Making Friends in the House

"Nothing delights me so much," Nelson Rockefeller told the House Judiciary Committee, "as facing up to a complex public issue, with all its confusions, turmoil and intensity, and trying to pull together the human resources to deal with it." That pleasure was put to the test last week, as Rockefeller withstood the most intense interrogation of his career, covering almost every possible substantive issue and personal idiosyncrasy. Fresh from its impeachment triumph, the committee was plainly determined to outdo its Senate counterpart, the Rules Committee, in dissecting the Rockefeller persona and finding out what makes it tick. Rockefeller, on the other hand, was no less concerned with clearing his name of any hint of scandal or conflict of interest. It was a rigorous confrontation of intellect and ideology in which, in a way, both sides emerged as winners.

Since the Senate Rules Committee had scoured the affair of the Goldberg book and the various loans to associates, the Judiciary Committee focused on larger questions, stretching but by no means snapping Rockefeller's capacity to respond. The committee's concern was, fundamentally, the possibility of unceasing conflict of interest if Rockefeller should become President. With a kind of waspish persistence that the Senators had not employed, Democrat Don Edwards wanted to know how Rocky could not avoid making decisions that would affect his own or his family's holdings.

Taxing Oil. There would be conflict in an 8 a.m. decision on banks, suggested Edwards, a 9 a.m. decision on oil, a 10 a.m. decision on airlines, an 11 a.m. decision on communications and a noon decision on insurance. Replied Rockefeller: "I think that's absurd. The decisions you refer to affect the American people. They don't affect the Rockefeller family." Throughout, he was at pains to separate his family's wealth from the actual management of companies. "I have not followed the management of the companies I invest in. They are investments for investment, not for control." Though his family has heavy investments in oil stocks, he reminded the committee that he favors an excess profits tax on oil companies.

Continuing the attack, Edwards cited a study indicating that in recent years representatives of the Rockefeller family have sat on the boards of almost 100 corporations with assets of some $70 billion. Rocky replied that such a figure is "totally misleading." Ever since President Theodore Roosevelt broke up the Standard Oil monopoly, he said, the Rockefellers have exercised only marginal control over the oil industry. Family influence hardly compares with that of other groups. "The three major American insurance companies invest $156 million a week. The pension funds of the country invest $200 million a week. The Arabs in a week are accumulating more money than my family has after three generations of work."

Edwards quoted a member of the family, John D. (Jay) Rockefeller IV, about David Rockefeller, chairman of the Chase Manhattan Bank: "He may be the most powerful man in the country." Rocky replied that Jay also said, "Rockefellers always get their way." Jay, in fact, was defeated when he ran as the Democratic candidate for Governor of West Virginia in 1972. Pressured to ask other members of the Rockefeller family to reveal their financial holdings, Nelson said, hesitantly, that he would give it a try.

Though he held his own in the economic argument, Rockefeller offered a concession. He pledged that if he were confirmed, he would put all his assets in a blind trust, except for art and real estate, including four farms in Venezuela. In an exchange with New York's Charles Rangel, Rockefeller refused to retreat from his position that it would have been a mistake to have himself met with the Attica prison rebels.

Clear Majority. In the most pointed questioning, Paul Sarbanes of Maryland noted that two former Secretaries of Defense, Robert S. McNamara and Charles E. Wilson, had sold their stock when they took office. "Should they have done that, Governor?" Said Rocky: "If someone is dishonest by nature, then he's going to favor his company no matter whether he's sold the stock or not."

Sarbanes provided another example.

When David Packard became Deputy Secretary of Defense, he not only put his holdings in trust, but he also agreed to give any money from capital appreciation to schools and charities.

What about that, Governor?

Nettled, Rockefeller answered:

"I never quite understood why he did that. It's getting more and more difficult to get people of ability and experience to work for Government."

Though some members of the committee were not satisfied, Rockefeller had apparently won over a clear majority. "We might not have had the Declaration of Independence," commented Republican Robert McClory, "if some of the standards that people want to apply to Rockefeller had been applied to the founding fathers." Firm in his answers but not overbearing, waving, winking and even blowing kisses at old friends, Rockefeller had plainly made some new friends in the course of his performance. Said the committee's most caustic member, Texas Representative Jack Brooks: "I think you may be overtrained for the job." Alabama Democrat Walter Flowers was pleasantly reassured. "The guy's got style.

It's a very fresh breeze. He's the kind of man I could talk to. A blind trust is the most he can do, except declare himself a pauper and give away everything he's got."

Given those attitudes, Rockefeller is expected to have less trouble winning confirmation than was previously thought. Not more than a dozen committee members are likely to vote against him when hearings conclude in early December. Last week the Senate Rules Committee voted unanimously to confirm him, and an Associated Press poll indicated that only five Senators plan to vote against him on the floor, with 16 undecided. Barring the unforeseen, Rocky should receive the nicest Christmas present of his life.

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