Editing Lewis Strauss

{{short description|American governmental official (1896–1974)}}
{{good article}}
{{Use mdy dates|date=December 2023}}
{{Infobox officeholder
| name                = Lewis Strauss
| image               = Strauss and Chaplain at Hoover Library Dedication (cropped).jpg
| caption             = Strauss in 1962
| office              = [[United States Secretary of Commerce]]
| status              = 
| president           = [[Dwight D. Eisenhower]]
| term_start          = November 13, 1958
| term_end            = June 30, 1959
| predecessor         = [[Sinclair Weeks]]
| successor           = [[Frederick H. Mueller]]
| office2             = Chair of the [[United States Atomic Energy Commission]]
| term_start2         = July 2, 1953
| term_end2           = June 30, 1958
| president2          = [[Dwight D. Eisenhower]]
| preceded2           = [[Gordon Dean (lawyer)|Gordon Dean]]
| succeeded2          = [[John A. McCone]]
| office3             = Member of the [[United States Atomic Energy Commission]]
| president3          = [[Harry S. Truman]]
| term_start3         = November 12, 1946
| term_end3           = April 15, 1950
| predecessor3        = Position established
| successor3          = [[T. Keith Glennan]]
| birth_name          = Lewis Lichtenstein Strauss
| birth_date          = {{birth date|1896|1|31}}
| birth_place         = [[Charleston, West Virginia]], U.S.
| death_date          = {{death date and age|1974|1|21|1896|1|31}}
| death_place         = [[Brandy Station, Virginia]], U.S.
| restingplace        = [[Hebrew Cemetery (Richmond, Virginia)|Hebrew Cemetery]]
| party               = [[Republican Party (United States)|Republican]]
| spouse              = Alice Hanauer
| children            = 2
| awards              = [[Medal of Freedom (1945)|Medal of Freedom]]
| allegiance          = United States
| branch              = [[United States Navy]]
| serviceyears        = 1926–1945
| rank                = [[Rear admiral (United States)|Rear Admiral]]
| unit                = [[Bureau of Ordnance]]
| mawards             = {{ubl|[[Navy Distinguished Service Medal|Distinguished Service Medal]]|[[Legion of Merit]] (4)}}
}}
'''Lewis Lichtenstein Strauss''' ({{IPAc-en|ˈ|s|t|r|ɔː|z}} {{respelling|STRAWZ}}; January 31, 1896{{spnd}}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 commission's chairman in the 1950s. Strauss was a major figure in the development of [[nuclear weapons]] after [[World War II]], [[nuclear energy policy of the United States|nuclear energy policy]], and [[nuclear power in the United States]].<ref name="upi-obit"/>

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 U.S. 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 [[U.S. 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 U.S. 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 Islander]]s following the [[Castle Bravo]] thermonuclear test.
  
Strauss was the driving force behind physicist [[J. Robert Oppenheimer]]'s [[Oppenheimer security clearance hearing|security clearance hearing]], held in April and May 1954 before an AEC Personnel Security Board, in which Oppenheimer's security clearance was revoked. As a result, Strauss has often been regarded as a villain in American history.<ref name="cinc-enq"/><ref>Pfau, ''No Sacrifice Too Great'', pp. 169–170.</ref><ref name="y-s-144"/><ref name="young-4"/> President [[Dwight D. Eisenhower]]'s nomination of Strauss to become [[United States Secretary of Commerce|U.S. secretary of commerce]] resulted in a prolonged, public political battle in 1959 where Strauss was not confirmed by the [[United States Senate|U.S. Senate]].

==Early life==
Strauss was born in [[Charleston, West Virginia]],<ref name="upi-obit"/> the son of Rosa (née Lichtenstein) and Lewis Strauss, a successful shoe [[wholesale]]r.<ref name="wvjh">{{cite web | url=http://westvirginiajewishhistory.com/well-known_WV_Jews.htm | title=Well-known West Virginia Jews: Politicians & Elected Officials | publisher=West Virginia Jewish History & Genealogy | access-date=December 3, 2005 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060414214232/http://westvirginiajewishhistory.com/well-known_WV_Jews.htm | archive-date=April 14, 2006}}</ref> Their parents were [[Jew]]ish emigrants from Germany and Austria who came to the United States in the 1830s and 1840s and settled in Virginia.<ref name="memoirs-1">Strauss, ''Men and Decisions'', p. 1.</ref> His family moved to [[Richmond, Virginia]], and he grew up and attended public schools there.<ref name="nyt-obit"/><ref name="ap-obit"/> At the age of ten, he lost much of the vision in his right eye in a rock fight,<ref>Pfau, ''No Sacrifice Too Great'', p. 5.</ref> which later disqualified him from normal
military service.<ref name="Time"/>

Having developed an amateur's knowledge from reading textbooks, Strauss planned to study [[physics]].<ref name="nyt-obit"/>  He was on track to be [[valedictorian]] of his class at [[John Marshall High School (Richmond, Virginia)|John Marshall High School]], which would have entitled him to a scholarship to the [[University of Virginia]], but [[typhoid fever]] in his senior year made him unable to take final exams or graduate with his classmates.<ref name="pfau-7">Pfau, ''No Sacrifice Too Great'', p. 7.</ref>

By the time he finally graduated from high school, his family's business had experienced a downturn during the [[List of recessions in the United States|Recession of 1913–1914]].<ref name="pfau-7-9">Pfau, ''No Sacrifice Too Great'', pp. 7–9.</ref> In order to help out,<ref name="pfau-7-9"/> Strauss decided to work as a traveling shoe salesman for his father's company.<ref name="b-s-361"/><ref name="nyt-obit"/> In his spare time, Strauss studied his Jewish heritage.<ref name="baker-3">Baker, "A Slap at the 'Hidden-Hand Presidency'", p. 3.</ref> He was quite successful in his sales efforts;<ref name="bernstein-109"/> over the next three years, he saved $20,000 ({{Inflation|US|20000|1917|fmt=eq|r=-3}}): enough money to cover college tuition now that the scholarship offer was no longer in effect.<ref name="pfau-7-9"/><ref>Strauss, ''Men and Decisions'', p. 3.</ref>

== Career ==
===World War I===
[[File:111-SC-18753 - NARA - 55197538 (cropped).jpg|thumb|American food administrators in 1918: Hoover is on the far left, Strauss third from left]]
Strauss's mother encouraged him to perform public or humanitarian service.<ref name="bernstein-109">Bernstein, "Sacrifices and Decisions", p. 109.</ref> It was 1917; [[World War I]] was continuing to devastate parts of Europe and [[Herbert Hoover]] had become a symbol of humanitarian altruism by way of heading the [[Commission for Relief in Belgium]].<ref name="Time"/> Accordingly, Strauss took the train to Washington, D.C., and talked his way into serving without pay as an assistant to Hoover.<ref name="pfau-9-12"/> (Strauss and his biographer differ on whether this happened in February<ref>Strauss, ''Men and Decisions'', p. 9.</ref> or May 1917, but the latter seems more likely.<ref name="pfau-9-12">Pfau, ''No Sacrifice Too Great'', pp. 9–12, 256–257n21.</ref>)

Hoover became chief of the [[United States Food Administration]].<ref name="b-s-361"/> Strauss worked well and soon was promoted to Hoover's private secretary and confidant.<ref name="nyt-obit"/> In that position he made powerful contacts that would serve him later on. One such contact he made was with attorney [[Harvey Hollister Bundy]].<ref name="b-s-361"/> Another was with [[Robert A. Taft]], a counsel for the Food Administration.<ref name="nyt-mitn-56"/>

Following the [[Armistice of 11 November 1918]], Hoover became head of the post-war [[American Relief Administration]], headquartered in Paris, and Strauss joined him there once more as his private secretary.<ref>Pfau, ''No Sacrifice Too Great'', pp. 16–18.</ref> Acting on behalf of a nearly destitute diplomatic representative of Finland, [[Rudolf Holsti]], whom he met in Paris, Strauss persuaded Hoover to urge President [[Woodrow Wilson]] to recognize [[Independence of Finland|Finland's independence from Russia]].<ref>Pfau, ''No Sacrifice Too Great'', pp. 20–21.</ref>

Besides the U.S. food relief organization, Strauss worked with the [[American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee]] (JDC) to relieve the suffering of Jewish refugees, who were often neglected by other bodies.<ref>Pfau, ''No Sacrifice Too Great'', pp. 16–18, 23–25.</ref> Strauss acted as a liaison between Hoover's organization and JDC workers in a number of Central and Eastern European countries.<ref>Wentling, "Herbert Hoover and American Jewish non-Zionists", p. 382.</ref> Getting news in April 1919 of the [[Pinsk massacre]], during the [[Polish–Soviet War]], in which 35 Jews meeting to discuss the distribution of American relief aid were summarily executed by the Polish Army in the belief that they were [[Bolshevik]] conspirators, Strauss pressed the case to Hoover that a forceful response must be made to the Polish government.<ref>Wentling, "Herbert Hoover and American Jewish non-Zionists", pp. 384–385.</ref> Hoover spoke to Polish Prime Minister [[Ignacy Jan Paderewski]] and demanded a fair investigation, but Strauss saw Paderewski as an anti-Semite who believed that all Jews were Bolsheviks and all Bolsheviks were Jews.<ref>Wentling, "Herbert Hoover and American Jewish non-Zionists", pp. 385–387.</ref> After a while, the situation for Jews in Poland did (temporarily) improve.<ref>Wentling, "Herbert Hoover and American Jewish non-Zionists", p. 389.</ref><ref>Strauss, ''Men and Decisions'', p. 25.</ref>

Strauss had grown up in Virginia, in a culture that venerated Southern military heroes of the "[[War Between the States]]",<ref>Strauss, ''Men and Decisions'', p. vii.</ref> but a tour he took in summer 1918 to the devastated battlefields of [[Battle of Château-Thierry (1918)|Château-Thierry]] and [[Battle of Belleau Wood|Belleau Wood]] disabused him of any romantic illusions about the glory of warfare.<ref>Pfau, ''No Sacrifice Too Great'', pp. 15–16.</ref> Similarly, his exposure to effects of [[Communism]] in 1919, as manifested in the Polish–Soviet War, led to a powerful and lifelong [[anti-Communist]] sentiment.<ref>Pfau, ''No Sacrifice Too Great'', pp. 24–25, 84–85.</ref>

=== Investment banker, marriage and family ===
At the JDC, Strauss came to the attention of [[Felix M. Warburg]], a JDC leader who was a partner in the investment bank [[Kuhn, Loeb & Co.]] in [[New York City]], and Harriet Loewentstein, a JDC European head who was an accountant at the bank.<ref name="pfau-25-26">Pfau, ''No Sacrifice Too Great'', pp. 25–26.</ref> In addition Hoover had introduced Strauss to [[Mortimer Schiff]], another partner at Kuhn Loeb,<ref name="upi-obit" /><ref name="nyt-obit" /> who interviewed Strauss in Paris and offered him a job.<ref name="pfau-25-26" /> In so doing, Strauss turned down an offer to become comptroller for the newly forming [[League of Nations]].<ref name="miller" />

Strauss returned to the United States and started at Kuhn Loeb in 1919.<ref name="nyt-obit"/> As a result, he never did attend college, a fact that may have led to the perfectionist and defensive personality traits that he exhibited later in life.<ref name="Time"/>

Kuhn Loeb's major customers were railroads, and by the mid-1920s, Strauss was helping to arrange financing for new railroad terminal buildings in Cincinnati and Richmond and for the reorganizations of the [[Denver and Rio Grande Western Railroad]] and the [[Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul and Pacific Railroad]].<ref name="pfau-34-37">Pfau, ''No Sacrifice Too Great'', pp. 29, 34–37.</ref> By 1926 his yearly compensation from the firm had reached $75,000 ({{Inflation|US|75000|1926|fmt=eq|r=-3}}) and by the next year, $120,000 ({{Inflation|US|120000|1927|fmt=eq|r=-3}}).<ref name="pfau-34-37"/> Subsequently, Strauss arranged the firm's financing for steel companies such as [[Inland Steel Company|Inland Steel]], [[Republic Steel]], and [[Great Lakes Steel Corporation|Great Lakes Steel]].<ref name="Time"/> He became a full partner in 1929, at which point he was making a million dollars a year, and he endured the [[Wall Street Crash of 1929]] without significant financial damage.<ref name="b-s-361"/> With the firm he helped bring to market [[Kodachrome film]] for [[Eastman Kodak]] and the [[Polaroid camera]] for [[Edwin H. Land]].<ref name="nyt-obit"/>

[[File:Lewis Strauss & wife LCCN2014719178 (cropped).jpg|thumb|upright=0.75|Strauss and his wife Alice, c. 1923–1926]]

On March 5, 1923, Strauss married Alice Hanauer in a ceremony at the [[Ritz-Carlton Hotel (New York City)|Ritz-Carlton Hotel]] in New York.<ref>{{cite news | url=https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1923/03/06/105851022.html | title=Miss Hanauer Weds Lewis L. Strauss | newspaper=The New York Times | date=March 6, 1923 | page=21 | access-date=October 7, 2020 | archive-date=March 16, 2022 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220316125009/https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1923/03/06/105851022.html?pageNumber=21 | url-status=live }}</ref> Born in 1903, she was the daughter of Jerome J. Hanauer,<ref name="nyt-alice-notice"/> who was one of the Kuhn Loeb partners.<ref name="b-s-361"/> She was a New York native who had attended [[Vassar College]] and was a skilled equestrian and potter.<ref name="nyt-alice-notice"/> The couple had two sons, one of whom did not survive early childhood.<ref name="nyt-alice-notice"/> While in New York, they lived on [[Central Park West]],<ref name="nyt-reward"/> then on the [[Upper East Side]],<ref name="nyt-active"/> and later on [[Central Park South]].<ref name="nyt-mitn-56"/>

Strauss had involvements in the New York City community. In particular, he was on the board of directors of the [[Metropolitan Opera Company]]<ref name="nyt-active"/> and later the [[Metropolitan Opera Association]]<ref name="nyt-rockb"/> and was also on the boards of the [[American Relief Administration]] and the American Children's Fund.<ref name="nyt-active"/> He was a member of [[American Bankers Association]] and [[Chamber of Commerce of the State of New York|New York State Chamber of Commerce]].<ref name="nyt-te-pres"/>

Hoover was a candidate for the [[Republican Party (United States)|Republican Party]] nomination in the [[United States presidential election, 1920]]; Strauss campaigned for him and attended the [[1920 Republican National Convention]] on his behalf, but Hoover failed to gain significant support.<ref>Pfau, ''No Sacrifice Too Great'', pp. 30–32.</ref> Strauss again worked for the this-time-successful campaign of Hoover in the [[United States presidential election, 1928]], and was a member from Virginia that year of the [[Republican National Committee]].<ref name="wvjh"/> Over several years, Strauss engaged in activities designed to strengthen the Republican Party in Virginia and the South overall.<ref>Pfau, ''No Sacrifice Too Great'', pp. 38–40, 47.</ref> He also was committed to protecting the reputation of President Hoover; in 1930, on behalf of the White House, he conspired with two naval intelligence officers to illegally break into the office of a [[Tammany Hall]] follower in New York who was thought to hold documents that would be damaging to Hoover.<ref>Bernstein, "Sacrifices and Decisions", p. 107.</ref><ref>Pfau, ''No Sacrifice Too Great'', pp. 41–42.</ref>

