Associated Press wire dispatch, August 23, 1972, 11:47 PM EST
MIAMI BEACH — It took three ballots and the better part of two days, but Nelson Rockefeller of New York will be the Republican nominee for President of the United States.
The final tally of the third ballot came at 11:34 PM Eastern time, as the California delegation — which had held firm for Ronald Reagan through two inconclusive votes — split at the instruction of party elders who had spent the preceding six hours in the suites above the convention floor. The moment California's chairman announced a revised count giving Rockefeller 47 of the state's 96 delegates, the arithmetic was settled. The rest followed quickly.
Reagan, 61, watched the board from his skybox. He did not move. His wife Nancy placed her hand on his arm. He did not acknowledge it.
The Reagan floor operation had been formidable. His campaign manager, Lyn Nofziger, had spent weeks locking down delegates from the South and the Mountain West, and the count entering tonight had Reagan within striking distance. But striking distance, in a brokered convention, is its own kind of defeat. The establishment had time, money, and phone lines that ran to places Reagan's people couldn't reach.
Rockefeller took the podium shortly after midnight to a hall that was unified in the technical sense — the boos had stopped, the signs had been put away — but subdued in every other. He spoke of experience, of competence, of the responsibility of governance. He did not mention Ronald Reagan by name.
Reagan's concession statement, issued through a spokesman, was four sentences. It congratulated the Governor. It pledged support for the ticket. It contained no warmth.
Outside the convention hall, a group of young Reagan supporters stood on the sidewalk in the Florida heat, unwilling to disperse. One of them, a college student from Orange County, California, held a sign that read REAGAN 1976. He was not the only one.