Nelson Rockefeller is scheduled to undertake a special fact-finding and ambassadorial
tour of Latin America for President Nixon in May. Much more important than being the
governor of New York and a past rival of Nixon’s for the Republican Party presidential
nomination is the fact that Nelson is the grandson of John D. Rockefeller, Sr., the
creator of the original Standard Oil trust and founder of the Rockefeller family for-
tune. Nelson and his four brothers manage one of the largest complexes of wealth and
power the world has ever known. The Rockefeller family first established a virtual
monopoly of the U.S. oil industry in the 1370’s. Though the family fortune remains
highly concentrated in the oil industry (the largest and most profitable in the world),
the Rockefellers have expanded into nearly all branches of industry and finance.
Through a network of over 13 foundations, 75 family trusts and other mechanisms of
high finance, the Rockefellers maintain a dominant interest in some of the world’s
largest oil companies: the Standard Oil companies of New Jersey, Indiana and California
and Mobil Oil; the second largest U.S. commercial bank, Chase Manhattan; the second and
third largest U.S. life insurance companies, Metropolitan and Equitable; Eastern Air
Lines, Consolidated Natural Gas, Union Tank Car, Itek and the world’s largest real es-
tate development, Rockefeller Center. The current assets of these companies just men-
tioned totals over $90 billion and there is much more.
In This Issue:
Introduction: An Overview of the Rockefeller Empire ……………………. 1
Nelson A. Rockefeller ……………………………. 3………………..
Land Holdings: Resorts and Vacation Sites in Latin America ……………… 8
Oil: including the Special Cases of Peru and Venezuela …………………. 9
David Rockefeller and the Chase Manhattan Bank . ……………………….. 15
The AIA and IBEC . …………………. ………………………………. 19
The Rockefeller Foundation ………………………………………….. 21
Non-Profit Organizations …………………………………………….. 25
Rockefeller’s Entourage ……………………. 28
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The Rockefeller family power is further augmented by the close financial and political ties they maintain with the families descended from John D. Rockefeller’s brother,
William (the Stillman Rockefellers of the First National City Bank) and those descended
from John D.’s original Standard Oil partners and associates. These include the Arch-
bolds, Flaglers, Paynes (including John Hay Whitney), Harknesses, Moffetts and Pratts.
According to an official biographer, the brothers meet as often as once a week to co- ordinate their affairs. Each brother has a particular area of the family empire to
oversee: John D., III, the eldest, is the “philanthropist.” He heads the Rockefeller
Foundation and has a particular interest in the Far East (especially Japan) and “pop-
ulation control” (he founded the Population Council). Nelson, the family’s”public ser-
vant,” has shuttled between government and private business, often with little dis-
tinction between the two, and has a particular interest in Latin America. Laurance is
one of the world’s leading “venture capitalists,” backing small innovative industries
(especially in the fields of aviation and electronics and rocket research). One of
the small companies he backed was McDonnell Aircraft, which grew into an industry giant as a result of lucrative World War II contracts. He oversees many of the family’s non-
oil interests and has sat on the boards of International Nickel Company and Eastern Air
Lines. Laurance is also the “conservationist” and resort developer (especially in
Hawaii, the Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico).
Winthrop, once a Mobil Oil executive, moved to Arkansas, developed a vast industrial
and real estate enterprise and has become governor of the state. He is also a major
contributor to the Urban League and has served on its board. David, the youngest of
the brothers, is the international banker-(currently president of Chase Manhattan) and
is active in New York City real estate and political affairs.
The brothers are the epitome of the East Coast Establishment. Their third generation
wealth is managed for them by institutions which they control (especially foundations,
Rockefeller Brothers, Inc., and trusts); they attended (and endow and participate in
the direction of) elite schools — Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Dartmouth and the Univer-
sity of Chicago; they belong to the most urbane and elite social clubs — Links and
Knickerbocker; they are sponsors of and major contributors to prestigious cultural,
civic, charity and religious institutions — Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York Pub-
lic Library, United Negro College Fund, Union Theological Seminary, the Interchurch
Center, and the YM and YWCA; they have luxurious estates and vacation resorts all over
the world; and they are highly conscious of keeping a good public image and present
themselves as being above petty politics and economic interests.
The fact is that they are very much concerned with politics and economic interests.
With over half of Standard Oil N.J.’s profits coming from overseas operations and with
the great untapped markets of the world lying outside U.S. borders (to cite just two
reasons), they are naturally greatly concerned not only with domestic but also foreign
politics and economic interests. As illustrated below, they prefer to operate prima-
rily behind the scenes (Nelson is the exception), laying out the long-range policies
while leaving the details to loyal spokesmen of their interests in positions of public
power.
The Rockefellers, whose grandfather was once a symbol of the abuses of monopolistic
control of industry, use sophisticated public relations techniques to project a favor-
able image of themselves to the public. Nelson describes his career in politics as a
service to the public rather than as a use of the government to serve his own class
interests. David and Nelson, who are particularly active in Latin America, describe
NACLA NEWSLETTER Vol. III, No. 2, April 1969
Published monthly, except May-June and July-August, when it is published bi-monthly by
the North American Congress on Latin America, Inc. at 160 Claremont Avenue, New York,
N.Y. 10027. Subscription price: $5 per year.-3-
their vast investments there as being an instrument of “development” rather than an instrument of controlling Third World resources for their own profit.
David and Nelson have been prime movers behind the Alliance for Progress (and its pre- decessor programs such as Truman’s Point Four Program) and “social revolution” in Latin America. 1 For them, “social revolution” means those institutional changes which will remove obstacles to market expansion and increased productivity. 2 It does not mean a fundamental change in the social control of the means of production (i.e., from control by a few families to public control) or the redistribution of wealth.
The following material provides some documentation of the Rockefeller empire in Latin America. For reasons of space and time, there is no discussion of several important institutions in which the Rockefellers have a strong, if not dominant, interest (such as the World Bank). This is only a preliminary outline of a much more comprehensive study still to be done.
NOTE: For effective control of a large corporation, it is by no means necessary for an individual, family or group of families to own 51 percent of the stock. Repre- sentative Wright Patman, Chairman of the House Banking and Currency Committee, uses 5 percent as indicative of great influence if not outright control.
1 For one of the first outlines of what later became the Alliance for Progress (and for a statement of the Rockefellers’ policy on just about every major issue), see Prospect for America: The Rockefeller Panel Reports, Doubleday, New York, 1958.
2 For a further discussion of this point, see “A New Look at U.S. Investments in Latin America,” by Edie Black, New England Free Press. This paper contains a critique of David Rockefeller’s article in Foreign Affairs (April 1966), “What Private Enterprise Means to Latin America.”
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