His grandson would probably have preferred to be described as “Nelson Rockefeller, public servant.” Only because he was less forthright.

Rockefeller’s grandfather taught him a few things about using his government to deal with trouble makers. In 1914 John D. sent troops to gun down striking miners and their wives and children in Ludlow, Colorado. Almost sixty years later, it was Attica Prison and Nelson Rockefeller’s troops, but the massacre was just as bloody.

Rockefeller was particularly proud of the draconian drug law he shepherded through the New York state legislature. The harshest in the nation, it mandates life imprisonment for possession or sale of one ounce of any narcotic.

When it came to art Rockefeller knew what he liked—or at least what he didn’t like. He had a mural by the great Mexican artist Diego Rivera chopped off the walls of Rockefeller Center and destroyed, for example. He didn’t want a picture of Lenin staring him in the face every time he checked in there.

His art was also a good investment. In fact, a January 28 New York Times article on Rockefeller’s personal fortune points out that “while stocks and bonds proved difficult areas for many money managers, particularly in the last decade, art and real estate have been notably lucrative for many investors.”

Old John D. may not have known—or cared—very much about art. But he probably would have understood his grandson’s collection perfectly well.  
 
February 8, 1954
Student demonstrations for the return of British-held Gibraltar inspired by the Franco regime of fascist Spain boomeranged against the dictatorship last week when 16,000 Madrid students began stoning British cars and the British compound, Jan. 26 in an outburst of frenzy that far exceeded what the fascists had expected. Police fired revolvers and charged with night sticks trying to break up the mushrooming demonstration. The students turned on the police, utilizing fists and rocks. Next day some 10,000 marched on a radio station and a contingent of 100 seized it. They tried to broadcast their protests against Franco’s police but technicians cut off the power. On Jan. 27 demonstrating students roamed through the city’s central market. A free-for-all with the police resulted when they turned over a vegetable stand. At the university, students blockaded themselves when the police tried to enter.

The swiftness with which the students turned against the government, although they were thought to be under the tight control of the fascist youth organization, is an indication of the depth of popular unrest in Spain….

The Spanish Roman Catholic magazine, Ecclesia, in its current issue deplores the fact that “an overwhelming majority” of Spanish workers are not practicing Catholics. It blames the drift away from the influence of the Franco-loving Catholic hierarchy on the “virus of Marxism.” It admits that the “whole working class agrees that the present wages are insufficient and estimates that they should be increased 40 to 75 percent.”  
 
 
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