Barry Goldwater

Barry Morris Goldwater (January 1, 1909 – May 29, 1998) was a United States politician and a founding figure in the modern conservative movement in the USA. Goldwater personified the shift in balance in American culture from the Northeast to the West. A five-term United States Senator from Arizona (1953-1965, 1969-87), he was the Republican Party candidate for the U.S. President in the 1964 election which he lost to Lyndon B. Johnson.

Political career

Hard to pigeonhole, he began as a reform Democrat, served as a friend and colleague of Joseph McCarthy to the bitter end (one of only 22 Senators who voted against McCarthy's censure), developed a deep friendship with President John F. Kennedy and a lasting dislike for Lyndon B. Johnson, whom he said "used every dirty trick in the bag", and Richard Nixon, whom he later called "the most dishonest individual I have ever met in my life" (though he was a key ally of Nixon during his administration).

Related Topics:
Democrat - Joseph McCarthy - John F. Kennedy - Lyndon B. Johnson - Richard Nixon

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Goldwater entered politics in 1949. He first won a Senate seat in 1952, when he upset veteran Democratic Senate floor leader Ernest McFarland, a feat not duplicated until 2004 when John Thune ousted Tom Daschle. He served two full terms.

Related Topics:
1949 - 1952 - Ernest McFarland - John Thune - Tom Daschle

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Goldwater had a controversial record on civil rights. On the one hand, he was a co-founder of the Arizona NAACP and was instrumental in desegregating the Arizona National Guard. As a Senator, he was a supporter of the Civil Rights Act of 1957 and 1960. Nevertheless he opposed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 on the grounds that it was an inappropriate extension of the federal commerce power to "legislate morality" and restrict the rights of employers. This stand, which was fairly common among true-believing Northern and Western conservatives, has opened him to charges of racism. Although Southern Democrats were the main opponents to the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and previous civil rights legislation, opposition to the Act by so public a Republican figure as Goldwater started the South's slow migration from the Democrats to the GOP, even as a majority of the Republicans in Congress voted in favor of the Act.

Related Topics:
Civil rights - NAACP - National Guard - Civil Rights Act of 1957 - 1960 - Civil Rights Act of 1964 - Racism

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Goldwater's claim that "you can't legislate morality" was echoed later by Ronald Reagan, but the black community countered by stating that such laws ensured protection of minority rights in the face of discrimination. Until the end of the 1964 presidential campaign, when he was embittered by what he thought were unfair attacks, Goldwater was reluctant to harness the growing white backlash. Goldwater never officially renounced his position on the 1964 Act; to the end of his career he reiterated his belief that the Civil Rights Act unduly interfered with private property rights.

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The issue Goldwater became most associated with was anti-Communism. Goldwater emphasized his strong opposition to the spread of worldwide communism in his 1960 book (ghostwritten by L. Brent Bozell) The Conscience of a Conservative, which became very popular in conservative circles. Goldwater tapped into postwar frustration with Franklin Roosevelt's Yalta agreement with the Soviet Union, anger at the communist takeover of China during the Truman administration, and fear at the discovery of alleged Communist sympathizers at high levels of the federal government. Goldwater's reputation as an anti-communist was so strong that current Arizona senator John McCain jokes that, when Goldwater told him that if he had been elected president, McCain would not have been held as a prisoner of war in Vietnam, McCain replied that he would have been held as a POW in China instead.

Related Topics:
Yalta agreement - John McCain - Vietnam - China

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In 1964, less than one year after the assassination of John F. Kennedy, he declined to run for re-election to the Senate and was nominated by his party to run against Kennedy's successor, Lyndon Johnson. He lost to Johnson in a landslide, and the Republican party suffered a significant setback nationally, losing many seats in both houses of Congress.

Related Topics:
1964 - John F. Kennedy

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He remained popular in his home state, and in 1968 he was elected to replace the retiring Carl Hayden as Arizona's other senator. He served three more terms and retired in 1987, having served as chair of the Senate Intelligence and Armed Services Committees in his final term. Despite his reputation as a firebrand in the 1960s, by the end of his career he was considered a stabilizing influence in the Senate, and one of its most respected members of either party. However, Goldwater remained staunchly anti-communist and hawkish on military issues: he led the fight against ratification of the Panama Canal Treaty in the 1970s, which ceded American control of the canal, opposing it on nationalistic grounds. Goldwater went so far as to challenge the constitutionality of President Jimmy Carter's policies towards the Canal in the famous Supreme Court case of Goldwater v. Carter.

Related Topics:
1968 - 1987 - 1960s - Panama Canal Treaty - Jimmy Carter - Goldwater v. Carter

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