The Man Who Would Be King

THE IMPERIAL ROCKEFELLER by Joseph E. Persico Simon & Schuster; 314 pages; $16.50

John D. Rockefeller's best-known son was Nelson—four-time Governor of New York, a man of great energy and stamina who harvested Venezuelan chili peppers with the same zest that he collected modern art. Rockefeller owned some of the world's costliest real estate, but for all his wealth and organization he could not sign a lease on the property he wanted most, the house at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. He had to settle for an appointment as Vice President in the Ford Administration, where he glumly complained, "I go to funerals. I go to earthquakes." His own death in 1979 caused some seismic waves. At 70, he suffered a late-night heart attack while in the company of a young woman employee whom Joseph Persico describes as "a 20th century Rubens wearing aviator's glasses."

Optimists saw Rockefeller's failure to reach his political goal as a vindication of the American system: money alone cannot buy the Oval Office. Fatalists pointed to bad timing, and realists blamed a hesitancy to move decisively.

Evidence and anecdote in The Imperial Rockefeller support the realists. Yet the author, Rockefeller's speechwriter from 1966 to 1977, draws a sympathetic conclusion: "Nelson Rockefeller was never prepared to step outside the protective palisade of eastern Republican enlightened capitalist orthodoxy to take his stand ... It does credit to his seriousness of purpose that he long resisted, even disbelieved, the idea that a President was born of a thousand chicken dinners and a hundred thousand smalltown handshakes."

He obviously had a grand time trying.

There was a pol's callus on his palm and advice to young flesh-pressers on his lips: "Hit in close, deep, where they can feel it. Connect first, before they do. That's the way to make them feel the power." To a heckling crowd he showed one finger. The tough-guy style was not inconsistent with the physical man, built like a truck battery with a constant charge of direct current. Those around him learned to keep their distance. Persico describes relationships clearly signaling that one did not work for Rockefeller but served him. There were 80-hour work weeks, Sunday night staff meetings, and one session at which the Governor had to be cautiously reminded that it was Christmas Eve. His office superlatives had to be adjusted for inflation. Persico's revaluation: " 'You're fantastic'—B-plus. 'You're the greatest'—C. 'Thanks loads'—start considering new employment."

The author tries to like his old boss, but phrases like "royal hauteur," "the armor of arrogance" and "unreflective activist" keep popping up. He admires the gubernatorial record, but is disturbed by what he feels was Rockefeller's emotional freeze after ordering the grisly assault on rebellious prisoners at Attica. Behind the image of a liberal Republican was an old-fashioned cold-warrior and bare-taloned hawk, who dismissed all Viet Nam draft resisters with the remark, "Those guys just didn't want to get killed."