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The old Navy hands whom Burke sometimes takes with him on flying inspection tours come in for a shock treatment. Explains an aide: "There they are, all these admirals and captains, looking comfortably out at the clouds. Then, ten minutes after we're airborne, Burke comes down the aisle. To the first admiral he says, 'Would you mind giving me a study paper on rank structure? Take your time. Two or three hours will be soon enough.' Then, with the admiral staring after him flabbergasted, Burke moves on to the next man —and so he goes down through the plane. Some of these people haven't thought about writing a paper in years, and suddenly they've got to produce. I remember one guy who didn't finish his paper—hell, he didn't even get started. When we got back to the Pentagon, he asked Burke if he still wanted it. Burke said, 'Sorry, it's too late. I've made my decision.' He had also made his decision about that officer."
"Very Resptv." In his eagerness to bring new life to the Navy, Burke sets a man-killing personal example. In his office by 8 o'clock, he gets his briefing, then attacks the dispatches piled high on his desk. He makes marginal notations with a green pencil (no one else in the office is permitted to use green), begins each comment with "Pls." and ends with "Resptv." In their replies, Burke's staffers sign off with "Very Resptv."
Conferences, as many as 20 a day, keep Burke in his office until 8 or 9 most nights, and he takes his packed briefcase home with him. At dinner, he passes up bread, butter and potatoes in his continuing war against weight, but finishes off with a generous helping of ice cream. Says Bobbie Burke: "He doesn't seem to mind getting fat on ice cream."
Burke rarely shows temper. When he does, it may require Bobbie's calm hand to cool him off. Once Burke was accosted at a cocktail party by a tipsy captain who ripped into one of his pet projects. Burke went home raging, slept fitfully that night, arrived at his office the next morning still boiling. He ordered his yeoman to get the captain on the phone. While the yeoman was placing the call. Burke reached into his pocket for his pipe. Along with the pipe came a note in Bobbie's neat handwriting. It read: "You're in no mood to make a sound decision." Said Burke to the yeoman: "Please cancel that call."
Mind Over Matter. Late last month, Burke took off on a Far Eastern inspection tour that reflected the sweep of U.S. Navy interest. From a Pearl Harbor visit with tall, laconic Pacific Commander Felix Stump, Burke jumped to Guam, Kwajalein, the Navy's Subic Bay base in the Philippines, thence to Indonesia's Djakarta, neutralist Cambodia, temple-studded Bangkok, and finally to Saigon.