The Pentagon: A History

by Steve Vogel

  If you do the job right, it will win the war

  Groves was feeling uncommonly sprightly on the morning of September 17, 1942, despite the hot, muggy late-summer weather. He was scheduled to give routine testimony before the House Military Affairs Committee on a military housing bill, but that had nothing to do with his good mood.

  The day before, Groves had received what he considered “an extremely attractive” offer for duty overseas. He was elated; it was exactly what he wanted. He was already making plans to move Grace and Gwen to a farm in Delaware for the duration of the war. The only thing he needed now was Somervell’s approval. Leaving the hearing room in the House office building after his testimony, Groves ran into Somervell in the corridor outside.

  “About that duty overseas,” Somervell said, “you can tell them no.”

  Groves was stunned. “Why?” he asked.

  Somervell guided Groves to a quiet corner of the hall and spoke in a lowered voice. “The Secretary of War has selected you for a very important assignment, and the President has approved the selection,” Somervell said.

  “Where?”

  “Washington.”

  “I don’t want to stay in Washington,” Groves protested.

  Somervell spoke carefully. “If you do the job right,” he said, “it will win the war.”

  Groves’s spirits sank. “Oh,” he replied, “that thing.”

  Groves knew a bit about “that thing”: a secret project that the Army had taken over earlier in the summer to use uranium to build an atomic bomb of unprecedented power. From what he could tell, the project was a backwater assignment with little prospect of success.

  Somervell read his mind. “You can do it if it can be done,” Somervell said. “See Styer and he will give you the details.”

  Seething, Groves went straight to Styer, who formally notified him that he had been selected to head the Manhattan Project. “That’s impossible,” Groves replied heatedly. “I won’t take it. I was assured that I could go overseas where I have been promised a good job.”

  In Groves’s mind, not only was he being prevented from going overseas, he had been given an assignment that was a distinct comedown from his job overseeing domestic construction in the United States, including the Pentagon. The whole Manhattan Project was not expected to total more than $100 million—an amount Groves typically went through in one week.

  “Who on earth recommended me to the Secretary of War?” Groves demanded of Styer.

  The answer, ultimately, was Somervell. There were Machiavellian considerations, of course, and Groves often speculated about Somervell’s true motives. Groves suspected Somervell was trying to distance himself from the Manhattan Project in case it failed by assigning an officer who was not a “Somervell stooge.” He also theorized Somervell wanted someone who would fall on his sword rather than pass around blame in the event Congress held hearings into the potential debacle.

  In the summer of 1942, the program was unfocused and unguided, mostly theory with few concrete steps taken toward the production of an atomic bomb. Dr. Vannevar Bush, who as director of the Office of Scientific Research and Development was leading the push to develop an atomic bomb, was dissatisfied with the progress. In June, the Army had taken over the program from civilian control, but the man chosen to command it, Colonel James C. Marshall, had not provided the needed vigor and urgency. Bush decided a more aggressive officer was necessary.

  Bush wanted Somervell himself—who better than the Army’s miracle logistics man to drive the Manhattan Project to success?—but that idea went nowhere. Even had Somervell wanted the job, which he did not, Stimson and George Marshall were opposed to losing the services of their dynamic supply chief, particularly with furious preparations under way for the invasion of North Africa.

  Bush’s second choice was Fat Styer, already serving as Bush’s liaison with the Army. Marshall approved, telling Styer that he would have to take the job. But Styer balked at the prospect of leaving his powerful position as Somervell’s deputy to head up a project that was such a long shot. Somervell likewise did not want to lose Styer and tried to talk Marshall out of it. The chief of staff told Somervell he would either have to give up Styer or come up with someone who was “entirely suitable” for the Manhattan Project.

  Styer had a suggestion, having already concluded that Groves was ripe to leave the Construction Division. Styer admired Groves for “the fearlessness with which he tackled difficult jobs.” The Manhattan Project, though headquartered in Washington, would keep Groves on the road much of the time, away from the division engineers. It would be a perfect outlet for his forceful energy. “Somervell and I discussed the matter and decided you would be the victim,” Styer told Groves years later.

  Yet Groves was not selected simply as a convenient way for Somervell to keep Styer and get rid of a talented but overly brusque officer. Somervell respected Groves’s quick mind, telling Stimson and Marshall that if Groves were assigned to the project, within a matter of weeks he would “understand and have a thorough knowledge of all the scientific and technical matters involved.”

  Despite all his speculation, Groves later identified the most important reason Somervell selected him. “Somervell did feel that I was probably more capable than almost anyone he could think of, with respect to seizing hold of new ideas and carrying them forward,” Groves wrote. “[H]e knew that I was one person who would drive the thing forward.”

  The Machiavellian considerations Groves identified likely influenced Somervell’s decision. But ultimately, the reason Groves was chosen to build the atomic bomb was precisely what Somervell whispered to him in their hallway conference on September 17, 1942: If it could be done, Groves would do it.

  Political dynamite

  Groves left Styer’s office, his venom spent. He was resigned to his fate and never looked back. With typical nerve, he wrangled a promise of quick promotion to brigadier general, and he rushed to work.

