The Assassination of James Forrestal
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Monsignor Sheehy and others have said they suspected that the long smear campaign against Forrestal may have been secretly directed by Communists and pro-Communists in the White House itself—perhaps by the powerful David Niles.72
Authors Herbert Romerstein and Eric Breindel provide other insights into the connections and the character of David Niles.
Meanwhile, Josephine Adams remained active on the political scene. In October 1944 she wrote to Mrs. Roosevelt, “Last evening it was requested through [presidential assistant] D. [David K.] Niles that E. B. [Earl Browder] withdraw from the radio debate with [George] Sokolsky on the election.” Filed with the letter in the Roosevelt Library was an unidentified newspaper clipping reporting that Browder had canceled the debate with Sokolsky. The letter was marked to be shown to the President. The election was a month away. The Communists actively supported Roosevelt’s reelection, but public support from Earl Browder was not an asset in most of the country.
Niles, a mysterious political operative for President Roosevelt, had other associations with the Communists. An NKVD Venona message from New York to Moscow reported on a plan to send a husband and wife team of NKVD “illegals” to Mexico. The message said, “Through Roosevelt’s advisor David Niles—will take three-four days will cost $500.... [A]round Niles there is a group of his friends who arrange anything for a bribe. Through them Michael W. Burd [“Tenor”] obtains priority and has already paid them as much as $6,000. Whether Niles takes a bribe himself is not known for certain.” Burd was a Soviet agent and an officer of the Midland Export Corporation in New York City.
On August 2, 1944, the New York Rezindentura reported to Moscow that “Niles refused to intervene in the case explaining that he had only recently interceded for one refugee and recommended approaching Congressman [Arthur] Klein.” When this did not work, Niles intervened. And although the project was held up because Niles was busy with the Democratic convention, the matter was finally taken care of—Burd handled the paperwork.
Whittaker Chambers reported to the FBI an odd story about Niles that he had heard from a fellow Soviet agent named John Hermann in 1934 or 1935. A Soviet agent named Silverman (not George Silverman) was living in the next building from Alger Hiss. This Silverman apparently had an obviously homosexual affair with David Niles. Silverman had told Niles of the work of the underground apparatus in Washington, and Niles later threatened to expose the activities of the Communist group unless Silverman left his wife. To solve the problem, J. Peters, the head of the American Communist underground, ordered Hermann and Harold Ware to get Silverman to leave Washington, D. C. immediately.73
That James Forrestal was “disliked intensely” by the likes of a David Niles would seem to be something of which Forrestal could be justly proud.
There is something missing, however, in the portrait painted by Cornell Simpson of Forrestal as public enemy number one of the Communists. He neglects to mention that the fiercely anti-Communist columnist and radio commentator, Walter Winchell, enthusiastically joined his leftist counterpart, Drew Pearson, in the Forrestal smear campaign. The big thing they had in common, as previously observed, was that they were both strong Israel advocates. Neither Israel nor Zionism appears in Simpson's index. He vilifies Pearson as a virtual Communist spokesman, but mentions Winchell only once, and that is favorably for his exposure of Harry Truman’s supposed lies about Truman’s former membership in the Ku Klux Klan. His only allusion to possible Zionist enmity toward Forrestal he handles defensively as follows:
Others chose to tar Forrestal with anti-Semitism when they spotted a chance to distort his stand on the Palestine partition issue. Forrestal was not anti-Semitic; he had simply urged that Truman not play domestic politics with the Palestine question and had explained his position as follows:
"If we are to safeguard western civilization in this crisis, the British and American fleets must have free access to Near Eastern oil. That is a fact, however unpleasant it may be.... I am interested in justice in Palestine, but this interest must remain secondary to my primary interest, which is the protection of America and the West from the gravest threat we have ever faced [Soviet Russia]. No minority has the right to jeopardize this nation for its own selfish interest."74
David Niles, the Zionist
