Eminentoes / The Most Happy Fella

...thank you...

...A ol smashln0 Bdtlsh btac~/~clUno" American ~'~L~...:/ s.spendors...

...My pleasure in reading her may be inordinate because I so thoroughly agree with her, but there is more to it than merely that...

...So it was, for example, that he presided over the most fiaassive explosion in higher education in any s t a t e ' s h i s t o r y , turning " a string of small teachers colleges [into] a university of 235,000 full-time s t u d e n t s on seventy-two campuses, the l a r g e s t system of higher education in the world...

...To which, one suspects, any antiRockefeller conservative would respond: Q.E.D, And I would add: That account of Rockefeller's "non-liberalism" would have applied admirably to an e a r l i e r New York governor, Franklin Roosevelt--who, by the way, as President gave Rockefeller his f i r s t government job and remained ever thereafter a role-model for the younger man...

...If you lack the machinery, create an agency...

...Just $I0 per copy, postpaid...

...But for many c o n s e r v a t i v e s the most inflammatory and unforgivable of Rockefeller's policy positions was his unstinting support for abortionon-demand...

...Only 32 of the book's 300 pages of text deal with the pre-1966 Rockefeller...

...One of the many merits of Joseph E. Persico's new book, The Imperial Rockefeller, * is that it gives us plenty of evidence with which to fashion answers for ourselves...

...I . ,~ 8emardo m~lve: I r i ~ or name enoraved on //, g ~ ,brass hardware...

...Administration...

...Persico comes closer to characterizing it accurately in the Preface when he calls it " a personal memoL- based largely on the eleven years from 1966 to 1977 during which I worked for Nelson Rockefeller as his principal 'speech w r i t e r . . . I recount essentially what I knew and was a part of...

...Are cars dangerous...

...But the man sure is a patriot...

...I never had i t . " And yet Rockefeller also once said, " I always took it for granted I ' d be President...

...But don't take our word fi)r it: Read what the critics are saying...

...And then his first campaign for the presidential nomination, in 1959, pitted him against the c o n s e r v a t i v e s ' f a v o r i t e , Vice P r e s i d e n t Richard Nixon, and included what Persico calls " a stinging indictment of his own party's national...

...Gentle because it echoes an old music-hall tune...

...It was a bum rap...

...He combined the supreme assurance of the wellborn with the tenacity and cunning of a self-made man," Persico remarks at one point...

...Persico suggests several of his own...

...He replied: " I was in the wrong . p a r t y . " And in answer to a s i m i l a r question on another occasion, he raised his eyebrows and said, "Have you ever been to a Republican convention...

...This is a book you will want to add to your permanent library - - and one you will encourage others to read (especially students...

...Shortly before he died he remarked to members of his s t a f f , "So, if I really wanted to be President t h a t bad, I should have done what [others did], and that is take two or three years and just concentrate on the science of how to influence and get the c o n t a c t s to get t h e v o t e s . Frankly, my interest is more in doing things than it was in that...

...Readers of these essays are getting in on the ground floor of the career of an important Amer...

...But was it...

...He simply r e f u s e d to believe, says Persico, t h a t the l e a d e r of the "Western World would be chosen on the strength of who had attended the most Lincoln Day dinners, whohad been most solicitous about the Yates "--Bullish on Braces...

...For several years, Ellen Wilson (Bryn Mawr, '78) has been contributing beautifully-written articles to several journals (primarily The Human Life Review...

...You can't get it in a bookstore, but now you can Use the coupon below to get your own copy of the first book from a new and important young writer...

...He could not keep his hands off anything...

...Karl 0 'Lessker is a senior editor of The American Spectator andprofessor o f public and environmental affairs at Indiana University...

...That is a view of p r e s i d e n t i a l nominating politics born not of experience and analysis but of contempt...

...That was good enough for Rockefeller...

...sun reminds me of a young, female Orwell in leer commitment to intellectual integrity, political honesty and (as Muggeridge points out), ~larity and good sense.'" --William Gavin (in Human Events) Don't miss An Even Dozen by Ellen Wilson (Foreword by Malcolm Muggeridge...

...Create a Job Incentives Board to attract them...

...Reason enough, then, for conservatives to loathe him...

...He directed this compulsion to act, however, almost as easily toward conservative as well as [sic] liberal objectives...

...The loss of 39 lives seemed to him a small prise to pay for putting down what he always believed to have been, in Persico's words, "no isolated, spontaneous prison revolt but a m a n i f e s t a t i o n of the international terrorist conspiracy...

...The other reason, in his own view, was that he hadn't wanted it badly enough...

...THE MOST HAPPY FELLA One thing I ann 't stand is a goddamned bleeding heart...

...Was the privately owned Long Island Railroad collapsing...

...they (Miss WUsoo's essays) are so cool, so clear, and, despite their evident maturity, in the very host sense, youMful and fresh and pleasing...

...with any of the thousands of people outside the staff who were involved with Rockefeller in politics, business, or personal affairs...

