contenders." >> wherever he goes, he speaks out on the issues. he answers exactly where he stands on domestic and foreign policy. everywhere he goes, people are responding with enthusiasm for this new and different kind of statement. barry goldwater has been constantly on the go. it is a grueling schedule. whenever he can, he catches a quick nap, here with his nap peggy. and with his wife peggy. he is calling for courage and

integrity and meeting problems. he is calling for an end to do nothing policies. he is calling for a rebirth of individual freedom. >> we base our reliance on freedom. we reject, therefore, the ideas of the economic planners in washington. a group of people sitting in washington can plan when the country is going to make, where it is going to be made, the quality of the product, the price of the product, the wages to be made, the profits to be made, etc.. in simpler terms, this is called socialism. it has never worked in the history of the earth. it is not working today in countries where it has been tried. >> republican presidential candidates barry goldwater campaign in 1964. c-span's "the contenders" coming

to you from phoenix, arizona. we look at his politicalperspecr

pretty black and white -- especially compared to today's politics where you don't know quite who is doing what to goma. -- to whom. he was the personification of good versus bad, right versus wrong, whether you agree with him or not. i think that had a lot of appeal by the time the 1950's and certainly 1964 came about.

>> i'm going to come back later

some were segregationists. they were far right extremists. they were basically willing to knock on doors until there knuckles were bloody. they were willing to sabotage other campaigns. it was seen as the fight for civilization itself. the other candidateswas his tac?

>> rottenness. he ran a very smart campaign. he made barry goldwater the issue as opposed to the issues being the issue. the barry goldwater was painted as a crazy person. there were things put out by the

johnson campaign that some groups of psychiatrists and a america came out with a statement that barry goldwater was mentally ill. some of you probably remember that.

adds to get a sense of the issues and personality of that campaign. >> this particular fought only

brings in a serious crisis. even in the hands of a man who has proven himself responsibly. but for president johnson on november 3. >> the people ask barry goldwater. >> i have a question for mr. goldwater. we keep hearing about hot wars, cold war, and brushfire wars. i have an older brother who is serving in the armed forces. i want to know what people do to keep us out of a worker >> let me assure you here and now, i have said that in every corner of the land and i will continue to say it, a cold water administration will mean much -- once more that the present policy of strength groupies that was the hallmark of the eisenhower administration. it served the cause of freedom and avoided the word during the last republican administration. it will do so again. we are the party of preparedness and the party of peace.

>> in your heart, you know he is right. vote for barry goldwater. >> on october 24, 1963, barry goldwater said the nuclear bomb is merely another weapon. merely another weapon? vote for president johnson. the stakes are too high for you to stay home. >> graft! swindle! juvenile delinquency! crime! riots! hear what barry goldwater has to say about our lack of moral leadership. >> the leadership of this nation has a clear challenge to go to work effectively and go to work immediately to restore proper

respect for law and order in this land and not just prior to election day either. america's brightnesses witness of her people. let this generation make a new market for that greatness. what this generation set a standard of responsibility that

how long to get this put together? >> i think specifically on the process probably six months. >> was there but thing you did not know about barry goldwater that you learned in putting this

together? >> his language. [laughter] >> elaborate. >> he has a very colorful language. i was going to tell a story, but i really have to clean it up. i will tell the story. i will clean it up. one of the last times i was with him, i walked into his living room and he was sitting in an barca lounger watching tv. i said, how are you doing? he looked at me and said -- here is the clean up part -- the i like to tell my friends not so

much the history of how many times i met barry goldwater accidentally but i was first influenced being a democratic can man from illinois where my cousin became the supreme court

justice, head of state of illinois, attorney-general. i will not go on. it was a world war ii tes fascih

flying the latest military hardware. one time in 1964 he had this very sensitive meeting with lyndon johnson and ad to defeate

democrats working for the destruction and this nation. passions were very high. political passions of that magnitude were greatly feared. he was kind of caught up in that in an unfair way. had to deal with the context of the belief that if people -- darker angels were allowed to t

personality and style of barry goldwater. >> he talks so fast.

