Tex McCrary

Wars-Women-Politics, An Adventurous Life Across The American Century

Charles J. Kelly

• Publisher: Hamilton Books
• Year: 2009
• Edition: 1
• eBook ISBN:
  9780761884613
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Historical Biographies
• Index: Politics & International Relations

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

Table of contents

• Contents
• Author’s Note
• 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 Foreign 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 War: MacArthur and Truman
• Chapter 12. “I Like Ike”
• Chapter 13. “He Kept the Peace”
• Chapter14. 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
• Epilogue