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Leslie Groves

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Leslie Groves

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Also known as Leslie Richard Groves, Lieutenant General Leslie Richard Groves, Jr., Leslie R. Groves, L. R. Groves

United States Army Corps of Engineers officer (1896–1970)

Person · Open Library

Works
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Top works

  • Inclusive Aid

via Open Library + Wikidata

Music · MusicBrainz

Type
Person
Gender
Female
Origin
United States
Active from
1972-09-10
contemporary christian

via MusicBrainz · CC0

Quotes

  • He's a genius. A real genius. While Lawrence is very bright, he's not a genius, just a good hard worker. Why, Oppenheimer knows about everything. He can talk to you about anything you bring up. Well, not exactly. I guess there are a few things he doesn't know about. He doesn't know anything about sports.
  • I think the data that went out in the case of the Rosenbergs was of minor value. I would never say that publicly. Again that is something while it is not secret, I think should be kept very quiet, because irrespective of the value of that in the overall picture, the Rosenbergs deserved to hang, and I would not like to see anything that would make people say General Groves thinks they didn’t do much damage after all.
  • At present the best defense against the atomic bomb is to not be there when it goes off.

via Wikiquote · CC BY-SA

Key facts

Born
Leslie Richard Groves Jr. , ( 1896-08-17 ) 17 August 1896, Albany, New York , U.S.
Died
13 July 1970 (1970-07-13) (aged 73), Washington, D.C., U.S.
Place of burial
Arlington National Cemetery , Virginia, U.S.
Allegiance
United States
Branch
United States Army
Service years
1918–1948
Rank
Lieutenant General
Unit
Corps of Engineers
Commands
Armed Forces Special Weapons Project Manhattan Project
Conflicts
World War I Banana Wars Occupation of Nicaragua World War II
Awards
Army Distinguished Service Medal Legion of Merit Order of the Crown (Belgium) Companion of the Order of the Bath (United Kingdom) Medal of Merit (Nicaragua)
Alma mater
United States Military Academy ( BS )

via Wikipedia infobox

~36 min read

Encyclopedic overview

Leslie Richard Groves Jr. (17 August 1896 – 13 July 1970) was a United States Army Corps of Engineers officer who oversaw the construction of the Pentagon and directed the Manhattan Project, the top secret research program that developed the atomic bomb during World War II, leading to the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945.

The son of a U.S. Army chaplain, Groves lived at various Army posts during his childhood. In 1918, he graduated fourth in his class at the United States Military Academy at West Point and was commissioned into the United States Army Corps of Engineers. In 1929, he went to Nicaragua as part of an expedition to conduct a survey for the Inter-Oceanic Nicaragua Canal. Following the 1931 Nicaraguan earthquake, Groves took over Managua's water supply system, for which he was awarded the Nicaraguan Presidential Medal of Merit. He attended the Command and General Staff School at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, in 1935 and 1936, and the Army War College in 1938 and 1939, after which he was posted to the War Department General Staff. Groves developed "a reputation as a doer, a driver, and a stickler for duty". In 1940 he became special assistant for construction to the Quartermaster General, tasked with inspecting construction sites and checking on their progress. In August 1941, he was appointed to create the gigantic office complex for the War Department's 40,000 staff that would ultimately become the Pentagon.

Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “Leslie Groves” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.

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