Changes
|spouse=[[Mary Rockefeller|Mary Todhunter Clark]]
|spouse2=Margaretta Fitler Murphy
|religion=[[Baptist]]
}}
'''Nelson Rockefeller''' (born July 8, 1908 in Bar Harbor Maine, died January 26, 1979 in New York, New York) was Vice President of the USA under President [[Gerald Ford|Gerald R. Ford]] from 1974-1977. He was also Governor of New York, and ran unsuccessfully for the Republican presidential nomination in 1960, 1964, and 1968. He was a liberal Republican.
He graduated from Dartmouth College in 1930. He married Mary Todhunter Clark on June 23 of that year, a few days after his graduation. Together they had five children. He divorced her in 1962 and the following year married Margretta Fitler Murphy and he had two children with her and remained married to her until his death in 1979.
He was also a prominent capitalist businessman and liberal Republican politician. He was the son of industrialist [[John D. Rockefeller, Jr. ]] and the grandson of Standard Oil's founder and owner [[John D. Rockefeller]]. He was also the maternal grandson of USA Senator [[Nelson Aldrich|Nelson W. Aldrich]] of Rhode Island. He was an adviser to President [[Franklin Roosevelt]] during [[World War II]] and headed office of [[Coordinator of Inter-American Affairs]] (CIAA).
After the war he continued as an adviser to President Truman and helped him to develop anti-communist geopolitical programs during the [[Cold War]] such such as Point Four. He also was an adviser to President Eisenhower. He left the Eisenhower administration eventually, though.
In 1958 he won his party's nomination to be governor of New York and proceeded to win the general election against Democratic incumbent Averill Harriman in an otherwise Democratic year. He unsuccessfully sought his party's presidential nomination in 1960 but withdrew from the race when it became clear that [[Richard Nixon]] would win the nomination. He supported campaigned for Nixon enthusiastically in the general election campaign. But Nixon still lost to Kennedy.
In 1964 Rockefeller again sought the Republican presidential nomination but lost to conservative USA Senator [[Barry Goldwater]] of [[Arizona]]. Rockefeller backed Goldwater in the general election, but with much less enthusiasm more caution than he had supported Nixon. Rockefeller refused to publicly campaign with Goldwater. In 1968 Rockefeller again sought his party's presidential nomination but lost to Nixon.
He then supported Nixon enthusiastically wholeheartedly in the general election. After Nixon resigned because of the [[Watergate scandal ]] affair and Vice President Ford, who had himself replaced the elected vice became president [[Spiro Agnew]] through appointment because Agnew had had to resign because of tax evasion, the new president appointed Rockefeller vice president, before there was a competition between Rockefeller and George Bush to persuade Ford to pick them for the Vice Presidency. <ref>Parmet, Herbert George Bush: The Life of a Lone Star Yankee pages 168-171</ref> Rockefeller was replaced by USA Senator [[Robert Dole]] as the Republican party's vice presidential nominee in 1976, due to opposition by conservatives to Rockefeller. He campaigned for Ford and Dole enthusiastically, but after the campaign he retired. He died of a heart attack in 1979.
==References==
{{reflist|2}}
[[Category:Finance]]
{{USVicePresidents}}
[[Category:New York]]
[[Category:Republicans]][[Category:RINOs]][[Category:Vice Presidents of the United States ]][[Category:New York Governors]][[Category:Republican PartyGovernors]][[Category:ChristiansUnited States Politicians]]
