Lewis Lichtenstein Strauss ( ; January 31, 1896January 21, 1974) was an American government official, businessman, philanthropist, and naval officer. He was one of the original members of the
United States Atomic Energy Commission
The United States Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) was an agency of the United States government established after World War II by the U.S. Congress to foster and control the peacetime development of atomic science and technology. President Harry ...
(AEC) in 1946 and he served as the commission's chairman in the 1950s. Strauss was a major figure in the development of
nuclear weapons
A nuclear weapon is an explosive device that derives its destructive force from nuclear reactions, either nuclear fission, fission (fission or atomic bomb) or a combination of fission and nuclear fusion, fusion reactions (thermonuclear weap ...
after
World War II
World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...
,
nuclear energy policy
Nuclear energy policy is a national and international policy concerning some or all aspects of nuclear energy and the nuclear fuel cycle, such as uranium mining, ore concentration, conversion, enrichment for nuclear fuel, generating electric ...
, and
nuclear power in the United States
In the United States, nuclear power is provided by 94 commercial reactors with a net capacity of 97 gigawatts (GW), with 63 pressurized water reactors and 31 boiling water reactors. In 2019, they produced a total of 809.41 terawatt-hours of el ...
.
Raised in
Richmond, Virginia
Richmond ( ) is the List of capitals in the United States, capital city of the Commonwealth (U.S. state), U.S. commonwealth of Virginia. Incorporated in 1742, Richmond has been an independent city (United States), independent city since 1871. ...
, Strauss became an assistant to
Herbert Hoover
Herbert Clark Hoover (August 10, 1874 – October 20, 1964) was the 31st president of the United States, serving from 1929 to 1933. A wealthy mining engineer before his presidency, Hoover led the wartime Commission for Relief in Belgium and ...
as part of the
Commission for Relief in Belgium
The Commission for Relief in Belgium (CRB, or simply Belgian Relief) was an international, predominantly American, organization that arranged for the supply of food to German-occupied Belgium and northern France during the First World War.
It ...
during
World War I
World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...
and the
American Relief Administration
American Relief Administration (ARA) was an American Humanitarian aid, relief mission to Europe and later Russian Civil War, post-revolutionary Russia after World War I. Herbert Hoover, future president of the United States, was the program dire ...
after that. Strauss then worked as an investment banker at
Kuhn, Loeb & Co. during the 1920s and 1930s, where he amassed considerable wealth. As a member of the executive committee of the
American Jewish Committee
The American Jewish Committee (AJC) is a civil rights group and Jewish advocacy group established on November 11, 1906. It is one of the oldest Jewish advocacy organizations and, according to ''The New York Times'', is "widely regarded as the wi ...
and several other Jewish organizations in the 1930s, Strauss made several attempts to change U.S. policy in order to accept more refugees from
Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany, officially known as the German Reich and later the Greater German Reich, was the German Reich, German state between 1933 and 1945, when Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party controlled the country, transforming it into a Totalit ...
but was unsuccessful. He also came to know and fund some of the research of refugee nuclear physicist
Leo Szilard
Leo Szilard (; ; born Leó Spitz; February 11, 1898 – May 30, 1964) was a Hungarian-born physicist, biologist and inventor who made numerous important discoveries in nuclear physics and the biological sciences. He conceived the nuclear ...
. During World War II, Strauss served as an officer in the
U.S. Navy Reserve
The United States Navy Reserve (USNR), known as the United States Naval Reserve from 1915 to 2004, is the Reserve Component (RC) of the United States Navy. Members of the Navy Reserve, called reservists, are categorized as being in either the S ...
and rose to the rank of rear admiral due to his work in the
Bureau of Ordnance
The Bureau of Ordnance (BuOrd) was a United States Navy organization, which was responsible for the procurement, storage, and deployment of all naval weapons, between the years 1862 and 1959.
History
The Bureau of Ordnance was established as part ...
in managing and rewarding plants engaged in production of munitions.
As a founding commissioner with the AEC during the early years of the
Cold War
The Cold War was a period of global Geopolitics, geopolitical rivalry between the United States (US) and the Soviet Union (USSR) and their respective allies, the capitalist Western Bloc and communist Eastern Bloc, which lasted from 1947 unt ...
, Strauss emphasized the need to protect U.S. atomic secrets and to monitor and stay ahead of atomic developments within the
Soviet Union
The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...
. Accordingly, he was a strong proponent of developing the
hydrogen bomb
A thermonuclear weapon, fusion weapon or hydrogen bomb (H-bomb) is a second-generation nuclear weapon design. Its greater sophistication affords it vastly greater destructive power than first-generation nuclear bombs, a more compact size, a lo ...
. During his stint as chairman of the AEC, Strauss urged the development of peaceful uses of atomic energy, and he predicted that atomic power would make electricity "
too cheap to meter". At the same time, he downplayed the possible health effects of
radioactive fallout
Nuclear fallout is residual radioactive material that is created by the reactions producing a nuclear explosion. It is initially present in the radioactive cloud created by the explosion, and "falls out" of the cloud as it is moved by the a ...
such as that experienced by
Pacific Islander
Pacific Islanders, Pasifika, Pasefika, Pacificans, or rarely Pacificers are the peoples of the list of islands in the Pacific Ocean, Pacific Islands. As an ethnic group, ethnic/race (human categorization), racial term, it is used to describe th ...
s following the
Castle Bravo
Castle Bravo was the first in a series of high-yield thermonuclear weapon design tests conducted by the United States at Bikini Atoll, Marshall Islands, as part of ''Operation Castle''. Detonated on 1 March 1954, the device remains the most powe ...
thermonuclear test.
Strauss was the driving force behind physicist
J. Robert Oppenheimer
J. Robert Oppenheimer (born Julius Robert Oppenheimer ; April 22, 1904 – February 18, 1967) was an American theoretical physics, theoretical physicist who served as the director of the Manhattan Project's Los Alamos Laboratory during World ...
's
security clearance hearing, held in April and May 1954 before an AEC Personnel Security Board, in which Oppenheimer's security clearance was revoked. As a result, Strauss has often been regarded as a villain in American history.
President
Dwight D. Eisenhower
Dwight David "Ike" Eisenhower (born David Dwight Eisenhower; October 14, 1890 – March 28, 1969) was the 34th president of the United States, serving from 1953 to 1961. During World War II, he was Supreme Commander of the Allied Expeditionar ...
's nomination of Strauss to become
U.S. secretary of commerce
The United States secretary of commerce (SecCom) is the head of the United States Department of Commerce. The secretary serves as the principal advisor to the president of the United States on all matters relating to commerce. The secretary rep ...
resulted in a prolonged, public political battle in 1959 where Strauss was not confirmed by the
U.S. Senate
The United States Senate is a chamber of the bicameral United States Congress; it is the upper house, with the U.S. House of Representatives being the lower house. Together, the Senate and House have the authority under Article One of the ...
.
Early life
Strauss was born in
Charleston, West Virginia
Charleston () is the List of capitals in the United States, capital and List of municipalities in West Virginia, most populous city of the U.S. state of West Virginia. It is the county seat of Kanawha County, West Virginia, Kanawha County and ...
,
the son of Rosa (née Lichtenstein) and Lewis Strauss, a successful shoe
wholesale
Wholesaling or distributing is the sale of goods or merchandise to retailers; to industrial, commercial, institutional or other professional business users; or to other wholesalers (wholesale businesses) and related subordinated services. In ...
r.
Their parents were
Jew
Jews (, , ), or the Jewish people, are an ethnoreligious group and nation, originating from the Israelites of ancient Israel and Judah. They also traditionally adhere to Judaism. Jewish ethnicity, religion, and community are highly inte ...
ish emigrants from Germany and Austria who came to the United States in the 1830s and 1840s and settled in Virginia.
[Strauss, ''Men and Decisions'', p. 1.] His family moved to
Richmond, Virginia
Richmond ( ) is the List of capitals in the United States, capital city of the Commonwealth (U.S. state), U.S. commonwealth of Virginia. Incorporated in 1742, Richmond has been an independent city (United States), independent city since 1871. ...
, and he grew up and attended public schools there.
At the age of ten, he lost much of the vision in his right eye in a rock fight, which later disqualified him from normal
military service.
Having developed an amateur's knowledge from reading textbooks, Strauss planned to study
physics
Physics is the scientific study of matter, its Elementary particle, fundamental constituents, its motion and behavior through space and time, and the related entities of energy and force. "Physical science is that department of knowledge whi ...
.
He was on track to be
valedictorian
Valedictorian is an academic title for the class rank, highest-performing student of a graduation, graduating class of an academic institution in the United States.
The valedictorian is generally determined by an academic institution's grade poin ...
of his class at
John Marshall High School, which would have entitled him to a scholarship to the
University of Virginia
The University of Virginia (UVA) is a Public university#United States, public research university in Charlottesville, Virginia, United States. It was founded in 1819 by Thomas Jefferson and contains his The Lawn, Academical Village, a World H ...
, but
typhoid fever
Typhoid fever, also known simply as typhoid, is a disease caused by '' Salmonella enterica'' serotype Typhi bacteria, also called ''Salmonella'' Typhi. Symptoms vary from mild to severe, and usually begin six to 30 days after exposure. Often th ...
in his senior year made him unable to take final exams or graduate with his classmates.
[Pfau, ''No Sacrifice Too Great'', p. 7.]
By the time he finally graduated from high school, his family's business had experienced a downturn during the
Recession of 1913–1914.
[Pfau, ''No Sacrifice Too Great'', pp. 7–9.] In order to help out,
Strauss decided to work as a traveling shoe salesman for his father's company.
In his spare time, Strauss studied his Jewish heritage.
[Baker, "A Slap at the 'Hidden-Hand Presidency'", p. 3.] He was quite successful in his sales efforts;
over the next three years, he saved $20,000 (): enough money to cover college tuition now that the scholarship offer was no longer in effect.
Career
World War I
Strauss's mother encouraged him to perform public or humanitarian service.
[Bernstein, "Sacrifices and Decisions", p. 109.] It was 1917;
World War I
World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...
was continuing to devastate parts of Europe and
Herbert Hoover
Herbert Clark Hoover (August 10, 1874 – October 20, 1964) was the 31st president of the United States, serving from 1929 to 1933. A wealthy mining engineer before his presidency, Hoover led the wartime Commission for Relief in Belgium and ...
had become a symbol of humanitarian altruism by way of heading the
Commission for Relief in Belgium
The Commission for Relief in Belgium (CRB, or simply Belgian Relief) was an international, predominantly American, organization that arranged for the supply of food to German-occupied Belgium and northern France during the First World War.
It ...
.
Accordingly, Strauss took the train to Washington, D.C., and talked his way into serving without pay as an assistant to Hoover.
(Strauss and his biographer differ on whether this happened in February or May 1917, but the latter seems more likely.
[Pfau, ''No Sacrifice Too Great'', pp. 9–12, 256–257n21.])
Hoover became chief of the
United States Food Administration
The United States Food Administration (1917–1920) was an independent federal agency that controlled the production, distribution, and conservation of food in the U.S. during the nation's participation in World War I. It was established to prev ...
.
Strauss worked well and soon was promoted to Hoover's private secretary and confidant.
In that position he made powerful contacts that would serve him later on. One such contact he made was with attorney
Harvey Hollister Bundy.
Another was with
Robert A. Taft
Robert Alphonso Taft Sr. (September 8, 1889 – July 31, 1953) was an American politician, lawyer, and scion of the Republican Party's Taft family. Taft represented Ohio in the United States Senate, briefly served as Senate majority le ...
, a counsel for the Food Administration.
Following the
Armistice of 11 November 1918
The Armistice of 11 November 1918 was the armistice signed in a railroad car, in the Compiègne Forest near the town of Compiègne, that ended fighting on land, at sea, and in the air in World War I between the Entente and their las ...
, Hoover became head of the post-war
American Relief Administration
American Relief Administration (ARA) was an American Humanitarian aid, relief mission to Europe and later Russian Civil War, post-revolutionary Russia after World War I. Herbert Hoover, future president of the United States, was the program dire ...
, headquartered in Paris, and Strauss joined him there once more as his private secretary. Acting on behalf of a nearly destitute diplomatic representative of Finland,
Rudolf Holsti
Eino Rudolf Woldemar Holsti (8 October 1881 in Jyväskylä – 3 August 1945 in Palo Alto, California) was a Finnish politician, journalist and diplomat. He was the Minister of Foreign Affairs in 1919–1922 and in 1936–1938 and a ...
, whom he met in Paris, Strauss persuaded Hoover to urge President
Woodrow Wilson
Thomas Woodrow Wilson (December 28, 1856February 3, 1924) was the 28th president of the United States, serving from 1913 to 1921. He was the only History of the Democratic Party (United States), Democrat to serve as president during the Prog ...
to recognize
Finland's independence from Russia.
