Buckley was an undergraduate at
Grinnell College until 1909. He joined the Bell System after completing his PhD in physics at
Cornell University in 1914. In 1915, Buckley, along with
AT&T coworkers H. D. Arnold and Gustav Elmen, developed a method of substantially improving the transmission performance of
submarine communications cable so that transmission speed of over 2000 letters per minute were achieved. They constructed the cable by wrapping the copper conductors with annealed
permalloy tape, a material that Elmen had discovered, thus
inductively loading the cable. Buckley was elected to the United States
National Academy of Sciences in 1937, the
American Philosophical Society in 1942, and the
American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1949. Buckley was the president of
Bell Labs from 1940 to 1951, and chairman of the board from 1951 until his retirement in 1952. Buckley was a member of the General Advisory Committee of the
United States Atomic Energy Commission from 1948 to 1954. In that role, Buckley opposed the 1950 decision to proceed with the development of the
hydrogen bomb, but by 1952 had changed his view and supported the program. Buckley received the
IEEE Edison Medal for "contributions to the science and art which have made possible a transatlantic telephone cable; for wise leadership of a great industrial laboratory; for outstanding services to the government of his country". The
Oliver E. Buckley Condensed Matter Prize is named in his honor. ==References==