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10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/James Forrestal.md
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@ -101,7 +101,7 @@ The Mudd Library finding aid for the Rogow Papers on Forrestal states that files
The precept of May 22, 1949, signed by Rear Admiral M. D. Willcutts, Medical Officer in Command of the National Naval Medical Center, named Captain [[A. A. Marsteller]] (typed in the precept as Aolpfar A. Marsteller), Medical Corps (retired, on active duty), as senior member, Captains [[Vincent Hernandez]] and [[Harold J. Cokely]], Commander [[William W. Ayres]] and Lieutenant Commander [[James D. Wharton]] as members and Lieutenant [[Robert F. Hooper]] as recorder. The board met on Monday, May 23 at 11:45 a.m. with closed doors, examined the body at the morgue, viewed rooms 1618 and 1620 (the room and the diet kitchen on the sixteenth floor of the tower) and the roof where the body landed, and took testimony beginning May 24.[^2] Aviation photographer's mate first class Harley F. Cope Jr. of the Naval Medical School testified to taking ten photographs of the body, exhibits 1A through 1J, between three and three-fifteen, of "somebody who had fallen from the sixteenth floor to the outside of the third deck." Hospital corpsman chief John Edward McClain, an instructor in medical photography, testified to eleven photographs of the room, the diet kitchen and the outside of the building, exhibits 2A through 2K. He described the fifth as "a rug with some broken glass on it, taken approximately two feet from the end of the bed" in room 1618, adding that the bed could not be photographed "because the glass wouldn't show"; he said that the window screen opened only to a limited distance, that one picture was taken standing on a chair in the diet kitchen with a man pushing the screen back "for finger prints," and that the body landed on a roof "like in proportion to the second floor" below a ledge of the third floor. The board's record notes that the body landed "on the roof of the second deck, on a level with the third deck, striking first a ledge of the fourth deck."[^2]
The record's index lists the later witnesses, with transcript pages: Captain Raines (pp. 5 to 14 and 56 to 60), Commander John Nardini (14 to 18), Commander David Hightower (18 to 23), Commander Robert Reynolds Deen (23 to 28), Captain Stephen Smith (29 to 33), hospitalman second class William Eliades (34 to 36), Lieutenant (junior grade) Willie Ray Barnett of the Medical Service Corps (36 and 37), hospitalman chief John Lawrence Mego (37 and 38), Rear Admiral Leslie Stone (38 and 39), Captain Bartholomew W. Hogan (39), Lieutenant (junior grade) Francis Whitney Westneat (40 and 41), junior hospital apprentice Robert Wayne Harrison (43 to 46) and hospital apprentice Edward William Price (47 and 48), with further nurse, apprentice and officer witnesses to p. 55. The file read ends at transcript p. 29, the first page of Smith's testimony, so the testimony of the corpsmen at pp. 34 to 48, including Harrison and Price, is not in it; the passage Hugh Turley quoted below could not be checked against the page.[^2]
The record's index lists the later witnesses, with transcript pages: Captain Raines (pp. 5 to 14 and 56 to 60), Commander John Nardini (14 to 18), Commander David Hightower (18 to 23), Commander Robert Reynolds Deen (23 to 28), Captain Stephen Smith (29 to 33), hospitalman second class William Eliades (34 to 36), Lieutenant (junior grade) Willie Ray Barnett of the Medical Service Corps (36 and 37), hospitalman chief John Lawrence Mego (37 and 38), Rear Admiral Leslie Stone (38 and 39), Captain Bartholomew W. Hogan (39), Lieutenant (junior grade) Francis Whitney Westneat (40 and 41), junior hospital apprentice Robert Wayne Harrison (43 to 46) and hospital apprentice Edward William Price (47 and 48), with further nurse, apprentice and officer witnesses to p. 55.[^2]
Commander Hightower, testified (pp. 19 to 21 of the record) that on Friday night, May 20, he checked with the corpsman at about nine o'clock and was told Forrestal was sleeping, that Forrestal slept through that night without medication, and that on Saturday morning he visited with a friend from New York, a "Mister Strieffler," whom Raines had said on Thursday night would visit.[^2]
@ -118,7 +118,7 @@ The Eisenhower briefing document, dated November 18, 1952, lists Secretary James
### Footnotes
[^1]: Princeton University Library, "James V. Forrestal Papers, 1907-1958 (mostly 1940-1949)," MC051, collection creator biography, collection history, immediate source of acquisition and series 1 folder list, https://findingaids.princeton.edu/catalog/MC051.xml (EAD export, opened 2026-10-03).
[^2]: "Willcutts Report on Forrestal's Death," Forrestal Papers, Box 94, Folder 11, Seeley G. Mudd Manuscript Library, digitized at Princeton Figgy (IIIF manifest https://figgy.princeton.edu/concern/scanned_resources/97bd9b5d-cc16-4f8c-94bf-0763b7228def/manifest), finding aid entry https://findingaids.princeton.edu/catalog/MC051_c04531. Page images (Judge Advocate General letter of April 6, 2004; precept of May 22, 1949; findings; endorsements of June and July 1949; testimony) read directly for the precept and findings pages and by machine OCR for the remainder; the precept, first-day record, the first witnesses (Cope, McClain, Raines and Hightower, transcript pp. 2 to 21) and the index were re-read from page images on October 3, 2026 and agree with the text above except that the board met at 11:45 a.m. (an earlier version of this page said 11:15); the PDF supplied by the vault owner has 66 pages and stops at transcript p. 29.
[^2]: "Willcutts Report on Forrestal's Death," Forrestal Papers, Box 94, Folder 11, Seeley G. Mudd Manuscript Library, digitized at Princeton Figgy (IIIF manifest https://figgy.princeton.edu/concern/scanned_resources/97bd9b5d-cc16-4f8c-94bf-0763b7228def/manifest), finding aid entry https://findingaids.princeton.edu/catalog/MC051_c04531. The file holds the Judge Advocate General letter of April 6, 2004, the precept of May 22, 1949, the findings, the endorsements of June and July 1949, and the testimony.
[^3]: FBI, "Majestic 12," file 65-81170, Part 01, pages reproducing the Eisenhower briefing document and the Truman memorandum, https://vault.fbi.gov/Majestic%2012/Majestic%2012%20Part%2001%20%28Final%29/at_download/file (Wayback copy used; page images not machine readable; wording cross-checked against the existing Majestic-12 page).
[^4]: Site editor's note on The Charlotte News, Monday, May 23, 1949, W. J. Cash site, https://www.wjcash.org/WJCash17/Charlotte.News.Articles/5-23-49.htm (a modern summary quoting the board testimony, not the 1949 page).
[^5]: "Forrestal Death Leap / Ex-Defense Sec'y Jumps from 16th Story Hospital Window," Associated Press, Washington, May 22 dateline, Kennebec Journal (Augusta, Maine), May 23, 1949, p. 1, https://www.newspapers.com/image/857767711/