E. Michael Burke
Encyclopedia
Edmund Michael Burke was a U.S. Navy Officer, O.S.S.
agent, C.I.A.
agent, general manager of Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus
, CBS executive, President of the New York Yankees
, the New York Knicks
, New York Rangers
and Madison Square Garden
.
, and attended Kingswood-Oxford School
in Hartford, Connecticut
. He was awarded an athletic scholarship
to the University of Pennsylvania
playing halfback
on the football team. He graduated in 1939 and was given a tryout by the Philadelphia Eagles
in 1941.
Ensign Burke was sent to Algiers
in 1942, then Sicily in 1943, and later landing in Salerno in the same year.
Burke was one of the members of the "MacGregor Mission" led by Lt. John M. Shaheen consiting of Burke, John Ringling North
and Marcello Girosi, a former New York businessman who had a brother Massimo who was an Italian admiral. The "MacGregor Mission" was responsible for discovering information on Axis weapons.
One of the missions was to smuggle Italian Vice Admiral Eugenio Minisini out of Italy in 1943. Admiral Minisini was in the Engineering section of the Italian Navy and was directing the use of a magnetic firing device for torpedoes. As the American Navy was having problems with their detonators setting off torpedoes this a crucial piece of technology. The four men landed by PT Boat in Capri
and brought back Admiral Minisini.
Burke and North were both awarded the Silver Star for their work.
Following the Italian campaign, Burke was parachuted into the Vosges
region of France to arm and organise the French Resistance
. During World War II, Michael Burke was awarded the Navy Cross, Silver Cross, and the French Médaille de la Résistance.
for Fritz Lang
's O.S.S. film Cloak and Dagger. Burke had a bit part in the film but it was cut during editing. During the filming he met Henry Ringling North
's sister who he later married. During the filming Burke and a fellow OSS agent Andreas Diamond met at Lang's home to discuss various methods of killing someone with your bare hands and were seen rolling around the floor to design a fight scene with OSS methods for the film. A Warner Bros memo records the fact that the fight scene was the only scene that Gary Cooper
, who had problems with the scientific dialgoues his character had to say, did well during the film.
serving in Rome and other parts of Europe for five years. Burke was allowed to use the cover of working for Warner Brothers whilst he was doing various scouting and liaision missions in Europe. Using his experience with French Resistance groups in the War, Burke was given the mission to "Recruit a limited number of refugees, train them as agents and place them clandestinely back on their native soil. There they would seek out any incipient resistance elements that might exist" behind the Iron Curtain.
In 1949 he replaced Robert Low as the American officer in charge of setting up paramilitary and political operations in Albania. Following Albania Burke worked on Polish anti Soviet resistance operations and tested Soviet radar capabilities by using Polish pilots.
Burke served as an intelligence and special operations adviser to John J. McCloy
, the United States High Commissioner in Germany, from 1951 to 1954.
's Teamster Union.
.
sold the remainder of his stock to CBS. Burke served as the team president and Chief Executive Officer
while the Yankees were under the ownership of CBS
. In 1968, he was a candidate to become Commissioner of Baseball (although Bowie Kuhn would get the appointment).
In 1972, CBS head William Paley
told Burke to either sell the Yankees or buy them himself which he did with George Steinbrenner
in January 1973. Burke and Steinbrenner had a parting of the ways with Burke resigning in April 1973.
Burke's most famous achievement occurred when he successfully negotiated with Mayor
John V. Lindsay to keep the Yankees in New York by having the city agree to rebuild Yankee Stadium. Burke became President of Madison Square Garden in 1973 on a five year contract that also made him president of the New York Rangers
and New York Knicks
. In 1981, Burke sold his five percent stake in the New York Yankees for $500,000
near Galway
. Burke retired there in 1981. On a visit to the United States a woman once asked him if he were a gentleman farmer. He laughed and said "Well, I'm a gentleman".
Office of Strategic Services
The Office of Strategic Services was a United States intelligence agency formed during World War II. It was the wartime intelligence agency, and it was a predecessor of the Central Intelligence Agency...
agent, C.I.A.
