The Also Rans: Barry Goldwater
On May 29, 1998 (15 years ago today) Barry Morris Goldwater, the former Senator from Arizona and Republican Party candidate for President in 1964, died at the age of 89 at his home in Paradise Valley, Arizona, of complications a the stroke. Goldwater earned the nickname "Mr. Conservative" and is one of the most colorful presidential candidates of the 20th century.
Goldwater was born in Phoenix, in what was then the Arizona Territory, on January 2, 1909. His father Baron M. Goldwater was the founder of Goldwater's, the largest department store in Phoenix. The family name had been changed from Goldwasser to Goldwater and Goldwater's family was Episcopalian, though on rare occasions he referred to himself as "Jewish". Goldwater did not often attend church.
Goldwater graduated from Staunton Military Academy, an elite private school in Virginia, and attended the University of Arizona for one year. He took over the family business after his father's death in 1930. He became a Republican (in a heavily Democratic state) and opposed the New Deal. In 1934, he married Margaret "Peggy" Johnson, wealthy daughter of a prominent industrialist from Muncie, Indiana. They had four children: Joanne (born January 1, 1936), Barry (born July 15, 1938), Michael (born March 15, 1940), and Peggy (born July 27, 1944). Goldwater's son Barry Goldwater, Jr. served as a United States House of Representatives member from California from 1969 to 1983. Goldwater became a widower in 1985, and in 1992 he married Susan Wechsler, a nurse 32 years his junior.
When the US entered World War II, Goldwater received a reserve commission in the United States Army Air Forces. He became a pilot assigned to the Ferry Command, a newly formed unit that flew aircraft and supplies to war zones worldwide. He spent most of the war flying between the USA and India and also flew supplies over the Himalayas. Remaining in the Air Force Reserve after the war, he eventually retired as a command pilot with the rank of Major General. By that time, he had flown 165 different types of aircraft. Following World War II, Goldwater was a leading proponent of creating the United States Air Force Academy. The Visitor Center at the USAF Academy is now named in his honor. As a Colonel he also founded the Arizona Air National Guard, and he would desegregate it two years before the rest of the US military. Goldwater was instrumental in pushing the Pentagon to support desegregation of the armed services. He retired as an Air Force Major General, and he continued piloting B-52 aircraft until late in his military career.
Goldwater entered Phoenix politics in 1949 when he was elected to the City Council. He won a seat in the US Senate in 1952, when he upset veteran Democrat and Senate majority leader Ernest McFarland. He defeated McFarland again in 1958. He stepped down from the Senate in 1964 for his presidential campaign.
Goldwater was an active supporter of the conservative coalition in Congress, but he rejected the wildest fringes of the anti-communist movement. He voted against the censure of Senator Joseph McCarthy in 1954. In 1960, Goldwater published his book The Conscience of a Conservative, which became an important reference text in conservative political circles.
Goldwater was grief-stricken by the assassination of Kennedy on November 22, 1963. He planned to run for President in 1964 and he was greatly disappointed that his opponent in the 1964 race would not be Kennedy. Goldwater disliked Vice-President Lyndon Johnson, who he said "used every dirty trick in the bag". Goldwater's 1964 campaign catered to conservatives. He opposed interference by the federal government in state affairs. Although he had supported all previous federal civil rights legislation and had supported the original senate version of the bill, Goldwater would later oppose the Civil Rights Act of 1964. His stance was based on his view that the act was an intrusion of the federal government into the affairs of states and that the Act interfered with the rights of private persons to do or not do business with whomever they chose.
In 1964, Goldwater fought and won a bitterly contested race for the Republican Party's presidential nomination. His main rival was New York Governor Nelson Rockefeller. His nomination was opposed by liberal Republicans, who thought Goldwater's demand for defeat of the Soviet Union would lead to nuclear war. At the time, the Republican Party was split between its conservative wing (based in the West and South) and moderate/liberal wing (based in the Northeast). Goldwater was viewed by many traditional Republicans as being too far on the right wing of the political spectrum to win a national election. Moderate Republicans recruited a series of opponents, including Rockefeller, Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr., and Pennsylvania Governor William Scranton, to challenge Goldwater. Goldwater narrowly defeated Rockefeller in the winner-take-all California primary to secure the nomination.
