THE CHINA MAIL, SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 29, 1958.
Page B
THE FABULOUS
ROCKEFELLER DYNASTY TODAY
He Thrives On Risk And Action
"AURANCE is amused by many things
--and THE Laurance
one of them is being a Rockefeller" ...com. ment by an associate.
WHENCE
•
comes this contemplative amusement in the third in time of birth of the brothers Rockafeller?
On first consideration it does not appear to belong in him. At 48 Laurance is a man of action, He has been a man of action since his middle 20's.
Often in the Summer the Hudson River is his highway as he commutes at the helm of his PT boat from and to his home in the great Rockefeller Pocantico Hills estate in Westchester County, N. Y. He bounces around the terrain of St John, one of the Virgin Islands, in his jeep. His owns a Beechcraft airplane jointly with his, brothers Nelson and David.
Te fiance Laurance ning likes horst FI wusiden automobilo powered by a motorevele engine, He was the school's galget d
267412 Poly
ith venture does Itust go into established, ngul saxy enterprises, He is not interested in place or how He hes long shots on the nose, as when in the 1930's he put $3,000,000 worth of con- neer in Exite Rickenbacker JUAL Eastern
The morning line did not give them much of a chance,
ציות Airt
Potentials Of Progress
he invested in a Belgian Congo trade all. Risk and promise, Promise and risk.
But in Prberton til interest slikkted to the very opposite of machines-philosophy. He took ever philosophy course in the curriculamL tiste 100 neat in surgeat that he breator interested in people In
Kame
way that he was fa machilgest that be, to see what makes thrni RU, In that rase une would sup- pase Laurence would have cut centrated 011 psychology psychiatry, whose objective precisely to explore mental and ernotional engines.
ur
Rockefeller By
JOHN WATSON
does not stress the giving of pansion programme and Plosecki money so much sa the giving_of_sgpred. value, withlo, of course, its re- kation to ethion.
story, unfolded in today's instalment of the series, "The Fabulous Rockefel- To- ler Dynasty day," tells about a
EL sometimes huppens, na- turally, that Laurance does not man who likes to
So it is that Laurance has haye to seek out long shots. The
long shots come to him. It hap wager heavily-on come out of his dual concen
pens this way with nuclear de- with machines and men with progress. His ven-
his Own engine running velopment associates. This was able group of young and A best tures include avia- smoothly-urbane, In the
scientists who hnd formed it sonse worldly, highly articu-
nuclear engineering firm. They tion, development late, able to understand
needed money, but the price imaginative, creative and tom- of liquid fuel roc-
that had been quoted to them peramental people whom he
before coming to Laurance was and
Assists 0s well ket engines
Ba the super gadgets they produce. This in prohibitively high. It involved helicopters. It also
Fils original contribution; to selling out their control, Laur
ance bailed them out of that tells the
seek out and support a other
agonising alternative. idea that offers a prospect facets of the man paying off; to place his bets on American Ingenuity and that will be long
American progress. remembered his intense interests in cancer research, and conservation.
Yet this
I
Wou Laurance's choice. A friend who was with him at Princeton describes him In that period us "o very con. fused young man." Mayoe he was not so much contused groping. The title of his thesis hinks he was groping his way You do not And ou
What nut. It was called The Concept makes human beings go Ex of Value an its Relation 10 cept perhaps AN a by-prodaci Ethier."
ywarking your way, let us
For Example
the
now
of
A Tew examples ought to sullice:
I first venture in aviation with Edale Rickenbacker and Eastern Airlines. It would he emphasking the obvious dwell on the fact that it
rather successful investment.
to
Was
Shortly before World War II Laurance met J. S. McDonnell Jr., a St. Louis alrcraft engineer who had plans for a parsed plane. He had the plans but no facilities other than a small experlocatal shop. Laurance put in $10,000 as a starter. He persuaded his brothers to kick in. By 1948 the McDonnell Air- Corp. had been granted craft $475,000 of Rockfeller money, most of it Laurance's,
From
Sunilarly, most of his ven- tures have been wagers on po- tentials of progress; suck things as rocket engines, ramjets, jet entre blades, helicopters, ar crufl pervelling. electronde, nuclear, stulī, or the $1,900,000 pay, from Marcus Aurelius i Monday morning quarterback. the 2nd century through tobbe, Ing the title now, it sees to and
to the 17th Spinoza 1
have been an acknowledgment Santayana in the 20th, Phil. of the golden buzlo call-the the Rocke- KARTONs to usophy does not concern itself family so much with why we do what feller brothers to ful their we do, as why we are here and obligations to society, each in his Here we approach a serming to what purpose. It deals in
own way and if possible by an
contribution, such abstractions as elbles and orlatmal
Thus, paradox. In his adolescence Lance's compelling interest sentreties:
ond metaphysics, John's has been the Far East and machines, what
the makes which considers
essential in particular the cultivation of them Ko At New York's pro- nature of reality is not only friendship with Japan. Nelson's a hum. He served as a Bleuten- pressive Lincoln School, which abstract but abstruse. Philoso- has been Latin America and now
piston all the brothers attended
piry 4x-
is neither jet nor
the arena of politics. For the cept John, the eldest, Luurance powered.
summone of the golden bugle
To repeal, whence, then contenidative musciment?
war.
this
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demand a watch
that can take rough treatment.
