Happy Rockefeller, the socialite whose 1963 marriage to Gov. Nelson Rockefeller of New York, soon after both had been divorced, raised a political storm in a more genteel time and might have cost him the Republican presidential nomination in 1964, died Tuesday at her home in Tarrytown, N.Y. She was 88.
The family said in a statement that she died after a brief illness.
Beyond the 1964 nomination, won by Sen. Barry Goldwater of Arizona, the scandal helped scuttle any further presidential hopes Nelson Rockefeller had.
Although his governorship remained secure until 1973, he came no closer to the Oval Office than the vice presidency, to which President Gerald Ford appointed him in 1974, ending the musical-chairs turmoil set off by the Watergate scandal.
In an era when marital infidelity and divorce were toxic for presidential candidates, many Americans were shocked when Margaretta Fitler Murphy, called Happy, and Nelson Rockefeller, who was nearly 18 years older than she, married on May 4, 1963. He was in the second of his four terms as governor and a leading contender for the presidency at the time, having run strongly in 1960.
As the couple left for a honeymoon in Venezuela, exposes detailed gossip of their extramarital affair and their out-of-state divorces — Nelson Rockefeller’s in 1962 from Mary Todhunter Clark Rockefeller, his wife of 31 years and the mother of his five children, and Murphy’s from Dr. James Slater Murphy, to whom she surrendered custody of their four children five weeks before marrying Nelson Rockefeller.
Many Republican leaders and voters were scandalized. Former Sen. Prescott Bush, R-Conn., a longtime Rockefeller supporter (and the father of one future president and the grandfather of another), declared: “Have we come to the point where a governor can desert his wife and children, and persuade a young woman to abandon her four children and husband? Have we come to the point where one of the two great parties will confer its greatest honor on such a one? I venture to hope not.”
Rockefeller faced the divorce issue squarely by taking his new wife on the campaign trail. She handled the glare of publicity well, gamely greeting crowds, even donning maternity clothes as the campaign, and her pregnancy, progressed. Some advisers opposed her involvement, but she was an unexpected hit, with many voters responding warmly to what they called her cheerful, artless charm.
Still, Nelson Rockefeller’s primary results were dismal. His support faded, especially among women, and he withdrew from the race. Goldwater lost the election to his Democratic opponent, President Lyndon Johnson, in a landslide.
Rockefeller resumed life as governor in Albany, and his wife gave birth to two sons, Nelson Aldrich Rockefeller Jr. in 1964 and Mark Fitler Rockefeller in 1967. She appeared with the governor at official and unofficial functions, and when he was an undeclared candidate for the Republican presidential nomination in 1968, she took an active part in his effort to win support, becoming a political asset in the view of many.
— New York Times
John Templeton Jr.,
head of foundation
John M. Templeton Jr., president and chairman of the John Templeton Foundation, died May 16 of complications from cancer, according to a statement from the foundation. He was 75.
Though the Templeton Foundation is not a religious foundation, it awards grants to many religious individuals and institutions. It focuses on what it calls “Science and the Big Questions,” and regularly funds projects that explore connections between science and religion.
During Templeton’s 20 years as president, the foundation’s endowment grew from $28 million to $3.34 billion. In 2014, it awarded 188 grants mostly to major universities and scholars worldwide.
The foundation has awarded $966 million in grants and charitable activities since it was created. It awarded $103 million in 2013, the last year for which figures are available, ranking it 55th in total giving of U.S. foundations, according to the Foundation Center.
Before he led his father’s foundation, Templeton was a pediatric surgeon and director of the trauma program at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. His father, Sir John Templeton, a global investor and philanthropist who created the Templeton Fund in 1954, died in 2008.
The foundation awards an annual Templeton Prize, a value of about $1.7 million, making it one of the world’s largest annual awards given to an individual (and intended to surpass the monetary value of Nobel Peace Prize). It honors a living person who has made contributions to life’s spiritual dimension. The 2015 prize was recently given to Jean Vanier, the founder of L’Arche, an international network for people with intellectual disabilities.
— Washington Post
