Who Killed James Forrestal

Who Killed James Forrestal? Part 2

Go to Part 1.

Signs of a Struggle?

The first person to enter former Secretary of Defense James Forrestal's fully-lighted room at the Bethesda Naval Hospital after his fatal, late-night plunge from a 16th floor window saw broken glass on his bed. The Navy photographer who took pictures of the room at some unknown time later took a picture of broken pieces of what looks like either a petri dish or an ash tray on the ornate carpet in the room, but in the photograph, the bed had nothing but a bare mattress and a couple of bare pillows on it, not even the turned-back bed covering that the nurse who saw the glass on the bed described. The two photographs of the room, taken from different angles, also failed to show either the slippers under the bed or the razor blade beside it that the nurse saw. In fact, the barren room with nothing on the bed or any of the furniture, no reading or writing material, no clothing, no spectacles, no pipe, tobacco, or lighter, in short, no sign that James Forrestal or anyone else had, shortly before, been a patient there, is clearly not the room as described by the nurse, Lieutenant junior grade Dorothy Turner. (See photographs.)

The scene that Navy corpsman chief John Edward McClain captured was not what a proper police crime-scene photographer would have captured. The room had been stripped down and scrubbed up, except that the cleaners seem to have overlooked the clear pieces of glass two feet, or so, from the foot of the bed. A suspicious police investigator, encountering this broken glass on the bed and the floor and noting the bathrobe cord tightly tied around Forrestal's neck, might well have concluded that these were signs of a struggle, quite inconsistent with the quick conclusion of suicide by the county medical examiner and the inferences drawn by the news accounts.

Secret Report Finally Made Public

This new information on James Forrestal's untimely death, never reported before anywhere, is taken directly from the investigation of the review board convened by the commander of the National Naval Medical Center, Rear Admiral Morton D. Willcutts, on the day after Forrestal's May 22, 1949, death. The board, made up of five Navy Medical Corps officers junior to Admiral Willcutts and one retired Medical Corps captain had finished hearing and recording the testimony of all witnesses–all of whom were also members of the Navy Medical Corps on duty at the Bethesda Naval Hospital–on May 31, 1949. The "proceedings and findings" of the board were officially signed off on by the Commandant of the Potomac River Naval Command on July 13, 1949, but not until October 11 was a less than one page, uninformative 5-point "Finding of Facts" released to the public. Interestingly, that release did not conclude that Forrestal had committed suicide, but the press left us with the impression that it had. The Review Board investigation itself remained secret until April 6 of 2004 when the author, on his third Freedom of Information Act try, the first two of which were to the National Naval Medical Center, received the report from the Navy's Judge Advocate General's office.

Forrestal’s body had been found on the roof of the second deck of the Bethesda Naval Hospital at around 1:50 AM on Sunday. The board met at 11:45 AM on Monday, May 23, and spent only 45 minutes total, visiting the morgue to identify the body, the site 13 stories below where Forrestal had landed, room 1618 where Forrestal had been hospitalized for some seven weeks, and room 1620, the diet kitchen across the hall out of whose window Forrestal had apparently fallen. A lunch break was taken from 12:30 to 1:30 and the board members then conferred among themselves until 2:18, when they adjourned for the day.

Photographers First

The first two witnesses called when the board convened the next morning were the photographer who took pictures of the body and the photographer who took pictures around the 16^th floor area. It is of some interest that two photographers were required for this task. Of even greater interest is that, quite properly, the time when the pictures of the body were taken is firmly established by questioning, but the board exhibits a very curious lack of curiosity as to when the second set of pictures, the ones inside the hospital, were taken.

After establishing that “Harley F. Cope, junior, Aviation photographer’s mate first,” had “been called upon recently to take some pictures” and having elicited from Mate Cope what the nature of the pictures were, this question is addressed to him:

The second witness, “John Edward McClain, hospital corpsman chief, U.S. Navy,” was also asked if he was “called upon recently to take some pictures” and asked to identify them, but the follow-up question establishing the important fact of when he was called upon and when he took the pictures never comes. It is apparent that enough time had been permitted to elapse for Forrestal’s room to be transformed from the one that Nurse Turner described to the one that Corpsman McClain photographed. That the review board failed to establish just how much time that was looks to be more than inadvertent. When we look carefully at the windows in the photographs of the room we see that bright sunlight is streaming in. The sun is about as high in the sky as it gets in May at the latitude of the Washington, DC, area. One can surmise that at least eight hours had passed between Forrestal’s fall and Corpsman McClain’s photographic work. Why was it necessary to let so much time pass?

