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,, Robert Ochs and Susan Warms. Dryfoos became a trustee of his alma materDartmouth, 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.
Personal life
He was married to Marian Sulzberger, daughter of Arthur Hays Sulzberger. They had three children: Jacqueline Hays Dryfoos, a psychotherapist divorced from Stuart Greenspon; Robert Ochs Dryfoos divorced from Katie Thomas; and Susan Warms Dryfoos, married to Daniel Selznick, son of film producer David O. Selznick and Irene Mayer Selznick.
Death
In late 1962, a massive newspaper strike brought the publishing industry of New York to its knees. The staff of The Times dropped from 5,000 working personnel to only 900. The stress of negotiations and continuing to produce as much of a paper as possible adversely affected Dryfoos's health, as he worked to resolve the strike. The strike lasted for 114 days and at the time was identified as the costliest in Times history. On March 31, 1963, the strikers returned to work. Dryfoos maintained cordial relations with strikers throughout the stoppage and greeted the staff with a letter stating, "It's good to see you back at work!" Dryfoos went to Puerto Rico to recover, but while there he checked into the hospital. He returned to New York and immediately went to Columbia Presbyterian Medical Center. He died there on May 25, 1963, from heart failure at the age of 50. Dryfoos's funeral at Congregation Emanu-El of New York was attended by many New York City luminaries, including New York City mayor Robert F. Wagner, Jr., Columbia University president Grayson L. Kirk and later long-time New York District Attorney Robert M. Morgenthau. Many members of the Rockefeller family were there, including New York GovernorNelson Rockefeller, Lincoln Center chairman John D. Rockefeller III, and Chase Manhattan Bank president David Rockefeller. Many of his rival publishers attended: Hearst Newspapers editor in chiefWilliam Randolph Hearst, Jr., Newhouse publisher Samuel Irving Newhouse, Sr., New York Post publisher Dorothy Schiff, CBS president Frank Stanton, and Time Inc. chairman Andrew Heiskell. James Reston, the Washington correspondent and future executive editor of The New York Times who was also a close friend of Dryfoos, gave the eulogy. Reston said that Dryfoos "wore his life away" during the strike and "when the strike was over he finally slipped away to the hospital and never came back." He was succeeded as publisher by Arthur Ochs "Punch" Sulzberger, the son of Arthur Hays Sulzberger, and younger brother of Marian Sulzberger Dryfoos.
