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Nelson Rockefeller
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Nelson Aldrich Rockefeller (July 8, 1908 January 26, 1979) was the 41st Vice President of the United States, the 49th governor of New York, a philanthropist, and a businessman.
A leader of the liberal wing of the Republican Party, he was Governor of New York from 1959 to 1973, where he launched many construction and modernization projects. A member of two of the world's richest families, he failed repeatedly in his attempts to become president, but he was appointed Vice President in 1974.
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Nelson Aldrich Rockefeller (July 8, 1908 January 26, 1979) was the 41st Vice President of the United States, the 49th governor of New York, a philanthropist, and a businessman.
A leader of the liberal wing of the Republican Party, he was Governor of New York from 1959 to 1973, where he launched many construction and modernization projects. A member of two of the world's richest families, he failed repeatedly in his attempts to become president, but he was appointed Vice President in 1974. He served from 1974 to 1977, but did not join the 1976 GOP national ticket with President Gerald Ford. He retired from politics when his term as Vice President was over.
Early life
Rockefeller was born in Bar Harbor, Maine. He was the son of John Davison Rockefeller, Jr. and Abby Aldrich Rockefeller. He was the grandson of Standard Oil's founder and chairman John Davison Rockefeller, Sr. (who was born 69 years before Nelson, to the day) and United States Senator Nelson Wilmarth Aldrich, a Republican from Rhode Island. He had four brothers: David (1915- ), Laurance (1910-2004), Winthrop (1912-1973), and John D. III (1906-1978), and one sister, Abby (1903-1976). In 1930, he graduated from Dartmouth College, where he was a member of Casque and Gauntlet (a senior society), Phi Beta Kappa, and the Zeta chapter of the Psi Upsilon fraternity. Rockefeller worked for a time in several family-run businesses and philanthropies before entering public service. From 1939 to 1958, he served as President of the Museum of Modern Art.
Early political career
Rockefeller was especially active in promoting modernization and economic liberalization in Brazil and other parts of Latin America. He took over various responsible roles during the presidencies of Roosevelt, Truman, and Eisenhower. After the war, he headed the International Development Advisory Board, part of Harry S. Truman's Point Four Program. He fulfilled the functions of Coordinator of Inter-American Affairs (CIAA, 1940-44), Chairman of the Inter-American Development Commission and Corporation (1940-47) and Assistant Secretary of State for Latin American Affairs (1944-45). While at the head of the OCIAA, Nelson Rockefeller relied on his connections in the cultural field to allow a policy promoting North American culture in South America. The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), which his mother had founded, became the most important American Museum supporting modern arts of its time, holding 19 exhibitions showing contemporary American paintings which were afterwards shown in a large number of cultural venues around South America. This cultural program was also seen as having the political agenda of contributing to the fight against perceived fascist influences in the region.
He also was one of the architects of the Chapultepec Conference that had for its goal to coordinate continental political cooperation. Together with Secretary of State Stettinius, Rockefeller was at the head of the American delegation and placed a high priority in resisting South American communist movements. The Act of Chapultepec would therefore plan the possibility of collective actions including the possibility of using armed forces against any aggression of a non-American or -North-hemispheric nation and would commit signatories in the negotiation of a permanent reciprocal assistance and Inter-American solidarity treaty.
After dedicating himself to various philanthropic activities including taking a lead role in the running of the MoMA, Rockefeller became Special Assistant to President Eisenhower for Foreign Affairs (1954-55) before being appointed head of the Operations Coordinating Board (OCB) – committee of the National Security Council in charge, amongst others, of supervising secret CIA operations. Working with the CIA was nothing new to Rockefeller. After becoming the Health, Education and Welfare Assistant Secretary, he had been required to organise a colloquium addressing the CIA on the role of the Agency in a different economic world. In March 1955, together with Rowland Hughes (Director of the Budget), he introduced a proposition for the creation of a high-level committee (Planning Coordination Group) that would be in charge of helping develop schedules for the CIA's covert operations.
