Lewis Strauss

Lewis Lichtenstein Strauss ˈstrɔːz STRAWZ January 31 1896 January 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 AEC in 1946 and he served as the commissions chairman in the 1950s Strauss was a major figure in the development of nuclear weapons after World War II nuclear energy policy and nuclear power in the United States Raised in Richmond Virginia Strauss became an assistant to Herbert Hoover as part of the Commission for Relief in Belgium during World War I and the American Relief Administration 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 and several other Jewish organizations in the 1930s Strauss made several attempts to change US policy in order to accept more refugees from Nazi Germany but was unsuccessful He also came to know and fund some of the research of refugee nuclear physicist Leo Szilard During World War II Strauss served as an officer in the US Navy Reserve and rose to the rank of rear admiral due to his work in the Bureau of Ordnance 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 Strauss emphasized the need to protect US atomic secrets and to monitor and stay ahead of atomic developments within the Soviet Union Accordingly he was a strong proponent of developing the hydrogen bomb 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 such as that experienced by Pacific Islanders following the Castle Bravo thermonuclear test Strauss was the driving force behind physicist J Robert Oppenheimers security clearance hearing held in April and May 1954 before an AEC Personnel Security Board in which Oppenheimers security clearance was revoked As a result Strauss has often been regarded as a villain in American history President Dwight D Eisenhowers nomination of Strauss to become US secretary of commerce resulted in a prolonged public political battle in 1959 where Strauss was not confirmed by the US Senate Description above from the Wikipedia article Lewis Strauss licensed under CCBYSA full list of contributors on Wikipedia