By the time James V. Forrestal became the country's first secretary of defense, he was showing the strains of nearly eight years of government service. As his biographers point out, Forrestal had become something of an automaton, a workaholic who could neither relax on the job nor retreat to the haven of a happy family. He and his wife led essentially separate lives. She was a schizophrenic whose bizarre behavior, including vulgar language, chronic breakdowns, and alcoholism, grew worse with each year of their marriage. He was a promiscuous Lothario whose private affairs revealed a cynical and secretive personality that became increasingly unstable in the Machiavellian world of the National Military Establishment.

As secretary of defense, Forrestal worked with a small staff to administer the affairs of military departments that behaved more like hostile sovereigns than a unified force. The National Security Act, which he had shaped, made it difficult for him to succeed in his new assignment, and the struggle to succeed exhausted him both physically and mentally and left him increasingly nervous and irresolute. Only days after taking office he was complaining about the difficult tasks before him and telling a friend that he would soon need “the combined attention” of the “entire psychiatric profession.” He was right.

From the start, Forrestal had trouble making up his mind.