The election of fellow Republican Dwight D. Eisenhower in 1952 saw Rockefeller gaining greater public and political influence. In 1956 he created the Special Studies Project, a major seven panel planning group directed by Henry Kissinger and funded by the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, of which he was the then-president. It was an ambitious study created to define the central problems and opportunities facing the U.S. in the future, and to clarify national purposes and objectives; outcomes were finally published in 1961 as Prospect for America: The Rockefeller Panel Reports.
The Special Studies Project came into national prominence with the early release of its military subpanel's report, whose principal recommendation was a massive military buildup to counter a then-perceived military superiority threat posed by the USSR. The report was released two months after the launching of Sputnik in October, 1957 and its recommendations were fully endorsed by Eisenhower in his State of the Union address in January, 1958.
This initial contact with Kissinger was to develop into a lifelong relationship; Kissinger was later to be described as his closest intellectual associate. From this period Rockefeller employed Kissinger as a personally funded part-time consultant, principally on foreign policy issues, until the appointment to his staff became full-time in late 1968. In 1969, when Kissinger entered Richard Nixon's administration, Nelson paid him $50,000 as a severance payment.
Governor of New York
Rockefeller left federal service in 1956 to concentrate on New York state and national politics, where he served in various capacities. In 1958, he was elected governor by over 600,000 votes, defeating incumbent governor, multi-millionaire W. Averell Harriman, even though 1958 was a banner year for Democrats elsewhere in the nation. Despite his great wealth and famous lineage, Rockefeller seemed approachable and down-to-earth, establishing a friendly relationship with the local press. Reporters generally made no mention of the governor's frequent vacations, even when he appeared remarkably sun tanned during harsh New York winters.
Tough laws on drug users
Rockefeller served as governor of New York from 1959 to 1973 (elected to four terms, he served three and a half). As governor of New York, he successfully secured the passage of strict laws against the possession and/or sale of drugs. These laws which became known as the "Rockefeller drug laws" took effect in 1973 and are still on the books, albeit in moderated form. They ranked among the toughest in the United States.
Liberal Republican
Rockefeller was opposed by conservatives in the GOP such as Barry Goldwater and Ronald Reagan because of his liberal stances on many issues.
As governor, Rockefeller took liberal stances on economic issues, spending more than his predecessors. Rockefeller expanded the state's infrastructure, took environmentalist stances, New Deal regulations of business, and Social Security. Unlike most conservatives, who were opposed to organized labor, Rockefeller collaborated with unions, especially the construction trades, which benefited from his extensive building programs.
In foreign affairs, Rockefeller was opposed to the more assertive policies of the conservatives and supported US involvement in the United Nations as well as US foreign aid. He also supported the U.S.'s fight against communism and its membership in NATO.
As a result of Rockefeller's policies, some conservatives sought to gain leverage by creating the Conservative Party of New York. The small party acted as a counter-weight to the Liberal Party of New York State.
Attica riots
On September 13, 1971, after four days of riots at the state prison in Attica, N.Y., Rockefeller gave the order for 1,000 New York State Police troopers and National Guardsmen to storm the prison.
More than 40 people died, including 11 of 38 hostages (most of whom were prison officers). All but three of the deaths were attributed to the gunfire of the National Guard and state police. The other three that had been killed were prisoners killed by other prisoners in the start of the riot. The prisoners had been demanding better living conditions, showers, education, and vocational training. Opponents blamed Rockefeller for these deaths in part because of his refusal to go to the prison and talk with the inmates, while his supporters, including many conservatives who had often vocally differed with him in the past, defended his actions as being necessary to the preservation of law and order.
Massive construction programs
Rockefeller engaged in massive building projects that left a profound mark on the state of New York, so much so that many of his detractors claimed that he had an "Edifice Complex." He was personally interested in planning, design, and construction of the many projects intitiated during his administration--consistent with his interest in art. Rockefeller was the driving force in turning the State University of New York into the largest system of public higher education in the United States. He demanded the imposition of tuition fees at the New York city colleges in return for conferring university status on them.
