Q: Governor Rockefeller, should we now cease the bombing of North Vietnam?
A: I'm not prepared to make any tactical suggestion.
ROCKEFELLER's record since 1968 shows more such sleazy conservatism and mindless opportunism.
He is recognized as an "urban" spokesman, but he has accelerated the decay of Manhattan by starving New York City for funds. This he did partly to make potential political rival John Lindsay look bad.
He undertook an extended mission to Latin America for Nixon in 1969. While he courted fascist dictators in their palaces, he was vilified in the streets--and that puzzled him.
He gave the order for state troopers to storm Attica prison. Forty-three men died, most of them prisoners. A Rockefeller-appointed commission later blamed the deaths on police gunfire, but no policeman has yet been indicted--and Rockefeller is not puzzled by that.
He steered a law through the state legislature requiring life sentences without parole for convicted heroin pushers. That hasn't forced them out of business, though; it has merely made their heroin more expensive, which means addicts must now rob more apartments, and mug more old women, to get enough money.
There are, of course, positive sides to Rocky's record. He refused to endorse Goldwater in 1964 even though he suffered intense scorn from party regulars. He signed New York's liberated abortion law, one of the nation's first, and fought attempts to repeal it. He has never been accused of corruption (although that reflects more credit on his family fortune than his scruples).
As Nelson Rockefeller begins his fourth presidential campaign today, it is tempting to laugh him off as a rich man's Harold Stassen. But he is more substantial than that, and therefore more dangerous.
Rockefeller might win the Republican nomination and even the presidency. That he would be better than Richard Nixon means nothing. That he is an ebullient, personable, witty man means nothing.
Above all, Rockefeller is the rigid conservative that he now swears he is. He is not tilting rightward to win the nomination, only to tilt to the left after his election. In places like Arizona and North Dakota, speaking before Republicans who are happy with America and cling to the status quo, Nelson Rockefeller is showing his true colors. Listen to him.