John Reagan McCrary Jr. (S&B 1932) Phillips Exter Academy. Yale University. Skull and Bones. The Yale Record. Delta Kappa Epsilon.
Legendary New York public relations man and political strategist who with his wife, the actress and model Jinx Falkenburg, helped create and popularize the talk-show format on the radio and television.[6]
McCrary (S&B 1932) also had connections to real estate magnate William Zeckendorf Sr (Rockefeller and United Nations Land)., and provided promotional assistance to Freedomland U.S.A., a popular theme park located on several hundred acres of Zeckendorf property in The Bronx. McCrary and his wife are featured in the book Freedomland U.S.A.: The Definitive History (Theme Park Press, 2019).[7]
1959 - During the Merits of Capitalism between Vice President Richard Nixon, the official American host, and General Secretary Nikita S. Khrushchev of the Soviet Union. William Safire (wrote Apollo 11 in event of moon disaster speech), who was then a member of the McCrary team (S&B 1932) and later a Nixon aide and now a columnist for The New York Times, maneuvered the two protagonists into the kitchen. The photographer Elliot Erwitt of Magnum captured the image of Mr. Nixon poking the Soviet leader in the chest, which was used the following year when the vice president ran against John F. Kennedy as a man who could stand up to the Russians.[7]
1952 - To convince the skeptical general [Dwight D. Eisenhower] that a groundswell of enthusiasm existed for his [Presidential] candidacy, Mr. McCrary (S&B 1932) staged a huge ”public outpouring” rally in Madison Square Garden that moved the general to tears.[7]
WW2 - The press corps toured Europe in the weeks after V-E Day in a custom B-17 fitted with high-powered shortwave radio equipment. They started with Paris and moved on to examine first-hand the destruction from the Allied bombing campaigns on Hamburg and Dresden.
WW2 - Hiroshima - That September, they were among the first Americans to enter Hiroshima after the atomic bombing. McCrary advised journalists not to cover the bombing, because he felt that the American people could not face the reality of the effects of the bombing, but John Hersey (S&B 1936) still covered the story in The New Yorker.[5]
“I covered it up, and John Hersey [S&B 1936] uncovered it,” Mr. McCrary [S&B 1932] said years later. “That’s the difference between a P.R. man and a reporter.”[7]
WW2 - McCrary (S&B 1932) was then tasked with putting together a team of airborne war correspondents to cover the Twentieth Air Force.Over the following few months the group toured Asia, making stops in China, French Indochina, Thailand, Burma, the Malay States and Java.[8]
1932 - Graduated Yale, Skull and Bones Patriarch.
Died 29 Jul 2003, from Not Known. Age 92.
[3] - Skull and Bones Membership List by David Luhrssen
[4] - FYI - Wiki - Tex McCrary (S&B 1932)
[6] - Inventing Great Neck: Jewish Identity and the American Dream by Judith S. Goldstein
[7] - Tex McCrary Dies at 92; Public Relations Man Who Helped Create Talk-Show Format
[8] - Paper - As We See Russia. New York: E. P. Dutton Company
[9] - American Battle Monuments Commission - John R. McCrary Jr.
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