Lieutenant General Leslie Richard Groves (
August 17,
1896 –
July 13,
1970) was a
United States Army Engineer officer who oversaw the construction of
the Pentagon and was the primary military leader in charge of the
Manhattan Project to develop the
atomic bomb during
World War II.
[1]Descended from French Huguenots who came to America in the 17th century, Leslie Groves was the son of a U.S. Army chaplain. He was born in Albany, New York, and educated at the University of Washington and MIT before attending West Point. Groves graduated in 1918, fourth in his class, and was commissioned into the Army Corps of Engineers, completing his engineering studies at Camp A. A. Humphreys (now Fort Belvoir), 1918–21. He married Grace Hulbert Wilson in 1922.
Groves worked in various assignments throughout the United States and served with distinction in Nicaragua. In October 1934, he was attached to the Office of the Chief of Engineers and received a promotion to captain. Following courses at the General Staff College at Fort Leavenworth (1936) and the Army War College (1939), he was promoted to major in 1940 and posted to the General Staff in Washington. He was deputy to the Chief of Construction and oversaw a number of projects including the construction of the Pentagon in 1940. In the same year, he was promoted to colonel.
By this time, Groves had developed a reputation as an officer of high intelligence, tremendous drive and energy, and great organizational and administrative ability, as well as considerable ruthlessness, arrogance, and self-confidence. His success in overseeing a huge number of construction projects costing billions of dollars during the mobilization period between 1940 and 1942 made him a natural choice to take charge of the fledgling atomic bomb program.
