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Dr. George G. Burkley’s Rendezvous with JFK
By Margaret R. O’Leary, M.D. Captain, then Rear Admiral, George Gregory Burkley, MC (Medical Corps), USN (United States Navy)—a Mayo-trained internist and University of Pittsburgh-trained electrocardiologist—was one of two White House physicians assigned the care of President John F. Kennedy from his inauguration as 35th President of the United States on January 20, 1961, to his assassination November 22, 1963. The other White House physician was Dr. Janet Travell, formerly a member of the faculty at Cornell University School of Medicine and the medical staff at New York Hospital in New York City.
Beginning in August 1961, seven months into the Kennedy presidency, Dr. Burkley became the sole White House physician to accompany the president on trips outside of Washington, D.C. This responsibility placed him with President Kennedy in Dallas, Texas, on Friday, November 22, 1963. Indeed, he was in the presidential motorcade (four cars back) when President Kennedy sustained his fatal gunshot wounds. He was in Trauma Room No. 1 at Parkland Hospital, Dallas, during the attempted resuscitation of the president. He cared for the needs of Mrs. Kennedy during the resuscitation. He pronounced President Kennedy dead at Parkland Hospital. In addition, Rear Admiral Burkley oversaw removal of the president’s body out of Dallas County into the waiting Air Force One presidential plane, which flew to Washington, D.C. On the airplane, he witnessed the swearing in of Vice President Lyndon Johnson as 36th President of the United States. He helped arrange and attended Kennedy’s autopsy at Bethesda Naval Hospital (Maryland). He transferred various materials belonging to the deceased president and in the possession of the Secret Service, to Mrs. Evelyn Lincoln, the deceased president’s secretary, at the National Archives as per request of Attorney General Robert Kennedy, the deceased president’s brother. Finally, he signed the White House death certificate for President Kennedy.
After this ordeal, Rear Admiral Burkley accepted President Johnson’s invitation to continue as White House physician, a capacity in which he served for six years (1963-1969), receiving promotion to Vice Admiral in 1965. He retired in 1969 at age 67 to his family’s ancestral farm in Blairsville, Pennsylvania. He died of pneumonia in 1991 at age 88 years in a Los Angeles nursing home.
George Gregory Burkley was born on August 29, 1902, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He grew up in Pittsburgh’s South End, in the neighborhood of Knoxville in South Hills (the southern part of the city. He attended St. Canice (Catholic) grade school and South Hills (public) High School in the Mount Washington residential area of Pittsburgh. He had one brother, Francis J., and two sisters, Marie and Theresa. His great-grandparents (Burkleys) owned a farm about a mile west of Blairsville (Indiana County, Pennsylvania), which had remained in the family for generations. Blairsville is about 42 miles east of Pittsburgh. (1)
George Burkley earned his undergraduate and medical degrees at the University of Pittsburgh, graduating from medical school in 1928 at age 25 years. (2) He completed an internship and residency in internal medicine at the Mayo Graduate School (part of Mayo Clinic) in Rochester, Minnesota, and returned to University of Pittsburgh Medical Center in 1932 as an assistant professor of medicine. He won a position as R.K. Mellon Fellow in electrocardiology and worked closely with Dr. James D. Heard who ran “Medical E,” the teaching pavilion at Magee Women’s Hospital where patients “were wheeled out for review, and [University of Pittsburgh medical] students could hazard diagnoses and cures, though without affecting the course of therapy laid out by the Magee staff. (3) Dr. Burkley married Isabel Winburn (1907-1972) in Erie, Pennsylvania, in 1933. Isabel, a graduate of Vassar College, was born in Kalamazoo, Michigan. She grew up in Erie. (4) George and Isabel had two boys and two girls while they lived in Pittsburgh between 1933 and 1942. In 1939, 37-year-old Dr. Burkley volunteered with the West Penn Hospital (Pittsburgh’s first chartered public hospital) naval unit, which the Navy had formed in 1936. (5) He received the rank of lieutenant commander (a mid-ranking officer rank, above lieutenant and below commander, and equal to a major in other uniformed services). Paull described the unit: Staffed by physicians and chiefs of many of the specialty services, the unit eventually earned the distinction of staying together longer than any other Navy medical unit, and it had the lowest mortality rate in the South Pacific…Part of the West Penn Hospital unit…was activated at Christmas [1939] and went to the Navy Pier in Chicago. Some were made construction engineers; the rest of the group, including George Burkley, were “chomping at the bit.” In April 1942 the Navy organized the physicians into Mobile Unit 5 and sent them to Brooklyn for indoctrination and provisioning. (5) Dr. Burkley described the time in Brooklyn, New York: While we were in New York, we spent five months in a special course in tropical medicine, with emphasis on malaria, leprosy and the exotic diseases which we might soon come in contact—the diseases that we probably had not experienced in our practices. From Brooklyn, we went to San Diego…for three months. We were unsure where our next destination would be. We were told to have adequate supplies for the tropics and the arctic. So one minute we were looking for fur lined boots and the next we were searching for mosquito netting. We were supposed to have sufficient clothing and food supplies for a year. We left from San Diego for an unknown destination, but we could tell that we were going in a southerly direction. We formed a pool on the ship and I guessed that the transport was headed for Australia. (5)
