The Reminiscences of Adm. Arleigh A. Burke, USN (Ret.), Special Series on Selected Subjects, vol. 4 : 1901-1996

With a career spanning from World War II to Korea to service as Chief of Naval Operations during the Eisenhower and Kennedy years, Admiral Arleigh Burke was instrumental in molding the Navy into the fleet that would eventually prevail in the Cold War and remain dominant to this day. From 1972 to 1981, Naval Institute oral historian John T. Mason Jr. spent a remarkable amount of time with Burke while conducting nearly 20 interviews with him, thus generating a sprawling four-volume oral history magnum opus, supplemented with various writings by Burke. The collection is the requisite starting point for any serious study of this officer and the era of U.S. naval history which bears his indelible imprint.

This volume employs a format unusual for oral history. Admiral Burke began by writing a narrative on military history, beginning with the French Army in the late 18th century an d proceeding on through World War II. In so doing, he draws a number of lessons on the ways in which military forces have been used and misused during history. This narrative forms the backdrop for his subsequent discussion in the narrative of the establishment in late 1948 of OP-23, a division of the CNO''s staff which was created to fight off attempts by the Air Force to take control of naval aviation as part of overall defense unification. The volume concludes with oral history interviews which go into further detail on the points raised by Admiral Burke in his own narrative. Key individuals discussed are CNO Louis Denfeld, VCNO Arthur Radford, Secretary of Defense James Forrestal, and Secretary of the Air Force Stuart Symington. (Two more volumes will conclude Admiral Burke''s discussion of OP-23.) Volume IV consists of 240 pages of narrative written by Admiral Burke and six interviews conducted by John T. Mason, Jr., from November 1980 through May 1981. The volume contains 345 pages of transcript, 240 pages of narrative, plus index. The transcript is copyright 1983 by the U.S. Naval Institute; the restrictions originally placed on the transcript by the interviewee have since been removed.