Early Career
Fortas served as general counsel of the Public Works Administration and as Undersecretary of the Interior during the Franklin D. Roosevelt administration. While he was working at the Department of the Interior, the Secretary of the Interior, Harold L. Ickes, introduced him to a young congressman from Texas, Lyndon Johnson. In 1945, Fortas was granted a leave of absence from the Department of Interior to join the armed forces. However, according to his official biography, within a month, Fortas was discharged because of an arrested case of eye tuberculosis. Later in 1945, he was appointed by President Harry Truman as an advisor to the U.S. delegation during the organizational meeting of the UN in San Francisco and at the 1946 General Assembly meeting in London.
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