Home
Search transcripts:    Advanced Search
Notable New     Yorkers
Select     Notable New Yorker

Frances PerkinsFrances Perkins
Photo Gallery
Transcript

Part:         Session:         Page of 912

overhear people's private business. Roosevelt was talking to James T. Forrestal. It was into the Navy Pauley was going--into the Navy. He said to Forrestal, “I think Pauley would be a very good person. I think Pauley's all right. Pauley'd be a very good person in there, Jim. I think he'd be very good.”

I remember registering: I don't know that the President knows that he's talking about, but he's obviously making this recommendation.

Then Forrestal, very courteous and very polite, drew himself up and said, “But I think we've got a very much better person in tow. We've got an extraordinarily capable person, and I think that this man”--I don't remember his name now--“ is a very much better person.”

Now, I had a candidate for Assistant Secretary of the Navy too, and that was Keith Kane. I had been asked by his friends and by Kane himself to mention him to the President if I got a chance. I didn't take any part in this conversation, but I heard Forrestal put up a real description of the man he had in mind, of why he was so good, of why he would do just what was wanted. He was so superior to anybody else. It was a great find to get him, and so forth--a great opportunity. I said to myself, “I guess Forrestal doesn't want this fellow.”

Anyhow, Forrestal prevailed temporarily. The President said, “Well, think it over, Jim. Think it over.” He brought





© 2006 Columbia University Libraries | Oral History Research Office | Rights and Permissions | Help