Arkansas: Opportunity Regained

• Share

(5 of 9)

Last of the brothers to marry and first to be divorced, Win reaped a press worse than any Rockefeller since John D. Sr. incurred the muckrakers' wrath half a century before. Nor did the scars all heal when Bobo finally got a closed-door divorce, and a settlement of more than $6,000,000, in 1954. The legal tussle brought out the insinuation that Rockefeller owned a fabulous pornography collection—and lip-smacking reports of its treasures still circulate in Arkansas. "Did you also hear it was worth a million?" Rockefeller grins. In fact, says he, the collection never existed; the rumor started years earlier when he was called to testify against a defendant accused of stealing another man's erotica, who had approached Winthrop as a possible buyer.

Of more lasting pain has been the separation from his only child, Winthrop Paul, now 18, who was also elected to office this fall—as president of his senior class at the Herringswell Manor School in England. Though young Win spends part of his holidays with his father, Bobo won custody of the boy and has had him in European schools for the past three years.

Fun Lover. In 1953, when he was 41, Win Rockefeller had ample impetus to change his life and milieu, which had soured both personally and professionally. He had to get out from under what David Rockefeller calls "the family stamp as he had it on him." Describing those New York years, a friendly biographer characterized the other brothers as "ascetic" John D. 3rd, "imaginative" Nelson, "inventive" Laurance and "serious, studious" David. Winthrop? The adjective had to be "fun loving"—hardly the mark of acceptance in Rockefeller circles where. Nelson recalls, "it was pretty competitive, with all his brothers active."

Some thought that Win picked Arkansas because of the state's liberal divorce law and the fact that his marriage was finally approaching its legal climax. Actually, the divorce was to take place the next year in Reno. One factor in choosing Arkansas was the presence of a close Army buddy, the late Frank Newell, a Little Rock insurance man. Rockefeller also had an affinity for open country, dating back to his Texas oilfield days. Today he maintains that he was attracted from the first by the state's "scenic beauty and very friendly people."

He soon bought the beginnings of his ranch, 927 acres on the flat top of Petit Jean Mountain, 68 miles northwest of Little Rock. The property, which cost millions-to develop, has become the headquarters of Winrock Farms, now a 34,000-acre enterprise with holdings in Arkansas and Oklahoma and 6,000 head of cattle, including a prize herd of Santa Gertrudis breeding stock, great mahogany beasts crossbred from Shorthorns and Brahmans.