National Affairs: Thanks a Million

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In 1940 Franklin Delano Roosevelt offered a Government job to a young New Yorker who did not need it. At 32, Nelson Aldrich Rockefeller, armed with knowledge gained through the Rockefeller enterprises in Latin America, had persuaded F.D.R. to create a special "Good Neighbor" agency in the U.S. Government. Roosevelt appointed the second son of John D. Rockefeller Jr. as his Coordinator of Inter-American Affairs. Since then, Nelson Rockefeller has served (without pay) under three U.S. Presidents as one of the hardest-working officials in Washington. Last week the White House announced that he is bowing out.

"Honorary Inspector." For five years Nelson Rockefeller was the dominant figure in U.S. policy in Latin America, conceived the idea of exporting American technical know-how to underdeveloped countries, the germ of what later became Harry Truman's Point Four Program. He resigned as Assistant Secretary of State in 1945 when President Truman appointed James F. Byrnes to succeed Edward Stettinius, but in 1950 Truman called him back to launch Point Four. As chairman of the International Development Advisory Board, he wrote the charter that still serves for U.S. policy in technical assistance.

After stepping out of the Truman Administration late in 1951, Nelson Rockefeller returned to the national political scene in 1952 to campaign for Dwight Eisenhower. He moved back to Washington as chairman of the Advisory Committee on Government Organization, which was made an official arm of the Executive Department by the new President's first executive order. Rockefeller's committee prepared ten major reorganization proposals, e.g., unifying foreign aid under one agency. Its major proposal: a tenth Cabinet department with responsibility for health, education and welfare.

When the new department was established, Rockefeller was appointed Under Secretary to Texas' Oveta Gulp Hobby. Many an old hand in Washington thought that being Under Secretary to the second woman Cabinet member* in U.S. history would not be an entirely satisfactory assignment, but Rockefeller never cringed. Tactfully staying in the background, he used his experience and skill as a Washington administrator to get the new department on its feet, drafted the major planks in the Eisenhower welfare program, e.g., expansion of social security, federal aid for hospital construction. The career employees in HEW took a genuine liking to the millionaire who was humanly interested in their problems; the Food and Drug Administration staff made him an "honorary inspector."

"Assistant to God." In 1954 President Eisenhower named Rockefeller his special assistant on foreign policy (succeeding TIME Inc. Vice President C. D. Jackson). After reading the President's letter appointing Rockefeller to work for "increased understanding and cooperation among all peoples ... to achieve and sustain the basic essentials of human dignity," one Administration official exclaimed: "This is so sweeping it makes him an assistant to God."