TRANSLATED FROM ITALIAN
An Instructive Lesson Still Today
By Claudio Resta for VT Italy
Back to the end of 1940S, right to WWII post-war years James Vincent Forrestal (February 15, 1892 – May 22, 1949) a former Wall Street bond salesman, at the beginning of the war was appointed by President Franklyn Delano Roosevelt on June 22, 1940, as a special administrative assistant. Six weeks later, he nominated him for the newly established position, Undersecretary of the Navy was the last Cabinet-level United States Secretary of the Navy and the first United States Secretary of Defense.
Right after the war in 1945 Forrestal advocated “the menace of Russian Communism and its attraction for decimated, destabilized societies in Europe and Asia,” and, urged President Truman to take a hard line with the Soviets over Poland and other issues. In furtherance of the anti-Soviet position, he was the primary promoter of the famous “long telegram” by State Department official George Kennan. “[Averell] Harriman thought Forrestal’s reaction [to the Kennan document] was a ‘decisive’ catalyst in shaping American opinion on the issue.”
Forrestal also strongly influenced the new Wisconsin Senator, Joseph Mc Carthy, concerning the infiltration of the government by Communists. Upon McCarthy’s arrival in Washington in December 1946, Forrestal invited him to lunch. In McCarthy’s words, “Before meeting Jim Forrestal I thought we were losing to international Communism because of incompetence and stupidity on the part of our planners. I mentioned that to Forrestal. I shall forever remember his answer. He said, ‘McCarthy, consistency has never been a mark of stupidity. If they were merely stupid, they would occasionally make a mistake in our favor.’ This phrase struck me so forcefully that I have often used it since.”
President Eisenhower and former Supreme Allied Commander recorded he was in agreement with Forrestal’s theories on the dangers of Soviet and International communist expansion. Eisenhower recalled that Forrestal had been “the one man who, in the very midst of the war, always counseled caution and alertness in dealing with the Soviets.” During the war Eisenhower remembered on several occasions, while he was Supreme Allied Commander, he had been visited by Forrestal, who carefully explained his thesis that the Communists would never cease trying to destroy all representative government.
He was also the main developer of the National Security Act of 1947.
Forced into the neuropsychiatric ward of National Naval Medical Center, Bethesda, due to serious mental disorders, after a 5 weeks of treatment based on strong psychotropic drugs on 22 May 1949 he committed suicide jumping down from the sixteenth floor of NNMC, believing he had seen Soviets entering through the window and yelling: The Russian Are Coming! The Russian Are Coming!
For all these reasons I think we can consider him as the sick but creative “inventor” and promoter of the Cold War centered on a Russophobic Red Scare. Based on his personal psychiatric problem, a fixation, a monomania.
According to Mass/Crowd Psychologist, Gustave Le Bon masses/crowds exist in three stages: submergence, contagion, and suggestion.
During submergence, the individuals in the crowd lose their sense of individual self and personal responsibility. This was the effect of WWII discipline and propaganda, I personally assume. This is quite heavily induced by the anonymity of the crowd.
Contagion refers to the propensity for individuals in a crowd to unquestioningly follow the predominant ideas and emotions of the crowd. In Le Bon’s view, this effect is capable of spreading between “submerged” individuals much like a disease.
We must also grant Forrestal a particular skill to influence people with his fixation, charismatic leadership in it to infect them (contagion) with it
Then according to Le Bon comes the suggestion that refers to the period in which the ideas and emotions of the crowd are primarily drawn from a shared unconscious ideology. Crowd members become susceptible to any passing idea or emotion. This behavior comes from an archaic shared unconscious and is therefore uncivilized in nature. It is limited by the moral and cognitive abilities of the least capable members. Le Bon believed that crowds could be a powerful force only for destruction.
Of course, Forrestal’s creation, The Russophobic Cold War, has gone far beyond his earthly life in a self-powered process and today it seems to witness a sort of up-to-date 2022 remake of it.
Sorcerers apprentices are warned of the danger …for them too!
Claudio Resta was born in Genoa, Italy in 1958, he is a citizen of the world (Spinoza), a maverick philosopher, an interdisciplinary expert, oh, and an artist, too.
Grew up in a family of scientists where many sciences were represented by philosophy to psychoanalysis, from economics to history, from mathematics to physics, and where these sciences were subject to public display by their subject experts family members, and all those who they were part of could participate in a public family dialogue/debate on these subjects if they so wished. Read Full Bio
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Antony Sutton’s books also reveal everything that was well hidden over the decades.
The Mig 15 for instance was designed by Siegfried Gunther, who along with so many engineers and scientists went to work in the Soviet Union either as forced labor, or well paid.
The Rolls Royce Nene was used on the Mig 15, and obtaining about 55 of these engines was no problem, as Douglas Reed reveals, using “irresistible pressure”
The BMW and Junkers jet engines that were taken were used in the design of the Bear’s giant contra-rotating turboprop engines..
Between these 2 authors one gets to see who the financiers were-same banks financed the invasion and industrialization of Russia, and then the re-industrialization of Germany starting in 1924
Forrestal stood against the creation of Israel and it cost him his life. Flying out of windows is a signature op
Claudio, glad to hear you will look for the book, it is possible to be found online or at archive.org
Also, Operation Gladio and how Italians were able to resist it(Aldo Moro era)
As I posted, Douglas Reed’s book is essential-
I have read much different history about Forrestal,
first of all as sec of Navy, his concerns and knowledge more about Japanese than the nazis, and he was not so concerned about Russians either. We had the bomb at that time, they didnt.
What got him “dosed” and driven mad was his knowledge of the finding of the unbelievable amount of Japanese war-booty stashed in the Phillipines. Said to be much more than the war booty the nazis accumulated. Tons of gold, jewels, everything they could steal when they occupied a country….they put it in Phillipines for safe-keeping, and it was never ever announced to public it had been discovered, instead it was the beginning of the CIA (OSS at first) black-ops and international bribery and influence projects pulling out unlimited funds from under the table… Very top secret stuff. Forrestal knew about it, he might spill the beans so they dosed him first with drugs so what he said came from crazy person so no one paid attention to him. Also Roosevelt socialist sort of, friendly with Russia, Truman Russian hater, and when Truman came to power everything shifted to hate and war with Russia. Forrestal was actually in the Roosevelt camp.
I doubt he was yelling the Russians are coming when the male “nurses” chucked him out the window.
from:The Age of Extremes: The Short Twentieth Century, 1914–1991
see also: Mary Akashah and Donald Tennant (1980). “Madness and Politics: The Case of James Forrestal” (PDF). Proceedings of the Oklahoma Academy of Science 60: 89–92
No. I assume you can read in english, so I recommend reading Douglas Reed’s 1956 book(only released in 1978)
Find out what Mr.r Forrestal was fighting against. Also, who killed Lord Northcliffe. Same demons.
Also look into Operation Gladio since you’re italian(I assume)
I will do it as I will find that book. Thank you
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