Graduated from Texas A&M in 1937, with a degree in petroleum engineering. It was the same class as Earle Cabell. He later served with the OSS in World War II.

1952 Crichton began working with a syndicate for drilling oil in General Franco's Spain, along with Clint Murchison.

In 1956 while still in the Army Reserves, he formed the 488th Military Intelligence Detachment. Of the hundred or so men, about half came from the Dallas Police department.

Around this time he joined a group of oil men, including George de Mohrenschildt in seeking rights in Cuba from President Batista. The group was known as the Cuban-Venezuelan Oil Voting Trust Company. The reached and agreement along with a division of Standard Oil to explore three million acres. The voting trust also had a separate agreement for fifteen million acres.

This all pretty much evaporated on the first of January 1959 when Batista escaped Cuba and Castro marched in Havana the next day. One of his first orders of business was to limit foreign to twenty thousand acres.

As early as 1959 Crichton and fellow oil man George HW Bush raised money to help the CIA establish Operation 40, which was meant to prevent a Castro victory in Cuba. However as time went on it expanded to assassinations of military and political figures on the island according to Frank Sturgis who was one of the operatives.

In 1962 Crichton ran for Governor of Texas along the side of Bush running for the Senate. Both were defeated by the Democrat machine that ran Texas at the time. John Connally was the victor and took office in January of 1963. Despite the loss Crichton was still active in public life and took part in planning for Kennedy's Dallas visit. After the assassination, he used his connections to supply Russian translators to talk with Marina Oswald.

His oil interests made him an ally of the likes of Clint Murchison, DH Byrd and HL Hunt as they worked to preserve the oil depletion allowance that was threatened by the young president.

Much of his correspondence with Bush is held in the Presidential Library... however it is sealed from public view.