“Why?”
“Let’s begin with you telling us what you’re doing for Secretary Forrestal. After all, we’ve been forthcoming with you.”
And they had been.
So I told them, since-what the hell-they’d figured it out anyway and just needed my confirmation. Then I complimented them on the Secret Service’s expertise, because I sure hadn’t seen any signs of their surveillance.
“We thought perhaps you had,” Baughman said with a wry little smile.
“Why?”
Baughman laughed, once. “Because at one point you fell in right behind Daniels and Burnside, and seemed to be monitoring their conversation.”
I frowned. “Who the hell are Daniels and Burnside?”
“Male and female team of agents. They were posing as honeymooners.”
“Yeah … yeah, I thought they seemed a little wrong.”
“No you didn’t,” Wilson said.
“No I didn’t,” I admitted. “Listen, could Forrestal really be in danger from, say, the Zionists?”
“Unlikely,” Wilson said. “His anti-Israel stance becomes more or less irrelevant when he steps down from office.”
“More or less?”
“Well, he
Baughman snorted. “It’s absurd.”
I asked, “What about foreign agents?”
“Reds, you mean.”
“Yeah, or maybe American members of the Communist party, in bed with the Russians.”
Baughman shook his head. “The secretary’s suspicions are unfounded. There’s very little evidence of espionage activity by the Russians in this country, and what there is certainly doesn’t include assassination. Again, Forrestal’s a moot point now-unless his political future should blossom.”
I looked from Baughman to Wilson. “Is that Truman’s interest in Forrestal? As a potential political opponent in the next presidential election?”
“No,” Baughman said firmly. “Truman doesn’t always agree with Forrestal, but he admires the man, and appreciates what he’s done for this country.”
“Nate,” Wilson said, almost gently, “Secretary Forrestal has occupied … at this moment, still does occupy … an extremely rarefied position of power in our government. He is privy to information, secrets, knowledge that only a handful of living Americans share.”
“And if he’s cracking up,” I said, finally starting to get it, “that makes him dangerous.”
Baughman, speaking slowly, as if to a child, said, “This is a man who controls … or at least has controlled … weapons of enormous destructive capacity.”
“You mean planes loaded with atomic bombs. Is this where you and the Atomic Energy Commission come in, Frank?”
Wilson ignored that. “Secretary Forrestal is a great man. A public servant with few peers, a patriot of historic distinction. His government wants to help him, if in fact this is his hour of need.”
Wilson seemed sincere, but I knew horse hockey when I heard it.
“Mr. Heller,” Baughman said, “what we tell you stays in this room.”
“Understood.”
“Secretary Forrestal has become exceedingly nervous and emotional … afflicted with insomnia and loss of appetite.”
“You’ve learned this from surveillance?”
Baughman hesitated, glancing at Wilson, who shrugged and nodded; then Baughman said, “That maid … that same maid Jack Anderson was speaking to tonight, in Georgetown … also spoke to my people. She told us that Mr. Forrestal has become so overly suspicious that whenever the doorbell rings, he goes to a window and peers out secretly, to see who’s there.”
“So does everybody in Chicago.”
Baughman’s brow furrowed. “Does everybody in Chicago wander around the house with their hat on, apparently forgetting they have it on? Does everyone in Chicago look directly at their uniformed maid and ask, ‘Where’s my maid?’”
I shrugged. “He’s under great stress, gentlemen. He worked fourteen hours a day, seven days a week, from before the war till today … and now he’s losing a position that was his whole life.”
“We know,” Baughman said gravely. “We also know that, last week, he went to an attorney and made out his last will and testament.”
“And,” Wilson interjected, “he got a prescription for sleeping pills, and filled it to its entirety … enough pills to put an army to sleep-forever.”
“Now you’re saying he’s a potential suicide.”
“I’m convinced,” Baughman said, “that he’s had a total psychotic breakdown, characterized by suicidal features, yes.”
“Are you a psychiatrist?”
“No. But our field data was interpreted by our top staff psychiatrist, and these are his findings.”
“Without this shrink actually talking to Forrestal.”
Baughman shrugged an admission, then said, “Please understand that this is … treachrous, and embarrassing, turf. We can’t ask the Secretary of Defense to submit to such an examination.”
“Why the hell not?”
“It … it just isn’t done.”
“Oh, so you fire him to hell and gone, instead. Hey, that’ll clear up any of his suicidal tendencies in a hurry.”
Wilson sat forward, saying, “Nate, if the press gets wind of this-”
“Gets wind of this! What do you think Pearson will be talking about on his broadcast tomorrow night?”
“Pearson isn’t the news. He’s a phenomenon unto himself. People listen to him, but they don’t take him as seriously as the front page, or even the editorial section.”
“You trying to convince me, or yourself? What do you guys want from me, anyway?”
Wilson glanced at Baughman, who nodded.
“Have you had dinner?” Wilson asked.
I frowned. “Dinner? No.”
“Grab your hat. Uncle Sam is buying.”
Following Wilson out reluctantly, I informed him, “Don’t get the idea if you feed me, you can fuck me. I’m just not that kind of girl.”
“Really,” Wilson said. “I heard you were easy.”
4
Frank Wilson and I rode in back of another black sedan with another young agent for a driver. Chief Baughman did not come along, having to get back to his barbecue; besides, he wasn’t “dressed for it.” He didn’t say dressed for what, and on the way to wherever we were going-skirting Lafayette Square, to head up Connecticut Avenue, D.C.’s version of Fifth Avenue-Wilson spoke not at all of Jim Forrestal, making small talk instead.
“Sorry to hear your marriage didn’t work out,” he said.
“Funny, isn’t it?”
“What is?”