Though they must have taken a look at the photographs and noticed the barren room and the bright sunlight in the pictures, the members of the review board failed to note the contradiction in the later testimony of Lieutenant junior grade Francis Whitney Westneat when he said that, “... the Navy photographers (plural) arrived at three fifteen and finished their work at about three twenty-five....”

Not only do the questioners fail to establish when the second photographer actually did his work, but in using the passive voice in their initial questions to each of the photographers, they also fail to inform us as to exactly who called upon these photographers to take these pictures. Who was in charge of things, of the investigation, if you will, from the time Forrestal was found dead until the board began its work at 11:45 of the next morning, some 34 hours later? If we could know that we might also be able to learn who was responsible for laundering the crime scene of Forrestal’s room.

That Corpsman McClain was, to some degree, treating what he was shooting as a crime scene comes out in his volunteered remarks about one of the pictures he is asked to describe: “This is out of focus. We were shooting for finger prints which we were requested to get and that is what we have, sir.”

The board never asks who requested the pictures of fingerprints or what those pictures turned up. Since the board never asks who that person was, that key investigator is never examined by the board.

In that same long response identifying his photographs, McClain reveals the existence of the broken glass: “The fifth picture is a picture of a rug with some broken glass on it, taken approximately two feet from the end of the bed. We were unable to get any identifying marks except the rug; couldn’t pick up the bed because the glass wouldn’t show. It was room sixteen eighteen.”

Perhaps the mystery investigator who ordered up the fingerprints also made some effort to determine how the glass came to be broken, but the board members, none of whom, as medical men, seem to have any background in the investigation of crimes, have nothing to say about it.

Their curiosity about the broken glass was no greater when they questioned Nurse Turner next to last on the third day of the hearing.

Q. What were your particular duties on the night of May twenty-first?

A. Usually before quarter of two I go down to tower eight before I write the captain’s log and I had left tower twelve and went down to tower eight and I asked the corpsman how everything was and he said he just gave a man a pill. I happened to look up at the clock. It was just about one fourty-four (sic). I sat there in a chair for a minute and then I heard this noise. It was a double thud and I said what was that. I said “It sounded like somebody fell out of bed you better check the wing in front” and he went to check the beds and said it was alright and so I said “I’ll check the head” and sent him to tower seven to see if it was something down there. That’s when I walked in the bathroom on tower eight. I looked out the window. I just remember thinking in my mind, “Oh my God, I hope he isn’t mine” and I ran up to tower twelve and told the corpsman to check on Colonel Fuller’s room so he walked into his room and I walked into room twelve thirty opposite his room and looked out the window from there and could see a body distinctly. It was then I really realized it was a body and I thought of Mister Forrestal. So I went up to tower sixteen and told Miss Harty there was a man’s body outside the galley window and he wasn’t mine. We both went into his room and he wasn’t there and we noticed the broken glass on the bed and looked down and noticed the razor blade and told him he was missing (sic) and she said it was one forty-eight. Then I walked over towards the galley and noticed the screen was unlocked. That’s about all.

Examined by the board:

Q. When you found out the body was not that of one of your patients what made you think of Mister Forrestal?

A. I knew he wasn’t mine and I knew that Mister Forrestal was up there and was being watched.

Q. You said you saw his slippers and a razor blade beside them; where did you see them?

A. The bed clothes were turned back and towards the middle of the bed and I looked down and they were right there as you get out of bed.

Q. And the razor blade was lying beside the slippers?

A. Yes it was.

Q. Did you notice any blood on the bed?

A. No, I didn’t see any and the razor blade was dry; there wasn’t anything on that. I remember looking and there wasn’t anything on the glass either.

Q. Where was the bathrobe?

A. I didn’t see his bathrobe.

Neither the recorder nor the members of the board desired further to examine the witness.

The board informed the witness that she was privileged to make any further statement covering anything relating to the subject matter of the investigation which she thought should be a matter of record in connection therewith, which had not been fully brought out by the previous questioning.

The witness said she had nothing further to state.

The witness was duly warned and withdrew.

