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.Certainly there was never any love lost between Richard and Rocky.They have detested each other foryears.Newsweek of September 2, 1974, tells us: "The Nixon Presidency was a painful period for theproud governor.Privately, friends say, Rockefeller despised the self-made man from Yorba Linda.Rocky, the man born to economic royalty, must have deeply resented having to operate through thisSammy Click-type character who looked like a used car salesman, but had clawed his way to the WhiteHouse.But the two men needed each other.Nelson's influence in the COP is immense at the top, but isalmost non-existent among voters at the grass roots.After forcing Nixon's humiliating surrender, Rockefeller virtually sat out the 1960 campaign andallowed New York to go for Kennedy.Nixon surprised most observers by quietly accepting the defeatthat had been arranged for him, refusing even to protest the vote fraud in Texas and Illinois whichdeprived him of the election.** This story is described at length in Richard Nixon: The Man Behind The Mask by this author.Richard Nixon returned to California to practice law but remained at the beck and call of his jealous andhostile boss in New York.One indication of their real relationship was the Joe Shell affair.Shell was along-time California State Assemblyman who planned to oppose Democrat incumbent Pat Brown for thegovernorship in 1962.Early in the year, he received a call from Rockefeller, asking whom he wouldsupport at the 1964 convention if he were elected.The conservative Assemblyman told Rockefeller thatunder no circumstances could he support the ultra-liberal New Yorker.One week later, Shell's officereceived a call from Rockefeller's New York office with the news that Richard Nixon would opposeShell in the COP gubernatorial primary-even though Nixon had previously assured Shell that he hadabsolutely no interest in being Governor of California.The important point here is that Nixon was not interested in the job until he received orders from hisboss in New York.Nixon had everything to lose and virtually nothing to gain by running against anincumbent Democrat governor in a state with an overwhelming Democrat registration plurality.Following an incredibly inept campaign, in which his chief target was Nelson's old bugaboo, the -radicalright," not Bungling Brown's record, Nixon lost the race.His political career appeared to have come toan end.As he put it: -You won't have Nixon to kick around anymore."Apparently, the Nixon candidacy was as much a test of obedience as it was a move to head off apotential Rockefeller opponent.In any case, having thrown himself onto a bed of nails at the behest ofRockefeller, Nixon was thrown a lifeline and brought to New York.He moved into an elegant $125,000apartment in the same building as Nelson Rockefeller-the very one in which the infamous 11 Compactof Fifth Avenue- was signed.Nixon was made a partner in a law firm which did a lot of trust and bondbusiness with the friendly folk at Chase Manhattan Bank.During the next five years Nixon practiced very little law, yet his net worth jumped from practicallynothing to over half-a-million dollars.Most of his time was spent touring the nation and the worldrebuilding his political reputation.When the Rockefellers needed him in 1968, he had been resurrectedfrom the political trash heap and turned into a legitimate candidate.Meanwhile, Nelson had been giving the Presidency the old college try himself.He might have made it in1964 had not his divorce and remarriage alienated a large segment of middle America.Rockefellerlearned the hard way that a lot of women don't forgive a man who abandons a wife of long standing tomarry a much younger and prettier one.When the new bride abandons her own children to marry theman in question, it compounds the outrage.In 1968, Nelson made a half-hearted attempt to wrest the nomination from Nixon.But the handwritingwas on the wailing wall."Theold avidity is gone," groaned Nelson.Once again, he had to settle forowning the team instead of starting as quarterback
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