It is my understanding, and I could be corrected, that at no time did Governor Rockefeller ever ask Attorney General Lefkowitz about the legality of his gifts and loans. And I suggest that this refusal even to recognize the existence of serious questions of conflict and legality, can only stem from Mr. Rockefeller's arrogance of wealth. There is further evidence of the insensitivity of Mr. Rockefeller to the question of conflict. As Governor of New York, he dealt with problems involving the family's Chase Manhattan Bank (it represented Triborough Bridge bondholders when Mr. Rockefeller negotiated the merger of Triborough and the Transit Authority), involving H. Ross Perot-also tied financially to the Chase Manhattan Bank-the World Trade Center supported by David Rockefeller and filled by State offices under Nelson Rockefeller. Mr. Nelson Rockefeller's defense essentially is that the did not favor Rockefeller interests. This committee has a duty to explore the question whether he did or did not favor Rockefeller interests, but it is not the only question involved. Mr. Rockefeller should not have entered the arena where these conflicts existed, so that there was a possibility of favoring one side or the other. Whatever may have been the situation as Governor of New York, there is no way to insulate Mr. Rockefeller as President from decisions affecting business and financial institutions controlled by the Rockefeller family. Blind trusts or divestiture-adequate possibly for Charles Wilson, Robert McNamara, or David Packard are meaningless here. A vote for confirmation is a vote for a President who will never spend a day without a serious conflict of interest and whose White House will exist under a dark cloud of suspicion. There are two other matters for consideration by the committee. ADA believes that Mr. Rockefeller is disqualified on grounds of conflict of interest. But two additional matters which, although possibly not disqualifying in themselves, lend weight to the case for rejection of the nomination. First, Attica. Mr. Rockefeller's failure to go to Attica resulted in 39 deaths. While this failure of courage in a single instance may not be disqualifying, one wonders how those who challenged Senator Edward Kennedy's Presidential aspirations because of a lapse of courage connected with another death can square this with support for Mr. Rockefeller's confirmation after Attica. Equally serious, Mr. Rockefeller's account of Attica at his earlier hearing before this committee exhibited an unusual lack of candor. We ask that Mr. Tom Wicker's column on this question of candor in the October 1 New York Times be included in the record at this point and suggest that Mr. Rockefeller be questioned on the issues raised by Mr. Wicker. [The article referred to follows:] [From the New York Times, Oct. 1, 1974] HINDSIGHT ON ATTICA WON'T WASH (By Tom Wicker) Congress ought to explore thoroughly the qualifications and attitudes of any man who is to stand a heartbeat from the Presidency. But last week before the Senate Judiciary (sic) Committee, the response of Nelson Rockefeller to a question about the Attica prison rebellion raised serious questions about his memory, his veracity or both; the committee only let the matter drop. Mr. Rockefeller did concede, tacitly but for the first time, that as Governor of New York, he should not have permitted the armed attack on the prison on Sept. 13, 1971. That attack resulted in the deaths of 39 guards and inmates and the wounding of more than 80 other men. Two days later, Mr. Rockefeller said the attackers-the New York State Police had done a "superb job." To the Judiciary (sic) Committee, he said last week, "The procedure... namely to go ahead at the beginning without weapons and which was stopped in the process, which procedure has now been re-established by the State, is the best procedure and . . . if this would happen again I would think that was the proper way to proceed." It may comfort the families of 39 dead men that Mr. Rockefeller now believes it would have been better not to use firearms. Mr. Rockefeller's other testimony on Attica largely obfuscated or distorted what happened there, including his own role. He said, for example, that Bobby Seale of the Black Panthers and William Kunstler, the attorney, "coincidentally arrived on the scene." Both men, in fact, were asked to come as "observers" by the rebelling inmates, as part of their demands for a negotiated settlement and the state agreed to their presence. Again, Mr. Rockefeller told the Senators that "by about the third of fourth day of the rebellion, his Commissioner of Corrections, Russell G. Oswald, was "fearful of his life" and would not go back into the prison. The fact is that Mr. Oswald did not return to the prison after the second day, not because he was "fearful of his life"-he had gone courageously into the prison yard three times-but because of a direct inmate threat to take him hostage. At a crucial point in the negotiations, Mr. Rockefeller said of the observer group that the state had helped to assemble, "One by one they left *** fearing their lives and the only man who was left who had the courage to stay and argue with the prisoners was Mr. Clarence Jones of the Amsterdam News ***." Clarence Jones is a brave man who repeatedly proved it at Attica. But on the occasion to which the Governor referred, at least half the observer group remained in the prison yard with him. The other half left only because they thought the entire group was leaving, and because a pledge had been exacted from them by Commissioner Oswald that all would leave together. The group who left