Although the “cord” found tied tightly around Forrestal’s neck is commonly referred to as his bathrobe cord, no official connection is ever made between that cord and his bathrobe. He was wearing only his pajamas when he fell from the window. The cord appears in the list of exhibits, but the bathrobe does not. This question of Nurse Turner represents the only attempt by the board to locate the bathrobe, perhaps to see if it was missing a belt.

The Key Missing Exhibits

Some much more important things than Forrestal’s bathrobe were missing from the exhibits, though. Have a look at the complete list, dear reader, and see if you notice what they are:

Introduced on Page No.

Pictures of body of deceased,

Exhibits 1A through 1J .............................................................…......……… 2

Photographs of Rooms sixteen eighteen and sixteen twenty and

outside of building (illegible), National Naval Medical Center,

Bethesda, Maryland,

Exhibits 2A through 2K...................................................................………….4

Clinical record of the deceased, Exhibit 3......................................................................8

Bathrobe cord, Exhibit 4...........................................................................….............37

Photographs of external injuries taken immediately preceding autopsy,

Exhibit 5........................................................................................….…..…...........55

Letter of Doctor William C. Menninger, Exhibit 6................................…....................57

Letter of Doctor Raymond W. Waggoner, Exhibit 7....................................................57

That’s right, there’s no autopsy report, a pretty serious omission. Defenders of the investigation might respond that the autopsy doctor, as we shall see, was questioned at length and asked many key questions, revealing that in his opinion Forrestal was not choked to death before being thrown out of the window, but these are no substitute for the autopsy report itself. One can only wonder why it was left out. Possibly germane to this omission is the fact that the author’s FOIA request for all materials connected with the Willcutts Report was not completely honored by the Navy JAG office. The first set of exhibits, the 10 photographs of the body as it lay on the third floor roof were held back, as were an unknown number of photographs taken of Forrestal’s external injuries taken just prior to the autopsy. The reason given was that “...the unauthorized release of this information would result in a clearly unwarranted invasion of personal privacy with respect to Mr. Forrestal’s surviving family members (5 U.S.C.552 (b)(6), as amended).”

The JAG office informed me that I could challenge the ruling with a formal letter sent within 60 days, and I did so, on the basis that no family member who knew him and could be counted as a loved one or a “surviving family member” was still alive (He has one grandchild who was born many years after his death and is now only of college age.). On September 14, 2004, I finally received a response. Here is the key paragraph:

"Please be advised that these exhibits [1, 4, and 5] are missing from the original investigative report. Due to an administrative error you were informed on April 6, 2004, that these exhibits were withheld out of respect to Mr. Forrestal’s surviving family members."

It would appear to this humble observer that the Navy legal team’s initial error was tactical rather than administrative.

Readers of the first installment of “Who Killed James Forrestal?” should also notice the missing props that played such a key role in convincing the public that Forrestal had killed himself. For the others, here are the key passages from the front-page article in The New York Times of Monday, May 23, 1949:

Forrestal Killed in 13 Story Leap

Nation is Shocked

He Was a War Casualty as If He Died at Front, President Declares

Washington May 22 - James Forrestal, former Secretary of Defense, jumped thirteen stories to his death early this morning from the sixteenth floor of the Naval Medical Center.

Suicide had apparently been planned from early evening. He declined his usual sleeping pill about 1:45 this morning. A book of poetry beside his bed was opened to a passage from the Greek tragedian, Sophocles, telling of the comfort of death.

........

The plunge that caused Mr. Forrestal’s death occurred at 2 A.M. and hospital authorities announced it with a brief statement two hours later.

Pushed Open a Screen

The hospital said that Mr. Forrestal had left his room, No. 1618 in the white granite tower of the hospital, and had gone to a diet kitchen nearby. There, clad in a dressing gown, he pushed open a screen held only by thumb latches and plummeted to the third floor projection after hitting a narrower projection at the fourth floor.

The sound of the fall was heard by Lieut. Dorothy Turner, the nurse on duty on the seventh floor almost immediately after a Medical Corpsman’s check of Mr. Forrestal’s room disclosed he was missing. An investigation led to the discovery of the body on the roof of the passageway leading from the third floor of the main building.

There were indications that Mr. Forrestal might also have tried to hang himself. The sash of his dressing-gown was still knotted and wrapped tightly around his neck when he was found, but hospital officials would not speculate as to its possible purpose.

Mr. Forrestal had copied most of the Sophocles poem from the book on hospital memo paper, but he had apparently been interrupted in his efforts. His copying stopped after he had written “night” of the word “nightingale” in the twenty-sixth line of the poem.

