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Lot 205
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General MacArthur, Leslie Groves, and the Manhattan Project
General MacArthur, Leslie Groves, and the Manhattan Project
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Description:

MacArthur Douglas

General MacArthur, Leslie Groves, and the Manhattan Project

 

DOUGLAS MACARTHUR, Typed Letter Initialed, to Leslie R. Groves Jr., August 29, 1962, New York, NY. 1 p., 8" x 10.5". Very good.

 

Excerpt

“Thank you so much for your good letter of August 24th. It was thoughtful, indeed, of you to write me as you have and I deeply appreciate it. Congress might well do the same for you and your Manhattan Project.”

 

Historical Background

In 1953 and again in 1960, Representative L. Mendel Rivers of South Carolina submitted a resolution praising General Douglas MacArthur before a Congressional committee but could not get it to the floor for action. In 1962, Chairman of the House Armed Services Committee Carl Vinson of Georgia and Speaker of the House John W. McCormack of Massachusetts gave Rivers permission to have the resolution brought up. It passed unanimously. Senator George Smathers of Florida brought the measure up in the Senate, where it was also unanimously adopted.

 

The resolution read, “Resolved by the House of Representatives, the Senate concurring, that the thanks and appreciation of the Congress and the American people are hereby tendered to Gen. of the Army Douglas MacArthur in recognition of his outstanding devotion to the American people, his brilliant leadership during and following World War II, and the unsurpassed affection held for him by the people of the Republic of the Philippines which has done so much to strengthen the ties of friendship between the people of that nation and the people of the United States.”

 

President Harry S. Truman’s decision to relieve MacArthur of command had been unpopular with the American public in 1951, and a Congressional committee investigated. However, the Democratic Congress hesitated to object to the action of a Democratic President at the time.

 

 

Douglas MacArthur (1880-1964) was born in Arkansas into a military family and spent the early years of his life at a succession of military posts in the West. He graduated first in his class from the United States Military Academy in 1903. Commissioned in the Corps of Engineers, MacArthur served in a variety of posts until assigned to Washington in 1912. During World War I, MacArthur won several medals in combat and gained promotion to brigadier general. From 1919 to 1922, MacArthur served as superintendent of the U.S. Military Academy, then transferred to the Philippines, where he took command of the Military District of Manila. In 1925, he became the Army’s youngest major general at the age of 44. Late in 1930, he became Chief of Staff of the United States Army, a position he held until 1935. That year, he became a military adviser to the government of the Philippines to help it create an army. He resigned from the U.S. Army in 1937, but President Franklin D. Roosevelt called him back into active duty in 1941 as commander of U.S. forces in the Far East. As Japanese forces gained control of the Philippines, MacArthur fled to Australia, and Congress awarded him the Medal of Honor. MacArthur directed allied opposition to the Japanese in the southwestern Pacific Ocean from Australia. In October 1944, MacArthur accompanied American troops in their return to the Philippines, and two months later received promotion to the new rank of five-star general. Early in September 1945, he accepted the formal Japanese surrender aboard the USS Missouri. From 1945 to 1951, MacArthur served as the Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers in Japan. In 1950, he also became Commander-in-Chief of the United Nations command in Korea, which included command of all South Korean forces as well. Dismissing the threat of Chinese intervention, MacArthur failed to anticipate the massive Chinese counterattack in November 1950. Although United Nations forces lost control of Seoul briefly in early 1951, by March, MacArthur called upon China to admit it had been defeated. His actions violated President Truman’s order not to make public statements on policy matters and posed an indirect threat to civilian control of the military. Despite MacArthur’s popularity with the American public, President Truman relieved him of command in April 1951. In the final years of his life, MacArthur was a popular speaker, adviser to presidents, and chairman of the board of Remington Rand, manufacturer of business machines.

 

Leslie R. Groves Jr. (1896-1970) was a United States Army General with the Corps of Engineers who oversaw the construction of the Pentagon and directed the Manhattan Project that developed the atomic bomb during World War II. Born in New York to a Protestant pastor who became an army chaplain, Groves graduated from the United States Military Academy in 1918 in a course shortened because of World War I. He entered the Corps of Engineers and gained promotions to major by 1940. In 1941, he was charged with overseeing the construction of the Pentagon, the largest office building in the world, with more than five million square feet. Disappointed that he had not received a combat assignment, Groves instead took charge of the Manhattan Project, designed to develop an atomic bomb. He continued nominally to supervise the Pentagon project to avoid suspicion, gained promotion to brigadier general, and began his work in September 1942. The project headquarters was initially in the War Department building in Washington, but in August 1943, moved to Oak Ridge, Tennessee. He and physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer selected the site in Los Alamos, New Mexico, for a laboratory, and Groves pushed successfully for Oppenheimer to be placed in charge. Groves was in charge of obtaining critical uranium ores internationally and collecting military intelligence on Axis atomic research. Promoted to major general in March 1944, Groves received the Distinguished Service Medal for his work on the Manhattan Project after the war. In 1947, Groves became chief of the Armed Forces Special Weapons Project. He received a promotion to lieutenant general in January 1948, just days before meeting with Army Chief of Staff Dwight D. Eisenhower, who reviewed a long list of complaints against Groves. Assured that he would not become Chief of Engineers, Groves retired in February 1948. From 1948 to 1961, he was a vice president of Sperry Rand, an equipment and electronics firm. After retirement, he served as president of the West Point alumni association and wrote a book on the Manhattan Project, published in 1962.

 

 

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