During the 1930s, following Hoover's re-election defeat by [[Franklin D. Roosevelt]] in the [[United States presidential election, 1932]], Strauss was a strong opponent of the [[New Deal]].<ref>Bird and Sherwin, ''American Prometheus'', pp. 361–362.</ref> He shared this antipathy with Hoover, who increasingly adopted an ideologically conservative, anti-New Deal viewpoint in the years following his defeat.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Whyte |first1=Kenneth |title=Hoover: An Extraordinary Life in Extraordinary Times |date=2017 |publisher=Knopf |isbn=978-0-307-59796-0|pages=556–557}}</ref>

Strauss was active in Kuhn Loeb until 1941, although he resented restrictions imposed on investment banking by regulators in the Roosevelt administration and derived less enjoyment from the business.<ref>Pfau, ''No Sacrifice Too Great'', pp. 46–47.</ref> Nonetheless, in his role as an investment banker Strauss had become vastly wealthy, and given his humble original circumstances he has been considered a [[Self-made man|self-made millionaire]] and a [[Horatio Alger]] tale.<ref name="mcgeorge-206"/><ref name="b-s-361">Bird and Sherwin, ''American Prometheus'', p. 361.</ref><ref name="nyt-obit"/> As one historian has written, Strauss's business success was the residue of "luck, pluck, hard work, and good contacts".<ref name="bernstein-109"/> Strauss's biographer reaches a similar conclusion: "Strauss reached the top because of his ability, ambition, choices of the right firm and the right wife, and the good luck to start out at a prosperous time."<ref>Pfau, ''No Sacrifice Too Great'', p. 40.</ref> Due to his lack of higher education, Strauss has also been characterized as an [[autodidact]].<ref name="young-3">Young, "Strauss and the Writing of Nuclear History", p. 3.</ref>

=== Lay religious activities ===
A proudly religious man,<ref>Bernstein, "Sacrifices and Decisions", pp. 109, 110.</ref> Strauss became a leader in Jewish causes and organizations. In 1933 he was a member of the executive committee of the [[American Jewish Committee]].<ref name="pfau-49-51">Pfau, ''No Sacrifice Too Great'', pp. 49–51.</ref> He was active in the Jewish Agricultural Society,<ref name="nyt-te-pres" /> for whom by 1941 he was honorary president.<ref name="nyt-active" /> By 1938 he was also active in the Palestine Development Council, the [[Baron de Hirsch Fund]], and the [[Union of American Hebrew Congregations]].<ref name="nyt-te-pres" />

However, he was not a [[Zionism|Zionist]] and opposed the establishment of a Jewish state in [[Mandatory Palestine]].<ref name="pfau-49-51" /> He did not view Jews as belonging to a nation or a race; he considered himself an American of Jewish religion, and consequently he advocated for the rights of Jews to live as equal and integral citizens of the nations in which they resided.<ref name="pfau-49-51" />

Strauss fully recognized the brutality of [[Nazi Germany]]. He first made his concern known in early 1933, writing to President Hoover during the final weeks of Hoover's time in office.<ref>Strauss, ''Men and Decisions'', p. 105.</ref> Strauss attended a London conference of concerned Jews later that year on behalf of the American Jewish Committee, but the conference fell apart over the issue of Zionism.<ref name="pfau-49-51"/>

Following the November 1938 ''[[Kristallnacht]]'' attacks on Jews in Germany,<ref name="feingold-149-151"/> Strauss attempted to persuade prominent Republicans to support the [[Wagner–Rogers Bill]] that would legislatively allow the entry of 20,000 German refugee children into the United States.<ref name="bernstein-110"/> Long allied with both Hoover and Taft,<ref name="nyt-mitn-56"/> he asked each of them to support the bill. Hoover did, but Taft did not, telling Strauss, "With millions of people out of work, I can't see the logic of admitting others."<ref>Pfau, ''No Sacrifice Too Great'', p. 57.</ref> The bill had considerable popular support, but eventually failed to move forward in Congress due to opposition from the [[American Legion]], the [[Daughters of the American Revolution]], and other immigration restrictionists.<ref name="feingold-149-151">Feingold, ''Politics of Rescue'', pp. 149–151.</ref>

At the same time, Strauss joined with Hoover and [[Bernard Baruch]] in supporting the establishment of a refugee state in Africa as a safe haven for all persecuted people, not just Jews, and pledged ten percent of his wealth towards it.<ref name="bernstein-110">Bernstein, "Sacrifices and Decisions", p. 110.</ref> This effort too failed to materialize.<ref>Feingold, ''Politics of Rescue'', pp. 102–109, 114–117.</ref> Still another scheme that involved Strauss concerned an international corporation, the Coordinating Foundation, that would be set up to effectively pay Germany an immense ransom in exchange for their allowing Jews to emigrate; that too did not happen.<ref>Feingold, ''Politics of Rescue'', pp. 69–71, 74, 78.</ref> Strauss received many individual requests for help, but often was unable to.<ref name="j-howtobe"/> Decades later, Strauss wrote in his memoir: "The years from 1933 to the outbreak of World War II will ever be a nightmare to me, and the puny efforts I made to alleviate the tragedies were utter failures, save in a few individual cases—pitifully few."<ref>Strauss, ''Men and Decisions'', p. 104.</ref>

Strauss was president of [[Congregation Emanu-El of New York]], the largest such in New York City, for a decade,<ref name="darksun-310">Rhodes, ''Dark Sun'', p. 310.</ref> from 1938 to 1948.<ref name="nyt-obit"/> He was named to the presidency to replace Judge [[Irving Lehman]], after having previously been chair of the temple's finance committee.<ref name="nyt-te-pres">{{cite news | url=https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1938/04/07/98119969.html | title=Lehman Retires As Emanu-El Head | newspaper=The New York Times | date=April 7, 1938 | page=16 | access-date=October 8, 2020 | archive-date=March 16, 2022 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220316125000/https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1938/04/07/98119969.html?pageNumber=16 | url-status=live }}</ref> He had first joined the board of trustees of the temple in 1929, when the congregation was absorbing the merger of [[Temple Beth-El (New York City)|Temple Beth-El]].<ref>{{cite news | url=https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1929/12/17/92036409.html | title=Judge Lehman Heads Emanu-El | newspaper=The New York Times | date=December 17, 1929 | page=23 | access-date=October 24, 2020 | archive-date=March 16, 2022 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220316125001/https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1929/12/17/92036409.html?pageNumber=23 | url-status=live }}</ref>

Strauss succeeded in Washington's social and political circles despite that environment being notoriously anti-Semitic at the time.<ref name="darksun-310"/> Indeed, experiences with anti-Semitism may have contributed to the outsider perspective and fractious personality that became evident during his later career.<ref name="Time"/><ref name="bernstein-110"/> He was proud of his Southern upbringing as well as his religion, and insisted his name be pronounced in Virginia fashion as "straws" rather than with the usual German pronunciation.<ref name="b-s-362"/><ref name="y-s-150"/><ref name="nyt-mitn-56"/>

=== World War II ===
Despite his medical disqualification for regular military duty, Strauss applied to join the [[U.S. Navy Reserve]] in 1925, becoming effective 1926,<ref name="wvjh" /> and he received an officer's commission as a [[Lieutenant (navy)|lieutenant]] intelligence officer.<ref name="miller" /> He remained in the reserve as a [[Lieutenant commander (United States)|lieutenant commander]].<ref name="pfau-63-69" /> In 1939 and 1940, as [[World War II]] began overseas, he volunteered for active duty.<ref name="pfau-63-69">Pfau, ''No Sacrifice Too Great'', pp. 63, 69.</ref> He wanted to go into intelligence but was blocked, reportedly because the [[Director of Naval Intelligence, U.S. Navy]] was prejudiced against Jews and because Strauss's contributions to [[B'nai B'rith]] had aroused suspicion on the part of [[FBI]] director [[J. Edgar Hoover]] and others in the U.S. intelligence community.<ref name="bernstein-110" /> Instead, in February 1941, he was called to active duty,<ref name="ap-obit" /><ref name="nyt-active">{{cite news | url=https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1941/03/04/85456805.html | title=Kuhn, Loeb Partner Called Up By Navy | newspaper=The New York Times | date=March 4, 1941 | page=7 | access-date=October 8, 2020 | archive-date=March 16, 2022 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220316125017/https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1941/03/04/85456805.html?pageNumber=7 | url-status=live }}</ref> and was assigned as a Staff Assistant to the Chief at the [[Bureau of Ordnance]],<ref>Rowland and Boyd, ''U. S. Navy Bureau of Ordnance in World War II'', p. 523.</ref> where he helped organize and manage Navy munitions work.<ref name="pfau-64-67">Pfau, ''No Sacrifice Too Great'', pp. 64–67.</ref> Strauss and his wife moved to [[Washington, D.C.]],<ref name="nyt-alice-notice" /> where they lived in an apartment at the prestigious [[Shoreham Hotel]].<ref name="pfau-64-67" /> She served as an operating room nurse's aide during this period.<ref name="nyt-alice-notice" />

During 1941, Strauss recommended actions to improve inspectors' abilities and consolidate field inspections into one General Inspectors' Office that was independent of [[United States Navy bureau system|the Navy's bureau system]]; these changes took hold by the following year.<ref>Rowland and Boyd, ''U. S. Navy Bureau of Ordnance in World War II'', pp. 463, 466–467.</ref> Strauss organized a morale-boosting effort to award "E for Excellence" awards to plants doing a good job of making war materials.<ref name="Time" /> The program proved popular and helped the United States ramp up production quickly in case it entered the war; by the end of 1941 the Bureau of Ordnance had given the "E" to 94 different defense contractors.<ref name="pfau-64-67" /> It was adopted across all services in 1942 as the [[Army-Navy "E" Award]], and over the course of the war over 4,000 of them were granted.<ref>Rowland and Boyd, ''U. S. Navy Bureau of Ordnance in World War II'', pp. 476–477.</ref> (Strauss's biographer has depicted Strauss as also helping to investigate the [[Mark 14 torpedo|notorious failures of U.S. torpedoes]] during the war and coordinate development of the very secret and highly successful anti-aircraft [[proximity fuze|VT (proximity) fuse]];<ref>Pfau, ''No Sacrifice Too Great'', pp. 71–74.</ref> however histories of these efforts do not indicate that Strauss played a significant role.<ref>See for example Rowland and Boyd, ''U. S. Navy Bureau of Ordnance in World War II'', chs. 6 and 13, which do not mention Strauss even though Strauss is mentioned in other contexts within the book.</ref>)

When [[James V. Forrestal]] succeeded [[Frank Knox]] as [[United States Secretary of the Navy|Secretary of the Navy]] in May 1944, he employed Strauss as his special assistant.<ref name="nyt-mitn-56" /><ref name="b-s-362">Bird and Sherwin, ''American Prometheus'', p. 362.</ref> In conjunction with Senator [[Harry F. Byrd]] of Virginia, Strauss established the [[Office of Naval Research]], which kept scientific research of naval matters under control of the Navy rather than civilian or academic organizations.<ref>Pfau, ''No Sacrifice Too Great'', p. 77.</ref> Strauss's contributions were recognized by the Navy and by 1945 he was serving on the Army-Navy Munitions Board,<ref name="ap-commodore" /> a role that concluded by the following year.<ref name="ap-aec-5" /> He was also on the Naval Reserve Policy Board starting in 1946.<ref>{{cite book | url=https://www.google.com/search?q=%22naval+reserve+policy+board%22+%22lewis+l.+strauss%22&tbm=bks | title=Directory – Associations, Institutions, Etc. | volume=1 | publisher=Group Research Inc. | date=1962 | page=4 | access-date=November 10, 2020 | archive-date=March 16, 2022 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220316124959/https://www.google.com/search?q=%22naval+reserve+policy+board%22+%22lewis+l.+strauss%22&tbm=bks | url-status=live }}</ref>

Earlier during the war, Strauss was promoted to commander,<ref>Strauss, ''Men and Decisions'', p. 143.</ref> then by November 1943 was a captain.<ref>Pfau, ''No Sacrifice Too Great'', pp. 75, 267n29.</ref> He rose in rank and influence due to a combination of his intelligence, personal energy, and ability to find favor in higher places.<ref name="mcgeorge-206"/> Strauss's rigid manner managed to make enemies during the war as well, including significant disputes with E. N. Toland, chief counsel for the [[House Committee on Naval Affairs]]; Representative [[Carl Vinson]], chair of that committee; and Admiral [[Ernest J. King]], the [[Chief of Naval Operations]].<ref>Pfau, ''No Sacrifice Too Great'', pp. 67–70, 75–76.</ref> A proposed promotion for Strauss in 1944 to rear admiral did not happen at the time due to a variety of factors, including that President [[Franklin D. Roosevelt]] had disliked Strauss for years, going back to an incident at an [[Inner Circle (parody group)|Inner Circle]] event in 1932, and blocked the move.<ref>Pfau, ''No Sacrifice Too Great'', pp. 44–45, 70, 74–75, 82.</ref> Roosevelt's death changed matters, as his successor, [[Harry S. Truman]], had no negative feelings about Strauss. In July 1945 Strauss was promoted to [[Commodore (United States)|commodore]].<ref name="ap-commodore">{{cite news | url=https://www.newspapers.com/image/328147398/?terms=%22lewis%2Bstrauss%22%2B%22Army-Navy%2BMunitions%2BBoard%22 | title=Truman Names New Admiral | agency=Associated Press | newspaper=Tampa Morning Tribune | date=July 7, 1945 | page=8 | via=Newspapers.com | access-date=September 27, 2020 | archive-date=March 5, 2021 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210305172300/https://www.newspapers.com/image/328147398/?terms=%22lewis%2Bstrauss%22%2B%22Army-Navy%2BMunitions%2BBoard%22 | url-status=live }}</ref> Then in November 1945, after the war, Strauss was promoted to [[Rear admiral (United States)|rear admiral]] by Truman.<ref name="miller">{{cite web |url=http://millercenter.org/academic/americanpresident/eisenhower/essays/cabinet/588 |title=Lewis Strauss (1958–1959): Secretary of Commerce |work=American President: An Online Reference Resource |publisher=Miller Center of Public Affairs |access-date=January 29, 2010 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100407200059/http://millercenter.org/academic/americanpresident/eisenhower/essays/cabinet/588 |archive-date=April 7, 2010}}</ref>

