He began his journalistic career at the Washington Herald before moving to New York City.[1] He worked at the New York World and the New York Herald Tribune.[2] While working at the New York Herald Tribune, he was described by Stanley Walker as, "One of the twelve best reporters in New York."

The New Yorker

McKelway came to The New Yorker at the behest of Harold Ross who "was looking to infuse the magazine with a jolt of gritty reportage."[2] He served as a managing editor for journalistic contributions at The New Yorker from 1936 to 1939.[3] While editor he hired E. J. Kahn Jr., Joseph Mitchell, Brendan Gill, Philip Hamburger and Margaret Case Harriman.[2] During World War II, he held public relations posts for the Army Air Force, leaving the service with the rank of lieutenant colonel. After the war McKelway returned to The New Yorker and remained at the magazine for 47 years.[4] According to William Shawn, McKelway "was one of the handful of people who, together with Harold Ross, The New Yorker's founding editor, set the magazine on its course."[4] In 1950, he collected several of his pieces for The New Yorker in the book True Tales from the Annals of Crime & Rascality. One article from that collection was the basis for the 1950 movie Mister 880, starring Edmund Gwenn as a small-time counterfeiter of one dollar bills, who eluded the United States Secret Service for ten years, from 1938 to 1948.[5] St. Clair McKelway also wrote screenplays for two other movies in 1948: Sleep, My Love, directed by Douglas Sirk, and The Mating of Millie, starring Glenn Ford and Evelyn Keyes. He published the book The Edinburgh Caper: A One-Man International Plot, based on a _New Yorker_article,[6] in 1962.

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