We’d never get it from Simpson, but there is very good evidence that David Niles used his power as a gatekeeper for Roosevelt and Truman at least as much for the Zionists as he did for the Communists. For evidence of that, we turn to another source, Edwin Wright. Wright was Army general staff G-2 (intelligence) Middle East specialist in Washington, 1945-46; Bureau Near East-South Asian-African Affairs Department of State, since 1946, country specialist 1946-47, advisor U.N. affairs, 1947-50, and advisor on intelligence, 1950-55. The first passage is from his 1975 work, The Great Zionist Cover-up, originally prepared for and by request of The Harry Truman Library, Independence, Missouri.75
Mr. Loy Henderson, Director of NEA (Near East-Africa Division of the State Department), on November 24, 1947, sent a Memorandum to Acting Secretary Robert Lovett to pass on to President Truman. In it is this passage, "It seems to me and all the members of my office acquainted with the Middle East, that the policy we are following in New York, (at the United Nations, where the U.S. Delegation was favoring the establishment of a Zionist Jewish State on territory overwhelmingly Arab) is contrary to the interests of the United States and will eventually involve us in international difficulties of so grave a nature that the reaction throughout the world, as well as in this country, will be very strong.--We are incurring long-term Arab hostility -- the Arabs are losing confidence in the friendship and integrity of the USA.--(It will encourage) Soviet penetration into important areas as yet free from Soviet domination" and as vast quantities of petroleum were being discovered in Arab lands, it was essential that normal and mutually advantageous relations with the Arab world should be preserved.
Before these memoranda could get to the Oval Office in the White House, they had to pass through the screening of Sam Rosenman, Political Advisor of the President, and David (Nyhus) Niles, Appointments Secretary, both crypto-Zionists. One of these memoranda was returned unopened with a notation, "President Truman already knows your views and doesn't need this." That President Truman's attitude toward the NEA had been poisoned is evident from his remarks in his Memoirs that he could not trust his advisors in the State Department because they were, "anti-Semitic." Being low on the totem pole in this group, I can testify that I have never worked with a more honest or conscientious group of men, who when they were asked their opinion gave it honestly - and were insulted for their loyalty.
There are other telling references to Niles in the July 26, 1974, Truman Library interview of Wright by Richard D. McKinzie.76
These many Israeli Government propaganda organizations did all they could to discredit those men in the State Department, whom they identified as "pro-Arab." For further details: Alan R. Taylor, Prelude to Israel (Philosophical Library, 1959), especially the Chapter VIII, "The Zionist Search for American Support," pp. 77-113.] They kept whispering in his ear, "Don’t trust the State Department." The result was he did not trust the State Department, the people who knew what was going on.
David Niles was another one. He was the protocol officer in the White House, and saw to it that the State Department influence was negated while the Zionist view was presented. You get this from Mr. Truman's book, but also there are many stories that are not known.
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Foreign policy cannot be operated intelligently if it's to be the football of domestic lobbies, and this was Mr. Truman's great mistake. In this issue he gave way to a domestic lobby. What did (New York Congress-man) Emmanuel Cellar know about the Middle East? The answer is nothing. What did these other men, David Niles or (former Truman business partner) Eddie Jacobson know about the Middle East? Zero. The result was he listened to a group of propagandists who gave him the wrong ideas and he came across with this fatal decision tha
t we would support a Jewish state in the area.
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One day I was sitting next to Mr. Henderson , he had his notes out and was dictating to me some letters when the telephone rang. It was Mr. Niles of the White House, and Mr. Niles told him (I got the story later on) that the night before some member of the State Department had been at a dinner party and had criticized President Truman's statement on a Jewish state. Mr. Niles said, "We are not going to tolerate any criticism of the President on this issue, and you let your staff know that if this happens again they must be disciplined."
Mr. Henderson called a meeting of the staff and told them of the mes-sage of Mr. Niles. He said, "None of you people are to speak in public about this issue, because if you do we'll have to send you off to some Siberia if any of you publicly express your private opinions, even to private groups, and it gets to the White House, you will be purged."
