seemed so vast during the war-was already experiencing growing pains. The bustling lobby was lined with three colors of marble, and the corridors were a soothingly cool terra-cotta; the naval nature of the place was evident by not only the gob and jarhead patients, but the sailor-style attire of nurses and attendants, and the uniformed doctors.
While Bethesda-a site supposedly chosen by Roosevelt himself, because biblically Bethesda had been “the pool of healing”-was primarily a naval hospital, medical and dental schools were also a part of the complex. So was the Naval Medical Research Institute, a separate building I was directed to, where I was to meet with Dr. Joseph Bernstein, Chief of Psychiatric Research.
Not a military man himself (not all the doctors at Bethesda were, particularly in the research area), Bernstein had a compact, linebacker’s frame wrapped in a white smock jacket; his blue tie bore a Star of David tie tack. Perhaps fifty, he had short-cropped blond hair going white, though the difference was negligible, and he had eyes so light blue they were almost gray, and eyebrows so light they disappeared. This gave him an eerily albino cast, that his handsome features-Roman nose, dazzling smile, and square jaw-did not quite dispel.
Standing behind his desk in a small, spartan third-floor office, he offered a hand for me to shake, which I did. Firm but not showy.
“I appreciate your willingness to speak with me,” he said, in friendly but clipped manner, with an understated middle-European accent. “I take it you’re Jewish, Mr. Heller?”
“Sort of.”
Dr. Bernstein settled into his chair as I took the one opposite him. “And what does that mean, ‘sort of’?”
I explained, and he said, “I have never been religious, either, but I hope one day to go to Palestine, myself.”
“Oh?”
He folded his hands on his desk, prayerfully, on a manila file folder; they were large, thick-fingered hands and I was glad he wasn’t a surgeon. “Most of my relatives died in concentration camps, Mr. Heller. I was fortunate to leave Germany in the late twenties, and establish a practice in Zurich.”
“Yeah, well, that’s sure shrink country, isn’t it?”
That stopped him for a moment, but then he laughed, once-politely, I thought.
He raised an invisible eyebrow. “You have a rough-hewn wit, Mr. Heller.”
“That’s one way to describe it, I guess. All right if I ask you something?”
“Certainly.”
“Why the nickel tour through your background, Doc? No offense, but I don’t give a flying, rough-hewn fuck. Uncle Sam has bounced me from here to there, for three days, asking me questions, and now I have to spend the afternoon at a head clinic. Not my favorite tourist spot.”
His smile was small and casual, but his eyes were studying me; he unfolded his hands and picked up the manila folder. “Would that be because you were once a patient at such a facility yourself?”
“Not here. I was across town at St. Elizabeth’s, or do you know that? Is that my file?”
Everybody had a fucking file on me.
He tossed the folder to one side of his tidy desk. “You had amnesia induced by combat fatigue. You recovered your identity, through hypnosis therapy, but your condition was deemed serious enough not to return you to combat. You were discharged on a Section Eight.”
“Now we know both our life stories. Is there anything else, Doc?”
His expression turned somber. “I shared my background with you because I understand that you are Mr. Forrestal’s friend.”
“He’s my client. We’re friendly enough, but it’s a business relationship.”
He gestured with an open hand. “I wanted to be frank about my background, and my … support for the new state of Israel … because if you were to learn that background from someone else, you might assume I’d been less than forthcoming in an area sensitive to this patient’s case. You are the first representative of the Forrestal family that I’ve spoken to-”
“I don’t represent the Forrestal family. I work for them, or I did. I’ve completed the assignment, and plan to submit my bill. Please tell me insanity isn’t grounds for nonpayment.”
That made him smile, a little. “Perhaps my concerns were misplaced. I thought you should know that my politics will not be a conflict of interest in my involvement with Mr. Forrestal’s case.”
“Oh. Okay, I get it: you’re not one of the Zionists out to get Forrestal, ’cause of his anti-Israeli tendencies. Well, I’d worry more about convincing Forrestal of that.”
“Captain Raines will be the primary physician on this case,” he said. That faint accent combined with his impeccable English somehow added weight to his words. “I will be a consultant, an adviser; in fact, if Captain Raines were not still in Florida, with his patient, you would be speaking to him and not me.”
“You’re more in research, is that it?”
“Yes. Like Dr. Menninger, who is also involved in this case, I’m delving into operational fatigue, that is, combat fatigue and related battle neuroses … and certainly Mr. Forrestal’s case-like yours-touches upon that area. He shows that the casualties of our recent world war are not confined to combat.”
“Fine. Swell. I’m here to cooperate; what do you want to know?”
He asked different questions than the feds, but got the same answers: everyone wanted to know what Forrestal had been saying, how he’d been behaving. It didn’t take as long to fill Dr. Bernstein in, however, because-unlike the Secret Service and the FBI-he had no interest in my own investigative efforts.
When we’d come to the end of his questions, I asked Bernstein one of my own: “Do I gather you’re bringing Forrestal back to Bethesda?”
A tiny shrug. “It’s no secret: he’ll be flown here tomorrow.”
I had called Eberstadt in Florida, the day after Forrestal had been flown down there, and he’d indicated Dr. Menninger was the doctor in charge, that Captain Raines was only consulting.
So I asked, “Why isn’t Forrestal going to the Menninger Clinic, in Topeka? That’s the best psychiatric facility in the country, I understand.”
His response was faintly defensive: “The treatment here at Bethesda is among the best available, anywhere. Also, treatment this close to home will make Mr. Forrestal feel at ease, and his family and friends will have convenient access to him, providing support he’ll need to recover.”
“Does Dr. Menninger agree with this?”
“Frankly, no … but the general consensus is that Mr. Forrestal will be better served here, in a general hospital, than in a psychiatric clinic.”
“Why?”
Dr. Bernstein twitched a non-smile. “Committal to a mental hospital would be an embarrassment to a public person like James Forrestal-”
“An embarrassment to the government, you mean.”
“The stigma of mental illness in so public and powerful a man might engender a feeling of hopelessness, even despair
I leaned back in my chair, gestured expansively. “Hey, I don’t blame the White House for wanting to control this. How would the country respond to knowing that, till last Monday, its national security was in the hands of a fruitcake?”
“Your flip manner does not fool me, Mr. Heller. I know you are deeply concerned about Mr. Forrestal.”
“‘Deeply’ overdoes it, Doc, but the question is, are you? Keeping him here will make it easier to isolate him, screen visitors, keep out the press, maintain strict security. All of that’s great for the government. What’s it do for the patient?”
Both invisible eyebrows lifted this time. “He’s suffering from a form of combat fatigue; where better to receive treatment than a naval hospital?”
“He doesn’t have combat fatigue, Doc; he worked long hours and suffered stress, but he didn’t have bullets flying around his head and Japs with bayonets in his lap, and as a bona fide star-spangled combat-fatigue graduate, with a Section Eight for a diploma, I resent the term being bandied about.”
Bells were quietly ringing outside; time in this naval hospital was told by ship’s bell system.
The handsome near-albino combined a patronizing smile with a regal nod. “Mr. Heller, you’re quite right. Mr.
