Word: forrestall
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
The foreign-policy debate in books was remarkable chiefly for its lack of acrimony. It was apparent from The Forrestal Diaries that James Forrestal had become a civilian casualty in his dogged fight for national security. George Kennan, reported to be the next U.S. Ambassador to Moscow, argued in American...
Last Entries. Forrestal's entries in the diary dribble off around January 1949. Last week some of his close friends pieced out the Forrestal story with unpublished recollections of his last months.
His personal aides began to notice signs of exhaustion in February. Once he tore up a draft of a speech at 2 a.m. and sent the writer back to rewrite it by 8 o'clock. He summoned generals and admirals to his office on Sunday afternoon to advise him...
Eberstadt raced to Forrestal's home in Georgetown and found Forrestal mumbling: "I'm a disgrace to my friends. I have failed. The Department of Justice is going to indict me on Monday." Eberstadt whisked him to Hobe Sound, Fla. in an Air Force Constellation, where Bob Lovett...
The diaries give no reason for his suicide. But the sum total of the cryptic entries, the reflections, the worries and the responsibilities, add up to a strong case that James Forrestal was a casualty in a desperate battle to save the American people from complacency.