Lieutenant General Leslie R. Groves, United States Army (Ret.), was born in 1896 in Albany, N.Y. He entered the University of Washington in 1913, transferring to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1914. Two years later he left MIT to enter West Point under a Presidential appointment, graduating in 1918.
General Groves is also a graduate of the Army Engineer School (1918-21); Command and General Staff School (1935-36); and Army War College (1938-39).
After he was commissioned as a second lieutenant in November, 1918, he served on various assignments in the United States, Hawaii, Europe and Nicaragua. In 1939 he joined the War Department General Staff, then acted as Special Assistant to the Quartermaster General for the Army construction program. Later he was Deputy Chief of Construction under the Chief of Engineers.
General Groves headed the Manhattan Project almost from its inception in 1942 until 1947, when atomic energy affairs were turned over to the newly created civilian Atomic Energy Commission. He was in charge of all phases of it—scientific, technical and process development, construction, production, security and military intelligence of enemy activities, and planning for the use of the bomb. He was promoted to brigadier general in 1942, to major general in 1944, and to lieutenant general in 1948.
General Groves served, after the end of the Manhattan Project, as the Chief of the Armed Forces Special Weapons Project. He retired from active duty on February 29, 1948.
General Groves has received honorary degrees from the University of California, Hamilton, St. Ambrose, Lafayette, Williams, Hobart, Ripon, and Pennsylvania Military College. He holds the Distinguished Service Medal (U.S.); Legion of Merit (U.S.); Nicaraguan Presidential Medal of Merit; Comdr. Order of the Crown (Belgium); and Hon. Companion, Order of the Bath (U.K.).
General Groves was, until the fall of 1961, a vice president of the Remington Rand Division of the Sperry Rand Corporation. He lives in Darien, Connecticut.