1964 was a very good year. I was 2l and life in New York City was all glamour. I was working on the "Rockefeller Presidential Campaign" to find out what politics is really about. I had worked in insurance, been a stewardess for American Airlines, and had also worked at a Madison Avenue Advertising Agency. I thought these jobs had been either phony or boring. (I had read J.D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye, twice in college; thought I knew New York somehow; and had picked up those words "phony" and "boring" from Holton Caufield). 

However, it did seem that a Rockefeller running for President, was somewhat like the King running for President. This was Nelson Rockefeller’s second of three tries for the Presidency.  Another Rockefeller brother, Winthrop, was Governor of Arkansas where I was raised..

The campaign headquarters was located on Fifth Avenue around 43rd Street on the third floor. There were volunteers and about 25 on staff. The campaign director was John Wells of the prominent law firm Rogers & Wells. Mr. Wells was a short, fat, personable man always bouncing in with a gigantic briefcase. His partner William Rogers later became Secretary of State under President Nixon, and , I believe, Richard Nixon had worked at the law firm Rogers & Wells. 

In July 1999 Rogers & Wells merged with some other gigantic, multi-national law firm to become the largest law firm in the world.

The deputy director of the campaign was the great Black baseball player Jackie Robinson. Speechwriting was done by William Safire, who later went on to work for the New York Times Editorial Department. The TV advertising was done by Jerry Danzig and Dennis Kane.

I worked for Colonel Bligh, who looked like a Colonel. He was in charge of housing, transportation, whatever else had to be done for the Rockefeller people at the upcoming Republican convention in San Francisco. Bligh and many others there had worked with the New York Republican Party organization over the years. They were a very close, nice group of people.

Another attorney from Rogers & Wells was Chester Grant. I don’t quite know what he did, but he was at the campaign headquarters a lot. Chester was the great, great Grandson of President Grant, and Chester was a completely charming Ivy Leaguer with the "general" and law degree edge and terrific sense of humor. Grant later opened and headed the Paris office of Rogers & Wells. Grant’s friend Judy Lasky of San Francisco worked on the campaign, and we three became friends. Judy was elegant by any standard, and she could really lay on the "affluence air about her." Judy says "you call a vase - a v a a z - if it costs over $75.00." Thanks, Judy, I really needed that information. She was completely charming, though. Judy had a lovely apartment in the East 50’s and Chester Grant had a three story, magnificent townhouse in the same exclusive area of Manhattan.

I lived uptown near the Mayor’s House, Gracie Mansion, on East 89 and First. I had just leased my 5 - floor walk-up apartment, and it was completely bare. The lovely ladies at the campaign had a "house warming" for me providing me with essentials. Another lady on the campaign got me on one of those daytime game shows called "What’s My Line", and the celebrities guessed I was "4-H Queen" or "Miss Home Economics Queen" instead of the real teenage queen person, and I made some extra money on that.  Rockefeller’s wife "Happy" came to visit the campaign headquarters, and I had my picture taken with her which was then published in the Arkansas paper where my Mother lives.

Rockefeller’s marriage to Happy was controversial. They were both divorced. Each had four or five children, and she was now pregnant with a Rockefeller. During the Sixties, politicians could not be divorced, only movie stars and rock stars.

Rockefeller’s opponent for the Republican nomination was long time "Hawk", U.S. Senator Barry Goldwater of Arizona.  Senator Goldwater wanted to use a nuclear bomb to bomb Vietnam back to the stone age.   Goldwater was odds on favorite to receive the Republican nomination. (3/13/01  Someone pointed out the quote "bomb Vietnam back to the stone age" could be attributable to Gen. Curtis LeMay of the Strategic Air Command.  This is my impression of events, and the politicians who guide us.) 

Lyndon Baines Johnson from Texas was the Democratic President, having succeeded to the Presidency due to the JFK Assassination, and would most certainly be the Democratic Party’s nominee.

The campaign (if a Rockefeller can really have a campaign) was rather uneventful. We were always busy. The most telling think about Rockefeller is that he didn’t know what "take home pay" meant. He came to the campaign headquarters, went around and shook everybody’s hand, and said "Hi yaw’ Fellow" to me. That was what he always said when he waved to the crowds and met people. I smiled..

The 1964 Republican National Convention was held in the beautiful city of San Francisco at the Cow Palace. Colonel Bligh skillfully took care of all Rockefeller people’s hotel and convention needs. The best part of this campaign was nobody ever talked about needing money, and there was always food and supplies to go around.

Some of the Rockefeller campaign workers participated in the "Rockefeller spontaneous demonstration" after his name was placed in nomination.  I had on my Rockefeller hat, and vest, and carrying a huge sign, and we all strutted out there on the floor for the Rockefellers. 

Whoops, the crowd gets unruly, I’m being pushed around by some Vietnam protesters, or Goldwater demonstrators, and I get slammed up against the wall under the podium. A newsman pulled me out of the way. Must have been someone from NBC, because their yearbook had my picture, full page, looking pretty but glum as a Rockefeller "demonstrator".  I did not attend the convention again.

Goldwater got the Republican Presidential nomination, and as protocol dictates, the whole convention offers as a courtesy and show of a united Republican Party to make the vote "unanimous".  Five New York delegates "walked out" of the Convention Hall rather than make the vote unanimous." One of those memorable delegates was Johnny Ellis of Eastman Dillon.

". . .Extremism in the pursuit of liberty is no vice, and . . . moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue." Goldwater bellowed in his acceptance speech to the Republicans from the Podium of the Cow Palace at the Republican National Convention in San Francisco in 1964. .

An acquaintance from Dallas had been a Green Beret in Vietnam, Cambodia, and/or Laos since 1960, and was now on his second tour of duty in Vietnam. I wondered what would happen to him.

The LBJ campaign continuously ran a TV advertisement of a little girl standing out in a field holding a flower, and then getting blown up by an atomic bomb. Well, not quite, but the next shot after the little girl is the magnificent mushroom cloud of a nuclear explosion. The message being ... if . . . Goldwater gets elected that’s what will happen.

The Goldwater camp cried fowl.

President Lyndon Baines Johnson won the 1964 Presidency in a landslide. From about 50,000 American combat troops in Vietnam in 1964, President Johnson had increased it to almost 500,000 by 1968. By the time the Americans left Vietnam in the Seventies, 57,000 American soldiers had been killed.

Then in 1968 LBJ said "I shall not seek, nor accept the nomination of my party for the Presidency of the United States" . . .because of Vietnam. LBJ’s Vice President Hubert Humphrey loses by 220,000 votes to Mr. Richard Nixon, and then President Nixon appoints William Rogers of Rogers & Wells to become Secretary of State..

Who are the Kings, and who are the "hired guns"?

In Paris I saw Chester Grant’s Rogers & Wells office. It was indeed the largest, most elaborate office I’ve ever seen and only as the French can do. I used to see Chester every year or so when he came to attend an annual "Paris in New York" event at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel on Park Avenue. Chester also I believe had an Admiral Uncle with the 7th Fleet off Vietnam.

This is certainly a "small world" of foreign policy makers, and now I see in September 1999, that former Secretary of State, George Schultz, under LBJ during the build-up of American troops in Vietnam is foreign policy adviser to front runner Republican Presidential candidate, Governor Bush of Texas, son of President Bush who made his success in the oil industry.

We know who the elected officials are, but who are the Kings? Who are the hired guns?  But most important, who are the heroes?

2001 Update:  The new Bush administration takes the former Bush administration's Deputy Cabinet.  The Florida Superior Court Chief Judge is named Wells.  I would wager that is the same Wells family connected with the Rockefeller family.  

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