asked Arnold to remove Kyoto not just from the list of nuclear targets, but from targets for conventional bombing as well.[52] Nagasaki was substituted for Kyoto as a target.[53]

Groves was promoted to temporary major general on 9 March 1944.[16] After the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki became public knowledge, he was awarded the Distinguished Service Medal. His citation read:

Major General Leslie Richard Groves, as Commanding General, Manhattan Engineer District, Army Service Forces, from June 1942 to August 1945 coordinated, administered and controlled a project of unprecedented, world-wide significance—the development of the Atomic Bomb. His was the responsibility for procuring materiel and personnel, marshalling the forces of government and industry, erecting huge plants, blending the scientific efforts of the United States and foreign countries, and maintaining completely secret the search for a key to release atomic energy. He accomplished his task with such outstanding success that in an amazingly short time the Manhattan Engineer District solved this problem of staggering complexity, defeating the Axis powers in the race to produce an instrument whose peacetime potentialities are no less marvellous than its wartime application is awesome. The achievement of General Groves is of unfathomable importance to the future of the nation and the world.[54]

Groves had previously been nominated for the Distinguished Service Medal for his work on the Pentagon, but to avoid drawing attention to the Manhattan Project, it had not been awarded at the time. After the war, the Decorations Board decided to change it to a Legion of Merit.[54] In recognition of his work on the project, the Belgian government made him a Commander of the Order of the Crown and the British government made him an honorary Companion of the Order of the Bath.[16]