John McCloy was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the son of John J. McCloy (1862–1901) and Anna (née Snader) McCloy (1866–1959). His father was an insurance man who died when McCloy was five. His mother was

McCloy went to New York to become an associate in the firm of Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft, which was then one of the nation's most prestigious law firms. He moved to

President of World Bank
From March 1947 to June 1949, McCloy served as the second president of the World Bank.

Without regard to partisanship, he served under presidents of both parties. Although a Republican, he was the second-highest-ranking official in the War

McCloy enrolled in Harvard Law School in 1916, and he was an average student. He was profoundly influenced by his experience at the Plattsburg Preparedness camps. When the US entered the war in 1917, he joined the Army in May and was trained at

US Secretary of War Henry Stimson hired McCloy as a consultant in September 1940, even though McCloy was a Republican Party supporter and opposed Franklin Roosevelt for

On March 11, 1989, at 12:15 p.m., John McCloy died of pulmonary edema at his Greenwich home. His wife had died at 87 a few years earlier of Parkinson's disease.