Walter Tkach; Physician for 3 Presidents

Dr. Walter Robert Tkach, who served as White House physician to three Presidents, will be buried with full military honors Tuesday in Arlington National Cemetery.

Tkach, a retired Air Force major general, died Nov. 1 of a heart seizure at his Scripps Ranch home near San Diego. He was 72.

A memorial service is scheduled for 11 a.m. Monday at the Episcopal Church of the Good Samaritan in San Diego.

Tkach was senior White House doctor during Richard M. Nixon’s presidency, treating him for viral pneumonia and phlebitis. Earlier, he served as an assistant in the White House during President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s two terms and for the first eight months of the John F. Kennedy Administration.

Born in LaBelle, Pa., Tkach earned a bachelor’s degree in chemistry from Pennsylvania State University in 1941 and his medical degree from the University of Pittsburgh in 1945.

He joined the Army and ran the medical dispensary at Gen. Douglas MacArthur’s Tokyo headquarters during the U.S. occupation of Japan after World War II.

Transferring to the Air Force in 1949, Tkach was trained in aerospace and aviation medicine. He spent the Korean War years as base flight surgeon at Stewart Air Force Base, Tenn.

After nearly nine years at the White House, Tkach was named deputy surgeon of Pacific Air Forces at Hickam Air Force Base in Hawaii.

As command surgeon of the 7th Air Force at what was then Tan Son Nhut Air Base in Saigon during the Vietnam War, he often rode helicopters to combat areas to treat wounded soldiers.

After Nixon’s resignation in 1974, Tkach became chief surgeon for the Air Force Systems Command at Andrews Air Force Base near Washington.

He moved to San Diego in 1979 when he retired.

His first wife died of cancer in 1971, and in 1973 Tkach married Cherle Ann Gaillard of La Jolla, an employee at Nixon’s Western White House at San Clemente.

Survivors include his wife and three sons, Marc, Jonathan and John Robert.