...Name Address City State__ Zip /k~---~ Make checkt payable to: THE HUMAN LIFE PRESS THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR OCTOBER 1982 23...

...William F. B-ckley, Jr...

...On h e a l t h c a r e , too, he was as liberal as a Kennedy...

...Nelson A. Rockefeller Why was Nelson Rockefeller never nominated for the presidency by his own party...

...Introduction by J. P. McFadden...

...James Hltchcock (National Catholic Register) "While her sophisticated and often witty style differs from Orweii's plain 'unn.style,' Ellen Wig...

...If a problem exists, you attack it...

...His temperament, in a word, was truly imperial and he was able to add to this an awesomely dominating presence...

...It's an appealing beginning, but the song itself is too straightforward and honest to reflect a state of mind as convoluted and hypocritical as the one celebrated in Garp...

...10016 Gentlemen: Please send me _ _ copies of Ellen Wilson's new book, An Even Dozen, at S]0 per copy...

...But he was an activist, not an ideologue...

...In this as in o t h e r policy a r e a s Rockefeller qualified as a hard-right c o n s e r v a t i v e . C e r t a i n l y he was a visceral anti-Communist, gravely dubious about the possibility of any true d~tente with the Soviet Union and one of the bitter-end supporters of the American e f f o r t in Indochina...

...You can say what you want about Dick Nixon," he declared to his staff at the time of Cambodia...

...His top aides were people of great ability, Persico remarks, "forceful figures in their own spheres, but something went out of them in his p r e s e n c e . . . Never in eleven years did I witness a staff member take him head on...

...no effort to provide a detailed account of the major policy initiatives of those la~st eleven years in office...

...no extended interviews *Simon and Schuster, $16.50...

...Were private colleges having financial difficulties...

...Three times his p a r t y denied him its p r e s i d e n t i a l nomination l a r g e l y because of his perceived liberalism...

...If you lack the authority, pass a law...

...111aFs right--big comeback to bracR/~] ~IP]~ For dress/~JSmSs...

...And to a magazine interviewer he said, " I did not hav.e a s u f f i c i e n t s i n g l e n e s s of purpose and sufficient ambition to put everything else aside to do just t h a t . " When, asked the interviewer, did you lose t h a t s i n g l e n e s s of purpose...

...would qualify as a liberal, indeed...

...his cold narrow eyes growing even smaller and more menacing when a distinguished counselor dares suggesi a lack of enthusiasm for some whacky new scheme...

...often devastating but never shrill or unkind...

...Is there a contradiction here...

...I have refreshed my recollections with the help of colleagues who were closest to him...

...Once an idea--from whatever source derived --struck his fancy, he pursued it with all his immense personal force and staff resources...

...Have the state buy it...

...Wear v~ rocks/spore jacka, ee bad/s~ow thin o,~ A R'T...

...t~n, the case for and against abortion and euthanasia, the future of marriage am/the fain...

...The idea for it came to Rockefeller from an acquaintance he was chatting with at a cocktail party, who reported that Japan's low addiction rate was attributable to a policy of life sentences for pushers...

...ambivalent because while distancing itself from the bourgeois life, it also suggests that some day even the Beatles might be sixty-four...

...And n e v e r mind the cost...

...ily, in the style anti temper of her incomparable novels...

...It is testimony to his inability to comprehend t h a t even Nelson Rockefeller had to play the game according to the rules...

...A good example of this was his notorious and controversial "drug-pusher law...

...The final enormity of Rockefeller's pre-1966 c a r e e r was of course his a t t e m p t to take the p r e s i d e n t i a l nomination from the single most beloved conservative of the decade, Senator Barry Goldwater...

...t is as though Jane Austoo were to be reiocar...

...After first (1968) urging the legislature to adopt a moderate liberalizing of the tough anti-abortion statute then on the books, he gladly signed into law a far more permissive 1970 bill...

...plicity, reflect - - when you think of it --the perity of her position...

...One was the nature of the Republican party...

...mo Ioday's casual Iv...

...With no further consultation with anyone he announced it to his staff as a major 22 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR OCTOBER 1982 legislative initiative for the coming y e a r and overrode t h e i r s t a r t l e d objections with a degree of brutality uncommon even for him...

...No one ever said flatly, 'I disagree.'" These qualities were reflected in his style of policy making...

...Did businessmen shun ghettos...

...Others occur to me...

...Nor was his s t a n d i n g with the p a r t y much improved in the succeeding months when he all but repudiated the Goldw a t e r candidacy, r e f u s i n g to campaign o u t s i d e New York and even there not endorsing the Arizonan...

...Politically," insists Persico, "Nelson Rockefeller was hanged for the wrong crime...

...What a joy it is to come across someone who can write and think at the same time...

...But that still leavens us to ask why this lifelong Republican, inheritor of one of the major American fortunes, hardliner on law and order, bitter opponent of Communism in all its forms, passionate advocate of U.S...

...The Human Life Press, 150 E. 35th St., N.Y...

