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 . Forrestal was a supporter of naval battle groups centered on aircraft carrier s . In 1954 , the world ' s first supercarrier was named in his honor , as is the headquarters of the United States Department of Energy . He is also the namesake of the Forrestal Lecture Series at the United States Naval Academy , which brings prominent military and civilian leaders to speak to the Brigade of Midshipmen , and of the James Forrestal Campus of Princeton University in Plainsboro Township , New Jersey . Early life and private employment . 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 Roman Catholic . He was an amateur boxer . After graduating from high school at the age of 16 in 1908 , 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 sophomore year . He served as an editor for " The Daily Princetonian " . The senior class voted him " Most Likely to Succeed " , but he left just prior to completing work on a degree . Forrestal went to work as a bond salesman for William A . Read and Company ( later renamed Dillon , Read & Co . ) in 1916 and , except for his service during World War I , remained there until 1940 . He became a partner ( 1923 ) , vice - president ( 1926 ) , and president of the company ( 1937 ) . When World War I broke out , he enlisted in the Navy and ultimately became a Naval Aviator , training with the Royal Flying Corps in Canada . During the final year of the war , Forrestal spent much of his time in Washington , D . C . , at the office of Naval Operations , while completing his flight training . He eventually reached the rank of Lieutenant . Following the war , Forrestal served as a publicist for the Democratic Party committee in Dutchess County , New York helping politicians from the area win elections at both the state and national level . One of those individuals aided by his work was a neighbor , Franklin D . Roosevelt . By some accounts , Forrestal was a compulsive workaholic , skilled administrator , pugnacious , introspective , shy , philosophic , solitary , and emotionally insecure . He married Mrs . Josephine Stovall ( born Ogden ) , a Vogue writer , in 1926 . She eventually developed alcohol and mental problems . Political career . Secretary of the Navy . President Franklin D . Roosevelt appointed Forrestal a special administrative assistant on June 22 , 1940 . Six weeks later , he nominated him for the newly established position , Undersecretary of the Navy . In his nearly four years as undersecretary , Forrestal proved highly effective at mobilizing domestic industrial production for the war effort . Chief of Naval Operations , Admiral Ernest J . King , wanted to control logistics and procurement , but Forrestal prevailed . In September 1942 , to get a grasp on the reports for material his office was receiving , he made a tour of naval operations in the Southwest Pacific and a stop at Pearl Harbor . Returning to Washington , D . C . , he made his report to President Roosevelt , Secretary of War Henry L . Stimson , and the cabinet . In response to Forrestal ' s elevated request that material be sent immediately to the Southwest Pacific area , Stimson ( who was more concerned with supplying Operation Torch in North Africa ) , told Forrestal , " Jim , you ' ve got a bad case of localitis . " Forrestal shot back in a heated manner , " Mr . Secretary , if the Marines on Guadalcanal were wiped out , the reaction of the country will give you a bad case of localitis in the seat of your pants " . He became Secretary of the Navy on May 19 , 1944 , after his immediate superior Secretary Frank Knox died from a heart attack . Forrestal led the Navy through the closing year of the war and the painful early years of demobilization that followed . As Secretary , Forrestal introduced a policy of racial integration in the Navy . Forrestal traveled to combat zones to see naval forces in action . He was in the South Pacific in 1942 , present at the Battle of Kwajalein in 1944 , and ( as Secretary ) witnessed the Battle of Iwo Jima in 1945 . After five days of pitched battle , a detachment of Marines was sent to hoist the American flag on the 545 - foot summit of Mount Suribachi on Iwo Jima . This was the first time in the war that the U . S . flag had flown on Japanese soil . Forrestal , who had just landed on the beach , claimed the historic flag as a souvenir . A second , larger flag was run up in its place , and this second flag - raising was the moment captured by Associated Press photographer Joe Rosenthal in his famous photograph . Forrestal , along with Secretary of War Henry Stimson and Under Secretary of State Joseph Grew , in the early months of 1945 , strongly advocated a softer policy toward Japan that would permit a negotiated armistice , a ' face - saving ' surrender . Forrestal ' s primary concern was not the resurgence of a militarized Japan , but rather " the menace of Russian Communism and its attraction for decimated , destabilized societies in Europe and Asia , " and , therefore , keeping the Soviet Union out of the war with Japan . So strongly did he feel about this matter that he cultivated negotiation efforts that some regarded as approaching insubordination . His counsel on ending the war was finally followed , but not until the atomic bombs had been dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki . The day after the Nagasaki attack , the Japanese sent out a radio transmission saying that it was ready to accept the terms of the allies ' Potsdam Declaration , “ with the understanding that said declaration does not comprise any demand which prejudices the prerogatives of His Majesty as a sovereign ruler . ” That