Tex McCrary

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