Born in Charleston, West Virginia, Lewis Lichtenstein Strauss grew up in modest circumstances and lost the vision in one eye at age ten. Although he hoped to study physics, financial limitations led him instead to early work with Herbert Hoover during World War I, including food relief efforts in Europe.

After the war, Strauss built a successful career at the investment bank Kuhn, Loeb & Co., eventually becoming a partner and self‑made millionaire. His philanthropic interests included funding radium research after his mother’s death from cancer. He also served in the U.S. Navy from 1926 to 1945, rising to the rank of Rear Admiral and earning several military honours.

Strauss became one of the original members of the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) in 1946 and later its chairman in the 1950s. In this role, he was a central figure in the development of nuclear weapons and nuclear power during the early Cold War. He is perhaps most remembered for his role in the 1954 hearings that led to the revocation of J. Robert Oppenheimer’s security clearance, a decision that shaped public debates about science, loyalty, and national security.

His later career included serving as Acting U.S. Secretary of Commerce under President Eisenhower, though his nomination for the permanent post was rejected by the Senate in 1959. Strauss spent his final years largely out of public life and died in 1974 in Virginia, leaving behind a complex legacy intertwined with America’s nuclear age.