NELSON ROCKEFELLER

This is a biography which claims to provide the first inside and intimate glimpse of Nelson Rockefeller's family background, schooling, business ventures and political career. Written in a cloying, adulatory tone the author goes to considerable lengths to demonstrate that Nelson Rockefeller has been unspoiled by money, that he is deeply religious, tolerant, ambitious and aggressive though democratic, that he is, in short, a regular fellow, -- as he manifested at Dartmouth, for example, by being ""as sloppy as anyone on campus"". Morris discusses the Rockefeller children's conscientious upbringing, their abstemious way of life; Nelson's marriage to Mary Todhunter Clark -- at which time young Nelson was regarded by Philadelphia's Main Liners as marrying into the Clark family; his early business experiments; his interest in South America and his appointment as Coordinator of Inter-American Affairs under FDR; his subsequent career in Washington and in San Francisco during the formation of the U N; the foundation of the Rockefeller Brothers Fund; and Nelson's campaign for Governor of New York State. In an Appendix the author provides The Rockefeller Viewpoint on the management of government which is brief and sufficiently vague to alienate no one. Morris's book is not the place to look for an objective appraisal of the tentative candidate. Steward Alsop's analysis of Nixon and Rockefeller accomplished much more within more defined limits.