John "Jack" Lansdale, Jr.
1912 - 2003 (91 years)
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Name John "Jack" Lansdale [1] Suffix Jr. Birth 9 Jan 1912 Oakland, Alameda Co., California 
[2, 3, 4] Baptism 14 Jul 1912 All Soul's Church, Berkeley, Alameda Co., California Gender Male 
Census1920 Los Angeles, California Census1930 Houston, Harris Co., Texas Graduation 1933 Virginia Military Institute, Lexington, Rockbridge Co., Virginia - With a degree in English
Graduation 1936 Harvard Univ., Cambridge, Middlesex Co., Massachusetts - Law degree
Census1940 3265 Chalfant Rd., Shaker Heights, Cuyahoga Co., Ohio Census1950 3245 Chadbourne Rd., Shaker Heights, Cuyahoga Co., Ohio [5] Military Service He entered and stayed in the army reserves after VMI. At the start of the war he determined to answer if called up, and was. He wrote this in a letter to JL Sr, June 10, 1941:
"I am in the army now--and on my way to Columbus for some reason which is unknown to me--it is a completely useless thing since I have had my physical exam."
Military duty was to begin for him on June 12. After this date, his letterhead moves from Squire Sanders to "War Department, War Department General Staff, Military Intelligence G-2, Washington."
He was soon assigned to be Chief of Security for the Manhattan Project, working under General Leslie Groves. During the course of his work on the Project he became a colonel. During the Alsos mission in 1945 he uncovered hundreds of tons of uranium ore stockpiled for the Nazi bomb project. After the war was awarded, among other honors, the Legion of Merit and the Order of the British Empire, Degree 4 Commander, for his work. In the 1950s he defended his work, and his clearance of Oppenheimer, before the McCarthy inquiries, at which he was appalled.Namesake John Lansdale, Sr. Obituary Obituary, The Guardian, 19 Sept. 2003:
An aspect of the second world war that has long mystified military analysts is the absence of any signs of an early committed espionage effort by the Americans to discover the extent of Nazi progress in the development of an atomic bomb.
When, however, in the closing months of the war, the US intelligence service did react, it launched a mixed American and British strike force, under Lieutenant Colonel John Lansdale, who has died aged 91, to capture the German scientists and their stocks of uranium ore from under the noses of the advancing Soviet forces, and smuggle them out of Europe. Yet Lansdale had no record as the kind of action man needed for such an adventure.
Born in Oakland, California, he took a BA at the Virginia Military Institute and a law degree at Harvard University. In 1936, he joined the law firm of Squire, Sanders & Dempsey, first in Cleveland and later in Washington, until he was recruited into the army after the US entered the war.
The events that were to link him to the race for the atomic bomb began in 1942. That September, the US war department created the Manhattan Project, under Brigadier General Leslie Groves, to build a vast array of secret pilot plants, laboratories, manufacturing facilities and a weapons test site to develop the atomic bomb, at the then astronomical cost of $2bn.
Appointed as the project's head of security and intelligence, Lansdale became one of Groves's righthand men - and often the mediator in bitter disputes between the military and industrial people on the one side and the atomic physicists on the other. Groves was a career soldier - he was already deputy chief of construction for the entire US army - and recognised as having an aggressive, authoritarian temperament.
Before the Manhattan Project was launched, atomic weapons work had been largely theoretical, being based on fundamental experiments at several major universities by a handful of brilliant physicists, many of them exiles from Europe. Although divided philosophically about the ethics of developing an atomic weapon, they were united in a belief that the scientists should remain in charge. The Manhattan Project was the moment that they lost control, and their role changed from being on top to being on tap.
In addition to managing a team to vet security clearance for the largest secret project in history, Lansdale found himself interceding in bitter clashes between the military and science. Probably the most acrid of the many disputes he had to resolve erupted between Groves and the exiled Hungarian physicist and mercurial genius, Leo Szilard.
Szilard had fled from Nazi Germany to England in 1933 and, the following year, had taken out a patent on nuclear energy as an energy source. He went to America in 1938 to continue his work at Columbia University. When he learned of the progress being made in Germany on the fission of uranium, he approached Albert Einstein so the two could write and warn President Roosevelt of the possibility of atomic bombs.
Together with Enrico Fermi, Szilard organised in Chicago the first fission reactor that showed, in 1942, how to produce weapons grade plutonium 239. After that, his metamorphosis into a key member of the Manhattan Project was a given. But he constantly broke the rules with his criticisms of the project, and his views differed sharply from Groves's. It was an inevitable collision between one man's obsession with security and the other's dedication to scientific openness.
When Szilard threw his patent on fission into the argument, as giving him rights to a greater say in development work, Groves exploded. Lansdale negotiated a truce, but never succeeded in reducing the intense dislike between the two men, and the distrust that the soldier had for the scientist. The degree to which Lansdale's team maintained watertight security over the project for three years was a tour de force.
When Groves did turn his attention to looking at intelligence of Germany's nuclear effort, he picked a team of scientists with no links to the Manhattan Project, and gave them the codename Alsos - meaning "grove" in Greek.
In April 1945, as allied and Soviet troops were pushing through Germany on their way to Berlin, the Alsos force was sent to track down the enemy's atomic bomb project and its nuclear scientists before they could fall into the hands of the Soviet Union.
