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Personality: Burke is a sturdy man (5 ft. 11 in., 200 Ibs.) with a deceptively easy smile and a soft voice. At home in Washington with his wife (they have no children), he likes torelax with a curved pipe, tweed jacket, a drink and a book. (His latest: Hadrian's Memoirs.} Actually, he gets little chance to relax. During his last tour in Washington, he read reports and ate hot dogs at his desk during his lunch hour, telephoned aides any time between 6 a.m. and 9 p.m. Like all blue-water sailormen, he is at his best in combat. Burke's memory of combat: "Things that used to be important become completely unimportant. Good food was important. A glass of beer was important. What your shipmates thought of you was important. But what was written down on some piece of paper, or what somebody who was not fighting thought about how you were fighting—that was completely unimportant."
Future: One Pentagon officer who knows him well said: "He'll shake this place plenty. Around here it's liable to be like it was when La Guardia was boss in City Hall in New York. Remember that cartoon—the little guy with the big hat walking into City Hall, the building jumping and shaking, the little guy walking out and the building settling back? Just you wait."y