John Cowles, Sr.

Who is John Cowles, Sr.?

John Cowles, Sr. was the co-owner of the Cowles Media Company, whose assets included the Minneapolis Star, the Minneapolis Tribune, the Des Moines Register, Look magazine, and a half-interest in Harper's Magazine. To help counteract the agitation against the Vietnam war in the mid-1960s, he served on a committee that included such notables as Arthur H. Dean, Dean Acheson, Eugene R. Black, James B. Conant, Thomas S. Gates, Roswell L. Kilpatric, David Rockefeller, and John J. McCloy.

Mr. Cowles was a graduate of Phillips Exeter Academy and Harvard University. He married the step-daughter of Cass Canfield, the chairman of Harper & Row. His service on boards included the boards of trustees of the Ford Foundation and the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and the boards of directors of the First National Bank of Minneapolis and the Equitable Life Insurance Company of Iowa.