NOMINATION OF NELSON A. ROCKEFELLER OF NEW YORK TO BE VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES

THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 26, 1974

U.S. SENATE,

COMMITTEE ON RULES AND ADMINISTRATION,

Washington, D.C. The committee met, pursuant to call, at 10 a.m., in room 318, Russell Senate Office Building, Hon. Howard W. Cannon (chairman) presiding.

Present: Senators Cannon, Pell, Allen, Williams, Hugh Scott, and Griffin.

Staff present: William McWhorter Cochrane, staff director; Hugh Q. Alexander, chief counsel; Joseph O'Leary, professional staff member (minority); John P. Coder, professional staff member; Jack L. Sapp, professional staff member; Peggy Parrish, assistant chief clerk; James H. Duffy, chief counsel, Subcommittee on Privileges and Elections; James F. Schoener, minority counsel, Subcommittee on Privileges and Elections; and John K. Swearingen, staff director, Subcommittee on Computer Services.

Also present: Richard D. Casad, chief investigator; and Harry Claiborne, special consultant.

The CHAIRMAN. The committee will come to order.

I would like to have this morning as our first witness, the U.S. Senator, Jesse Helms from the great State of North Carolina.

Senator Helms, you may proceed.

STATEMENT OF HON. JESSE A. HELMS, A U.S. SENATOR FROM THE STATE OF NORTH CAROLINA

Senator HELMS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and good morning to distinguished members of this committee.

I first want to express my thanks for this opportunity to share with you my views on the nomination of Nelson Rockefeller to be Vice President of the United States.

Let me begin by telling you why I requested this opportunity to testify. I know that you and the committee and staff have approached this profoundly important task with diligence, patience, and attention to detail that commend your efforts to the American people. I want to extend to you my personal congratulations in this regard. I mention this only to emphasize the fact that my desire to express my own. views on this matter in no way should be seen as a criticism of what has gone before.

Rather, we are faced with a unique question, in that the nominee is a man of considerable significance both as a public and as a private man. We know his record both in international affairs and as the chief elective official in New York State. We know also that, as a man of wealth, he does not stand alone. He stands with a dynasty of wealth and power unequaled in the history of the United States.

I think we ought, in fairness to the nominee, set aside his protests that the Rockefeller power is a "myth." It would not be fitting for a man of stature to appear before this distinguished committee and boast about his significance. Let us regard his protests, therefore, as a worthy exercise in humility appropriate to the occasion.

But, despite the ritual, our duty as U.S. Senators remains. We cannot let either personal admiration or animosities interfere with the job before us. In last evening's edition of the Washington Star News, there appeared a headline that I feel did a great disservice to this committee and to the Congress. "They Can't Lay a Glove on Him," said the headline.

Then, as you know, the story went on to say, "The first round in the title bout between Nelson A. Rockefeller and the U.S. Congress has turned into a lopsided mismatch between a heavyweight and a 'flock of bantams.'"

Now, Mr. Chairman, the metaphors of the prize-fighting world are not those I would choose to describe the kind of important task confronting you. And I very strongly reject any interpretation that is made in the media that this committee is not doing its utmost to discover the truth.

Yet, the impression is obviously there, at least on the part of one of Washington's newspapers, and it is an impression that must be erased. We all know the power of the media, and the catchy prizefighting metaphor may well shape the history of these hearings more than the cold and sober record itself.

Let us go, then, to the vitally important question of the public man and the private man, both of whom are the nominee, Mr. Rockefeller. With most of us, the private man has little public significance. That is not the case with Mr. Rockefeller. The Governor has offered to divest himself of his holdings by putting them in a blind trust. But we have to ask ourselves, I think, whether, especially in this unique circumstance, any such divestiture is really meaningful.

This nomination is unlike ordinary executive nominations in that the legislative process is substituting for the electoral process. The scrutiny given the nominee should be as thorough as that given by the 78 million people who participated in the last national election. An overwhelming mandate was given by the people in that election, and the mandate has now been circumvented. If we are to have national acceptance of our work here, we must use only the most stringent standards.

In my judgment, a blind trust is an inadequate safeguard when we consider the high nature of the office involved.

Even for the lesser office of Secretary of Defense, Charles E. Wilson was required to divest himself completely of his holdings, most of which consisted of General Motors stock. In the case of Robert McNamara, who was nominated by President Kennedy for the same office, McNamara was forced to sell any investments and holdings in any company holding defense contracts. This was required after

McNamara had offered to put those assets in a blind investment

trust.

Most recently, Deputy Secretary of Defense David Packard was required to place his holdings, consisting of millions of dollars of stock in Hewlett-Packard, into a charitable trust.

And, this was in a pre-Watergate era, and the stringent requirements imposed were for lesser jobs.

Although no form of divestiture has ever been required for an elective office, such as Vice President, it is up to the voters to decide in the voting booth whether they want a nominee with certain known qualifications. But because the elective nature of the office has been set aside in our present unusual circumstances, Congress should take no action to approve a nominee who does not meet the most stringent safeguards. The turmoil our Nation has just gone through demands no less.

But again I ask, is any divestiture really meaningful-or even possible in this unique case? If it takes place, can it be genuine? In other words, is the discharge of national public office possible by a man who has played such an important role in private affairs throughout his life?

The nominee, as the record clearly shows, has broad connections, not only with a family of rich and powerful men, but with generations of wealth, and with broad philanthropies which collectively adopt a distinctive world view which may or may not be compatible with the discharge of public office. It is not inimical to the nominee, but merely a concession to human frailty, to point out that there may very well be an unconscious commingling of his personal interests with those of the Nation.

