banker Businessman military philanthropist public official
Strauss was born in Charleston, West Virginia, the son of Rosa (Lichtenstein) and Lewis Strauss, a successful shoe wholesaler. At the age of 10, he permanently lost the vision in his right eye in a rock fight, which later disqualified him from normal military service. His family moved to Richmond, Virginia. He was valedictorian of his high school class, but typhoid fever in his senior year made him unable to graduate with his class.
Strauss had planned to study physics at the University of Virginia. When he finally graduated from high school, his family's business had had a downturn, and they could not afford to send him. For the next three years, Strauss worked as a traveling shoe salesman for his father's company. He was the company's top salesman and saved enough money for college tuition.
However, Strauss's mother had also encouraged him to perform some kind of public or humanitarian service. It was 1917. World War I was raging in Europe, and Herbert Hoover was head of the United States Food Administration (USFA). Strauss volunteered to serve without pay as Hoover's assistant. Strauss worked hard and well and soon was promoted to Hoover's private secretary, which he made powerful contacts that would serve him later on. His service with the USFA lasted until 1919.
In 1919, while in Paris, he was offered a position by the banking house Kuhn, Loeb and Company. He married Alice Hanauer, a daughter of one of the partners in 1923, and himself became a partner in 1928. He remained with the company until 1946, while developing other business connections in the leather, rubber, and transportation industries.
Activity on behalf of Jewish concerns found him serving on the executive committee of the American Jewish Comittee, as treasurer to the Jewish Theological Seminary, and as chairman of the Joint Distribution Committee’s relief work in Russia. He also found time for other charitable work on behalf of American children, and for such organizations as the Institute for the Crippled and the Disabled and the Foreign Service Education Foundation. His childhood interest in science was renewed when his parents' death from cancer motivated him to establish a fund for cancer research and to provide backing for work on a surge generator to produce radioactive isotopes in the treatment of cancer.
Having joined the naval reserve in 1926, he was called to active duty in 1941. He also directed the development of the radar proximity fuse, which selects its own target while in flight.
In July 1945, he was promoted to commodore, and in November 1945, President Harry S. Truman appointed him rear admiral; he was one of the few reservists to attain that rank. One year later Truman appointed him to the Atomic Energy Commission, on which he served until 1950 and then again from 1953 to 1958. During his second appointment to the AEC, this time as chairman, he became known for voting against reinstating the security clearance of Robert Oppenheimer, who had been dismissed amid a flurry of controversy.
His endorsement of the construction by Dixon-Yates of a power plant in West Memphis, Arkansas, also came under fire and the project was terminated. In 1958 President Dwight D. Eisenhower nominated him secretary of commerce, but the Senate refused to confirm him, and he left public life. He was the author of a memoir Men and Decisions (1962).
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Lewis Strauss was a conservative Republican.
He married Alice Hanauer.