The promotion to [[Admiral (United States)#History|flag rank]] was unusual for a member of the reserve,<ref name="nyt-mitn-56">{{cite news | url=https://www.nytimes.com/1956/03/08/archives/overseer-of-the-atom-lewis-l-strauss-man-in-the-news.html | title=Man in the News: Overseer of the Atom: Lewis L. Strauss | newspaper=The New York Times | date=March 8, 1956 | page=8 | access-date=October 7, 2020 | archive-date=October 13, 2020 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201013175628/https://www.nytimes.com/1956/03/08/archives/overseer-of-the-atom-lewis-l-strauss-man-in-the-news.html?searchResultPosition=1 | url-status=live }}</ref> and as such,<ref name="young-3"/> he liked being addressed as "Admiral Strauss", even though use of the honorific perturbed some regular officers, who considered him a civilian.<ref name="nyt-obit"/> By this time, Strauss had taken advantage of his ties in both Washington and Wall Street to enter the post-war establishment in the capital.<ref name="b-s-362"/> He also was learning how to get things accomplished in Washington via unofficial back channels, something at which he would become quite adept.<ref name="young-5">Young, "Strauss and the Writing of Nuclear History", p. 5.</ref>

=== Introduction to atomic energy ===
Strauss's mother died of cancer in 1935, and his father of the same disease in 1937.<ref>Pfau, ''No Sacrifice Too Great'', pp. 51–53.</ref> That and his early interest in physics led Strauss to establish a fund in their names, the Lewis and Rosa Strauss Memorial Fund, for physics research that could lead to better radiation treatment for cancer patients.<ref>{{cite web | url=https://www.atomicheritage.org/profile/lewis-strauss | title=Lewis Strauss | publisher=Atomic Heritage Foundation | access-date=December 7, 2020 | archive-date=October 21, 2020 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201021160000/https://www.atomicheritage.org/profile/lewis-strauss | url-status=live }}</ref> The fund supported the refugee German physicist [[:de:Arno Brasch|Arno Brasch]], who was working on producing artificial radioactive material with bursts of [[X-ray]]s.<ref>Rhodes, ''Making of the Atomic Bomb'', p. 238.</ref> Brasch's work was based on previous work with [[Leo Szilard]], who saw in this work a possible means to developing an atomic [[chain reaction]]. Szilard already had foreseen that this could lead to an [[atomic bomb]]. Szilard persuaded Strauss to support him and Brasch in building a "surge generator".<ref>Rhodes, ''Making of the Atomic Bomb'', p. 239.</ref> Strauss ultimately provided tens of thousands of dollars to this venture.<ref>Rhodes, ''Making of the Atomic Bomb'', p. 281.</ref>
 
Through Szilard, Strauss met other [[nuclear physics|nuclear physicists]], such as [[Ernest Lawrence]].<ref>Rhodes, ''Making of the Atomic Bomb'', p. 240.</ref> Strauss talked to scientists who had left Nazi Germany and learned about atom-related experiments that had taken place there.<ref name="jta-obit" /> Szilard kept him up to date on developments in the area, such as the [[discovery of nuclear fission]] and the use of [[neutron]]s.<ref>Rhodes, ''Making of the Atomic Bomb'', pp. 281, 287, 301.</ref> In February 1940, Szilard asked him to fund the acquisition of some [[radium]], but Strauss refused, as he had already spent a large sum.<ref>Rhodes, ''Making of the Atomic Bomb'', p. 289.</ref>

Strauss had no further direct involvement with atomic energy developments during the war. Indeed, he was frustrated by Harvey Hollister Bundy, his colleague from the Food Administration days, who kept Strauss away from information regarding the [[Manhattan Project]].<ref>{{cite book | title=The Color of Truth: McGeorge Bundy and William Bundy: Brothers in Arms | author-first=Kai | author-last=Bird | publisher=Simon & Schuster | location=New York | year=1998 | isbn=978-0-684-80970-0 | page=181}}</ref> At the end of the war, when the first atomic bombs were ready for use, Strauss advocated to Forrestal dropping one on a symbolic target, such as a [[Cryptomeria|Japanese cedar grove]] near [[Nikkō, Tochigi]], as a [[warning shot]].<ref>Strauss, ''Men and Decisions'', pp. 192–193.</ref> In subsequent years Strauss would say in interviews, "I did my best to prevent it. The Japanese were defeated before the bomb was used."<ref name="ap-obit"/>

After the war, Strauss was the Navy's representative on the Interdepartmental Committee on Atomic Energy.<ref name="nyt-mitn-56"/> Strauss recommended a test of the atomic bomb against a number of modern warships, which he thought would refute the idea that the atomic bomb made the Navy obsolete.<ref>Rhodes, ''Dark Sun'', pp. 228–229.</ref> His recommendation contributed to the decision to hold the mid-1946 [[Operation Crossroads]] tests, the first since the war, at [[Bikini Atoll]].<ref>{{cite book | title=Admiral Nimitz: The Commander of the Pacific Ocean Theater | author-first=Brayton | author-last=Harris | publisher=St. Martin's | date=2012 | isbn=978-0-230-39364-6 | pages=194–196}}</ref>

=== Atomic Energy Commission member ===
[[Image:Bacher, Lilienthal, Pike, Waymack and Strauss.jpg|thumb|right|The five original commissioners of the AEC in 1947; Strauss is rightmost]]
In 1947, the United States transferred control of atomic research from the U.S. Army to civilian authority under the newly created [[United States Atomic Energy Commission|Atomic Energy Commission]] (AEC). In October 1946, in advance of the commission actually coming into being,<ref name="ap-aec-5">{{cite news | url=https://www.newspapers.com/image/677542761/?terms=%22lewis%20strauss%22%20%22Army-Navy%20Munitions%20Board%22&match=1 | title=Truman Names Civilian Atomic Energy Board | agency=Associated Press | newspaper=The Meriden Daily Journal | date=October 29, 1946 | pages=1, 7 | via=Newspapers.com | access-date=October 4, 2020 | archive-date=March 16, 2022 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220316125002/https://www.newspapers.com/image/677542761/?terms=%22lewis+strauss%22+%22Army-Navy+Munitions+Board%22&match=1 | url-status=live }}</ref> Strauss was named by President Truman as one of the first five Commissioners, with [[David E. Lilienthal]] as the chairman.<ref>Young and Schilling, ''Super Bomb'', p. 40.</ref> Strauss had been recommended for a position on the body by Vice Admiral [[Paul Frederick Foster]], a long-time friend for whom Strauss earlier had provided contacts in the business world (and who had subsequently helped Strauss get his active duty assignment).<ref>Bernstein, "Sacrifices and Decisions", p. 106.</ref> In their initial discussion about the appointment, Strauss noted to the New Deal-supporting Truman that "I am a black Hoover Republican."<ref name="mcgeorge-206"/> Truman said that was of no matter, since the commission was intended to be non-political.<ref name="pfau-89">Pfau, ''No Sacrifice Too Great'', p. 89.</ref> Strauss, who briefly had returned to work at Kuhn Loeb after the war, now exited the firm altogether in order to comply with AEC regulations.<ref name="pfau-89"/>

Once there, Strauss became one of the first commissioners to speak in dissent from existing policy.<ref name="mcgeorge-206"/> In the first two years, there were a dozen instances, most having to do with information-security matters, in which Strauss was in a 1–4 minority on the commission; in the process, he increasingly was perceived as stubborn.<ref>Pfau, ''No Sacrifice Too Great'', pp. 97–103.</ref>

One of Strauss's first actions on the AEC was to urge his fellow commissioners to set up the capability to monitor foreign atomic activity via atmospheric testing.<ref>Rhodes, ''Dark Sun'', p. 311.</ref> In particular, he saw that [[WB-29 Superfortress]] aircraft equipped with radiological tests could run regular "sniffer" flights to monitor the upper atmosphere and detect any atomic tests by the Soviet Union.<ref name="y-s-19-21">Young and Schilling, ''Super Bomb'', pp. 19–21.</ref> Other people in government and science, including physicists [[J. Robert Oppenheimer]] and [[Edward Teller]], argued that the radiological approach would not work, but Strauss and the newly formed [[United States Air Force]] continued regardless.<ref name="y-s-19-21"/> Several days after the [[RDS-1|first atomic bomb test by the Soviet Union]] in August 1949, a WB-29 flight did, in fact, find evidence of the test.<ref>Rhodes, ''Dark Sun'', p. 371.</ref> While Strauss was not the only person who had been urging long-range detection capabilities,<ref name="y-s-19-21"/> it was largely due to his efforts that the United States was able to discover that the Soviet Union had become a nuclear power.<ref name="mcgeorge-206">Bundy, ''Danger and Survival'', p. 206.</ref>

Strauss believed in a fundamental premise of the [[Cold War]]: that the Soviet Union was determined on a course of world domination. As such, he believed in having a more powerful nuclear force than the Soviets and in maintaining secrecy about U.S. nuclear activities.<ref name="nyt-obit"/> This extended to allies: Among the commissioners, he was the most skeptical about the value of the [[Quebec Agreement#End of the Quebec Agreement|Modus Vivendi]] to which the United States, Britain, and Canada agreed in January 1948 that provided for limited sharing of technical information between the three nations (and that already was a stricter set of guidelines than those established by President [[Franklin D. Roosevelt]] in the [[Quebec Agreement]] of the Manhattan Project era).<ref>Young, ''American Bomb in Britain'', pp. 182–183.</ref> During the [[United States presidential election, 1948|U.S. presidential election of 1948]], Strauss tried to convince the Republican Party nominee, [[Thomas E. Dewey]], of the dangers of sharing atomic information with Britain, and, after Dewey lost, Strauss tried to convince President Truman of the same.<ref>Young, ''American Bomb in Britain'', p. 190.</ref> Following the revelations about the British physicist [[Klaus Fuchs]]'s espionage for the Soviet Union and the appointment of the former Marxist [[John Strachey (politician)|John Strachey]] as [[Secretary of State for War]] in the British Cabinet, Strauss argued that the Modus Vivendi should be suspended completely, but no other commissioner wanted to go to that extreme.<ref>Young, ''American Bomb in Britain'', pp. 190–191.</ref>

Strauss was known for his psychological rigidity; one of his fellow commissioners reportedly said, "If you disagree with Lewis about anything, he assumes you're just a fool at first. But if you go on disagreeing with him, he concludes you must be a traitor."<ref name="darksun-310"/> Strauss was increasingly unhappy in his position, but President Truman indicated satisfaction with Strauss's work and the minority stances that he was taking on the commission.<ref>Pfau, ''No Sacrifice Too Great'', pp. 106–109.</ref>

[[Image:Lewis Strauss, Brien McMahon, John Bricker in discussion.png|thumb|right|Strauss (left) along with Senators Brien McMahon and John Bricker in early 1950]]
The [[RDS-1|first atomic-bomb test by the Soviet Union]] in August 1949 came earlier than expected by Americans, and, over the next several months, there was an intense debate within the U.S. government, military, and scientific communities regarding whether to proceed with development of the far more powerful [[hydrogen bomb]], then known as "the Super".<ref name="y-s-1-2">Young and Schilling, ''Super Bomb'', pp. 1–2.</ref> Strauss urged for the United States to move immediately to develop it,<ref name="upi-obit"/><ref name="nyt-obit"/> writing to his fellow commissioners on October 5 that "the time has come for a quantum jump in our planning ... we should make an intensive effort to get ahead with the super."<ref>Holloway, ''Stalin and the Bomb'', p. 300.</ref> In particular, Strauss was unswayed by moral arguments against going forward, seeing no real difference between using it and the atomic bomb or the [[boosted fission weapon]] that some opponents of the Super were advocating as an alternative.<ref>Young and Schilling, ''Super Bomb'', p. 77.</ref> When Strauss was rebuffed by the other commissioners, he went to [[United States National Security Council|National Security Council]] executive secretary [[Sidney Souers]] in order to bring the matter to President Truman directly.<ref>Young, "Strauss and the Writing of Nuclear History", pp. 8–9.</ref> It was as a consequence of this meeting that Truman first learned (when Souers informed him) that such a thing as a hydrogen bomb could exist.<ref>Young and Schilling, ''Super Bomb'', p. 42.</ref> In a memorandum urging development of the Super that he sent to President Truman on November 25, 1949,<ref>Strauss, ''Men and Decisions'', pp. 219–222.</ref> the pious Strauss expressed no doubt about what the Soviets would do, writing that "a government of atheists is not likely to be dissuaded from producing the weapon on 'moral' grounds."<ref>Holloway, ''Stalin and the Bomb'', p. 301.</ref>

On January 31, 1950, Truman announced his decision to go forward with hydrogen-bomb development.<ref name="y-s-1-2"/> A few narratives, including ones promoted by Strauss and that of Strauss's biographer, have placed Strauss as having had a central role in Truman's decision.<ref>Young and Schilling, ''Super Bomb'', p. 140.</ref><ref>Bernstein, "Sacrifices and Decisions", p. 112.</ref> However, by the time that the decision was made, Strauss was one of an increasingly large coalition of military and government figures, and a few scientists, who strongly felt that development of the new weapon was essential to U.S. security in the face of a hostile, nuclear-capable, ideological enemy.<ref>Young and Schilling, ''Super Bomb'', p. 164.</ref> Thus, in the absence of Strauss's action, the same decision almost surely would have been reached.<ref>Bernstein, "Sacrifices and Decisions", pp. 112–114.</ref> In any case, when the decision was announced, Strauss, considering that he had accomplished as much as he could in his role as commissioner, submitted his resignation that same day.<ref>Strauss, ''Men and Decisions'', p. 230.</ref> Within the administration, there was some consideration given to Strauss being named chairman of the AEC to replace the departing Lilienthal, but Strauss was considered too polarizing a figure.<ref>Young and Schilling, ''Super Bomb'', p. 64.</ref> The last day for Strauss during this first stint of his on the commission was April 15, 1950.<ref name=Buck>{{cite book|author= Buck, Alice L.|url= http://energy.gov/sites/prod/files/AEC%20History.pdf|title= A History of the Atomic Energy Commission|location= Washington, D.C.|publisher= U.S. Department of Energy|date= July 1983|page= 27|access-date= July 25, 2020|archive-date= April 5, 2019|archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20190405175700/https://www.energy.gov/sites/prod/files/AEC%20History.pdf|url-status= live}}</ref> <!-- Glennon as successor - cite https://history.nasa.gov/SP-4105.pdf -->

=== Financial analyst ===
Beginning in June 1950, Strauss became a financial adviser to the [[Rockefeller family|Rockefeller brothers]], where his charter was to participate in decisions regarding projects, financing, and investing.<ref name="nyt-rockb">{{cite news | url=https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1950/06/23/94266626.html | title=L. L. Strauss to Aid the Rockefellers | newspaper=The New York Times | date=June 23, 1950 | page=36 | access-date=October 28, 2020 | archive-date=March 16, 2022 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220316125000/https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1950/06/23/94266626.html?pageNumber=36 | url-status=live }}</ref> For them, he assisted in the founding of, and served on the first board for, the [[Population Council]].<ref>{{cite book | chapter-url=https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007%252F978-1-4757-9906-4_2.pdf&usg=AOvVaw2jvs9cjxbeLrqHubb97A9p | chapter=Beginnings of the Modern Population Movement | author-first=Oscar | author-last=Harkavy | title=Curbing Population Growth | series=The Springer Series on Demographic Methods and Population Analysis | publisher=Springer | location=New York | date=1995 | isbn=978-0-306-45050-1 | pages=23, 25 | doi=10.1007/978-1-4757-9906-4_2 | access-date=March 16, 2022 | archive-date=March 16, 2022 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220316125002/https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-1-4757-9906-4_2?noAccess=true | url-status=live }}</ref> He was also involved in the negotiations with [[Columbia University]] that led to a [[Rockefeller Center#Post-World War II expansion|sale and leasing back of real estate associated with]] part of [[Rockefeller Center]].<ref name="pfau-128"/> The relationship with the Rockefeller brothers would last until 1953.<ref name="wvjh"/><ref name="Time"/> However, Strauss felt that the brothers treated him as a second-class asset and, in turn, he felt no loyalty towards them.<ref name="pfau-128">Pfau, ''No Sacrifice Too Great'', p. 128.</ref>