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What happened was that Clark Clifford went to Mr. Truman, evidently upon the request of [Zionist leader and first president of Israel, Chaim] Weizmann, who was also hanging around Washington. Washington was loaded with Zionists at that time, they were all hanging around there talking to their Congressmen, getting Eddie Jacobson on the job and others. They were pulling all the strings. It's very difficult for the person outside to know just what did go on, because this has not yet been published. We'll have to find, if David Niles ever publishes any documents, as to what part he played in it. I don't know that his book has come out yet.
Anyhow, through David Niles, they had a meeting of Clark Clifford, political adviser to the President; [Eliahu] Elath, at that time still called himself Epstein; and the President. On the morning of the 13th of May, Epstein argued, "Please recognize Israel immediately, because we need that recognition for legitimacy." They had quite a discussion, but Mr. [Secretary of State George C.] Marshall was never called in or asked about this at all. [F.R.U.S. 1948, Vol. V, pp. 974-77, Secretary of State’s memo of May 12, 1948 describes the acrimonious debate between Clark Clifford and Secretary Marshall.]
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We were committed to certain things and we didn't know what we were committed to. As these situations unfolded, and the Secretary of State made no decisions, I can assure you of this: They were all made in the White House. Mr. David Niles knew what was going on, Emmanuel Cellar knew what was going on, but the State Department often just had these announcements coming out and they'd find out afterwards what'd been decided.
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MCKINZIE: At what point was it apparent to you that you weren't supposed to say anything?
WRIGHT: The day that Mr. Henderson told us what Mr. Niles' instructions were: "Discipline these fellows if they disagree with the President." From then on we knew that we played no part in what was going on.
A final excerpt from the Wright interview reveals completely the ascendancy of the Zionist power over America’s foreign policy apparatus:
There were influences to get rid of anyone who was called "pro-Arab." They were not pro-Arab, I must insist upon this, they were acting in accordance with America's larger interests in the Middle East. The Zionists gave them the title "pro-Arab" and that was enough to destroy them. You had to be pro-Zionist or keep quiet in order to stay in the State Department, and the net result was a whole generation of officers who are simply "Uncle Toms." They don't dare to speak or publish things. They are afraid that they will be sent off to Africa, or who knows to some other part of the world, and will stay there the rest of their lives.
One of these men was Henry Byroade. Henry Byroade made a talk in Philadelphia in April 1954. Before he made this talk he had two men work with him on it. One was Parker T. "Pete" Hart, who was the head of the NE, the Near Eastern Section, and the other was myself. We went over to his house and worked out his talk. In it he made this statement: "I have some advice for both Arabs and for Jews. Israel should think of itself as a state living in the Middle East and that it must live with its Arab neighbors. The Arabs must cease to think of themselves as wanting to destroy Israel and should come to terms with Israel itself." [Fred J. Khouri The Arab-Israeli Dilemma, Syracuse Press, 1968, p. 300 adds that even the Israeli Government protested this statement]
The next morning Henry Byroade got a call from Nathan Goldman, who was in California. [Nathan Goldman was president of the World Jewish Congress and many years president of the World Zionist Organization. He acted as though he were president of a World Jewish State and had a bitter fight with Ben-Gurion after 1948.] He used his first name and said, "Hank, did you make that speech in Philadelphia that was reported in the papers today?"
Byroade said, "Yes, I made that speech."
He said, "We will see to it that you'll never hold another good position."
That was the control, from California, that Nathan Goldman held over the State Department. All they had to do was go to the President or to Congress, and the demand would come for this fellow to be sent off and put in some obscure area, where he no longer would influence the situation. This has been going on for 26 years in the Department of State as the result of Mr. Truman's first decision to purge Loy Henderson.
It destroyed the efficacy of the Department of State in that particular area. The Zionists consider that they have control of the Department of State, can dictate who is going to be in it and who is going to say what policy should be. It's sort of silent terrorism that they have applied and kept up ever since.
