NEW YORK: Cloud Nine Stuff

Inaugurating a 49th Governor last week, New York followed old traditions. Behind the rostrum of the state capitol's assembly chamber stood, as usual, the bearskin-topped, bemedaled, paunchy elite of New York City's Old Guard as a Governor's guard of honor. Almost hidden by poinsettias were New York's former Governors, Charles Poletti, three-termer Tom Dewey, outgoing Democrat Averell Harriman. On the capitol lawn gunners manned their howitzers for a 19-gun salute. But no sooner had Nelson Aldrich Rockefeller marched into the chamber to take his oath of office than New Yorkers —and the U.S.—discovered that something new had been added.

Rockefeller ignored de rigueur morning coat and striped trousers, dressed instead in a double-breasted dark blue business suit and blue tie. By manner and gesture he took command of a platform-load of dignitaries, stepped forward smartly to take the oath on grandmother Laura Spelman Rockefeller's Bible. But the most surprising break with tradition was his 14-minute inaugural address, which eventually mentioned New York on page 4, and then only briefly. It "could as well have been delivered from the steps of the Capitol in Washington," noted the Herald Tribune's Columnist Roscoe Drummond. Said an aide later: "He used all the stuff we wouldn't let him say during the campaign. He had them in the bottom desk drawer—all those beautiful phrases. We called it the Cloud Nine stuff."

"Opportunities of Tomorrow." Nelson Rockefeller's Cloud Nine: a keen national concern with problems ranging from cold war ("The graveness of the challenge is matched by the greatness of our opportunity; knowing this, we have no reason to fear—but every reason to strive") to civil rights ("We can serve—and save—freedom elsewhere only as we practice it in our own lives; we cannot speak of the equality of men and nations unless we hold high the banner of social equality in our own communities").

Said he: "In such tasks, we can give little time or care to conventional labels or slogans . . . We shall be conservative, for we know the measureless value that is our heritage to save . . . We shall be liberal, for we are vastly more interested in the opportunities of tomorrow . . . We shall be progressive, for the opportunities and the challenges are of such size and scope that we can never halt and say: our labor is done."

Opportunities in Tradition. Rockefeller's take-charge approach to the inauguration was maintained all day long. Before the oath-taking, Rockefeller joined wife Mary for New Year's services at St. Peter's Protestant Episcopal Church, hurried back to the Governor's mansion to host a luncheon for relatives and close friends. (Notably missing: father John Davison Rockefeller Jr., 84, whose health was not up to the festivities.) Inauguration over, he lavished the Rockefeller grin and hardy handclasp on almost a thousand well-wishers at a public reception, let them gawk at a sampling of his renowned collection of modern art—Picasso, Braque, Klee, Matisse—hung at the Executive Mansion during his overnight occupancy.