The book was Anthology of World Poetry, bound in red leather and decorated in gold. A red ribbon bookmark was between Pages 278 and 279 where “Chorus from Ajax” appears.

.........

He was widely denounced by persons who felt that he favored the Arabs over the Jews, and Mr. Forrestal was said to be particularly distressed by a statement that “he cared more for oil than he did for the Jews.”

........

Rear Admiral Leslie Stone

Adm. Stone gave this account of the circumstances that enabled Mr. Forrestal to elude the attendant early this morning.

So where were the poetry anthology and the memo page with the transcribed lines from “Chorus from Ajax” in the list of exhibits? Actually, the handwritten page was included among the materials that the author received from the Navy, but none of the witnesses mentions having discovered it or the book in Forrestal’s room, and no one on the review board asks anything about the circumstances of their discovery. Nurse Turner, the most likely candidate to have seen them first, if, in fact, they were ever in the room, mentions only the broken glass, the turned-down bed clothes, the razor blade, and, with prompting from the board, Forrestal’s slippers. The book and the transcription were absolutely vital in the selling of the story that Forrestal took his own life, but they seem to have materialized out of the ether (Speaking of ether, another thing we learn from the Willcutts Report, for what it is worth, is that Forrestal complained on a number of occasions of a strong ether smell in his room.). On the other hand, broken glass was most assuredly discovered in the room by two separate individuals, one of whom captured it photographically, and it has taken 55 years for that fact to reach the American public (Actually it remains to be seen whether the salient facts surrounding Forrestal’s death will ever reach any significant portion of the American public. Those who were content for the Report to remain secret all these years will hardly be inclined to publicize its findings and its shortcomings.).

Something else that is notable about the account in The Times is the degree of detail about the goings on in the hospital in the minutes before and after Forrestal’s fatal plunge. This is information that could only have come from Apprentice Harrison, Commander Deen, and Lt. Turner. Someone had clearly taken charge of the investigation right off the bat to elicit this information from them. For lack of any other name, that of the commanding medical officer of Bethesda Naval Hospital, Rear Admiral Leslie Stone, the man who gave the information to the press will have to do. Yet, as we shall see, when the board questions him they ask him nothing about his actions in the wake of the Forrestal death.

Forrestal’s Guard Queried

Apprentice Harrison plays such an important role in Forrestal’s last few minutes among the living that his testimony is produced here in its entirety:

Examined by the recorder (Lieutenant Robert F. Hooper, Medical Service Corps, U.S. Navy):

Q. State your name, rate and present station.

A. Robert Wayne Harrison, junior, hospital apprentice, U. S. Navy, Naval Medical Center, Bethesda, Maryland.

Q. Harrison, what were your specific duties on the night of May twenty-first?

A. My specific duties were to take care of Mister Forrestal.

Q. What time did you go on duty?

A. I went on duty at eleven forty-five p.m.

Q. Whom did you relieve?

A. Price, hospital corpsman?

Q. Would you tell the board what happened from the time you took over the watch at eleven forty-five until the time that you discovered Mister Forrestal was missing?

A. When I took over the watch at eleven forty-five Price whom I relieved told me that Mister Forrestal was still up in his room and that he had been walking around; that he had been reading. Since I didn’t know Mister Forrestal personally, (I had been on the night before, and when he woke up the next morning I didn’t get to talk to him very much, I didn’t know him personally), he introduced me to him and he was very friendly and said “Hello” to me.

Q. How many times did you speak to Mister Forrestal between the time you took over the watch and the time he was missing?

A. Approximately three or four times.

Q. Did you notice anything unusual about Mister Forrestal’s behavior during that time?

A. No, sir, I didn’t.

Q. Did he say anything to you that would lead you to believe that he was in any way disturbed?

A. No, sir, he didn’t.

Q. At what time did you last see Mister Forrestal?

A. It was one forty-five, sir.

Q. Where was he then?

A. He was in his bed, apparently sleeping.

Q. Where were you at that time?

A. I was in the room when I saw him.

Q. Did you leave the room at that time?

A. Yes, sir, I did.

Q. Where did you go?

A. I went out to the nurse’s desk to write in the chart, Mister Forrestal’s chart.

Q. At what time did you become aware of the fact that Mister Forrestal was missing?

A. At approximately one-fifty a.m.

Q. Had you previously spoken to the doctor regarding Mister Forrestal?

A. Yes, sir, I had.

Q. At what time was that?

A. That was just before one forty-five before I went back into his room to check to see what he was doing, to see if he was asleep or resting.

