Former chief of bureau of the Associated Press, Hal McClure died in a California hospital on Sunday at a Laguna Hills hospital after undergoing surgery to relieve a blood clot in his brain.
He was 92.
Famous for covering the early parts of the Arab-Israeli wars in the Middle East and North Africa, he spent over 20 years overseas reporting for the A P when he turned his passion for journalism and the world into a foreign correspondent career.
At the beginning of his career McClure got a job as a general assignments reporter at a local newspaper in California. During that time he got married. He and his wife, Dorothy, were together for nearly 50 years until her death several years ago.
McClure's first job with AP was in Los Angeles where he covered stories in Hollywood, including the infamous car crash that took an eye from Sammy Davis Jr.
Persistent in nature, McClure pushed for a foreign job, and being granted the opportunity to work in places like Singapore and Malaysia, he gained even more traction in the journalism world when he followed the story of the mysterious disappearance of Michael Rockefeller - son of New York governor Nelson Rockefeller - in 1961.
Later, in 1967, McClure hired Marcus Eliason to work as the new bureau's messenger.
"Hal was a firm but kind employer and a good friend," he said. "He was steeped in the fundamentals of journalism - accuracy, fairness, speed, directness of prose, alertness to both sides of every store. He sought to instill these qualities in all the journalists who started out in his bureau, and having himself gotten into the professional on the bottom rung, he was generous in giving other neophytes opportunities to cover big stories."
When McClure retired from the AP, he became a documentary filmmaker, continuing his travels around the world and producing pieces about his encounters with his wife.
Funeral arrangements are pending.
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