Orvil Dryfoos - The New York Times

The New York Times

On July 8, 1941 he married Marian Sulzberger, daughter of publisher Arthur Hays Sulzberger. Sulzberger had himself married into the family. He was the husband of Adolph Ochs' only child, ... "I was sensible enough to marry the boss's daughter," Sulzberger told Dryfoos, "and you were too."

In 1942, Dryfoos left Wall Street to be groomed to lead The New York Times and he became a reporter on the local staff. Though he worked numerous assignments, he never earned a byline during his year on the writing staff. The next year he became assistant to the publisher. He had three children: Jacqueline Hays, (born May 8, 1943), Robert Ochs (November 4, 1944) and Susan Warms (November 5, 1946).

Dryfoos became a trustee of his alma mater Dartmouth, a lay trustee of Fordham University, and trustee and executive committee member of the Rockefeller Foundation, a director of the New York Convention and Visitors Bureau, a director of the Fifth Avenue Association, a director of the 1964 New York World's Fair, and president of the company charity, The New York Times Foundation. He was awarded an honorary Master of Arts in 1957 from Dartmouth and an honorary Doctor of Laws in 1962 from Oberlin College.

In 1954 Dryfoos became a vice-president and director of the company. In 1957 he became Times president and after Sulzberger suffered a stroke in 1958, Dryfoos became responsible for most of the paper's day-to-day operations. He officially became publisher on April 25, 1961, when Sulzberger stepped down.

Dryfoos immediately appointed John Bertram Oakes to the post of editorial page editor. Another of Dryfoos's first orders of business was launching the Western Edition of The New York Times, which was announced on October 31, 1961. The defining struggle of Dryfoos' tenure at The Times was a lengthy newspaper strike.