position still fell short of the U . S . " unconditional surrender " demand , retaining the sticking point that had held up the war ' s conclusion for months . Strong voices within the administration , including Secretary of State James Byrnes , counseled fighting on . At that point , " Forrestal came up with a shrewd and simple solution : Accept the offer and declare that it accomplishes what the Potsdam Declaration demanded . Say that the Emperor and the Japanese government will rule subject to the orders of the Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers . This would imply recognition of the Emperor while tending to neutralize American public passions against the Emperor . Truman liked this . It would be close enough to ' unconditional . ' " In the beginning of the Cold War period , Forrestal strongly influenced the new Wisconsin Senator , Joseph McCarthy , concerning infiltration of the government by Communists . Upon McCarthy ' s arrival in Washington in December 1946 , Forrestal invited him to lunch . In McCarthy ' s words , " Before meeting Jim Forrestal I thought we were losing to international Communism because of incompetence and stupidity on the part of our planners . I mentioned that to Forrestal . I shall forever remember his answer . He said , ' McCarthy , consistency has never been a mark of stupidity . If they were merely stupid , they would occasionally make a mistake in our favor . ' This phrase struck me so forcefully that I have often used it since . " Secretary of Defense . In 1947 , President Harry S . Truman appointed him the first United States Secretary of Defense . Forrestal continued to advocate for complete racial integration of the services , a policy eventually implemented in 1949 . During private cabinet meetings with President Truman in 1946 and 1947 , Forrestal had argued against partition of Palestine on the grounds it would infuriate Arab countries who supplied oil needed for the U . S . economy and national defense . Instead , Forrestal favored a federalization plan for Palestine . Outside the White House , response to Truman ' s continued silence on the issue was immediate . President Truman received threats to cut off campaign contributions from wealthy donors , as well as hate mail , including a letter accusing him of " preferring fascist and Arab elements to the democracy - loving Jewish people of Palestine . " Appalled by the intensity and implied threats over the partition question , Forrestal appealed to Truman in two separate cabinet meetings not to base his decision on partition , whatever the outcome , on the basis of political pressure . In his only known public comment on the issue , Forrestal stated to J . Howard McGrath , Senator from Rhode Island : Forrestal ' s statement soon earned him the active enmity of some congressmen and supporters of Israel . Forrestal was also an early target of the muckraking columnist and broadcaster Drew Pearson , an opponent of foreign policies hostile to the Soviet Union , who began to regularly call for Forrestal ' s removal after President Truman named him Secretary of Defense . Pearson told his own protege , Jack Anderson , that he believed Forrestal was " the most dangerous man in America " and claimed that if he was not removed from office , he would " cause another world war . " Upon taking office as Secretary of Defense , Forrestal was surprised to learn that the administration did not budget for defense needs based on military threat s posed by enemies of the United States and its interests . According to historian Walter LaFeber , Truman was known to approach defense budgetary requests in the abstract , without regard to defense response requirements in the event of conflicts with potential enemies . The president would begin by subtracting from total receipts the amount needed for domestic needs and recurrent operating costs , with any surplus going to the defense budget for that year . The Truman administration ' s readiness to slash conventional readiness needs for the Navy and Marine Corps soon caused fierce controversies within the upper ranks of their respective branches . During the Reagan years , Paul Nitze reflected upon the qualities which made a Secretary of Defense great : the ability to work with Congress , the ability at " big - time management , " and an ability at war planning . Nitze felt that Forrestal was the only one who possessed all three qualities together . Post - war . At the close of World War II , millions of dollars of serviceable equipment had been scrapped or abandoned rather than having funds appropriated for its storage costs . New military equipment " en route " to operations in the Pacific theater was scrapped or simply tossed overboard . Facing the wholesale demobilization of most of the US defense force structure , Forrestal resisted President Truman ' s efforts to substantially reduce defense appropriations , but was unable to prevent a steady reduction in defense spending , resulting in major cuts not only in defense equipment stockpiles , but also in military readiness . By 1948 , President Harry Truman had approved military budgets billions of dollars below what the services were requesting , putting Forrestal in the middle of a fierce tug - of - war between the President and the Joint Chiefs of Staff . Forrestal was also becoming increasingly worried about the Soviet threat . His 18 months at Defense came at an exceptionally difficult time for the U . S . military establishment : Communist governments came to power in Czechoslovakia and China ; the Soviets imposed a blockade on West Berlin prompting the U . S . Berlin Airlift to supply the city ; the 1948 Arab – Israeli