Goldwater famously declared in his bold acceptance speech at the 1964 Republican Convention, "I would remind you that extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice. And let me remind you also that moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue." He did not even mention Johnson by name in his convention speech.
Past comments came back to haunt Goldwater throughout his campaign. He had called the Eisenhower administration "a dime-store New Deal", and the former president never fully forgave him. Eisenhower did, however, film a TV commercial with Goldwater, but Eisenhower qualified his support by stating that he had voted not specifically for Goldwater, but for the Republican Party. In December 1961, Goldwater had told a news conference that "sometimes I think this country would be better off if we could just saw off the Eastern Seaboard and let it float out to sea". That comment was used against him during the campaign in the form of a Johnson television commercial.
The Goldwater campaign spotlighted Ronald Reagan, who appeared in a campaign ad. Reagan gave a stirring, nationally televised speech, "A Time for Choosing", in support of Goldwater. The speech prompted Reagan to seek the California Governorship in 1966 and jump-started his political career. Senator Prescott Bush, a moderate Republican from Connecticut and the father of future President George H. W. Bush, was a friend of Goldwater and supported him in the general election campaign. Future Chief Justice of the Supreme Court and fellow Arizonan William Rehnquist served as a legal adviser to Goldwater's 1964 campaign.
Goldwater was painted as a dangerous figure by the Johnson campaign. Johnson's spin doctors countered Goldwater's slogan "In your heart, you know he's right" with the lines "In your guts, you know he's nuts", and "In your heart, you know he might" (meaning that he might actually use nuclear weapons). Johnson claimed that Goldwater's militancy would have dire consequences, possibly even nuclear war. Goldwater's rhetoric on nuclear war was viewed by many as quite uncompromising, a view helped by off the cuff remarks such as, "Let's lob one into the men's room at the Kremlin." He also said that field commanders in Vietnam and Europe should be given the authority to use tactical nuclear weapons (which he called "small conventional nuclear weapons") without presidential confirmation.
Before the 1964 election, the muckraking Fact magazine, published by Ralph Ginzburg, ran a special issue titled "The Unconscious of a Conservative: A Special Issue on the Mind of Barry Goldwater". The two main articles contended that Goldwater was mentally unfit to be president. The magazine attempted to support this claim with the results of an unscientific poll of psychiatrists it had conducted. Fact had mailed questionnaires to 12,356 psychiatrists, and published a "sampling" of the comments made by the 2,417 psychiatrists who responded, of which 1,189 said Goldwater was unfit to be president. After the election, Goldwater sued the publisher, the editor and the magazine for libel in Goldwater v. Ginzburg. "Although the jury awarded Goldwater only $1.00 in compensatory damages against all three defendants, it awarded him punitive damages of $25,000 against Ginzburg and $50,000 against Fact magazine, Inc."
A Democratic campaign advertisement known as Daisy showed a young girl counting daisy petals, from one to ten. Immediately following this scene, a voiceover counted down from ten to one. The child's face was shown as a still photograph followed by images of nuclear explosions and mushroom clouds. The campaign advertisement ended with a plea to vote for Johnson, implying that Goldwater (who was not mentioned by name) would provoke a nuclear war if he was elected. The advertisement, which featured only a few spoken words of narrative and relied on imagery for its emotional impact, was one of the most provocative in American political campaign history. The ad aired only once and was immediately pulled but was then shown many times by television stations. Here is the "daisy ad":
Johnson went on to win the election in a landslide. Goldwater only won his home state of Arizona and five states in the Deep South. The Southern states, traditionally Democratic up to that time, voted Republican primarily as a statement of opposition to the Civil Rights Act, which had been passed by Johnson earlier that year. Goldwater received 38.4% of the popular vote, and carried Arizona, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, and South Carolina. Johnson won 486 electoral votes, to Goldwater's 52. Goldwater, with his customary bluntness, remarked, "We would have lost even if Abraham Lincoln had come back and campaigned with us." He later said that he would have won the election if the country had not been in a state of extended grief (referring to the assassination of John F. Kennedy), and that it was simply not ready for a third President in just 14 months.