During this time, Strauss continued to take an interest in atomic affairs; as did other former members of the AEC, he had a consulting arrangement with the [[United States Congress Joint Committee on Atomic Energy]] and was active in making his opinion known on various matters.<ref>Pfau, ''No Sacrifice Too Great'', pp. 131–136.</ref> These included his dissatisfaction with the speed at which research and development into actually making a working hydrogen device was taking place.<ref>Bernstein, "Sacrifices and Decisions", p. 114.</ref>

In the [[United States presidential election, 1952|1952 U.S. presidential election]], Strauss originally supported Robert A. Taft, his friend from the Hoover days, for the Republican Party nomination.<ref name="nyt-mitn-56"/><ref>McMillan, ''Ruin of J. Robert Oppenheimer'', p. 160.</ref> Once [[Dwight D. Eisenhower]] secured the nomination, however, Strauss contributed substantial monies towards Eisenhower's campaign.<ref name="b-s-466"/>

=== Atomic Energy Commission chairman ===
[[Image:Lewis L Strauss takes oath of office as AEC chairman 1953.jpg|thumb|right|Strauss (left) taking the oath of office as chairman of the AEC in 1953]]
In January 1953, President Eisenhower named Strauss as presidential atomic energy advisor.<ref name="b-s-466"/> Then in July 1953, Eisenhower named Strauss as chairman of the AEC.<ref name="b-s-466">Bird and Sherwin, ''American Prometheus'', p. 466.</ref>

While Strauss had initially opposed Eisenhower's push for [[Operation Candor]], his view and the administration's goals both evolved, and he endorsed the "[[Atoms for Peace]]" program, which Eisenhower announced in December 1953.<ref>Bundy, ''Danger and Survival'', pp. 287, 290–292.</ref> Strauss was now one of the best-known advocates of atomic energy for many purposes. In part, he celebrated the promise of peaceful use of atomic energy as part of a conscious effort to divert attention away from the dangers of nuclear warfare.<ref>Bundy, ''Danger and Survival'', p. 303.</ref> Nevertheless, Strauss, like Eisenhower, did sincerely believe in and hope for the potential of peaceful uses.<ref name="mcm-257">McMillan, ''Ruin of J. Robert Oppenheimer'', p. 257.</ref> In 1955 Strauss helped arrange the U.S. participation in the first international conference on peaceful uses of atomic energy, held in Geneva.<ref>Holloway, ''Stalin and the Bomb'', pp. 351–352.</ref> Strauss held Soviet capabilities in high regard, saying after the conference that "in the realm of pure science the Soviets had astonished us by their achievements ... [the Russians] could be described in no sense as technically backward."<ref>Holloway, ''Stalin and the Bomb'', pp. 352–353.</ref>

[[Image:EisenhowerAtomicEnergyAct.jpg|thumb|Eisenhower signing a modification of the Atomic Energy Act in 1954; Strauss is seated on the far right]]

Strauss was involved in finding the site and industry partners for the start of construction, in 1954, of the first dedicated U.S. atomic electric power plant, the [[Shippingport Atomic Power Station]] in Pennsylvania;<ref>Pfau, ''No Sacrifice Too Great'', pp. 185–186.</ref> it would eventually go on-line in 1957.<ref>Hewlett and Holl, ''Atoms for Peace and War'', pp. 419–420.</ref> While Shippingport was a joint government-commercial collaboration, Strauss advocated for private industry taking on the development of nuclear power plants on its own.<ref>Pfau, ''No Sacrifice Too Great'', pp. 186–187.</ref><ref>Hewlett and Holl, ''Atoms for Peace and War'', p. 246.</ref> Strauss made public remarks in 1954 predicting that atomic power would make electricity "[[too cheap to meter]]".<ref>{{cite web | url=http://media.cns-snc.ca/media/toocheap/toocheap.html | title=Too Cheap to Meter? | author-first=M. J. | author-last=Brown | date=December 14, 2016 | publisher=Canadian Nuclear Society | access-date=April 2, 2012 | archive-date=March 13, 2012 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120313210757/http://media.cns-snc.ca/media/toocheap/toocheap.html | url-status=live }}</ref> Regarded as fanciful even at the time, the quote is now seen as damaging to the industry's credibility.<ref>{{cite web | url=https://public-blog.nrc-gateway.gov/2016/06/03/too-cheap-to-meter-a-history-of-the-phrase/ | title='Too Cheap to Meter': A History of the Phrase | publisher=U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission | date=June 3, 2016 | author-first=Thomas | author-last=Wellock | access-date=June 2, 2017 | archive-date=June 15, 2017 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170615104246/https://public-blog.nrc-gateway.gov/2016/06/03/too-cheap-to-meter-a-history-of-the-phrase/ | url-status=live }}</ref> Strauss was possibly referring to [[Project Sherwood]], a secret program to develop [[Fusion power|power from hydrogen fusion]], rather the commonly-believed [[Fission power|uranium fission reactors]].<ref name="Pfau, p. 187">Pfau, ''No Sacrifice Too Great'', p. 187.</ref><ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=qBqbr8uV9c8C&pg=PA32|title=Nuclear Energy: Principles, Practices, and Prospects|author-first=David|author-last=Bodansky|page=32|isbn=978-0-387-26931-3|date=2004|edition=2nd|publisher=AIP Press/Springer|location=New York|access-date=March 6, 2016|archive-date=August 4, 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200804124712/https://books.google.com/books?id=qBqbr8uV9c8C&pg=PA32|url-status=live}}</ref> Indeed, on the run-up to a 1958 Geneva conference on atomic power, Strauss offered substantial funding to three laboratories for fusion power research.<ref name="mcm-257"/>

Following the unexpectedly large blast of the [[Castle Bravo]] thermonuclear test of March 1954 at [[Bikini Atoll]], there was international concern over the [[radioactive fallout]] experienced by residents of nearby [[Rongelap Atoll]] and [[Utirik Atoll]] and by the ''[[Daigo Fukuryū Maru]]'', a Japanese fishing vessel.<ref>Makhijani and Schwartz, "Victims of the Bomb", pp. 416–417.</ref><ref name="mcgeorge-329"/> The AEC initially tried to keep the contamination secret, and then tried to minimize the health dangers of fallout.<ref name="victims-417">Makhijani and Schwartz, "Victims of the Bomb", p. 417.</ref> Voices began to be heard advocating for a ban or limitation on atmospheric testing of nuclear weapons.<ref name="mcgeorge-329"/> Strauss himself downplayed dangers from fallout and insisted that it was vital that a program of atmospheric blasts proceed unhindered;<ref name="mcgeorge-329">Bundy, ''Danger and Survival'', p. 329.</ref> internally within the administration, Strauss was dismissive of the matter and even speculated that the ''Fukuryū Maru'' was part of a Communist scheme.<ref>Maddock, "The Fourth Country Problem", pp. 556, 566n29, 566n30.</ref> However, Strauss also contributed to public fears when, during a March 1954 press conference, he made an impromptu remark that a single Soviet H-bomb could destroy the New York metropolitan area.<ref name="young-5"/> The remark captured the immense destructiveness of the H-bomb and was featured in headlines in newspapers across the United States.<ref>Hewlett and Holl, ''Atoms for Peace and War'', p. 181.</ref> This statement was heard overseas as well and served to add to what UK Minister of Defence [[Harold Macmillan]] termed a "panic" over the subject.<ref name="young-ambrit-143">Young, ''American Bomb in Britain'', p. 143.</ref> The AEC had commissioned the [[Project SUNSHINE]] report in 1953 to ascertain the impact of radioactive fallout, generated from repeated nuclear detonations of greater and greater yield, on the world's population.<ref name="young-ambrit-143"/> The British asked the AEC for the report, but Strauss resisted giving them anything more than a heavily redacted version, leading to frustration on the part of Prime Minister [[Winston Churchill]] and other UK officials.<ref>Young, ''American Bomb in Britain'', pp. 143–144.</ref>

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 | image1 = Eisenhower and Strauss.jpg
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 | caption1 = Eisenhower and Strauss discuss what happened with Castle Bravo, March 1954 ...
 | image2 = President Eisenhower and AEC Chairman Strauss face questioners at a press conference.jpg
 | alt2 = 
 | caption2 = ... and the following day hold the press conference at which Strauss says a single H-bomb could destroy the entire New York metropolitan area
}}
Internal debate ensued over the next several years within the Eisenhower administration over the possibility of an atmospheric test ban with the Soviet Union, with some in favor of trying to arrange one, but Strauss was always one of those implacably opposed.<ref>Bundy, ''Danger and Survival'', pp. 330–334.</ref> Strauss would continue to minimize the dangers of Bravo fallout to the islanders of the atolls, insisting in his 1962 memoirs that they had been under "continuous and competent medical supervision" and that follow-up tests showed them to be in "excellent health [and] their blood counts were approximately normal".<ref>Makhijani and Schwartz, "Victims of the Bomb", p. 417n47.</ref> Others in the AEC were equally cavalier.<ref name="bernstein-118">Bernstein, "Sacrifices and Decisions", p. 118.</ref> In fact, AEC scientists had seen the islanders as a valuable laboratory case of human exposure.<ref name="victims-417"/> The [[Limited Test Ban Treaty]] banning atmospheric tests would not be arrived at until 1963,<ref>Bundy, ''Danger and Survival'', p. 333.</ref> and the U.S. government engaged in a series of reevaluations of the health of the islanders, and relocation and economic packages to compensate them, over the next several decades.<ref>Makhijani and Schwartz, "Victims of the Bomb", pp. 417–420.</ref> Strauss and others in the AEC were also dismissive of the dangers Americans faced who were downwind of the [[Nevada Test Site]].<ref name="bernstein-118"/>

Regarding the prospect of [[nuclear proliferation]], Strauss was skeptical that attempts to prevent it would accomplish anything,<ref>Maddock, "The Fourth Country Problem", pp. 553.</ref> and Strauss and the AEC also doubted that the problem was as severe as some others in the administration maintained.<ref>Hewlett and Holl, ''Atoms for Peace and War'', p. 361.</ref> During 1956, [[Harold Stassen]], who had been chosen by Eisenhower to lead an effort on disarmanent policy, focused on making nonprofileration a key goal of the United States, including proposals to halt not just testing but also the continued expansion of the U.S. fissionable material stockpile.<ref>Maddock, "The Fourth Country Problem", pp. 557&ndash;558.</ref> Eisenhower was at least partially receptive to the proposals, but Strauss argued that nuclear materials production could not be stopped yet and that testing could never be halted completely.<ref>Hewlett and Holl, ''Atoms for Peace and War'', pp. 362&ndash;364.</ref>

The [[Sputnik crisis]] of 1957 led Eisenhower to create the [[President's Science Advisory Committee]]. Once that body was in place, Eisenhower began to directly receive a broader selection of scientific information; Strauss lost his ability to control scientists' access to the president and his influence within the administration began to recede.<ref>McMillan, ''Ruin of J. Robert Oppenheimer'', pp. 258–259.</ref> While Strauss had maintained his hostility towards Anglo-American cooperation on nuclear matters since becoming AEC chairman, Sputnik gave impetus to renewed cooperation on this front.<ref>Young, ''American Bomb in Britain'', pp. 193–195.</ref> Strauss visited Prime Minister [[Harold Macmillan]] to give a message from Eisenhower to this effect, and subsequent talks and hearings resulted in the [[1958 US–UK Mutual Defence Agreement]] coming into place.<ref>Young, ''American Bomb in Britain'', p. 195.</ref>

As AEC chairman, Strauss was informed regarding U.S. intelligence findings on the [[Dimona reactor]] in Israel.  He met with [[Ernst David Bergmann]], chairman of the [[Israel Atomic Energy Commission]] and a key early force in the [[Nuclear weapons and Israel|Israeli nuclear program]] (and years later would help Bergmann get a visiting fellowship in the United States).  While Strauss's thoughts on the Israeli effort to develop nuclear weapons are not documented, his wife later said that he would have been in favor of Israel being able to defend itself.<ref name="hersh">{{cite book |last=Hersh |first=Seymour M. |title=The Samson Option: Israel's Nuclear Arsenal and American Foreign Policy |location=New York |publisher=Random House |year=1991 |isbn= | pages=54–55, 85–86, 91 | url=https://archive.org/details/Sampson_Option/page/n61/mode/2up?ref=ol&view=theater&q=strauss}}</ref>

=== Strauss and Oppenheimer ===
{{see also|J. Robert Oppenheimer}}
During his terms as an AEC commissioner, Strauss became hostile to Oppenheimer, the physicist who had been director of the [[Los Alamos Laboratory]] during the Manhattan Project and who, after the war, became a celebrated public figure and remained in influential positions in atomic energy.<ref>Rhodes, ''Dark Sun'', pp. 118, 204, 280, 308–310.</ref>

In 1947, Strauss, a trustee of the [[Institute for Advanced Study]] at [[Princeton University|Princeton]], presented Oppenheimer with the institute's offer to be its director.<ref name="rhodes-308"/> Strauss, who as one writer notes was a man of high intelligence and financial skills if not higher education, had also been considered for the job; he was the institute's faculty's fifth-ranked choice, while Oppenheimer was their first ranked.<ref name="rhodes-308">Rhodes, ''Dark Sun'', p. 308.</ref> Strauss, a conservative Republican, had little in common with Oppenheimer, a liberal who had had Communist associations.<ref>Rhodes, ''Dark Sun'', p. 309.</ref> Oppenheimer subsequently was a leading opponent of moving ahead with the hydrogen bomb and proposed a national security strategy based on atomic weapons and continental defense; Strauss wanted the development of thermonuclear weapons and a doctrine of deterrence.<ref name="pfau-144"/> Oppenheimer supported a policy of openness regarding the numbers and capabilities of the atomic weapons in America's arsenal; Strauss believed that such unilateral frankness would benefit no one but Soviet military planners.<ref name="pfau-144">Pfau, ''No Sacrifice Too Great'', p. 144.</ref>

In addition, Strauss disliked Oppenheimer on a variety of personal grounds. Starting in 1947, Strauss had been in a dispute with the General Advisory Committee (GAC) of senior atomic scientists, which Oppenheimer chaired and which reported to the AEC, over whether exporting radioisotopes for medical purposes was a risk to U.S. security, from which the scientists on the GAC developed a poor image of Strauss.<ref>Young and Schilling, ''Super Bomb'', pp. 3, 41, 156.</ref> Then during a public hearing in 1949, Oppenheimer had given a mocking answer to a point Strauss had raised on the subject, a humiliation that Strauss did not forget.<ref>McMillan, ''Ruin of J. Robert Oppenheimer'', pp. 166–167.</ref> Strauss was also offended that Oppenheimer had engaged in adulterous relations.<ref name="darksun-310"/> And Strauss did not like that Oppenheimer had seemingly left his Jewish heritage behind, whereas Strauss had become successful – despite the anti-Semitic environment of Washington – while still maintaining his prominent roles in Jewish organizations and his Temple Emanu-El presidency.<ref name="bernstein-116">Bernstein, "Sacrifices and Decisions", p. 116.</ref><ref name="darksun-310"/><ref name="j-howtobe"/>