you know, sitting there trying to listen to you reminds me of trying to read "playboy" magazine with my wife turning the pages. [laughter] >> i happen to think i'm in a pretty tough race. i'm spending the money that i legally can. that's the answer. in fact, it's a stupid question, if you don't mind my saying so. >> i'll read the record. >> i never said that airplane wouldn't fly. >> you said you wouldn't. >> people all over the country keep talking about legalized gambling. and i thought we already had it. it's called election day. [applause]

>> i now realize what it takes to be a president. it helps to have a brother sent to the gas station drinking beer all day. when i was campaigning many that razor-thin election in 1964, i should have told everyone that dean was my coming to washingto,

d.c. let's look. >> speaking of washington, where you're going, there is a great deal of talk on the part of the republicans doing the campaign about communism in washington and the mess in washington. do you anticipate finding anything like that when you take your seat in the senate? >> well, i don't know. i can't say. i think that there must be communism in washington, but i

would hate to stand up and say there is without knowing more about it. >> let me put it this way, is there any fear or concern about communism and about the so called mess in washington among the people who voted for you out in arizona? >> i think the fear of communism is one of the underlying reasons for the success of the republican party in this election, all over the country. >> now that the republican party is in, do you think there will be any letting down of this concern, any complacency on the part of the people who voted for you? >> i think there's already happened. >> in what way? >> i am amazed to walk around new york to find in my own communities -- well, general eisenhower has been elected. the new deal has been thrown out. we can go back to our work the same as usual. and as always happens in politics, the man who benefits the most from good government goes on with the least interest in it, and that's mr. average citizen. >> are you going to do anything to point out the need for continuing concern over the

situation in

. . . span of points of view, could he get the nomination of the

republican party? that's the first part of my question. and number two, based on the extreme right wing state of some leaders in arizona politics, as in the election last tuesday were jerry lewis defeated a leader in the senate, how would barry goldwater have stood in the ideas of thecessary for pol

impossible. which is so ironic, because in 1964, extremism and defensive liberty is no vice. that's what he was accused of at the time. but he did come to an extreme firm and extreme passioned

which nominated vice president richard nixon. >> as an american who loves this republic and as a member of the senate, i am committed to the republican philosophy and to the republican candidates.

it is my belief the people of this land will return a republican administration to office in 1960. [applause]i might suggest in all seriousness that you and i will not have discharged our full responsibility unless we also returned and the effect of republican congress. i would not imply that our party is the repository of all virtue, that only republicans can see the truth. that only republicans served noble virtues. i must insist that those in control of the democratic party have announced their total commitment to what i regard a lopsided side of man and that puts americans and a shameful

condition of everlasting dependence on the state. [applause] [ applause ] i have visited the people in the cities and towns and states of our nation, and i can tell you that the men and women of america face the future with courage. they are eager to accept their responsibilities. they are determined to work and sacrifice to defend our freedom. it's our task, as delegates to this 1960 republican convention, to make certain the american voter is provided with an opportunity to make a meaningful choice between the two philosophies competing today for acceptance in our world. the philosophy of the stomach or the philosophy of the whole man.

>> bill mccune, you watched barry goldwater in 1960, how did that set the stage for his bid in '64? >> well, it fed red meat to the conservative movement, basically. you know. he ended his speech saying conservatives, grow up, let's get to work, you know, that's, i think, the last line of his whole speech there. he was, not again, he wasn't -- who's that republican guy who ran campaigns the last few years? >> karl rove? >> yeah, he wasn't a karl rove, organizing, da da da, that kind of thing at all. but he had feelings, let's get to work, let's take this back, let's do something for a conservative movement, as it were. he had no use for nixon, especially later, you know, and

probably no use for rockefeller other than they were probably friendly, but ideologically, no use for rockefeller. so he was saying, let's get to work, let's do this. >> ed in morristown, new jersey, good evening. >> caller: wrote my senior thesis in 1971 on the press treatment of the goldwater presidential campaign and i had to good fortune to spend a full day interviewing the author theodore white at his home in manhattan. he had vivid memories of the weeks he had spent on the weeks he had spent on the campaign trail with goldwater in preparation for the 1964 installment in his famous series "the making of the president." white told me he'd come away from the tour with great admiration for goldwater and with contempt for the liberal media that he was a part of and that he thought was doing so much to demonize goldwater and distort or ignore the case that goldwater was trying to present to the people. white told me goldwater had tried earnestly to lecture the people about the dangers of concentrating more power in

