Leslie Groves - After The War

After The War

Responsibility for nuclear power and nuclear weapons was transferred from the Manhattan District to the United States Atomic Energy Commission on 1 January 1947. On 29 January 1947, Secretary of War Robert P. Patterson and Secretary of the Navy James V. Forrestal issued a joint directive creating the Armed Forces Special Weapons Project (AFSWP) to control the military aspects of nuclear weapons. Groves was appointed its chief on 28 February 1947. In April, AFSWP moved from the New War Department Building to the fifth floor of the Pentagon. Groves had already made a start on the new mission by creating Sandia Base in 1946.

The Chief of Staff of the United States Army, General of the Army Dwight D. Eisenhower, met with Groves on 30 January 1948 to evaluate his performance. Eisenhower recounted a long list of complaints about Groves pertaining to his rudeness, arrogance, insensitivity, contempt for the rules and maneuvering for promotion out of turn. Eisenhower made it clear that Groves would never become Chief of Engineers. Groves realized that in the rapidly shrinking postwar military he would not be given any assignment approaching in importance the one he had held in the Manhattan Project, as such posts would go to combat commanders returning from overseas, and he decided to leave the Army. He was promoted to lieutenant general just before his retirement on 29 February 1948 in recognition of his leadership of the Manhattan Project. By special Act of Congress his date of rank was backdated to 16 July 1945, the date of the Trinity nuclear test.