[[Image:Lewis Strauss and Robert Oppenheimer in group of scientists and engineers.webp|thumb|right|Strauss (center-left in rear) and Oppenheimer (alongside him, center-right in rear) in a group of scientists and engineers, c. 1953]]
When [[Dwight D. Eisenhower|Eisenhower]] offered Strauss the AEC chairmanship, Strauss named one condition: Oppenheimer would be excluded from all classified atomic work.<ref name="McMillan, p. 170">McMillan, ''Ruin of J. Robert Oppenheimer'', p. 170.</ref> Oppenheimer held a highest-level [[Q clearance]],<ref>McMillan, ''Ruin of J. Robert Oppenheimer'', p. 4.</ref> and was one of the most respected figures in atomic science, briefing the President and the National Security Council on several occasions.<ref>Rhodes, ''Dark Sun'', pp. 204, 308–309, 531.</ref> Oppenheimer's AEC consultancy, and the clearance that went with it, had just been renewed for another year by [[Gordon Dean (lawyer)|Gordon Dean]], the outgoing chairman of the AEC; it would extend through June 30, 1954.<ref>McMillan, ''Ruin of J. Robert Oppenheimer'', pp. 170–171.</ref><ref>Hewlett and Holl, ''Atoms for Peace and War'', pp. 52–53.</ref>

Strauss's misgivings about Oppenheimer went beyond dislike and disagreement. He had become aware of Oppenheimer's former Communist affiliations before World War II and had begun to think that Oppenheimer might even be a Soviet spy.<ref>Pfau, ''No Sacrifice Too Great'', pp. 131–132, 140, 145–146.</ref> For instance, Strauss was suspicious of Oppenheimer's tendency to downplay Soviet capabilities. In 1953, Oppenheimer stated in the July edition of ''[[Foreign Affairs]]'' that he believed the Soviets were "about four years behind" in nuclear weapons development.<ref>Rhodes, ''Dark Sun'', p. 528.</ref> The United States had exploded [[Ivy Mike|the first thermonuclear device]] the previous year; however, only a month after Oppenheimer made his proclamation, in August 1953, the Soviet Union declared that it had tested [[Joe 4|its own fusion-based bomb]], which U.S. sensors identified as a [[boosted fission weapon]].<ref name="pfau-145-146">Pfau, ''No Sacrifice Too Great'', pp. 145–146.</ref> Strauss was not alone in having his doubts; a number of other officials in Washington also suspected that Oppenheimer might be a security risk.<ref name="bernstein-115"/>

In September 1953, Strauss, hoping to uncover evidence of Oppenheimer's disloyalty, asked FBI director [[J. Edgar Hoover]] to initiate surveillance to track Oppenheimer's movements.<ref>Pfau, ''No Sacrifice Too Great'', p. 146.</ref> The director readily did so; the tracking uncovered no evidence of disloyalty but that Oppenheimer had lied to Strauss about his reason for taking a trip to Washington (Oppenheimer met a journalist but had told Strauss that he had visited the White House).<ref>Pfau, ''No Sacrifice Too Great'', pp. 146–147.</ref> Strauss's suspicions increased further with the discovery that in 1948 and 1949 Oppenheimer had tried to stop the long-range airborne detection system that Strauss had championed and that had worked in discovering the Soviet Union's first atomic weapon test.<ref>Pfau, ''No Sacrifice Too Great'', p. 148.</ref> At first Strauss moved cautiously, even heading off an attack on Oppenheimer by Senator [[Joseph McCarthy]],<ref name="McMillan, p. 170"/> due to Strauss's belief that any case that McCarthy might make would be premature and lack a solid basis of evidence.<ref>Pfau, ''No Sacrifice Too Great'', pp. 140–141.</ref>

=== Oppenheimer security hearing ===
{{main|Oppenheimer security clearance hearing}}
In November 1953, [[William L. Borden]], the former executive director of the United States Congress Joint Committee on Atomic Energy, wrote a letter to the FBI alleging that "more probably than not J. Robert Oppenheimer is an agent of the Soviet Union."<ref>Rhodes, ''Dark Sun'', p. 533.</ref> According to the book ''[[American Prometheus]]'', Strauss collaborated and aided Borden in making the allegations against Oppenheimer.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Tuquero |first=Jon Greenberg, Loreben |title=PolitiFact – MovieFact: 'Oppenheimer' sticks close to historic record, with some liberties |url=https://www.politifact.com/article/2023/aug/25/movie-oppenheimer-fact-check-historical-real/ |access-date=2024-01-13 |website=@politifact |language=en-US}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |last=Jones |first=Nate |date=2023-07-25 |title=What's Fact and What's Fiction in Oppenheimer? |url=https://www.vulture.com/2023/07/oppenheimer-historical-accuracy-what-really-happened.html |access-date=2024-01-13 |website=Vulture |language=en}}</ref><ref>{{Cite news |last=Wilensky |first=David A.M. |date=2023-07-19 |title=At the core of 'Oppenheimer,' a debate about how to be Jewish |url=https://jweekly.com/2023/07/19/at-the-core-of-oppenheimer-a-debate-about-how-to-be-jewish/ |access-date=2024-01-13 |work=J. |language=en-US}}</ref> This action set into motion a chain of events.<ref>Bundy, ''Danger and Survival'', p. 305.</ref> On December 3, 1953, Eisenhower, after consulting with Strauss and others, ordered a "blank wall" between Oppenheimer and all areas of government.<ref>Rhodes, ''Dark Sun'', pp. 534–535.</ref> On December 21, Strauss told Oppenheimer that his security clearance had been suspended, pending resolution of a series of charges outlined in a letter from [[Kenneth D. Nichols]], general manager of the AEC.<ref>Rhodes, ''Dark Sun'', pp. 536–538.</ref><ref>Stern, ''The Oppenheimer Case'', pp. 231–233.</ref> Rather than resign, Oppenheimer requested a hearing.<ref>Rhodes, ''Dark Sun'', p. 538.</ref> Upon Strauss's request, FBI director Hoover ordered full surveillance on Oppenheimer and his attorneys, including tapping of phones;<ref name="bernstein-115">Bernstein, "Sacrifices and Decisions", p. 115.</ref> these wiretaps were illegal.<ref name="darksun-539"/><ref>McMillan, ''Ruin of J. Robert Oppenheimer'', pp. 11–12.</ref>

The hearing was held in April and May 1954, before an AEC Personnel Security Board.<ref>Pfau, ''No Sacrifice Too Great'', pp. 160–161, 169, 172.</ref> Strauss selected the three-man board, headed by [[Gordon Gray (politician)|Gordon Gray]].<ref>Bernstein, "Sacrifices and Decisions", pp. 116–117.</ref> He also picked the person who would lead the case against Oppenheimer, the trial attorney [[Roger Robb]].<ref name="Pfau, pp. 159">Pfau, ''No Sacrifice Too Great'', pp. 159–160.</ref><ref>Stern, ''The Oppenheimer Case'', pp. 242n, 243n.</ref> Strauss had access to the FBI's information on Oppenheimer, including his conversations with his lawyers, which was used to prepare counterarguments against those lawyers in advance.<ref name="darksun-539">Rhodes, ''Dark Sun'', p. 539.</ref><ref name="Pfau, pp. 159"/> Strauss was not present at the hearings, instead reading daily transcripts.<ref name="pfau-171">Pfau, ''No Sacrifice Too Great'', p. 171.</ref>

At the hearing, many top scientists, as well as government and military figures, testified on Oppenheimer's behalf.<ref>Stern, ''The Oppenheimer Case'', p. 301.</ref><ref name="pfau-171"/>  Physicist [[Isidor Isaac Rabi]] stated that the suspension of the security clearance was unnecessary: "he is a consultant, and if you don't want to consult the guy, you don't consult him, period."<ref>Rhodes, ''Dark Sun'', pp. 558–559.</ref><ref>McMillan, ''Ruin of J. Robert Oppenheimer'', pp. 206–207.</ref><ref>Bird and Sherwin, ''American Prometheus'', p. 527.</ref>

Oppenheimer, however, admitted that he had previously lied to a military counterintelligence officer about a conversation his friend [[Haakon Chevalier]] had had with him about passing nuclear secrets to the Soviets.<ref>Stern, ''The Oppenheimer Case'', pp. 282–284.</ref><ref>Pfau, ''No Sacrifice Too Great'', pp. 170–171.</ref> He also admitted that he had stayed with Chevalier only the previous December.<ref>McMillan, ''Ruin of J. Robert Oppenheimer'', p. 205.</ref> [[Leslie Groves]], the former director of the Manhattan Project, testified that under the stricter security criteria in effect in 1954, he "would not clear Dr. Oppenheimer today".<ref>Stern, ''The Oppenheimer Case'', p. 288.</ref>

At the conclusion of the hearings, Oppenheimer's clearance was revoked by a 2–1 vote of the board.<ref>Hewlett and Holl, ''Atoms for Peace and War'', p. 98.</ref>  They unanimously cleared Oppenheimer of disloyalty, but a majority found that 20 of the 24 charges were either true or substantially true and that Oppenheimer would represent a security risk.<ref>Stern, ''The Oppenheimer Case'', pp. 376, 380–381.</ref>  Then on June 29, 1954, the AEC upheld the findings of the Personnel Security Board, by a 4–1 decision, with Strauss writing the majority opinion.<ref>Stern, ''The Oppenheimer Case'', pp. 412–413.</ref>  In that opinion, Strauss stressed Oppenheimer's "defects of character", "falsehoods, evasions and misrepresentations", and past associations with Communists and people close to Communists as the primary reasons for his determination.<ref>Stern, ''The Oppenheimer Case'', pp. 413, 415–418.</ref><ref>Pfau, ''No Sacrifice Too Great'', p. 179.</ref> He did not comment on Oppenheimer's loyalty.<ref>Stern, ''The Oppenheimer Case'', pp. 414–415.</ref>

Oppenheimer was thus stripped of his clearance: one day before it would have expired,<ref>McMillan, ''Ruin of J. Robert Oppenheimer'', p. 197.</ref> and seven months after it had been suspended on the orders of the president.<ref>Pfau, ''No Sacrifice Too Great'', p. 156.</ref>

The successor agency to the AEC later ruled that the hearing was "a flawed process that violated the Commission's own regulations."<ref name="EN-20221216">{{cite press release |date=December 16, 2022 |title=Secretary Granholm Statement on DOE Order Vacating 1954 Atomic Energy Commission Decision In the Matter of J. Robert Oppenheimer |url=https://www.energy.gov/articles/secretary-granholm-statement-doe-order-vacating-1954-atomic-energy-commission-decision |access-date=December 17, 2022 |publisher=U.S. Department of Energy}}</ref> The loss of his security clearance ended Oppenheimer's role in government and policy.<ref>Hewlett and Holl, ''Atoms for Peace and War'', p. 110.</ref> Oppenheimer returned to his directorship at the Institute of Advanced Studies, but  Strauss, who was still on the board of trustees there, attempted to have him dismissed.<ref>Pfau, ''No Sacrifice Too Great'', p. 180.</ref> However, in October 1954, the board voted to keep Oppenheimer on.<ref>McMillan, ''Ruin of J. Robert Oppenheimer'', p. 251.</ref> In the years that followed, Strauss still hoped to remove Oppenheimer, but never got the votes on the board he needed.<ref>Bird and Sherwin, ''American Prometheus'', p. 580.</ref>

In the wake of the AEC decision, public opinion and most scientists were firmly against Strauss.<ref>Pfau, ''No Sacrifice Too Great'', pp. 180–181.</ref> Nearly 500 of the scientists at Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory signed a petition saying "this poorly founded decision ... will make it increasingly difficult to obtain adequate scientific talent in our defense laboratories."<ref name="lanl-jaeggli">{{cite news | url=https://discover.lanl.gov/news/0602-ribes-petition/ | title=The petition that sought to clear Oppenheimer's name | author-first=Mia | author-last=Jaeggli | publisher=Los Alamos National Laboratory | date=June 2, 2022 | access-date=August 24, 2023}}</ref>  Strauss responded by first sending a letter to the petitioners saying that they were not trying to quash the expression of professional opinions &ndash; "We certainly do not want 'yes men' in the employ of the Atomic Energy Commission" &ndash; and followed that with a July 1954 visit to the laboratory to try to mollify the scientists.<ref name="tnm-obu"/><ref name="lanl-jaeggli"/> An editorial in ''[[The New Mexican]]'' newspaper  nicknamed Strauss's efforts as "Operation Butter-Up".<ref name="tnm-obu">{{cite news | url=https://www.newspapers.com/image/584928965/?terms=strauss%20%22operation%20butter-up%22&match=1 | title=Operation Butter-Up | newspaper=The New Mexican | location=Santa Fe | date=July 18, 1954 | page=14 | via=Newspapers.com}}</ref>

In 2022, [[Jennifer Granholm]], the [[United States Secretary of Energy]] – head of the successor organization to the AEC – vacated the 1954 revocation of Oppenheimer's security clearance.<ref name="NYT-20221216">{{cite news |last=Broad |first=William J. |date=December 16, 2022 |title=J. Robert Oppenheimer Cleared of 'Black Mark' After 68 Years |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/16/science/j-robert-oppenheimer-energy-department.html |newspaper=The New York Times}}</ref> Her decision was not based on revisiting the merits of the case against Oppenheimer, but rather on the flawed processes in the hearings that had violated the AEC's own regulations.<ref name="granholm-order">{{cite web |last=Granholm |first=Jennifer M. |author-link=Jennifer Granholm |date=December 16, 2022 |title=Secretarial Order: Vacating 1954 Atomic Energy Commission Decision: ''In the Matter of J. Robert Oppenheimer'' |url=https://www.energy.gov/sites/default/files/2022-12/S1%20Oppenheimer%20Order%2012.12.22%20signed%20by%20S1%2012-16-2022.pdf |access-date=August 12, 2023 |publisher=U.S. Department of Energy}}</ref> Historian [[Alex Wellerstein]] states that Strauss had been a major culprit in those process violations.<ref name="ns-wellerstein">{{cite web |author-last=Wellerstein |author-first=Alex |date=December 21, 2022 |title=Oppenheimer: Vacated but not Vindicated |url=https://blog.nuclearsecrecy.com/2022/12/21/oppenheimer-vacated-but-not-vindicated/ |access-date=August 26, 2023 |publisher=Nuclearsecrecy.com}}</ref>

