"On Our Guard"

Addressing the New York state legislature, Nelson Rockefeller sounded every bit as frugal as Lyndon Johnson. Urging fiscal austerity, Rocky promised a balanced budget with "no increase in taxes." Otherwise, his message had a preoccupied air to it, sounding to Albany's Knickerbocker News like "a last-minute fill-in by someone who is going away for a while."

Obviously, Rocky's mind was on bigger things than state legislative affairs. Speaking to Washington's National Press Club, he, too, examined President Johnson's State of the Union speech and found it wanting--largely on the ground that it dangled promises that "simply will not be delivered at the quoted price."

Afterward, there was a question and answer session. How would he go about defeating Lyndon Johnson? "I've got to get the nomination first." Would he support Goldwater if the Arizonan were nominated? "I will support any Republican nominated on a good Republican platform, and he will win." Would he withdraw if he lost the New Hampshire primary? "No, sir. I'm going all the way."

In a Manchester speech, Rocky even chided Goldwater for relaxing his guard against Communism. "I was a little surprised when Barry Goldwater said on Meet the Press that he didn't think the Communist threat in America was something we really had to worry much about," said Rockefeller. "I don't think we can take it that lightly. I think this is something we have to be on our guard about all the time, no matter how much there is talk about coexistence." Rockefeller recalled an experience in 1945, when he was an Assistant Secretary of State attending the U.N. organizational meeting in San Francisco. At that time, he said, he was the only Assistant Secretary of State there who was briefed daily by agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

"I met with them at 7:30 in my room every morning," he said, "and they told me what was going on because they were the ones who were responsible for security.

"They came in one morning and said, 'We've got the goods on Alger Hiss.' This was in '45, mind you, long before anything else broke."

Rockefeller said he had told no one else in the State Department because other officials were suspicious that perhaps he was part of "a fascist organization" within the department.

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