Chapter IV

The Philanthropist

The eldest son. John Davidson Rockefeller III, was born in 1906 at a time when his illustrious grandfather was still hiding out from government investigators. The public outcry over the Ludlow massacre was part of his childhood memories. 'Mr John', as he was called, chose like his father to establish himself in philanthropies rather than business.

After graduating from Princeton in 1929, He traveled by ship to Japan immediately the first of sixteen such trips and concentrated his energy on Asia. His mission became to provide the funds and support to assist Asian nations to control their populations. He served in the military government that occupied Japan after the Second World War and as a consultant to the U.S. Peace Settlement Mission in Japan, and helped create the Asia Society. He won such honors in Asia as Grand Cordon Order of the Rising sun (in Japan), president of the Japan Society; chairman of the Asian Society; Most Noble Order of the Crown (in Thailand); Order of the Thousand Elephants and White Parasol (in Laos). The Population Council, which he sponsored, had a staff of some 250 doctors, demographers, and social scientists scattered among the less affluent nations of Asia (and later the world), with "showcases" of birth control in South Korea and Taiwan. Though he was awarded the Order of the Auspicious Star of China when he was director of United China Relief (for the Nationalists) , he subsequently counseled the State Department (in 1949) on another form of population control for Communist China, suggesting that "trade with China . . . should be limited. It seems to me that the fastest way to contain Communism is to discredit it in the eyes of the people of China. It seems to me if the [Chinese] economy worsens that this will arouse opposition to it." He thus helped make food a weapon in the Cold War.

He died in 1978, in a car crash, not far from Pocantico Hills.


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