Man in Motion

Harry Truman wanted to be in on a bit of U.S. history-making--the birth of the new National Military Establishment. He had planned a full-dress White House show this week for the swearing in of Defense Secretary James V. Forrestal. Last week the plans went out the window on a sudden breeze.

Cables popping into Washington told about the touchy little incident at Trieste. The top brass got a little excited. Jimmy Forrestal thought it was time to show some of the old hustle. He talked to Clark Clifford at the White House. Off went a radio to the President, who was aboard the Missouri returning from Rio. Forrestal was all set to get the ceremony out of the way in a hurry. From the Missouri, Harry Truman radioed back: go ahead; in view of the international situation, the U.S. should have a Secretary of Defense in office.

Next day, at 9:45 a.m., Jimmy Forrestal gave an aide an order: "Get the Chief Justice down here at noon. I want to take the oath." It took a lot of scurrying to round up the big Army & Navy brass, four Cabinet members and four Senators; they and Chief Justice Fred Vinson made it by a couple of minutes before noon. Somebody remembered that a Bible would be needed; there wasn't one in Forrestal's office. An aide hurried off and scrounged one. At 12:07 p.m., James Vincent Forrestal, in grey flannel suit and soft collar, solemnly said, "I do, so help me God."

Thus, in an atmosphere charged with self-generated urgency, the U.S. put the responsibility for all its armed forces on one Cabinet member's shoulders. (And thus, for the first time since 1913, the U.S. had a Cabinet of only nine members.) Secretary of the Navy John L. Sullivan and Secretary of the Air Force W. Stuart Symington were also sworn in (Secretary of the Army Kenneth Royall had taken the oath nine weeks ago). Then Symington and Royall announced that they had agreed on more than 200 re-bracketings in plans to separate the Air Porce from the Army.

This week the Defense Secretary moved his duffel from the Navy Building to an eight-room office suite (reception room, dining room, kitchen, etc.) in the Pentagon. His top lieutenants got busy completing their staffs. The White House was ready to announce the appointment of a new Assistant Secretary for Air.

He was 48-year-old Cornelius Vanderbilt ("Sonny") Whitney, inheritor of $20 million, avid pursuer of the outdoor life (horses, deep-sea fishing, hunting, aviation). An instructor pilot in World War I, Whitney entered World War II as a major, served ably in Africa, the Pacific and Washington, came out a colonel with the Distinguished Service Medal.

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