The nation's first billionaire believed that the power to make money was "a gift from God to be developed and used to the best of our ability for the good of mankind." Along with the bulk of his fortune, John D. Rockefeller passed that belief on to his only son, John D. Jr., who transmitted it to his own six children. After John D. Jr.'s death in 1960 at the age of 86, Lyndon Johnson said of him: "That old man up in heaven—or wherever he may be—must be awfully proud of all his boys. Every one of them's been a public servant."
The Brothers, as John D. Jr.'s boys are called, have earned L.B.J.'s accolade. From the family headquarters on the 56th floor of 30 Rockefeller Plaza in Manhattan, they have reached out across the globe to give not only their money but also their time to a wide variety of public causes. "The word is stewardship" says John D. III. "What we inherited was ours on a service basis." The 56th floor is divided into four suites, one for each of the four surviving sons of John D. Jr. They are John D. Ill, 68, Nelson, 66, Laurance, 64, and David, 59.
There is no office for the fifth son, Winthrop, who died of cancer 19 months ago at age 60. He moved to Arkansas in the '50s, where he revitalized the state Republican Party and served two terms as Governor (1966-70). He gave millions to education and other causes in his adopted state and as Governor attempted to reform the state's notorious prison system. Nor is there an office in Rockefeller Plaza for John Jr.'s oldest child, Daughter Abby Mauze, 70, the widow of Banker Jean Mauze. Although she has been a major contributor to cancer research and donated a small park to New York City, she and her philanthropies have been overshadowed by those of her brothers. Explains John D. Ill: "It was five to one, and this was before women's lib."
In 1940 the six children of John D. Jr. established the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, to which their father willed half his estate. The fund is the one philanthropy that they operate jointly. In 1972 it made nearly 300 grants totaling more than $11 million. Now John D. Jr.'s grandchildren, the Cousins, as the family calls them, are carrying the tradition into the fourth generation. With their parents, they have created the Rockefeller Family Fund, described by a staffer as a "swinging" philanthropy that supports projects in five areas: conservation, equal opportunity for women, institutional "responsiveness," the arts and public aesthetics, and education.
Population problems have been the most abiding concern of John D. III. He helped support Birth Control Pioneer Margaret Sanger in the 1930s and in 1952 established the Population Council, which supports contraception research and family-planning programs around the globe. John D. III's concern over campus turmoil in the late '60s inspired his Task Force on Youth, set up to encourage and support projects in which the young can collaborate with the Establishment.