J. King, the Chief of Naval Operations. A proposed promotion for Strauss in 1944 to rear admiral did not happen at the time due to a variety of factors, including that President Franklin D. Roosevelt had disliked Strauss for years, going back to an incident at an Inner Circle event in 1932, and blocked the move. Roosevelt's death changed matters, as his successor Harry S. Truman had no negative feelings about Strauss. In July 1945 Strauss was promoted to commodore. Then in November 1945, after the war, Strauss was promoted to rear admiral by Truman. The promotion to flag rank was unusual for a member of the reserve, and as such, he liked being addressed as "Admiral Strauss" even though use of the honorific perturbed some regular officers who considered him a civilian. By this time, Strauss had taken advantage of his ties in both Washington and Wall Street to enter the post-war establishment in the capital. He was also learning how to get things accomplished in Washington via unofficial back channels, something he would become quite adept at. Introduction to atomic energy Strauss's mother died of cancer in 1935, his father of the same disease in 1937. That and his early interest in physics led Strauss to establish a fund in their names, the Lewis and Rosa Strauss Memorial Fund, for physics research that could lead to better radiation treatment for cancer patients. The fund supported Arno Brasch, who was working on producing artificial radioactive material with bursts of X-rays. Brasch's work was based on previous work with Leo Szilard, who saw in this work a possible means to developing an atomic chain reaction. Szilard had already foreseen that this could lead to an atomic bomb. Szilard persuaded Strauss to support him and Brasch in building a "surge generator". Strauss ultimately provided tens of thousands of dollars to this venture. Through Szilard, Strauss met other nuclear physicists such as Ernest Lawrence. Strauss talked to scientists who had left Nazi Germany and learned about atom-related experiments that had taken place there. Szilard kept him up to date on developments in the area, such as the discovery of nuclear fission and the use of neutrons. In February 1940, Szilard asked him to fund the acquisition of some radium, but Strauss refused, as he had already spent a large sum. Strauss had no further direct involvement with atomic energy developments during the