The days leading up to his death,
James Forrestal began to feel better about his mental health but on May 22,1949
he jumped from his 16th story window of Bethesda Naval to his death.
A man that was once so fearful of being pushed, decided to jump…or was he? The
death of James Forrestal is such an oddly intriguing story for me. He was
Secretary of the Navy and then became the First Secretary of Defense and as far
as I can tell, everything was going pretty good for Mr. Forrestal. That was
until October 1948 when it was reported in the news that Forestall reached out
to Thomas Dewey, the Republican candidate for President in 1948, about
continued interest in retaining his cabinet position if Dewey actually beat
Truman. Well unfortunately for Mr. Forrestal, Truman won the election and I’m
sure you can tell where this story is going to go from here. Well you guessed
it, Truman asked for Forrestal’s resignation and officially retired on March
28, 1949. Just 2 months later Mr. Forestall would commit suicide.
For the
next 2 months the James Forrestal spiral began and there was not stopping it.
While The Untold History of the United
States gives some accounts of the behavior that Mr. Forrestal exhibited,
what I was looking for was something more to the suicide. For years I had heard
that Forrestal had been one of the subjects of an LSD experiment. Maybe it was
because of the quick downward spiral, almost unheard of at that time, maybe it
was because of where and how he died. A quick Google search for “James
Forrestal suicide” brings up topics that I wasn’t expecting. UFO’s, communism
cover up and Pearl Harbor betrayl’s among many other fringe topics.
The Untold History of the United States
and many other sources clearly state that around the time he was admitted to Bethesda
Naval Hospital, “he suffered constant nightmares. He thought he would suffer
the same fate as Czechoslovakian Foreign Minister Jan Masaryk-to be pushed out
of a window”. (Kuznick n.d.) The only
other evidence that I can find to say there is a little more to the story of
Forrestal’s suicide come from the Miller Center at the University of Virginia The
Miller Center reports “he committed suicide when he allegedly climbed out of a window
to hang himself and fell to his death.” (Miller Center n.d.) While this
doesn’t prove that he was on LSD or murdered I feel it does make me wonder a
little but more as to what happened in the final hour of his life and if this
was in fact some sort of cover up.
Bibliography
Kuznick,
Oliver Stone & Peter. The Untold History of the United States. New
York: Gallery Books.
Miller Center. American President: James Forrestal.
millercenter.org/president/fdrosevelt/essays/cabinet/533 (accessed february
19, 2013).
No comments:
Post a Comment