Forrestal, James V.
Forrestal, James V. (1892–1949), investment banker, undersecretary of the navy (1940–44), secretary of the navy (1944–47), and the nation's first secretary of defense (1947–49).Forrestal was the youngest of three sons born to Irish immigrant parents in Beacon, New York. He attended Princeton University in the class of 1915, served as editor of the Daily Princetonian, and was voted “Most Likely to Succeed” and “The Man Nobody Knows.”
After a short stint as a naval aviator in World War I, he joined the Wall Street firm of William Read & Co. (later Dillon, Read) as a bond salesman. He was elected to the partnership in 1923, became one of the “golden boys” of investment banking during the Roaring Twenties, and was made president of the firm in 1940. He married Josephine Ogden, an editor of Vogue magazine, in 1926.
Called to Washington by President Franklin...
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