Besides the U.S. food relief organization, Strauss worked with the
American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee Advert
Where and how does this article resemble an WP:SOAP, advert and how should it be improved? See: Wikipedia:Spam (you might trthe Teahouseif you have questions).
American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, also known as Joint or JDC, is a J ...
(JDC) to relieve the suffering of Jewish refugees, who were often neglected by other bodies. Strauss acted as a liaison between Hoover's organization and JDC workers in a number of Central and Eastern European countries. Getting news in April 1919 of the
Pinsk massacre, during the
Polish–Soviet War
The Polish–Soviet War (14 February 1919 – 18 March 1921) was fought primarily between the Second Polish Republic and the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic, following World War I and the Russian Revolution.
After the collapse ...
, in which 35 Jews meeting to discuss the distribution of American relief aid were summarily executed by the Polish Army in the belief that they were
Bolshevik
The Bolsheviks, led by Vladimir Lenin, were a radical Faction (political), faction of the Marxist Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP) which split with the Mensheviks at the 2nd Congress of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party, ...
conspirators, Strauss pressed the case to Hoover that a forceful response must be made to the Polish government. Hoover spoke to Polish Prime Minister
Ignacy Jan Paderewski
Ignacy Jan Paderewski (; r 1859
R, or r, is the eighteenth letter of the Latin alphabet, used in the modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. Its name in English is ''ar'' (pronounced ), plural ''ars''.
The lette ...
– 29 June 1941) was a Polish pianist, composer and statesman who was a spokesman for Polish independence. In 1919, he was the nation's Prime Minister of Poland, prime minister and foreign minister durin ...
and demanded a fair investigation, but Strauss saw Paderewski as an anti-Semite who believed that all Jews were Bolsheviks and all Bolsheviks were Jews. After a while, the situation for Jews in Poland did (temporarily) improve.
Strauss had grown up in Virginia, in a culture that venerated Southern military heroes of the "
War Between the States
War is an armed conflict between the armed forces of states, or between governmental forces and armed groups that are organized under a certain command structure and have the capacity to sustain military operations, or between such organize ...
", but a tour he took in summer 1918 to the devastated battlefields of
Château-Thierry
Château-Thierry (; Picard: ''Catieu-Thierry'') is a French commune situated in the department of the Aisne, in the administrative region of Hauts-de-France, and in the historic Province of Champagne.
The origin of the name of the town is u ...
and
Belleau Wood disabused him of any romantic illusions about the glory of warfare. Similarly, his exposure to effects of
Communism
Communism () is a political sociology, sociopolitical, political philosophy, philosophical, and economic ideology, economic ideology within the history of socialism, socialist movement, whose goal is the creation of a communist society, a ...
in 1919, as manifested in the Polish–Soviet War, led to a powerful and lifelong
anti-Communist
Anti-communism is political and ideological opposition to communist beliefs, groups, and individuals. Organized anti-communism developed after the 1917 October Revolution in Russia, and it reached global dimensions during the Cold War, when th ...
sentiment.
Investment banker, marriage and family
At the JDC, Strauss came to the attention of
Felix M. Warburg, a JDC leader who was a partner in the investment bank
Kuhn, Loeb & Co. in
New York City
New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...
, and Harriet Loewentstein, a JDC European head who was an accountant at the bank.
[Pfau, ''No Sacrifice Too Great'', pp. 25–26.] In addition Hoover had introduced Strauss to
Mortimer Schiff, another partner at Kuhn Loeb,
who interviewed Strauss in Paris and offered him a job.
In so doing, Strauss turned down an offer to become comptroller for the newly forming
League of Nations
The League of Nations (LN or LoN; , SdN) was the first worldwide intergovernmental organisation whose principal mission was to maintain world peace. It was founded on 10 January 1920 by the Paris Peace Conference (1919–1920), Paris Peace ...
.
Strauss returned to the United States and started at Kuhn Loeb in 1919.
As a result, he never did attend college, a fact that may have led to the perfectionist and defensive personality traits that he exhibited later in life.
Kuhn Loeb's major customers were railroads, and by the mid-1920s, Strauss was helping to arrange financing for new railroad terminal buildings in Cincinnati and Richmond and for the reorganizations of the
Denver and Rio Grande Western Railroad
The Denver and Rio Grande Western Railroad , often shortened to ''Rio Grande'', D&RG or D&RGW, formerly the Denver & Rio Grande Railroad, was an American Class I railroad company. The railroad started as a narrow-gauge line running south fr ...
and the
Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul and Pacific Railroad
The Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul and Pacific Railroad (CMStP&P), better known as the Milwaukee Road , was a Class I railroad that operated in the Midwest and Northwest of the United States from 1847 until 1986.
The company experienced financi ...
.
[Pfau, ''No Sacrifice Too Great'', pp. 29, 34–37.] By 1926 his yearly compensation from the firm had reached $75,000 () and by the next year, $120,000 ().
Subsequently, Strauss arranged the firm's financing for steel companies such as
Inland Steel
The Inland Steel Company was an American steel company active from 1893 until its acquisition in 1998 by Ispat International (later Mittal Steel Company). Originally based in East Chicago, Indiana, it was eventually headquartered in Chicago at t ...
,
Republic Steel
Republic Steel is a Mexican steel manufacturer that was once America’s third largest steel producer. It was founded as the Republic Iron and Steel Company in Youngstown, Ohio in 1899. After rising to prominence during the early 20th Century, ...
, and
Great Lakes Steel
Great may refer to:
Descriptions or measurements
* Great, a relative measurement in physical space, see Size
* Greatness, being divine, majestic, superior, majestic, or transcendent
People
* List of people known as "the Great"
* Artel Great (bo ...
.
He became a full partner in 1929, at which point he was making a million dollars a year, and he endured the
Wall Street Crash of 1929 without significant financial damage.
With the firm he helped bring to market
Kodachrome film for
Eastman Kodak
The Eastman Kodak Company, referred to simply as Kodak (), is an American public company that produces various products related to its historic basis in film photography. The company is headquartered in Rochester, New York, and is incorporated i ...
and the
Polaroid camera
Polaroid may refer to:
* Polaroid Corporation, an American company known for its instant film and cameras
* Polaroid camera, a brand of instant camera formerly produced by Polaroid Corporation
* Polaroid film, instant film, and photographs
* Polaro ...
for
Edwin H. Land
Edwin Herbert Land, ForMemRS, FRPS, Hon.MRI (May 7, 1909 – March 1, 1991) was an American scientist and inventor, best known as the co-founder of the Polaroid Corporation. He invented inexpensive filters for polarizing light, a practical ...
.
On March 5, 1923, Strauss married Alice Hanauer in a ceremony at the
Ritz-Carlton Hotel
The Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company, LLC is an American multinational corporation, multinational company that operates the Hotel#Luxury, luxury hotel chain known as The Ritz-Carlton. The company has 108 conference and resort hotels, luxury hotels an ...
in New York. Born in 1903, she was the daughter of Jerome J. Hanauer,
who was one of the Kuhn Loeb partners.
She was a New York native who had attended
Vassar College
Vassar College ( ) is a private liberal arts college in Poughkeepsie, New York, United States. Founded in 1861 by Matthew Vassar, it was the second degree-granting institution of higher education for women in the United States. The college be ...
and was a skilled equestrian and potter.
The couple had two sons, one of whom did not survive early childhood.
While in New York, they lived on
Central Park West
Eighth Avenue is a major north–south avenue on the west side of Manhattan in New York City, carrying northbound traffic below 59th Street. It is one of the original avenues of the Commissioners' Plan of 1811 to run the length of Manhattan, ...
,
then on the
Upper East Side
The Upper East Side, sometimes abbreviated UES, is a neighborhood in the boroughs of New York City, borough of Manhattan in New York City. It is bounded approximately by 96th Street (Manhattan), 96th Street to the north, the East River to the e ...
,
and later on
Central Park South
59th Street is a crosstown street in the New York City borough of Manhattan, running from York Avenue and Sutton Place on the East Side of Manhattan to the West Side Highway on the West Side. The three-block portion between Columbus Circle ...
.
Strauss had involvements in the New York City community. In particular, he was on the board of directors of the
Metropolitan Opera Company and later the
Metropolitan Opera Association
The Metropolitan Opera is an American opera company based in New York City, currently resident at the Metropolitan Opera House (Lincoln Center), Metropolitan Opera House at Lincoln Center, situated on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. Referred ...
and was also on the boards of the
American Relief Administration
American Relief Administration (ARA) was an American Humanitarian aid, relief mission to Europe and later Russian Civil War, post-revolutionary Russia after World War I. Herbert Hoover, future president of the United States, was the program dire ...
and the American Children's Fund.
He was a member of
American Bankers Association
The American Bankers Association (ABA) is an American trade association for the U.S. banking industry, founded in 1875. They lobby for banks of all sizes and bank charters, including community banks, regional and money center banks, Federal s ...
and
New York State Chamber of Commerce.
Hoover was a candidate for the
Republican Party nomination in the
United States presidential election, 1920; Strauss campaigned for him and attended the
1920 Republican National Convention
The 1920 Republican National Convention nominated Ohio Senator Warren G. Harding for president and Massachusetts Governor Calvin Coolidge for vice president. The convention was held in Chicago, Illinois, at the Chicago Coliseum from June 8 ...
on his behalf, but Hoover failed to gain significant support. Strauss again worked for the this-time-successful campaign of Hoover in the
United States presidential election, 1928, and was a member from Virginia that year of the
Republican National Committee
The Republican National Committee (RNC) is the primary committee of the Republican Party of the United States. Its members are chosen by the state delegations at the national convention every four years. It is responsible for developing and pr ...
.
Over several years, Strauss engaged in activities designed to strengthen the Republican Party in Virginia and the South overall. He also was committed to protecting the reputation of President Hoover; in 1930, on behalf of the White House, he conspired with two naval intelligence officers to illegally break into the office of a
Tammany Hall
Tammany Hall, also known as the Society of St. Tammany, the Sons of St. Tammany, or the Columbian Order, was an American political organization founded in 1786 and incorporated on May 12, 1789, as the Tammany Society. It became the main local ...
follower in New York who was thought to hold documents that would be damaging to Hoover.
During the 1930s, following Hoover's re-election defeat by
Franklin D. Roosevelt
Franklin Delano Roosevelt (January 30, 1882April 12, 1945), also known as FDR, was the 32nd president of the United States, serving from 1933 until his death in 1945. He is the longest-serving U.S. president, and the only one to have served ...
in the
United States presidential election, 1932, Strauss was a strong opponent of the
New Deal
The New Deal was a series of wide-reaching economic, social, and political reforms enacted by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in the United States between 1933 and 1938, in response to the Great Depression in the United States, Great Depressi ...
. He shared this antipathy with Hoover, who increasingly adopted an ideologically conservative, anti-New Deal viewpoint in the years following his defeat.
Strauss was active in Kuhn Loeb until 1941, although he resented restrictions imposed on investment banking by regulators in the Roosevelt administration and derived less enjoyment from the business. Nonetheless, in his role as an investment banker Strauss had become vastly wealthy, and given his humble original circumstances he has been considered a
self-made millionaire and a
Horatio Alger
Horatio Alger Jr. (; January 13, 1832 – July 18, 1899) was an American author who wrote young adult novels about impoverished boys and their rise from humble backgrounds to middle-class security and comfort through good works. His writings wer ...
tale.
[Bird and Sherwin, ''American Prometheus'', p. 361.] As one historian has written, Strauss's business success was the residue of "luck, pluck, hard work, and good contacts".
Strauss's biographer reaches a similar conclusion: "Strauss reached the top because of his ability, ambition, choices of the right firm and the right wife, and the good luck to start out at a prosperous time." Due to his lack of higher education, Strauss has also been characterized as an
autodidact
Autodidacticism (also autodidactism) or self-education (also self-learning, self-study and self-teaching) is the practice of education without the guidance of schoolmasters (i.e., teachers, professors, institutions).
Overview
Autodi ...
.
[Young, "Strauss and the Writing of Nuclear History", p. 3.]
Lay religious activities
A proudly religious man, Strauss became a leader in Jewish causes and organizations. In 1933 he was a member of the executive committee of the
American Jewish Committee
The American Jewish Committee (AJC) is a civil rights group and Jewish advocacy group established on November 11, 1906. It is one of the oldest Jewish advocacy organizations and, according to ''The New York Times'', is "widely regarded as the wi ...
.
[Pfau, ''No Sacrifice Too Great'', pp. 49–51.] He was active in the Jewish Agricultural Society,
for whom by 1941 he was honorary president.
By 1938 he was also active in the Palestine Development Council, the
Baron de Hirsch Fund, and the
Union of American Hebrew Congregations
The Union for Reform Judaism (URJ), formerly known as the Union of American Hebrew Congregations (UAHC) until 2003, founded in 1873 by Rabbi Isaac Mayer Wise, is the congregational arm of Reform Judaism in North America. The other two arms establ ...
