Saturday, May 30, 1998

Goldwater's voice will be sorely missed

The 1964 presidential campaign was one of the most acrimonious in American history, pitting as it did two westerners -- the darling of the newly virile Republican right, Sen. Barry Goldwater of Arizona, against the creator of the Great Society, President Lyndon B. Johnson.

During the nearly year-long slugfest, the Democrats managed to tag Goldwater with favoring battlefield use of nuclear weapons and opposing civil rights. Neither of these charges was true, of course, but it didn't stop the demagoguery that included an infamous commercial in which a vote for Goldwater resulted in a nuclear holocaust.

On terrible advice, Goldwater made a disastrous political mistake. Citing constitutional grounds, he voted against the 1964 Civil Rights Act, helping to fuel allegations that he was a racist when nothing could have been further from the truth. He had successfully led the desegregation of the Arizona National Guard and of his family's department stores.

When the smoke cleared, the Republican Party was a shambles and the Democrats were riding high in all venues -- local, state and national. However, within three years most of the things the Democrats had warned would happen if Goldwater were elected had come true under Johnson. The nation was embroiled in a land war in Southeast Asia and race riots disrupted many major U. S. cities.

Throughout the years that followed, Goldwater treated his defeat with humor, never exhibiting bitterness at some of the patently unfair things said about him. He continued to serve in the Senate, rarely rubber stamping any philosophical position. He was as independent as the wind that blows across his rugged state.

In 1974, he went privately to an embattled Richard M. Nixon and advised him that impeachment in the House and a trial in the Senate likely would succeed and that it was time for him to resign. So large was his prestige that it was a key factor in Nixon's decision.

Whether Barry Goldwater would have made a great president is anyone's guess. The fact that he conducted himself throughout his career with diligence and dedication, with dignity and wisdom and integrity and courage whether on the floor of the U. S. Senate or at the controls of a bomber in World War II, is enough to make him among a relative handful of 20th Century politicians worthy of being called statesman. His voice will be sorely missed.