War followed the establishment of Israel ; and negotiations were going on for the formation of NATO . Dwight D . Eisenhower recorded he was in agreement with Forrestal ' s theories on the dangers of Soviet and International communist expansion . Eisenhower recalled that Forrestal had been " the one man who , in the very midst of the war , always counseled caution and alertness in dealing with the Soviets . " Eisenhower remembered on several occasions , while he was Supreme Allied Commander , he had been visited by Forrestal , who carefully explained his thesis that the Communists would never cease trying to destroy all representative government . Eisenhower commented in his personal diary on 11 June 1949 , " I never had cause to doubt the accuracy of his judgments on this point . " Forrestal also opposed the unification of the military services proposed by the Truman officials . Even so , he helped develop the National Security Act of 1947 that created the National Military Establishment ( the Department of Defense was not created as such until August 1949 ) . With the former Secretary of War Robert P . Patterson retiring to private life , Forrestal was the next choice . Resignation as Secretary of Defense . Governor of New York Thomas E . Dewey was expected to win the presidential elections of 1948 . Forrestal met with Dewey privately and it was agreed , he would continue as Secretary of Defense under a Dewey administration . Unwittingly , Forrestal would trigger a series of events that would not only undermine his already precarious position with President Truman but would also contribute to the loss of his job , his failing health , and eventual demise . Weeks before the election , Pearson published an exposé of the meetings between Dewey and Forrestal . In 1949 , angered over Forrestal ' s continued opposition to his defense economization policies , and concerned about reports in the press over his mental condition , Truman abruptly asked Forrestal to resign . By March 31 , 1949 , Forrestal was out of a job . He was replaced by Louis A . Johnson , an ardent supporter of Truman ' s defense retrenchment policy . Psychiatric treatment . In 1949 , exhausted from overwork , Forrestal entered psychiatric treatment . The attending psychiatrist , Captain George N . Raines , was handpicked by the Navy Surgeon General . The regimen was as follows : According to Dr . Raines , " We considered electro - shock but thought it better to postpone it for another 90 days . In reactive depression if electro - shock is used early and the patient is returned to the same situation from which he came there is grave danger of suicide in the immediate period after they return . . . so strangely enough we left out electro - shock to avoid what actually happened anyhow " . Death . Although Forrestal told associates he had decided to resign , he was shattered when Truman abruptly asked for his resignation . His letter of resignation was tendered on March 28 , 1949 . On the day of his removal from office , he was reported to have gone into a strange daze and was flown on a Navy airplane to the estate of Under Secretary of State Robert A . Lovett in Hobe Sound , Florida , where Forrestal ' s wife , Josephine , was vacationing . Dr . William C . Menninger of the Menninger Clinic in Kansas was consulted and he diagnosed " severe depression " of the type " seen in operational fatigue during the war " . The Menninger Clinic had successfully treated similar cases during World War II , but Forrestal ' s wife Josephine , his friend and associate Ferdinand Eberstadt , Dr . Menninger and Navy psychiatrist Captain Dr . George N . Raines decided to send the former Secretary of Defense to the National Naval Medical Center ( NNMC ) in Bethesda , Maryland , where it would be possible to deny his mental illness . He was checked into NNMC five days later . The decision to house him on the 16th floor instead of the first floor was justified in the same way . Forrestal ' s condition was officially announced as " nervous and physical exhaustion , " his lead doctor , Captain Raines , diagnosing his condition as " depression " or " reactive depression . " As a person who prized anonymity and once stated that his hobby was " obscurity , " Forrestal and his policies had been the constant target of vicious personal attacks from columnists , including Drew Pearson and Walter Winchell . Pearson ' s protégé , Jack Anderson , later asserted that Pearson " hectored Forrestal with innuendos and false accusations . " Forrestal seemed to be on the road to recovery , having regained 5 . 5 kg ( 12 pounds ) since his entry into the hospital . However , in the early morning hours of May 22 , his body , clad only in the bottom half of a pair of pyjamas , was found on a third - floor roof below the 16th - floor kitchen across the hall from his room . Forrestal ' s last written statement , which some have alleged was an implied suicide note , was part of a poem from Sophocles ' tragedy " Ajax " : The official Navy review board , which completed hearings on May 31 , waited until October 11 , 1949 , to release only a brief summary of its findings . The announcement , as reported on page 15 of the October 12 " New York Times " , stated only that Forrestal had died from his fall from the window . It did not say what might have caused the fall , nor did it make any mention of a bathrobe sash cord that had first been reported as tied around his neck . According to the full report , which was not released by the Department of the Navy until April 2004 , the official findings of the board were as follows : James Forrestal is buried in Section 30 Lot 674 Grid X - 39 of Arlington National Cemetery . Assassination theories . Doubts have existed from the beginning about Forrestal ' s death , especially allegations of homicide . The early doubts are detailed in the book " The Death of James Forrestal " ( 1966 ) by Cornell Simpson , a conspiracy theorist , which received virtually no publicity . As Simpson notes ( pp . 