Zionist Enemy Number One
One must wonder if James Forrestal realized the power of the forces he was up against in opposing the push of the Zionists for a state of their own in Palestine. From the treatment he received in the press, it was apparent whom they regarded as their principal enemy in the United States. If there is any doubt left, it is erased by these excerpts from Chapter Seven of The Secret War against the Jews, entitled “A Jewish-Communist Conspiracy”:
In this chapter we discuss the following allegations by our sources in detail:
• The United States’ first secretary of defense, James V. Forrestal, was the leader of a cabal of senior State Department and intelligence officials within the Truman administration that worked behind the president’s back to block the creation of the State of Israel.
• Forrestal was, in fact, a corporate spy for Allen Dulles within the Truman administration, while Dulles was working to elect the president’s opponent, Governor Thomas E. Dewey.
• When the Zionists realized right before the UN vote on partition of Palestine that they might not have enough votes, they blackmailed Nelson Rockefeller, who delivered the largely hostile votes of the Latin American bloc.
The secret history of the birth of Israel has never been told before. Let us begin with the principal villain, the man who nearly succeeded in preventing Israel’s birth.
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Despite deep dissatisfaction with the president [Roosevelt] and his successor, Forrestal rose through the ranks to become undersecretary and then secretary of the navy, and finally the first secretary of defense in September 1947. Truman did not realize for another year that Forrestal was quietly going mad. Virtually the entire American defense policy, indeed much of its strategy toward the Zionists, was in the hands of an extremely bigoted lunatic.77 (emphasis added)
It could hardly be clearer that the extreme animosity toward Forrestal that motivated the slander campaign in the press in 1948, and was behind the threatening letters and telephone calls in the last months of his life, is alive today in the writings of people like John Loftus, Mark Aarons, and Walter Winchell biographer, Neal Gabler.
The First Christopher Ruddy?
Curiously, though, the only suspects Cornell Simpson even considers in Forrestal’s likely murder are the Communists. His book is divided into two sections. The first is named, “Suicide or Murder?”, and he leaves little doubt in the reader’s mind that it was the latter. Section Two is titled, “Who Could Have Murdered Forrestal–and Why? The section consists of four chapter
s. The titles of the first three are questions: “Who Gained Most by the Death?”, “Who Gained Most by the Death (continued)”, and “Who Murders in a Matching Pattern?” The answer in each case is “The Communists and the international Communist conspiracy.” Yes, Simpson also shows that the Truman administration itself also benefited from the death, but only because it helped conceal the degree of its penetration by Communists and the extent to which its policies, particularly those of Truman’s predecessor, Franklin Roosevelt, aided the Communists.
The final chapter, in case you still don’t get the picture, is titled, “What the Communists Did to Forrestal.” These passages give one the flavor of Simpson’s summing up:
...it was the Communist Daily Worker that openly launched the vicious barrage against our first secretary of defense. And the defamation was quickly snatched up and embellished by all those newspaper columnists and radio and TV commentators who march in closed ranks behind the Communist party line.78
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After Forrestal was killed, the New York Sun reported that [Drew] Pearson’s stories depicting the former defense secretary as a mental case were picked up and published prominently in the Russian press. Here again Pearson’s smears were valuable to the Kremlin, for it is standard Communist technique to question the sanity of all anti-Communists.79
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Two days after the former defense secretary was killed, Tris Coffin, another Washington columnist, came out with a story that used a classic smear technique–the anonymous source. Coffin claimed that an unnamed informant had visited Forrestal at the hospital and had found Forrestal disheveled, deranged and obviously suicidal. Other visitors and hospital officials agreed that Forrestal had been in excellent spirits and was immaculately groomed. Coffin also claimed that Forrestal’s “wrists were bandaged,” implying that Forrestal had tried to slash them. This lie was printed the day after Dr. Raines had stated in a press release that Forrestal had not made any suicidal gestures in the hospital.