“Burkley’s guess came closest to the mark,” said Paull. “Mobile Unit 5, part of the first convoy to cross the South Pacific without losing a ship, disembarked in New Caledonia, a beautiful, malaria-free island one thousand miles east of Australia. Wounded marines from Guadalcanal were brought to New Caledonia even while the hospital there was still being set up.” Paull continued: The first structures were pre-fab buildings with beds for 500, a capacity that later doubled and tripled. The physicians themselves helped construct the hospital in order to get things moving quickly. Dr. Scoot Nettrour, also from Pitt, helped Burkley mix cement for the hospital floor, while Dr. George Fetterman cut down trees and made walls for his laboratory….Burkley, who headed the hospital’s medical section in New Caledonia, found surprises in store. “It was anticipated that most of our hospital patients would be surgical ones. The executive officer was surprised to find the high percentage of purely medical cases—malaria, dysentery and fungus infections. For our early arrivals at the New Caledonia facility, I more or less had to develop my own medical action.” (5) One Burkley’s friends at New Caledonia recalled, “When Mrs. Roosevelt toured the war zone and visited New Caledonia, George Burkley requested that she not visit the medical wards. He felt his patients shouldn’t be disturbed. Old George could be crusty when the well-being or comfort of a patient was at stake.” (5) “Toward the end of the war, small contingents of Mobile Unit 5 were relieved from duty as replacements from other medical unites became available. Scott Nettrour recalled that George Burkley was one of the last to leave New Caledonia because ‘he stayed behind to take care of me. I had come down with dengue fever and hepatitis.’” (5) Though John F. Kennedy served in the U.S. Navy in the South Pacific and was hospitalized there at least once (Solomon Islands), his path did not cross Dr. Burkley’s path. Dr. Burkley earned promotion to captain (a rank in the U.S. Navy equal to a colonel of the U.S. Army, Marines or Air Force; a naval captain ranks above a commander and below a rear admiral, lower half). Between 1945 and 1957, he served as chief of medicine at the following U.S. Naval Hospitals: Portsmouth, Virginia; Newport, Rhode Island; Memphis, Tennessee; and Charleston, South Carolina. (6-7) In 1957, he became commanding officer (still a captain) of the U.S. Naval Dispensary in Washington, D.C. (8-9)
Between 1956 and 1961, Dr. Burkley also served as Navy physician at Camp David (official name: Naval Support Facility Thurmont) in Frederick County, Maryland, on each occasion President Dwight D. Eisenhower (1890-1969) was there. (10) Dr. Bartholomew W. Hogan, Surgeon General of the United States Navy (1955-1961), assigned Captain Burkley to this duty, according to Dr. Burkley. (9) “Camp David being a Navy installation, it was felt advisable to have a Navy physician available should it be indicated at any time while he [President Eisenhower] was on this installation,” noted Dr. Burkley in 1967. (9) Dr. Burkley stated during the interview that he never took “direct care of President Eisenhower at any time. [He said] I was sort of a relief man, or an emergency type man in that capacity.” (9) President Eisenhower’s White House physicians were Major General Howard McCrum Snyder (1881-1970), his personal physician, and Dr. Walter Robert Tkach (pronounced tuh-KAWSH). The latter was head of the White House Dispensary. When Dr. Tkach was unable to accompany President Eisenhower and General Snyder on an 11-nation trip to the Far East in 1959, Dr. Burkley took his place. During the trip to the Far East with President Eisenhower in 1959, Dr. Burkley earned a reputation among the press and staff, his medical charges. One newspaper article dated December 8, 1959, read, Reporters on the trip are being systematically turned into hypochondriacs by Dr. George Burkley, a Navy captain. He has dosed us from the moment we stepped aboard the Pan American 707 charter, whose fare for one trip, incidentally, is four grand. We’ve had pills of every color and for every clime and treacherous alien dish. But now he has topped himself. Today he issued the following statement: “Take your one-a-day pill twice a day until we reach Athens. (11) Another newspaper article dated December 21, 1959, stated, The Navy doctor, Capt. George Burkley, who did such a fine job of keeping the 83 members of Eisenhower’s press entourage relatively healthy and operating during the long trip, is quite a realist. Along with his pills and salves, the good doctor brought along a small supply of death certificates. Happily, he came home without using one of them. (12) A third news account dated July 20, 1963, said, He [Dr. Burkley] kept us all alive, and on that trip, that was quite a job,” one White House staffer said. Plagued by a variety of minor ills and too little sleep, Dr. Burkley’s 90 or so patients on that trip made no fuss about following doctor’s orders. Each day, he would pick up the loudspeaker on the press and staff plane and issue orders: don’t drink suspect water, don’t eat this or that. Then, his lecture over, he would walk up and down the aisle, dispensing pills. (3) One of the first official actions taken by President John F. Kennedy upon coming to office was to “receive the two airmen who had been held prisoner by the Russians for a period of six months. He met these men at Andrews Air Force Base and “it was felt that they would like to have me accompany him as physician at that time,” recalled Dr. Burkley. (9) Captain Tazewell T. Shepard, Jr. (born 1921), naval aide to the president (one of three military aides to the president), and former Naval Aide Captain Evan Peter Aurand, a physician, who subsequently became Admiral Aurand (1917- 1989) called Captain Burkley and “asked [him] to come over.” (9) Captain Burkley continued: I willingly complied, knowing that I had the clearance, and that made it much easier. When I arrived at the White House and had completed this duty I was asked by the Naval Aide to accept a position at the White House as physician. I said that that was very flattering, and that I would be glad to do it. However, I felt it was much easier [for the president] to know a person before he was appointed, rather than have someone appointed and then have to feel that maybe he [the president] would rather have someone else. So I deferred accepting this invitation. (9)
Captain Burkley believed that Captain Aurand, who knew him from his service as commanding officer of the Navy Dispensary, was probably responsible for recommending him for the position of White House physician. Five people from the Washington, D.C. Navy Dispensary staffed the White House dispensary. (13) For three days, Captain Burkley went to the White House. Each day, he noted, the same question was asked and finally Mr. O’Donnell [Kenneth P. O’Donnell (1924-1977), functioned as chief of staff, but not called that] stated that they would like to have it settled, and that they wanted me [Captain Burkley] to come to the White House, which I then did. The Navy, as Far as I know, had no knowledge of my appointment. I was appointed by President Kennedy as physician to him. (14)
