Tex McCrary

William Safire: ...I could never get him to write his memoirs before he died; the active octogenarian stubbornly said 'I won't live my life with eyes on the rear-view mirror.' But Chuck Kelly...interviewed him skillfully and often, and now we have an adventurer's eye-view of McCrary's little-known role in tempestuous times.

At last someone has discovered one of the most fascinating lives of the 20th century. As a crusading journalist, John Reagan 'Tex' McCrary led the way from newspapering into radio and television. As a handsome adventurer, this well-connected Yalie romanced some of the world's most talented (and richest) women, winding up a globe-girdling love affair by marrying Jinx Falkenburg, then America's top model and later his partner on the air. As a brave Army Air Corps colonel in World War II, he took the first group of reporters into devastated Hiroshima, and was instrumental in the creation of an independent U.S. Air Force. As a political activist, he was a powerful influence in pulling General Eisenhower back from Paris to wrench the Republican presidential nomination from the hard right—even though his advocacy cost him his network job. As a pioneer publicist, Tex brought a social conscience to the builder of Levittown and sent a kid he was mentoring (me) to Moscow to set up the historic 'kitchen debate' between Nikita Khrushchev and Richard Nixon. I could never get him to write his memoirs before he died; the active octogenarian stubbornly said 'I won't live my life with eyes on the rear-view mirror.' But Chuck Kelly, his longtime friend, interviewed him skillfully and often, and now we have an adventurer's eye-view of McCrary's little-known role in tempestuous times.—William Safire

Chapter 1 Texas, Exeter...and Yale: The Education of a Future Insider
Chapter 2 Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal: The Depression and Isolationism
Chapter 3 Bernard Baruch and the Gathering Storm in Europe
Chapter 4 We Want Willkie No Third Term!...Roosevelt: Your Sons Will Not Be Sent to Fight in Foriegn Wars
Chapter 5 The RAF Eagle Squadron and Lord Beaverbrook
Chapter 6 Pearl Harbor, December 7, 1941: Flying Fortresses Over Germany
Chapter 7 War in the Mediterranean: England's Lifeline of Empire
Chapter 8 War in the Pacific: MacArthur and Hiroshima
Chapter 9 A Victory Tour Through Asia: Intimations of Wars to Come
Chapter 10 Tex and Jinx: Pioneers in Television
Chapter 11 Korea: The Forgotten Ear: MacArthur and Truman
Chapter 12 I Like Ike
Chapter 13 He Kept the Peace
Chapter 14 The Failure of an Eisenhower Succession: Rockefeller: What If?
Chapter 15 Jack Kennedy: The Dream of Camelot and the Nightmare of Vietnam
Chapter 16 Hey, Hey, LBJ, How Many Boys Did You Kill Today?
Chapter 17 Nixon's Secret War, His Southern Strategy, and Disgrace
Chapter 18 The Arab Oil Embargo: That Damn Fool Nixon Turned His Back on the World's Largest Oil Reserve to Fight a Losing War in a Small Asian Country that Grows Rice!
Chapter 19 Ronald Reagan: Morning in America...Mr. Gorbachev: Tear Down That Wall
Chapter 20 Bush 41: The Aborted Ending of the Gulf War
Chapter 21 Bill Clinton: All Sail; No Keel
Chapter 22 Citizens for Colin Powell: The Appeal of The Sensible Center
Chapter 23 The Evil of Two Lessers: Bush 43 and Cheney and the Loss of the Popular Vote
Chapter 24 The 9/11 Attack on America and War in Iraq