Q. And then you left the room and went out to the nurse’s desk?

A. To write in the chart, yes, sir.

Q. What did you do when you discovered Mister Forrestal was missing?

A. When I went back into the room after I had finished writing in the chart, I went over to my chair where he had been sitting while I was in the room before and since it is dark in the room, very dark, my eyes had to become accustomed to the light before I could see anything. There is a chair sitting directly in front of the night light and it is very hard to see anything at all when you first walk into the room so I went over and started to sit down in the chair; by that time I could see enough to see that he wasn’t in his bed. The first thought that came to my mind was maybe he had gotten up and gone into the head and at the same moment the corpsman on duty, Utz, came to the door and told me I had a phone call out at the desk. I told him Mister Forrestal was gone. I went out to the desk and answered the phone call. It was Bramley, the night Master-at-arms of the Neuropsychiatric service. Bramley asked me if Mister Forrestal was alright. I said that I didn’t know, that he wasn’t in his bed and he told me to make a thorough check and to find out for sure where he was. So I went back into the head, looked in the closet, any possible place in the room, and on my way back out in the hall back to the phone I looked into the galley and I didn’t see him in there, either. So I went back to the phone and told Bramley that he was not there.

Examined by the board:

Q. Just prior to discovering that Mister Forrestal was missing did you hear any unusual noises coming from the vicinity of the diet kitchen?

A. No, sir, I heard nothing.

Q. Were you close enough to the diet kitchen to hear if there had been any unusual noises?

A. Yes, sir, I definitely would have.

Q. What is your regular assignment in the hospital?

A. I was on night duty on ward 6-D, a neuropsychiatric ward.

Q. How long have you been there?

A. Approximately two months, a little over two months, sir.

Q. How long have you been assigned to the neuropsychiatric service?

A. A little over two months, sir.

Q. How many times did you say you stood watch on Mister Forrestal?

A. Part of Friday night and I took the regular watch on Saturday night.

Q. Did Mister Forrestal do very much wandering about his room or corridor Saturday night?

A. He was walking around his room and he did follow me out to the diet kitchen when he asked me for some orange juice and then once after that he was out of his room to drink a cup of coffee.

Q. Did he go to the diet kitchen for the coffee?

A. Yes, sir, he did.

Q. Were you with him then?

A. No, sir, I was not.

Q. He served the coffee himself?

A. No, sir, the corpsman on duty, Utz, was bringing coffee up in a coffee pot at that time. I was out writing my chart and he went past the desk where I was sitting and entering in the chart. He went out towards the galley with his pot of coffee and I heard him mention Mister Forrestal’s name and say something to him and ask him if he would like a cup of coffee. Mister Forrestal said “Yes” and then I heard a noise which would signify he was giving him a cup of coffee and right after that I got up and went out to the diet kitchen. He was coming out with his coffee in his hand. He handed me the cup of coffee and said he was all finished with it. He said I could put it in the galley.

Q. About what time was that?

A. That is one time I don’t remember.

Q. How was he dressed?

A. He was in his pajamas, sir.

Q. Did he have a bathrobe on or not?

A. No, sir.

Q. Did you give Mister Forrestal any medication at all that night?

A. No, sir, I didn’t.

Q. Did he talk to you very much that night?

A. No, he didn’t.

Q. Didn’t he ask you about yourself and where you came from and so on?

A. No, sir, he didn’t say much except when I first came in and was introduced to him. That was when he said “Hello” to me. When I asked him if he wanted his sleeping tablets he told me no, he thought he could sleep without them.

Q. Was your station inside Mister Forrestal’s room or was it outside the door?

A. I don’t exactly understand what you mean by that, sir.

Q. Were you directed to sit in his room while you had the watch most of the time or could you sit at the nurse’s desk?

A. I was supposed to be in the room except when I went out to make entries in his chart or get something for Mister Forrestal.

