(4 of 7)
As he started to draft a platform acceptable to Nelson Rockefeller, Percy had to hold off insistent pressures from the Old Guard led by Arizona's outspoken Senator Barry Goldwater, who inherited the late Robert Taft's role as the golden boy of Republican conservatism. Where the hearts of the Platform Committee's members lay was vividly evident in the contrasting receptions they gave Rockefeller and Goldwater last week. They listened to Rockefeller with polite attention, never once interrupted him with applause. When Goldwater appeared later the same day to urge the committee to shun the "destructive idea that you can get something for nothing," the members greeted him with a cheering, shouting, whistling outburst, later interrupted his speech again and again with ardent clapping. "If we weren't concerned with winning," a high convention official said, "our sympathies would be almost unanimously with Goldwater."
All the Way. The Nixon camp's ho-?es that the platform carpentered by Chuck Percy would satisfy Nelson Rockefeller got a bruising jolt toward wask's end. ''The Governor," announced Rockefeller Press Secretary Robert L. McManus, "is deeply concerned that the drafts on a number of matters—including national defense, foreign policy and some critical domestic issues—are still seriously lacking in strength and specifics." Clearly implied was a floor fight that might scar the G.O.P. and furnish invaluable ammunition for the Democrats.
The implied threat of a showdown decided Nixon on a course of action that he had been turning over in his mind ever since the Democratic Convention nominated the Kennedy-Johnson ticket: a face-to-face conference with Rockefeller. Without ever discussing his plan with his staff, Nixon got New York Lawyer Herbert Brownell, Tom Dewey's (1944 and 1948) campaign manager and Attorney General in the original Eisenhower Cabinet, to call Rockefeller to arrange a meeting. Brownell suggested that the meeting take place at his home in Manhattan, but, on the telephoned advice of his staff ers in Chicago, Rockefeller insisted on holding the meeting at his own home. "Tell Dick to call me," said Rocky to Brownell. Minutes later, Nixon was on the phone. "Nelson," he said, "I want to go all the way with you on defense and foreign policy. You've got me off the hook" — meaning that Rockefeller had provided him with an opportunity to ex press his policy differences with the Ad ministration without seeming disloyal to the President.
Three-Way Hookup. That evening, accompanied by his Air Force aide and one Secret Service agent, Nixon flew to New York on Eastern Air Lines' Flight 510.* After dinner (lamb chops) at the Fifth Avenue apartment, Nixon plied Rockefeller with reasons why he ought to run for Vice President on the Nixon ticket. He described his plans for making the vice-presidency an even more important office than it came to be during the Eisenhower Administration.