Clay Blair

Clay Drewry Blair Jr. (May 1, 1925 – December 16, 1998) was an American journalist and author, best known for his books on military history. Blair wrote some two dozen history books and hundreds of magazine articles that reached a popular audience.

Early life and military service Blair was born in Lexington, Virginia.

Blair enlisted in the United States Navy in 1943, during World War II.

During 1945,

Blair served on Guardfish into 1946, after the war was over, then was discharged from the Navy.

Blair later wrote for Time and Life magazines. At Time-Life during the 1950s he covered the Pentagon,

Over the years, Blair worked for the Curtis Publishing Company as both a correspondent and an editor. In particular, he became editor-in-chief of The Saturday Evening Post during the early 1960s. While the book was positively reviewed across a large number of newspapers and magazines at the time of publication, several scientists who had worked at Los Alamos on the bomb's development soon issued statements refuting its narrative. Interviews conducted during the mid-to-late-1950s (but not published until many decades later) showed almost no scientists speaking well of the book, even those portrayed favorably within it. Subsequent scholarship has established that the Shepley and Blair account was largely inaccurate and was guided by stark H-bomb proponent, and Oppenheimer antagonist, Lewis Strauss.

Blair later earned trust as a collaborator when he assisted General Omar Bradley in the writing of his autobiography, A General's Life (1983),

Blair also wrote extensively on the submarine war of World War II, notably in the bestselling Silent Victory: The U.S. Submarine War Against Japan (1975), considered the definitive work on the Pacific submarine war.

Silent Victory was also Blair's most popular book. It, and several other of this works, were selected by various kinds of book of the month clubs, a target audience that was aimed at by Blair and his wife.

Books by Clay Blair Non-fiction The Atomic Submarine and Admiral Rickover (Henry Holt, 1954) The Hydrogen Bomb: The Men, The Menace, The Mechanism (David McKay, 1954) (with James R. Shepley) Beyond Courage (David McKay, 1955) Nautilus 90 North (World Publishing, 1959) (Cmdr. William R. Anderson with Clay Blair Jr.) Diving for Pleasure and Treasure (World Publishing, 1960) Always Another Dawn: The Story of a Rocket Test Pilot (World Publishing, 1960) (A. Scott Crossfield with Clay Blair Jr.) The Strange Case of James Earl Ray (Bantam, 1969) Survive! (Berkley Publishing, 1973) Silent Victory: The U.S. Submarine War Against Japan (J.B. Lippincott, 1975) The Search for J.F.K. (Berkley Publishing, 1976) (with Joan Blair) MacArthur: Korea and the Undoing of an American Hero (Doubleday, 1977) Combat Patrol (Bantam, 1978) (condensed version of Silent Victory) Return from The River Kwai (Simon & Schuster, 1979) (with Joan Blair) Beyond Courage: Escape Tales of Airmen in the Korean War (Ballantine Books, 1983) A General's Life: An Autobiography by General of the Army, Omar N. Bradley (Simon & Schuster, 1983) (with Omar N. Bradley) Ridgway's Paratroopers: The American Airborne in World War II (Dial Press, 1985) The Forgotten War: America in Korea, 1950–1953 (Times Books, 1987) Hitler's U-Boat War: The Hunters, 1939–1942 (Random House, 1996) Hitler's U-Boat War: The Hunted, 1942–1945 (Random House, 1998)

Fiction The Board Room (E.P. Dutton, 1969) The Archbishop (World Publishing, 1970) Pentagon Country (McGraw-Hill, 1971) Scuba! (Bantam, 1977) (with Joan Blair) Mission Tokyo Bay (Bantam, 1980) (with Joan Blair) Swordray's First Three Patrols (Bantam, 1980) (with Joan Blair)

Ghostwriter Valley of the Shadow (David McKay, 1955) (by Major Ward Millar) The Voyage of the Nina II (World Publishing, 1963) (by Robert Marx)

Source: Virtual Exhibits: Clay Blair, Jr.