Nelson Rockefeller: An Anti-Obituary

Abstract

It is altogether appropriate that Nelson Aldrich Rockefeller, after more than seventy years, should have departed the scene. His public career can be interpreted as a series of efforts to turn whatever was free, living, and vibrant into something inorganic, fixed, and non-autonomous. He was the personal embodiment of Kurt Vonnegut's Ice-Nine, from the thin-lipped smile to the wing-tipped shoes.

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