James Forrestal was the last Cabinet-level United States Secretary of the Navy and the first United States Secretary of Defense.
Background
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.
Education
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 in his 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.
Career
In 1938 he became president of the banking firm that evolved into Dillon, Read & Co. Forrestal left in June 1940 to become a presidential assistant, and two months later was under secretary of the navy with special responsibility for procurement and production. After the death of Frank Knox on 23 Apr 1944, Forrestal was secretary of the navy, 19 May 1944-17 Sep 1947, then the first secretary of defense. An intense, humorless, unsociable man with an unhappy marriage, he broke under the strain of the new office and resigned as of 28 Mar 1949 (succeeded by Louis Johnson).
Close associates like presidential advisor Clark Clifford had seen alarming evidence of mental instability in Forrestal for years, but the condition was not properly diagnosed when the distraught man checked himself into Beth- esda USNH soon after leaving office. Doctors thought Forrestal’s condition was improving, but on 22 May 1949 he committed suicide by plunging through a I6th-floor hospital window.
Personality
By some accounts, Forrestal was a compulsive workaholic, skilled administrator, pugnacious, introspective, shy, philosophic, solitary, and emotionally insecure.
Connections
Forrestal married the former Josephine Stovall (née Ogden), a Vogue writer, in 1926. She eventually developed alcohol and mental problems.