James Forrestal (1892-1949) was the last cabinet-level U.S. Secretary of the Navy and the first U.S. Secretary of Defense. His diaries are from 1944 to 1949 and were censored before publication in this book.

Who was James Forrestal and why was he important? As Secretary of the Navy, 1944-1947, and first Secretary of Defense, 1947-1949, he had significant access to the President and was part of a State Department team with crucial responsibilities for running the war effort, ensuring a successful outcome for the Allies and, moreover, with a key role in considering and shaping the peace, reconstruction policies and the structure of the post-war world. Forrestal's background was of a businessman of considerable wealth, power, and position. In 1938 he had succeeded Clarence Dillon as President of Dillon Read. An efficient operator with a quietly driving ambition, he had risen relatively early to the top aged forty-six. Two years later he abandoned this career for good to enter the Roosevelt administration as one of FDR's special administrative assistants.

On 5 August 1940 the President nominated Forrestal to fill the position of Under Secretary of the Navy and he worked closely with Frank Knox (Secretary of the Navy) and Henry L. Stimson (Secretary of War). He was well suited to the colossal tasks of wartime procurement and logistics as well as the expansion of the Navy Department.

Upon Knox's death in 1944, Forrestal became the Secretary of the Navy.

The diaries as presented here, run from July 4, 1944 to March 2, 1949 -- two months prior to Forrestal's death on May 22, 1949 from an apparent suicide at Bethesda Naval Hospital.

The unexpurgated version of the Forrestal diaries runs to 3,000 pages.