As far back as Inauguration week, Harry Truman had privately told his new Secretary of Defense to start boning up on the job. But the columnists' vicious attacks on incumbent Secretary James Forrestal held the President's announcement up: he would not let Forrestal leave under fire. Last week, with the heat off, Harry Truman finally accepted Forrestal's resignation with an appreciative "Dear Jim" note. Then the President formally picked as Forrestal's successor big, beefy Louis Johnson, Franklin Roosevelt's onetime Assistant Secretary of War and the Democrats' deserving fund-raiser in the campaign...
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