Goldwater's poor showing pulled down many supporters with him. Of the 57 Republican Congressmen who endorsed Goldwater before the convention, 20 were defeated for reelection.
Goldwater remained popular in Arizona, and in the 1968 Senate election he was elected (this time) to the seat of retiring Senator Carl Hayden. He was subsequently reelected in 1974 and 1980. The 1974 election saw Goldwater easily reelected. His final campaign in 1980 was close, with Goldwater winning in a near draw against Democratic challenger Bill Schulz. Goldwater seriously considered retirement in 1980 before deciding to run for reelection. Peggy Goldwater reportedly hoped that her husband's Senate term, due to end in January 1981, would be his last. Goldwater decided to run, planning to make the term his last in the Senate. Goldwater faced a surprisingly tough battle for reelection. Early returns on election night seemed to indicate that Schulz would win. The counting of votes continued through the night and into the next morning. At around daybreak, Goldwater learned that he had been reelected thanks to absentee ballots, which were among the last to be counted. Goldwater's close victory in 1980 came despite Reagan's 61% landslide over Jimmy Carter in Arizona.
In the senate, Goldwater was a strong supporter of the environment. By the 1980s, with Ronald Reagan as president and the growing involvement of the religious right in conservative politics, Goldwater strongly advocated his libertarian views on personal issues. Goldwater viewed abortion as a matter of personal choice, not intended for government intervention. He saw the religious right's views as an encroachment on personal privacy and individual liberties. In 1981, gave a speech on how he was angry about the bullying of American politicians by religious organizations, and would "fight them every step of the way". When Moral Majority founder Jerry Falwell expressed opposition to the nomination of Sandra Day O'Connor to the Supreme Court, (Falwell had said, "Every good Christian should be concerned"), Goldwater said: "Every good Christian ought to kick Falwell right in the ass." (According to John Dean, Goldwater actually suggested that good Christians ought to kick Falwell in the "nuts", but the news media "changed the anatomical reference.")
Goldwater also disagreed with the Reagan administration on certain aspects of foreign policy (for example, he opposed the decision to mine Nicaraguan harbors). Notwithstanding his prior differences with Dwight D. Eisenhower, Goldwater in a 1986 interview rated him the best of the seven Presidents with whom he had worked. Goldwater also had harsh words for his one-time political protege, President Reagan over the Iran-Conta affair, though aside from that, he said that Reagan was a good President.
On May 12, 1986, Goldwater was presented with the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Ronald Reagan. Goldwater retired in 1987, serving as chair of the Senate Intelligence and Armed Services Committees in his final term. John McCain, succeeded Goldwater in the Senate in 1987. After his retirement in 1989, Goldwater said that the Republican party had been taken over by a "bunch of kooks". Goldwater was an active amateur radio "ham" operator, with call letters K7UGA. Many hams were delighted to make contact with him in his retirement years.
In the 1990s some of Goldwater's statements alienated many social conservatives. He urged Republicans to lay off Bill Clinton over the Whitewater scandal, and criticized the military's ban on homosexuals, saying "Everyone knows that gays have served honorably in the military since at least the time of Julius Caesar." He also said, "You don't need to be 'straight' to fight and die for your country. You just need to shoot straight." A few years before his death he went so far as to address establishment Republicans by saying, "Do not associate my name with anything you do. You are extremists, and you've hurt the Republican party much more than the Democrats have." In 1996, he told Bob Dole, whose presidential campaign received lukewarm support from conservative Republicans, "We're the new liberals of the Republican party. Can you imagine that?"
Goldwater was an avid amateur radio operator from the early 1920s onwards. During the Vietnam War, he spent many hours giving servicemen overseas the ability to talk to their families at home. Goldwater was also a prominent spokesman for amateur radio and its enthusiasts.