=== Secretary of Commerce nomination ===
[[Image:President Eisenhower lays the cornerstone of the new Atomic Energy Commission building in Germantown, HD.3C.001 (13406014683).jpg|thumb|President Eisenhower lays the cornerstone of the new AEC building in Germantown, Maryland, in 1957 as AEC chairman Strauss (right) observes]]
Strauss's term as [[United States Atomic Energy Commission|Atomic Energy Commission (AEC)]] chair completed at the end of June 1958.<ref name=Buck/> Eisenhower wanted to reappoint him,<ref>Pfau, ''No Sacrifice Too Great'', p. 215.</ref> but Strauss feared the Senate would reject or at least subject him to ferocious questioning.<ref name="baker-4">Baker, "A Slap at the 'Hidden-Hand Presidency{{'"}}, p. 4.</ref> Besides the Oppenheimer affair, he had clashed with Senate Democrats on several major issues, including his autocratic nature as AEC chair and his secretive handling of the [[Dixon–Yates contract]].<ref>Young and Schilling, ''Super Bomb'', pp. 147, 189n78.</ref> That contract involved a supply of electrical power in Tennessee without going through the [[Tennessee Valley Authority]] and Strauss had embarked on discussions about the idea without informing his fellow commissioners.<ref>Hewlett and Holl, ''Atoms for Peace and War'', pp. 128–130.</ref> The plan itself was controversial and eventually became a losing issue for Republicans in the [[1954 United States elections|1954 U.S. midterm elections.]]<ref name="Pfau, p. 187"/>  Strauss had stated to an interviewer in late 1954, "For the first time in my life, I have enemies."<ref>Pfau, ''No Sacrifice Too Great'', pp. 180, 188.</ref> By the end of the 1950s, Strauss had garnered the reputation, as a ''[[Time (magazine)|Time]]'' magazine profile put it, of being "one of the nation's ablest and thorniest public figures".<ref name="Time"/>

Eisenhower offered him the post of [[White House Chief of Staff]] to replace [[Sherman Adams]] but Strauss did not think it would suit him.<ref name="pfau-223">Pfau, ''No Sacrifice Too Great'', p. 223.</ref> Eisenhower also asked if Strauss would consider succeeding [[John Foster Dulles]] (who was ill) as [[United States Secretary of State|Secretary of State]] but Strauss did not want to preempt Undersecretary [[Christian Herter]], who was a good friend.<ref name="pfau-223"/>

[[Image:Lewis Lichtenstein Strauss pers0164.jpg|thumb|upright|Strauss, c. 1959]]
Finally, Eisenhower proposed nominating Strauss as [[Secretary of Commerce]] and Strauss concurred. With the [[1958 United States Senate elections]] imminent, Eisenhower announced the choice on October 24.<ref>Pfau, ''No Sacrifice Too Great'', p. 225.</ref> Strauss took office via a [[recess appointment]],<ref name="Time"/> effective November 13, 1958.<ref name="miller"/> However, Senate opposition to his nomination was as strong as a renewed AEC term. This was surprising, given the high level of experience Strauss had, the relative lack of prominence of the Commerce post compared to some other cabinet positions and the tradition of the Senate deferring to presidents to choose the cabinet heads they wanted.<ref name="baker-1">Baker, "A Slap at the 'Hidden-Hand Presidency{{'"}}, p. 1.</ref> Indeed, at the time the previous thirteen nominees for this Cabinet position had won Senate confirmation in an average of eight days.<ref name="Time">{{cite news | url=https://content.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,892639,00.html | title=The Administration: The Strauss Affair | magazine=Time | date=June 15, 1959 | access-date=September 3, 2020 | archive-date=January 26, 2021 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210126155548/http://content.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,892639,00.html | url-status=live }}</ref> Due to a long-running feud between the two,<ref name="y-s-147">Young and Schilling, ''Super Bomb'', p. 147.</ref> Senator [[Clinton Anderson]] of New Mexico took up the cause of preventing Strauss's confirmation by the Senate. Anderson found an ally in Senator [[Gale W. McGee]] on the [[Senate Commerce Committee]], which had jurisdiction over Strauss's confirmation.<ref name="Time"/>

During and after the Senate hearings, McGee charged Strauss with "a brazen attempt to hoodwink" the committee.<ref name="Time"/> Strauss also overstated his role in the development of the H-bomb, implying that he had convinced Truman to support it. Truman was annoyed by this and sent a letter to Anderson undermining Strauss's claim, a letter that Anderson promptly leaked to the press.<ref>Young and Schilling, ''Super Bomb'', p. 148.</ref> Strauss attempted to reach Truman through an intermediary to rescue the situation but was rebuffed and felt bitter at the lack of support.<ref>Young and Schilling, ''Super Bomb'', pp. 148–150.</ref> A group of scientists who were still upset over the role Strauss had played in the Oppenheimer hearings lobbied against confirmation, playing upon the pronunciation of their target's name by calling themselves the Last Straws Committee.<ref name="y-s-150"/> Physicist [[David L. Hill]], the former chairman of the [[Federation of American Scientists]], was one of several scientists who testified before the Commerce Committee against Strauss's nomination, saying that "most of the scientists in this country would prefer to see Mr. Strauss completely out of the Government".<ref name="U.S. Government Printing Office 1959 p. 430">{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=n0a7jG7KlN8C&pg=PA430 |title=Nomination of Lewis L. Strauss: Hearings, Eighty-sixth Congress, First Session, on the Nomination of Lewis L. Strauss to be Secretary of Commerce. March 17–18, April 21, 23, 28–30, May 1, 4–8, 11, 13–14, 1959 |publisher=U.S. Government Printing Office |year=1959 |page=430 }}</ref><ref>{{Cite news |date=May 18, 1959 |title=The Administration: The Inquisition |language=en-US |magazine=Time |url=https://content.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,869032-2,00.html |issn=0040-781X |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230918112939/https://content.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,869032-2,00.html |archive-date=September 18, 2023 |url-status=live}}</ref>

After sixteen days of hearings the Senate Commerce Committee recommended Strauss's confirmation to the full Senate by a vote of 9–8.<ref name="Time"/> By now the struggle was in the forefront of the national political news,<ref>Pfau, ''No Sacrifice Too Great'', p. 230.</ref> with a ''Time'' cover story calling it "one of the biggest, bitterest, and in many ways most unseemly confirmation fights in Senate history".<ref name="Time"/> In preparation for the floor debate on the nomination, the Democratic majority's main argument against the nomination was that Strauss's statements before the committee included semi-truths and outright falsehoods and that under tough questioning Strauss tended towards ambiguous responses and engaging in petty arguments.<ref name="Time"/> Despite an overwhelming Democratic majority, the [[86th United States Congress]] was not able to accomplish much of its agenda since the President had immense popularity and a [[Veto power in the United States|veto]].<ref name="Time"/> With [[1960 United States elections|the 1960 elections]] approaching, congressional Democrats looked for issues on which they could demonstrate their institutional strength in opposition to Eisenhower.<ref name="baker-2">Baker, "A Slap at the 'Hidden-Hand Presidency{{'"}}, p. 2.</ref> On June 19, 1959, just after midnight, the Strauss nomination failed by a vote 46–49.<ref>{{cite news | url=https://content.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,864639,00.html | title=The Congress: Sharp Image | magazine=Time | date=June 29, 1959 | access-date=August 29, 2020 | archive-date=March 2, 2021 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210302120417/http://content.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,864639,00.html | url-status=live }}</ref> Voting for Strauss were 15 Democrats and 31 Republicans, voting against him were 47 Democrats and 2 Republicans.<ref name="upi-bitter"/> The nays included future U.S. presidents [[John F. Kennedy]] and [[Lyndon B. Johnson]].<ref>{{cite news | url=https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/kennedy-strauss-nomination-oppenheimer/ | title=Did JFK Oppose Lewis Strauss' Cabinet Nomination? | author-first=Jordan | author-last=Liles | publisher=Snopes | date=July 31, 2023}}</ref>

It marked only the eighth instance in U.S. history in which [[Unsuccessful nominations to the Cabinet of the United States|a Cabinet appointee had failed to be confirmed by the Senate]]<ref name="miller"/> and it was the first time since [[Charles B. Warren]] in 1925,<ref name="upi-bitter">{{cite news | url=https://cdnc.ucr.edu/?a=d&d=MT19590619.2.7&e=-------en--20--1--txt-txIN--------1 | title=Ike Bitterly Raps Senate on Rejection: 'People Are Losers' in Strauss Refusal | agency=United Press International | newspaper=Madera Daily News-Tribune | date=June 19, 1959 | access-date=September 26, 2020 | archive-date=March 16, 2022 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220316125011/https://cdnc.ucr.edu/?a=d&d=MT19590619.2.7&e=-------en--20--1--txt-txIN--------1 | url-status=live }}</ref> and would be the last one until [[John Tower]] in 1989.<ref name="sen-def">{{Cite web | url=https://www.senate.gov/about/powers-procedures/nominations/cabinet-nomination-defeated.htm | title=Cabinet Nomination Defeated: June 19, 1959 | publisher=United States Senate | access-date=August 31, 2019 | archive-date=August 15, 2020 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200815175957/https://www.senate.gov/about/powers-procedures/nominations/cabinet-nomination-defeated.htm | url-status=live }}</ref> President Eisenhower, who had invested both personal and professional capital in the nomination of Strauss,<ref name="Time"/> spoke of the Senate action in bitter terms, saying that "I am losing a truly valuable associate in the business of government. ... it is the American people who are the losers through this sad episode."<ref name="upi-bitter"/> Strauss sent a letter of resignation from his recess appointment as Commerce Secretary on June 23, a resignation that took effect on June 30, 1959.<ref>{{cite web | url =  https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/node/235098 | title =  Dwight D. Eisenhower, Letter Accepting Resignation of Secretary of Commerce Strauss | date =  June 27, 1959 | work = The American Presidency Project | publisher = Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley | access-date = July 23, 2023}}</ref>

==Final years==
[[Image:Admiral Strauss Speaking at Hoover Library Dedication.jpg|thumb|right|Strauss speaking at the dedication of the Herbert Hoover Presidential Library in 1962]]
The Commerce defeat effectively ended Strauss's government career.<ref name="pfau-242"/> The numerous enemies that Strauss had made during his career took some pleasure from the turn of events.<ref name="y-s-150">Young and Schilling, ''Super Bomb'', p. 150.</ref> Strauss himself was hurt by the rejection and, never fully getting over it,<ref name="pfau-242">Pfau, ''No Sacrifice Too Great'', p. 242.</ref> tended to brood over events past.<ref name="bernstein-120">Bernstein, "Sacrifices and Decisions", p. 120.</ref>

Strauss published his memoir, ''Men and Decisions'', in 1962.<ref name="time-memoirs"/> At the time, ''Time'' magazine's review said they "may now remind readers of [Strauss's] many real accomplishments before they were obscured by political rows."<ref name="time-memoirs">{{cite news | url=https://content.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,827513,00.html | title=Books: The Rewards of Doggedness | magazine=Time | date=July 27, 1962 | access-date=August 29, 2020 | archive-date=March 2, 2021 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210302100614/http://content.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,827513,00.html | url-status=live }}</ref> The book sold well, spending fifteen weeks on the [[The New York Times Best Seller list|''New York Times'' Best Seller]] for non-fiction and rising as high as number five on that list.<ref>See entries at the Hawes Publications site for [http://www.hawes.com/1962/1962-07-29.pdf the week of July 29, 1962] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210305043941/http://www.hawes.com/1962/1962-07-29.pdf |date=March 5, 2021 }}, its first week on the list, through [http://www.hawes.com/1962/1962-11-11.pdf the week of November 11, 1962] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210305034300/http://www.hawes.com/1962/1962-11-11.pdf |date=March 5, 2021 }}, its last. Retrieved November 1, 2020.</ref> The general view of historians is that the memoirs were self-serving.<ref name="bernstein-120"/>

[[Image:Eulogy of Herbert Hoover read over NBC-TV - NARA - 187137.tif|thumb|upright=0.75|Handwritten text of eulogy read by Strauss over NBC television following the death of former President Hoover in 1964]]
The tie between Herbert Hoover and Strauss remained strong throughout the years; in 1962 Hoover wrote in a letter to Strauss: "Of all the men who have come into my orbit in life, you are the one who has my greatest affections, and I will not try to specify the many reasons, evidences or occasions."<ref>Wentling, "Herbert Hoover and American Jewish non-Zionists", p. 378n2.</ref> Strauss assisted in the organizing of support for the [[Barry Goldwater 1964 presidential campaign]].<ref name="miller"/> He also remained on good terms with President Eisenhower and for several years in the 1960s Eisenhower and Strauss advocated construction of a nuclear-powered, regional [[desalination]] facility in the Middle East that would benefit both Israel and its Arab neighbors but the plan never found sufficient Congressional support to move forward.<ref>Pfau, ''No Sacrifice Too Great'', p. 246.</ref>

During his retirement Strauss devoted time to philanthropic activities<ref name="nyt-obit"/> and to the [[American Jewish Committee]], the [[Jewish Theological Seminary of America]] and the [[Alliance Israélite Universelle]].<ref name="jta-obit">{{cite news | url=http://pdfs.jta.org/1974/1974-01-23_016.pdf?_ga=2.224453468.716644199.1595717379-1604222689.1595717379 | title=Lewis L. Strauss, Former AEC Chairman, Dead at Age 77 | agency=Jewish Telegraphic Agency | work=Daily News Bulletin | date=January 23, 1974 | page=3 | access-date=July 26, 2020 | archive-date=July 26, 2020 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200726105619/http://pdfs.jta.org/1974/1974-01-23_016.pdf?_ga=2.224453468.716644199.1595717379-1604222689.1595717379 | url-status=live }}</ref> He helped arrange a no-interest loan to fund a congregation building for the Los Alamos Jewish Center.<ref name="j-howtobe"/> He lived on a {{Convert | 2000 | acre | adj = on | sigfig = 1}} farm,<ref name="ap-obit">{{cite news | url=https://www.newspapers.com/image/302274905/?terms=lewis%2Bstrauss%2B%22great%2Bwars%2Bare%2Bover%22%2B%22black%2Bangus%22 | title=Adm. Lewis Strauss, 77, dead of cancer | agency=Associated Press | newspaper=The Miami News | date=January 22, 1974 | page=13A | via=Newspapers.com | access-date=July 24, 2020 | archive-date=July 24, 2020 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200724223202/https://www.newspapers.com/image/302274905/?terms=lewis%2Bstrauss%2B%22great%2Bwars%2Bare%2Bover%22%2B%22black%2Bangus%22 | url-status=live }}</ref> where he engaged in cattle breeding<ref>McMillian, ''Ruin of J. Robert Oppenheimer'', p. 260.</ref> and raised prized [[Black Angus]].<ref name="upi-obit">{{cite news | url=https://www.newspapers.com/image/157183287/?terms=lewis%2Bstrauss | title=Ex-AEC chief Lewis Strauss dies | agency=United Press International | newspaper=The Morning News | location=Wilmington, Delaware | date=January 22, 1974 | page=33 | via=Newspapers.com | access-date=July 24, 2020 | archive-date=July 25, 2020 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200725030355/https://www.newspapers.com/image/157183287/?terms=lewis%2Bstrauss | url-status=live }}</ref> A book he was working on about Herbert Hoover was never completed.<ref name="nyt-obit"/>

