Nelson Rockefeller

He could not read properly and nobody knew why. Nelson Rockefeller was born at Bar Harbor, Maine on July 8, 1908, grandson of Standard Oil on one side and of Senator Nelson Aldrich on the other, and spent his schooling in the bottom third of the class with undiagnosed dyslexia. He memorized instead, a habit that later made him look like a politician who never needed notes. He got through Dartmouth, made Phi Beta Kappa, graduated cum laude in 1930 and married Mary Todhunter Clark that June. Then he went to work on his father's Rockefeller Center. At 24 he was a trustee of the Museum of Modern Art, which his mother had helped found. At 30 he was president of the Center.

Rockefeller governed New York for 15 years and built at a scale nobody has matched since. The State University grew from 29 campuses and 38,000 full-time students to 72 campuses and 232,000, and Albany got a marble government plaza that now carries his name. He also wrote the harshest narcotics statutes in the country. The 1973 drug laws set mandatory sentences of 15 years to life for selling two ounces of heroin or possessing four, with plea bargaining and parole largely shut off, and legislatures everywhere copied the idea. New York's prison population multiplied several times over in the two decades that followed. Gerald Ford appointed him vice president in 1974 under the 25th Amendment, the only man to hold the office without ever standing for it, then dropped him from the 1976 ticket to placate Ronald Reagan.

On September 13, 1971, four days into the uprising at Attica, Rockefeller ordered state police and the National Guard to retake the prison rather than go there himself. Thirty-nine men died in the assault, 10 of them hostages, and all but three of the deaths came from the state's own gunfire — the guards were killed by the troopers sent to save them. On the telephone with Richard Nixon afterward, Rockefeller accounted for it by saying that was life. Eight years earlier he had done the other thing that defined him. He divorced Mary after 32 years and in May 1963 married Margaretta Fitler Murphy, a divorced mother of four. Republican women never forgave it. Their child was born three days before the 1964 California primary, and he lost the state, the nomination and the party to Barry Goldwater.

He died on January 26, 1979 at 70, of a heart attack — not at his desk at Rockefeller Center, as the first statement said, but at a townhouse he owned on West 54th Street, in the company of a 25-year-old aide named Megan Marshack. No ambulance was called for roughly an hour. The family refused an autopsy, and the correction did more damage than the original story. Two things outlived him in public. The Michael C. Rockefeller Wing at the Metropolitan Museum holds the collection he gave away in 1969, named for the son who vanished off New Guinea in 1961. And in 2009 New York finally dismantled most of the drug laws, 36 years after he signed them.

Nelson Rockefeller's life against the full span of the corpus.

• Rockefeller Center building
  He ran the leasing and then the company, as president from 1938 and chairman from 1945 1938
• Museum of Primitive Art building
  Founded 1954, opened on West 54th Street in 1957, given to the Metropolitan Museum in 1969 1957
• The expansion of the State University of New York other
  From 29 campuses and 38,000 full-time students to 72 campuses and 232,000 1970
• The Rockefeller drug laws law
  Mandatory 15-to-life sentences for small quantities — the model for mandatory minimums nationwide 1973
• Commission on CIA Activities within the United States other
  The Rockefeller Commission, which he chaired as vice president 1975
• Empire State Plaza, Albany building
  A marble government complex that took more than a decade and now carries his name 1976

• July 8, 1908 aged 0 Born at Bar Harbor, Maine, second son of John D. Rockefeller Jr. Named for his maternal grandfather, Senator Nelson W. Aldrich.
• February 1934 aged 25 Has Diego Rivera's mural destroyed at 30 Rockefeller Plaza Rivera had refused to paint Lenin's face out. He called the demolition cultural vandalism.
• 1940 aged ~32 Appointed Coordinator of Inter-American Affairs by Franklin Roosevelt He had warned the president about German influence in Latin America.
• November 4, 1958 aged 50 Elected governor of New York by more than 570,000 votes
• May 4, 1963 aged 54 Marries Margaretta Fitler Murphy a year after divorcing his first wife The remarriage cost him Republican support he never got back.
• September 13, 1971 aged 63 Orders the retaking of Attica without going there 39 men died in the assault, 10 of them hostages. All but three were killed by state gunfire.
• 1973 aged ~65 Signs the drug laws that carry his name Mandatory 15-to-life terms with plea bargaining and parole shut off.
• December 19, 1974 aged 66 Sworn in as vice president after confirmation by both houses The Senate voted 90 to 7 and the House 287 to 128.
• January 26, 1979 aged 70 Dies of a heart attack in a Manhattan townhouse at 70 The first announcement placed him at his office. The family declined an autopsy.

• Gerald Ford 1913–2006
  38th president who restored basic governmental stability after Watergate and controversially pardoned Richard Nixon. appointed by
• John D. Rockefeller 1839–1937
  Established the Rockefeller Foundation and funded medical research, education, and public health initiatives. grandson of
• David Rockefeller 1915–2017
  Banker and philanthropist who directed the Rockefeller Foundation's global development efforts. brother
• Henry Kissinger 1923–2023
  National security adviser and secretary of state who shaped détente, China policy, and controversial Cold War interventions. funded and promoted