.
However, he was not a
Zionist
Zionism is an Ethnic nationalism, ethnocultural nationalist movement that emerged in History of Europe#From revolution to imperialism (1789–1914), Europe in the late 19th century that aimed to establish and maintain a national home for the ...
and opposed the establishment of a Jewish state in
Mandatory Palestine
Mandatory Palestine was a British Empire, British geopolitical entity that existed between 1920 and 1948 in the Palestine (region), region of Palestine, and after 1922, under the terms of the League of Nations's Mandate for Palestine.
After ...
.
He did not view Jews as belonging to a nation or a race; he considered himself an American of Jewish religion, and consequently he advocated for the rights of Jews to live as equal and integral citizens of the nations in which they resided.
Strauss fully recognized the brutality of
Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany, officially known as the German Reich and later the Greater German Reich, was the German Reich, German state between 1933 and 1945, when Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party controlled the country, transforming it into a Totalit ...
. He first made his concern known in early 1933, writing to President Hoover during the final weeks of Hoover's time in office. Strauss attended a London conference of concerned Jews later that year on behalf of the American Jewish Committee, but the conference fell apart over the issue of Zionism.
Following the November 1938 ''
Kristallnacht
( ) or the Night of Broken Glass, also called the November pogrom(s) (, ), was a pogrom against Jews carried out by the Nazi Party's (SA) and (SS) paramilitary forces along with some participation from the Hitler Youth and German civilia ...
'' attacks on Jews in Germany,
Strauss attempted to persuade prominent Republicans to support the
Wagner–Rogers Bill
The Wagner–Rogers Bill was proposed United States legislation which would have increased the quota of immigrants by bringing a total of 20,000 Jewish children (there were no sectarian criteria) under the age of 14 (10,000 in 1939, and another 10, ...
that would legislatively allow the entry of 20,000 German refugee children into the United States.
Long allied with both Hoover and Taft,
he asked each of them to support the bill. Hoover did, but Taft did not, telling Strauss, "With millions of people out of work, I can't see the logic of admitting others." The bill had considerable popular support, but eventually failed to move forward in Congress due to opposition from the
American Legion
The American Legion, commonly known as the Legion, is an Voluntary association, organization of United States, U.S. war veterans headquartered in Indianapolis, Indiana. It comprises U.S. state, state, Territories of the United States, U.S. terr ...
, the
Daughters of the American Revolution
The National Society Daughters of the American Revolution (often abbreviated as DAR or NSDAR) is a lineage-based membership service organization for women who are directly descended from a patriot of the American Revolutionary War.
A non-p ...
, and other immigration restrictionists.
[Feingold, ''Politics of Rescue'', pp. 149–151.]
At the same time, Strauss joined with Hoover and
Bernard Baruch
Bernard Mannes Baruch (August 19, 1870 – June 20, 1965) was an American financier and statesman.
After amassing a fortune on the New York Stock Exchange, he impressed President Woodrow Wilson by managing the nation's economic mobilization in W ...
in supporting the establishment of a refugee state in Africa as a safe haven for all persecuted people, not just Jews, and pledged ten percent of his wealth towards it.
[Bernstein, "Sacrifices and Decisions", p. 110.] This effort too failed to materialize. Still another scheme that involved Strauss concerned an international corporation, the Coordinating Foundation, that would be set up to effectively pay Germany an immense ransom in exchange for their allowing Jews to emigrate; that too did not happen. Strauss received many individual requests for help, but often was unable to.
Decades later, Strauss wrote in his memoir: "The years from 1933 to the outbreak of World War II will ever be a nightmare to me, and the puny efforts I made to alleviate the tragedies were utter failures, save in a few individual cases—pitifully few."
Strauss was president of
Congregation Emanu-El of New York
Congregation Emanu-El of New York is the first Reform Jewish congregation in New York City. It has served as a flagship congregation in the Reform branch of Judaism since its founding in 1845. The building it uses – (called " Temple Em ...
, the largest such in New York City, for a decade,
[Rhodes, ''Dark Sun'', p. 310.] from 1938 to 1948.
He was named to the presidency to replace Judge
Irving Lehman
Irving Lehman (January 28, 1876 – September 22, 1945) was an American lawyer and politician from New York. He was Chief Judge of the New York Court of Appeals from 1940 until his death in 1945.
Biography
He was born on January 28, 1876, in New ...
, after having previously been chair of the temple's finance committee.
He had first joined the board of trustees of the temple in 1929, when the congregation was absorbing the merger of
Temple Beth-El.
Strauss succeeded in Washington's social and political circles despite that environment being notoriously anti-Semitic at the time.
Indeed, experiences with anti-Semitism may have contributed to the outsider perspective and fractious personality that became evident during his later career.
He was proud of his Southern upbringing as well as his religion, and insisted his name be pronounced in Virginia fashion as "straws" rather than with the usual German pronunciation.
World War II
Despite his medical disqualification for regular military duty, Strauss applied to join the
U.S. Navy Reserve
The United States Navy Reserve (USNR), known as the United States Naval Reserve from 1915 to 2004, is the Reserve Component (RC) of the United States Navy. Members of the Navy Reserve, called reservists, are categorized as being in either the S ...
in 1925, becoming effective 1926,
and he received an officer's commission as a
lieutenant
A lieutenant ( , ; abbreviated Lt., Lt, LT, Lieut and similar) is a Junior officer, junior commissioned officer rank in the armed forces of many nations, as well as fire services, emergency medical services, Security agency, security services ...
intelligence officer.
He remained in the reserve as a
lieutenant commander.
In 1939 and 1940, as
World War II
World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...
began overseas, he volunteered for active duty.
[Pfau, ''No Sacrifice Too Great'', pp. 63, 69.] He wanted to go into intelligence but was blocked, reportedly because the
Director of Naval Intelligence, U.S. Navy was prejudiced against Jews and because Strauss's contributions to
B'nai B'rith
B'nai B'rith International ( ; from ) is an American 501(c)(3) nonprofit Jewish service organization and was formerly a cultural association for German Jewish immigrants to the United States. B'nai B'rith states that it is committed to the se ...
had aroused suspicion on the part of
FBI
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is the domestic Intelligence agency, intelligence and Security agency, security service of the United States and Federal law enforcement in the United States, its principal federal law enforcement ag ...
director
J. Edgar Hoover
John Edgar Hoover (January 1, 1895 – May 2, 1972) was an American attorney and law enforcement administrator who served as the fifth and final director of the Bureau of Investigation (BOI) and the first director of the Federal Bureau o ...
and others in the U.S. intelligence community.
Instead, in February 1941, he was called to active duty,
and was assigned as a Staff Assistant to the Chief at the
Bureau of Ordnance
The Bureau of Ordnance (BuOrd) was a United States Navy organization, which was responsible for the procurement, storage, and deployment of all naval weapons, between the years 1862 and 1959.
History
The Bureau of Ordnance was established as part ...
, where he helped organize and manage Navy munitions work.
[Pfau, ''No Sacrifice Too Great'', pp. 64–67.] Strauss and his wife moved to
Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly known as Washington or D.C., is the capital city and federal district of the United States. The city is on the Potomac River, across from Virginia, and shares land borders with ...
,
where they lived in an apartment at the prestigious
Shoreham Hotel.
She served as an operating room nurse's aide during this period.
During 1941, Strauss recommended actions to improve inspectors' abilities and consolidate field inspections into one General Inspectors' Office that was independent of
the Navy's bureau system; these changes took hold by the following year. Strauss organized a morale-boosting effort to award "E for Excellence" awards to plants doing a good job of making war materials.
The program proved popular and helped the United States ramp up production quickly in case it entered the war; by the end of 1941 the Bureau of Ordnance had given the "E" to 94 different defense contractors.
It was adopted across all services in 1942 as the
Army-Navy "E" Award
The Army-Navy "E" Award was an honor presented to companies and organizations during World War II whose production facilities achieved "Excellence in Production" ("E") of war equipment. The award was also known as the Army-Navy Production Award. ...
, and over the course of the war over 4,000 of them were granted. (Strauss's biographer has depicted Strauss as also helping to investigate the
notorious failures of U.S. torpedoes during the war and coordinate development of the very secret and highly successful anti-aircraft
VT (proximity) fuse; however histories of these efforts do not indicate that Strauss played a significant role.)
When
James V. Forrestal succeeded
Frank Knox
William Franklin Knox (January 1, 1874 – April 28, 1944) was an American politician, soldier, newspaper editor, and publisher. He was the Republican vice presidential candidate in 1936 and Secretary of the Navy under Franklin D. Roosevelt d ...
as
Secretary of the Navy
The Secretary of the Navy (SECNAV) is a statutory officer () and the head (chief executive officer) of the Department of the Navy, a military department within the United States Department of Defense. On March 25, 2025, John Phelan was confirm ...
in May 1944, he employed Strauss as his special assistant.
[Bird and Sherwin, ''American Prometheus'', p. 362.] In conjunction with Senator
Harry F. Byrd of Virginia, Strauss established the
Office of Naval Research
The Office of Naval Research (ONR) is an organization within the United States Department of the Navy responsible for the science and technology programs of the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps. Established by Congress in 1946, its mission is to plan ...
, which kept scientific research of naval matters under control of the Navy rather than civilian or academic organizations. Strauss's contributions were recognized by the Navy and by 1945 he was serving on the Army-Navy Munitions Board,
a role that concluded by the following year.
He was also on the Naval Reserve Policy Board starting in 1946.
Earlier during the war, Strauss was promoted to commander, then by November 1943 was a captain. He rose in rank and influence due to a combination of his intelligence, personal energy, and ability to find favor in higher places.
Strauss's rigid manner managed to make enemies during the war as well, including significant disputes with E. N. Toland, chief counsel for the
House Committee on Naval Affairs; Representative
Carl Vinson
Carl Vinson (November 18, 1883 – June 1, 1981) was an American politician who served in the U.S. House of Representatives for over 50 years and was influential in the 20th century expansion of the U.S. Navy. He was a member of the Democrati ...
, chair of that committee; and Admiral
Ernest J. King
Ernest Joseph King (23 November 1878 – 25 June 1956) was a fleet admiral in the United States Navy who served as Commander in Chief, United States Fleet (COMINCH) and Chief of Naval Operations (CNO) during World War II. Franklin Delano ...
, the
Chief of Naval Operations
The chief of naval operations (CNO) is the highest-ranking officer of the United States Navy. The position is a statutory office () held by an Admiral (United States), admiral who is a military adviser and deputy to the United States Secretary ...
. A proposed promotion for Strauss in 1944 to rear admiral did not happen at the time due to a variety of factors, including that President
Franklin D. Roosevelt
Franklin Delano Roosevelt (January 30, 1882April 12, 1945), also known as FDR, was the 32nd president of the United States, serving from 1933 until his death in 1945. He is the longest-serving U.S. president, and the only one to have served ...
had disliked Strauss for years, going back to an incident at an
Inner Circle event in 1932, and blocked the move. Roosevelt's death changed matters, as his successor,
Harry S. Truman
Harry S. Truman (May 8, 1884December 26, 1972) was the 33rd president of the United States, serving from 1945 to 1953. As the 34th vice president in 1945, he assumed the presidency upon the death of Franklin D. Roosevelt that year. Subsequen ...
, had no negative feelings about Strauss. In July 1945 Strauss was promoted to
commodore
Commodore may refer to:
Ranks
* Commodore (rank), a naval rank
** Commodore (Royal Navy), in the United Kingdom
** Commodore (India), in India
** Commodore (United States)
** Commodore (Canada)
** Commodore (Finland)
** Commodore (Germany) or ' ...
.
Then in November 1945, after the war, Strauss was promoted to
rear admiral
Rear admiral is a flag officer rank used by English-speaking navies. In most European navies, the equivalent rank is called counter admiral.
Rear admiral is usually immediately senior to commodore and immediately below vice admiral. It is ...
by Truman.
The promotion to
flag rank
A flag officer is a commissioned officer in a nation's armed forces senior enough to be entitled to fly a flag to mark the position from which that officer exercises command.
Different countries use the term "flag officer" in different ways:
* ...
was unusual for a member of the reserve,
and as such,
he liked being addressed as "Admiral Strauss", even though use of the honorific perturbed some regular officers, who considered him a civilian.
By this time, Strauss had taken advantage of his ties in both Washington and Wall Street to enter the post-war establishment in the capital.
He also was learning how to get things accomplished in Washington via unofficial back channels, something at which he would become quite adept.
[Young, "Strauss and the Writing of Nuclear History", p. 5.]
