Customer Reviews

Driven Patriot: The Life And Times Of James Forrestal

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I was impressed with this book's scholarship, but after looking into the sources for the chapter on Forrestal's death, I have had some second thoughts. James Forrestal fell from a window of the 16th floor of the Bethesda Naval Hospital in the wee hours of the morning of May 22, 1949. The authors relate numerous details of the Forrestal's actions prior to his going out the window, but none of them are sourced directly to any of the witnesses, the various medical personnel who were on duty that night. Rather, the strongest assertions that support the popular theory of suicide, which they endorse, turn out to be from sources that I was unable to trace, even using the services of the Library of Congress in person.

The best source to start with would have been the official investigation, the work of a review board convened by the head of the National Naval Medical Center, Admiral Morton Willcutts, which took the testimony of most of the witnesses (with a few notable exceptions). Hoopes and Brinkley unforgivably neglect to tell the readers that at the time of their writing that testimony was still being kept secret. They also fail to tell us that the conclusions of the review board were released in brief summary form almost 6 months after the conclusion of the board's work, and that summary concluded only that Forrestal had died from injuries suffered from the fall. It did not conclude what caused the fall, that is, it did not conclude that it was a suicide, and it made no mention of the cord that was tied tightly around Forrestal's neck.

On my third try, I obtained the report, including all testimony and most of the exhibits, using the Freedom of Information Act. It contradicts almost everything that Hoopes and Brinkley have to say about Forrestal's actions prior to his death. (...)