Bethesda Naval Hospital became the setting for the final days of James V. Forrestal, who was flown back to Washington for treatment of nervous exhaustion and died there in May 1949. Harry S. Truman visited him during his hospitalization and, believing him to seem like his old self, did not foresee the death that followed.

Admission and Treatment

After Forrestal’s condition deteriorated in Florida, a Navy psychiatrist and a specialist were called in. On April 2, 1949, Forrestal was flown back to Washington and admitted to Bethesda Naval Hospital for treatment described as nervous exhaustion. A report characterized his condition as a slight nervous breakdown, apparently the extent of what Truman had been told at that point.

The hospital was not merely a place of recovery in the account: it became the setting for Forrestal’s last hours. He was staying on the sixteenth floor. In the early hours of May 22, about two weeks after Truman’s visit, he copied lines from Sophocles’ “Chorus from Ajax” in his room before walking across the hall to a small kitchen.

Truman’s Visit

Truman called on Forrestal at Bethesda during the first week of May. Forrestal seemed to him to be his old self, a brief, reassuring impression that stands in stark contrast to what happened soon afterward. The account gives no indication that Truman understood the seriousness of Forrestal’s condition during the visit.

The visit also formed part of a personal connection between the hospitalized former cabinet officer and the presidential family. At Easter, the week before Forrestal’s death, Bess Wallace Truman had sent him roses. In his note of thanks, Forrestal said they had helped brighten a bleak day and extended wishes to Truman and his daughter.

Death and Aftermath

At about three in the morning on May 22, Forrestal went from his room to the small kitchen, tied one end of his bathrobe sash to a radiator and the other around his neck, and jumped from an unbarred window. His body was found on the roof of the third floor, the sash still around his neck. The account places the act within the hospital’s upper floors and gives no further explanation of the window or the building’s layout.

The death shocked Washington: suicide among senior government figures was described as unprecedented. Truman said he was inexpressibly shocked and grieved, while Bess was deeply shaken, with memories of her father haunting her. The roses sent only days earlier sharpened the contrast between an ordinary gesture of care and the abruptness of Forrestal’s death at Bethesda.