Introduction to atomic energy
Strauss's mother died of cancer in 1935, and his father of the same disease in 1937. That and his early interest in physics led Strauss to establish a fund in their names, the Lewis and Rosa Strauss Memorial Fund, for physics research that could lead to better radiation treatment for cancer patients. The fund supported the refugee German physicist
Arno Brasch, who was working on producing artificial radioactive material with bursts of
X-ray
An X-ray (also known in many languages as Röntgen radiation) is a form of high-energy electromagnetic radiation with a wavelength shorter than those of ultraviolet rays and longer than those of gamma rays. Roughly, X-rays have a wavelength ran ...
s. Brasch's work was based on previous work with
Leo Szilard
Leo Szilard (; ; born Leó Spitz; February 11, 1898 – May 30, 1964) was a Hungarian-born physicist, biologist and inventor who made numerous important discoveries in nuclear physics and the biological sciences. He conceived the nuclear ...
, who saw in this work a possible means to developing an atomic
chain reaction
A chain reaction is a sequence of reactions where a reactive product or by-product causes additional reactions to take place. In a chain reaction, positive feedback leads to a self-amplifying chain of events.
Chain reactions are one way that sys ...
. Szilard already had foreseen that this could lead to an
atomic bomb
A nuclear weapon is an explosive device that derives its destructive force from nuclear reactions, either fission (fission or atomic bomb) or a combination of fission and fusion reactions (thermonuclear weapon), producing a nuclear expl ...
. Szilard persuaded Strauss to support him and Brasch in building a "surge generator". Strauss ultimately provided tens of thousands of dollars to this venture.
Through Szilard, Strauss met other
nuclear physicists
Nuclear may refer to:
Physics
Relating to the nucleus of the atom:
*Nuclear engineering
*Nuclear physics
*Nuclear power
*Nuclear reactor
*Nuclear weapon
*Nuclear medicine
*Radiation therapy
*Nuclear warfare
Mathematics
*Nuclear space
*Nuclear ...
, such as
Ernest Lawrence
Ernest Orlando Lawrence (August 8, 1901 – August 27, 1958) was an American accelerator physicist who received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1939 for his invention of the cyclotron. He is known for his work on uranium-isotope separation for ...
. Strauss talked to scientists who had left Nazi Germany and learned about atom-related experiments that had taken place there.
Szilard kept him up to date on developments in the area, such as the
discovery of nuclear fission
Nuclear fission was discovered in December 1938 by chemists Otto Hahn and Fritz Strassmann and physicists Lise Meitner and Otto Robert Frisch. Fission is a nuclear reaction or radioactive decay process in which the atomic nucleus, nucleus of a ...
and the use of
neutron
The neutron is a subatomic particle, symbol or , that has no electric charge, and a mass slightly greater than that of a proton. The Discovery of the neutron, neutron was discovered by James Chadwick in 1932, leading to the discovery of nucle ...
s. In February 1940, Szilard asked him to fund the acquisition of some
radium
Radium is a chemical element; it has chemical symbol, symbol Ra and atomic number 88. It is the sixth element in alkaline earth metal, group 2 of the periodic table, also known as the alkaline earth metals. Pure radium is silvery-white, ...
, but Strauss refused, as he had already spent a large sum.
Strauss had no further direct involvement with atomic energy developments during the war. Indeed, he was frustrated by Harvey Hollister Bundy, his colleague from the Food Administration days, who kept Strauss away from information regarding the
Manhattan Project
The Manhattan Project was a research and development program undertaken during World War II to produce the first nuclear weapons. It was led by the United States in collaboration with the United Kingdom and Canada.
From 1942 to 1946, the ...
. At the end of the war, when the first atomic bombs were ready for use, Strauss advocated to Forrestal dropping one on a symbolic target, such as a
Japanese cedar grove near
Nikkō, Tochigi, as a
warning shot
In military and police contexts, a warning shot is an intentionally harmless artillery shot or gunshot with intent to enact direct compliance and order to a hostile perpetrator or enemy forces. It is recognized as signalling intended confronta ...
. In subsequent years Strauss would say in interviews, "I did my best to prevent it. The Japanese were defeated before the bomb was used."
After the war, Strauss was the Navy's representative on the Interdepartmental Committee on Atomic Energy.
Strauss recommended a test of the atomic bomb against a number of modern warships, which he thought would refute the idea that the atomic bomb made the Navy obsolete. His recommendation contributed to the decision to hold the mid-1946
Operation Crossroads
Operation Crossroads was a pair of nuclear weapon tests conducted by the United States at Bikini Atoll in mid-1946. They were the first nuclear weapon tests since Trinity on July 16, 1945, and the first detonations of nuclear devices sinc ...
tests, the first since the war, at
Bikini Atoll
Bikini Atoll ( or ; Marshallese language, Marshallese: , , ), known as Eschscholtz Atoll between the 19th century and 1946, is a coral reef in the Marshall Islands consisting of 23 islands surrounding a central lagoon. The atoll is at the no ...
.
Atomic Energy Commission member
In 1947, the United States transferred control of atomic research from the U.S. Army to civilian authority under the newly created
Atomic Energy Commission (AEC). In October 1946, in advance of the commission actually coming into being,
Strauss was named by President Truman as one of the first five Commissioners, with
David E. Lilienthal
David Eli Lilienthal (July 8, 1899 – January 15, 1981) was an American attorney and public administrator, best known for his presidential appointment to head Tennessee Valley Authority and later the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC). He had p ...
as the chairman. Strauss had been recommended for a position on the body by Vice Admiral
Paul Frederick Foster
Paul Frederick Foster (March 25, 1889 – January 30, 1972) was a highly decorated officer in the United States Navy with the rank of vice admiral. A graduate of the Naval Academy at Annapolis, he distinguished himself during the Battle of Vera ...
, a long-time friend for whom Strauss earlier had provided contacts in the business world (and who had subsequently helped Strauss get his active duty assignment). In their initial discussion about the appointment, Strauss noted to the New Deal-supporting Truman that "I am a black Hoover Republican."
Truman said that was of no matter, since the commission was intended to be non-political.
[Pfau, ''No Sacrifice Too Great'', p. 89.] Strauss, who briefly had returned to work at Kuhn Loeb after the war, now exited the firm altogether in order to comply with AEC regulations.
Once there, Strauss became one of the first commissioners to speak in dissent from existing policy.
In the first two years, there were a dozen instances, most having to do with information-security matters, in which Strauss was in a 1–4 minority on the commission; in the process, he increasingly was perceived as stubborn.
One of Strauss's first actions on the AEC was to urge his fellow commissioners to set up the capability to monitor foreign atomic activity via atmospheric testing. In particular, he saw that
WB-29 Superfortress aircraft equipped with radiological tests could run regular "sniffer" flights to monitor the upper atmosphere and detect any atomic tests by the Soviet Union.
[Young and Schilling, ''Super Bomb'', pp. 19–21.] Other people in government and science, including physicists
J. Robert Oppenheimer
J. Robert Oppenheimer (born Julius Robert Oppenheimer ; April 22, 1904 – February 18, 1967) was an American theoretical physics, theoretical physicist who served as the director of the Manhattan Project's Los Alamos Laboratory during World ...
and
Edward Teller
Edward Teller (; January 15, 1908 – September 9, 2003) was a Hungarian and American Theoretical physics, theoretical physicist and chemical engineer who is known colloquially as "the father of the hydrogen bomb" and one of the creators of ...
, argued that the radiological approach would not work, but Strauss and the newly formed
United States Air Force
The United States Air Force (USAF) is the Air force, air service branch of the United States Department of Defense. It is one of the six United States Armed Forces and one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. Tracing its ori ...
continued regardless.
Several days after the
first atomic bomb test by the Soviet Union in August 1949, a WB-29 flight did, in fact, find evidence of the test. While Strauss was not the only person who had been urging long-range detection capabilities,
it was largely due to his efforts that the United States was able to discover that the Soviet Union had become a nuclear power.
[Bundy, ''Danger and Survival'', p. 206.]
Strauss believed in a fundamental premise of the
Cold War
The Cold War was a period of global Geopolitics, geopolitical rivalry between the United States (US) and the Soviet Union (USSR) and their respective allies, the capitalist Western Bloc and communist Eastern Bloc, which lasted from 1947 unt ...
: that the Soviet Union was determined on a course of world domination. As such, he believed in having a more powerful nuclear force than the Soviets and in maintaining secrecy about U.S. nuclear activities.
This extended to allies: Among the commissioners, he was the most skeptical about the value of the
Modus Vivendi
''Modus vivendi'' (plural ''modi vivendi'') is a Latin phrase that means "mode of living" or " way of life". In international relations, it often is used to mean an arrangement or agreement that allows conflicting parties to coexist in peace. In ...
to which the United States, Britain, and Canada agreed in January 1948 that provided for limited sharing of technical information between the three nations (and that already was a stricter set of guidelines than those established by President
Franklin D. Roosevelt
Franklin Delano Roosevelt (January 30, 1882April 12, 1945), also known as FDR, was the 32nd president of the United States, serving from 1933 until his death in 1945. He is the longest-serving U.S. president, and the only one to have served ...
in the
Quebec Agreement
The Quebec Agreement was a secret agreement between the United Kingdom and the United States outlining the terms for the coordinated development of the science and engineering related to nuclear power, nuclear energy and specifically nuclear we ...
of the Manhattan Project era). During the
U.S. presidential election of 1948, Strauss tried to convince the Republican Party nominee,
Thomas E. Dewey
Thomas Edmund Dewey (March 24, 1902 – March 16, 1971) was an American lawyer and politician who served as the 47th Governor of New York from 1943 to 1954. He was the Republican Party's nominee for president of the United States in 1944 and ...
, of the dangers of sharing atomic information with Britain, and, after Dewey lost, Strauss tried to convince President Truman of the same. Following the revelations about the British physicist
Klaus Fuchs
Klaus Emil Julius Fuchs (29 December 1911 – 28 January 1988) was a German theoretical physicist and atomic spy who supplied information from the American, British, and Canadian Manhattan Project to the Soviet Union during and shortly a ...
's espionage for the Soviet Union and the appointment of the former Marxist
John Strachey as
Secretary of State for War
The secretary of state for war, commonly called the war secretary, was a secretary of state in the Government of the United Kingdom, which existed from 1794 to 1801 and from 1854 to 1964. The secretary of state for war headed the War Offic ...
in the British Cabinet, Strauss argued that the Modus Vivendi should be suspended completely, but no other commissioner wanted to go to that extreme.
Strauss was known for his psychological rigidity; one of his fellow commissioners reportedly said, "If you disagree with Lewis about anything, he assumes you're just a fool at first. But if you go on disagreeing with him, he concludes you must be a traitor."
Strauss was increasingly unhappy in his position, but President Truman indicated satisfaction with Strauss's work and the minority stances that he was taking on the commission.
The
first atomic-bomb test by the Soviet Union in August 1949 came earlier than expected by Americans, and, over the next several months, there was an intense debate within the U.S. government, military, and scientific communities regarding whether to proceed with development of the far more powerful
hydrogen bomb
A thermonuclear weapon, fusion weapon or hydrogen bomb (H-bomb) is a second-generation nuclear weapon design. Its greater sophistication affords it vastly greater destructive power than first-generation nuclear bombs, a more compact size, a lo ...
, then known as "the Super".
[Young and Schilling, ''Super Bomb'', pp. 1–2.] Strauss urged for the United States to move immediately to develop it,
writing to his fellow commissioners on October 5 that "the time has come for a quantum jump in our planning ... we should make an intensive effort to get ahead with the super." In particular, Strauss was unswayed by moral arguments against going forward, seeing no real difference between using it and the atomic bomb or the
boosted fission weapon
A boosted fission weapon usually refers to a type of nuclear bomb that uses a small amount of fusion fuel to increase the rate, and thus yield, of a fission reaction. The fast fusion neutrons released by the fusion reactions add to the fast ...
that some opponents of the Super were advocating as an alternative. When Strauss was rebuffed by the other commissioners, he went to
National Security Council
A national security council (NSC) is usually an executive branch governmental body responsible for coordinating policy on national security issues and advising chief executives on matters related to national security. An NSC is often headed by a n ...
executive secretary
Sidney Souers
Sidney William Souers (March 30, 1892 – January 14, 1973) was an American military intelligence officer who was the first person to hold the office of Director of Central Intelligence, being head of the Central Intelligence Group (CIG), the dir ...
in order to bring the matter to President Truman directly. It was as a consequence of this meeting that Truman first learned (when Souers informed him) that such a thing as a hydrogen bomb could exist. In a memorandum urging development of the Super that he sent to President Truman on November 25, 1949, the pious Strauss expressed no doubt about what the Soviets would do, writing that "a government of atheists is not likely to be dissuaded from producing the weapon on 'moral' grounds."
On January 31, 1950, Truman announced his decision to go forward with hydrogen-bomb development.