Central Intelligence Agency
The Central Intelligence Agency is a civilian intelligence agency of the United States government. It is an executive agency and reports directly to the Director of National Intelligence, responsible for providing national security intelligence assessment to senior United States policymakers...
agent, general manager of Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus
Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus
Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus is an American circus company. The company was started when the circus created by James Anthony Bailey and P. T. Barnum was merged with the Ringling Brothers Circus. The Ringling brothers purchased the Barnum & Bailey Circus in 1907, but ran the circuses...
, CBS executive, President of the New York Yankees
New York Yankees
The New York Yankees are a professional baseball team based in the The Bronx, New York. They compete in Major League Baseball in the American League's East Division...
, the New York Knicks
New York Knicks
The New York Knickerbockers, prominently known as the Knicks, are a professional basketball team based in New York City. They are part of the Atlantic Division of the Eastern Conference in the National Basketball Association...
, New York Rangers
New York Rangers
The New York Rangers are a professional ice hockey team based in the borough of Manhattan in New York, New York, USA. They are members of the Atlantic Division of the Eastern Conference of the National Hockey League . Playing their home games at Madison Square Garden, the Rangers are one of the...
and Madison Square Garden
Madison Square Garden
Madison Square Garden, often abbreviated as MSG and known colloquially as The Garden, is a multi-purpose indoor arena in the New York City borough of Manhattan and located at 8th Avenue, between 31st and 33rd Streets, situated on top of Pennsylvania Station.Opened on February 11, 1968, it is the...
.
Early life
Burke was born in Enfield, ConnecticutEnfield, Connecticut
Enfield is a town located in Hartford County, Connecticut, United States. The population was 45,212 at the 2000 census. It sits on the border with Longmeadow, Massachusetts and East Longmeadow, Massachusetts to the north, Somers to the east, East Windsor and Ellington to the south, and the...
, and attended Kingswood-Oxford School
Kingswood-Oxford School
Kingswood Oxford School is a private day school located in West Hartford, Connecticut. Originally two separate schools, Kingswood School and Oxford School for boys and girls respectively, KO is now a co-educational institution and offers grades 6 through 12...
in Hartford, Connecticut
Hartford, Connecticut
Hartford is the capital of the U.S. state of Connecticut. The seat of Hartford County until Connecticut disbanded county government in 1960, it is the second most populous city on New England's largest river, the Connecticut River. As of the 2010 Census, Hartford's population was 124,775, making...
. He was awarded an athletic scholarship
Athletic scholarship
An athletic scholarship is a form of scholarship to attend a college or university awarded to an individual based predominantly on his or her ability to play in a sport...
to the University of Pennsylvania
University of Pennsylvania
The University of Pennsylvania is a private, Ivy League university located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. Penn is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States,Penn is the fourth-oldest using the founding dates claimed by each institution...
playing halfback
Halfback (American football)
A halfback, sometimes referred to as a tailback, is an offensive position in American football, which lines up in the backfield and generally is responsible for carrying the ball on run plays. Historically, from the 1870s through the 1950s, the halfback position was both an offensive and defensive...
on the football team. He graduated in 1939 and was given a tryout by the Philadelphia Eagles
Philadelphia Eagles
The Philadelphia Eagles are a professional American football team based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. They are members of the East Division of the National Football Conference in the National Football League...
in 1941.
World War II
After working as a cargo inspector in the New York waterfront, Burke was commissioned an Ensign in the US Navy. A chance meeting with head of the O.S.S General William J. Donovan led to transfer to his command. Donovan told him "Anybody who can run back punts the way you can ought to be able to wiggle behind enemy lines"Ensign Burke was sent to Algiers
Algiers
' is the capital and largest city of Algeria. According to the 1998 census, the population of the city proper was 1,519,570 and that of the urban agglomeration was 2,135,630. In 2009, the population was about 3,500,000...
in 1942, then Sicily in 1943, and later landing in Salerno in the same year.
Burke was one of the members of the "MacGregor Mission" led by Lt. John M. Shaheen consiting of Burke, John Ringling North
John Ringling North
John Ringling North was the owner of the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus from 1937 to 1943 and from 1947 to 1967. In 1967 he sold the circus to Irvin Feld.-Biography:...
and Marcello Girosi, a former New York businessman who had a brother Massimo who was an Italian admiral. The "MacGregor Mission" was responsible for discovering information on Axis weapons.
