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. He came from an Irish Catholic family and was a successful Wall Street financier before government service, served as Undersecretary of the Navy beginning in 1940, became Secretary of the Navy in May 1944 following Frank Knox's death, and was appointed first Secretary of Defense in 1947 by President Harry S. Truman. A strong opponent of Soviet expansion and an advocate for naval aircraft carriers, Forrestal was forced to resign by Truman over disagreements on defense spending; his mental health deteriorated significantly after leaving office, and he died from injuries sustained after falling from a sixteenth-floor window at Bethesda Naval Hospital while under psychiatric care. In exopolitics and UAP disclosure research he is described as a central figure in the early Majestic 12 committee structure who was alleged to have been considering public disclosure of the government's knowledge about non-human intelligence before his death. The MJ-12 Eisenhower Briefing Document (1952) lists Forrestal as a founding member of the Majestic-12 committee established by President Truman in September 1947 following the 1947 Roswell incident, with his name subsequently replaced by Walter B. Smith (CIA Director) following Forrestal's death.

Early life and Wall Street career

Forrestal was born February 15, 1892, in Matteawan, New York (now part of Beacon, New York), the son of Irish Catholic immigrant parents. He attended Dartmouth College briefly before transferring to Princeton University, where he was a member of the University Cottage Club and editor of The Daily Princetonian. He left Princeton without graduating in 1915.

After service as a U.S. Navy aviator in World War I, Forrestal joined the William A. Read & Company investment bank — later Dillon, Read & Co. — rising to president by 1938. His Wall Street career made him a multi-millionaire by his early forties, providing the financial security that enabled his lengthy government service at modest federal salaries.

Secretary of the Navy

Forrestal was appointed Undersecretary of the Navy in 1940. He became Secretary of the Navy in May 1944 following the death of Frank Knox, serving through the end of World War II and into the postwar period. In that role he ordered the Navy Court of Inquiry into the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1944, which concluded that "no offenses have been committed nor serious blame incurred on the part of any person or persons in the naval service." He personally witnessed the Iwo Jima flag-raising in February 1945.

Secretary of Defense

Forrestal's appointment as the first Secretary of Defense came through the National Security Act of 1947 of June 26, 1947 — the same legislation that created the CIA, the National Security Council, and the Joint Chiefs of Staff — situating him at the apex of the new national-security state at the exact moment the Roswell crash forced a governmental response. The Truman-Forrestal memorandum of September 24, 1947, names Forrestal as the operational authority under whom MJ-12 was established — making him the program's first de facto director.

As Secretary of Defense, Forrestal advocated firm resistance to Soviet expansion and emphasized the strategic importance of carrier-based naval aviation; he characterized "the menace of Russian Communism and its attraction for decimated, destabilized societies in Europe and Asia" as the dominant security concern of the era. He clashed repeatedly with Truman over defense budget reductions and over U.S. policy toward the proposed Jewish state in Palestine. Joseph McCarthy later cited Forrestal as a personal influence: "Before meeting Jim Forrestal I thought we were losing to international Communism because of incompetence and stupidity on the part of our planners."

Truman forced Forrestal's resignation in March 1949; he was succeeded as Secretary of Defense by Louis A. Johnson.

National Security Act and MJ-12 charter

Forrestal's appointment as the first Secretary of Defense came through the National Security Act of 1947 of June 26, 1947 — the same legislation that created the CIA, National Security Council, and Joint Chiefs of Staff — situating him at the apex of the new national security state at the exact moment the Roswell crash forced a governmental response. The Truman-Forrestal memorandum of September 24, 1947 names Forrestal as the operational authority under whom MJ-12 was established — making him the program's first de facto director.

Disclosure advocacy

Exopolitics researchers document Forrestal as belonging to the faction within early MJ-12 that favored eventual disclosure — as opposed to the permanent concealment faction led by Allen Dulles. Michael Salla identifies this as a direct parallel to John F. Kennedy's later efforts: both men sought NHI transparency and both were removed violently. Salla contends Lyndon B. Johnson was involved in both cases as an MJ-12 operative.