  Formally taking over the Manhattan Project on September 23, 1942, Groves met that afternoon in Stimson’s office with the secretary of war, George Marshall, Vannevar Bush, Somervell, Styer, and other senior officials. Despite being easily the lowest-ranking man in the room, Groves forcefully and frequently voiced his opinions. Then, abruptly, he rose to his feet, looked at his watch, and asked to be excused; Groves told the startled officials he had to catch a train to Tennessee to inspect a possible site for an atomic plant at a place called Oak Ridge. Somervell and Styer exchanged a grin as Groves left. “You made me look like a million dollars,” a delighted Somervell told Groves upon his return. “I’d told them that if you were put in charge, things would really start moving!”

  PHOTO INSERT I

  Lt. Gen. Brehon Burke Somervell, the “father” of the Pentagon, after assuming command of the Army Services of Supply in 1943. His eyes—“the keenest, shrewdest, most piercing eyes one is likely to meet”—were said to be able to spot red tape before it turned pink. (U.S. Army)

  Col. Leslie R. Groves in 1941. The man who would be chosen to head the Manhattan Project to build an atomic bomb would first oversee the construction of the world’s largest office building. (U.S. Army)

  Builder John McShain with Franklin D. Roosevelt at the president’s home in Hyde Park, N.Y., on August 30, 1941, twelve days before ground was broken on the Pentagon. Roosevelt fancied himself an architect and played a key role in the project, selecting the site and fiddling with the design. (AP, reprinted by permission.)

  The project as seen from the air on October 22, 1941, little over a month after breaking ground. In Section A (left), the first floor forms are in place. In Section B (adjoining), the pile cap forms are ready. (U.S. Army)

  G. Edwin Bergstrom. The chief architect was the man most responsible for the shape of the Pentagon, but he would have to leave before the job was done. (U.S. Army)

  The project seen from overhead on Christmas Eve, 1941. Work on all five sides is visible. (U.S. Army)

  Lt. Col. C
larence Renshaw. Somervell and Groves picked the army officer to head the project because they wanted someone who would not fail. “I wasn’t so sure,” Renshaw later said. (OSD files)

  Maj. Bob Furman in October 1942. The young officer who had dreamed of becoming a builder suddenly found himself in the midst of the largest building construction project in the world. (OSD files)

  The project seen from above the Potomac River on January 29, 1942. (U.S. Army)

  David Witmer, Bergstrom’s chief assistant; Bergstrom; Somervell; J. Paul Groves, job superintendent; Renshaw; and Hauck looking over plans for the building at a design conference after Pearl Harbor. The restrictions on the building’s size were jettisoned after the attack. (U.S. Army)

  Renshaw sent Somervell this aerial shot taken March 5, 1942, showing the structure 40 percent complete. “The section outlined in ink is for May occupancy,” Renshaw wrote Somervell. “We are running a close race with the architect and with our appropriations.”(U.S. Army)

  John McShain, Clarence Renshaw and construction adviser Henry Thompson atop the building during construction. (U.S. Army)

  With cries of “Concrete!” workers on the roof rushed to deliver with wheelbarrows and buggies for a roof pour. (U.S. Army)

  A view of second floor construction. (U.S. Army)

  The limestone facing is erected on the Section E façade. (U.S. Army)

  Gen. George C. Marshall and Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson conferring over a map of Europe soon after moving into the Pentagon in November 1942. (U.S. Army)

  Ides van der Gracht (right), was recruited by Somervell to bring order to the massive design operation. “General, I never even thought of anything as big as this,” van der Gracht told Somervell. “Oh, don’t let that worry you, neither have we,” the general replied. (AOC Archives)

  The Pentagon, as seen from a hill overlooking the black community of Queen City, in April 1942. Within days, the church, businesses, and homes in the foreground would be razed to make way for the building’s road network. (U.S. Army)

  Columns being steam cleaned during construction in April 1942. (U.S. Army)

  Architects and draftsmen work at long rows of drafting tables. “Construction was always on the heels of design,” Renshaw recalled. Sometimes construction was even ahead of design. (U.S. Army)

  An aerial photo from 1944 shows the finished Pentagon. (U.S. Army)

  Hundreds of soldiers sort through Army personnel records in one large basement office in this 1950 photograph. (U.S. Army)

  Messengers use special tricycle carts to navigate the seventeen miles of Pentagon corridors. (U.S. Army)

  Visitors check in with receptionists at big desks in the concourse. “The girls are selected for their good looks, brains, tact, and just ordinary horse sense, and many a male lingers at the counter,” a newspaper reported. (U.S. Army)

  Groves was moving fast with the Manhattan Project, yet he was not done with the Pentagon. At their meeting September 17, he and Styer agreed that Groves would retain personal control of the Pentagon’s construction until the building was finished. The Pentagon project had such a high profile and “was of such great importance” to the Army that he could not drop it, Groves later wrote. “The impact on the reputation of the War Department and of the Corps of Engineers was tremendous.”

