Cyril Magnin

Who was Cyril Magnin?

Cyril Isaac Magnin was one of the most prominent San Francisco businessmen of the post-World War II era, chief executive of the Joseph Magnin Co., which evolved into a multi-million dollar chain of upscale women's clothing stores.

Personally gracious and urbane, Magnin was a veteran political fund-raiser and power broker in the Democratic Party, dating back to New Deal days. He was Treasurer of President Franklin Roosevelt's northern California re-election campaign in 1944, a delegate to the Democratic National Convention in 1948 and again in 1964, when he co-chaired the Finance Committee of President Lyndon Johnson's campaign in California.

Throughout the 1950s and 1960s, Magnin was one of a quartet of fabulously wealthy San Francisco Jewish contributors to Democratic candidates, appreciatively called "The Green Machine" by career politicians, the others being Fairmont Hotel magnate Benjamin Swig, Lilli Ann clothing company founder Adolph Schuman, and real estate mogul Walter Shorenstein.

The four did not always agree in their choice of candidates. Magnin himself was a major donor to the presidential candidacies of John F. Kennedy in 1960 and Robert F. Kennedy in 1968, and, in the interim, developed a close friendship with Lyndon Johnson.