Clifford May

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Clifford May bigraphy, stories - Activists

Clifford May : biography

1951 –

Clifford D. May (born 1951) is an American journalist, editor, and political activist. He is the president of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a conservative policy institute created shortly after the 9/11 attacks, and the Chairman of the Policy Committee department within the Committee on the Present Danger. He is a weekly columnist for Scripps Howard News Service and National Review Online and writes for other publications, including in The American Spectator, for example, and sometimes serves as a substitute talk show host. He has served as a reporter, a foreign correspondent, and a newspaper/magazine editor, working notably for Newsweek in the 1970s and for The New York Times in the 1980s.. Foundation for the Defense of Democracies: . Accessed May 5, 2009.

May is also a member of the Henry Jackson Society. In October 2007, The Daily Telegraph named May number 94 in its list of the ‘100 most influential conservatives in America’, identifying him as a neo-conservative within the Republican Party.

Career

Early career

May earned a Bachelor of Arts degree from Sarah Lawrence College in Bronxville, New York in 1973.. nndb.com Accessed May 5, 2009. He then earned Masters Degrees from both Columbia University’s School of Public and International Affairs and its School of Journalism. In addition, he holds a certificate in Russian language and literature from Leningrad University.. Republican Jewish Coalition. Archived by Wayback Machine from the October 1, 2002 version. Archive accessed on May 5, 2009. May worked as an associate editor of Newsweek from 1975 to 1978. He then became a foreign correspondent for Hearst newspapers and worked for CBS Radio News and Bill Moyers’ Journal on PBS as well. For all three outlets, he covered the Iranian Revolution in 1979. Returning to the U.S., he became senior editor of Geo Magazine.

May then spent about a decade with The New York Times serving as an editor of the Sunday magazine, a New York City and Washington reporter and as a foreign correspondent. He opened the Times’ West Africa bureau and worked as its chief. He then moved to Denver, Colorado to be associate editor of the Rocky Mountain News. He started writing a weekly political and social criticism column that was distributed nationally by Scripps Howard News Service. He also hosted two weekly television programs and a talk radio show around this time.

Later career

May served as the Director of Communications for the Republican National Committee from 1997 to 2001. In his position, he oversaw activities such as strategic planning, press, radio, television, online services, speech writing, and advertising. He worked as the editor of Rising Tide, the official Republican Party magazine. He also was Vice Chairman of the Republican Jewish Coalition.

After leaving the RNC, he became a director in the Washington, D.C. office of BSMG Worldwide, a public affairs and public relations company. In 2006, he was appointed an adviser to the Iraq Study Group. He strongly dissented from the recommendations that the group came to, and he then worked with various groups to oppose the policies. On July 11, 2008, May was nominated by President George W. Bush to be a member of the Broadcasting Board of Governors for a term expiring August 13, 2009. "In this very challenging period of history, it is vital that the United States communicates with audiences abroad clearly and creatively,” May said, “I will be honored and privileged if I can assist with this mission.”. Foundation for the Defense of Democracies. Published July 11, 2008. Accessed July 21, 2009.

Views and opinions

Issue positions

May is an International Patron of the Henry Jackson Society. In October 2007, The Daily Telegraph named May number 94 in its list of the ‘100 most influential conservatives in America’. The paper labeled him "an outspoken proponent of the need to achieve victory in Iraq and the broader war against Muslim extremism". It also described him as a "nimble" Republican Party activist in the American media.