41 Facts About Jim Forrestal

James Vincent Forrestal was the last Cabinet-level United States Secretary of the Navy and the first United States Secretary of Defense.

Jim Forrestal came from a very strict middle-class Irish Catholic family.

Jim Forrestal 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.

Jim Forrestal became Secretary of the Navy in May 1944 upon the death of his superior, Frank Knox.

Jim Forrestal was intensely hostile to the Soviet Union, fearing Communist expansion in Europe and the Middle East.

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Jim Forrestal was a supporter of naval battle groups centered on aircraft carriers.

Jim Forrestal 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.

Jim Forrestal 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.

Jim 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.

Jim Forrestal was a member of University Cottage Club while he was a student at Princeton.

Jim Forrestal married the former Josephine Stovall, a Vogue writer, in 1926.

Jim Forrestal eventually developed a dependence on alcohol and suffered various mental health issues.

Jim Forrestal became a partner in 1923, was appointed vice president in 1926, and by 1937 was president of the company.

Jim Forrestal 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.

Jim Forrestal was described as pugnacious, introspective, shy, philosophic, solitary, and emotionally insecure.

Jim Forrestal took no part in national politics, though he usually voted for Democrats, but did not support New Deal liberalism.

Jim Forrestal became Secretary of the Navy on May 19,1944, after his immediate superior, Secretary Frank Knox, died from a heart attack.

Jim Forrestal led the Navy through the closing year of the war and the early years of demobilization that followed.

Jim Forrestal ordered that a Naval Court of Inquiry be convened to investigate the facts surrounding the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and to assess any culpability borne by members of the Navy.

Jim Forrestal disapproved all of these findings, judging that Kimmel could have done more with the information he had had to prevent or mitigate the attack.

Jim Forrestal traveled to combat zones to see naval forces in action.

Jim Forrestal was in the South Pacific in 1942, present at the Battle of Kwajalein in 1944, and witnessed the Battle of Iwo Jima in 1945.

Jim Forrestal, who had just landed on the beach, claimed the historic flag as a souvenir.

Jim Forrestal said, 'McCarthy, consistency has never been a mark of stupidity.

Jim Forrestal continued to advocate for complete racial integration of the services, a policy eventually implemented in 1949.

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Jim Forrestal was 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 Jim Forrestal's removal after President Truman named him Secretary of Defense.

Nitze felt that Jim Forrestal was the only one who possessed all three qualities together.

Jim Forrestal opposed the unification of the military services proposed by the Truman officials.

Jim Forrestal met with Dewey privately, and it was agreed he would continue as Secretary of Defense under a Dewey administration.

In 1949, angered over Jim Forrestal's continued opposition to his defense economization policies, and concerned about reports in the press over his mental condition, Truman abruptly asked Jim Forrestal to resign.

Jim Forrestal was replaced by Louis A Johnson, an ardent supporter of Truman's defense retrenchment policy.

Jim Forrestal was buried at Arlington National Cemetery, in Arlington, Virginia.

Jim Forrestal 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.

Jim Forrestal compensated by emphasizing toughness in terms of physicality and morality – he had no use for slackers or cowards.

Jim Forrestal felt war was a necessity and negotiation was possible only alongside military's parity or superiority.

Jim Forrestal abandoned his religion and his Irish community, but was never at ease on Wall Street, where he suspected and envied its rich and wellborn WASP elite.

Jim Forrestal was awarded both the Distinguished Service Medal and the Medal of Merit by President Truman.

James V Forrestal Building in Washington, DC, completed in 1969, is named for him.

Jim Forrestal is depicted as sitting on a commission concerning the Roswell UFO incident and advocating the eventual release of information to the public.

Jim Forrestal is pushed from the window of his Bethesda Naval Hospital room by the Golden Age Robotman.

Later part of Jim Forrestal's life, including his marriage and his death, is a large part of Majic Man by Max Allan Collins.