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David Lawrence Hill (November 11, 1919 – December 14, 2008) was an American nuclear physicist who worked on the Manhattan Project in World War II and was head of the Federation of American Scientists. He is most known for his 1959 testimony against the nomination of Lewis Strauss as United States Secretary of Commerce.

Hill was born in Booneville, Mississippi. After graduating from the California Institute of Technology in 1942, he joined Enrico Fermi's team at the Metallurgical Laboratory in Chicago, where he remained for the duration of the war. He was one of the team of scientists who built the Chicago Pile, the world's first artificial nuclear reactor. In 1945 he was one of 70 scientists to sign the Szilárd petition asking President Truman to warn the Japanese before the usage of the atomic bomb.

After the war he received his Ph.D. in nuclear physics from Princeton University in 1951. He was an assistant professor at Vanderbilt University and then from 1954 to 1958 worked as a theoretical physicist at the Los Alamos National Laboratory.

In 1959 Hill was chairman of the Federation of American Scientists. In that role he testified before the Commerce Committee of the United States Senate to oppose President Eisenhower's nomination of Lewis Strauss as Secretary of Commerce, saying that "most of the scientists in this country would prefer to see Mr. Strauss completely out of government". Hill accused Strauss of a lack of integrity, an obsessive quest for personal approval, persistent arrogance, and personal vindictiveness. Among issues cited were Strauss' opposition to the shipping of radioisotopes to Norway in 1949 and role in the security hearing that removed Robert Oppenheimer's security clearance. Hill's testimony led to the Senate rejecting Strauss' nomination. This testimony is depicted in the 2023 film Oppenheimer where Hill is portrayed by Rami Malek.

Hill spent the later part of his career working in the private sector, founding research and development companies including Nanosecond Systems Inc., a manufacturer of high-precision measuring equipment, and serving as president of Harbor Research Corp., a patent enforcement and investment company. He had seven children with his wife Mary, who died in 1992.

References

1. Glenn T. Seaborg (1994). The Plutonium Story: The Journals of Professor Glenn T. Seaborg, 1939–1946. Columbus, Ohio: Battelle. p. 152, note 58. ISBN 9780935470758.
2. ^ "David L. Hill". Nuclear Museum. 1942-12-02. Retrieved 2023-07-24.
3. ^ "David Hill *51". Princeton Alumni Weekly. 2016-01-21. Retrieved 2023-07-24.
4. 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. U.S. Government Printing Office. 1959. p. 430. Retrieved 2023-07-24.

• 1919 births
• 2008 deaths
• 20th-century American physicists
• American nuclear physicists
• Manhattan Project people
• Nuclear weapons scientists and engineers
• Scientists from Mississippi
• California Institute of Technology alumni
• Princeton University alumni
• Vanderbilt University faculty