  In part, keeping Groves in charge of the Pentagon was a security measure to avoid drawing attention to his assignment to the secret Manhattan Project. “My sudden disappearance from the work on the Pentagon would attract much more notice than would my absence from other Army construction activities,” Groves wrote.

  The second reason was that the Pentagon project was “full of political dynamite,” and Groves was needed to handle Congress. “It would be better for me to continue to carry the responsibility for that job than to pass it on to someone else who was unfamiliar with its past problems and their many political ramifications,” Groves wrote. Another way of putting it is that Groves knew better than anyone where the skeletons lay at the Pentagon.

  Somervell “very heartily approved” of keeping Groves in charge of the project. “I just told him bluntly that there was nobody there that I thought could handle Congress as well as I could, which he knew,” Groves later said.

  They would not have to wait long to put Groves’s services to work.

  One of the worst blunders of the war

  The whole Pentagon project looked fishy to Albert Engel. He summoned Renshaw to his office on Capitol Hill on the morning of September 22 to explain various discrepancies he had uncovered, including how the $8.6 million for access roads and parking included in earlier progress reports had mysteriously disappeared by August. That figure, Engel calculated, should be added to the $49.2 million for the building proper, the $9.5 million being spent by the Public Roads Administration on access highways and bridges to reach the building, and $2.4 million being spent on landscaping. The public should be advised that they were pouring $70 million into a project of “doubtful value” instead of the $35 million initially promised, Engel told Renshaw. He was further incensed that the reports were all stamped confidential.

  Engel had also homed in on the sweetheart deal with the two Virginia contractors. McShain was supplying more than 90 percent of the manpower for the job while Doyle & Russell and Wise had insignificant roles. It was obvious, Engel told Renshaw, that the Virginia contractors were on the project “purely for political reasons.”

  Renshaw could barely get a word in edgewise. “Engel talked at me for two hours this morning,” Renshaw complained after the meeting. He raised the alarm at Construction Division headquarters that Engel was on a rampage.

  For some reason, Groves had seemed “sort of disinterested” in construction business over the last few days, noted his aide, Major Matthias, who, like most officers in the Construction Division, knew nothing yet of the Manhattan Project assignment. However, the news about Engel got Groves’s attention in a hurry. “Groves is very much concerned about this,” Matthias told Renshaw that afternoon.

  Renshaw replied that it would do no good to cover up the costs anymore. Engel, he had concluded, was “smart enough to know if you’re trying to withhold anything.”

  Groves thought differently. He wanted the money being paid for outside architects and engineers—now about $1.6 million, or six times higher than estimated—deducted from the next Pentagon progress report. “He doesn’t think anybody will pick that up,” Matthias told Renshaw.

  But it was too late for Groves’s number games. Representative Lane Powers, a New Jersey Republican Appropriations Committee member and Somervell confidant, spoke with Engel on the afternoon of September 22, trying to head off disaster. “Why don’t you give Bill Somervell a ring and sit down with him?” Powers suggested.

  “I don’t owe Somervell a goddamned thing,” Engel replied.

  Immediately after his conversation with Engel, Powers warned Renshaw that Engel was going to go public on the floor of the House with his investigation. “I think he’s going to probably get a half hour some day, and get up and just blow the whole thing,” Powers told Renshaw over the telephone. “[O]f course he can yank the thing around where it’ll make a hell of a good newspaper story.”

  He was right about that. On Thursday, October 1, the congressman took the floor of the House, a shock of gray hair standing on end. In grim tones over the next forty minutes he outlined his findings: The Pentagon project would cost $70 million, twice what Congress had authorized, and the building had grown to a staggering six million gross square feet. The Virginia contractors, he continued, had done little to earn their fee of more than $200,000. The War Department had used censorship to cover up a “shameful squandering” of money.

  Engel ridiculed the War Department’s claim that the amount of office space in the building was a military secret. “If there is going to be any bombing, the Japs certainly are not going to come over here and measure a building that covers 42 acres of ground before they start any bombing,” h
e said. “They are going to bomb it whenever they can and wherever they can.”

  Engel placed the blame for the whole matter squarely on two men: Franklin D. Roosevelt and Brehon B. Somervell. “There is no evidence that the President has taken one step…to prevent some of the shameful waste of the taxpayers’ and bondbuyers’ money,” Engel declared. As for Somervell, Engel said, the general had “violated the mandate” of Congress by ignoring the cost limits.

  Somervell’s reliable ally, Clifton Woodrum of Virginia, rose to defend the general and the president, as well as the Virginia contractors. But Engel gave no quarter. “He is known as a two-fisted, forthright debater, and yesterday he was unsparing in his denunciation of the Administration for the expenditures in connection with the War Department Building,” the Washington Times-Herald reported.

  At Somervell’s order, Groves coordinated the response to Engel’s attack. Groves conferred with Renshaw and McShain to figure ways of refuting the claims. To his relief and amusement, Engel had not criticized him; indeed his speech praised Groves for his management of the project and said the building was well-constructed. Engel had figured out a lot but never realized Groves’s role in trying to hide the costs of the Pentagon.