Meanwhile, President Kennedy appointed Dr. Janet Travell as “White House Physician.” She was the first civilian White House physician to serve since the Harding Administration [15]), Dr. Janet Travell, as “White House Physician,” in her words. (16) She learned of her appointment from Pierre Salinger at a press briefing on January 25, 1951, five days after the inauguration, even though she had been working in the capacity during the week of inauguration when she was “called each day at 3307 N Street to see what I might do for President-elect and Mrs. Kennedy.” (17) She moved into the three rooms “previously occupied by Major General Snyder, who had left the White House by Inauguration, with his personal staff and equipment. His three rooms…were entered through a single door opposite the President’s elevator on the long ground-floor corridor in the Mansion.” (16)
On January 23, 1961, Dr. Travell talked at length with Dr. Tkach’s staff in the [White House] Dispensary and I offered to retain them in their positions, if they wished to stay. Mrs. Genevieve R. Herrell, a civilian nurse with a sunny disposition who had carried her share of the work load since former President Truman was in office, elected to remain. Master Sergeant Philip Sidmore, now a Colonel in the United States Army, continued for a while to be in charge of our clinical laboratory. Dr. Travell commented that the appointment of Dr. George Burkley as “Assistant White House Physician on February 1, 1961, occurred as follows: By arrangement with Rear Admiral Bartholomew W. Hogan, Surgeon General of the United States Navy, President Kennedy announced the appointment of Captain George G. Burkley, U.S. Navy Medical Corps, as “Assistant White House Physician to Janet Travell and Director of the White House Dispensary.” He replaced Dr. Tkach. Dr. Burkley was fifty-eight and I, fifty-nine. He was my logical choice because he had traveled on President Eisenhower’s overseas tour in December, 1959; he was already cleared for duty at Camp David, the Presidential retreat, and at the White House. At the time of his appointment, he was Commanding Officer of the U.S. Naval Dispensary in Washington, and before that he was Chief of Medicine in the U.S. Naval Hospitals at Portsmouth, Virginia; at Newport, Rhode Island; Memphis, Tennessee; and at Charleston, South Carolina. Travel with the Chief Executive was arduous and George Burkley served many long hours with good humor and devotion to the high calling of medicine. (16) On May 16, 1961, during a tree-planting ceremony in Ottawa, Canada, President Kennedy “strained his back.” (17) “Mr. Kennedy lifted a silver-plated shovel three times digging a hole for a red oak tree outside Government House. Mr. Salinger [the president’s press secretary] said the president felt ‘immediate pain’ during the ceremonial shoveling. He did nothing about it for several days in the hope that it would go away,” said one news article. Two weeks later, the president’s back pain worsened and “Dr. Travell went to Hyannis Port [Massachusetts] to treat him….Dr. Travell called the injury a lumbosacral strain….Mr. Salinger said the point of the strain was between the lowest lumbar vertebrae, or section of the spine, and the sacrum.” (17) President Kennedy used crutches in private to offload strain from his back. The timing of President Kennedy’s back strain “unfortunately corresponded with [his] planned first summit meeting with [the Soviet Union’s leader, 1953-1964] Nikita Khrushchev,” noted Hart. (18) The president’s trip to Paris, Vienna, and London occurred between May 31 and June 7, 1961. “Kennedy made arrangements to have Dr. Travell and Dr. [Max] Jacobson travel to Europe as part of the presidential entourage and he was apparently administered one of Dr. Jacobson’s injections prior to meeting with Mr. Khrushchev,” wrote Hart. (19-21) Who was Dr. Max Jacobson? Dr. Max Jacobson was a New York physician “who had made a reputation for treating celebrities with ‘pep pills,’ or amphetamines, that helped combat depression and fatigue. Jacobson, whom patients called ‘Dr. Feelgood,’ administered back injections of painkillers and amphetamines that allowed Kennedy to stay off crutches, which he believed essential to project a picture of robust good health. All of this was kept secret,” wrote Kennedy biographer Dallek. (22) Apparently, President Kennedy had been receiving injections from Dr. Jacobson as early as September 1960, administered before the Nixon-Kennedy debates. Even Drs. Janet Travell and Burkley during the president’s trip to Europe in early June 1961 were unaware that “Jacobson flew on a chartered jet to Paris, where he continued giving the president back injections.” (22) Dr. Burkley became increasingly concerned about President Kennedy’s reliance on passive treatment (injections) for relief of his back pain. Dr. Burkley asked Dr. Travell to contact a new physician--physical medicine specialist Hans Kraus, M.D.--to evaluate and treat the president’s current back problem. (18) She resisted, declared Dr. Burkley in a later interview. He continued, “I said if she did not call him personally I would call him. And at that point he was called, and from then on the President’s exercise program was entirely under Dr. Kraus and Dr. Travell was instructed not to have any—to attempt to interfere in any way,” averred Dr. Burkley. (18)
Who was Dr. Kraus? Austrian native and avid outdoorsman Dr. Kraus (1906-1996) graduated from the University of Vienna Medical School in the 1920s, fled to the United States in 1938 in advance of the Hitler debacle, and became an American citizen in 1945. (23) His medical specialty covered physical medicine, rehabilitation, and physical therapy. Like Dr. Jacobson, Dr. Kraus became a physical therapist to celebrities. Dr. Burkley learned of Dr. Kraus from Dr. Eugene Cohen. (4) Who was Dr. Cohen? Dr. Cohen was an endocrinologist at New York Hospital. He had provided the endocrine care for Mr. Kennedy since January 1956 when then Senator Kennedy’s usual endocrinologist, Dr. Ephraim Shorr, chief of the endocrinology service at New York Hospital, died suddenly of a heart attack at age 58 years. (4,24) Indeed, Dr. Shorr in 1955 had urged Dr. Travell to take charge of Senator Kennedy’s care following his third failed back surgery and had personally conveyed the Senator, on crutches, to Dr. Travell’s office in New York City in May 1955. (4) In November 1961, Dr. Cohen warned President Kennedy in a strongly worded letter about Dr. Max Jacobson’s amphetamine-filled injections: You cannot be permitted to receive therapy from irresponsible doctors like M.J. [Dr. Max Jacobson] who by forms of stimulating injections offer some temporary help to neurotic or mentally ill individuals…this therapy