Born into one of the nation's wealthiest families on May 1, 1912, Rockefeller was the son of John D. Rockefeller, Jr. and Abbey Aldrich Rockefeller. He dropped out of Yale without graduating and went to work as a roughneck in the Texas oil fields. A year later he took a position with a major corporation, but enlisted in the army a year before Pearl Harbor and graduated from Officer Candidate School in January, 1942. After serving as a machine-gun instructor, he was placed in command of H Company of the 305th Infantry Regiment, 77th Division. By November of 1943 he rose to the rank of major and fought at Guam and the Philippines, and was wounded during the invasion of Okinawa. He eventually reached the rank of lieutenant colonel and received the Bronze Star and Purple Heart.
After the war, Rockefeller for a time cut a dashing figure in New York cafe society. He was married briefly to Barbara "Bobo" Sears, but the couple separated not long after the birth of their son, Winthrop Paul Rockefeller. Rockefeller came to Arkansas in 1953 to visit an old army buddy, and saw an opportunity to carve out a niche for himself outside the influence of his family. He purchased 900 acres atop Petit Jean Mountain near Morrilton and established Winrock Farms, soon one of the most prosperous agricultural enterprises in the state.
In 1954 Orval Faubus appointed Rockefeller to head the new Arkansas Industrial Development Commission (AIDC), created to attract manufacturing industries to Arkansas. Rockefeller undertook his task with great vigor, often supplementing the AIDC's budget with is own funds. At first his efforts were stymied by the negative publicity generated by the 1957 integration crisis. An exceptionally robust national economy in the early 1960s, however, in turn fueled extraordinary industrial growth in Arkansas. Arkansas also benefited from a growing tendency for American businesses to attempt to diversify geographically rather than concentrate all their factories in a single region.
Over the years Rockefeller had contributed more than $8 million in scholarships and grants to a variety of worthy individuals and organizations. He also pumped money into the state's moribund Republican Party. For years the party's sole function had been to dole out patronage positions distributed by Republican presidents. In Arkansas they were derisively labeled "post office" Republicans.
In 1964 Rockefeller decided it was time to cash in on the good will he had established. He announced his candidacy for governor in opposition to Orval Faubus, who was seeking an unprecedented sixth term. Rockefeller had virtually unlimited personal resources at this disposal. He hired the state's best advertising agency and introduced state-of-the art political polling to Arkansas. Faubus countered with tales of having to eat supper in the dark during the winter when he was a child because the "Rockefeller trust had driven the price of coal oil too high" for his family to afford.
Faubus won handily with 56% of the vote, but Rockefeller announced immediately that he would try again in 1966. In the meantime, he set investigators to work to uncover abuses of the so-called Faubus machine. The Rockefeller campaign regularly reported one abuse after another. Faced with scandals on several fronts and the prospect of another expensive campaign, Faubus declined to run again in 1966.
Next: Rockefeller Becomes Governor
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