Wikipedia:Today's featured article/August 17, 2014

Leslie Groves (1896–1970) was a U.S. Army Corps of Engineers officer who oversaw the construction of the Pentagon and directed the Manhattan Project that developed the atomic bomb. After joining the Corps of Engineers and assisting with projects in Nicaragua, he was posted to the War Department General Staff. In 1940, he became special assistant for construction to the Quartermaster General. He was given responsibility in 1941 for the gigantic office complex to house the War Department's 40,000 staff which would ultimately become the Pentagon. In September 1942, Groves took charge of the Manhattan Project and was involved in most aspects of the atomic bomb's development, including the acquisition of raw materials and selection of target cities in Japan. He remained in charge of the project until the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission assumed responsibility for nuclear weapons production in 1947. He then headed the Armed Forces Special Weapons Project, created to control the military aspects of nuclear weapons. He was promoted to lieutenant general just before his retirement in 1948 in recognition of his leadership of the bomb program, and later became a vice-president at Sperry Rand.

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