conditions one’s needs almost like a narcotic, is not for responsible individuals who at any split second may have to decide the fate of the universe. (25) Mrs. Evelyn Lincoln, the president’s secretary, kept his files, which contained “a bill [showing] that Jacobson was seeing the president roughly once a week. Beyond that, the doctor gave favored patients doses that they could inject themselves. Many of his patients returned repeatedly delighted at the bounce they had in their steps when they left his office, but others ended up ravaged, emotionally destroyed when they tried to stop the injections,” wrote Leamer. (26) Dr. Burkley secured additional space near the White House dispensary for the use of physiotherapy provided to the president by Dr. Kraus. (14) Dr. Burkley said, “It [the space for physiotherapy] was in the West basement at that time. We subsequently, in redoing the swimming pool area and the small area next to the swimming pool which had some gymnasium equipment, we established an area there were President Kennedy on a daily basis was very religious in his physical program [sic].” (14)
Dr. Kraus started the president on “a regimen of aerobics, strengthening, and flexibility exercises and reduced Kennedy’s reliance on procaine injections,” stated Hart. “The exercises were carried out in the area of the White House swimming pool, which was refurbished at the expense of Kennedy’s father in order to allow privacy. This shift toward active rehabilitation starting in October 1961 did apparently give Kennedy some pain relief, and he maintained the exercise regimen throughout the remainder of his life. (19) On June 22, 1961, two weeks after President Kennedy returned from his European tour, Dr. Travell participated in a news conference to report on an upper respiratory infection that kept the president in bed for a day. She told the assembled press corps that she had called Dr. George Burkley to assist her at the White House with the president. He had a temperature of 101 degrees Fahrenheit, which rose to 101.6 degrees five hours later. (27)
Dr. Travel obtained a throat culture and blood tests, diagnosed a “one-or-two days virus,” and gave the president an intramuscular injection of penicillin and started him on oral tetracycline at about 2 a.m. She also called Dr. Preston Wade, because she “didn’t know exactly what was brewing” (so she told the reporters). Who was Dr. Preston Wade? Dr. Preston A. Wade was a surgeon at New York Hospital who irrigated and debrided the soft tissue abscess in Mr. Kennedy’s midline operative scar in mid-September 1957. Dr. Travell had diagnosed and hospitalized Mr. Kennedy (Senator John F. Kennedy at that time) for the surgical procedure performed by Dr. Wade. Mr. Kennedy’s midline operative scar was the result of a (failed) lumbar spine fusion procedure performed at another hospital in 1954. Drainage of the abscess was accomplished under general anesthesia and bacteriologic studies, directed by Dr. David E. Rogers, grew Staphylococcus aureus bacteria. The search for tuberculosis bacilli (though guinea pig inoculation) was negative. (28x) Dr. Travell subsequently had continued to rely on Dr. Wade’s expertise in the management of the president’s back. His trip to evaluate the president at the White House during his fever episode on June 22, 1961 was likely to rule out a recurrent abscess as the cause of the president’s fever, which indeed was his finding. (14,27) Thus, when Dr. Travell told the press she had asked Dr. Wade to evaluate the president, the press became very interested about her linking the president’s fever and his back. The press had not been privy to the president’s previously infected back episode. (27) Dr. Travell tried to smooth this over. Another reporter asked if the president was taking corticosteroids. Dr. Travell answered, yes; the president was taking corticosteroids at the present time. The reporter followed up, “Well, how often, doctor?” She answered, “Well, I would like to say that the doses that are given from time to time are minimum, and in the present fever and viral infection, we would step it up a little bit, and I think this is something that is all in the textbooks.” Another reporter then asked, “Corticosteroids are used for what, in the President’s case?” Dr. Travell answered “mild adrenal insufficiency. There has never been any other statement on this matter.” (27) Another reporter asked whether the president had a history of viral infections: “Is he prone to this sort of thing?” Dr. Travell answered, “I don’t think he had had them—he was, years back, but he has been very free of them in the last four or five years.” (27) The press seemed appreciative of Dr. Travell’s candor and published a flurry of stories on Kennedy’s June 1961 illness and recovery, but Dr. Travell never participated in another press conference while Kennedy was president. Neither did Dr. Burkley. About six weeks after the June 22, 1961, press conference mentioned above, Dr. Burkley earned promotion to rear admiral (August 1961) and became the sole White House physician to accompany President Kennedy on trips outside of Washington, D.C., which included a trip to South America, Bermuda, and Palm Beach, Florida, by the end of 1961. (1,29) The promotion to rear admiral was temporary, that is, in effect only while Dr. Burkley served as assistant physician to the president, said one source. (30) When Press Secretary Salinger was asked if the temporary promotion indicated any change in the status of Dr. Janet Travel, the president’s chief physician, he said no, according to the same source. (30) On Christmas day, 1961, The Washington Post wrote that Dr. Travell had submitted her resignation and would be replaced by Captain Burkley. The White House denied the report the next day, saying that Dr. Travell would be staying indefinitely. (31-33) Dr. Travell joined the Kennedys in Florida (her family had a home there) specifically and only for a year-end examination (December 1961). (29) On July 20, 1963, the public learned that Rear Admiral George Burkley was the new official “Physician to the President.” One news report said, Dr. Burkley had the job, but not the title, for well over a year before the White House conceded this week that he has taken over as President Kennedy’s physician. This all came to light with publication of the U.S. Government Organization Manual, listing Dr. Burkley’s name instead of Dr. Janet Travell…With Dr. Burkley accompanying the President on all trips, it had been obvious for many months that Dr. Travell was no longer chief physician. She is still on the White House payroll, but without a title. (3) Another