Death

Forrestal was admitted to Bethesda Naval Hospital on April 2, 1949, diagnosed with "reactive depression" following his forced resignation. He died on May 22, 1949, after reportedly falling from a window on the 16th floor — a death officially ruled a suicide. Subsequent researchers including Seymour Hersh and MJ-12 document analysts have noted anomalies: the cord of his bathrobe was allegedly tied around his neck; he had apparently been transcribing a poem (Sophocles' Ajax) when he fell; and Navy nurse aides who were present gave conflicting testimony. The internal Navy investigation, the Willcutts Report, was released to the public in 2004. Forrestal was buried at Arlington National Cemetery, Section 30, Grave 674.

In exopolitics frameworks, Forrestal's death is cited as a possible assassination of an MJ-12 member who opposed the permanent concealment policy.

According to William Cooper, CIA agents tied a sheet around Forrestal's neck, fastened the other end to a fixture in his room, and threw him from the window — the sheet tore and he fell to his death, making him "one of the first victims of the cover-up." Physical evidence cited by investigators includes fingernail scratch marks on the outside window ledge consistent with someone trying to climb back in, and the unexplained disappearance of his regular navy corpsman from the midnight shift immediately before the death.

Richard Dolan states: "He was murdered — absolutely murdered." Catherine Austin Fitts identifies the perpetrators as a partnership of Rockefeller interests (through Dulles and JP Morgan Chase) and transnational organized crime networks she terms "the Irgun boys."

John F. Kennedy — who had been a protégé of Forrestal — made an unscheduled visit to Forrestal's grave at Arlington before his own 1963 assassination, which observers interpreted as Kennedy's awareness that he might face the same fate.

MJ-12 membership

Forrestal's position as the nation's first Secretary of Defense placed him at the intersection of military, naval, and intelligence authority during the critical 1947 period — making him a logical founding member of any inter-agency body managing the Roswell recovery and subsequent crash retrieval program. His removal coincided with increasing conflict between those favoring disclosure and those favoring permanent concealment, a split that in exopolitics research marks the beginning of the policy consensus that kept NHI knowledge classified.

CIA Act of 1949

Catherine Austin Fitts, former Assistant Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, frames Forrestal's death in the context of the institutional consolidation of the national security state: the National Security Act of 1947 of 1947 created the legal framework for the classified intelligence infrastructure, and the CIA Act of 1949 — passed months after Forrestal's death in May 1949 — completed the legal architecture permitting the CIA to operate with secret funding and concealed activities. Fitts has characterized Forrestal as having been "assassinated to get that done," arguing that his opposition to both the creation of a nuclear-armed Israel and to concealment of the classified budget made him a political obstacle that had to be removed before the CIA Act could pass.

Antarctica expedition

In 1946–47, Forrestal served as Secretary of the Navy when Operation Highjump — the largest Antarctic expedition in U.S. history — was dispatched under Admiral Richard E. Byrd. In documentary footage from the era, Forrestal is shown explaining the rationale for the expedition in terms of accessing the world's last major untapped reservoir of raw materials. In SSP and exopolitics research, Operation Highjump is associated with the discovery of subterranean or ice-shelf installations of non-human origin, a claim Forrestal's position would have placed him in a position to receive.

See also

• CIA
• Majestic 12
• Operation Highjump
• John F. Kennedy assassination

References

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The Forrestal Diaries

The Forrestal Diaries, edited by Walter Millis and published in 1951, are an extensive personal record of Forrestal's tenure at the Navy and Defense departments and of his interactions with senior figures of the late wartime and early Cold War period. The diaries are held in the Seeley G. Mudd Manuscript Library at Princeton University.

Awards and namesakes

Forrestal received the Distinguished Service Medal and the Medal of Merit. The lead Forrestal-class aircraft carrier, the USS Forrestal (CV-59), and the Forrestal Building (headquarters of the U.S. Department of Energy in Washington, D.C.) are named for him.