Julian Levine was born in Amarillo, Texas in 1933, He graduated from the School of Journalism of the University of Texas at Austin in 1955. After graduation, he served for two years in the U.S. Army's Counter Intelligence Corps, then joined the Dallas Morning News as a reporter in 1957. He became the newspaper's aviation and space writer and columnist in 1958, covering the early days of the country's entry in space at launch pads from Cape Canaveral, Florida, to Vandenberg Air Force Base, California.
He left the Dallas Morning News in 1960 to join the media staff of The Glen L. Martin Company, later Martin Marietta Corporation, in Orlando, Florida. In 1962 Martin Marietta moved him to Baltimore, Maryland, as director of public affairs for its Electronic Systems and Products Division. In 1963 he was appointed Washington media relations representative for Aerojet General Corporation.
In 1967 he was invited to join the Department of Defense in the Pentagon as Special Assistant to the Assistant Secretary for Defense/Public Affairs. Between 1967 and 1976 he was the traveling press assistant for Secretaries of Defense Robert McNamara, Clark Clifford, Melvin Laird, Elliot Richardson, James Schlesinger and Donald Rumsfeld. He left the Department in 1976 to return to private industry as Vice President for Public Affairs of the Aerospace Industries Association (AIA) in Washington.
He left AIA in 1980 to become Vice President of Public Affairs for Continental Airlines in Los Angeles. After Continental was acquired by another airline (Texas Air Corporation) in 1983, Julian was named Vice President Communications for TRW (now Northrop Grumman) Space & Defense Sector in Redondo Beach, California. He retired from TRW in 1998 after serving in the Washington DC area as its media relations director for the company's work with the Department of Energy on the major project to develop a permanent storage site for the nation's high-level nuclear waste materials.
He earned a number of awards for his journalism and public affairs achievements over the years in addition to his work with non-profit and academic organizations. He was a member of the National and Los Angeles Press Clubs, board member of the Aero Club of Southern California, Chairman of the Advisory Committee of the College of Communications at the University of Texas at Austin, member of the advisory committees of the schools of communications at Virginia Tech and California State University at Fullerton, member of the board of the Western Region of United Way of Los Angeles, member of the Southern California Board of the United Negro College Fund, chairman of the High Technology Sector of the Public Relations Society of America, chairman of the communications council of the Aerospace Industries Association and various committee chairmanships for the Aviation/Space Writers Association, the organization of journalists and corporate and government communicators working in the aviation and space fields.