40 – 44 ) , a major reason for doubt is the fact that the Navy kept the full transcript of its official hearing and final report secret . Additional doubt has been raised by the 2004 release of that complete report , informally referred to as the Willcutts Report , after Admiral Morton D . Willcutts , the head of NNMC , who convened the review board . There were unsubstantiated reports in the press of paranoia and of involuntary commitment to the hospital , as well as suspicions about the detailed circumstances of his death , which have fed a variety of as well as legitimate questions . For example , among the discrepancies between the report and the accounts given in the principal Forrestal biographies are that the transcription of the poem by Sophocles appears to David Martin , author of the six - part series " Who Killed James Forrestal ? " to have been written in a hand other than Forrestal ' s . If Forrestal ' s , according to some intelligence sources , then he could not scribble the word " nightingale " in the poem because it was the code name of the Ukrainian Nazi elite unit Nachtigall Brigade which Forrestal had helped to smuggle to the United States to supplant Kim Philby ' s failed ABN ( Anti Bolshevik Nationals ) , an MI6 Soviet émigré fascist group . There was also broken glass found on Forrestal ' s bed , a fact that had not been previously reported . Theories as to who might have murdered Forrestal range from Soviet agents , to U . S . government operatives sent to silence him for his knowledge of UFOs . Forrestal ' s single known public statement regarding pressure from interest groups , and his cabinet position opposing the partition of Palestine has been significantly magnified by later critics into a portrayal of Forrestal as a dedicated anti - Zionist who led a concerted campaign to thwart the cause of the Jewish people in Palestine . These critics tend to characterize Forrestal as a mentally unhinged individual , a hysteric with deep anti - Zionist and anti - Jewish feelings . Forrestal himself maintained that he was being shadowed by " foreign men " , which some critics and authors quickly interpreted to mean either Soviet NKVD agents or proponents of Zionism . Author Arnold Rogow supported the theory that Forrestal committed suicide over fantasies of being chased by Zionist agents , largely relying on information obtained in interviews conducted with some of Forrestal ' s fiercest critics inside and outside the Truman administration . However , those who see Zionist conspiratorial designs behind Forrestal ' s unexplained death note Rogow ' s footnote to his work : Columnists Drew Pearson and Walter Winchell led a press campaign — which many would today find libelous — against Forrestal to make him appear paranoid . But official evaluations of his psychiatric state never mentioned paranoia . One of Pearson ' s most spectacular claims was that at Hobe Sound , Florida , shortly before he was hospitalized , Forrestal was awakened by a siren in the middle of the night and ran out into the street exclaiming , " The Russians are attacking . " No one who was there that night confirmed this claim . Captain George Raines , the Navy doctor in charge of Forrestal ' s treatment , called it an outright fabrication . The first US ambassador to Israel James G . McDonald writing in 1951 describes the attacks on Forrestal as " unjustifiable " , " persistent and venomous " and " among the ugliest example of the willingness of politicians and publicists to use the vilest means - in the name of patriotism - to destroy self - sacrificing and devoted public servants . " Publication of diaries . His 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 . Adam Matthew Publications Ltd publishes a micro - film of the complete and unexpurgated diaries from the originals preserved in the Seeley G Mudd Manuscript Library , Princeton University . An example of censorship is the removal of the following account of a conversation with Truman - " He 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 . " Cultural references . The James V . Forrestal Building in Washington , D . C . , completed in 1969 , is named for him . In the 1994 television movie , " Roswell " , Forrestal is portrayed by Eugene Roche . He is depicted as sitting on a commission concerning the Roswell UFO incident and advocating the eventual release of information to the public . The film treats his death and classified diary as highly suspicious . An opera concerning the conspiracy theories behind Forrestal ' s death , " Nightingale : The Last Days of James Forrestal " composed by Evan Hause with a libretto by Gary Heidt , premiered in New York City at the Present Company Theatorium on May 19 , 2002 . In " The Golden Age " , a DC Comics " Elseworlds " " imaginary story " , 4 - issue prestige format mini - series by James Robinson ( writer ) and Paul Smith ( artist ) , Forrestal ' s death is shown to have been a murder . Forrestal is pushed from the window of his Bethesda Naval Hospital room by the Golden Age Robotman . In the PC game Area 51 one of the secret documents the player can collect talks about the Majestic 12 initiative being threatened with " receiving the same punishment as his last secretary , Forrestal " , implying the murder of Forrestal was an alien conspiracy to cover his operation from the public .