A few narratives, including ones promoted by Strauss and that of Strauss's biographer, have placed Strauss as having had a central role in Truman's decision. However, by the time that the decision was made, Strauss was one of an increasingly large coalition of military and government figures, and a few scientists, who strongly felt that development of the new weapon was essential to U.S. security in the face of a hostile, nuclear-capable, ideological enemy. Thus, in the absence of Strauss's action, the same decision almost surely would have been reached. In any case, when the decision was announced, Strauss, considering that he had accomplished as much as he could in his role as commissioner, submitted his resignation that same day. Within the administration, there was some consideration given to Strauss being named chairman of the AEC to replace the departing Lilienthal, but Strauss was considered too polarizing a figure. The last day for Strauss during this first stint of his on the commission was April 15, 1950.
Financial analyst
Beginning in June 1950, Strauss became a financial adviser to the
Rockefeller brothers, where his charter was to participate in decisions regarding projects, financing, and investing.
For them, he assisted in the founding of, and served on the first board for, the
Population Council
The Population Council is an international, nonprofit, non-governmental organization. The Council conducts research in biomedicine, social science, and public health and helps build research capacities in developing countries. One-third of its re ...
. He was also involved in the negotiations with
Columbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York, commonly referred to as Columbia University, is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Churc ...
that led to a
sale and leasing back of real estate associated with part of
Rockefeller Center
Rockefeller Center is a complex of 19 commerce, commercial buildings covering between 48th Street (Manhattan), 48th Street and 51st Street (Manhattan), 51st Street in the Midtown Manhattan neighborhood of New York City. The 14 original Art De ...
.
The relationship with the Rockefeller brothers would last until 1953.
However, Strauss felt that the brothers treated him as a second-class asset and, in turn, he felt no loyalty towards them.
[Pfau, ''No Sacrifice Too Great'', p. 128.]
During this time, Strauss continued to take an interest in atomic affairs; as did other former members of the AEC, he had a consulting arrangement with the
United States Congress Joint Committee on Atomic Energy
The Joint Committee on Atomic Energy (JCAE) was a United States congressional committee that was tasked with exclusive jurisdiction over "all bills, resolutions, and other matters" related to civilian and military aspects of nuclear power from 194 ...
and was active in making his opinion known on various matters. These included his dissatisfaction with the speed at which research and development into actually making a working hydrogen device was taking place.
In the
1952 U.S. presidential election, Strauss originally supported Robert A. Taft, his friend from the Hoover days, for the Republican Party nomination.
Once
Dwight D. Eisenhower
Dwight David "Ike" Eisenhower (born David Dwight Eisenhower; October 14, 1890 – March 28, 1969) was the 34th president of the United States, serving from 1953 to 1961. During World War II, he was Supreme Commander of the Allied Expeditionar ...
secured the nomination, however, Strauss contributed substantial monies towards Eisenhower's campaign.
Atomic Energy Commission chairman
In January 1953, President Eisenhower named Strauss as presidential atomic energy advisor.
Then in July 1953, Eisenhower named Strauss as chairman of the AEC.
[Bird and Sherwin, ''American Prometheus'', p. 466.]
While Strauss had initially opposed Eisenhower's push for
Operation Candor
Project Candor or Operation Candor was a public relations campaign run by the administration of Dwight D. Eisenhower. The thought behind the campaign was to inform the U.S. public of the facts as to the armaments race and the government's officia ...
, his view and the administration's goals both evolved, and he endorsed the "
Atoms for Peace
"Atoms for Peace" was the title of a speech delivered by U.S. president Dwight D. Eisenhower to the UN General Assembly in New York City on December 8, 1953.
The United States then launched an "Atoms for Peace" program that supplied equipment ...
" program, which Eisenhower announced in December 1953. Strauss was now one of the best-known advocates of atomic energy for many purposes. In part, he celebrated the promise of peaceful use of atomic energy as part of a conscious effort to divert attention away from the dangers of nuclear warfare. Nevertheless, Strauss, like Eisenhower, did sincerely believe in and hope for the potential of peaceful uses.
[McMillan, ''Ruin of J. Robert Oppenheimer'', p. 257.] In 1955 Strauss helped arrange the U.S. participation in the first international conference on peaceful uses of atomic energy, held in Geneva. Strauss held Soviet capabilities in high regard, saying after the conference that "in the realm of pure science the Soviets had astonished us by their achievements ...
he Russianscould be described in no sense as technically backward."
Strauss was involved in finding the site and industry partners for the start of construction, in 1954, of the first dedicated U.S. atomic electric power plant, the
Shippingport Atomic Power Station
The Shippingport Atomic Power Station was (according to the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission) the world's first full-scale atomic electric power plant devoted exclusively to peacetime uses.Though Obninsk Nuclear Power Plant was connected to the ...
in Pennsylvania; it would eventually go on-line in 1957. While Shippingport was a joint government-commercial collaboration, Strauss advocated for private industry taking on the development of nuclear power plants on its own. Strauss made public remarks in 1954 predicting that atomic power would make electricity "
too cheap to meter". Regarded as fanciful even at the time, the quote is now seen as damaging to the industry's credibility. Strauss was possibly referring to
Project Sherwood
Project Sherwood was the codename for a United States program in controlled nuclear fusion during the period it was classified. After 1958, when fusion research was declassified around the world, the project was reorganized as a separate division w ...
, a secret program to develop
power from hydrogen fusion, rather the commonly-believed
uranium fission reactors.
[Pfau, ''No Sacrifice Too Great'', p. 187.] Indeed, on the run-up to a 1958 Geneva conference on atomic power, Strauss offered substantial funding to three laboratories for fusion power research.
Following the unexpectedly large blast of the
Castle Bravo
Castle Bravo was the first in a series of high-yield thermonuclear weapon design tests conducted by the United States at Bikini Atoll, Marshall Islands, as part of ''Operation Castle''. Detonated on 1 March 1954, the device remains the most powe ...
thermonuclear test of March 1954 at
Bikini Atoll
Bikini Atoll ( or ; Marshallese language, Marshallese: , , ), known as Eschscholtz Atoll between the 19th century and 1946, is a coral reef in the Marshall Islands consisting of 23 islands surrounding a central lagoon. The atoll is at the no ...
, there was international concern over the
radioactive fallout
Nuclear fallout is residual radioactive material that is created by the reactions producing a nuclear explosion. It is initially present in the radioactive cloud created by the explosion, and "falls out" of the cloud as it is moved by the a ...
experienced by residents of nearby
Rongelap Atoll
Rongelap Atoll ( ; , ) is an uninhabited coral atoll of 61 islands (or motus) in the Pacific Ocean, and forms a legislative district of the Ralik Chain of the Marshall Islands. Its total land area is . It encloses a lagoon with an area of . ...
and
Utirik Atoll
Utirik Atoll or Utrik Atoll ( Marshallese: , ) is a coral atoll of 10 islands in the Pacific Ocean, and forms a legislative district of the Ratak Chain of the Marshall Islands. Its total land area is only , but it encloses a lagoon with an are ...
and by the ''
Daigo Fukuryū Maru
was a Japanese tuna fishing boat with a crew of 23 men which was contaminated by nuclear fallout from the United States Castle Bravo thermonuclear weapon test at Bikini Atoll on March 1, 1954.
The crew suffered acute radiation syndrome (ARS) ...
'', a Japanese fishing vessel.
The AEC initially tried to keep the contamination secret, and then tried to minimize the health dangers of fallout.
[Makhijani and Schwartz, "Victims of the Bomb", p. 417.] Voices began to be heard advocating for a ban or limitation on atmospheric testing of nuclear weapons.
Strauss himself downplayed dangers from fallout and insisted that it was vital that a program of atmospheric blasts proceed unhindered;
[Bundy, ''Danger and Survival'', p. 329.] internally within the administration, Strauss was dismissive of the matter and even speculated that the ''Fukuryū Maru'' was part of a Communist scheme. However, Strauss also contributed to public fears when, during a March 1954 press conference, he made an impromptu remark that a single Soviet H-bomb could destroy the New York metropolitan area.
The remark captured the immense destructiveness of the H-bomb and was featured in headlines in newspapers across the United States. This statement was heard overseas as well and served to add to what UK Minister of Defence
Harold Macmillan
Maurice Harold Macmillan, 1st Earl of Stockton (10 February 1894 – 29 December 1986), was a British statesman and Conservative Party (UK), Conservative politician who was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1957 to 1963. Nickn ...
termed a "panic" over the subject.
[Young, ''American Bomb in Britain'', p. 143.] The AEC had commissioned the
Project SUNSHINE report in 1953 to ascertain the impact of radioactive fallout, generated from repeated nuclear detonations of greater and greater yield, on the world's population.
The British asked the AEC for the report, but Strauss resisted giving them anything more than a heavily redacted version, leading to frustration on the part of Prime Minister
Winston Churchill
Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill (30 November 1874 – 24 January 1965) was a British statesman, military officer, and writer who was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1940 to 1945 (Winston Churchill in the Second World War, ...
and other UK officials.
Internal debate ensued over the next several years within the Eisenhower administration over the possibility of an atmospheric test ban with the Soviet Union, with some in favor of trying to arrange one, but Strauss was always one of those implacably opposed. Strauss would continue to minimize the dangers of Bravo fallout to the islanders of the atolls, insisting in his 1962 memoirs that they had been under "continuous and competent medical supervision" and that follow-up tests showed them to be in "excellent health
ndtheir blood counts were approximately normal". Others in the AEC were equally cavalier.
[Bernstein, "Sacrifices and Decisions", p. 118.] In fact, AEC scientists had seen the islanders as a valuable laboratory case of human exposure.
The
Limited Test Ban Treaty
The Partial Test Ban Treaty (PTBT), formally known as the 1963 Treaty Banning Nuclear Weapon Tests in the Atmosphere, in Outer Space and Under Water, prohibited all test detonations of nuclear weapons except for those conducted underground. It ...
banning atmospheric tests would not be arrived at until 1963, and the U.S. government engaged in a series of reevaluations of the health of the islanders, and relocation and economic packages to compensate them, over the next several decades. Strauss and others in the AEC were also dismissive of the dangers Americans faced who were downwind of the
Nevada Test Site
The Nevada National Security Sites (N2S2 or NNSS), popularized as the Nevada Test Site (NTS) until 2010, is a reservation of the United States Department of Energy located in the southeastern portion of Nye County, Nevada, about northwest of ...
.
Regarding the prospect of
nuclear proliferation
Nuclear proliferation is the spread of nuclear weapons to additional countries, particularly those not recognized as List of states with nuclear weapons, nuclear-weapon states by the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, commonl ...
, Strauss was skeptical that attempts to prevent it would accomplish anything, and Strauss and the AEC also doubted that the problem was as severe as some others in the administration maintained. During 1956,
Harold Stassen
Harold Edward Stassen (April 13, 1907 – March 4, 2001) was an American Republican Party (United States), Republican Party politician, military officer, and attorney who was the List of governors of Minnesota, 25th governor of Minnesota from 193 ...
, who had been chosen by Eisenhower to lead an effort on disarmanent policy, focused on making nonprofileration a key goal of the United States, including proposals to halt not just testing but also the continued expansion of the U.S. fissionable material stockpile. Eisenhower was at least partially receptive to the proposals, but Strauss argued that nuclear materials production could not be stopped yet and that testing could never be halted completely.
The
Sputnik crisis
The Sputnik crisis was a period of public fear and anxiety in Western nations about the perceived technological gap between the United States and Soviet Union caused by the Soviets' launch of '' Sputnik 1'', the world's first artificial sate ...
of 1957 led Eisenhower to create the
President's Science Advisory Committee
The President's Science Advisory Committee (PSAC) was created on November 21, 1957, by President of the United States Dwight D. Eisenhower, as a direct response to the Soviet launching of the Sputnik 1 and Sputnik 2 satellites. PSAC was an upgra ...
. Once that body was in place, Eisenhower began to directly receive a broader selection of scientific information; Strauss lost his ability to control scientists' access to the president and his influence within the administration began to recede. While Strauss had maintained his hostility towards Anglo-American cooperation on nuclear matters since becoming AEC chairman, Sputnik gave impetus to renewed cooperation on this front. Strauss visited Prime Minister
Harold Macmillan
Maurice Harold Macmillan, 1st Earl of Stockton (10 February 1894 – 29 December 1986), was a British statesman and Conservative Party (UK), Conservative politician who was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1957 to 1963. Nickn ...
to give a message from Eisenhower to this effect, and subsequent talks and hearings resulted in the
1958 US–UK Mutual Defence Agreement
Events
January
* January 1 – The European Economic Community (EEC) comes into being.
* January 3 – The West Indies Federation is formed.
* January 4
** Edmund Hillary's Commonwealth Trans-Antarctic Expedition completes the thir ...
coming into place.
As AEC chairman, Strauss was informed regarding U.S. intelligence findings on the
Dimona reactor in Israel. He met with
Ernst David Bergmann
Ernst David Bergmann (; 1903 – April 6, 1975) was an Israeli nuclear scientist and chemist. He is often considered the father of the Israeli nuclear program.
Biography
Ernst David Bergmann was born in Germany, His father, Judah Bergmann, ...
