Voting Station

James Forrestal

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Politician

The Resume

    (February 15, 1892-May 22, 1949)
    Born in Beacon, New York
    Undersecretary of the Navy (1940-44)
    Secretary of the Navy (1944-47)
    First US Secretary of Defense (1947-49)
    Committed suicide by jumping from the 16th floor of Bethesda Naval Hospital

Why he might be annoying:

    He opposed uniting the service branches in a single cabinet department, then was named to head the new department.
    During the 1948 Presidential election, he met with Republican candidate (and expected winner) Thomas Dewey to ensure he could remain Secretary of Defense in a Dewey administration. (Not surprisingly, President Truman was less than thrilled when Drew Pearson revealed the secret meeting in his column.)
    After he was replaced as Secretary of Defense, he became increasingly depressed and paranoid. (For example, while walking with a friend on a Florida beach, he pointed to a set of metal sockets in the sand used to hold beach umbrellas and warned, 'We better not discuss anything here. Those things are wired and everything we say is being recorded.')
    He was officially hospitalized for 'exhaustion' to avoid the stigma of mental illness.
    Some UFO conspiracy theorists claim he was actually murdered to keep him from blowing the lid off of Roswell.

Why he might not be annoying:

    He was voted 'most likely to succeed' during his senior year at Princeton.
    He was a naval aviator during World War I.
    He was a successful investment banker before going into politics.
    As Undersecretary of the Navy, he traveled to combat zones to see naval forces in action, witnessing the Battles of Kwajalein (1944) and Iwo Jima (1945).
    Due to intervention by the Pentagon (and over the objections of the psychiatrist treating him), he was hospitalized at Bethesda in a VIP suite on the 16th floor that was not designed for psychiatric patients.
    The Navy named its first supercarrier after him (1954).

Credit: C. Fishel


Featured in the following Annoying Collections:

Year In Review:

    In 2023, Out of 3 Votes: 0% Annoying
    In 2022, Out of 9 Votes: 44.44% Annoying