Nothing so became Nelson Rockefeller in the vice presidency of the U.S. as his renunciation of it. In a week of tawdry infighting and ugly speculation, he struck one of the few grace notes.
No one ever went to more trouble than Rockefeller to attain an office for which he was, if anything, overqualified. He was subjected to relentless, often brutal questioning by his congressional investigators. Yet after less than a year in office he announced last week that "it's just not worth it" to remain on the ticket. He was candid about the reasons for his decision. "I came down to Washington to serve the country I love and to help in solving the problems which we face. I did not come down to get caught up in party squabbles. I came here to help the President, not to complicate his life."
Rocky did not arrive in Washington with exaggerated expectations. Aware of how precarious the vice presidency could be, he tried to head off criticism by making himself close to invisible. He called himself a "staff man, an assistant to the President." He deferred to the President, sang his praises and never took public issue with him. Even so, his very presence was upsetting to the lesser men around him. Says a Rockefeller associate: "The White House staff was sitting there, like tigers at the gate, waiting for him to make his move, ready to jump him."
He remained unacceptable to the G.O.P.'s hard-core right wing, which had never forgiven him for his opposition to Barry Goldwater in 1964. Nothing Rocky did could assuage them. When Howard ("Bo") Callaway, a Georgia conservative, was named Ford's campaign chairman, he went out of his way to say that Rocky was Ford's "No. 1 problem" in winning the nomination. In an effort to pacify his enemies, Rocky went South to exchange compliments with George Wallace, but the trip riled liberals without changing the minds of many conservatives. A September Harris poll showed that only 34% of the American public wanted Rocky as Vice President on the 1976 ticket. Noted an exasperated Rocky supporter in the White House: "Whatever he's doing out there, it's not working."
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Rockefeller finally stopped being a team player when he broke with the President over New York City. The split was not acrimonious. When Rocky was quoted as saying that default would be a "catastrophe," the President mildly reprimanded him but did not order him to stop speaking out. White House aides, on the other hand, were more emphatic. Donald Rumsfeld, said a Rocky sympathizer, was "jumping up and down." Already miffed because the President had backed Rocky's plan for a $100 billion energy independence authority, Treasury Secretary William Simon joined the sniping. As the pressures mounted, Rocky decided to take himself out of the race. When he revealed his intentions to the President two weeks ago, Ford did not try to dissuade him. In fact, a Rockefeller source claims, Ford accepted with unseemly alacrity.