, chairman of the
Israel Atomic Energy Commission
The Israel Atomic Energy Commission (IAEC; ) is the governmental authority responsible for the State of Israel's activities in the nuclear field.
History
The establishment of the Israel Atomic Energy Commission was announced on 13 June 1952 by Pri ...
and a key early force in the
Israeli nuclear program
Israel is widely believed to possess nuclear weapons. Estimates of Israel's stockpile range between 90 and 400 nuclear warheads, and the country is believed to possess a nuclear triad of delivery options: by F-15 and F-16 fighters, by Dolphin- ...
(and years later would help Bergmann get a visiting fellowship in the United States). While Strauss's thoughts on the Israeli effort to develop nuclear weapons are not documented, his wife later said that he would have been in favor of Israel being able to defend itself.
Strauss and Oppenheimer
During his terms as an AEC commissioner, Strauss became hostile to Oppenheimer, the physicist who had been director of the
Los Alamos Laboratory
The Los Alamos Laboratory, also known as Project Y, was a secret scientific laboratory established by the Manhattan Project and overseen by the University of California during World War II. It was operated in partnership with the United State ...
during the Manhattan Project and who, after the war, became a celebrated public figure and remained in influential positions in atomic energy.
In 1947, Strauss, a trustee of the
Institute for Advanced Study
The Institute for Advanced Study (IAS) is an independent center for theoretical research and intellectual inquiry located in Princeton, New Jersey. It has served as the academic home of internationally preeminent scholars, including Albert Ein ...
at
Princeton
Princeton University is a private Ivy League research university in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the Unit ...
, presented Oppenheimer with the institute's offer to be its director.
Strauss, who as one writer notes was a man of high intelligence and financial skills if not higher education, had also been considered for the job; he was the institute's faculty's fifth-ranked choice, while Oppenheimer was their first ranked.
[Rhodes, ''Dark Sun'', p. 308.] Strauss, a conservative Republican, had little in common with Oppenheimer, a liberal who had had Communist associations. Oppenheimer subsequently was a leading opponent of moving ahead with the hydrogen bomb and proposed a national security strategy based on atomic weapons and continental defense; Strauss wanted the development of thermonuclear weapons and a doctrine of deterrence.
Oppenheimer supported a policy of openness regarding the numbers and capabilities of the atomic weapons in America's arsenal; Strauss believed that such unilateral frankness would benefit no one but Soviet military planners.
[Pfau, ''No Sacrifice Too Great'', p. 144.]
In addition, Strauss disliked Oppenheimer on a variety of personal grounds. Starting in 1947, Strauss had been in a dispute with the General Advisory Committee (GAC) of senior atomic scientists, which Oppenheimer chaired and which reported to the AEC, over whether exporting radioisotopes for medical purposes was a risk to U.S. security, from which the scientists on the GAC developed a poor image of Strauss. Then during a public hearing in 1949, Oppenheimer had given a mocking answer to a point Strauss had raised on the subject, a humiliation that Strauss did not forget. Strauss was also offended that Oppenheimer had engaged in adulterous relations.
And Strauss did not like that Oppenheimer had seemingly left his Jewish heritage behind, whereas Strauss had become successful – despite the anti-Semitic environment of Washington – while still maintaining his prominent roles in Jewish organizations and his Temple Emanu-El presidency.
[Bernstein, "Sacrifices and Decisions", p. 116.]
When
Eisenhower
Dwight David "Ike" Eisenhower (born David Dwight Eisenhower; October 14, 1890 – March 28, 1969) was the 34th president of the United States, serving from 1953 to 1961. During World War II, he was Supreme Commander of the Allied Expeditionar ...
offered Strauss the AEC chairmanship, Strauss named one condition: Oppenheimer would be excluded from all classified atomic work.
[McMillan, ''Ruin of J. Robert Oppenheimer'', p. 170.] Oppenheimer held a highest-level
Q clearance
Q clearance or Q access authorization is the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) security clearance required to access Top Secret Restricted Data, Formerly Restricted Data, and National Security Information, as well as Secret Restricted Data. Restric ...
, and was one of the most respected figures in atomic science, briefing the President and the National Security Council on several occasions. Oppenheimer's AEC consultancy, and the clearance that went with it, had just been renewed for another year by
Gordon Dean, the outgoing chairman of the AEC; it would extend through June 30, 1954.
Strauss's misgivings about Oppenheimer went beyond dislike and disagreement. He had become aware of Oppenheimer's former Communist affiliations before World War II and had begun to think that Oppenheimer might even be a Soviet spy. For instance, Strauss was suspicious of Oppenheimer's tendency to downplay Soviet capabilities. In 1953, Oppenheimer stated in the July edition of ''
Foreign Affairs
''Foreign Affairs'' is an American magazine of international relations and foreign policy of the United States, U.S. foreign policy published by the Council on Foreign Relations, a nonprofit organization, nonprofit, nonpartisan, membership or ...
'' that he believed the Soviets were "about four years behind" in nuclear weapons development. The United States had exploded
the first thermonuclear device the previous year; however, only a month after Oppenheimer made his proclamation, in August 1953, the Soviet Union declared that it had tested
its own fusion-based bomb, which U.S. sensors identified as a
boosted fission weapon
A boosted fission weapon usually refers to a type of nuclear bomb that uses a small amount of fusion fuel to increase the rate, and thus yield, of a fission reaction. The fast fusion neutrons released by the fusion reactions add to the fast ...
.
[Pfau, ''No Sacrifice Too Great'', pp. 145–146.] Strauss was not alone in having his doubts; a number of other officials in Washington also suspected that Oppenheimer might be a security risk.
In September 1953, Strauss, hoping to uncover evidence of Oppenheimer's disloyalty, asked FBI director
J. Edgar Hoover
John Edgar Hoover (January 1, 1895 – May 2, 1972) was an American attorney and law enforcement administrator who served as the fifth and final director of the Bureau of Investigation (BOI) and the first director of the Federal Bureau o ...
to initiate surveillance to track Oppenheimer's movements. The director readily did so; the tracking uncovered no evidence of disloyalty but that Oppenheimer had lied to Strauss about his reason for taking a trip to Washington (Oppenheimer met a journalist but had told Strauss that he had visited the White House). Strauss's suspicions increased further with the discovery that in 1948 and 1949 Oppenheimer had tried to stop the long-range airborne detection system that Strauss had championed and that had worked in discovering the Soviet Union's first atomic weapon test. At first Strauss moved cautiously, even heading off an attack on Oppenheimer by Senator
Joseph McCarthy
Joseph Raymond McCarthy (November 14, 1908 – May 2, 1957) was an American politician who served as a Republican Party (United States), Republican United States Senate, U.S. Senator from the state of Wisconsin from 1947 until his death at age ...
,
due to Strauss's belief that any case that McCarthy might make would be premature and lack a solid basis of evidence.
Oppenheimer security hearing
In November 1953,
William L. Borden, the former executive director of the United States Congress Joint Committee on Atomic Energy, wrote a letter to the FBI alleging that "more probably than not J. Robert Oppenheimer is an agent of the Soviet Union." According to the book ''
American Prometheus
''American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer'' is a 2005 biography of theoretical physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer, the leader of the Manhattan Project, which produced the first nuclear weapons, written by Kai Bird and ...
'', Strauss collaborated and aided Borden in making the allegations against Oppenheimer. This action set into motion a chain of events. On December 3, 1953, Eisenhower, after consulting with Strauss and others, ordered a "blank wall" between Oppenheimer and all areas of government. On December 21, Strauss told Oppenheimer that his security clearance had been suspended, pending resolution of a series of charges outlined in a letter from
Kenneth D. Nichols
Kenneth David Nichols CBE (13 November 1907 – 21 February 2000) was an officer in the United States Army, and a civil engineer who worked on the secret Manhattan Project, which developed the atomic bomb during World War II. He served as Deput ...
, general manager of the AEC. Rather than resign, Oppenheimer requested a hearing. Upon Strauss's request, FBI director Hoover ordered full surveillance on Oppenheimer and his attorneys, including tapping of phones;
[Bernstein, "Sacrifices and Decisions", p. 115.] these wiretaps were illegal.
The hearing was held in April and May 1954, before an AEC Personnel Security Board. Strauss selected the three-man board, headed by
Gordon Gray. He also picked the person who would lead the case against Oppenheimer, the trial attorney
Roger Robb
Roger Robb (July 7, 1907 – December 19, 1985) was a United States circuit judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, anti-communist, and trial attorney. He served as special counsel to an Atomic Energy Com ...
.
[Pfau, ''No Sacrifice Too Great'', pp. 159–160.] Strauss had access to the FBI's information on Oppenheimer, including his conversations with his lawyers, which was used to prepare counterarguments against those lawyers in advance.
[Rhodes, ''Dark Sun'', p. 539.] Strauss was not present at the hearings, instead reading daily transcripts.
[Pfau, ''No Sacrifice Too Great'', p. 171.]
At the hearing, many top scientists, as well as government and military figures, testified on Oppenheimer's behalf.
Physicist
Isidor Isaac Rabi
Israel Isidor Isaac Rabi (; ; July 29, 1898 – January 11, 1988) was an American nuclear physicist who received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1944 for his discovery of nuclear magnetic resonance, which is used in magnetic resonance imaging. H ...
stated that the suspension of the security clearance was unnecessary: "he is a consultant, and if you don't want to consult the guy, you don't consult him, period."
Oppenheimer, however, admitted that he had previously lied to a military counterintelligence officer about a conversation his friend
Haakon Chevalier
Haakon Maurice Chevalier (September 10, 1901 – July 4, 1985) was an American writer, translator, and professor of French literature at the University of California, Berkeley best known for his friendship with physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer, who ...
had had with him about passing nuclear secrets to the Soviets. He also admitted that he had stayed with Chevalier only the previous December.
Leslie Groves
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, a Classified information#Top_Secret_(TS), top sec ...
, the former director of the Manhattan Project, testified that under the stricter security criteria in effect in 1954, he "would not clear Dr. Oppenheimer today".
At the conclusion of the hearings, Oppenheimer's clearance was revoked by a 2–1 vote of the board. They unanimously cleared Oppenheimer of disloyalty, but a majority found that 20 of the 24 charges were either true or substantially true and that Oppenheimer would represent a security risk. Then on June 29, 1954, the AEC upheld the findings of the Personnel Security Board, by a 4–1 decision, with Strauss writing the majority opinion. In that opinion, Strauss stressed Oppenheimer's "defects of character", "falsehoods, evasions and misrepresentations", and past associations with Communists and people close to Communists as the primary reasons for his determination. He did not comment on Oppenheimer's loyalty.
Oppenheimer was thus stripped of his clearance: one day before it would have expired, and seven months after it had been suspended on the orders of the president.
The successor agency to the AEC later ruled that the hearing was "a flawed process that violated the Commission's own regulations."
The loss of his security clearance ended Oppenheimer's role in government and policy. Oppenheimer returned to his directorship at the Institute of Advanced Studies, but Strauss, who was still on the board of trustees there, attempted to have him dismissed. However, in October 1954, the board voted to keep Oppenheimer on. In the years that followed, Strauss still hoped to remove Oppenheimer, but never got the votes on the board he needed.
In the wake of the AEC decision, public opinion and most scientists were firmly against Strauss. Nearly 500 of the scientists at Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory signed a petition saying "this poorly founded decision ... will make it increasingly difficult to obtain adequate scientific talent in our defense laboratories."
Strauss responded by first sending a letter to the petitioners saying that they were not trying to quash the expression of professional opinions – "We certainly do not want 'yes men' in the employ of the Atomic Energy Commission" – and followed that with a July 1954 visit to the laboratory to try to mollify the scientists.
An editorial in ''
The New Mexican
file:Santa Fe New Mexican 1868-11-24.jpg, alt=front page of a broadsheet newspaper, front page of ''The Daily New Mexican'' for 24 November 1868
''The Santa Fe New Mexican'' or simply ''The New Mexican'' is a daily newspaper published in Sant ...
'' newspaper nicknamed Strauss's efforts as "Operation Butter-Up".
In 2022,
Jennifer Granholm
Jennifer Mulhern Granholm (born February 5, 1959) is an American politician who was the 16th United States secretary of energy from 2021 to 2025. A member of the Democratic Party (United States), Democratic Party, she previously served as the 47t ...
, the
United States Secretary of Energy
The United States secretary of energy is the head of the United States Department of Energy, a member of the Cabinet of the United States and fifteenth in the United States presidential line of succession, presidential line of succession. The po ...
– head of the successor organization to the AEC – vacated the 1954 revocation of Oppenheimer's security clearance.
Her decision was not based on revisiting the merits of the case against Oppenheimer, but rather on the flawed processes in the hearings that had violated the AEC's own regulations.
Historian
Alex Wellerstein states that Strauss had been a major culprit in those process violations.
Secretary of Commerce nomination
Strauss's term as
Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) chair completed at the end of June 1958.