Goldwater was an accomplished amateur photographer and in his estate left some 15,000 of his images to three Arizona institutions. On one occasion, Goldwater brought his camera and photographed President John F. Kennedy. When Kennedy received the photo, he returned it to Goldwater, with the inscription, "For Barry Goldwater – Whom I urge to follow the career for which he has shown such talent – photography! – from his friend – John Kennedy." The photo itself was prized by Goldwater for the rest of his life, and recently sold for $17,925 in a Heritage auction.
Goldwater was one of the more prominent American politicians to openly show an interest in UFOs. On March 28, 1975, Goldwater wrote to Shlomo Arnon: "The subject of UFOs has interested me for some long time. About ten or twelve years ago I made an effort to find out what was in the building at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base where the information has been stored that has been collected by the Air Force, and I was understandably denied this request. It is still classified above Top Secret." The April 25, 1988, issue of The New Yorker carried an interview where Goldwater said he repeatedly asked his friend, Gen. Curtis LeMay, if there was any truth to the rumors that UFO evidence was stored in a secret room at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, and if he (Goldwater) might have access to the room. According to Goldwater, an angry LeMay gave him "holy hell" and said, "Not only can't you get into it but don't you ever mention it to me again." In a 1988 interview on Larry King's radio show, Goldwater was asked if he thought the U.S. Government was withholding UFO evidence; he replied "Yes, I do." He added "I certainly believe in aliens in space. They may not look like us, but I have very strong feelings that they have advanced beyond our mental capabilities. I think some highly secret government UFO investigations are going on that we don't know about – and probably never will unless the Air Force discloses them."
Goldwater's public appearances ended in late 1996 after he suffered a massive stroke. Family members then disclosed he was in the early stages of Alzheimer's disease. He died on May 29, 1998, at the age of 89 at his long-time home in Paradise Valley, Arizona, of complications from the stroke.
Goldwater's granddaughter, CC Goldwater, has co-produced a documentary on Goldwater's life, Mr. Conservative: Goldwater on Goldwater, first shown on HBO on September 18, 2006. If you haven't seen it, I highly recommend it.
Goldwater was born in Phoenix, in what was then the Arizona Territory, on January 2, 1909. His father Baron M. Goldwater was the founder of Goldwater's, the largest department store in Phoenix. The family name had been changed from Goldwasser to Goldwater and Goldwater's family was Episcopalian, though on rare occasions he referred to himself as "Jewish". Goldwater did not often attend church.
Goldwater graduated from Staunton Military Academy, an elite private school in Virginia, and attended the University of Arizona for one year. He took over the family business after his father's death in 1930. He became a Republican (in a heavily Democratic state) and opposed the New Deal. In 1934, he married Margaret "Peggy" Johnson, wealthy daughter of a prominent industrialist from Muncie, Indiana. They had four children: Joanne (born January 1, 1936), Barry (born July 15, 1938), Michael (born March 15, 1940), and Peggy (born July 27, 1944). Goldwater's son Barry Goldwater, Jr. served as a United States House of Representatives member from California from 1969 to 1983. Goldwater became a widower in 1985, and in 1992 he married Susan Wechsler, a nurse 32 years his junior.
When the US entered World War II, Goldwater received a reserve commission in the United States Army Air Forces. He became a pilot assigned to the Ferry Command, a newly formed unit that flew aircraft and supplies to war zones worldwide. He spent most of the war flying between the USA and India and also flew supplies over the Himalayas. Remaining in the Air Force Reserve after the war, he eventually retired as a command pilot with the rank of Major General. By that time, he had flown 165 different types of aircraft. Following World War II, Goldwater was a leading proponent of creating the United States Air Force Academy. The Visitor Center at the USAF Academy is now named in his honor. As a Colonel he also founded the Arizona Air National Guard, and he would desegregate it two years before the rest of the US military. Goldwater was instrumental in pushing the Pentagon to support desegregation of the armed services. He retired as an Air Force Major General, and he continued piloting B-52 aircraft until late in his military career.