One of the missions was to smuggle Italian Vice Admiral Eugenio Minisini out of Italy in 1943. Admiral Minisini was in the Engineering section of the Italian Navy and was directing the use of a magnetic firing device for torpedoes. As the American Navy was having problems with their detonators setting off torpedoes this a crucial piece of technology. The four men landed by PT Boat in Capri
Capri
Capri is an Italian island in the Tyrrhenian Sea off the Sorrentine Peninsula, on the south side of the Gulf of Naples, in the Campania region of Southern Italy...
and brought back Admiral Minisini.
Burke and North were both awarded the Silver Star for their work.
Following the Italian campaign, Burke was parachuted into the Vosges
Vosges
Vosges is a French department, named after the local mountain range. It contains the hometown of Joan of Arc, Domrémy.-History:The Vosges department is one of the original 83 departments of France, created on February 9, 1790 during the French Revolution. It was made of territories that had been...
region of France to arm and organise the French Resistance
French Resistance
The French Resistance is the name used to denote the collection of French resistance movements that fought against the Nazi German occupation of France and against the collaborationist Vichy régime during World War II...
. During World War II, Michael Burke was awarded the Navy Cross, Silver Cross, and the French Médaille de la Résistance.
Cloak and Dagger
After the war Burke was recruited by Warner Brothers to be a technical advisorTechnical advisor
A technical advisor is an individual who is expert in a particular field of knowledge, hired to provide detailed information and advice to people working in that field...
for Fritz Lang
Fritz Lang
Friedrich Christian Anton "Fritz" Lang was an Austrian-American filmmaker, screenwriter, and occasional film producer and actor. One of the best known émigrés from Germany's school of Expressionism, he was dubbed the "Master of Darkness" by the British Film Institute...
's O.S.S. film Cloak and Dagger. Burke had a bit part in the film but it was cut during editing. During the filming he met Henry Ringling North
Henry Ringling North
Henry Ringling North was the vice president, treasurer, director and operations chief, while his brother, John Ringling North, was the president and chairman of the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus.-Biography:...
's sister who he later married. During the filming Burke and a fellow OSS agent Andreas Diamond met at Lang's home to discuss various methods of killing someone with your bare hands and were seen rolling around the floor to design a fight scene with OSS methods for the film. A Warner Bros memo records the fact that the fight scene was the only scene that Gary Cooper
Gary Cooper
Frank James Cooper, known professionally as Gary Cooper, was an American film actor. He was renowned for his quiet, understated acting style and his stoic, but at times intense screen persona, which was particularly well suited to the many Westerns he made...
, who had problems with the scientific dialgoues his character had to say, did well during the film.
C.I.A.
When Burke's screenwriting career didn't pan out he was recruited into the C.I.A. after lunch in the Algonquin HotelAlgonquin Hotel
The Algonquin Hotel is a historic hotel located at 59 West 44th Street in Manhattan . The hotel has been designated as a New York City Historic Landmark....
serving in Rome and other parts of Europe for five years. Burke was allowed to use the cover of working for Warner Brothers whilst he was doing various scouting and liaision missions in Europe. Using his experience with French Resistance groups in the War, Burke was given the mission to "Recruit a limited number of refugees, train them as agents and place them clandestinely back on their native soil. There they would seek out any incipient resistance elements that might exist" behind the Iron Curtain.
In 1949 he replaced Robert Low as the American officer in charge of setting up paramilitary and political operations in Albania. Following Albania Burke worked on Polish anti Soviet resistance operations and tested Soviet radar capabilities by using Polish pilots.
Burke served as an intelligence and special operations adviser to John J. McCloy
John J. McCloy
John Jay McCloy was a lawyer and banker who served as Assistant Secretary of War during World War II, president of the World Bank and U.S. High Commissioner for Germany...
, the United States High Commissioner in Germany, from 1951 to 1954.
Post CIA
Following his CIA career, Burke's brother-in-law and comrade in arms John Ringling North hired him for the [Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus as an executive director. Though new to the circus world Burke found himself battling cheating ushers and Jimmy HoffaJimmy Hoffa
James Riddle "Jimmy" Hoffa was an American labor union leader....
's Teamster Union.
