Notes for: Nelson Aldrich Rockefeller

US Republican politician; governor of New York (1958-73) and vice-president of the USA (1974-77). The grandson of John D. Rockefeller (1839-1937), founder of the celebrated dynasty, Nelson Rockefeller graduated from Dartmouth College in 1930 before joining the Rockefeller Center. He later served as its chairman (1945-53). Following a spell at the State Department during the early 1940s, Rockefeller served in the Eisenhower administration as chairman of the president's advisory committee on government organization and was also involved in health and foreign affairs. 1958 saw his election as Republican governor of New York State, and in 1964 he just failed to secure the Republican presidential nomination from Barry Goldwater (1909- ). He was again unsuccessful in 1968. Resigning his governorship in December 1973, Rockefeller was appointed vice-president by Gerald Ford but did not seek further office when his term expired in 1977. Nelson Rockefeller was for many years a trustee of the Museum of Modern Art in New York and also served as its president and chairman. In 1954 he founded the Museum of Primitive Art, also in New York. [Who's Who in the Twentieth Century, Oxford University Press, Market House Books Ltd,1999]