included this writer. It included also Representative Herman Badillo of New York, one of the most courageous and effective of the observers, as well as Mr. Kunstler. But when he heard that the Jones group had remained in the prison yard he immediately returned there and made a bold speech that Mr. Oswald later praised and which many of the other observers, including Clarence Jones, though might have saved them from being taken hostage. Nelson Rockefeller was at that time and throughout the rebellion and the State Police attack nowhere near the Attica prison yard. When members of the observer committee asked him to come, he told the Judiciary (sic) Committee, "I think . . . that they had failed and that therefore, rather than to have to say we have failed in this maybe if somebody else would come, maybe something would happen ***.' This is a false and gratuitous slur on the observers' motives. Mr. Jones, Mr. Badillo. State Senator John Dunne of New York and this writer all told Mr. Rockefeller by telephone that if he would come to Attica to talk with the observers (not the inmates), time might be gained in which a negotiated settlement might be arranged, and the Governor's good faith in seeking such a settlement would be demonstrated to the inmates. Before the Senate committee, Mr. Rockefeller attributed to himself a proposal that he come to Attica after the inmates had given up their hostages. In fact, Russell Oswald made that proposal to Nelson Rockefeller, who turned it down. Mr. Rockefeller also said the deaths of 10 guards from State Police gunfire was due mainly to "overfire" from troopers trying to protect another from inmate attack. The New York State Commission on Attica raised serious doubts about this explanation 2 years ago; and it is simply not true, as Mr. Rockefeller claimed, that "the instructions of the State Police were not to use their weapons unless one of their own had to be defended." The irrefutable truth is that for 6 solid minutes, that bloody morning. New York State Police poured indiscriminate buckshot and rifle fire into a milling mass of gas-blinded inmates. The result was that one of every 10 persons in the prison yard and a quarter of the hostages were hit. Thirty-nine died, and no hindsight or prevarication will bring them back. Mr. RAUH. Second, the Lasky book. At the outset I want to make clear that it is not the circumstances of the book that seem to me detrimental to Governor Rockefeller but rather the testimony about the book by Mr. Rockefeller and his family. An unusual lack of candor was exhibited by Mr. Rockefeller concerning the Lasky book. When asked about the book by reporters last month, he denied involvement and asserted that he would have told his brother Laurance not to finance the undertaking if he had known about his brother's involvement. The facts are the exact opposite. Nelson Rockefeller sent word to his brother urging him to finance the undertaking. Mr. Rockefeller's contention to this committee that his erroneous public statement on the question resulted from lack of consideration of the facts flies in the face of his questioning about this matter by the FBI a month earlier. And, as late as last week, the Rockefeller group tried to have this committee believe that the whole mess was a commercial venture. Luckily, neither the committee nor the public paid much attention to this story. If the public really believed Rockefeller business interests were handled in the casual manner of the Lasky book, New York would have been treated to the unlikely spectacle of a run on the Chase Manhattan Bank. In conclusion, ADA urges the committee to reject the nomination of Mr. Rockefeller on grounds of conflict of interest. No one, including the nominee, has sought to answer the conflict question. Mr. Rockefeller tried to shove it under the rug by calling the economic interests and power of his family a "myth," but one will search in vain for anyone who believes that statement. He referred last week to the "limited value of private resources whatever they are," but admitted he had used over $20 million in personal and family funds in his political campaigns. He defended gifts to public officials in a position to help him on grounds of generosity despite the fact that those gifts, at the very least, barely skirted a New York anticonflict law which it was his duty, as Governor, to enforce. Mr. Rockefeller apparently believes that he is above and beyond any problems of conflict, but the issue is too pervasive and the cynicism with government today too great to expect it to evaporate. In the name of untainted government above and beyond suspicion, we ask this committee to complete its investigation and reject the nomination. The CHAIRMAN. Thank you very much, Mr. Rauh. It seems to me that if the committee were to follow your argument on the conflict of interest question, that we could never have a situation where a man of wealth or a family of wealth could be approved for either Vice President or President of the country. Is that the kind of a precedent that you would like to have established? Mr. RAUH. No, indeed, sir. I supported Averell Harriman for President of the United States in 1952, and am proud to say that. And just before I did, I discussed this problem with him. I think there is a difference when one's great wealth is channelable into particular areas, and one can recuse himself in those areas. I think these are differences of degree. I was also a supporter of President Kennedy, who was not a man without wealth. So I recognize the problem, and I thought about the problem before I came here. I do not take lightly opposing Governor