On His Own Terms summary

Toward the end of his time in university, Nelson tied the knot with his longtime sweetheart, Mary Todhunter Clark. The newlyweds then embarked on a ten-month, around-the-world honeymoon.

Upon returning from this trip, in April of 1931, Nelson began helping his mother, Abby, establish the Museum of Modern Art, or MOMA, in New York City. This role was perfect for him as Nelson, inspired by his mother, had grown up with a passion for art.

By 1934, Nelson had fathered two children and was proving to have a natural gift for business. Nelson’s father happily rewarded his son’s emerging talent with $3.2 million worth of stock in a Standard Oil subsidiary called the Socony-Vacuum Oil Company, shortly before opening a $12-million trust fund for all his sons.

With this capital in hand, Nelson jumped into action, thinking of business projects that would pair the love of art he had inherited from his mother with the philanthropic drive instilled in him by his father. This search led him on a path to revitalizing the economies of South America.

While Nelson and the Rockefeller family had long supported the Republican party, Nelson was a great admirer of the Democratic president Franklin Delano Roosevelt, whose problem-solving abilities he respected immensely. It was also thanks to FDR that Nelson was beginning his career as CIAA and, since he held this position during World War II, the scope of his work would grow to be quite extensive.

As the United States entered World War II, the nation passed a “good neighbor” policy toward Latin America, and Nelson’s importance grew.

When FDR passed away in 1945, Vice President Harry Truman took office, and the establishment of this new administration left Nelson out of a job. So, he simply picked up where he had once left off, stepping in as president of the Rockefeller Center and securing MOMA a place at the core of New York’s art world.

But he didn’t just throw away all the hard work he had put into establishing connections in South America; instead, he went to work establishing a business that would function like a charitable organization.

Although he was frustrated by the problems he encountered in his philanthropic work, there was a bright spot for Nelson during this period – an event that would remind everyone of his impressive political power.

It happened in 1946 when Nelson received a tip that his hometown of New York City was in the running to headquarter the United Nations, competing against Philadelphia, Boston and San Francisco. Invigorated by the news, Nelson had found exactly the type of challenge on which he thrived; the UN bid was a problem in need of a solution and he was determined to be the man to find it.

Throughout Nelson’s political career, the Republican party would shift to the right, straying further and further from the ideals of the progressive-minded party once led by Abraham Lincoln. Because of this ideological turn, Nelson’s disputes with certain Republican leaders worsened during the administration of Dwight D. Eisenhower.

Things were so strained that, when Truman left office, he advised Rockefeller to switch allegiances and join the Democratic party. But Nelson chose to remain a loyal Republican.

Following the Special Studies Project, Nelson went back to being a private citizen. But not for long. Although he had been working hard to prevent the Brooklyn Dodgers from moving to Los Angeles, his focus quickly changed when it became clear that he had much higher approval ratings than any of the candidates running for governor of New York.

In fact, no other American politician appealed to such a broad range of people quite like Nelson Rockefeller did. He threw his hat in the ring and, in the 1958 race for governor of New York, Nelson ran a vigorous campaign across the state. He traveled 8,500 miles, gave 135 speeches and shook hands with some 100,000 people.

As 1960 began, Nelson lost the Republican nomination to Nixon. But that wasn’t the only loss he suffered that year.

In the first two months of 1960, his press secretary died, along with his friend and advisor, Frank Jamieson. After that, Nelson’s father, the legendary John D. Rockefeller Jr., passed away on May 11, 1960 – and that was just the beginning of what would be a heartbreaking series of events.

The political climate in the United States had been fraught for decades, but the 1960s saw more discord than ever before. A perfect example of this schism is that, in June of 1961, while the Republican Party chairman was hosting a whites-only dinner in Mississippi, Nelson Rockefeller was hosting Martin Luther King Jr. for dinner at his home.

In fact, Rockefeller had always been a strong proponent of civil rights, even while his fellow Republicans were courting Southern white voters and growing more extreme by the day. As a result of this climate, during the 60s, there were a number of extremist right-wing political organizations, including the Conservative Party, the Christian Anti-Communism Crusade and the notorious John Birch Society, a group so extreme that it branded former president and World War II commander Dwight Eisenhower a communist agent.

After the Democrats won the presidency in 1960 and again in 1964, many Republicans were eager to blame Nelson for the party’s lack of unity, as he had rejected the party’s rising conservative and extremist bent. At the same time, Nelson was facing opposition as governor of New York, but through skillful leadership, he managed to put plenty of ambitious and progressive plans into action.

For instance, when Rockefeller was elected governor, the New York education system was a mess, ranking next to last in polls on US higher education. Nelson worked hard to secure more money for the State University of New York, or SUNY, and created more community colleges, along with the City University of New York. By 1973, SUNY was the largest university system in the world, with 64 campuses and a quarter of a million students.

Nelson was making some highly unorthodox maneuvers within the Republican party, and his tactics were rapidly antagonizing his fellow politicians, especially the mayor of New York City, John Lindsay.

Lindsay had been elected mayor in 1966 as a brash, young politician who was dead set on doing things his way. In many ways, he was like Nelson at the beginning of his career. But the relationship between the two men got off on the wrong foot as a fierce budget battle erupted.

Over the course of Nelson’s term in office, New York State transformed dramatically, and his response to the new cultural climate would eventually cast a dark shadow over much of his legacy.

For instance, Nelson tended to be considered too liberal for Republicans and too conservative for Democrats, but he was also a pragmatist who took in the facts of a situation and responded accordingly. Since the economy was in much worse shape in 1970 than it was in 1960, Rockefeller employed more conservative policies during his final term.

A crisis of a different kind came right on the heels of the Attica tragedy, and one that would destroy the administration of President Richard Nixon: the Watergate scandal. In the aftermath, Gerald Ford would become the new president of the United States – and he needed a vice president.

Ford reached out to Nelson and, going against the advice of some of his closest advisors, Rockefeller accepted Ford’s invitation. Many of those close to Nelson argued against this decision, since they knew he didn’t have the right personality or temperament for the job. Truth be told, they were right.

Nelson’s rocky time as VP meant he was excluded from the Republican ticket in 1976. In that year’s election, the Democrats, led by Jimmy Carter, took back the White House and Rockefeller went back to living as a private citizen for the first time since the 50s.

During this time, Nelson invested his energy in organizing the charitable Rockefeller Brothers Fund along with his siblings. Then, in 1980, as he was beginning work on a series of art books, he died under rather odd circumstances.