Topic+17+(Groves)

Gen. Leslie Groves was the man militarily in charge of the Manhattan project. Groves had just come out of completing the Pentagon, and was hoping for an assignment in the front, when he was selected to work on the Manhattan project. He was furious, because he believed that the project was a waste of time, and that the funds could better be allocated if they were sent to the front. Nevertheless, he committed himself to the project. Groves was just the right man for the job; he had a long history of getting things done in time and under the budget, and he knew how to cut through the red tape and get things done. He would be just the man to coordinate thousands of men to do their jobs. (Sullivan 25) His approach was simple; if one didn’t work, build another. As soon as he was assigned this job, he chose Oppenheimer to be the scientific head of the project, and collaborated with him in moving all the science to Los Alamos. When he was informed of the massive buildups necessary, he wasted no time, and in a matter of months, constructed the largest industrial complexes ever known in Hanford and Oak Ridge. (Sullivan 35) Groves was also a man known for his paranoia. His fears of infiltration ran so deep, every single person at every site working on the Manhattan Project was required to wear a nametag, and nobody was allowed to disclose anything that had happened to anybody. Furthermore, everything was classified at the highest level of security, including the names of the locations they were working, even to the workers there. (Sullivan 39) He himself was skeptical of the idea of nuclear weapons, indeed, at the Trinity test, he remarked that what was going through his head was what he was going to do when the countdown reached zero and nothing happened.