Clifford May

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.

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. 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. 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.