George Burkley; Doctor Served 3 Presidents

Retired Vice Adm. George G. Burkley, doctor for Presidents Dwight D. Eisenhower, John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson, has died in a Los Angeles nursing home. He was 88.

Burkley died of pneumonia Wednesday at Nazareth House, his family announced.

A specialist in internal medicine and cardiology, Burkley served as personal physician to Presidents Kennedy and Johnson.

He also was doctor in charge at the Navy-operated presidential retreat at Camp David, Md., during the Eisenhower Administration and accompanied Eisenhower on an 11-nation Far East trip in 1959. He won the affection of newsmen accompanying the President by providing pills and good-natured advice for avoiding illness in Pakistan, India, Afghanistan and Iran.

Burkley was riding behind Kennedy’s limousine in the presidential motorcade in Dallas on Nov. 22, 1963, when Kennedy was fatally shot. The President underwent emergency treatment at Parkland Hospital and Burkley was unable to assist.

Burkley subsequently was appointed Johnson’s personal doctor. He saw the President through several surgeries, including a secret operation for skin cancer on the left ankle in 1967 that was not acknowledged for 10 years.

Terming Johnson’s health “excellent” after his election in 1964, Burkley said the only adverse effect of the rigorous campaign on the President was “traumatic injury” or scratches and bruises to his hands from shaking hands with thousands of supporters.

He retired in January, 1969, at the end of the Johnson Administration.

A graduate of the University of Pittsburgh Medical School, Burkley was a Navy lieutenant commander in the South Pacific during World War II. He served at several Navy hospitals before he was named head of the Naval Dispensary in Washington in 1957.

In 1961, Burkley became an assistant to Dr. Janet G. Travell, the White House physician. He was promoted from captain to rear admiral in August of that year. He was appointed White House physician in July, 1963, when Travell stepped down.