[ Eisenhower wanted to reappoint him, but Strauss feared the Senate would reject or at least subject him to ferocious questioning.][Baker, "A Slap at the 'Hidden-Hand Presidency, p. 4.] Besides the Oppenheimer affair, he had clashed with Senate Democrats on several major issues, including his autocratic nature as AEC chair and his secretive handling of the Dixon–Yates contract
The Dixon–Yates contract was a 1954 contract between the United States Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) and two private energy companies, Entergy, Middle South Utilities and the Southern Company, to supply 600,000 kilowatts of power to the AEC for ...
. That contract involved a supply of electrical power in Tennessee without going through the Tennessee Valley Authority
The Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) is a federally owned electric utility corporation in the United States. TVA's service area covers all of Tennessee, portions of Alabama, Mississippi, and Kentucky, and small areas of Georgia, North Carolin ...
and Strauss had embarked on discussions about the idea without informing his fellow commissioners. The plan itself was controversial and eventually became a losing issue for Republicans in the 1954 U.S. midterm elections. Strauss had stated to an interviewer in late 1954, "For the first time in my life, I have enemies." By the end of the 1950s, Strauss had garnered the reputation, as a ''Time
Time is the continuous progression of existence that occurs in an apparently irreversible process, irreversible succession from the past, through the present, and into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequ ...
'' magazine profile put it, of being "one of the nation's ablest and thorniest public figures".
Eisenhower offered him the post of White House Chief of Staff
The White House chief of staff is the head of the Executive Office of the President of the United States, a position in the federal government of the United States.
The chief of staff is a Political appointments in the United States, politi ...
to replace Sherman Adams
Llewelyn Sherman Adams (January 8, 1899 – October 27, 1986) was an American businessman and politician, best known as White House Chief of Staff for President Dwight D. Eisenhower, the culmination of an 18-year political career that also inclu ...
but Strauss did not think it would suit him.[Pfau, ''No Sacrifice Too Great'', p. 223.] Eisenhower also asked if Strauss would consider succeeding John Foster Dulles
John Foster Dulles (February 25, 1888 – May 24, 1959) was an American politician, lawyer, and diplomat who served as United States secretary of state under President Dwight D. Eisenhower from 1953 until his resignation in 1959. A member of the ...
(who was ill) as Secretary of State but Strauss did not want to preempt Undersecretary Christian Herter
Christian Archibald Herter (March 28, 1895December 30, 1966) was an American diplomat and Republican politician who was the 59th governor of Massachusetts from 1953 to 1957 and United States Secretary of State from 1959 to 1961. He served as p ...
, who was a good friend.
Finally, Eisenhower proposed nominating Strauss as Secretary of Commerce
The United States secretary of commerce (SecCom) is the head of the United States Department of Commerce. The secretary serves as the principal advisor to the president of the United States on all matters relating to commerce. The secretary rep ...
and Strauss concurred. With the 1958 United States Senate elections
The 1958 United States Senate elections were elections for the United States Senate which occurred in the middle of President Dwight D. Eisenhower's second term. Thirty-two seats of Classes of United States senators, Class 1 were contested in reg ...
imminent, Eisenhower announced the choice on October 24. Strauss took office via a recess appointment
In the United States, a recess appointment is an appointment by the President of the United States, president of a Officer of the United States, federal official when the United States Senate, U.S. Senate is in Recess (motion), recess. Under the ...
, effective November 13, 1958. However, Senate opposition to his nomination was as strong as a renewed AEC term. This was surprising, given the high level of experience Strauss had, the relative lack of prominence of the Commerce post compared to some other cabinet positions and the tradition of the Senate deferring to presidents to choose the cabinet heads they wanted.[Baker, "A Slap at the 'Hidden-Hand Presidency, p. 1.] Indeed, at the time the previous thirteen nominees for this Cabinet position had won Senate confirmation in an average of eight days. Due to a long-running feud between the two,[Young and Schilling, ''Super Bomb'', p. 147.] Senator Clinton Anderson
Clinton Presba Anderson (October 23, 1895 – November 11, 1975) was an American politician who represented New Mexico in the United States Senate from 1949 until 1973. A member of the Democratic Party, he previously served as United State ...
of New Mexico took up the cause of preventing Strauss's confirmation by the Senate. Anderson found an ally in Senator Gale W. McGee
Gale William McGee (March 17, 1915April 9, 1992) was an American politician, diplomat and historian who was a United States Senate, United States senator from Wyoming from 1959 to 1977, and List of ambassadors of the United States to the Organiz ...
on the Senate Commerce Committee
The United States Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation is a standing committee of the United States Senate. Besides having broad jurisdiction over all matters concerning interstate commerce, science and technology policy, a ...
, which had jurisdiction over Strauss's confirmation.
During and after the Senate hearings, McGee charged Strauss with "a brazen attempt to hoodwink" the committee. Strauss also overstated his role in the development of the H-bomb, implying that he had convinced Truman to support it. Truman was annoyed by this and sent a letter to Anderson undermining Strauss's claim, a letter that Anderson promptly leaked to the press. Strauss attempted to reach Truman through an intermediary to rescue the situation but was rebuffed and felt bitter at the lack of support. A group of scientists who were still upset over the role Strauss had played in the Oppenheimer hearings lobbied against confirmation, playing upon the pronunciation of their target's name by calling themselves the Last Straws Committee. Physicist David L. Hill, the former chairman of the Federation of American Scientists
The Federation of American Scientists (FAS) is an American nonprofit global policy think tank with the stated intent of using science and scientific analysis to attempt to make the world more secure. FAS was founded in 1945 by a group of scient ...
, was one of several scientists who testified before the Commerce Committee against Strauss's nomination, saying that "most of the scientists in this country would prefer to see Mr. Strauss completely out of the Government".
After sixteen days of hearings the Senate Commerce Committee recommended Strauss's confirmation to the full Senate by a vote of 9–8. By now the struggle was in the forefront of the national political news, with a ''Time'' cover story calling it "one of the biggest, bitterest, and in many ways most unseemly confirmation fights in Senate history". In preparation for the floor debate on the nomination, the Democratic majority's main argument against the nomination was that Strauss's statements before the committee included semi-truths and outright falsehoods and that under tough questioning Strauss tended towards ambiguous responses and engaging in petty arguments. Despite an overwhelming Democratic majority, the 86th United States Congress
The 86th United States Congress was a meeting of the legislative branch of the United States federal government, composed of the United States Senate and the United States House of Representatives. It met in Washington, D.C. from January 3, 1959 ...
was not able to accomplish much of its agenda since the President had immense popularity and a veto
A veto is a legal power to unilaterally stop an official action. In the most typical case, a president (government title), president or monarch vetoes a bill (law), bill to stop it from becoming statutory law, law. In many countries, veto powe ...
. With the 1960 elections approaching, congressional Democrats looked for issues on which they could demonstrate their institutional strength in opposition to Eisenhower.[Baker, "A Slap at the 'Hidden-Hand Presidency, p. 2.] On June 19, 1959, just after midnight, the Strauss nomination failed by a vote 46–49. Voting for Strauss were 15 Democrats and 31 Republicans, voting against him were 47 Democrats and 2 Republicans. The nays included future U.S. presidents John F. Kennedy
John Fitzgerald Kennedy (May 29, 1917 – November 22, 1963), also known as JFK, was the 35th president of the United States, serving from 1961 until his assassination in 1963. He was the first Roman Catholic and youngest person elected p ...
and Lyndon B. Johnson
Lyndon Baines Johnson (; August 27, 1908January 22, 1973), also known as LBJ, was the 36th president of the United States, serving from 1963 to 1969. He became president after the assassination of John F. Kennedy, under whom he had served a ...
.
It marked only the eighth instance in U.S. history in which a Cabinet appointee had failed to be confirmed by the Senate and it was the first time since Charles B. Warren in 1925, and would be the last one until John Tower
John Goodwin Tower (September 29, 1925 – April 5, 1991) was an American politician and military veteran who represented Texas in the United States Senate from 1961 to 1985. He was the first Republican elected to the U.S. Senate from Texas si ...
in 1989. President Eisenhower, who had invested both personal and professional capital in the nomination of Strauss, spoke of the Senate action in bitter terms, saying that "I am losing a truly valuable associate in the business of government. ... it is the American people who are the losers through this sad episode." Strauss sent a letter of resignation from his recess appointment as Commerce Secretary on June 23, a resignation that took effect on June 30, 1959.
Final years
The Commerce defeat effectively ended Strauss's government career. The numerous enemies that Strauss had made during his career took some pleasure from the turn of events.[Young and Schilling, ''Super Bomb'', p. 150.] Strauss himself was hurt by the rejection and, never fully getting over it,[Pfau, ''No Sacrifice Too Great'', p. 242.] tended to brood over events past.[Bernstein, "Sacrifices and Decisions", p. 120.]
Strauss published his memoir, ''Men and Decisions'', in 1962. At the time, ''Time'' magazine's review said they "may now remind readers of trauss'smany real accomplishments before they were obscured by political rows." The book sold well, spending fifteen weeks on the ''New York Times'' Best Seller for non-fiction and rising as high as number five on that list. The general view of historians is that the memoirs were self-serving.
The tie between Herbert Hoover and Strauss remained strong throughout the years; in 1962 Hoover wrote in a letter to Strauss: "Of all the men who have come into my orbit in life, you are the one who has my greatest affections, and I will not try to specify the many reasons, evidences or occasions." Strauss assisted in the organizing of support for the Barry Goldwater 1964 presidential campaign
The 1964 presidential campaign of Barry Goldwater began when United States Senate, United States Senator Barry Goldwater of Arizona elected to seek the Republican Party (United States), Republican Party nomination for President of the United Sta ...
. He also remained on good terms with President Eisenhower and for several years in the 1960s Eisenhower and Strauss advocated construction of a nuclear-powered, regional desalination
Desalination is a process that removes mineral components from saline water. More generally, desalination is the removal of salts and minerals from a substance. One example is Soil salinity control, soil desalination. This is important for agric ...
facility in the Middle East that would benefit both Israel and its Arab neighbors but the plan never found sufficient Congressional support to move forward.
During his retirement Strauss devoted time to philanthropic activities and to the American Jewish Committee
The American Jewish Committee (AJC) is a civil rights group and Jewish advocacy group established on November 11, 1906. It is one of the oldest Jewish advocacy organizations and, according to ''The New York Times'', is "widely regarded as the wi ...
, the Jewish Theological Seminary of America
The Jewish Theological Seminary (JTS) is a Conservative Jewish education organization in New York City, New York. It is one of the academic and spiritual centers of Conservative Judaism as well as a hub for academic scholarship in Jewish studies ...
and the Alliance Israélite Universelle
The Alliance israélite universelle (AIU; ; ) is a Paris-based international Jewish organization founded in 1860 with the purpose of safeguarding human rights for Jews around the world. It promotes the ideals of Jewish self-defense and self-suffi ...
. He helped arrange a no-interest loan to fund a congregation building for the Los Alamos Jewish Center. He lived on a farm, where he engaged in cattle breeding and raised prized Black Angus
The Aberdeen Angus, sometimes simply Angus, is a Scotland, Scottish List of cattle breeds, breed of small beef cattle. It derives from cattle native to the Scottish counties, counties of Aberdeenshire (historic), Aberdeen, Banffshire, Banff, ...
. A book he was working on about Herbert Hoover was never completed.
After battling lymphosarcoma
Lymphoma is a group of blood and lymph tumors that develop from lymphocytes (a type of white blood cell). The name typically refers to just the cancerous versions rather than all such tumours. Signs and symptoms may include enlarged lymph node ...
for three years, Strauss died of it on January 21, 1974, at his home, the Brandy Rock Farm in Brandy Station, Virginia
Brandy Station is an unincorporated community and census-designated place (CDP) in Culpeper County, Virginia, United States. It was first listed as a CDP in the 2020 census with a population of 191. Its original name was Brandy. The name Brand ...
. His funeral was held in New York at Temple Emanu-El and there was also a memorial service held in the capital at Washington Hebrew Congregation. He is buried in Richmond Hebrew Cemetery along with more than sixty other family members.
Alice Hanauer Strauss lived until 2004, when she died at age 101 in Brandy Station.
Legacy
The Oppenheimer matter quickly became a cause célèbre
A ( , ; pl. ''causes célèbres'', pronounced like the singular) is an issue or incident arousing widespread controversy, outside campaigning, and heated public debate. The term is sometimes used positively for celebrated legal cases for th ...
, with Strauss frequently being cast in the role of villain. This was an image that would persist in both the near term[Young and Schilling, ''Super Bomb'', p. 144.] and the long term.[Young, "Strauss and the Writing of Nuclear History", p. 4.] Strauss had his defenders as well, who saw the hero and villain roles as being reversed. Such polarized assessments followed Strauss for much of his career.