news article said, Dr. Janet Travell no longer bears the title of “Physician to the President.” But she is still at the White House in a consultant capacity and is said to be compiling material for a book. Her former title of Physician to the President has been taken over by her assistant, Rear Admiral George G. Burkley, who has been at the White House since Feb. 1, 1961. He has accompanied President Kennedy on most of his recent trips. Dr. Travell’s changed status came to light on publication of the 1963-64 Government Organization Manual. She is not listed any place in this year’s manual…Last year her name was carried in it as “Physician to the President.” Admiral Burkley has that spot this year. (33) Dr. Travell and her staff continued to occupy the three rooms on the ground floor of the White House until January 18, 1965, when she resigned from the White House staff during the Johnson Administration. (33) While Dr. Travell occupied the three rooms on the first floor of the White House, Dr. Burkley provided care to President Kennedy “either up in his second floor suite, or in the little office behind his office. On occasion, [President Kennedy] did come to [Dr. Burkley’s] office in the West basement.” (35) Dr. Burkley recalled in a 1967 interview, “[I]t was approximately three or four months before I had complete access to his medical history.” He noted, “However, I had the help of a physician [Dr. Eugene Cohen?] who had taken care of him for a number of years and knew his medical record and found no great discrepancies in the things that we wanted to cover.” When asked whether the physician was Dr. Sara Murray Jordan, Dr. Burkley responded, “No, Dr. Jordan was not in direct care of him. I have [sic] spoken to Dr. Jordan on several occasions [she died in November 1959], but at the time that I knew him, she was not in the active picture, although we spoke to her in her office. And one of the men who had been trained by her, from Boston, we contacted on various occasions [Dr. Russell Boles, Jr.]. (36-37) When Dr. Burkley became Personal Physician to the President, he “blocked Dr. Max Jacobson from further contact with Kennedy with the assistance of his brother, Robert F. Kennedy,” U.S. Attorney General. (19) President Kennedy had many medical problems and took many medications. Dr. Travell kept a list of his typical medications, which, on October 12, 1961, consisted of the following: This list changed from time to time. For example, someone on the president’s medical staff increased his daily dose of methyltestosterone from 10 mg to 25 mg per day. (38) Mandel writes, “The summary medication sheet for May 1962 indicates that his physicians began trying different testosterone preparations at that time. From 1 to 7 May, he received between 50 mg and 75 mg of testosterone aqueous suspension for 4 days, and from 10 to 28 May, he received either 5 mg or 10 mg oral fluoxymesterone.” (38) Fluoxymesterone, a halogenated derivative of 17-alpha-methyltestosterone, is an anabolic steroid approximately 5 times as potent as methyltestosterone. Liothyronine sodium is the most potent form of thyroid hormone. In addition, the president received antibiotics as needed for intercurrent infections, such as pharyngitis or otitis media; antihistamines for allergies to dust, according to Dr. Burkley; and procaine injections for back pain from Dr. Travell until Dr. Burkley prohibited her from doing so. (37) He said, “On one or two occasions Dr. Travell attempted to enter into the picture, and I informed her that she was not to attempt to give any injections or anything of that nature as, it had been clearly stated that this would be under my jurisdiction and I would, if indicated, have Dr. Kraus make any recommendations.” (39) Dr. Burkley continued, In the period after Dr. Kraus entered the picture [October 1961]…the use of the so-called procaine injections was limited to approximately three times and only to one injection at that time. It was definitely felt that they were not helpful and were actually harmful or actually not beneficial in that after an injection the exercise should be curtailed and gradually built up again, and this would really set him [the president] back, rather than increase the [Dr. Burkley breaks off, then begins again]…If he [the president] had definite so-called muscle spasm, it was treated by massage and other means, and on one or two occasions a procaine injection was given, but only under the direction of Dr. Kraus [Dr. Kraus practiced trigger point therapy with procaine, the same therapy offered by Dr. Travell]. (39) An April 1963 audio recording of President Kennedy requesting a “blue pill” from Dr. Burkley via telephone is available. (40) Discussion of the president’s use of injected amphetamines administered by Dr. Max Jacobson is above. “Despite Kennedy’s extensive reliance on several types and sources of injections, there is no direct evidence that he routinely used either oral or injectable narcotics for pain control,” said Hart. (19) President Kennedy pushed hard for a trip to Texas in 1963 to raise funds, meet the opposition (e.g., disdaining him for his Catholicism), and improve his image in Texas in anticipation of the 1964 presidential reelection campaign, explained Governor Connally in a 1967 article. (41) Vice President Lyndon Johnson and Mrs. Johnson accompanied President and Mrs. Kennedy. Preparation for the trip was in the usual way, from the perspective of Dr. Burkley, who said he did not “care to discuss [it], but all the possible angles were covered by cooperation with the Secret Service, in that we knew the areas of most likely danger. We knew where additional medical aid would be available, and things of that nature.” (42)
