Arthur Ochs Sulzberger became chairman emeritus of The New York Times Company on October 16, 1997, after having served as chairman and chief executive officer since November 1973. He also served as publisher of The New York Times from 1963 to 1992. Sulzberger succeeded as publisher his brother-in-law, Orvil E. Dryfoos, who was publisher from 1961 to 1963. Sulzberger's father, Arthur Hays Sulzberger, was publisher of The New York Times from 1935 to 1961 and chairman of the company from 1957 to 1968. His maternal grandfather, Adolph S. Ochs, purchased and rescued The Times from near bankruptcy in 1896 and was its publisher until 1935.
Sulzberger spent his entire professional career with The Times, beginning in 1951 except for one year (1953 to 1954) when he was a reporter for The Milwaukee Journal. After service in the U.S. Marine Corps in both World War II and the Korean War, he worked as a reporter on The Times' city staff and as a foreign correspondent in its Paris, Rome and London bureaus.
Sulzberger's appointment as assistant to the publisher in 1955 involved him increasingly in the business and production operations of the company. Two years later he was named assistant treasurer, and in 1960 he became assistant to the general manager. In 1959 he was elected a director of the company. In May 1963, Sulzberger was elected to succeed him as president and publisher. He gave up the title of president in 1979 when Walter E. Mattson became president and chief operating officer of the company. In January 1992 he relinquished the title of publisher and was succeeded by his son, Arthur Ochs Sulzberger Jr., who had been deputy publisher since 1988.
Sulzberger was a director of the Newspaper Advertising Bureau and was chairman from 1974 to 1976. He was a director of the American Newspaper Publishers Association, and served as chairman from 1988 to 1989. (The NAB and ANPA have since merged into the Newspaper Association of America). He served as a director of the American Press Institute from 1975 to 1986 and of The Associated Press from 1975 to 1984 and is co-chairman of the International Herald Tribune.
Sulzberger is chairman emeritus of the board of trustees of the Metropolitan Museum of Art and a trustee emeritus of Columbia University, from which he graduated in 1951. He holds Honorary Doctor of Law degrees from Columbia University, the University of Scranton, Dartmouth and Bard Colleges, and Honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degrees from Tufts University and Montclair State College. He was the recipient of the 1992 Columbia Journalism Award, the highest honor of the Columbia University School of Journalism. He received the 2006 Lifetime Achievement Award from the Society of the Silurians for his courage and integrity as publisher of The New York Times.
His memberships in social, fraternal and professional organizations include the Metropolitan Club in Washington, D.C.; the Army and Navy Club in Washington, D.C.; the Overseas Press Club; the Sons of the American Revolution; and the Explorers Club.
Sulzberger received a B.A. from Columbia University in 1951.
Sulzberger was born in New York City in 1926. He is married to Allison Cowles and has four children.