washington and what the proper limits of federal government in race relations should be, especially in the so-called public accommodations. the specific issue that led to his opposition to the civil rights bill that year. white also said that when goldwater eventually came to fear that discussing civil rights issues further on the campaign trail might worsen racial tensions, he met with president johnson and the two agreed to take those issues out of their campaigns. white said the agreement really cost goldwater a lot of votes among working-class whites and was one of the most selfless acts white had seen a politician engage in. one last thing, white told me how displayed he -- dismayed he had been when he got back to new york after his goldwater interval. he said his liberal media friends received him as if he were a jew just escaped from a nazi death camp. he astonished those friends insisting what a good man and worthy candidate goldwater was. thought you'd want to know.

>> thank you for the call. sharing your story, darcy olsen? >> you know, it's really interesting on the civil rights issue. i think that barry did get a bum rap from the media and continues to do so today when you hear people talk about his civil rights record and they'll talk about how he didn't vote for the 1964 act, he didn't speak out enough, so really he must not have had that in his heart. that couldn't have been further from the truth about who barry was. barry, you know, in the goldwater department store, they had integrated that store long before anybody else had done that. he really did have a color-blind heart. anybody you meet will tell you that. anybody who met barry would tell you that. and one of the greatest stories that i love that relates to this, and we don't know if it's true or not, i was talking to his son, barry jr., i don't know if it's apocryphal or true, but the way it goes is that he went to a very fancy golf course in

bel air. and wanted to play a round of golf. and they said, barry goldwater, you can't play here because you are jewish. and he responded by saying, you know, i'm only half jewish, do you think i could play nine holes? >> let me say something about civil rights real quick, because i was there. barry goldwater and harry rosenzweig, as city council members, integrated the airport in phoenix, which had been segregated before. after world war ii, the department of defense asked barry goldwater to organize the arizona air national guard, which hadn't existed before. he said, i'll do it on one condition, that it's racially integrated. and they gave in and said, fine. in the senate, he voted for civil rights legislation consistently through the '50s and into the early '60s.

the only one he voted against was that final one. and he'd voted against it for one reason. and that was because of a thing in there that called the mrs. murphy law, which would have said that if mrs. murphy wants to rent her spare bedroom out, that she couldn't discriminate. he has a long history of pro civil rights activity. >> let me ask you about the relationship between barry goldwater and john kennedy. they both came to the senate together in 1952. >> yes, and they had affection for each other. in fact, when barry goldwater was kind of rising as a national star in the early '60s, he was very much compared to kennedy, also this handsome, charismatic guy. there's a very famous story they talked about campaigning together, riding the same campaign trail -- campaign plane, and debating each other lincoln and douglas style. this is often taken as a testament of this kind of more civil time. i actually suspect that john f.

kennedy was thinking kind of cynically and thought if i could get this guy on a platform and force him to kind of mouth his, what were then, very unpopular views, i could wipe the floor with him. so i'm not sure it was this magnanimous act on kennedy's part. >> history changed in dallas, november 22nd, 1963, following the assassination of president kennedy. senator barry goldwater said this. >> well, he was a very decent fellow. he was a gentleman. he's the kind of antagonist that i've always enjoyed. he would fight like a wildcat for his points and his principles, but there was never anything personal about it. i imagine that i've debated with the president more on the floor of the senate than any other man, and it never affected our friendship. we had some rather violent arguments in sessions of committee and never affected our

friendship. that's the kind of a man that you respect. that's the kind of a man you like to work with in politics. >> and so after the assassination and before he entered the race in '64, how ambivalent was he about running? >> he was ambivalent, but leaning towards running. and one of the reasons he was so ambivalent after the assassination was because he knew that the public would be so longing for stability and that the idea of having three presidents in the space of one year would just be too much for people to bear. >> a question here in the room. >> ray miller from phoenix. i had the good fortune to be involved in the formation of the goldwater institute, and as a result of that, i want to make a comment and a question. one of senator goldwater's unique features was he never sought publicity. that made him unusual for a politician. when we were trying to form the organization, even with the