He also led in the creation and/or expansion of many major highways (such as the Long Island Expressway, the Southern Tier Expressway, the Adirondack Northway, and Interstate 81) which vastly improved road transportation in the state of New York. To create more low-income housing, Rockefeller created the New York State Urban Development Corporation (UDC), with unprecedented powers to override local zoning, condemn property, and create financing schemes to carry out desired development. (UDC is now called the Empire State Development Corporation, which forms a unit, along with the formerly independent Job Development Authority, of Empire State Development Corporation.)
In addition, Rockefeller's construction programs included the $2 billion South Mall in Albany, later renamed the Nelson A. Rockefeller Empire State Plaza. It is a vast campus of government skyscrapers and plazas punctuated by an egg-shaped arts center. The site is often referred to by locals as Rockefeller's "edifice complex". He worked with the legislature and unions to create generous pension programs for many public workers, such as teachers, professors, firefighters, police officers, prison guards, in the state. He pushed through the highest-in-the-nation minimum wage. Public-benefit authorities (some 230 of them, like UDC) were brought into existence by Rockefeller. They were often used to issue bonds in order to avoid the requirement of a vote of the people for the issuance of a bond; such authority-issued bonds bore higher interest than if they had been issued directly by the state. The state budget went from $2.04 billion in 1959-60 to $8.8 billion in his last year 1973-74.
Rockefeller also reformed the governing of New York City's transportation system, creating the New York Metropolitan Transportation Authority in 1965. It merged the New York City subway system with the publicly owned Triborough Bridge and Tunnel Authority and the Long Island Rail Road and, later, Metro North Railroad, which were purchased by the state from private owners in a massive public bailout of bankrupt railroads.
In taking over control of the Triborough Authority, Rockefeller shifted power away from Robert Moses, who controlled several of New York state's public infrastructure authorities. Under the New York MTA, toll revenue collected from the bridges and tunnels, which had previously been used to build more bridges, tunnels, and highways, now went to support public transport operations, thus shifting costs from general state funds to the motorist. In one controversial move, Rockefeller abandoned one of Moses's most desired projects, a Long Island Sound link bridge from Rye to Oyster Bay in 1973 due to environmental opposition.
Conservation
Consistent with his personal interest in design and planning, Governor Rockefeller began expansion of the New York State Parks system and improvement of park facilities. He persuaded voters to approve three major bond acts to raise more than $300 million for acquisition of park and forest preserve land. Rockefeller initiated studies of environmental issues, such as loss of agricultural land through development--an issue now characterized as "sprawl." In such concerns he was enlightened for his time (the late 1960s), at least in government, although such notions were becoming more common in some circles. The State Commission for the Preservation of Agricultural Land issued a report early in 1968. In September, 1968, Rockefeller appointed the Temporary Study Commission on the Future of the Adirondacks. This led to his introduction to the Legislature in 1971 of a bill to create the controversial Adirondack Park Agency.
Crime
Rockefeller was a supporter of capital punishment and oversaw 14 executions by electrocution as Governor. The last execution, of Eddie Mays in 1963, remains to date the last execution in New York and was the last pre-Furman execution in the Northeast.
However, despite his personal support for capital punishment, Governor Rockefeller signed a bill in 1965 to abolish the death penalty except in cases involving the murder of police officers.
Rockefeller was also a supporter of the "law and order" platform.
Presidential campaigns
Rockefeller was a glad-hander who appeared affable and approachable and maintained good relationships with the press. He easily won time and again in New York, but he wanted to be president. He spent millions in attempts to win the Republican primaries in 1960, 1964, and 1968. His bid in 1960 was ended early when then-Vice President Richard Nixon surged ahead in the polls. After quitting the campaign, Rockefeller backed Nixon enthusiastically, and concentrated his efforts on introducing more moderate stances into Nixon's platform.
Rockefeller, representing moderate and liberal Republicans, was considered the front-runner for the 1964 campaign against the more conservative Senator Barry Goldwater of Arizona, who led the right wing of the Republican Party. However, in 1963, two years after Rockefeller's divorce from his first wife, he married Margarita "Happy" Murphy, a woman 15 years younger who had just divorced her husband and surrendered her four children to his custody. This turned many in the party off, especially women. Rockefeller finished third in the New Hampshire primary in February, behind write-in Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr. (from neighboring Massachusetts) and Goldwater. He then endured dismal showings in several primaries, before winning an upset in the Oregon primary in May. The birth of Rockefeller's child during the California campaign put the divorce and remarriage issue in the headlines. After a furious contest, Rockefeller lost the California primary in early June and dropped out of the race.