CBS
When his friend North hired a manager Burke didn't like, Burke left the big top and met Frank Stanton of CBS. Burke's European knowledge led him to be sent back to Europe to develop television programs, eventually becoming the President of CBS Europe. Burke was summoned back to America as Vice President in charge of Diversification. One of Burke's accomplishments was recommending CBS purchase the rights to the play My Fair LadyMy Fair Lady
My Fair Lady is a musical based upon George Bernard Shaw's Pygmalion and with book and lyrics by Alan Jay Lerner and music by Frederick Loewe...
.
New York Yankees
CBS acquired the New York Yankees on August 13, 1964 in order to diversify their interests in the entertainment industry. on September 20, 1966 Burke became President of the Yankees after Dan ToppingDan Topping
Daniel Reid Topping was a part owner and president of the New York Yankees baseball team from 1945 to 1964. Daniel Reid Topping was the son of Rhea Reid and Henry J. Topping. Rhea Reid, the daughter of Daniel G. Reid, known as the "Tinplate King" for his vast wealth in the tin industry, was the...
sold the remainder of his stock to CBS. Burke served as the team president and Chief Executive Officer
Chief executive officer
A chief executive officer , managing director , Executive Director for non-profit organizations, or chief executive is the highest-ranking corporate officer or administrator in charge of total management of an organization...
while the Yankees were under the ownership of CBS
CBS
CBS Broadcasting Inc. is a major US commercial broadcasting television network, which started as a radio network. The name is derived from the initials of the network's former name, Columbia Broadcasting System. The network is sometimes referred to as the "Eye Network" in reference to the shape of...
. In 1968, he was a candidate to become Commissioner of Baseball (although Bowie Kuhn would get the appointment).
In 1972, CBS head William Paley
William Paley
William Paley was a British Christian apologist, philosopher, and utilitarian. He is best known for his exposition of the teleological argument for the existence of God in his work Natural Theology, which made use of the watchmaker analogy .-Life:Paley was Born in Peterborough, England, and was...
told Burke to either sell the Yankees or buy them himself which he did with George Steinbrenner
George Steinbrenner
George Michael Steinbrenner III was an American businessman who was the principal owner and managing partner of Major League Baseball's New York Yankees. During Steinbrenner's 37-year ownership from 1973 to his death in July 2010, the longest in club history, the Yankees earned seven World Series...
in January 1973. Burke and Steinbrenner had a parting of the ways with Burke resigning in April 1973.
Burke's most famous achievement occurred when he successfully negotiated with Mayor
Mayor of New York City
The Mayor of the City of New York is head of the executive branch of New York City's government. The mayor's office administers all city services, public property, police and fire protection, most public agencies, and enforces all city and state laws within New York City.The budget overseen by the...
John V. Lindsay to keep the Yankees in New York by having the city agree to rebuild Yankee Stadium. Burke became President of Madison Square Garden in 1973 on a five year contract that also made him president of the New York Rangers
New York Rangers
The New York Rangers are a professional ice hockey team based in the borough of Manhattan in New York, New York, USA. They are members of the Atlantic Division of the Eastern Conference of the National Hockey League . Playing their home games at Madison Square Garden, the Rangers are one of the...
and New York Knicks
New York Knicks
The New York Knickerbockers, prominently known as the Knicks, are a professional basketball team based in New York City. They are part of the Atlantic Division of the Eastern Conference in the National Basketball Association...
. In 1981, Burke sold his five percent stake in the New York Yankees for $500,000
Retirement in Ireland
As a child, Burke had lived with his grandparents in Ireland. In 1960 he purchased a 500 acres (2 km²) farm in AughrimAughrim, County Galway
Aughrim is a small village in County Galway, Ireland. It is located in the west of Ireland, between the towns of Loughrea and Ballinasloe, along the N6 national primary road that connects Galway and Dublin....
near Galway
Galway
Galway or City of Galway is a city in County Galway, Republic of Ireland. It is the sixth largest and the fastest-growing city in Ireland. It is also the third largest city within the Republic and the only city in the Province of Connacht. Located on the west coast of Ireland, it sits on the...
. Burke retired there in 1981. On a visit to the United States a woman once asked him if he were a gentleman farmer. He laughed and said "Well, I'm a gentleman".