The dirty work fell to Deputy Defense Secretary Roswell Gilpatric. On Sunday afternoon he drove to the official quarters, atop Observatory Hill in northwest Washington, of the U.S. Chief of Naval Operations. There he informed Admiral George W. Anderson Jr. that he would not be reappointed when his present two-year term is up in August.
Anderson was stunned. So was most of the Navy. "A military man has really got to bow to this Kennedy crowd,'' said an admiral who is close to Anderson.
''Guys who get in their way get knocked off." And Anderson had been getting in the way...