David Reinhardt Nevin was born in Washington. His father, a veterinarian in the US Army when it had a horse cavalry, was soon assigned to Fort Sam Houston in Texas. Mr. Nevin joined the US Navy as a teenager and served in the Pacific. After the war he did poorly in college, but could write well enough to be hired as a police reporter for The Brownsville (Texas) Herald. That led to work for Time and Life magazines.