Rockefeller, and I thought about this problem of conflict at considerable length, sir. My view is that there is a difference in degree of great magnitude here; there is no way in which Mr. Rockefeller can recuse himself from problems directly affecting the interests of the Rockefeller empire. I do not believe that has been true of other wealthy persons seeking the Presidency. It does seem to me that your point is right, that no one should be barred because of his wealth. I believe Governor Rockefeller is barred because the business and financial empire of the Rockefellers is so great that every decision he will make will affect that empire. I do not believe that is true of every other wealthy person. And it is on that basis that I make the distinction. The CHAIRMAN. Well, I am glad that you do point out that you are not taking a position where a man of wealth could never aspire to hold the highest or the next highest office in the land. Mr. RAUH. I think people of wealth can have biases, and I think poor people can have biases, as you or someone else pointed out the other day when I was here auditing the hearing. That is not the point. I am not making the point that Mr. Rockefeller is biased because of his wealth. I am making the point that he has conflicts of interest because of the Rockefeller empire, and a man should not make decisions in a conflict of interest situation, whether he makes them one way or another. I am sure that the judge who has one share of stock in a company is not making his decision on that basis, but we hold that he should not sit in a case involving the company because we do not want him put in the position where there will be a suspicion that he favored the company or that he leaned over backwards against it. The CHAIRMAN. I must say I was impressed in this hearing by the fact that Governor Rockefeller, in 15 years as Governor of New York, did not have serious charges of conflict of interest during that period of time. Now, he certainly was susceptible in that 15-year period, in what was during much of that time the largest State of the Union, and during part of it the second largest State. There have been no charges, that I deem serious charges, in the course of these hearings charging him with conflict of interest decisions during that period of time. Mr. RAUH. I thought that there were serious charges against Mr. Rockefeller with respect to the Triborough Bridge bondholders matter, with respect to Mr. Perot, and with respect to the World Trade Center. And I said to you that I was not making a claim that he had favored the Rockefeller interests because I do not think we have the burden of proof that he favored them. There are some charges he favored them in the book discussed here. Mr. Rockefeller called the book a tissue of lies or something. It does make that charge. I do not. How can one human being do the kind of investigation that one has to do to make any one of these charges-they are a monumental task in and of themselves. But I say Mr. Rockefeller should not have put himself in the position where the charge can be made. The point about conflict is not that you go and feather your nest. The point is that you should not be put where you are making a de cision either to help your economic interest or to hurt it. It is on that basis, really, that I would rest my case. I am not calling Governor Rockefeller names or saying that he has done something wrong other, I would suggest, than the gifts he made and the question of getting into the arena of conflict. I am not saying he favored the side where his family's interests lay. The CHAIRMAN. You referred to the Triborough Bridge incident. The record of these hearings actually discloses that the people who benefited as a result of the Triborough Bridge settlement were the ordinary persons who were users of the subway and mass transportation system in the State of New York, not the Chase Manhattan Bank, as has been alleged. The Chase Manhattan Bank was a nominal party in the proceeding, as it has been laid on the record here. Mr. RAUH. They did represent the bondholders who had an interest. The CHAIRMAN. They were trustees for the bondholders, and the bondholders themselves gave up certain benefits and received a quarter percent more rate of return, which enured to the benfit of the traveling people of the State of New York rather than to someone else, as I saw it here. Senator Scott. Senator HUGH SCOTT. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. RAUH, you said "We in the ADA oppose Governor Rockefeller." Did you have a mass meeting of the ADA to decide this? Mr. RAUH. We had a board meeting in September. Senator HUGH SCOTT. Your board decides all these matters for the entire membership? Mr. RAUH. Yes. But I think you are raising the question Senator HUGH SCOTT. I am raising the question of your middle "Americans for 'Democratic' Action." name, We have a convention once a year and any issues that are up at that time are decided by the convention, but at the time the convention met in May, President Nixon was still President, and we did not have the problem. The nomination was made in August. The governing body between conventions is the board. It did meet and it did consider this matter. It did decide to oppose Governor' Rockefeller's nomination. I would say that is a most democratic procedure and, indeed, I can think of no more democratic procedure than the one we used, Senator Scott. Senator HUGH SCOTT. Did you ask to appear at the first Rockefeller hearings? Mr. RAUH. No. Senator HUGH SCOTT. Why was that? Why your sudden determination to appear at the later hearing? 40-185 - 74-66 |