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SEPTEMBER 1955       23

Heart Medal, Presidential Unit Citation Ribbon with three stars, Admiral Burke holds the Asiatic-Pacific Campaign Medal with two silver and two bronze stars, and many others which include the Presidential Unit Citation from the Republic of Korea. He is a member of the American Chemical Society, the American Institute of Chemical Engineers, and the Iota Alpha honorary fraternity for chemical engineers.

Arleigh Alber Burke was married on June 7, 1923 to Roberta Gorsuch of Washington, D.C. The admiral is of medium height and has been called "husky, precise," and "wisecracking." W.H. Lawrence (New York Times, May 26, 1955) described Burke as a "volatile, exuberant man" who is "popular with both enlisted men and officers."

Thoroughly wrapped up in the U.S. Navy, Burke has not developed many hobbies or sports proficiencies. But he did find time to build a house for himself - a cottage in Virginia, near the Great Falls of the Potomac and a few miles from Washington. He designed the house himself (he was influenced by Japanese architecture), bought a set of power tools from Sears, Roebuck, and put it up with some professional help (Newsweek, June 6, 1955). A fellow negotiator at the Panmunjom armistice negotiations with the North Koreans remarked about Burke: "He never lost his temper or turned a hair when he was talking to them" (Time, June 6, 1955).

References
Aviation W 62:11 My 30 '55
Christian Sci Mon p12 My 25 '55
N Y Herald Tribune p1 My 26 '55 por
N Y Times p 1+ My 26 '55 por
Newsweek 45:28 Je 6 '55 por
Time 44:55 J1 17 '44 por; 58:21 J1 16 '51 por; 65:25 Je 6 '55 por
Who's Who in America, 1954-55

BYRD, HARRY F(LOOD) June 10, 1887- United States Senator from Virginia; farmer; publisher.
Address: b. Senate Office Bldg., Washington 25, D.C.; h. "Rosemont," Berryville, Va; The Shoreham, Washington, D.C.

Note: This biography supersedes the article which appeared in Current Biography in 1942.

Known as "Mr. Economy" and the "watchdog of the treasury," Harry F. Byrd of Virginia, a member of the United States Senate since 1933, has been battling for many years against deficit spending and for the "pay-as-you-go" principle in fiscal affairs. Long a member of the Senate Finance Committee, he is today its chairman, and since 1941 has also served continuously as chairman of the Joint Committee on Reduction of Nonessential Federal Expenditures. Prior to his 1926-1930 term as Governor of Virginia, Byrd had served for ten years in the state Senate.

Harry Flood Byrd was born on June 10, 1887 in Martinsburg, West Virginia to Eleanor Bolling (Flood) and Richard Evelyn Byrd, a lawyer and later speaker of the Virginia House of Delegates. He is a direct descendant of William Byrd, who came to Virginia from England in 1674. His mother's brothers, Henry D. Flood and Joel West Flood, served as United States Congressmen from Virginia. Harry F. Byrd's younger brothers are Admiral Richard Evelyn Byrd, the explorer, and Thomas Bolling Byrd.

When Harry was a young child, the family moved to Winchester, Virginia, where Byrd's father established the Winchester Star. At the age of sixteen Harry, who was a student at the Shenandoah Valley Academy, left to assume management of the newspaper, which was then in poor financial condition. Under his direction it soon became solvent. When he was twenty, he established, and from 1907 to 1910 managed, a newspaper in Martinsburg, West Virginia.

Since 1906 Byrd has been an apple grower, having started by leasing orchards. Today his chain of Shenandoah Valley orchards (in which his brother Tom is a partner) is one of the largest in the world. In 1923 he acquired the Harrisburg (Virginia) News-Record and still acts as the publisher of that newspaper.

Entering Virginia politics as the protégé of Henry D. Flood and U.S. Representative (later Senator) Carter Glass, Byrd served as a state senator from 1915 to 1925. As a member of the Commonwealth Senate, he led a successful fight in 1923 "against a $50,000,000 bond issue for roads, and thus became identified with the 'pay-as-you-go' principle which has been the guiding star of his fiscal and political philosophy ever since" (Virginius Dabney in the Saturday Evening Post, January 7, 1950). He also served as state fuel commissioner during 1918 and 1919.

In 1925 he was elected Governor of Virginia for a four-year term. During his administration the legislature of Virginia passed in 1928 the first "antilynching" law enacted by a Southern state. The U.S. News & World Report (January 14, 1955) noted that Byrd "found the state with a deficit, [and] left it with a surplus."

At the Democratic National Convention of 1932, when Franklin D. Roosevelt received the nomination for the office of the President of the United States, Byrd was a "favorite son" candidate, and received twenty-five votes before his name was withdrawn.

Byrd's efforts in helping to manage the national Democratic party treasury during the 1932 campaign were so effective that Franklin D. Roosevelt "decided that he simply must have that man Byrd in the Senate" (Gerald W. Johnson in Life, August 7, 1944). When Virginia's senior Senator Claude A. Swanson resigned to become Secretary of the Navy, Governor John G. Pollard appointed Byrd on March 4, 1933 to fill Swanson's Senatorial seat. In November 1934 he was elected to a full six-year term. Roosevelt's insistence on bringing Byrd to Washington has been called "one of the most amusing ironies of recent American politics," because Byrd was to emerge as "an