Rockefeller again sought the Republican presidential nomination in 1968. His opponents were Nixon and Governor Ronald W. Reagan of California. In the contest, Rockefeller again represented the liberals in the GOP, Reagan representing the conservative Goldwater element, and Nixon representing the moderates. Nixon was always clearly the front runner throughout the contest because of his superior organization, and he easily defeated both Reagan and Rockefeller. The Seattle campaign office of Rockefeller in the 1968 election was managed by Ted Bundy, who later became a serial murderer.
After Gerald Ford's elevation to the Presidency, Rockefeller was named Vice-President, and he was initially mentioned and reportedly considered running for President for a fourth time in 1976, if Ford declined to seek his own term. During the subsequent campaign, Rockefeller was caught on a news camera "flipping the bird" at a group of demonstrators at a Republican Party rally at New York State University. This gesture was referred to thereafter as "The Rockefeller Salute". Bob Dole, who was also there campaigning with Ford, was asked by a reporter why he didn't join Rockefeller in "the salute". He replied, "I have trouble with my right arm".
Commission on Critical Choices for Americans
In November 1973, Rockefeller established an organization called the Commission on Critical Choices for Americans, of which he served as chairman. He resigned as Governor of New York in December 1973, devoting himself to his new commission and the possibility of another presidential run.
Vice Presidency 1974 – 77
Following President Nixon's resignation, new president Gerald Ford nominated Rockefeller, age 66, to serve as the 41st Vice President of the United States, after a long process of considering various candidates. Rockefeller's top competitor had been George H.W. Bush.
Rockefeller underwent extended hearings before Congress, which caused embarrassment when it was revealed he made massive gifts to senior aides, such as Henry Kissinger. He had paid all his taxes, no illegalities were uncovered, and he was confirmed. Although conservative Republicans were not pleased that Rockefeller was picked, most of them did vote for his confirmation. However, some, including Goldwater, voted against him..
Beginning his service on December 19, 1974, Rockefeller was the second person appointed Vice President under the 25th Amendment the first being Ford himself. Rockefeller often complained that Ford gave him little or no power, and few tasks, while he was Vice President. Ford responded to this by putting Rockefeller in charge of his "Whip Inflation Now" initiative. In November 1975, Rockefeller told Ford he wanted off the ticket, saying that he "didn't come down (to Washington) to get caught up in party squabbles which only make it more difficult for the President in a very difficult time..." Journalists speculated that Ford, a moderate, decided to drop Rockefeller in favor of the more conservative Senator Robert Dole under pressure from the conservative wing of the party.
While Rockefeller was Vice President, the official Vice Presidential residence was established at Number One Observatory Circle on the grounds of the United States Naval Observatory. This residence had previously been the home of the Chief of Naval Operations; prior Vice Presidents had been responsible for maintaining their own homes at their own expense, but the necessity of massive full-time Secret Service security had made this custom impractical to continue. Rockefeller already had a luxurious, well-secured Washington residence and never actually lived in the home as a principal residence, although he did host several official functions there. His wealth enabled him to donate millions of dollars of furnishings to the house.
Rockefeller did a unique thing by donating the salary he received as Vice President to two causes. Half was given to the creation of Federal Programs to educate inner-city, low income children and to fund youth and family centers in the urban cities. The other half was donated to the preservation and promotion of programs teaching the arts in low income public school systems.
