Richard Norton Smith shares stories about former vice president Nelson Rockefeller during an event at the Dole Institute, 2350 Petefish Drive, in November 2014. Smith was promoting his newest book, On

Richard Norton Smith, the founding director of Kansas University’s Dole Institute of Politics, returned to the KU campus Sunday afternoon to discuss his new book, “On His Own Terms: A Life of Nelson Rockefeller.”

Smith, a presidential historian and author, spoke to a packed house at the Dole Institute about the making of the biography — an endeavor spanning more than a decade — and what he learned along the way.

“It was a life not without tragedy and a good deal of pain, unfortunately much of it inflicted on others,” Smith said of the life of Rockefeller, the charismatic businessman, philanthropist and politician who served four terms as governor of New York and one term as vice president under Gerald Ford.

The extensively researched “On His Own Terms” draws on thousands of previously unseen documents and more than 200 interviews with those who knew the man.

He was a political maverick, Smith said, who supported a range of “liberal” causes from universal health care and civil rights to protection of the environment — all while remaining a member of the Republican party.

A member of the prominent Rockefeller clan, Nelson believed America’s wealthiest citizens had an obligation to help the less fortunate.

“I think he felt himself very much in that tradition of Theodore Roosevelt and Franklin Roosevelt — rich men with a vested interest in the capital system, but who understood the dangers of the inequities and injustices which if not reformed in advance might lead to revolution.”

For Smith, whose fascination with Rockefeller began at age 10 while watching the politician’s second run for the presidency in 1964 unfold on television, “assembling the facts” for the book was perhaps the least challenging aspect.

It took him much of the 14-year period to tear himself away from that “youthful, unquestioning devotion” so as to tell Rockefeller’s story objectively, Smith explained.

That included an in-depth look at what is considered by many historians Rockefeller’s biggest failing, the 1971 Attica Prison riot.

Rockefeller, then governor of New York, refused to visit Attica during the violent uprising, in which 2,200 inmates seized control of the prison and took 42 staff members hostage in pursuit of increased political rights and better living conditions.

“The most poignant aspect of that is memory,” Smith said, recalling the 1914 Ludlow Massacre, when Colorado National Guard soldiers led an attack on 1,200 striking coal miners and their families at Ludlow, Colo. Nelson’s father, John D. Rockefeller Jr., owned the mine and spent several years trying to distance himself from the incident.

“I think Nelson saw history repeating itself. He went through the rest of his life giving the impression that he was hardened to what had happened (at Attica),” Smith said. “The fact is, he was haunted the rest of his life by what had happened.”

Rockefeller, who tried unsuccessfully three times to win the Republican nomination for president, was a “man without a party.” By 1968, his final run at the presidency, Rockefeller’s beloved GOP had already begun its dramatic shift to the right.

His bipartisan problem solving was falling out of fashion, Smith said, as America’s political landscape became more divisive.

“He should have become a curator,” Smith said of Rockefeller, a lifelong art collector who served as trustee, treasurer and president of the Museum of Modern Art. “He had a remarkable eye for things.”

The Rockefeller family estate, Kykuit, contains more than 70 of Nelson’s sculptures, one of which he repainted from red to black immediately after purchasing it.

Word got back to the artist, Smith said, who quite reasonably demanded to know what gave Rockefeller “the right to think he could repaint” the artwork.

“And Rockefeller said, ‘If you didn’t want me to repaint it, why the hell did you sell it to me?'” Smith recounted, eliciting laughs from the audience. “On his own terms.”