Even such matters as the unusual, Southern-based pronunciation of his surname could be perceived as a puzzling artificiality. In a 1997 essay in the ''New York Times Book Review
''The New York Times Book Review'' (''NYTBR'') is a weekly paper-magazine supplement to the Sunday edition of ''The New York Times'' in which current non-fiction and fiction books are reviewed. It is one of the most influential and widely rea ...
'' commenting on the Oppenheimer matter, literary critic Alfred Kazin
Alfred Kazin (June 5, 1915 – June 5, 1998) was an American writer and literary critic. His literary reviews appeared in ''The New York Times'', the '' New York Herald-Tribune'', ''The New Republic'' and ''The New Yorker''. He wrote often a ...
claimed Strauss "pronounced his own name 'Straws' to make himself sound less Jewish". Strauss, however, had been prominent in Jewish causes and organizations throughout his life, and this charge was implausible. Indeed, Strauss's papers take up seventy-six boxes in the archives of the American Jewish Historical Society
The American Jewish Historical Society (AJHS) was founded in 1892 with the mission to foster awareness and appreciation of American Jewish history and to serve as a national scholarly resource for research through the collection, preservation an ...
; the executive director of that organization has remarked that, "I'm not gonna say he is a member of more Jewish organizations than any historical figure I've ever seen, but he's up there."
Strauss's personality was not simply categorized; a mid-1950s interviewer, political scientist Warner R. Schilling
Warner Roller Schilling (May 23, 1925 – October 20, 2013) was an American political scientist and international relations scholar at Columbia University (1954–1957, 1958–1996, emeritus 1997–2013), where he was the James T. Shotwell Prof ...
, found him bland and courteous in one session but prickly and temperamental in a second session. As Alden Whitman
Alden Rogers Whitman (October 27, 1913 – September 4, 1990) was an American journalist who served as chief obituary writer for ''The New York Times'' from 1964 to 1976. In that role, he pioneered a more vivid, biographical approach to obituaries ...
's front-page obituary of Strauss for the ''New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...
'' stated,
At the start of his 1962 memoir, Strauss states his belief that "the right to live in the social order established t the American foundingis so priceless a privilege that no sacrifice to preserve it is too great." This sentiment became the basis of the title of, and the interpretative framework for, ''No Sacrifice Too Great'', historian Richard Pfau's 1984 authorized biography of Strauss.[Bernstein, "Sacrifices and Decisions", p. 108.] In it, Pfau criticizes Strauss's conduct in the Oppenheimer affair, but presents it as the acts of a man with integrity who felt compelled to do what was necessary to protect the nation. Historian Barton J. Bernstein disagrees with this approach, saying that the framework is too generous and that Pfau errs in "seeing Strauss as a man of great integrity (Strauss's own claim) rather than as a man who used such claims to conceal sleazy behavior."
Decades after his death, historians continue to examine Strauss's records and actions. Scholar of the early Cold War period Ken Young
Kenneth George Young FAcSS FRHistS (3 January 1943 – 20 February 2019) was a British political scientist and historian who was Professor of Public Policy at King's College London in its Department of War Studies. Earlier he was instrumental in ...
studied the historiography of H-bomb development and scrutinized the role that Strauss played in trying to form that history to his benefit. In particular, Young looked at the publication during 1953 and 1954 of a popular magazine article and book that promoted a highly distorted notion that the hydrogen bomb project had been unreasonably stalled, both before Truman's decision and after, by a small group of American scientists working against the national interest; also that Strauss was one of the heroes who had overcome this cabal's efforts. Young points to circumstantial archival evidence that Strauss was behind both publications and may well have given classified information to the book authors involved ( James R. Shepley and Clay Blair Jr.). Historian Priscilla Johnson McMillan
Priscilla Johnson McMillan (born Priscilla Mary Post Johnson) (July 19, 1928 – July 7, 2021) was an American journalist, translator, author, and historian. She was a Center Associate at the Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies at Har ...
has identified archival evidence which suggests to some degree that Strauss was in collusion with Borden, the former congressional staff member whose letter had triggered the Oppenheimer security hearing. McMillan also argues that following that letter, Strauss was likely behind Eisenhower's "blank wall" directive to separate Oppenheimer from nuclear secrets.
Oppenheimer biographers Kai Bird
Kai Bird (born September 2, 1951) is an American author and columnist, best known for his works on the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, United States-Middle East political relations, and his biographies of political figures. He won a ...
and Martin J. Sherwin
Martin Jay Sherwin (July 2, 1937October 6, 2021) was an American historian. His scholarship mostly concerned the history of nuclear weapons and nuclear proliferation. He served on the faculty at Princeton University, the University of Pennsylvan ...
state that Strauss's decision to publish the transcript of the Oppenheimer security hearing even though witnesses had been promised their testimony would remain secret, rebounded against him in the long run, as the transcript showed how the hearing had taken the form of an inquisition.
In 2023, Bernstein stated that evidence developed in the prior two decades that Oppenheimer had been a secret member of the Communist Party partially vindicated Strauss. "Strauss was devious, thin-skinned, mean-spirited, and even vicious in helping to do in Robert Oppenheimer. But on some important matters—in even somewhat suspecting Oppenheimer’s political past—Strauss was not unreasonable."
Awards and honors
For his European relief work during and after World War I, Strauss was decorated by six nations. These honors included the Chevalier, Belgian Order of Leopold I, the First Class Commander of the White Rose of Finland, and the Chevalier, Star of Roumania. He received a similar medal from Poland. Per a biographical account presented in the ''Congressional Record
The ''Congressional Record'' is the official record of the proceedings and debates of the United States Congress, published by the United States Government Publishing Office and issued when Congress is in session. The Congressional Record Ind ...
'', he was also awarded the Grand Officer level of the Legion of Honour
The National Order of the Legion of Honour ( ), formerly the Imperial Order of the Legion of Honour (), is the highest and most prestigious French national order of merit, both military and Civil society, civil. Currently consisting of five cl ...
of France.
Strauss, then with the rank of captain, was awarded a Legion of Merit
The Legion of Merit (LOM) is a Awards and decorations of the United States military, military award of the United States Armed Forces that is given for exceptionally meritorious conduct in the performance of outstanding services and achievemen ...
by the Navy in September 1944 for his work on Navy requirements regarding contract termination and disposal of surplus property. At the war's end he received an Oak Leaf Cluster—Army in lieu of a second such award, for his work in coordinating procurement processes. A Gold Star—Navy in lieu of a third award was given in 1947, for his work during and after the war as a special assistant to the Navy secretary and on joint Army–Navy industrial mobilization boards. Finally in 1959 he received a Gold Star in lieu of a fourth award, this time for his work on atomic energy as it benefited the Navy as a source of power and ship propulsion. He also received the Navy Distinguished Service Medal
The Navy Distinguished Service Medal is a military decoration of the United States Navy and United States Marine Corps which was first created in 1919 and is presented to Sailors and Marines to recognize distinguished and exceptionally meritorio ...
.
On July 14, 1958, Strauss was presented with the Medal of Freedom
The Presidential Medal of Freedom is the highest civilian award of the United States, alongside the Congressional Gold Medal. It is an award bestowed by decision of the president of the United States to "any person recommended to the President ...
, a civilian honor, by President Eisenhower. The award was for "exceptional meritorious service" in the interest of the national security in his efforts towards both military and peaceful uses of nuclear energy.
Strauss received a number of honorary degrees during his lifetime; indeed his advocates during the Secretary of Commerce confirmation hearings gave twenty-three as the number of colleges and universities that had awarded him such honors. These include, among others, an Honorary LL.D. from the Jewish Theological Seminary of America
The Jewish Theological Seminary (JTS) is a Conservative Jewish education organization in New York City, New York. It is one of the academic and spiritual centers of Conservative Judaism as well as a hub for academic scholarship in Jewish studies ...
in 1944, a Doctor of Humane Letters from Case Institute of Technology
Case Western Reserve University (CWRU) is a Private university, private research university in Cleveland, Ohio, United States. It was established in 1967 by a merger between Western Reserve University and the Case Institute of Technology. Case ...
in 1948,
a Doctor of Laws from Carnegie Institute of Technology
Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) is a private research university in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States. The institution was established in 1900 by Andrew Carnegie as the Carnegie Technical Schools. In 1912, it became the Carnegie Institu ...
in 1956, a Doctor of Science from the University of Toledo
The University of Toledo (UToledo or UT) is a Public university, public research university in Toledo, Ohio, United States. It is the northernmost campus of the University System of Ohio. The university also operates a Health Science campus, ...
in 1957,
and a Doctor of Science from Union College
Union College is a Private university, private liberal arts college in Schenectady, New York, United States. Founded in 1795, it was the first institution of higher learning chartered by the New York State Board of Regents, and second in the s ...
in 1958.
Strauss served on boards of directors for several corporations, one of which was the United States Rubber Company
Uniroyal, formerly known as the United States Rubber Company, is an American manufacturer of tires and other synthetic rubber-related products, as well as variety of items for military use, such as ammunition, explosives, chemical weapons and op ...
. He was a trustee of the Hampton Institute
Hampton University is a private, historically black, research university in Hampton, Virginia, United States. Founded in 1868 as Hampton Agricultural and Industrial School, it was established by Black and White leaders of the American Missiona ...
, a historically black university
Historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs) are institutions of higher education in the United States that were established before the Civil Rights Act of 1964 with the intention of serving African Americans. Most are in the Southern U ...
in Virginia, as well as of the Memorial Hospital for the Treatment of Cancer and Allied Diseases in New York. Due to donations made to the Medical College of Virginia
The VCU Medical Center (VCU Health), formerly known as the Medical College of Virginia (MCV), is the medical campus of Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU), located in downtown Richmond, Virginia, United States. As MCV, VCU Medical Center merged ...
, a research building there was named after him. He was a founding trustee of Eisenhower College
Eisenhower College was a small college named after U.S. President Dwight Eisenhower, located on Cayuga Lake in Seneca Falls, New York.
History
Ground was broken on September 21, 1965, in a ceremony that featured President Eisenhower and his frie ...
, for which he had assisted in the planning and raising funds. In 1955, Strauss received a silver plaque from the Men's Club of Temple Emanu-El for "distinguished service"; President Eisenhower sent a message to the ceremony saying the honor was well-deserved.
The cover of ''Time'' magazine featured Strauss twice. The first was in 1953 when he was AEC chair and the nuclear arms race was underway, and the second was in 1959 during his Secretary of Commerce confirmation process.
In media
Strauss is played by Phil Brown in the 1980 BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is a British public service broadcaster headquartered at Broadcasting House in London, England. Originally established in 1922 as the British Broadcasting Company, it evolved into its current sta ...
miniseries ''Oppenheimer
J. Robert Oppenheimer (born Julius Robert Oppenheimer ; April 22, 1904 – February 18, 1967) was an American theoretical physicist who served as the director of the Manhattan Project's Los Alamos Laboratory during World War II. He is often ...
'', and by Robert Downey Jr.
Robert John Downey Jr. (born April 4, 1965), also known as RDJ, is an American actor. One of the highest-grossing actors of all time, his films as a leading actor have grossed over $14 billion worldwide. In 2008, Downey was named by ''Time ...
in Christopher Nolan's 2023 film ''Oppenheimer
J. Robert Oppenheimer (born Julius Robert Oppenheimer ; April 22, 1904 – February 18, 1967) was an American theoretical physicist who served as the director of the Manhattan Project's Los Alamos Laboratory during World War II. He is often ...
''. Downey received the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor
The Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor is an award presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS). It has been awarded since the 9th Academy Awards to an actor who has delivered an outstanding performance in ...
for his portrayal.
See also
*Unsuccessful nominations to the Cabinet of the United States
Members of the Cabinet of the United States are nominated by the president and are then confirmed or rejected by the Senate. Listed below are unsuccessful cabinet nominees—that is, individuals who were nominated and who either declined their o ...
Writings
* Strauss, Lewis L. ''Men and Decisions'' (Garden City, New York: Doubleday & Company, 1962).
Bibliography
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References
External links
Lewis L. Strauss Papers at the Hoover Presidential Library
link no longer given
**
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*
"Lewis Strauss and Robert Oppenheimer"
blog entry at the Herbert Hoover Library and Museum
Annotated bibliography for Lewis Strauss from the Alsos Digital Library for Nuclear Issues
Guide to the Papers of Admiral Lewis Lichtenstein Strauss (1896–1974)
at the American Jewish Historical Society
The American Jewish Historical Society (AJHS) was founded in 1892 with the mission to foster awareness and appreciation of American Jewish history and to serve as a national scholarly resource for research through the collection, preservation an ...
, New York.
Full text of "too cheap to meter" speech
at Nuclear Regulatory Commission site
Dwight D. Eisenhower, Remarks on Presentation of the Medal of Freedom to Lewis L. Strauss
at The American Presidency Project site
{{DEFAULTSORT:Strauss, Lewis
1896 births
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