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intent on massively expanding the Defense budget, ensured that his sought to assert America's full military power to defeat Soviet career as a public official came to an abrupt end. Communism, and in the /ong term envisaged the United States These experiences were salutary for the ambitious Nelson. His using its superpower status to create a "new world order" based on bruising encounters with Establishment technocrats—who clearly world federalism, regional blocs and international free trade. The resented his intrusion into their realm—instilled in him a yearning influences on Nelson's foreign policy thinking were numerous, for greater political power. Nelson was not content to operate ranging from his father and Fosdick through to the plethora of polit- behind the scenes like his brothers, nor willing to endure more ical and specialist foreign policy advisers he employed. But it is humiliation as a mere functionary. important to realise the different sources for each approach. According to author Stewart Alsop, Nelson eventually realised Starting with Nelson's stridently anti-Communist short-term out- that "there was only one way for a very rich man like him to look, we find a surprising source. Since his uninspiring departure achieve what he had always wanted—real political power and from the Eisenhower Administration in 1955, Nelson had employed authority. That way was to run for office".* And for Nelson, the as his foreign policy adviser Dr Henry Kissinger, then a leading ultimate political office he desired was President of the United proponent of Realpolitik and a rising star in the Establishment. States. Kissinger is widely regarded as a proponent of world government, In 1958, drawing on his vast inheritance, Nelson launched his but this assumption stems primarily from the crude analytical tool political career, defeating W. Averell Harriman in the "battle of the of guilt by association, in which Kissinger's CFR membership is millionaires" to become Governor of New York, a position he cited as the primary evidence of this alleged tendency. There can would hold until 1973. Expecting the New York governorship to be no doubt that Kissinger is a particularly loathsome creature of be a stepping-stone to the Presidency, Nelson campaigned for the the Eastern Establishment and an egotistical, deceitful and oppor- Republican presidential nomination in 1960, 1964 and 1968 but tunistic character at best;' but a world government proponent he is failed every time, losing twice to his not. For instance, in his first CFR book, nemesis, Richard Nixon. Nuclear Weapons and Foreign Policy, Ironically, it was in the wake of Kissinger explicitly rejected the option Nixon's resignation in 1974 over the of world government as "hardly realis- Watergate scandal that Nelson finally There can be no doubt that tic", adding that there was "no escap- entered the White House, but as an sal . . ing from the responsibilities of the appointed Vice-President to an Kissinger Isa particularly thermonuclear age into a supranational appointed President, Gerald Ford. loathsome creature of the authority".” Ford's survival of two blundered . Despite this, Kissinger was still of assassination attempts meant that Eastern Establishment, value to Nelson, providing support to Nelson remained only a famed "heart- but a world government his more belligerent anti-Communist beat away" from the Presidency, never fantasies. According to Joseph achieving his goal.” So near, yet so proponent he is not. far, it was no wonder that when Nelson was asked, close to the end of his life, what he wished most to have done, his reply was curt: "Been Persico, Nelson's speechwriter of some 11 years, "Kissinger's hard-eyed vision of a world maintained by counter-balancing powers suited Nelson perfectly".** But Kissinger's President".”” influence should not be overstated. For one, Nelson's balance-of- power thinking stemmed from his reflexive anti-Communism, Internationalist or Imperialist? which characterised the Soviet bloc as America's greatest threat. There are two competing interpretations of Nelson's foreign poli- That was the balance of power in the world at that time, and thus cy vision during his political career. The first is of a diehard anti- Kissinger's unsentimental views suited Nelson. Communist, dubbed by some journalists as the "Coldest Warrior of However, in his longer-term outlook, Nelson was undeniably a Them All", and a militarist-imperialist who believed the US should — Wilsonian liberal internationalist—something he had already "act aggressively whenever events abroad threatened its own inter- demonstrated intermittently since the 1940s. For example, Nelson ests" (Chapman). Proponents of this view point to Nelson's was instrumental, through the controversy generated over his push "necrophiliac ambition" (Fitch) of providing each American family to have Argentina included in the United Nations, with ensuring with its own nuclear fallout shelter, his calls in 1960 for a 10 per that Article 51—which allows for groups of states to form alliances cent boost in Defense spending, his attacks on Eisenhower for let- to repel aggression—was included in the final UN Charter.* But at ting the US fall behind the Soviet Union in the famed (but illusory) the same time, not content with the UN system that included the "missile gap", and his apparent eagerness to use tactical nuclear Soviets, and determined to "purify" Central and South America of weapons against Communist insurgents.* "alien commercial influence", Nelson was a strong supporter of The second interpretation, in contrast, presents Nelson as "a regionalism, particularly the goal of a Western hemisphere "united leader in the campaign to submerge American sovereignty in a under US leadership".* During the Eisenhower Administration, World Superstate".” "I think Nelson Rockefeller is definitely Nelson had been one of the strongest supporters of the Atlantic committed to trying to make the United States part of a one world Union concept, despite Secretary of State John Foster Dulles's socialist government," declared John Birch Society founder Robert _ patronising dismissal of his views as "premature".*° Welch in 1958." Far from being the ultimate Cold Warrior, Nelson It was also during the late 1940s and early 1950s that Nelson, in is portrayed as a covert supporter of the alleged plot by the super- support of his goal of encouraging Western hemispheric unity—or, rich to use Communism to subvert the sovereignty of the US andof more precisely, establishing US economic dominance over Latin other "free nations" worldwide. America—had established the American International Association Yet these mutually inconsistent caricatures fail to capture the true for Economic and Social Development (AIA) and the International essence of Nelson's world order strategy, which in the short term Basic Economy Corporation (IBEC). The AIA was ostensibly Kissinger is a particularly loathsome creature of the Eastern Establishment, but a world government proponent he is not. Internationalist or Imperialist? There are two competing interpretations of Nelson's foreign poli- cy vision during his political career. The first is of a diehard anti- Communist, dubbed by some journalists as the "Coldest Warrior of Them All", and a militarist-imperialist who believed the US should "act aggressively whenever events abroad threatened its own inter- ests" (Chapman). Proponents of this view point to Nelson's "necrophiliac ambition" (Fitch) of providing each American family with its own nuclear fallout shelter, his calls in 1960 for a 10 per cent boost in Defense spending, his attacks on Eisenhower for let- ting the US fall behind the Soviet Union in the famed (but illusory) "missile gap", and his apparent eagerness to use tactical nuclear weapons against Communist insurgents.* The second interpretation, in contrast, presents Nelson as "a leader in the campaign to submerge American sovereignty in a World Superstate".” "I think Nelson Rockefeller is definitely committed to trying to make the United States part of a one world socialist government," declared John Birch Society founder Robert Welch in 1958.” Far from being the ultimate Cold Warrior, Nelson is portrayed as a covert supporter of the alleged plot by the super- rich to use Communism to subvert the sovereignty of the US and of other "free nations" worldwide. Yet these mutually inconsistent caricatures fail to capture the true essence of Nelson's world order strategy, which in the short term 28 = NEXUS JUNE — JULY 2003 There can be no doubt that www.nexusmagazine.com