After battling [[lymphosarcoma]] for three years,<ref>Pfau, ''No Sacrifice Too Great'', pp. 247–248.</ref> Strauss died of it on January 21, 1974, at his home, the Brandy Rock Farm in [[Brandy Station, Virginia]].<ref name="nyt-obit"/> His funeral was held in New York at Temple Emanu-El and there was also a memorial service held in the capital at [[Washington Hebrew Congregation]].<ref>{{cite news | url=https://www.newspapers.com/image/162386006/?terms=lewis%2Bstrauss | title=Lewis Strauss is dead at 77 | agency=Associated Press | newspaper=The Journal News | location=White Plains, New York | date=January 22, 1974 | page=2A | via=Newspapers.com | access-date=July 24, 2020 | archive-date=July 24, 2020 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200724223200/https://www.newspapers.com/image/162386006/?terms=lewis%2Bstrauss | url-status=live }}</ref> He is buried in [[Hebrew Cemetery (Richmond, Virginia)|Richmond Hebrew Cemetery]] along with more than sixty other family members.<ref>{{cite web | url=https://www.dhr.virginia.gov/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/127-6166_HebrewCem_2006_NRfinal.pdf | title=National Register of Historic Places: Hebrew Cemetery Richmond, Virginia: Continuation Sheet | publisher=U.S. Department of the Interior | date=March 22, 2006 | pages=15–16 | access-date=July 25, 2020 | archive-date=July 25, 2020 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200725151249/https://www.dhr.virginia.gov/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/127-6166_HebrewCem_2006_NRfinal.pdf | url-status=live }}</ref>

Alice Hanauer Strauss lived until 2004, when she died at age 101 in Brandy Station.<ref name="nyt-alice-notice">{{cite news | url=https://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/08/classified/paid-notice-deaths-strauss-alice-hanauer.html | title=Paid Notice: Deaths Strauss, Alice Hanauer | newspaper=The New York Times | date=December 8, 2004 | access-date=August 3, 2020 | archive-date=March 16, 2022 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220316125002/https://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/08/classified/paid-notice-deaths-strauss-alice-hanauer.html | url-status=live }}</ref>

== Legacy ==
The Oppenheimer matter quickly became a [[cause célèbre]], with Strauss frequently being cast in the role of villain.<ref name="cinc-enq">{{cite news | url=https://www.newspapers.com/image/104743155/?terms=lewis%2Bstrauss%2Bvillain | title=Who's To Blame In AEC Storm? Davis Sifts Facts | author-first=Forrest | author-last=Davis | newspaper=The Cincinnati Enquirer | date=June 14, 1954 | page=1 | via=Newspapers.com | access-date=July 26, 2020 | archive-date=July 27, 2020 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200727054655/https://www.newspapers.com/image/104743155/?terms=lewis%2Bstrauss%2Bvillain | url-status=live }}</ref> This was an image that would persist in both the near term<ref name="y-s-144">Young and Schilling, ''Super Bomb'', p. 144.</ref> and the long term.<ref name="young-4">Young, "Strauss and the Writing of Nuclear History", p. 4.</ref> Strauss had his defenders as well, who saw the hero and villain roles as being reversed.<ref name="cinc-enq"/> Such polarized assessments followed Strauss for much of his career.<ref name="Time"/>

Even such matters as the unusual, Southern-based pronunciation of his surname could be perceived as a puzzling artificiality.<ref name="y-s-150"/> In a 1997 essay in the ''[[New York Times Book Review]]'' commenting on the Oppenheimer matter, literary critic [[Alfred Kazin]] claimed Strauss "pronounced his own name 'Straws' to make himself sound less Jewish".<ref name="nytbr-kazin">{{cite news | url=https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/books/97/11/30/bookend/bookend.html | title=Missing Murray Kempton | author-first=Alfred | author-last=Kazin | work=The New York Times Book Review | date=November 30, 1997 | access-date=October 31, 2020 | archive-date=November 6, 2020 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201106082750/https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/books/97/11/30/bookend/bookend.html | url-status=live }}</ref> Strauss, however, had been prominent in Jewish causes and organizations throughout his life,<ref>Rhodes, ''Dark Sun'', pp. 402–403.</ref> and this charge was implausible.<ref>{{cite news | url=https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/weekly-standard/alfred-kazin-clutches-at-strauss | title=Alfred Kazin Clutches at Strauss | magazine=The Weekly Standard | date=December 15, 1997 | access-date=October 31, 2020 | archive-date=March 16, 2022 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220316125001/https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/weekly-standard/alfred-kazin-clutches-at-strauss | url-status=live }}</ref> Indeed, Strauss's papers take up seventy-six boxes in the archives of the [[American Jewish Historical Society]]; the executive director of that organization has remarked that, "I'm not gonna say he is a member of more Jewish organizations than any historical figure I've ever seen, but he's up there."<ref name="j-howtobe">{{cite news |last=Grisar |first=P. J. |date=July 19, 2023 |title=At the core of 'Oppenheimer,' a debate about how to be Jewish |url=https://jweekly.com/2023/07/19/at-the-core-of-oppenheimer-a-debate-about-how-to-be-jewish/ |access-date=January 13, 2024 |work=J. The Jewish News of Northern California|language=en-US}}</ref> 

Strauss's personality was not simply categorized; a mid-1950s interviewer, political scientist [[Warner R. Schilling]], found him bland and courteous in one session but prickly and temperamental in a second session.<ref name="y-s-144"/> As [[Alden Whitman]]'s front-page obituary of Strauss for the ''[[New York Times]]'' stated,

{{blockquote|For about a dozen years at the outset of the atomic age Lewis Strauss, an urbane but sometimes thorny former banker with a gifted amateur's knowledge of physics, was a key figure in the shaping of United States thermonuclear policy. ... In the years of his mightiest influence in Washington, the owlish‐faced Mr. Strauss puzzled most observers. He was, on the one hand, a sociable person who enjoyed dinner parties and who was adept at prestidigitation; and, on the other hand, he gave the impression of intellectual arrogance. He could be warm-hearted yet seem at times like a stuffed shirt. He could make friends yet create antagonisms.<ref name="nyt-obit">{{cite news | url=https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1974/01/22/97464598.html | title=Lewis Strauss Dies; Ex-Head of A.E.C. | author-first=Alden | author-last=Whitman | newspaper=The New York Times | date=January 22, 1974 | pages=1, 64 | access-date=July 24, 2020 | archive-date=March 16, 2022 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220316125030/https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1974/01/22/97464598.html?pageNumber=1 | url-status=live }}</ref>}}

At the start of his 1962 memoir, Strauss states his belief that "the right to live in the social order established [at the American founding] is so priceless a privilege that no sacrifice to preserve it is too great."<ref name="memoirs-1"/> This sentiment became the basis of the title of, and the interpretative framework for, ''No Sacrifice Too Great'', historian [[Richard Pfau]]'s 1984 authorized biography of Strauss.<ref name="bernstein-108">Bernstein, "Sacrifices and Decisions", p. 108.</ref> In it, Pfau criticizes Strauss's conduct in the Oppenheimer affair, but presents it as the acts of a man with integrity who felt compelled to do what was necessary to protect the nation.<ref>{{cite journal | title= Review: Lewis Strauss | author-first=Robert D. | author-last=Cuff | journal=Science | volume= 230 | number= 4732 | date=December 20, 1985 | pages= 1370–1371 | jstor=1696995 }}</ref> Historian [[Barton J. Bernstein]] disagrees with this approach, saying that the framework is too generous and that Pfau errs in "seeing Strauss as a man of great integrity (Strauss's own claim) rather than as a man who used such claims to conceal sleazy behavior."<ref name="bernstein-108"/>

Decades after his death, historians continue to examine Strauss's records and actions. Scholar of the early Cold War period [[Ken Young]] studied the historiography of H-bomb development and scrutinized the role that Strauss played in trying to form that history to his benefit.<ref>Young, "Strauss and the Writing of Nuclear History", pp. 3, 5, 6–7.</ref> In particular, Young looked at the publication during 1953 and 1954 of a popular magazine article and book that promoted a highly distorted notion that the hydrogen bomb project had been unreasonably stalled, both before Truman's decision and after, by a small group of American scientists working against the national interest; also that Strauss was one of the heroes who had overcome this cabal's efforts.<ref>Young and Schilling, ''Super Bomb'', pp. 133–143.</ref> Young points to circumstantial archival evidence that Strauss was behind both publications and may well have given classified information to the book authors involved ([[James R. Shepley]] and [[Clay Blair Jr.]]).<ref>Young and Schilling, ''Super Bomb'', pp. 144–147.</ref> Historian [[Priscilla Johnson McMillan]] has identified archival evidence which suggests to some degree that Strauss was in collusion with Borden, the former congressional staff member whose letter had triggered the Oppenheimer security hearing.<ref>McMillan, ''Ruin of J. Robert Oppenheimer'', pp. 173, 175–176, 301n9, 301n13.</ref> McMillan also argues that following that letter, Strauss was likely behind Eisenhower's "blank wall" directive to separate Oppenheimer from nuclear secrets.<ref>McMillan, ''Ruin of J. Robert Oppenheimer'', p. 302n7.</ref>

Oppenheimer biographers [[Kai Bird]] and [[Martin J. Sherwin]] state that Strauss's decision to publish the transcript of the Oppenheimer security hearing even though witnesses had been promised their testimony would remain secret, rebounded against him in the long run, as the transcript showed how the hearing had taken the form of an inquisition.<ref>Bird and Sherwin, ''American Prometheus'', pp. 546–547.</ref>

In 2023, Bernstein stated that evidence developed in the prior two decades that Oppenheimer had been a secret member of the Communist Party partially vindicated Strauss. "Strauss was devious, thin-skinned, mean-spirited, and even vicious in helping to do in Robert Oppenheimer. But on some important matters—in even somewhat suspecting Oppenheimer’s political past—Strauss was not unreasonable."<ref>{{Cite web |last=Bernstein |first=Barton J. |date=July 11, 2023 |title=Christopher Nolan's Forthcoming 'Oppenheimer' Movie: A Historian's Questions, Worries, and Challenges |url=https://www.washingtondecoded.com/site/2023/07/bernstein.html#fn25 |access-date=August 28, 2023 |publisher=Washington Decoded}}</ref>

==Awards and honors==
For his European relief work during and after World War I, Strauss was decorated by six nations.<ref name="nyt-active"/> These honors included the [[Order of Leopold (Belgium)|Chevalier, Belgian Order of Leopold I]], the [[Order of the White Rose of Finland|First Class Commander of the White Rose of Finland]], and the [[Order of the Star of Romania|Chevalier, Star of Roumania]].<ref name="v-distinguished">{{cite book | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=PqPuNO3wC50C&pg=PA198 | title=Virginians of Distinguished Service of the World War | editor-first=Authur Lyle | editor-last=Davis | publisher=State of Virginia | location=Richmond | date=1923 | page=198 | access-date=October 24, 2020 | archive-date=March 16, 2022 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220316125002/https://books.google.com/books?id=PqPuNO3wC50C&pg=PA198 | url-status=live }}</ref> He received a similar medal from Poland.<ref name="v-distinguished"/> Per a biographical account presented in the ''[[Congressional Record]]'', he was also awarded the Grand Officer level of the [[Legion of Honour]] of France.<ref name="cr-2"/>

[[Image:Lewis Strauss receives Medal of Freedom from President Eisenhower.png|thumb|right|Strauss receiving the Medal of Freedom from President Eisenhower in 1958, with his wife Alice by his side]]
Strauss, then with the rank of captain, was awarded a [[Legion of Merit]] by the Navy in September 1944 for his work on Navy requirements regarding contract termination and disposal of surplus property.<ref name="nyt-reward">{{cite news | url=https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1944/09/08/83995333.html | title=Navy Rewards Work of Lewis Strauss | newspaper=The New York Times | date=September 8, 1944 | page=7 | access-date=July 26, 2020 | archive-date=March 16, 2022 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220316125003/https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1944/09/08/83995333.html?pageNumber=7 | url-status=live }}</ref> At the war's end he received an [[Oak leaf cluster|Oak Leaf Cluster—Army]] in lieu of a second such award, for his work in coordinating procurement processes.<ref name="valor">{{cite web | url=https://valor.militarytimes.com/hero/300464 | title=Lewis L. Strauss | publisher=The Hall of Valor Project | access-date=December 2, 2020 | archive-date=January 18, 2021 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210118233115/https://valor.militarytimes.com/hero/300464 | url-status=live }}</ref> A [[5/16 inch star|Gold Star—Navy]] in lieu of a third award was given in 1947, for his work during and after the war as a special assistant to the Navy secretary and on joint Army–Navy industrial mobilization boards.<ref name="valor"/> Finally in 1959 he received a Gold Star in lieu of a fourth award, this time for his work on atomic energy as it benefited the Navy as a source of power and ship propulsion.<ref name="valor"/> He also received the [[Navy Distinguished Service Medal]].<ref name="Time"/>
On July 14, 1958, Strauss was presented with the [[Medal of Freedom (1945)|Medal of Freedom]], a civilian honor, by President Eisenhower.<ref name="balt-sun"/> The award was for "exceptional meritorious service" in the interest of the national security in his efforts towards both military and peaceful uses of nuclear energy.<ref name="balt-sun">{{cite news | url=https://www.newspapers.com/image/375917211/?terms=lewis%20strauss%20%22medal%20of%20freedom%22&match=1 | title=J. A. McCone Sworn in as Head of AEC | author-first=Rodney | author-last=Crowther | newspaper=The Baltimore Sun | date=July 15, 1958 | page=2 | via=Newspapers.com | access-date=December 3, 2020 | archive-date=March 16, 2022 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220316125006/https://www.newspapers.com/image/375917211/?terms=lewis+strauss+%22medal+of+freedom%22&match=1 | url-status=live }}</ref>

