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Arkansas Press Association
Publisher Weekly
By Kevin Slimp
Vol.18 | No. 36 | Friday, September 22, 2023 | Serving Press and State Since 1873
Late Gov. Rockefeller to be honored at Press Freedom Gala 1967 Freedom of Information Act a valentine to the people of Arkansas justices ruled unanimously in favor of preserving the Arkansas FOIA as written.
When elected as Arkansas’s 37th governor in November 1966, Winthrop Rockefeller promised to usher in an “Era of Excellence.” Indeed, Rockefeller’s major achievements as governor include several laws enacted during the 1967 legislature: adopting the state’s first minimum wage, tightening lax insurance regulation, and, perhaps most importantly, adopting a law to guarantee freedom of information, giving the public and the media the right to examine and copy public records and to be present whenever governmental bodies met.
The Arkansas Supreme Court’s opinion, written by then-associate justice George Rose Smith, read: “It is vital in a democratic society that public business be performed in an open and public manner. We have no hesitation in asserting our conviction that the Freedom of Information Act was passed wholly in the public interest and is to be liberally interpreted to the end that its praiseworthy purposes may be achieved.”
For his support of government transparency and for signing the Arkansas Freedom of Information Act of 1967 into law on February 14 of that year, Gov. Rockefeller will be presented posthumously with APA’s Freedom of Information Award, to be accepted by his family, at the Press Freedom Gala on October 12 in Little Rock.
When Gov. Rockefeller left office in 1971 he pointed to the passage of the Arkansas Freedom of Information Act as one of the crowning achievements of his administration. Rockefeller was born May 1, 1912, the fourth son of John D. Rockefeller, Jr. and Abby Aldrich Rockefeller. Affectionately known as “Win” to family and friends, he entered Yale University in 1931, but left school in 1934 to work in the Texas oil fields as a roughneck and roustabout for the Humble Oil and Refining Company.
During the 1967 legislative session State senator Ben Allen and state Representative Leon Holsted were the lead sponsors on the original bill, Act 93, and had the support of Gov. Rockefeller. But, according to the CALS Encyclopedia of Arkansas, the passage of Winthrop Rockefeller the Arkansas FOIA did not come without a legislative struggle.
Rockefeller returned to New York City by 1937, but after a series of executive positions he felt the call to serve and enlisted in the Army as a private in January 1941. During World War II he participated in the assault landings on Guam, Leyte, and Okinawa in the Pacific. Aboard the troop transport Henrico, en route to Okinawa, he was wounded in a kamikaze attack. Among his decorations were the Bronze Star with Oak Leaf Cluster and the Purple Heart. He was discharged in 1946 at the rank of lieutenant colonel.
The bulk of the opposition to the passage of the law, and those initiating early court challenges to the law once passed, were those desiring to preserve the status quo of doing the public’s business behind closed doors and out of view of the taxpaying public. Gov. Rockefeller disagreed with this viewpoint. “We have taken the government out of the smoke-filled rooms and returned it to the people,” he said of the Arkansas FOIA.
After the war Rockefeller returned to the Socony-Vacuum Oil Company of New York, but did not enjoy the position and the highsociety life that came with it, and resigned in 1951. While visiting
Shortly after Gov. Rockefeller signed the bill into law, the FOIA was tested in court in a lawsuit, W. F. Laman, et al. v. Robert S. McCord, et al., that went all the way to the Arkansas Supreme Court. There the Arkansas Publisher Weekly
See Rockefeller page 3
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September 22, 2023