Goldwater entered Phoenix politics in 1949 when he was elected to the City Council. He won a seat in the US Senate in 1952, when he upset veteran Democrat and Senate majority leader Ernest McFarland. He defeated McFarland again in 1958. He stepped down from the Senate in 1964 for his presidential campaign.
Goldwater was an active supporter of the conservative coalition in Congress, but he rejected the wildest fringes of the anti-communist movement. He voted against the censure of Senator Joseph McCarthy in 1954. In 1960, Goldwater published his book The Conscience of a Conservative, which became an important reference text in conservative political circles.
Goldwater was grief-stricken by the assassination of Kennedy on November 22, 1963. He planned to run for President in 1964 and he was greatly disappointed that his opponent in the 1964 race would not be Kennedy. Goldwater disliked Vice-President Lyndon Johnson, who he said "used every dirty trick in the bag". Goldwater's 1964 campaign catered to conservatives. He opposed interference by the federal government in state affairs. Although he had supported all previous federal civil rights legislation and had supported the original senate version of the bill, Goldwater would later oppose the Civil Rights Act of 1964. His stance was based on his view that the act was an intrusion of the federal government into the affairs of states and that the Act interfered with the rights of private persons to do or not do business with whomever they chose.
In 1964, Goldwater fought and won a bitterly contested race for the Republican Party's presidential nomination. His main rival was New York Governor Nelson Rockefeller. His nomination was opposed by liberal Republicans, who thought Goldwater's demand for defeat of the Soviet Union would lead to nuclear war. At the time, the Republican Party was split between its conservative wing (based in the West and South) and moderate/liberal wing (based in the Northeast). Goldwater was viewed by many traditional Republicans as being too far on the right wing of the political spectrum to win a national election. Moderate Republicans recruited a series of opponents, including Rockefeller, Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr., and Pennsylvania Governor William Scranton, to challenge Goldwater. Goldwater narrowly defeated Rockefeller in the winner-take-all California primary to secure the nomination.
Goldwater famously declared in his bold acceptance speech at the 1964 Republican Convention, "I would remind you that extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice. And let me remind you also that moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue." He did not even mention Johnson by name in his convention speech.
Past comments came back to haunt Goldwater throughout his campaign. He had called the Eisenhower administration "a dime-store New Deal", and the former president never fully forgave him. Eisenhower did, however, film a TV commercial with Goldwater, but Eisenhower qualified his support by stating that he had voted not specifically for Goldwater, but for the Republican Party. In December 1961, Goldwater had told a news conference that "sometimes I think this country would be better off if we could just saw off the Eastern Seaboard and let it float out to sea". That comment was used against him during the campaign in the form of a Johnson television commercial.
The Goldwater campaign spotlighted Ronald Reagan, who appeared in a campaign ad. Reagan gave a stirring, nationally televised speech, "A Time for Choosing", in support of Goldwater. The speech prompted Reagan to seek the California Governorship in 1966 and jump-started his political career. Senator Prescott Bush, a moderate Republican from Connecticut and the father of future President George H. W. Bush, was a friend of Goldwater and supported him in the general election campaign. Future Chief Justice of the Supreme Court and fellow Arizonan William Rehnquist served as a legal adviser to Goldwater's 1964 campaign.
Goldwater was painted as a dangerous figure by the Johnson campaign. Johnson's spin doctors countered Goldwater's slogan "In your heart, you know he's right" with the lines "In your guts, you know he's nuts", and "In your heart, you know he might" (meaning that he might actually use nuclear weapons). Johnson claimed that Goldwater's militancy would have dire consequences, possibly even nuclear war. Goldwater's rhetoric on nuclear war was viewed by many as quite uncompromising, a view helped by off the cuff remarks such as, "Let's lob one into the men's room at the Kremlin." He also said that field commanders in Vietnam and Europe should be given the authority to use tactical nuclear weapons (which he called "small conventional nuclear weapons") without presidential confirmation.
