Gordon Evans Dean (December 28, 1905 – August 15, 1958) was a Seattle-born[1] American lawyer and prosecutor who served as chairman of the United States Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) from 1950 to 1953.

[1] Dean helped draft expansions of the federal criminal law and defended them in cases argued before the United States Supreme Court.

[1] After World War II military service, Dean served as press spokesperson for now Supreme Court Justice Robert H. Jackson who was the chief prosecutor in the Nuremberg Trials.

During August 1949–January 1950 there was a heated debate within the U.S. government and scientific community over whether to proceed with an accelerated development of the hydrogen bomb,[3] a nuclear weapon of massive and unprecedented force.

Shortly after Dean left the AEC, Oppenheimer came under attack by Lewis Strauss, Teller and others for his alleged foot-dragging at Los Alamos on the hydrogen bomb project.

Members of the group included Paul Nitze, Robert Bowie, David Rockefeller, and Lieutenant General James M. Gavin.

[9] Dean would also join the International Security Objectives and Strategy panel of the Rockefeller Brothers' Special Studies Project in 1956.

Dean died in a commercial aviation accident on August 15, 1958, when the Northeast Airlines Convair CV-240 he was traveling in crashed on its approach to Nantucket Airport.