Strauss received a number of honorary degrees during his lifetime;  indeed his advocates during the Secretary of Commerce confirmation hearings gave twenty-three as the number of colleges and universities that had awarded him such honors.<ref name="cr-2">{{cite book | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=sw1gr_gHYEUC&pg=PA11186 | title=Congressional Record: Proceedings and Debates of the 86th Congress, First Session | volume=105 | publisher=U.S. Government Printing Office | date=1959 | page=11186 | access-date=October 25, 2020 | archive-date=March 16, 2022 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220316125006/https://books.google.com/books?id=sw1gr_gHYEUC&pg=PA11186 | url-status=live }}</ref> These include, among others, an Honorary LL.D. from the [[Jewish Theological Seminary of America]] in 1944,<ref>{{cite news | url=https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1944/10/23/102295322.html | title=Jewish Seminary Holds Graduation | newspaper=The New York Times | date=October 23, 1944 | page=30 | access-date=October 25, 2020 | archive-date=March 16, 2022 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220316125051/https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1944/10/23/102295322.html?pageNumber=30 | url-status=live }}</ref> a Doctor of Humane Letters from [[Case Institute of Technology]] in 1948,<ref>{{cite web | url=https://earchives.lib.purdue.edu/digital/collection/puhistphot/id/606 | title=President F. L. Hovde and others | publisher=Purdue University | access-date=October 4, 2020 | archive-date=September 20, 2020 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200920214059/https://earchives.lib.purdue.edu/digital/collection/puhistphot/id/606/ | url-status=live }}</ref>
a Doctor of Laws from [[Carnegie Institute of Technology]] in 1956,<ref>{{cite news | url=http://digitalcollections.library.cmu.edu/awweb/awarchive?type=file&item=75595 | title=59th Commencement—1956 | magazine=Carnegie Alumnus | date=September 1956 | page=2ff | access-date=October 25, 2020 | archive-date=February 25, 2021 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210225184457/http://digitalcollections.library.cmu.edu/awweb/awarchive?type=file&item=75595 | url-status=live }}</ref> a Doctor of Science from the [[University of Toledo]] in 1957,<ref>{{cite web | url=https://www.utoledo.edu/offices/provost/academic-honors-committee/honorary%20degree.html | title=Honorary Degrees | publisher=University of Toledo | access-date=October 4, 2020 | archive-date=October 25, 2020 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201025055946/https://www.utoledo.edu/offices/provost/academic-honors-committee/honorary%20degree.html | url-status=live }}</ref> 
and a Doctor of Science from [[Union College]] in 1958.<ref>{{cite web | url=https://www.union.edu/sites/default/files/academic-affairs/201809/list-past-honorary-degree-recipients.pdf | title=Past Honorary Degree Recipients | publisher=Union College | access-date=October 4, 2020 | archive-date=October 28, 2020 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201028204907/https://www.union.edu/sites/default/files/academic-affairs/201809/list-past-honorary-degree-recipients.pdf | url-status=live }}</ref>

Strauss served on boards of directors for several corporations, one of which was the [[United States Rubber Company]].<ref name="ap-obit"/> He was a trustee of the [[Hampton Institute]], a [[Historically black colleges and universities|historically black university]] in Virginia, as well as of the [[Memorial Hospital for the Treatment of Cancer and Allied Diseases]] in New York.<ref name="nyt-rockb"/> Due to donations made to the [[Medical College of Virginia]], a research building there was named after him.<ref>{{cite news | url=https://issuu.com/mcvfoundation/docs/chronicle__winter_2010-11 | title=Chronicle of Giving | publisher=VCU Medical Center | date=Winter 2010–2011 }}</ref> He was a founding trustee of [[Eisenhower College]], for which he had assisted in the planning and raising funds.<ref>{{cite news | url=https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1967/11/03/83249381.html | title=College Honors Lewis L. Strauss | newspaper=The New York Times | date=November 3, 1967 | page=24 | access-date=October 27, 2020 | archive-date=March 16, 2022 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220316125043/https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1967/11/03/83249381.html?pageNumber=24 | url-status=live }}</ref> In 1955, Strauss received a silver plaque from the Men's Club of Temple Emanu-El for "distinguished service"; President Eisenhower sent a message to the ceremony saying the honor was well-deserved.<ref>{{cite news | url=http://pdfs.jta.org/1955/1955-01-20_014.pdf?_ga=2.228061019.716644199.1595717379-1604222689.1595717379 | title=Lewis Strauss Honored by Temple Emanu-el; Lauded by Eisenhower | agency=Jewish Telegraphic Agency | work=Daily News Bulletin | date=January 20, 1955 | page=6 | access-date=July 26, 2020 | archive-date=July 26, 2020 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200726105617/http://pdfs.jta.org/1955/1955-01-20_014.pdf?_ga=2.228061019.716644199.1595717379-1604222689.1595717379 | url-status=live }}</ref>

The [[List of covers of Time magazine (1950s)|cover of ''Time'' magazine]] featured Strauss twice. The first was in 1953 when he was AEC chair and the nuclear arms race was underway,<ref>{{cite web | url=https://content.time.com/time/covers/0,16641,19530921,00.html | title=Lewis L. Strauss – Sep. 21, 1953 | publisher=Time website | access-date=August 17, 2020 | archive-date=February 19, 2020 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200219162638/http://content.time.com/time/covers/0,16641,19530921,00.html | url-status=live }}</ref> and the second was in 1959 during his Secretary of Commerce confirmation process.<ref>{{cite web | url=https://content.time.com/time/covers/0,16641,19590615,00.html | title=Lewis Strauss – June 15, 1959 | publisher=Time website | access-date=August 17, 2020 | archive-date=March 2, 2021 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210302111052/http://content.time.com/time/covers/0,16641,19590615,00.html | url-status=live }}</ref>

==In media==
Strauss is played by [[Phil Brown (actor)|Phil Brown]] in the 1980 [[BBC]] miniseries ''[[Oppenheimer (TV series)|Oppenheimer]]'',<ref>{{cite web | url=https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0078037/fullcredits/?ref_=tt_cl_sm | title= Oppenheimer (1980): Full Cast & Crew | publisher=IMDb | access-date=July 21, 2023}}</ref> and by [[Robert Downey Jr.]] in [[Christopher Nolan|Christopher Nolan's]] 2023 film ''[[Oppenheimer (film)|Oppenheimer]]''.<ref>{{cite news|url=https://time.com/6295742/oppenheimer-review/|magazine=Time|author-last=Zacharek | author-first= Stephanie|title=''Oppenheimer'' Dazzles With Its Epic Story of a Complicated Patriot|language=en-US|url-status=live|date=July 19, 2023|access-date=July 20, 2023|archive-date=July 20, 2023|archive-url=https://archive.today/20230720143848/https://time.com/6295742/oppenheimer-review/}}</ref> Downey received the [[Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor#2020s|Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor]] for his portrayal.<ref>{{cite news | url=https://www.nbc.com/nbc-insider/oscars-2024-oppenheimer-star-robert-downey-jr-wins-best-supporting-actor | title=Oscars 2024: Robert Downey Jr. Wins Best Supporting Actor for Oppenheimer | first=Josh | last=Weiss | publisher=NBC | date=March 10, 2014 | access-date=May 10, 2024}}</ref>

==See also==
*[[Unsuccessful nominations to the Cabinet of the United States]]

==Writings==
* Strauss, Lewis L. ''Men and Decisions'' (Garden City, New York: Doubleday & Company, 1962).

==Bibliography==
* {{cite journal | title=A Slap at the 'Hidden-Hand Presidency': The Senate and the Lewis Strauss Affair | author-first=Richard Allan | author-last=Baker | journal=Congress & the Presidency | volume=14 | issue=1 | date=Spring 1987 | pages=1–16 | doi=10.1080/07343468709507964 | url=https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/07343468709507964 |ref=none| url-access=subscription }}
* {{cite journal | title=Sacrifices and Decisions: Lewis L. Strauss | author-first=Barton J. | author-last=Bernstein | author-link=Barton Bernstein | journal=The Public Historian | volume= 8 | issue=2 | date=Spring 1986  | pages= 105–120 | doi=10.2307/3377436 | jstor=3377436 |ref=none}}
* {{cite book |last1=Bird |first1=Kai |author-link=Kai Bird|first2=Martin J. |last2=Sherwin |author-link2=Martin J. Sherwin |title=American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer|location=New York|publisher=Alfred A. Knopf|year=2005|isbn=978-0-375-41202-8 |oclc=56753298 |title-link=American Prometheus |ref=none}}
* {{cite book | author-first=McGeorge | author-last=Bundy | author-link=McGeorge Bundy | title=Danger and Survival: Choices About the Bomb in the First Fifty Years | publisher=Random House | location=New York | date=1988 | isbn=0-394-52278-8 |ref=none}}
* {{cite book | author-last=Feingold | author-first=Henry L. | title=The Politics of Rescue: The Roosevelt Administration and the Holocaust, 1938–1945 | publisher=Rutgers University Press | location=New Brunswick, New Jersey | date=1970 | isbn=978-0-8135-0664-7 | url=https://archive.org/stream/politicsofrescue00henr?ref=ol#mode/2up |ref=none}}
* {{cite book |last1=Hewlett |first1=Richard G. |author-link=Richard G. Hewlett |last2=Holl |first2=Jack M. |title=Atoms for Peace and War, 1953–1961 Eisenhower and the Atomic Energy Commission |series=A History of the United States Atomic Energy Commission |publisher=Pennsylvania State University Press |location=University Park, Pennsylvania |year=1989 |url=http://energy.gov/sites/prod/files/2013/08/f2/HewlettandHollAtomsforPeaceandWarComplete.pdf |isbn=0-520-06018-0 |oclc=82275622 |ref=none}}
* {{cite book | title=Stalin and the Bomb: The Soviet Union and Atomic Energy, 1939–1956 | author-first=David | author-last=Holloway | publisher=Yale University Press | location=New Haven, Connecticut | date=1994 | url=https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300066647/stalin-and-bomb | isbn=0-300-06056-4 |ref=none}}
* {{cite book | author-last=McMillan | author-first=Priscilla Johnson | author-link=Priscilla Johnson McMillan | title=The Ruin of J. Robert Oppenheimer and the Birth of the Modern Arms Race | publisher=Viking | location=New York | year= 2005 | url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/57342111 | isbn=0-670-03422-3 | oclc=57342111 |ref=none}}
* {{cite journal | last=Maddock | first=Shane | title=The Fourth Country Problem: Eisenhower's Nuclear Nonproliferation Policy | journal=Presidential Studies Quarterly | volume=28 | number= 3 | date=Summer 1998 | pages= 553–572 | jstor=27551901 | url=http://www.jstor.org/stable/27551901 |ref=none}}
* {{cite book | title=Atomic Audit: The Costs and Consequences of U.S. Nuclear Weapons since 1940 | editor-first=Stephen I. | editor-last=Schwartz | publisher=Brookings Institution Press | location=Washington, D.C. | date=1998 | url=https://www.brookings.edu/book/atomic-audit/ | isbn=0-8157-7773-6 | chapter=Victims of the Bomb | author-first=Arjun | author-last=Makhijani | author-link=Arjun Makhijani | author2-first=Stephen I. | author2-last=Schwartz | pages=395–432 |ref=none}}
*{{Cite book
  | last = Pfau
  | first = Richard
  | title = No Sacrifice Too Great: The Life of Lewis L. Strauss
  | publisher = University Press of Virginia
  | year = 1984
  | location = Charlottesville, Virginia
  | isbn =978-0-8139-1038-3
  | ref = none
}}
*{{cite book
  | last = Rhodes
  | first = Richard
  | author-link=Richard Rhodes
  | title = The Making of the Atomic Bomb
  | title-link = The Making of the Atomic Bomb
  | place = New York
  | publisher = Simon and Schuster
  | year = 1986
  | isbn =0-671-44133-7
  | ref = none
}}
*{{cite book
  | last = Rhodes
  | first = Richard
  | title = Dark Sun: The Making of the Hydrogen Bomb
  | place = New York
  | publisher = Simon and Schuster
  | year = 1995
  | isbn = 0-684-80400-X
  | url = https://archive.org/details/darksunmakingofh00rhod
  | ref = none
}}
* {{cite book | title=U. S. Navy Bureau of Ordnance in World War II | author-first= Buford | author-last=Rowland | author2-first=William B. | author2-last=Boyd | publisher=U.S. Government Printing Office | location=Washington, D.C. | date=1953 | url=https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uc1.b3907811&view=1up&seq=5 |ref=none}}
* {{cite book|author-last=Stern|author-first=Philip M.|title=The Oppenheimer Case|url=https://archive.org/details/oppenheimercases00sterrich|location=New York|publisher=Harper & Row|year=1969 }}
* {{cite journal | title='The Engineer and the Shtadlanim': Herbert Hoover and American Jewish non-Zionists, 1917–28 | author-first=Sonja P. | author-last=Wentling | journal=American Jewish History | volume=88 | issue=3 | date=September 2000 | pages= 377–406 | doi=10.1353/ajh.2000.0058 | jstor=23886392 | s2cid=161722695 |ref=none}}
* {{cite journal | title=The Hydrogen Bomb, Lewis L. Strauss and the Writing of Nuclear History | author-first=Ken | author-last=Young | author-link=Ken Young | journal=Journal of Strategic Studies | volume=36 | issue= 6 | date=2013 | pages=815–840 | doi=10.1080/01402390.2012.726924 | s2cid=154257639 | url=https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/01402390.2012.726924 |ref=none| url-access=subscription }} 
* {{cite book | author-first=Ken | author-last=Young | title=The American bomb in Britain: US Air Forces' strategic presence, 1946–64 | publisher=Manchester University Press | location=Manchester | date=2016 | url=https://manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk/9780719086755/ | isbn=978-0-7190-8675-5 |ref=none}}
* {{cite book | author1-first=Ken | author1-last=Young | author2-first=Warner R. | author2-last=Schilling | author-link2=Warner R. Schilling | title=Super Bomb: Organizational Conflict and the Development of the Hydrogen Bomb | publisher=Cornell University Press | location=Ithaca, New York | date=2019 | url=https://www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/9781501745164/super-bomb | isbn=978-1-5017-4516-4 |ref=none}}

== References ==
{{reflist}}

==External links==
{{Wikiquote}}
* [https://hoover.archives.gov/research/collections/manuscriptcollections Lewis L. Strauss Papers at the Hoover Presidential Library], link no longer given
** {{usurped|1=[https://web.archive.org/web/20100107054338/http://www.ecommcode2.com/hoover/research/historicalmaterials/hmother.html Strauss, Lewis L.: Papers, 1914–74]}} 
** {{usurped|1=[https://web.archive.org/web/20100907073022/http://www.ecommcode2.com/hoover/research/historicalmaterials/other/strauss/stramain.htm Lewis L. Strauss Papers, Scope and Content Note]}}
** [https://hoover.blogs.archives.gov/2023/07/24/strauss-and-oppenheimer/ "Lewis Strauss and Robert Oppenheimer"], blog entry at the Herbert Hoover Library and Museum
*[http://alsos.wlu.edu/qsearch.aspx?browse=people/Strauss,+Lewis Annotated bibliography for Lewis Strauss from the Alsos Digital Library for Nuclear Issues] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060828130242/http://alsos.wlu.edu/qsearch.aspx?browse=people%2FStrauss%2C+Lewis |date=August 28, 2006 }}
*[http://findingaids.cjh.org/?pID=109200 Guide to the Papers of Admiral Lewis Lichtenstein Strauss (1896–1974)] at the [[American Jewish Historical Society]], New York.
* [https://www.nrc.gov/docs/ML1613/ML16131A120.pdf Full text of "too cheap to meter" speech], at Nuclear Regulatory Commission site
* [http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=11125 Dwight D. Eisenhower, Remarks on Presentation of the Medal of Freedom to Lewis L. Strauss], at The American Presidency Project site

{{s-start}}
{{s-legal}}
{{s-bef|before=[[Sinclair Weeks]]}}
{{s-ttl|title=[[United States Secretary of Commerce]]<br>{{small|Acting}}|years=1958–1959}}
{{s-aft|after=[[Frederick H. Mueller|Frederick Mueller]]}}
{{s-end}}

{{AEC Chairs}}
{{USSecCommerce}}
{{Eisenhower cabinet}}
{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Strauss, Lewis}}
[[Category:1896 births]]
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