Leslie R. Groves > Quotes

“development of an explosive a thousand times more powerful than TNT.”
― Leslie R. Groves, Now It Can Be Told: The Story of the Manhattan Project

“gaseous diffusion method of separating U-235 from U-238; in the laboratory at the University of California, under Ernest O. Lawrence, another group was trying to do the same thing by an electromagnetic process. 5 The committee consisted of: Dr. W. K. Lewis of MIT, Chairman; Roger Williams, T. C. Gary and C. H. Greenewalt of du Pont; and, originally, Dr. E. V. Murphree of Standard Oil Development Corporation. Unfortunately, owing to a subsequent illness, Dr. Murphree was unable to take part in the review. 6”
― Leslie R. Groves, Now It Can Be Told: The Story of the Manhattan Project

“I returned to Washington convinced that our first efforts should be applied to the plutonium project and that our other problems would have to be resolved later. This was in accord with the general philosophy I had followed throughout the military construction program and to which we adhered consistently in this project; namely, that nothing would be more fatal to success than to try to arrive at a perfect plan before taking any important step.”
― Leslie R. Groves, Now It Can Be Told: The Story of the Manhattan Project

“Many of the men we wanted were used to living in cities or near large metropolitan areas and were a bit dubious about the prospects of life in a remote, sparsely populated area. We had somewhat similar trouble with the engineering people, although they were not so concerned at being isolated.”
― Leslie R. Groves, Now It Can Be Told: The Story of the Manhattan Project