Before the 1964 election, the muckraking Fact magazine, published by Ralph Ginzburg, ran a special issue titled "The Unconscious of a Conservative: A Special Issue on the Mind of Barry Goldwater". The two main articles contended that Goldwater was mentally unfit to be president. The magazine attempted to support this claim with the results of an unscientific poll of psychiatrists it had conducted. Fact had mailed questionnaires to 12,356 psychiatrists, and published a "sampling" of the comments made by the 2,417 psychiatrists who responded, of which 1,189 said Goldwater was unfit to be president. After the election, Goldwater sued the publisher, the editor and the magazine for libel in Goldwater v. Ginzburg. "Although the jury awarded Goldwater only $1.00 in compensatory damages against all three defendants, it awarded him punitive damages of $25,000 against Ginzburg and $50,000 against Fact magazine, Inc."
A Democratic campaign advertisement known as Daisy showed a young girl counting daisy petals, from one to ten. Immediately following this scene, a voiceover counted down from ten to one. The child's face was shown as a still photograph followed by images of nuclear explosions and mushroom clouds. The campaign advertisement ended with a plea to vote for Johnson, implying that Goldwater (who was not mentioned by name) would provoke a nuclear war if he was elected. The advertisement, which featured only a few spoken words of narrative and relied on imagery for its emotional impact, was one of the most provocative in American political campaign history. The ad aired only once and was immediately pulled but was then shown many times by television stations. Here is the "daisy ad":
Johnson went on to win the election in a landslide. Goldwater only won his home state of Arizona and five states in the Deep South. The Southern states, traditionally Democratic up to that time, voted Republican primarily as a statement of opposition to the Civil Rights Act, which had been passed by Johnson earlier that year. Goldwater received 38.4% of the popular vote, and carried Arizona, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, and South Carolina. Johnson won 486 electoral votes, to Goldwater's 52. Goldwater, with his customary bluntness, remarked, "We would have lost even if Abraham Lincoln had come back and campaigned with us." He later said that he would have won the election if the country had not been in a state of extended grief (referring to the assassination of John F. Kennedy), and that it was simply not ready for a third President in just 14 months.
Goldwater's poor showing pulled down many supporters with him. Of the 57 Republican Congressmen who endorsed Goldwater before the convention, 20 were defeated for reelection.
Goldwater remained popular in Arizona, and in the 1968 Senate election he was elected (this time) to the seat of retiring Senator Carl Hayden. He was subsequently reelected in 1974 and 1980. The 1974 election saw Goldwater easily reelected. His final campaign in 1980 was close, with Goldwater winning in a near draw against Democratic challenger Bill Schulz. Goldwater seriously considered retirement in 1980 before deciding to run for reelection. Peggy Goldwater reportedly hoped that her husband's Senate term, due to end in January 1981, would be his last. Goldwater decided to run, planning to make the term his last in the Senate. Goldwater faced a surprisingly tough battle for reelection. Early returns on election night seemed to indicate that Schulz would win. The counting of votes continued through the night and into the next morning. At around daybreak, Goldwater learned that he had been reelected thanks to absentee ballots, which were among the last to be counted. Goldwater's close victory in 1980 came despite Reagan's 61% landslide over Jimmy Carter in Arizona.
In the senate, Goldwater was a strong supporter of the environment. By the 1980s, with Ronald Reagan as president and the growing involvement of the religious right in conservative politics, Goldwater strongly advocated his libertarian views on personal issues. Goldwater viewed abortion as a matter of personal choice, not intended for government intervention. He saw the religious right's views as an encroachment on personal privacy and individual liberties. In 1981, gave a speech on how he was angry about the bullying of American politicians by religious organizations, and would "fight them every step of the way". When Moral Majority founder Jerry Falwell expressed opposition to the nomination of Sandra Day O'Connor to the Supreme Court, (Falwell had said, "Every good Christian should be concerned"), Goldwater said: "Every good Christian ought to kick Falwell right in the ass." (According to John Dean, Goldwater actually suggested that good Christians ought to kick Falwell in the "nuts", but the news media "changed the anatomical reference.")
