George H. Bucher ^{1 2}

  Noted events in his life were:

1. Census in 1900 in Sunbury, Northumberland, PA. ² On Front Street in Sunbury was John B. Bucher, clerk in commissioners office, 39, born Jan 1861, married for 13 years to Hellera H., 44, born Dec 1855. She had birthed two children by 1900, both living with them: George H., 11, born Jul 1888; and Frances E., 8, born Sep 1891. Everyone and their parents were born in Pennsylvania.

2. Residence: in 1934 in Nutley, Essex, NJ. ¹

3. Newspaper: The Sunbury Item, 26 Apr 1934, Sunbury, Northumberland, PA. Headline: Sunburian Elected Westinghouse Head

Subheadline: George H. Bucher, member of Prominent Sunbury Family Named to Chief Executive Post of Gigantic Company in Charge of Entire Export Business - Long Identified with Company in Foreign Field

George H. Bucher, native of this city, was elected president of the Westinghouse Electric International Company at a meeting of the company at New York yesterday. As president and general manager he will continue headquarters in New York.

He is the son of Mr. and Mrs. John B. Bucher, of 912 N. Front street of this city, and a brother of Francis E. Bucher, prominent Sunbury automobile dealer and proprietor of Bucher's garage on S. Front street.

He has been connected with the Westinghouse organization since September 1, 1909. After graduating from Pratt Institute, Brooklyn, in both steam and machine design and also electrical engineering, Mr. Bucher joined the Westinghouse Electric and Manufacturing Company at East Pittsburgh as a Graduate Student. In 1911 he was transferred to the Export Department at new York and in 1920 he was appointed assistant to the General Manager of the Westinghouse Electric International Company; in 1921 he was promoted to the position of Asst. General Manager and in 1932 to the position of vice president and general manager of the same company.

He is a member of the American Institute of Electrical Engineers, Engineers Club and Lawyers Club.

He graduated from Sunbury high school with the class of 1906 and entered Pratt Institute in the fall of that year. He married Bertha Rhoads, daughter of Mrs. Walton F. Rhoads, of Arch street. Her father, now deceased, was cashier of the First National Bank of Sunbury. They have four daughters and one son. One daughter, Martha, will graduate from Columbia this spring. Another, Ruth, is a student at New Jersey College for Women. The other children are at the family home at Hampton Place, Nutley, N. J., near Newark.

The company which Mr. Bucher heads handles all the business of the company outside of the United States. He is head of the various factories of the company in Norway, Italy, France, England, and other countries. This requires his frequent absence from America. He has been several times in Europe, Japan, Philippines, Mexico and South America. The company has representatives in every part of the globe.

He is also a director of the Westinghouse Company, handling the geneal business of the corporation.

He makes occasional trips with his family to Sunbury, his most recent visit being several weeks ago. His daughters spend part of each summer here.

4. Newspaper: 24 Feb 1938, Sunbury, Northumberland, PA. ¹ Headline: George H. Bucher Named President of Westinghouse

Subheadline: City native Rises from Obscure Post of Coil Winder to Head of One of the Nation's Biggest Electric Companies

George H. Bucher, city native and executive vice president of the Westinghouse Electric & Manufacturing Company, became president of the company Wednesday, it was announced today.

Frank A. Merrick, president since 1929 was elected vice chairman. The announcement was made by A. W. Robertson, chairman, following a meeting of the board of directors at that company's New York offices, 150 Broadway.

Paul Judson Myler, president of the Canadian Westinghouse Company, became a director of the Westinghouse Electric and Manufacturing Company at the same meeting.

Mr. Bucher and Mr. Merrick have both been with the Westinghouse Company for many years. As a member of the graduate students' training course, Mr. Bucher who today became President began his work with the company on September 1, 1909, in an assembly aisle in its huge East Pittsburgh plant. He worked successfully as a coil winder, as a worker in the transformer assembly, and as a motor generator tester. He began at a wage of 18 cents an hour. By the end of the second year his wage had been increased to 20 cents an hour.

