James Forrestal
James Vincent Forrestal (February 15, 1892 – May 22, 1949) was the last Cabinet-level United States Secretary of the Navy and the first United States Secretary of Defense.[1]
James Forrestal
Position established
Position established
May 22, 1949 (aged 57)
Bethesda, Maryland, U.S.
2, including Michael
Forrestal came from a very strict middle-class Irish Catholic family. He was a successful financier on Wall Street before becoming Undersecretary of the Navy in 1940, shortly before the United States entered the Second World War. He became Secretary of the Navy in May 1944 upon the death of his superior, Col. Frank Knox. President Franklin D. Roosevelt requested that Forrestal take the lead in building up the Navy. In 1947, after the end of the war, President Harry S. Truman appointed him the first secretary of the newly created Department of Defense. Forrestal was intensely hostile to the Soviet Union, fearing Communist expansion in Europe and the Middle East. Along with Secretary of State George C. Marshall, he strongly opposed the United States' support for the establishment of the State of Israel, fearing that this would alienate Arab nations which were needed as allies, and whose petroleum reserves were vital for both military and civilian industrial expansion.
Forrestal was a supporter of naval battle groups centered on aircraft carriers. He tried to weaken the proposed Department of Defense for the Navy's benefit, but was hard-pressed to run it from 1947 to 1949 after Truman named him Secretary of Defense. The two men were often at odds, and Truman forced Forrestal's resignation.
Thereafter, Forrestal's mental health rapidly deteriorated, declining to the point in which he underwent medical care for depression. While a patient at Bethesda Naval Hospital, Forrestal died by suicide from fatal injuries sustained after falling out of a sixteenth-floor window.
In 1954, the USN's new supercarrier was named USS Forrestal in his honor, as is the James V. Forrestal Building, which houses the headquarters of the United States Department of Energy. He is the namesake of the Forrestal Lecture Series at the United States Naval Academy and of the James Forrestal Campus of his alma mater Princeton University.
Life and career[edit]
Early life[edit]
Forrestal was born in Matteawan, New York (now part of Beacon, New York), the youngest son of James Forrestal, an Irish immigrant who dabbled in politics. His mother, the former Mary Anne Toohey (herself the daughter of another Irish immigrant) raised him as a devout Catholic.[2] During his youth, Forrestal was an amateur boxer.[3] After graduating from high school in 1908, at the age of 16, he spent the next three years working for a trio of newspapers: the Matteawan Evening Journal, the Mount Vernon Argus and the Poughkeepsie News Press.
Forrestal entered Dartmouth College in 1911, but transferred to Princeton University in his sophomore year, where he served as an editor for The Daily Princetonian. His senior class voted him "Most Likely to Succeed", but he left just prior to completing work on a degree. Forrestal was a member of University Cottage Club while he was a student at Princeton.[4] Forrestal married the former Josephine Stovall (née Ogden), a Vogue writer, in 1926. She eventually developed a dependence on alcohol and suffered various mental health issues.[5]
Wall Street financier[edit]
Forrestal went to work as a bond salesman for William A. Read and Company (later renamed Dillon, Read & Co.) in 1916. When the US entered World War I, he enlisted in the Navy and ultimately became a Naval Aviator, training with the Royal Flying Corps at Camp Borden and Deseronto in Canada.[6] During the final year of the war Forrestal spent much of his time in Washington, at the Office of Naval Operations, while completing his flight training and reaching the rank of lieutenant. After the war, Forrestal resumed his career in finance and made his fortune on Wall Street. He became a partner in 1923, was appointed vice president in 1926, and by 1937 was president of the company. He also acted as a publicist for the Democratic Party committee in Dutchess County, New York, helping politicians from the area win elections at both the local and state level. One of the individuals aided by his work was a neighbor, Franklin D. Roosevelt.
