National Affairs: Politician's Spurs

Jauntily turned out in glen plaid suit and lemon shirt, New York's Governor Nelson Rockefeller went through one buoyant morning's routine in the State Capitol at Albany. He presided over a swearing-in, sat on the carpeted floor with delighted schoolchildren visitors, charmed a delegation of Methodist churchwomen. Cracked he, as a photographer posed a group portrait: "I have to be careful who I stand behind. My wife sees these pictures, you know." Amid the badinage, Nelson Rockefeller did not betray by so much as a flicker of an eye the fact that his...