Born in Sunbury, Mr. Bucher was graduated from Sunbury high school before he entered Pratt Institute, Brooklyn, to study machine design and electrical engineering. His first job was with the Westinghouse Electric and Manufacturing Company. His first efforts to make a connection with Westinghouse were unfruitful, but the young engineer persisted. He explains: "They got tired of me saying no, so they hired me." He was first a coil winder. Two years later he was transferred, as a clerk, to the then relatively unimportant Export Department of the company, which has since become the Westinghouse Electric International Company. Interested in the problems of electrification in Japan, he pushed the work there with the result that Westinghouse had a major part in modernizing that county.

In 1920 he was appointed assistant to the general manager of the Westinghouse Electric International Company, and a year later, 1921, assistant general manager. This position he held until 1932, when he was elected vice president and general manager.

The year 1934 brought further progress in his career; he was elected president and general manager of the International Company. The following year he became a vice president of the parent company, the Westinghouse Electric & Manufacturing Company. He is married, has four daughters and a son. Until recently, he lived at Nutley, N.J.

Mr. Bucher is the son of John B. Bucher, of North Front street and a brother of Francis E. Bucher, Sunbury garage proprietor. His wife is the former Bertha Rhoads, daughter of Mrs. Mary C. Rhoads, of North Front street. Both are of families which are among the oldest in Sunbury.

John B. Bucher, now recovering from extended illness, for years has been an authority on local history. Mrs. Bucher's father, the late Walton F. Rhoads, was cashier of the First National Bank of Sunbury.

5. Book: The Manhattan Project: The Making of the Atomic Bomb, 1999. ⁴
On April 12, only weeks before Germany's unconditional surrender on May 7, President Roosevelt died suddenly in Warm Springs, Georgia, bringing Vice President Harry S. Truman, a veteran of the United States Senate, to the presidency. Truman was not privy to many of the secret war efforts Roosevelt had undertaken and had to be briefed extensively in his first weeks in office.

One of these briefings, provided by Secretary of War Stimson on April 25, concerned S-1 (the Manhattan Project). Stimson, with Groves present during part of the meeting, traced the history of the Manhattan Project, summarized its status, and detailed the timetable for testing and combat delivery. Truman asked numerous questions during the forty-fiverninute meeting and made it clear that he understood the relevance of the atomic bomb to upcoming diplomatic and military initiatives.

By the time Truman took office, Japan was near defeat. American aircraft were attacking Japanese cities at will. A single fmebomb raid in March killed nearly 100,000 people and injured over a million in Tokyo. A second air attack on Tokyo in May killed 83,000. Meanwhile, the United States Navy had cut the islands' supply lines. But because of the generally accepted view that the Japanese would fight to the bitter end, a costly invasion of the home islands seemed likely, though some American policy makers held that successful combat delivery of one or more atomic bombs might convince the Japanese that further resistance was futile.

The Interim Committee Report

On June 6 Stimson again briefed Truman on S-1. The briefing summarized the consensus of an Interim Committee meeting held on May 31. The Interim Committee was an advisory group on atomic research composed of Bush, Conant, Compton, Under Secretary of the Navy Ralph A. Bard, Assistant Secretary of State William L. Clayton, and future Secretary of State James F. Bymes. Oppenheimer, Fermi, Compton, and Lawrence served as scientific advisors (the Scientific Panel), while Marshall represented the military. A second meeting on June 1 with Walter S. Carpenter of DuPont, James C. White of Tennessee Eastman, George H. Bucher of Westinghouse, and James A. Rafferty of Union Carbide provided input from the business side. The Interim Committee was charged with recommending the proper use of atomic weapons in wartime and developing a position for the United States on postwar atomic policy. The May 31 meeting concluded that the United States should try to retain superiority of nuclear weapons in case international relations detenorated!5 Most present at the meeting thought that the United States should protect its monopoly for the present, though they conceded that the secrets could not be held long. It was only a matter of time before another country, presumably Russia, would be capable of producing atomic weapons.

George married Bertha Irene Rhoads, daughter of Walton Francis Rhoads and Mary Catherine Cooper. (Bertha Irene Rhoads was born on 4 Mar 1887 in , , PA ³ and died in Dec 1976 in Pittsburgh, Allegheny, PA ³.)