The final itinerary of the president’s trip to Texas included four cities—San Antonio, Houston, Fort Worth, and Dallas. On Thursday, November 21, 1963, he and Mrs. Kennedy (Vice President and Mrs. Johnson also made the trip) landed at International Airport north of San Antonio, Texas, from which they travelled in an open-car motorcade through San Antonio packed with “warm and friendly” crows. President Kennedy gave an outdoor speech to dedicate four buildings in the complex that housed the United States Air Force Aerospace Medical Division at Brooks Air Force Base. Archival footage (around 3 minutes) of President Kennedy in San Antonio is available elsewhere. (43) After the speech, the party flew to Houston where President Kennedy gave a dinner speech at the League of United Latin American Citizens and Mrs. Kennedy addressed the league in Spanish. (34) President and Mrs. Kennedy then attended a testimonial dinner for U.S. Congressman Albert Thomas (D-Texas 8th district, served 1937-1966, died 1966) at the Houston Coliseum. Dr. Burkley recalled that he and Mrs. Evelyn Lincoln were in the second car in the motorcade as the president moved about Houston. (40) That night, the party flew to Fort Worth, arriving near midnight at Carswell Air Force Base. (45-46) On Friday, November 22, 1961, President Kennedy gave several early morning speeches, including one to the Fort Worth Chamber of Commerce in which Mrs. Kennedy was wearing the legendary pink suit. (47) The presidential party then flew to Love Field, Dallas, and disembarked for the 11-mile drive in an open car to a scheduled luncheon address at the Dallas Trade Mart. (45) Gunfire rang out. The president’s driver accelerated at a high rate of speed carrying the mortally wounded president to the emergency department at Parkland Hospital, which had been on standby during the president’s visit to the city (the normal custom at each city when the president travelled outside Washington, D.C.).
Dr. Burkley said that he and Mrs. Lincoln reached the bottom of the stairs of Air Force One at Love Field when the president’s motorcade into Dallas proper was already in motion. Dr. Burkley complained to the Secret Service that [he] should be either in the follow-up car or the lead car. Members of the Secret Service…said it couldn’t be arranged, that the politicians had gotten in that group of cars, that everyone wanted to be in those cars, and also the motorcade was in action. We, therefore, were put in a so-called VIP vehicle. When the assassination occurred, I got to the scene by securing a car through one of the Secret Service, Andy Berger, and an escort of a policeman. (44) By the time Dr. Burkley reached Parkland Hospital (49), “probably within three to five minutes of the time the President arrived,” he “went immediately in [to the trauma room] to see the President” who was lying on a table where he was receiving treatment. Dr. Burkley said during a 1967 interview, I talked to the doctors who were busily engaged in doing what was indicated and would have been indicated had there been any hope of salvation of the President. I gave them some hydrocortisone to put in the intravenous which was being given, and also told them his blood type. There was no need for anything [else to be done] in my estimation, but they were correct in doing all possible procedures. I then contacted Mrs. Kennedy, who was sitting outside, and that is off record, and from then on it was my interest. (44)
Mrs. Kennedy had walked into the hospital at the side of the president’s stretcher. (49) A hospital employee provided her with a folding directly beside outside of the entrance to the trauma room where she sat until Dr. Burkley brought her inside, he said. (44,50) In his statement for the Warren Commission dated November 27, 1963, Dr. Burkley said, I went out in the corridor and spoke to Mrs. Kennedy. She expressed a desire to be in the room, realizing that death was imminent and that it was right to be as close as she could, I overrode the protests of some of the people in the room and brought Mrs. Kennedy inside the door where she stood and with my arms protecting her, she momentarily rested her head on my shoulder. At one point she knelt in prayer for a few seconds and then arose and stood quietly. The cardiac pacemaker machine was brought in and was being prepared to be used, however, at this moment one of the doctors said there was no use as his life was gone, which I verified. (51) Dr. Burkley’s impression of the events unfolding in the trauma room was: My conclusion as to the cause of death was the bullet wound which involved the skull. The discussion as to whether a previous bullet also enters into it, but as far as the cause of death, the immediate cause was unquestionably the bullet which shattered the brain and the calvarium [skull]…The President could not have survived, under any circumstances, nor regardless of who, or how many procedures were available or what equipment was available. When I examined him, as I stated earlier, he was essentially no longer living. There may have been some cardiac action, but that was it. The physicians at the hospital in Dallas were complete justified, and were performing as a group of competent physicians should do, in that, until it is unquestionable that life does not exist, all efforts should be made to sustain life or to improve the condition. (52) Dr. Burkley also said, “There was no reason to inject myself in a procedure which at that time was hopeless. In addition, I was not part of their team, and it would have interfered.” (48) He continued, I stood with Mrs. Kennedy, and one of the doctors came and said they felt that the President was dead. I went over and checked him myself, and I pronounced him dead…I came back to Ms. Kennedy and said, “The President is dead.” And we went over to the President and we said the prayers for the dead and various other thing which have been recorded elsewhere, I believe. [Two priests, Father Oscar Huber and Father James Thompson, arrived and Huber gave John F. Kennedy the sacraments.] The coroner attempted to have the body retained there for a postmortem and investigation of the assassination. That was perfectly understandable, in that this condition existed. However, the people involved were not just anyone, it was the President of the United States. Mrs. Kennedy was going to stay just where she was and travel with the President at any time. It was felt advisable to return the President to the Washington area as soon as possible because of the uncertainty as to what else was happening in Dallas. (53) Meanwhile, Kenneth O’Donnell, a Kennedy assistant, notified Vice President Johnson, who was secured in a hospital room, that the president was dead. “O’Donnell and the Secret Service asked Vice President Johnson to “leave immediately. But when he learned that Mrs. Kennedy refused to leave the hospital without her husband’s body, Johnson delayed the departure of the big presidential jet until the body and widow were aboard. (54) While Dr. Burkley was dealing with the Dallas County coroner and local judge, other Kennedy staff were procuring a casket locally (from Oneals). Dr. Burkley later testified in an affidavit (January 1978) the following: I remained with the President’s body in the treatment room [Parkland Hospital trauma room] until the body was placed in the coffin and I saw it closed. There was no movement or manipulation of the body other than removal of the intravenous equipment during that time…In Dallas I traveled from the hospital to the Air Force One in the ambulance with the President’s body in the casket and also on the plane; the casket was neither opened or disturbed in any way…I had ordered the United States Naval Hospital [Bethesda, Maryland] to be prepared for performing an autopsy on the body of John F. Kennedy, President of the United States, the permission having been granted by Mrs. Kennedy while enroute [in Air Force One]. It was to be a complete autopsy with no limitations and no curtailment in time necessary for completion. (55)