...An Argentine journalist once asked him, "Why were you never elected your country's president...

...And that is all...

...On other issues, though, Rockef e l l e r fully deserved his dismal standing among conservatives...

...uated to expound the pros and cons of contrecep...

...Are there social problems to be solved...

...Here is Persico's own analysis: Liberals have been defined as those who believe in the efficacy of government action, and conservatives as those who do not...

...nor, finally, is there so much as a single footnote or bibliographica t citation...

...I enclose $ (please enclose payment with order...

...BERNARDQ County chairman's hernia operation, or whose agents had captured control of an obscure town committee...

...R o c k e f e l l e r h i m s e l f always professed to believe that there were two main reasons why he had never won a presidential nomination...

...Build a model safety automobile...

...But, do something...

...This may seem a mere peccadillo by t o d a y ' s standards, but in the early 1960s it provoked immense outrage...

...Own wardrobe/oiftsl Write for I _9 ii...

...And at one point he seized upon the new Medicaid program to provide one out of every four New Yorkers with free medical care...

...By this simplistic measure, Nelson Rockefeller...

...Not, t think, if we give due weight to the imperial cast of his mind, blinding him to the necessity of doing what lesser men had to do to win a p r e s i d e n t i a l nomination...

...When he entered a room, he sucked up all the authority," recalled one high-ranking state official...

...Malcolm Muggeridge "Ellen WUsoa's freshness, her sophisticated sire...

...The author did no burrowing through archives...

...Which would be all right except that it also provides them with an excuse to regard their nesting instincts as ideologically and morally superior to those of other people...

...If you lack the resources, raise taxes,.sell bonds...

...Declaring that "access to good health care ought to be regarded as a basic human right," he tried repeatedly to get the state l e g i s l a t u r e to e n a c t a system of universal health insurance...

...The sixties generation, I'm sure, is captivated by the opening sequence of the film, ychich shows an adorable baby floating up through the air to the strains of "When I'm Sixty-Four," by the Beatles...

...And if the Draconian drug-pusher law was one good measure of his stance on law-and-order issues, his handling of the Attica prison riot was another...

...military supremacy-why such a man was so illregarded by the rank-and-file of the party whose principles these attitudes represent...

...A pleasure to read, and an inducement to docility...

...Let governm e n t - - e s p e c i a l l y one headed by Nelson Rockefeller--solve them...

...It was always there, in the back of my mind...

...And I have no doubt that those who read the evidence thoughtfully will come up with still others...

...Persico accomplishes this through the accumulated power of hundreds of fmely judged brushstrokesmRockefeller rearranging the furniture in a motel room, instructing a waitress on how to serve coffee, publicly humiliating a senior staff member or impulsively giving a work of art to another, sheepishly accepting a repby Karl O'Lessker rimand from his young mistress or taking another man's wife for his own and damning the political costs...

...I should note, however, that while the book is much more than a set of answers to the question of why its subject never became President, it is not, as the subtitle misleadingly claims it is, a biography...

...But it is nevertheless one of the most incisive and revealing portraits of a major political figure of our time...

...can social commentator...

...It is not, at any rate, a trivial question...

...As originally proposed and only slightly modified before enactment, it mandated life imprisonment without possibility of parole for anyone convicted of de.aling in heroin, LSD, amphetamines, methadone, or hashish...

...Now you can get the first collection of these highly-acclaimed essays in An Even Dozen, just published in a handsome, original hardcover edition...

...But the pre-1966 conservative hostility to Rockefeller wasn't entirely p o l i c y - b a s e d . For one thing, t h e r e was his long-established record as an "Eastern internationalist" and his a s s o c i a t i o n with the h a t e d Dewey wing of the party...

...Francis Cauavan (in National Review...

...Nelson Rockefeller's failure to achieve what may have been his life's h!ghest ambition tells us a great deal about the nature of political power in America, about the Republican party, about the uses and limits of wealth in elective politics, and about the remarkable personality of Rockefeller himself...

...It is almost i m p o s s i b l e now to r e c a p t u r e the s e n s e of s p l u t t e r i n g r a g e so many Republicans felt toward this Easterni n t e r n a t i o n a l i s t - B i g - G o v e r n m e n t - moral-degenerate trying to perpetrate so monstrous an act...

...And then two years later when the Assembly tried to reverse i t s e l f , he v e t o e d the a t t e m p t e d repealer with a slap at those who try "to impose their vision of morality on an entire society...

...The song is a gentle, ambivalent mockery of middle-class domesticity, English-style...

...But his stands on abortion and socialized medicine came to public notice long after he had established himself as a hated figure among mainstream Republicans...

...Give them state aid...

...And if this wasn't enough, late in 1961 he cast aside his wife of 31 years, the mother of his five children, in order to marry a younger woman who was h e r s e l f married and the mother of four children...

...For one thing he was preeminently a Big Government man...

...One correct answer is that his political and personal behavior made him unacceptable to the great majority of Republican activists outside the upper Northeast...

...Use the coupon below to order direct from the publishers now...