James Vincent Forrestal (1892-1949) was the first secretary of the U.S. Department of Defense. He was instrumental in building America's Navy during World War II and contributed to the unification of the armed forces. James Forrestal was born on Feb....

Townsend Hoopes, Douglas Brinkley. Knopf, $30. Townsend Hoopes tells us in the preface of this book that as a "recent Marine lieutenant who aspired to meaningful public service," he found in James Vincent Forrestal "the model hero." Hoopes, who became a "young-man-of-all-works" for...

James Forrestal lived the American dream as both triumph and tragedy. Born in 1892, a small-town Irish-Catholic boy eager for success, be made his way from Princeton eating clubs to Wall Street wealth and Manhattan glamour, and then in the 1940s to administrative...

James Carroll claims to have left the priesthood in the early 1970’s. House of War suggests otherwise. This history of the Pentagon is Mr. Carroll’s Stations of the Cross, performed in penance for the sins of America’s military-industrial complex. House of War is not about...

James Carroll claims to have left the priesthood in the early 1970’s. House of War suggests otherwise. This history of the Pentagon is Mr. Carroll’s Stations of the Cross, performed in penance for the sins of America’s military-industrial complex. House of War is not...