Dr. Burkley earlier had written for the Warren Commission on November 27, 1963, the following: I supervised the transfer and the room was vacated. Mrs. Kennedy proceeded to follow the casket. At this point, I again examined the room and they had cleaned the room. The roses which had been in the car with the President were in the wastebasket, however, and two roses which had broken off were lying on the floor. I picked them up and put them in my pocket. I then followed the cortege to the emergency room entrance and rode in the ambulance beside the coffin with Mrs. Kennedy sitting at the head of the coffin on the small chair. Clint Hill [Secret Service] was with her; I cannot remember exactly who else at this moment. On the way to the plane, we rode in silence for awhile. I then reached rots the pocket and took out the roses I had gotten from the floor and gave them to Mrs. Kennedy stating what they were. She took them and put them in her jacket pocket, smiled and thanked me. We arrived at the place and the casket was carried by members of the Secret Service and some of the Air Force people to the Presidential compartment in which the chairs had been removed from one side, and the coffin placed in this area. Throughout the plane trip, Mrs. Kennedy sat in the vicinity of the coffin talking to Mr. O’Donnell and various close members of the party. During the course of the flight, determination of the immediate action on arrival in Washington was made to assure complete compliance with Mrs. Kennedy’s wishes . I spoke to her while kneeling on the floor so I would be at the level of her face rather than leaning forward, and expressed complete desire of all of us and especially of myself to comply with her wishes, stating that it was necessary that the President be taken to a hospital prior to going to the White House. She questioned why and I stated it must be determined, if possible, the type of bullet used and compare this with future material found. I stated frankly that I had no preference, that it could be any hospital, but that I did feel that, if possible, it should be a military hospital for security measures. The question was answered by her stating that she wanted the President taken to Bethesda Naval Hospital. Arrangements were made on the ground for departure to Walter Reed Army Hospital or Bethesda Naval Hospital, as the case may be. Mrs. Kennedy decided that she would accompany the body to Bethesda Naval Hospital and ride in the ambulance. I assured Mrs. Kennedy at this point that I would remain with the President until he was returned to the White House. body was carried by the Secret Service and assisted by the members of the Air Force “1” crew. The body was removed from the plane by an elevated truck at the level of the exit from the plane. Mrs. Kennedy, the Attorney General [Robert Kennedy, the slain president’s brother], members of the Secret Service and I were on the platform which was lowered to the ground level. The casket was removed by the same group and placed in the waiting ambulance. I was the last to alight from the platform.
Mrs. Kennedy, the Attorney General and Clint Hill rode with the body in the rear compartment of the ambulance. The driver, Paul Landis and I rode in the driver’s compartment to the hospital. Mrs. Kennedy upon arrival at the hospital went to the 17th floor with the members of the party. The body was taken to the mortuary where I met it and observed its transfer to the table. The examination was performed by Commander [James J.] Humes [chief pathologist, Bethesda Naval Hospital] and members of his staff. Also present were Admiral Kenny, Admiral Galloway, and Captain. Canada. General McHugh had remained in the vicinity of the President constantly throughout this time. I made numerous trips to the 17th floor for reassurance to those in that area and to supply them with some idea of the contemplated departure time. On one of these occasions, Mrs. Kennedy spoke to me in the bedroom of the suite expressing her appreciation which was greatly valued by me and which I will long remember. The body of the President was fully clothed in a blue suit, white shirt, tie, socks and shoes. His hair was combed in the usual fashion and his appearance in the casket gave no evidence of the injury he had received. During the examination we received a call from the 17th floor in regard to Mrs. Kennedy’s wedding ring which was in place on the ring finger in the appropriate position. This ring I removed personally and carried to her on the 17th floor and gave it to her in person. The original casket which had been used to transport the body from Dallas had been mahogany colored and of metallic composition. This was replaced by a solid mahogany wooden casket. The casket was again placed in the United States Navy ambulance at Mrs. Kennedy’s request and Mrs. Kennedy rode in the ambulance section with the Attorney General and Clint Hill. I accompanied the President’s body back to the White House where it was taken immediately to the East Room and placed on a dais. On arrival, the guard was stationed and there were several priests who said prayers for the dead. Mrs. Kennedy then at the completion of these rites retired to the second floor. I have no knowledge as to whether Mrs. Kennedy ever viewed the body after it left the hospital in Dallas. The following day we had a request for the St. Christopher medal which the President always carried in his wallet. The wallet and the rest of the clothes had been taken into custody of the Secret Service and was obtained by Mr . O’Leary [Secret Service] and the St. Christopher medal given to Mrs. Kennedy. It was stated that she wished to have this placed in the casket with the President’s body. George G. Burkley Physician to the President (51) In another interview (October 17, 1967), Dr. Burkley said the following about his involvement in the autopsy of the president: When the President was on the Air Force One returning to Washington, D.C., Mrs. Kennedy, as has been noted, sat in the rear of the plane, next to the coffin bearing the President’s remains. During the flight I contacted her, and stated that an autopsy would be necessary, and that I was