Lewis Strauss

Lewis Strauss was an official of the United States Atomic Energy Commission who initiated the proposal for a thermonuclear weapon known as the “Super.” His proposal, strongly supported by physicist Edward Teller, helped bring a weapon of unprecedented destructive power before a divided scientific and military establishment and ultimately made the question one for presidential decision.

Role in the Super Proposal

In October 1949, highly secret meetings at the offices of the United States Atomic Energy Commission began considering a hydrogen weapon. The proposed “Super” would have more than ten times the destructive power of the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Strauss was the source of the initial proposal; Teller provided strong support, placing the two men on the project’s pro-development side.

A Contested Decision

The proposal arose in a changed strategic climate: the Soviet Union’s atomic bomb was seen as having altered the situation, and its possession suggested that it might also pursue a more powerful weapon. But support for the Super was far from universal. James B. Conant and J. Robert Oppenheimer opposed it, Enrico Fermi changed from initial support to opposition, and the scientific advisory committee rejected the project on technical and moral grounds. General Omar N. Bradley favored it chiefly for its psychological importance. In this dispute, Strauss’s proposal was the starting point, not a settled policy; the conflicting judgments made the decision a presidential one.