The Republican Party's nomination of Barry Goldwater for president in July 1964 marked the effective end of Nelson Rockefeller's lifelong ambition to win America's highest office. It also brought to a close the whole "liberal consensus", that era in the mid-20th century when American politics were ruled by an unwritten pact: at home, most Republicans grudgingly accepted the liberal policies of the New Deal; abroad, most Democrats accepted conservative anti-communism. As the grandson of the co-founder of Standard Oil, Rockefeller embodied and promoted that consensus to the best of his considerable abilities and resources. He worked for Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal in Washington and in Latin America. He worked too for Dwight Eisenhower; during the Eisenhower years his Special Studies Project brought together an astonishingly diverse body of pundits, from New Deal veterans to cold-war generals and even Ronald Reagan's financial angel, Justin Dart.
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