perfectly willing to arrange to have it done at any place that she felt it should be done. She said, “Well, it doesn’t have to be done.” I said, “Yes, it is mandatory that we have an autopsy. I can do it at the Army hospital at Water Reed or at the Navy hospital at Bethesda, or any civilian hospital that you would designate.” However, I felt that it should be a military hospital, in that he had been President of the United States and was, therefore, the Commander in Chief of the Military. After some consideration she stated that she would like to have the President taken to Bethesda. This was arranged by telephone from the plane, and it was accomplished. I accompanied the President in the ambulance going to Bethesda, and also accompanied him to the area where the autopsy was performed. And during the course of the autopsy I supervised everything that was done and kept in constant contact with Mrs. Kennedy and the members of her party who were on the seventeenth floor in the suite at that level. I made trips back and forth. I delivered to her personally the ring form the President’s finger and talked to her on a number of occasions. I also directed that the X-rays be taken for future reference and complete knowledge of everything that was done. The records are also in possession of members of the family. There were photographs taken at various stages, and they are also in the possession of the family. And the only regret I have that I did not ask to have a photograph taken when he had been restored to his near normal appearance. And I may mention here that he was very lifelike in his appearance and there would have been no question of his having been viewed… By virtue of the completeness of the examination, the postmortem took considerable time because there was a desire not to miss anything for future reference….It took practically the entire night, and the embalming was done very carefully, and the reconstruction of the area which had been involved in the gunshot wound in the head had to be cared for in a very professional manner. (56) Dr. Burkley provided additional information in an affidavit (January 1978), as follows: I traveled from Andrew’s Air Force Base in the ambulance with the President’s body to the Bethesda Naval Hospital and accompanied the coffin to the autopsy laboratory and saw the body removed from the coffin and placed on the autopsy table… I directed the autopsy surgeon to do a complete autopsy and take the time necessary for completion. I supervised the autopsy and directed the fixation and retention of the brain for future study of the course of the bullet or bullets…The autopsy material was retained in a secure area and subsequently turned over by Captain Stover USN to me and a member of the Secret Service. We took this material immediately to the EOB Building where it was placed in a locked file cabinet by the Secret Service. Senator Robert Kennedy, representing Mrs. Kennedy and the Kennedy family, directed that the autopsy material be transferred to the National Archives. This was done on April 26, 1965. See attached letter of transmittal with listing of individual items. The notation under Item #9, one stainless steel container, 7” in diameter x 8”, containing gross material, represents the container of the brain. This material was accepted and signed for by Mrs. Evelyn Lincoln and witnessed by three people. Signed copies of these affidavits are attached. I understand that this affidavit may be introduced and received into evidence by the Select Committee on Assassinations of the United States House of Representatives, and may lead them to make various findings of fact, and the statutes applicable to Congressional investigations, including but not limited to those concerning false statements, obstruction, or misleading, would subject me to criminal penalties for not telling the whole and complete truth in this affidavit. (55) Dr. Burkley signed President Kennedy’s White House death certificate and wrote “verified” on a “face sheet” generated during the autopsy. (57) As noted above, autopsy material kept in a locked file cabinet by the Secret Service was turned over to the Mrs. Lincoln at the National Archives on April 26, 1965. The material that was transferred is listed below.
TRANSFERRED TO MRS. LINCOLN, NATIONAL ARCHIVES, APRIL 26, 1965 “In 1976, Burkley’s lawyer William Illig contacted Richard Sprague [chief counsel] of the [House Select Committee on Assassinations] HSCA, which undertook reinvestigations of the murders of John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King, Jr., saying that his client had information that ‘others besides Oswald must have participated.’” (57,59-60) “Sprague was ousted days later, and the reconstituted HSCA and its medical panel never took Burkley’s testimony. Instead, a short phone contact the following year was followed up yet months later, when the HSCA was done with all its public medical presentations.” (57) “In 1979, a single Report and twelve volumes of appendices on each assassination were published by the Congress. In the JFK case, the HSCA found that there was a “probable conspiracy,” though it was unable to determine the nature of that conspiracy or its other participants (besides Oswald).” (59) President Johnson invited Drs. Burkley and Travell to stay on as White House physicians. Both agreed. Dr. Travell resigned from the position on January 18, 1965, just before the inauguration of President Johnson to his first elected term as President. (33) On March 18, 1965, President Johnson signed an order promoting White House physician George R. Burkley from the rank of rear admiral to vice admiral. (61) Dr. Burkley resigned in 1969, near the end of President Johnson’s term. Dr. Burkley returned with his wife Isabel to live in the ancestral Burkley farm in Blairsville. Mrs. Burkley died at Bethesda Naval Hospital three years later in 1972. Dr. Burkley moved to the Los Angeles area where he died 19 years after his wife, on January 2, 1991, at Nazareth House, a residential care facility run by the congregation of the Sisters of Nazareth. (62) Dr. Burkley and his wife were buried in Arlington National Cemetery. (63) Journalist Bill Graff (Indiana Evening Gazette [Pennsylvania]) tried to persuade Dr. Burkley to write his memoirs. Mr. Graff wrote: I tried several times to get Dr. Burkley to dictate the story of his life and offered to purchase a tape recorder and tapes to make it easier for him. But each time he said his life wasn’t too interesting. I happily sold him a $100 life membership in the Historical Society of the Blairsville Area. (1)
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