James Forrestal

James Vincent Forrestal (1892 – 1949) was the United States Secretary of the Navy from 1944-1947, and the first United States Secretary of Defense. He led the Navy through World War II, and implimented a policy of racial integration. His death, a fall from a hospital window, has been the center of much speculation.

James Forrestal in The Man With the Iron Heart
By 1947, James Forrestal was growing very anxious about the possibility of the German Freedom Front introducing a radium bomb into the United States via freighter. This concern was shared by Congressman Jere Cooper (D-Tennessee) of the House Ways and Means Committee. Committee member Jerry Duncan (R-Indiana discounted these concerns.