By the very nature of the situation, the interests of the Rockefeller group and those of the Nation are bound to become intermingled in the conduct of affairs of state. The nominee may divest himself or insulate himself from direct personal profits, but the dynastic connection may turn out to be more important than personal control of his immediate wealth.

So we are dealing not simply with his own personal fortune, but with the values of a large group of special interests. We are talking not only about finance, and real estate, and oil, and media control and so forth, but about extremely influential philanthropies and public service activities associated with the values of that group.

And these values include not only profit-oriented motives, but also attitudes toward abortion as a means of population control, attitudes toward world order, the decline of national sovereignty, relations with Communist nations, human relations, education as a determinant of personality, and so forth.

The Rockefeller name has been closely associated with the promotion of these attitudes in such groups as the Population Council, the Council on Foreign Relations, the so-called Bilderberg meetings, the Rockefeller Foundation, and the Rockefeller Brothers Fund.

All of these groups operate largely outside of our political system, with its concept of checks and balances. It is very difficult to tell where the profit motive ends and the altruistic motive begins, and where the two become indistinguishable.

Now, the nominee has been very closely associated with these ornaments of the Rockefeller dynasty-with some no doubt to a

higher degree than with others. But should we impose upon the nominee the burden of attempting to detach himself from his past?

And the questions remain whether or not the dynastic connectionwhich can never be severed-is more important than divestiture of personal holdings. If the nominee is ever faced with the problem of the survival of ingrained dynastic values as against the survival of the national interest, is there any human being on Earth who can be sure what will survive?

Mr. Chairman, this country has just been through a time of turmoil and suffering, because a President of the United States and his immediate group believed that the survival of their power was more important than the interest of the Nation. This lesson should teach us to be wary of associating unusual power circles with the high office of the Presidency and Vice Presidency.

Nothing which I have said here this morning is intended to reflect upon the integrity or good motives of the nominee; rather, I have been talking about the human situation and the realities of unparalleled power. We are in fact asking ourselves whether we want the highest political offices of the land to be identified with one of the highest concentrations of private power in the land.

My appearance here this morning is intended to help the committee in its deliberations, and to focus more precisely upon the unusual dilemma presented by this nomination.

Many people have written to me from all over the country expressing similar concerns to those I have discussed here today. Many people have submitted questions which they think would help to shed light upon the issues with which we are struggling.

From these I have developed a few lines of questioning which I hope the committee may find helpful, either to be answered by a face-to-face exchange with the nominee so that they can be fully developed, or, if necessary, in writing.

These lines of questioning examine some of the nominee's areas of activity, including his administration as Governor of New York, and including areas of dynastic activity. They are designed to help shape a judgment as to whether the nominee in his past career has been able to separate the public and the private man. We must not forget that we are acting as surrogates in this matter for 78 million voters.

Mr. Chairman, I have a number of questions arising, only a couple of questions of which I would like to read for the record, and the rest I will submit with the chairman, with the committee's permission. The first one I have a preface to:

"It is well-known among lawyers that there are two kinds of ownership of property. The first is legal ownership. This is the simple straightforward kind of ownership that every citizen is familiar with. The second is equitable ownership. A person has an equitable interest in property when he is the beneficiary of a trust.

I believe I would say to Mr. Rockefeller were he here this morning, and I were in a position to ask him some questions, first of all I would say that:

"I believe that you have testified that you have equitable interests in trust property."

Then I would ask him:

"Is this correct?"

Then I would ask: "Is the property in which you have an equitable ownership interest of greater value than the property in which you have a legal ownership interest?"

Then I would ask: "May we conclude that in order to accurately understand your holdings, it is necessary to take into account both the trust property in which you own an equitable interest and the property in which you own a legal interest?"

Then I would ask, "Now, it is well-known among lawyers that the equitable owner of trust property does not have the primary responsibility for controlling the property; the trustee, or legal owner, has this responsibility. Nonetheless, the trustee has a duty to control the property in a manner that is in the best interest of the beneficiary. "If a conflict of interest arose between your meeting Mr. Rockefeller's trust property and your duties as Vice President, would your trustee be free to further the interests of the United States, or would he have a legal duty to act in favor of your property against the best interest of the United States?"

Continuing the line of questioning that I hope will be referred to the distinguished nominee:

"In this regard, do you have any influence with the trustees of your trust property?

"Do the trustees of your trust property take your views and your preferences into consideration in regard to the handling of this property?

"In making decisions regarding that property, which you hold regular legal title to yourself, do you ever consult with your trustees regarding the effect of contemplated action on your trust property? "Do you and your trustees ever act together regarding such matters? "Do you own an equitable interest in trust property jointly with other members of your family?

"Do you and other members of your family ever consult with one another and/or with the trustees regarding the use and disposition of trust property?

"It has been widely reported that other members of your family" that is to say, Mr. Chairman, the Rockefeller family-own a great deal of property themselves and, of course, I would ask the obvious question, is that correct.

"Other than trust property, do you own, you, Mr. Rockefeller, own any jointly with any other members of your family?

"Would it then be accurate to conclude that you and other members of your family do from time to time act in concert regarding business matters?

"Can this committee accurately appraise the full power and effect of one segment of the Rockefeller family holdings without taking into consideration all of the other segments of the holdings?

"Because of the interrelationship of your family's properties, would it not be necessary to have a full disclosure of the property interest of all members of your family in order for this committee to fully be appraised of the impact of your property interests on the United States, at home and abroad?

"Has such a disclosure been made?

"Is it contemplated?"

Then I would say, Mr. Chairman, to Mr. Rockefeller: