Admiral Arleigh Burke
Arleigh Albert Burke (October 19, 1901 – January 1, 1996) was an admiral of the United States Navy who distinguished himself during World War II and the Korean War, and who served as Chief of Naval Operations during the Eisenhower and Kennedy administrations.
Burke graduated from the United States Naval Academy in June 1923, and was commissioned as an Ensign in the United States Navy. He married Miss Roberta Gorsuch of Washington, D.C.
Over the next 18 years, Burke served aboard battleships and destroyers, and earned a Master of Science in Engineering at the University of Michigan. When World War II came, he found himself, to his great disappointment, in a shore billet at the Naval Gun Factory in Washington, D.C. After persistent efforts on his part, in 1943 he received orders to join the fighting in the South Pacific.
In late 1955 Admiral Burke was appointed Chief of Naval Operations (CNO). He took the post with significant reservations. He served at a critical time in world history, during the depths of the Cold War. He supported the notoriously demanding Adm. Hyman Rickover in the development of a nuclear-powered submarine force, and instituted the development of submarine-launched ballistic missiles, which led to the Polaris missile program, headed by Burke's selectee Rear Admiral W. F. "Red" Raborn. Admiral Burke convened the Project Nobska anti-submarine warfare conference in 1956 at the suggestion of Columbus Iselin II, director of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, where discussion ranged from oceanography to nuclear weapons. At the conference, a statement by Edward Teller that a physically small one-megaton warhead suitable for Polaris could be developed led to Burke's adoption of Polaris over Jupiter. At a time when others in the Navy were very skeptical of the idea of a missile launched from a submarine, Burke succeeded in developing the single most effective deterrent to a nuclear attack on the United States. By 1961 routine Polaris deterrent patrols were in progress and a rapid construction program of Polaris submarines was underway.
Admiral Burke as CNO was intimately involved in the Eisenhower administration discussions on limiting the size of the submarine force. Asked "how much is enough?", as to the number of US ballistic missile submarines needed for deterrence, Burke argued that a force of around 40 Polaris submarines (each with 16 missiles) was a reasonable answer. Burke further argued that land-based missiles and bombers were vulnerable to attack, which made the U.S.-Soviet nuclear balance dangerously unstable. By contrast, nuclear submarines were virtually undetectable and invulnerable. He was very critical of "hair trigger" or "launch on warning" nuclear strategies, and he warned that such strategies were "dangerous for any nation."
His terms as CNO were times of growth and progress in the Navy. Admiral Burke served an unprecedented three terms as CNO. Upon completing his third term, he was transferred to the Retired List on August 1, 1961
President John F. Kennedy presented Admiral Burke with the Distinguished Service Medal on July 26, 1961.
