Following Brown v. Board of Education (1954) under Orval Faubus (D 1955-1967), who was governor for 12 years, Arkansas suddenly came back under “Republican” leadership for the first time since 1873 in 1967.
A new leader emerged, with radical new conservative vision for Arkansas’ future.
Winthrop Rockefeller
Stepping forward in the 1964, 66, 68, and 70 primaries, Rockefeller won handily each time, surely without hijinks and due solely to the gravitas of his policies - 98% in 66, 95% in 68, and 95% in 70.
The Republican Party of the time became firmly Machine politics, with operations loyal to Rockefeller and seemed to become Republican … in name only. This was done in a matter of months. Winthrop’s brother Nelson had been governor of NY from 59-66 at the time. The party was notably very progressive during this turn, and reverted immediate upon Reagan’s entry into office. Rockefeller raised taxes and used them to buy influence in Education, Health, Welfare, and Municipalities, as he was “a man of the people and not of moneyed interests”.
In the two general elections, in spite of 100 years of democrat ownership of the governor’s office, he won … 54/46, 52/48, then lost 32/68 to… “Dale Bumpers” before dying 3 years later of pancreatic cancer.
His son would later be Arkansas lieutenant governor from 1996 until his death in 2006 at age 58.
Oddly enough, Win (the son) was elected in 1996 alongside one Mike Huckabee, baptist minister and father of Sarah Huckabee Sanders.
What was the Rockefeller interest in Arkansas? Why did he focus so much on the prisons?
That’s definitely going to be involved, too. “They’ve financed both sides of every war since…”. There are surely a primary 1-5 goals, but also an unknown number of secondary, tertiary, and “nice-to-have”s.
Good info to know that they were already prepping Korea and Vietnam during WWII, and probably before. Not so much shocking at this point, but hadn’t heard or considered that the plans dated back that far.