Rockefeller was slow to embrace the use of the government aircraft that were provided for Vice Presidential transportation. Rockefeller continued to use his own private comfortably equipped Gulfstream for the first part of his time in office. It was operated under the call sign Executive Two when the Vice President was onboard. Initially Rockefeller felt he was doing the taxpayer a favor saving money by not using government funded transportation. Finally the Secret Service was able to convince him they were spending more money flying agents around to meet the needs of his protective detail and he began to fly on the DC-9 that was serving as Air Force Two at the time. His codename given by the Secret Service was "Sandstorm". Under pressure from Ronald Reagan and conservative delegates, President Ford replaced Nelson Rockefeller as Vice-Presidential candidate for the 1976 election with Senator Robert Dole from Kansas. Ford is the last President to do this: every President since Ford has run for re-election with the same Vice President that ran with the President in his first term. Ford's switch of his running mate to Dole did not help him, as the ticket lost the election to Jimmy Carter. On January 10, 1977, Ford presented Rockefeller with the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
Marriages
On June 23, 1930, Rockefeller married Mary Todhunter Clark. They had five children: Rodman, Anne, Steven, and twins Mary and Michael. They were divorced in 1962, a year before his marriage to Margaretta "Happy" Murphy. He and his second wife had two children together, Nelson, Jr. and Mark. They remained married until his death in 1979.
Death
Rockefeller died on the evening of Friday, January 26, 1979, at age 70 from a heart attack under circumstances whose details have never been completely revealed. Initial reports said he was at his office at Rockefeller Center working on a book about his art collection, and a security guard found him slumped over his desk. However, it was later disclosed that Rockefeller actually had the fatal heart attack in his 13 West 54th Street Manhattan townhouse in the presence of 25-year-old aide Megan Marshack. After the heart attack, Marshack called her friend, news reporter Ponchitta Pierce, to the townhouse, and it was Pierce who phoned an ambulance approximately an hour after the heart attack. Much speculation went on in the press regarding a sexual relationship between Rockefeller and Marshack. Neither Marshack nor the family has commented since on the circumstances surrounding Rockefeller's death.
Rockefeller was cremated at Ferncliff Cemetery in Hartsdale, New York. His ashes were scattered at the Rockefeller Estate in nearby Tarrytown. He does not have a final resting place in a cemetery; he is the first Vice President not to have one.
Artistic involvement
In 1933 the Rockefeller family wanted to have a mural put on the wall in Rockefeller Center. Nelson Rockefeller wanted Henri Matisse or Pablo Picasso to do it because he favored their modern style, but neither was available. Diego Rivera was one of Nelson Rockefeller's mother's favorite artists and therefore was commissioned to create the huge mural. He was given a theme: New Frontiers. Rockefeller wanted the painting to make people pause and think.. However, the painting caused great controversy due to the inclusion of a painting of Lenin (depicting communism), which upset Rockefeller. Rockefeller asked Rivera to change the face of Lenin to that of an unknown laborer's face as was originally intended but the painter refused.
The work was paid for on May 22, 1933, and immediately draped. People protested but it remained covered until the early weeks of 1934, when it was smashed by workers and hauled away in wheelbarrows. Rivera responded by saying that it was "cultural vandalism." At Rockefeller Center in its place is a mural with Abraham Lincoln as its focal point. The Rockefeller-Rivera dispute is covered in the films Cradle Will Rock and Frida.
Rockefeller was a noted collector of both modern and non-Western art. During his governorship, New York State acquired major works of art for the new Albany governmental complex and elsewhere. He continued his mother's work at the Museum of Modern Art, as president, and turned the basement of his Kykuit mansion into a noted museum while placing works of sculpture around the grounds (an activity he enjoyed personally supervising, frequently moving the pieces from place to place by helicopter). While he was overseeing construction of the State University of New York system, Rockefeller built, in collaboration with his lifelong friend Roy Neuberger, a museum on the campus of SUNY Purchase College, the Neuberger Museum, designed by Philip Johnson.
He commissioned Master Santiago Martínez Delgado to make a canvas mural for the Bank of New York (City Bank) in Bogotá, Colombia; this ended up being the last work of the artist, as he died while finishing it.
Rockefeller's early visits to Mexico kindled a collecting interest in pre-Columbian and contemporary Mexican art, to which he added works of traditional African and Pacific Island art. In 1954 the Museum of Primitive Art was established out of his personal collection; the museum opened to the public in 1957 in a townhouse on West 54th Street in New York City. In 1969 he transferred the museum's collection to the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
In 1978, Alfred A. Knopf published a book on primitive art from Rockefeller's collection. Rockefeller, impressed with the work of photographer Lee Boltin and editor/publisher Paul Anbinder on the book, co-founded Nelson Rockefeller Publications, Inc. with them, with the goal of publishing fine art books of high quality. After Rockefeller's death less than a year later, the company continued as Hudson Hills Press, Inc.