Lansdale led a raid on a factory in Stassfurt, northern Germany, where he suspected the Germans had a cache of bomb materials. He found about 1,100 tons of ore - some in the form of uranium oxide, the raw material of atomic bombs - and, in less than a week, had smuggled a number of German scientists, including Werner Heisenberg and Otto Hahn, out of Europe, together with the uranium ore.
In the mid-1950s, Lansdale was called before Congress to testify about his approval, 10 years earlier, of the appointment of J Robert Oppenheimer as head of the Manhattan Project's scientific team. Oppenheimer had been accused of being a communist, and his security clearance had been revoked. Outraged at this treatment, Lansdale ardently defended his former colleague as a loyal American citizen.
In 1987, he retired from the law firm, to which he had returned after the war. His wife died in 2001, and he is survived by five daughters.
— John Lansdale, lawyer and security chief, born January 9 1912; died August 22 2003Occupation lawyer for Squire, Sanders, and Dempsey in Cleveland, OH Religion Episcopal Death 22 Aug 2003 "Essex", Anne Arundel Co., Maryland Burial All Hallows Chapel, Davidsonville, Anne Arundel Co., Maryland [6, 7] - The service was held at Christ Episcopal Church in West River, MD. https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/7800173/john_mannen_lansdale
Patriarch & Matriarch 
Lansdale
d. Bef 1700, England (6 x Great Grandfather) 
Margaret Thompson
b. 20 Feb 1773, Virginia
d. 4 Jun 1833, Bracken Co., Kentucky (Age 60 years) (3 x Great Grandmother) Notes - He was baptized John Mannen Lansdale, though his middle name was dropped when his sister was born. Why exactly is unrecorded, but he ever after said that he "gave his name to her." A note by his father in the Lansdale Family Bible says "dropped the 'Mannen' when he was 12 years old and has thereafter been known as John Lansdale Jr."
His father John Lansdale Sr. wrote the following brief bio of his early years (through the war) in J. Harris Franklin's genealogical notebook:
"Graduated from San Jacinto High School, Houston Texas, 1829. Graduated as first distinguished graduate in Liberal Arts, from Virginia Military Institute in June, 1933. At Harvard Law School at this time writing, viz. May 5, 1934. JL." Later, he continues: "Graduated Harvard Law School June 1936. With Law firm Squire, Sanders and Dempsey, Cleveland, Ohio July 1, 1936. Lt. Col. US Army 1943. Col. US Army 1944-1945. Member Law firm of Squire, Sanders and Dempsey from Jan 1, 1946 (after being honorably discharged from the U.S. Army Dec. of 1945). JL."
He was a city Councilman for Shaker Heights, Ohio from 1949 to 1963. He applied to the SAR in 1955, and was a member of the Ohio and then Maryland chapters. [3]
Person ID I11 Last Modified 16 Mar 2025
Father John Lansdale, Sr.
b. 24 Jun 1882, Triadelphia, Montgomery Co., Maryland
d. 2 May 1961, "Essex", Anne Arundel Co., Maryland (Age 78 years) Mother May Hamilton Mannen
b. 3 Mar 1884, Paris, Bourbon Co., Kentucky
d. 5 Aug 1958, "Essex", Anne Arundel Co., Maryland (Age 74 years) Marriage 20 Mar 1911 Oakland, Alameda Co., California Family Charts Group Sheet | Family Chart
Spouse / Partner Metta Virginia Tomlinson
b. 4 Sep 1913, Bellville, Austin Co., Texas
d. 31 Oct 2001, "Essex", Anne Arundel Co., Maryland (Age 88 years)
Marriage 17 Jun 1936 Trinity Episcopal Church, Houston, Harris Co., Texas Children 5 daughters + 1 
. Private+ 2 . Living+ 3 . Living+ 4 . Private+ 5 . LivingFamily Charts Group Sheet | Family Chart Last Modified 12 May 2025
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Event Map 
Birth - 9 Jan 1912 - Oakland, Alameda Co., California 
Baptism - 14 Jul 1912 - All Soul's Church, Berkeley, Alameda Co., California 
Census - 1920 - Los Angeles, California 
Census - 1930 - Houston, Harris Co., Texas 
Graduation - 1933 - Virginia Military Institute, Lexington, Rockbridge Co., Virginia 
Graduation - 1936 - Harvard Univ., Cambridge, Middlesex Co., Massachusetts 
Marriage - 17 Jun 1936 - Trinity Episcopal Church, Houston, Harris Co., Texas 
Census - 1940 - 3265 Chalfant Rd., Shaker Heights, Cuyahoga Co., Ohio 
Census - 1950 - 3245 Chadbourne Rd., Shaker Heights, Cuyahoga Co., Ohio 
Death - 22 Aug 2003 - "Essex", Anne Arundel Co., Maryland 
Burial - - All Hallows Chapel, Davidsonville, Anne Arundel Co., Maryland = Link to Google Earth Pin Legend 
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Photos Col. John Lansdale, Jr.
Headstones3 Headstones
Histories 
Maryland Family History These are histories of family branches which lived in Maryland.
Obituaries 
At least one living or private individual is linked to this item - Details withheld.
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Reference Pitard, D. "John "Jack" Lansdale, Jr.". Genealogy at Pitard.net. https://ancestors.pitard.net/getperson.php?personID=I11&tree=1sttree (accessed May 16, 2025).
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