Forrestal was a compulsive workaholic and skilled administrator. He was described as pugnacious, introspective, shy, philosophic, solitary, and emotionally insecure.[3][7][8] He took no part in national politics, though he usually voted for Democrats, but did not support New Deal liberalism.[9]
The Forrestal Diaries[edit]
Forrestal's diaries from 1944 to March 1949 were serialised in the New York Herald Tribune in 1951, and published as a 581-page book The Forrestal Diaries, edited by Walter Millis in October 1951. They were censored prior to publication.[47] Adam Matthew Publications Ltd. published a microfilm of the complete and unexpurgated diaries in 2001, from the originals preserved in the Seeley G. Mudd Manuscript Library, Princeton University; a digital edition was released in January 2020.[48][49][50] An example of censorship is the removal of the following account of a conversation with Truman: "He [the President] referred to Hitler as an egomaniac. The result is we shall have a Slav Europe for a long time to come. I don't think it is so bad."[49]
Possible conflicted personality[edit]
Biographer Arnold Rogow explores the pathos and tragedy of Forrestal's tormented life. He was brought up in a rigidly Catholic environment where harsh discipline gave the boy doubts about himself that were never overcome by his many achievements. He compensated by emphasizing toughness in terms of physicality and morality – he had no use for slackers or cowards. He felt war was a necessity and that negotiation was possible only alongside military parity or superiority. This intensity alienated his colleagues, as he focused his fears on Communists and Zionists. He abandoned his religion and his Irish community, but was never at ease on Wall Street, where he suspected and envied its rich and well-born WASP elite. Although his brilliance and energy made him a favorite of President Roosevelt, he profoundly distrusted liberalism and never championed the New Deal.[51][52]
Awards[edit]
Forrestal was awarded both the Distinguished Service Medal and the Medal of Merit by President Truman.
Legacies and depictions[edit]
Namesakes[edit]
The James V. Forrestal Building in Washington, D.C., completed in 1969, is named for him.
The J. V. Forrestal Elementary School at 125 Liberty Street in Beacon, New York, his hometown, is named for him. Forrestal Elementary School in the Great Lakes military housing area is named for him.
The aircraft carrier USS Forrestal, in commission 1955 – 1993, was named for him
In literature and the arts[edit]
In the 2002 HBO TV movie Path to War, Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara (portrayed by Alec Baldwin) hauntingly recounts the story of James Forrestal's dismissal and suicide to speechwriter Richard Goodwin (portrayed by James Frain).
In the 2006 film Flags of Our Fathers, Forrestal was played by Michael Cumpsty.
The story of James Forrestal is prominently featured in Chapter 4 of the Oliver Stone popular documentary series Oliver Stone's Untold History of the United States, which aired on Showtime in 2012–13.
The later part of Forrestal's life, including his marriage and his death, is a large part of Majic Man by Max Allan Collins.
In the anime OVA series Mobile Suit Gundam 0083: Stardust Memory, a secret document is briefly viewable in the eighth episode that mentions the death of a Secretary Forrestal. It goes on to say that a "vacancy" was left due to his death until he was replaced by an unnamed general.
Conspiracy theories[edit]
A number of works (shown below) have implied or indicated that Forrestal's death was suspicious or nefarious.
In December 1950, William Bradford Huie published an article titled "Untold Facts about the Death of James Forrestal" in The American Mercury, which he co-owned.[53] That article, later entered into the Congressional Record and republished, suggested Forrestal has been forced to resign amid pressure from "disgruntled politicians, Communists, Zionists, and gossip columnists".[54] Huie opined that "Much of the truth has thus far been suppressed, but the ghost of Jim Forrestal is not going to be laid until there are reasonable answers to such questions as these: Why was the attack on Forrestal so reckless and sadistically savage? Why have his papers been held secret? Where is the report of those who investigated his death? Why was the deposed Defense Secretary held a virtual prisoner at Bethesda Naval Hospital - a prisoner who could not be visited by his own priest".[54]
In 1954, journalist Walter Trohan published a piece listing Forrestal's death as part of a pattern of suspicious deaths of federal officials.[55][56] In 1955, anti-Communist investigative journalist Howard Rushmore claimed, without evidence, that the former Secretary had been murdered by Communists.[57] In 1966, a book-length treatment of the conspiracy theory was published in the fringe press.[58][53]
In a statement posted to the Paranet BBS in December 1987, John Lear claimed that Forrestal's suicide was connected to the "horrible truth" about aliens and their interactions with humanity, and implies that his medical records remain sealed as part of the coverup initiated by President Truman.[59][60]
In 2017, on the final episode of the Netflix miniseries Wormwood, journalist Seymour Hersh implies that Forrestal's death may have been one of a series of deaths labeled as suicides that were actually covert assassinations by the CIA.
The Assassination of James Forrestal, a 2019 nonfiction book by David Martin, argues that Forrestal was killed.