1958 New York State Republican Ticket
1962 New York State Republican Ticket
- Governor: Nelson Rockefeller
- Lieutenant Governor: Malcolm Wilson
- Comptroller: John Lomenzo
- Attorney General: Louis Lefkowitz
- U.S. Senate: Jacob Javits
1966 New York State Republican Ticket
1970 New York State Republican Ticket
In popular media
Electoral history
Bibliography
- Bleecker, Samuel E. The Politics of Architecture: A Perspective on Nelson A. Rockefeller, Rutledge Press, 1981. Deals with the architecture of New York State buildings.
- Cobbs, Elizabeth Anne. The Rich Neighbor Policy: Rockefeller and Kaiser in Brazil, Yale University Press, 1992.
- Cobbs, Elizabeth A. "Entrepreneurship as Diplomacy: Nelson Rockefeller and the Development of the Brazilian Capital Market," Business History Review, 1989 63(1): 88-121. Examines NR's Fundo Crescinco, a mutual fund that he started in Brazil in the 1950s to continue FDR's Good Neighbor policy. It reflected both liberal assumptions about the importance of the middle class to economic development and the concerns of business people about placating Latin American nationalism.
- Colby, Gerard & Charlotte Dennett. Thy Will be Done: The Conquest of the Amazon: Nelson Rockefeller and Evangelism in the Age of Oil, 1995.
- Connery, Robert H. and Gerald Benjamin. Governing New York State: The Rockefeller Years, 1974. An in-depth analysis.
- Bernard J. Firestone and Alexej Ugrinsky, eds. Gerald R. Ford and the Politics of Post-Watergate America. Volume: 1. Greenwood Press, 1993. (pp 137-94). One chapter has analysis by scholars of the Vice-Presidency.
- Deane, Elizabeth, (Director). The Rockefellers, A documentary film, 1999.
- Donovan, Robert John. Confidential Secretary: Ann Whitman's Twenty Years with Eisenhower and Rockefeller, New York: Dutton, 1988.
- Isaacson, Walter, Kissinger: A Biography, New York: Simon & Schuster, 1992, (updated, 2005).
- Kramer, Michael and Roberts, Sam. "I Never Wanted to Be Vice-President of Anything!": An Investigative Biography of Nelson Rockefeller, 1976.
- Light, Paul. "Vice-presidential Influence under Rockefeller and Mondale." Political Science Quarterly 1983-1984 98(4): 617-640. in JSTOR
- Perlstein, Rick. Before the Storm: Barry Goldwater and the Unmaking of the American Consensus, 2002. On the 1964 election.
- Persico, Joseph E. The Imperial Rockefeller: A Biography of Nelson A. Rockefeller, New York: Pocket Books, 1982 (The author was a senior aide).
- Reich, Cary. The Life of Nelson A. Rockefeller: Worlds to Conquer, 1908-1958, New York: Doubleday, 1996.
- James Reichley; Conservatives in an Age of Change: The Nixon and Ford Administrations, Brookings Institution, 1981.
- Rivas, Darlene. Missionary Capitalist: Nelson Rockefeller in Venezuela. University of North Carolina Press, 2002.
- Straight, Michael. Nancy Hanks, an Intimate Portrait: The Creation of a National Commitment to the Arts. Duke University Press, 1988. She was a top aide (and lover).
- Turner, Michael. The Vice President as Policy Maker: Rockefeller in the Ford White House, New York: Greenwood, 1982.
- Underwood, James E. and Daniels, William J. Governor Rockefeller in New York: The Apex of Pragmatic Liberalism, New York: Greenwood, 1982.
See also
External links
- Contains details on the collection of public and private papers available to researchers at the Center.
- An extended portrait by Time Magazine of Nelson campaigning for New York Governor in 1958.
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- Biographical Directory of the U.S. Congress biography
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- Contains details about the relation between Rockefeller's role in US policy and his role in Cultural policy
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