Government Official

Robert Mackenzie “Bob” Underhill (1893-1988) was a finance officer for the University of California during the Manhattan Project. UC had several government contracts, including the official management of Los Alamos. Nevertheless, Underhill was the only UC official to know that the project was building an atomic bomb. He worked in Los Alamos to protect the […]

Robert Maynard Hutchins (1899-1977) was an American educator and the President of the University of Chicago. Hutchins was born in Brooklyn. He studied at Oberlin College and Yale University, and while working as Secretary of the Yale Corporation he also earned a law degree from Yale. He became a law professor and was appointed Dean […]

David E. Lilienthal was the first Chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC). Prior to becoming the Chairman of the AEC, he served as the leader of a consultancy group for the State Department that was responsible for developing the Acheson-Lilienthal Report. Chosen by Undersecretary of the U.S. Department of State Dean Acheson, Lilienthal led […]

John Cairncross (1913-1995) was a British literary scholar, civil servant, and Soviet atomic spy. In the 1990s, Cairncross was identified as the “fifth man” in the Cambridge spy ring, which consisted of four other Soviet double agents: Anthony Blunt, Guy Burgess, Donald Maclean, and Kim Philby.  After joining the Foreign Service in 1936, he was […]

Nick Salazar is a Manhattan Project veteran and a longtime employee of the Los Alamos National Laboratory. Salazar began working in the lab’s mess hall over summer vacation from high school in 1945. After the war, Salazar served in the Air Force for two years. In 1950, he returned to Los Alamos as a full-time […]

John T. Conway was an American naval officer, attorney, FBI agent, and government administrator. Conway was born in 1924 in New York City. During World War II, at the age of 18, Conway enlisted in the Navy. As part of his training he spent some time studying at Tufts University, where he would return after […]

Roger Robb (1907-1985) was an American attorney. An ardent conservative, Robb was a courtroom veteran as both a U.S. attorney and a partner at a private law firm in Washington, DC. He was handpicked by Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) Chairman Lewis Strauss to prosecute J. Robert Oppenheimer’s security clearance hearing. Robb’s conservatism led him to […]

Lloyd K. Garrison (1897-1991) was an American attorney. A liberal lion, Garrison was born into a family with a proud tradition of activism. His great-grandfather, William Lloyd Garrison, was a prominent abolitionist. His grandfather, Wendell Phillips Garrison, served as literary editor of The Nation, a left-wing political magazine. His family’s prestige fueled his quick rise […]

Brehon Burke “Bill” Somervell (1892-1955) was a Lieutenant General in the US Army who commanded the Army Service Forces and supervised much of the Army’s involvement in the Manhattan Project. Somervell was born in Little Rock, Arkansas and raised in Washington, DC. He graduated from the US Military Academy in 1914, right around his 21st […]

Wilhelm Delp Styer (1893-1975) was a Lieutenant General in the US Army and an instrumental figure in the early stages of military involvement in the Manhattan Project. He also served as the Army liaison on the project’s Military Policy Committee. Born in Salt Lake City to a family of Czech origin, Styer received degrees from […]