Q. Were the lights on in Mister Forrestal’s room when you took over the watch - the overhead lights?

A. No, sir, not the overhead lights; just the night light.

Q. Did you notice a broken ashtray any time during your tour of duty in Mister Forrestal’s room?

A. No, sir, I didn’t.

Q. When you were at the nurse’s desk is it possible for a person to go into the diet kitchen without your observing him?

A. I couldn’t have seen him.

Q. Did Mister Forrestal appear cheerful or depressed in the time that you observed him?

A. He appeared neither, sir.

Q. Did Mister Forrestal do any reading?

A. Not while I was on watch, sir.

Q. After you discovered Mister Forrestal was gone did you go into the galley?

A. About fifteen or twenty minutes afterwards, yes, sir.

Q. Would you describe the condition of the window in the area at the time that you were in there, in particular whether the screen was locked or unlocked?

A. The screen was unlocked at that time, sir.

Q. Were there any attachments to the radiator?

A. I saw none if there were.

Q. Did you notice any marks on the window sill?

A. Sir, at that time I was in such a state that I didn’t notice any marks on the window sill.

Q. You did state earlier that you had looked into the galley but no one was there?

A. Yes, sir.

Q. You had no reason to examine the galley further?

Assuming Dr. Nenno was telling the truth, this account also seriously calls into question the probity of the psychiatrist in overall charge of Forrestal’s care. The head psychiatrist in charge of Forrestal’s care, Captain George Raines, depicts Forrestal as scheming to get Harrison out of the way so he can commit suicide, but the doctor’s story is flatly contradicted by the Harrison testimony, testimony with which Dr. Raines had to have been thoroughly familiar when he gave his account to Dr. Nenno.

Hoopes and Brinkley do prove to be correct with their revelation–not found in any previously published account of which the author is aware–that the guard on duty was new to the job. Here we find that he was spending his first full night on the Forrestal detail, having spent part of Friday night on duty. The significance they read into that fact, however, that it made him easily manipulated by a suicide-bound Forrestal, proved to be off the mark. If, on the other hand, Forrestal was murdered on orders of the powers that be, Harrison’s newness to the job might indicate that he was part of the plot, brought in from outside to help carry out the deed during the hours when Forrestal was most vulnerable. To allow the accomplice time to get to know Forrestal as a person would have jeopardized the mission, and it would have looked really bad if the deed had been pulled off within a few days of Forrestal’s admission into the hospital when he was ostensibly under heavy guard, expressly to prevent suicide.

The timing of the board’s question, giving Harrison the opportunity to establish that he had worked previously in neuropsychology elsewhere in the hospital, seems almost to have as its purpose the forestalling of such speculation. We don’t know if Harrison was, in fact, telling the truth on this point. Furthermore, he could have been an operative all along, working for one of the more clandestine branches of the government. It would have been helpful if the board had established why the regular night-shift attendant was not there. Hoopes and Brinkley say that he had gone AWOL on a drunken bender, but this is neither corroborated by the official inquiry nor is it contradicted.

A couple more revelations in the Harrison testimony are of interest. We find out that the regular station of Forrestal’s attendant was not just outside the door of his room, as one might assume, but in the room itself. Dr. Raines and the other psychiatrists in their testimony make a big deal out of relaxed restrictions on Forrestal being an important part of his “recovery” process. At the same time they have a person violating his privacy on an almost permanent basis. The picture that comes across is more of Forrestal as a prisoner than as a patient. We discover further that those detailed periodic log entries that make up most of the bulk of the exhibits to the Willcutts Report were made at the nurse’s desk down the hall and that from that location one could not see anyone going from Forrestal’s room to the kitchen across the hall with its unprotected window. It almost makes a farce of the story that when Forrestal was first admitted and his mental state was bad, precautions against suicide were tight, but were loosened only as his condition improved. Furthermore, we learn from other testimony that immediately upon admission to the hospital, Forrestal was sent immediately to the 16^th floor room even though “security screens” would not be installed on the room’s windows for several more days. Recall, as well, the one clear picture that we have of one of these “security screens” and we must really wonder how much of a hindrance they would have been to anyone bent on suicide. The screen is already half out of the window. The room pictures also reveal Venetian blinds on the windows with long cords hanging down from them and radiators beneath the windows. The cords as a noose and the radiator as a perch from which to jump look to be almost tailor-made for suicide by hanging. One must really wonder whether the good doctors at Bethesda ever really considered Forrestal much of a suicide threat or if they did, whether they were expected to make much of an effort to prevent it.

The Misnamed Witness

The testimony of the witness who followed Harrison on the stand, but was relieved by him on the night of Forrestal’s death, is perhaps even more intriguing than Harrison’s, and it is also reproduced here in full: