Leslie Groves

Leslie Groves was a career officer in the United States Army Corps of Engineers who had already overseen major military construction, including the Pentagon, when he was placed in command of the Manhattan Engineer District in 1942. As military director of the Manhattan Project, he controlled its enormous budget, security system, industrial sites and relationships between the Army, scientists and civilian contractors.

Groves selected J. Robert Oppenheimer to direct the Los Alamos laboratory and drove the project towards the production and testing of atomic weapons in 1945. His forceful administrative style, insistence on secrecy and willingness to concentrate unprecedented resources on the programme made him one of the principal organisers of the American atomic-bomb effort.

In Joseph Kanon’s Los Alamos, General Groves appears as the historical Army commander overseeing the secret project in which the fictional murder investigation unfolds. His authority and the security culture he imposed help define the pressure surrounding Michael Connolly’s inquiry as the Trinity test approaches.