Goldwater also disagreed with the Reagan administration on certain aspects of foreign policy (for example, he opposed the decision to mine Nicaraguan harbors). Notwithstanding his prior differences with Dwight D. Eisenhower, Goldwater in a 1986 interview rated him the best of the seven Presidents with whom he had worked. Goldwater also had harsh words for his one-time political protege, President Reagan over the Iran-Conta affair, though aside from that, he said that Reagan was a good President.
On May 12, 1986, Goldwater was presented with the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Ronald Reagan. Goldwater retired in 1987, serving as chair of the Senate Intelligence and Armed Services Committees in his final term. John McCain, succeeded Goldwater in the Senate in 1987. After his retirement in 1989, Goldwater said that the Republican party had been taken over by a "bunch of kooks". Goldwater was an active amateur radio "ham" operator, with call letters K7UGA. Many hams were delighted to make contact with him in his retirement years.
In the 1990s some of Goldwater's statements alienated many social conservatives. He urged Republicans to lay off Bill Clinton over the Whitewater scandal, and criticized the military's ban on homosexuals, saying "Everyone knows that gays have served honorably in the military since at least the time of Julius Caesar." He also said, "You don't need to be 'straight' to fight and die for your country. You just need to shoot straight." A few years before his death he went so far as to address establishment Republicans by saying, "Do not associate my name with anything you do. You are extremists, and you've hurt the Republican party much more than the Democrats have." In 1996, he told Bob Dole, whose presidential campaign received lukewarm support from conservative Republicans, "We're the new liberals of the Republican party. Can you imagine that?"
Goldwater was an avid amateur radio operator from the early 1920s onwards. During the Vietnam War, he spent many hours giving servicemen overseas the ability to talk to their families at home. Goldwater was also a prominent spokesman for amateur radio and its enthusiasts.
Goldwater was an accomplished amateur photographer and in his estate left some 15,000 of his images to three Arizona institutions. On one occasion, Goldwater brought his camera and photographed President John F. Kennedy. When Kennedy received the photo, he returned it to Goldwater, with the inscription, "For Barry Goldwater – Whom I urge to follow the career for which he has shown such talent – photography! – from his friend – John Kennedy." The photo itself was prized by Goldwater for the rest of his life, and recently sold for $17,925 in a Heritage auction.
Goldwater was one of the more prominent American politicians to openly show an interest in UFOs. On March 28, 1975, Goldwater wrote to Shlomo Arnon: "The subject of UFOs has interested me for some long time. About ten or twelve years ago I made an effort to find out what was in the building at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base where the information has been stored that has been collected by the Air Force, and I was understandably denied this request. It is still classified above Top Secret." The April 25, 1988, issue of The New Yorker carried an interview where Goldwater said he repeatedly asked his friend, Gen. Curtis LeMay, if there was any truth to the rumors that UFO evidence was stored in a secret room at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, and if he (Goldwater) might have access to the room. According to Goldwater, an angry LeMay gave him "holy hell" and said, "Not only can't you get into it but don't you ever mention it to me again." In a 1988 interview on Larry King's radio show, Goldwater was asked if he thought the U.S. Government was withholding UFO evidence; he replied "Yes, I do." He added "I certainly believe in aliens in space. They may not look like us, but I have very strong feelings that they have advanced beyond our mental capabilities. I think some highly secret government UFO investigations are going on that we don't know about – and probably never will unless the Air Force discloses them."
Goldwater's public appearances ended in late 1996 after he suffered a massive stroke. Family members then disclosed he was in the early stages of Alzheimer's disease. He died on May 29, 1998, at the age of 89 at his long-time home in Paradise Valley, Arizona, of complications from the stroke.
Goldwater's granddaughter, CC Goldwater, has co-produced a documentary on Goldwater's life, Mr. Conservative: Goldwater on Goldwater, first shown on HBO on September 18, 2006. If you haven't seen it, I highly recommend it.