The General and the Genius: Groves and Oppenheimer—The Unlikely Partnership that Built the Atom Bomb
by James W. Kunetka
View on GoodreadsA dual biography of Leslie Groves (the Army engineer who ran the Manhattan Project) and J. Robert Oppenheimer (the physicist who ran Los Alamos) — focused on the working relationship that delivered the bomb in 27 months.
Core ideas
- Groves and Oppenheimer were a study in opposites — career military vs. left-academic, blunt vs. cerebral, contemptuous of each other on paper — and yet the partnership worked because each correctly identified what only the other could provide.
- The Project's actual run rate (cost, scale, secrecy) was implausible even in retrospect; Groves's bureaucratic ferocity is what made it possible, and Oppenheimer's scientific leadership is what made it productive.
- The postwar fates of both men — Groves marginalized, Oppenheimer security-cleared out — illustrate how the institution they built had no place for either of them after the work was done.
Published2015
Pages480
ISBN9781621573388
ReadSep 2023
