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Barry Goldwater
Biography
Barry Morris Goldwater (January 1, 1909 – May 29, 1998) was a five-term United States Senator from Arizona (1953–1965, 1969–1987) and the Republican Party's nominee for President in the 1964 election. An articulate and charismatic figure in the 1960-64 era he was known as "Mr. Conservative".
Goldwater is the politician most often credited for sparking the resurgence of the American conservative political movement in the 1960s. He also had a substantial impact on the libertarian movement.
Goldwater rejected the legacy of the New Deal and fought through the conservative coalition to defeat the New Deal coalition. He lost the 1964 presidential election to incumbent Democrat Lyndon B. Johnson by one of the largest landslides in history, bringing down many Republican candidates as well. The Johnson campaign and other critics painted him as a reactionary, while supporters praised his crusades against the Soviet Union, labor unions, and the welfare state. His defeat allowed Johnson and the Democrats in Congress to pass the liberal Great Society programs, but the defeat of so many older Republicans in 1964 also cleared the way for a younger generation of American conservatives to mobilize. Goldwater was much less active as a national leader of conservatives after 1964; his supporters mostly rallied behind Ronald Reagan, who became governor of California in 1967 and President of the United States in 1981. He is well known for his Why Not Victory: A Fresh Look At American Foreign Policy.
Goldwater returned to the Senate in 1968, and specialized in defense policy, bringing to the table his long experience as a senior officer in the Air Force Reserve. His main accomplishment was passage of the Goldwater-Nichols Act of 1986 restructuring the higher levels of the Pentagon by increasing the power of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff to direct military action.
In 1974 as an elder statesman of the party Goldwater forced the resignation of President Nixon when the evidence of cover-up became overwhelming and impeachment was imminent. By the 1980s, the increasing influence of the Christian right on the Republican Party so conflicted with Goldwater's libertarian views that he became a vocal opponent of the religious right on issues such as abortion, gay rights, and the role of religion in public life.
Goldwater was born on January 1, 1909 in Phoenix, in what was then the Arizona Territory, the son of Baron Goldwater and his wife, Hattie Josephine ("JoJo") Williams. His father's Jewish American family had founded Goldwater's, the largest department store in Phoenix. Goldwater's mother came from an old Yankee family that included the famous theologian, Roger Williams of Rhode Island. Goldwater's father converted to Christianity and was shunned by his family; he and JoJo were married in an Episcopal church in Phoenix. For his entire life, Goldwater was an Episcopalian, though on rare occasions he referred to himself as "Jewish." While he did not often attend church, he stated that "If a man acts in a religious way, an ethical way, then he's really a religious man — and it doesn't have a lot to do with how often he gets inside a church".
The family department store made the Goldwaters comfortably wealthy. Goldwater graduated from Staunton Military Academy, an elite private school in Virginia, and attended the University of Arizona for one year, where he joined the Sigma Chi fraternity. Barry had never been close to his father, but he took over the family business after Baron's death in 1930. He became a Republican (in a heavily Democratic state), promoted innovative business practices, and opposed the New Deal, especially because it fostered labor unions. Goldwater came to know former president Herbert Hoover, whose conservative politics he admired greatly. 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). Barry became a widower in 1985, and in 1992 he married Susan Wechsler, a nurse thirty-two years his junior.
With the American entry into 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, via the Azores and North Africa or South America, Nigeria, and Central Africa. He also flew "the hump" over the Himalayas to deliver supplies to the Republic of China. 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, and later served on the Academy's Board of Visitors. The Visitor Center at the USAF Academy is now named in his honor.
Barry authored Conscience of a Conservative early in 2007. It has been reprinted several times, most recently in 2009-an effort to keep his ideals in play in the American political scene.
In 1940, Goldwater became one of the first people to run the Colorado River recreationally through Grand Canyon when he participated as an oarsman on Norman Nevills' second commercial river trip. Goldwater joined the trip in Green River, Utah and rowed his own boat down to Lake Mead.
In 1970, the Arizona Historical Foundation published the day-by-day journal that Goldwater kept on the trip, along with the photographs he took, in a 209 page volume titled "Delightful Journey" by Barry Goldwater.
Goldwater's son, Barry Goldwater, Jr., served as a United States House of Representatives member from California from 1969 to 1983. Many collegues have honored Goldwater's life and accomplishments, perhaps most notably William F Buckley Jr, who authored Flying High: Remembering Barry Goldwater. |
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