Winthrop Rockefeller: From New Yorker to Arkansawyer, 1912–1956 by John A. Kirk

Abstract

Reviewed by: Winthrop Rockefeller: From New Yorker to Arkansawyer, 1912–1956 by John A. Kirk Kenneth J. Bindas Winthrop Rockefeller: From New Yorker to Arkansawyer, 1912–1956. By John A. Kirk. (Fayetteville: University of Arkansas Press, 2022. Pp. xii, 267. Paper, $24.95, ISBN 978-1-68226-221-4; cloth, $34.95, ISBN 978-1-68226-195-8.) John A. Kirk’s detailed biography of Winthrop Rockefeller, the fifth child and fourth son of John D. Rockefeller Jr. and Abigail Greene Aldrich Rockefeller, sets out to document this future Arkansas governor’s attempts to define himself within one of the richest families in the United States. Unfortunately for Winthrop, he constantly “proved unsuccessful at meeting his father’s expectations” (p. 23). The story reminded me of Francis Ford Coppola’s Godfather trilogy, with the power of the patriarch, the competition between the sons—John III, Nelson, Laurance, and Winthrop—and even the detachment of the oldest Rockefeller daughter, Abigail (Babs). Winthrop Rockefeller: From New Yorker to Arkansawyer, 1912–1956 recounts the relationship between family control, power, identity, and of course, money. Winthrop proved a disappointment in a variety of ways during his formative years and early adulthood. As an adolescent, he was teased by his older brothers for being overweight and for his lack of scholastic achievement. He struggled in school—probably due to undiagnosed dyslexia—and had to work through summers with special tutors to graduate high school and meet the entrance requirements for Yale University. At Yale low scores and an active social life plagued his academic career, and he was the only Rockefeller son to not graduate with a college degree. Unsure of what to do next, his father arranged for him to learn the oil business from the ground up, and here young Winthrop began to thrive. For the next several years he worked in the oil fields of Texas and Louisiana, rising from general laborer, to roughneck, to salesman, and finally ending up in the family boardroom. He excelled in positions where he worked with his hands. Yet, when Winthrop entered the family business in the late 1930s, “he struggled to find focus, direction, and purpose” (p. 83). What was perhaps Winthrop’s greatest success also began as a disappointment. As the country veered toward war, his brothers, heeding their father’s advice, took on administrative roles within the government to do their part. But Winthrop volunteered as a private in early 1941 and saw battle throughout the Pacific theater, barely surviving a kamikaze attack, winning a Purple Heart and a Bronze Star, and eventually rising to the rank of lieutenant colonel. Yet his parents continued to interfere. In 1943 his father terminated his association with the family business, and later, when Winthrop made plans to become a “Petroleum Attaché in London,” his parents “concluded that the position was too much responsibility” and severed the deal (p. 140). Even when Winthrop discovered that he had earned enough points of service to qualify for a return to the United States in the summer of 1945, his father advised that he should stay in the army. Winthrop eventually returned to the United States while recovering from hepatitis. After a short stint lobbying for better veterans’ benefits, he began a long-term relationship with the National Urban League, and worked with the Rockefeller family’s Industrial Relations Counselors, Inc., and the International Basic Economy Corporation. He even married, something that both his parents had long lobbied for. However, his marriage to the actress Barbara Paul [End Page 378] Sears proved disappointing. Soon after the 1948 birth of his only child, Winthrop Paul Rockefeller, the couple separated, spending the next four years in a public divorce battle. By the time that marriage ended, Winthrop had moved to Arkansas, remarried, and started to establish his own identity as the “Hillbilly Rockefeller,” a title given him by the Saturday Evening Post in 1956 (p. 191). In 1966 he became the first Republican governor elected in Arkansas during the twentieth century, and he won reelection in 1968. Kirk has written a very detailed account using the Rockefeller Archive Center, which he mined during his time as scholar-in-residence there in 2009...