Quotes from Richard Norton Smith

There's no excuse for a dull book, a dull museum, or a dull speech. Especially when dealing with history—the most fascinating subject I know.

public protest of the direction his party is taking. Convention

Reacting much as anyone does when

diplomats took up the vastly more

By the time Rockefeller left office in 1973, SUNY was the world's largest university system, with a quarter million students attending classes on sixty-four campuses. For

I got the job the way I get all my jobs," Rockefeller said later of his appointment as coordinator of inter-American affairs. "I thought up something that had to be done and somebody"—in this instance, the president of the United States—"said, 'O.K. it's your idea. Now let's see you make it work.

Judgeships are the mother's milk of politics, their desirability a rare instance of bipartisan agreement. A deal struck at the tag end of the session promised a dozen new judges for Manhattan and Brooklyn, with two Democrats joining the bench for every Republican.

MEADE ESPOSITO HAD a simple explanation for Rockefeller's failure to achieve the presidency: "He was too liberal for the Republicans, and too conservative for the Democrats." Were

abolish the widely flaunted requirement that taverns serve food. Once again conventional roles were reversed, as Rockefeller argued for a free market solution and his critics conjured a New York, in the words of conservative Republican lawmaker John Marchi of Staten Island, deregulated into "a wide-open market, a dumping ground for cheap liquor, a paradise for the conniver and the loss-leader advocate.

Rockefeller countered with a $50 million expansion of the state court system, including the creation of a hundred or more politically appetizing supreme court judgeships, each one paying $43,316. Pressed on whether appointing these justices violated the state constitution, which mandated their popular election, Rockefeller had a ready response: "It's only unconstitutional if you call them a Supreme Court judge. Call them something else, it's constitutional.

There is no problem that cannot be solved. —NELSON A. ROCKEFELLER