“Through the course of a distinguished career as an editor and journalist,” Robert Beahan Shnayerson “held a ringside seat for much of the 20th century’s major events,” his son, Michael Shnayerson, wrote. Mr. Shnayerson, who was 96, “was a highly admired editor at Life and Time in the glory days of Henry Luce’s magazine empire, as well as editor in chief at Harper’s magazine and founder of Quest magazine.”
He died at home in Hillsdale, N.Y., on March 6 of complications of vascular disease.
Mr. Shnayerson, known as Bob, was born on Dec. 8, 1925, to Charles Beahan, a novelist and screenwriter, and the former Madalene Griffin. He was raised by his mother and stepfather, Ned Shnayerson, a surgeon in New York. He graduated from DeWitt Clinton High School in the Bronx at the onset of World War II and enlisted in the Navy, becoming a quartermaster on an oiler that fueled larger ships in the North Atlantic. Following the war, he went to Dartmouth College on the G.I. Bill and graduated in 1950.
He was married that year to Lydia Conde Todd, a classical pianist and music teacher.
Mr. Shnayerson began his career in journalism as a junior police reporter at The New York Daily News. Later, at Life magazine, “he rose through the ranks to be the bureau chief in Seattle, covering the entire Pacific Northwest,” his son wrote.
As a writer and senior editor for Time, back in New York, “he wrote 60 cover stories for the magazine during the tumultuous 1960s, invented and oversaw Time Special Issues — Black America, To Heal a Nation,” according to his son, and “talked his superiors into starting new sections” on law and the environment.
“He also became known for his daily five-mile runs, so unusual that one Time ‘letter from the editor’ lionized him for this curious practice called jogging,” his son wrote.
Mr. Shnayerson became editor in chief of Harper’s magazine in 1971. “Seen as a steadier hand” than his predecessor, Willie Morris, his son said, he nevertheless “dazzled the magazine world by assigning stories” to such writers as Kurt Vonnegut, Tom Wolfe, Simone de Beauvoir, and Germaine Greer.
Mr. Shnayerson and his first wife came to the South Fork in 1960, “before it was the ‘Hamptons,’ “ said his son. “They made a great find with Salter’s Cottages” in Springs, “a family camp with views of Gardiner’s Bay.” While the adults drank cocktails, “the children played lightning tag.” After that, they rented a cottage in Amagansett. Mr. Shnayerson’s ocean swims — “steady laps, parallel to the beach but far away” — often confounded fellow beachgoers.
His five-mile runs were the highlight not only of his weekends on the South Fork, but of “pretty much every day of his postwar life,” according to his son. He tallied them each year, sometimes running 1,300 or 1,500 miles.
In Amagansett he became close friends with Marvin Kuhn, a longtime cartoonist for The East Hampton Star. His final rental there was a summer spent at the windmill at Quail Hill, where Vonnegut was his next-door neighbor.
Mr. Shnayerson “was a sensitive and principled editor, revered by his contributors, with a dry wit and marked modesty,” according to his son, who is also a writer and journalist. He left Harper’s in 1976 and started Quest, “a monthly dedicated to excellence in all its forms, and the Giraffe Society, which honored the courageous people who stuck out their necks.”
A deep interest in the law led him to write “The Illustrated History of the Supreme Court of the United States,” published in 1986 by Abrams. In his later years, he worked as a book and magazine consultant.
Mr. Shnayerson and his first wife, who died in 1973, had two children, Michael and Kate. In 1980, he married Laurie Platt Winfrey, a picture editor, with whom he had two more children, Maggie and Bonnie.
His second wife survives, as do his four children. His son lives in Sag Harbor and West Palm Beach, Fla. His daughter Kate Rouhana is in Belmont, Mass., Maggie Shnayerson lives in Brooklyn, and Bonnie Shnayerson is in Manhattan. He is also survived by three grandchildren, Jed and Adam Rouhana and Jenna Shnayerson.
His family has suggested contributions to Report for America, an initiative of the GroundTruth Project, at reportforamerica.org, or Citizens’ Climate Education at citizensclimateeducation.org or 1330 Orange Avenue, #309, Coronado, Calif. 92118.