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The Shock-Resisting Device
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WAS
1942 to 45 Leoration more or less out of touch with the McDonnell enterprise, but he let his money ride on it. 17o was interented at that the In the U.S. Navy and the Navy
"In my enterprises," he has said, "you need a calendar, noi scared a stop-watch. They're to a cycle," And again: "Wor* not a bis business (the "we" meaning ""). We're just a kred COMI proposition." And again that his aim is to get into Bomething "non competitive interests anÄ with the family
balli-kali- this with
climax."
по
Another phase of Laurance's interests lies in conservation, which is a rather stuffy way of saying he has been carrying on a lifelong affair of the heart with tielure. He acquired his love of the outdoors from his father, who used to take the brothers on vacation trips and whose own and identical love affair has resulted
national parks in the Teton runge in Wyoming, the Shenandoah, Great Smoky mountains and M1. Desert Island in Maine, influence and Rockefeller money exedited ulso
with saving California's majestic redwoods and securing a large section of the Hudson Pailsades from commercial encroachment.
Honeymoon At Ranch
ant commander in the produc-
Laurance and his bride, the tion division of the bureza of
be- former Mary French, spent aeronautics, atlaison man Iween the Navy
and plants their honeymoon at the Bocke mostly on the West Coast.
feller J-Y, ranch in Wyoming He is a commisioner of the He resumed his directorship Palisades Interstate Park Com- with the McDonnell Company miselon and president of Jack- after he went on inactive duty son Hole Preserve. This is the In '46. The company produced agency previously used by the
(11
to make
Jet, the Phantom, and wert Rockefellers create and ex- Banshee fighters. pand their national pari pro- It had grown out of the knee jects and
the it in
agericy britches of tha experimental through which Laurance oper-
must spectacular Virgin Islands National Park chanted Laurance, when he put shop and long since was in long ated In this
into one of lis harbours In 1951 pants, with 6,000 employees and gifi about half of St John, was opened in 1958.
St. John,
while cruising the Caribbean in a backlog of orders.
Virgin Islands, to the
hin 65-foot boot, Dauntless, with Park Service. The three Virgin
his wife and friends. It looked like paradise. "I found the combinations of mountains, benches aud
Mr and Mrs Laurance Rockefellor at their marriago in 1934.
Rockefeller could have mained and counted his proília, Instead he walked away. Ho began reducing bis holdings. As he looked at it, his mission was completed.
on
骐
* ERISMANN-SCHINZ LTD. - LA NEUVEVILLE (SWITZERLAND).......
Laurance placed another bet
a sunil Now Jersey outt Reaction Motora, Inc., which had developed a liquid-fuel
The rocket engine.
company proceeded to produce the Vik- ing rocket and a rocket engine the Bell KS!, the arst to break through to supersonle speed.
for
Was
Was In To Stay
When he went into Reaction the company had negative net worth, owed something Uke $400,000 and had missed target by a mile in a rocket cost esti rabe with the Navy. Laurance up against a not-isual dilemma for him. It is to build efficiency---sometimes to the extent of bringing in his as sociates or outside executives and yet never to give existing management cause to fear that he is there to take over. It re quires, he has taid, "subtlety and unpretentiousness" that is, never throw your weight Ground,
Ini the Caze of Reaction it was fairly almple. He suggested д better accounting system, and what businessmen, call negregation of inventory,
and
ho helped find people who knew how to bid on Navy con tracts.
Then came the helloopter hassle. Another of Laurance's venture inve iments
WAS In Pisscaki helicopter, at a time when it could no longer afford to stay stationary aloft. It had either to be grounded or stari travelling. He approached the Navy Bureau of Aeronautien who treated film with the politeness
usually re" serven for the demonied சர் stricken. The view appeared to be that 'copters were In teresting toys although a trifle zinky.
Laurance has the obstinacy" of his convictions. He was in and he was going to siny, in. It Rapponed a few months later that the Korean War alaried. | and that changed Pentagon thinking about holleoptera prac tically overnight. Laurance bull- ed through an even liggen URS
in the National
smallest of the Islands, Arn en-
INFLUENCES ON WINTHROP
Has Winthrop Rockefeller's blundering search for his destiny through war and emotional smash- up finally found him peace?
Is his expression of interracial friendliness based on firm conviction or is it a pose? What in- fluence did his truly liberal mother have on her fourth son's future?
The answers to these and other questions about Winthrop Rockefeller are contained in the fifth instalment of "The Fabulous Rockefeller Dynasty--Today." Don't miss it in next Saturday's China Mail.
tee, and president. He is also associated with Sloan-Ketter- ing Institute, and the Jane Cof- in Childs Memorial Fund for medical research.
Of the five brothers Rocko- unique," ho feller he bears the closest resemblance to his said. "The unspolled nature of physical the ares appealed to me and grandfather, John D, and also wished to preserve it against hus John D's truita of audacity probable over development." He bought of enterprise. It is
acres, which be that if John D. were alive to- some 5,000 turned over to comprise most of day he would press a shiny national park. He also new dime In Laurance's palm, bought the 600-acre Cancel Bay a bonus for doing well. And plantation, which he has turned John D. would more than prob- into a resort.
ably add drily so far.
the
Laurance's third pervasive in- terest in concer research. For many years he has been asso- clated with the Memorial "Hos- pital for the Treatment of Can- cer and Allied Diseases in New York. He has scrved 414 a member of the board, chair- man of the executive commit-
JAK GOES DRY SKIING
INSTRUCTOR BECTON D
NEXT WEEK:
Winthrop, the
different brother
"Now there's a style you don't see much today."
·Landon, Ragraya - Berriak.