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In 1934 he moved his family (one son, one daughter) to the University of Rochester, took over the university's physics department, swiftly rose to be dean of the faculty. He produced the world's fourth cyclotron, led in the discovery of the p-n reactions. When World War II broke out in Europe, Lee DuBridge was one of the foremost scientists in the country. Then, one day in 1940, he received a mysterious summons to take over a special wartime job at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Home by Christmas. When DuBridge and his tiny band of scientists first arrived in Cambridge, Mass, in November, they felt certain they would all be home by Christmas. At an early budget conference in Washington, someone suggested the sum of $25,000, and Physicist Ernest O. Lawrence thought he was being hopelessly daring when he suggested that it be doubled. The next month, the sum was doubled again, and the next, again. Finally, Washington received a strange message from Cambridge: "Mary Baker Eddy with one eye." Translation: the scientists had picked up the dome of the Christian "Now, don't be so modest, Professor. I'm sure you've got something up your sleeve that will blow us all to bits." Science Mother Church in Boston on their experimental radar.
As the months turned into years, the staff grew to 4,000, the final budget to $50 million, and the military men who came around to inspect rose from majors to colonels to generals. Among other devices, the lab produced the microwave early warning radar, the H2X that helped carry Dday, the SCR-584 for guiding fire against the buzz-bombs, and the ground control approach (G.C.A.) for landing aircraft. It revolutionized the relationship between government and science, set the pattern for the Manhattan Project.
Leadership v. Authority. Through those five years, DuBridge ruled with an easy mixture of tact and firmness. He not only kept his freewheeling scientists happy, he also managed the military. Says H. Rowan Gaither Jr., now president of the Ford Foundation, "He exerted not authority, but leadership." Adds Physicist Rabi: "He believed in his people and what they could do. He made the people there become great men because he believed them great." Most important, he would back up his scientists against the most stubborn military conservatism. When Physicist Luis Alvarez invented G.C.A., he had little to support him but the faith of DuBridge. Then, one night in Britain, G.C.A. brought in a flock of lost 6-175. There was no opposition from Washington after that.
At the end of the war, when Robert Millikan retired from Caltech, the trustees knew exactly the man they wanted to replace him. Physicist DuBridge had proved himself a master administrator.