NEW YORK: The Rocky Roll

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During those years, Nelson Rockefeller: ¶As Inter-American Affairs coordinator (1940-44), drew up a blacklist that steered U.S. businessmen away from 1,800 Latin American Nazi-serving firms, also arranged loans by which Latin Americans could buy out German interests. ¶ While Assistant Secretary of State for Latin American Affairs (1944-45), fought for a clause in the United Nations Charter far more vital than he knew; thinking primarily of Latin American relations, he enlisted the aid of Michigan's late, great Senator Arthur Vandenberg, chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, in providing for the right of U.N. members to make regional security pacts, thereby laid the groundwork for such postwar defense alliances as NATO, SEATO and the Baghdad Pact.

¶ As Harry Truman's international-development adviser (1950-51), wrote the basic proposal ("Partners in Progress") for the Truman Administration's Point Four Program.

¶ As Candidate Dwight Eisenhower's adviser on government operations, drew up plans for coordinating federal agencies; after Eisenhower was elected, served on a three-man (other members: Milton Eisenhower, Arthur Flemming) committee that streamlined government, established —among other things—a new Department of Health, Education and Welfare. ¶As HEW under secretary (1953-54), drafted legislation to extend Social Security benefits and increase vocational rehabilitation. Also offered other proposals, e.g., federal reinsurance to extend private-hospitalization benefits, aid to education, that were too liberal for the Eisenhower Administration.

¶As President Eisenhower's special assistant on foreign policy (1954-55), helped produce such projects as Atoms for Peace and the U.S. Geneva Open Skies proposal.

In his latter Washington years, Modern Republican Rockefeller clashed more and more often with such Administration conservatives as Treasury Secretary George Humphrey and Budget Director Joseph Dodge, who thought his suggestions sometimes too expensive, and Under Secretary of State Herbert Hoover Jr., who frequently thought them too bold. In 1955 Rockefeller quit Washington, went home to New York. Friends are certain that somewhere along in here he resolved to try for office himself. "He felt," said a friend, "he had to run for elective office, because nobody really paid any attention to someone who was only an appointee."

Diverted Streams. For a while Nelson Rockefeller went quietly about his normal New York life—which probably has no parallel among the city's 8,000,000 other residents. He is board chairman of Rockefeller Center, now mortgage free and conservatively valued at $150 million. From the RCA Building's Room 5600 ("Rockefeller, Office of the Messrs."), he presides over some $15 million worth of business investments in 17 other countries. He is a member of 18 boards of directors. He supports with his brothers nearly $4,000,000 worth of charities and special projects a year, from adoption agencies to zoos and including the impressive Rockefeller Reports (initiated by Nelson Rockefeller) on U.S. defenses, economy and education. And he pays special attention to his duties as chairman of Manhattan's Museum of Modern Art, fostered by his mother.