persuasion of senator kyl, congressman shadegg, representative jim scully and others, he was still reluctant, and after we got going, we wanted to have an award in his name and he was reluctant again to step forward and have the award named after him. he's unusual in so many ways. my question is, is there anybody to compare him with? i mean, we think of ronald reagan, maybe somebody like bob taft. is there anybody else we can compare barry goldwater to? >> who would like to take that one? >> not alive today. >> well, i would say -- i would say there are two people. ron paul and ronald reagan. i think he compares to ron paul in that ron paul is a very straightforward speaker who doesn't really care what the press thinks, but he just speaks from his heart about his ideas. it is his downfall, it was part of barry's downfall, but also reagan-like in that the core of

his ideas that barry ran on, reagan later implemented, but he just had -- you know, reagan had a smoother style. he was mr. hollywood. he, not only did he not have a tin ear, but he had that wonderful smile and people loved him and he made people laugh. but he ran, basically, on the same ideas that goldwater did and brought over, you know, won in a landslide. so sometimes when rick says that people didn't like barry's ideas or weren't ready for them. i don't really think that is a very fair assessment. i think the assassination played the key role at that time. i think the poor messaging that barry did was a factor, but i don't think it was the ideas. i think it was the timing and the way that the ideas were sold. >> can i speak to a favorite politician who i think is in this mold? the think the liberal congresswoman from illinois, jan schakowsky is just as principled and speaks with equal forthrightness as barry

goldwater. >> bruce is joining us from murrieta, california, welcome to "the contenders" program here in phoenix. go ahead with your question. >> caller: thanks for this program. it's great. i'm a liberal who only voted for one republican in my life, and that was barry goldwater. i guess my attitude at the time, kennedy was such a young, new generation, articulate and johnson seemed to be so much the old politics. two things i wanted to mention, haven't heard here. a choice, not an echo, was i thought was one of his big themes. and then the other point i wanted to make. there was a book called "none dare call it treason" that came out about the same time. and this was basically john birch society. we had the birchers then and have the birthers now, but barry never separated himself from that group. and the last point i wanted to make, the night before the

election, reagan came on to boost goldwater's candidacy and a lot of the comment afterward was maybe we got the wrong man. >> well, thanks for the call. we're going to talk about ronald reagan in about 20 minutes and show you just a portion of what he spoke toward the end of the '64 campaign. but to the caller's first point, your thoughts? >> about "none dare call it treason." this was absolutely scabrous stuff. this was a book arguing every setback america had in domestic or foreign policy was because there was secret communists infiltrating every part of the government. 20 million copies of this book was circulated. rich businessmen would buy thousands and thousands of copies and hand them out everywhere. he's right, barry goldwater didn't denounce this stuff. he would rationalize it by saying people know that there's something wrong out there, and this is pushing in the right direction and maybe i disagree

with it, but he never denounced the john birch society. he said some of my best friends in phoenix are part of it, and i think that was one of his achilles heel. he really did -- i think he humored extremists. >> he's been quoted so often, and you used the quote earlier, "extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice." of course, that came from the 1964 republican convention at the cow palace in san francisco. we want to show you that but put it in context of what he said before and afterwards. so here is barry goldwater accepting the republican nomination. >> anyone who joins us in all sincerity, we welcome. those -- [ applause ] those who do not care for our cause, we don't expect to enter our ranks in any case. [ applause ]

and let our republicanism so focused and so dedicated not be made fuzzy and futile by unthinking and stupid labels. [ applause ] i would remind you that extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice. [ cheers and applause ] thank you. thank you.

thank you.[applause] let me remind you also that moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue. [applause] the duty of the very system we republicans are pledged to restore and revitalize the duty of the federal system of ours is and its reconciliation of diversity with unity. we must not see in difference of opinion, no matter how great so long as they are not inconsistent with what we have

given each other in and through our constitution. [applause] our republican cause -- how does that speech

and what you were supposed to do, your role in the acceptance speech, was to bind the wounds together of a divisive campaign so people could unite and go forward. instead, he seemed to be pushing in people's faces his acceptance of the notion of extremism, which in the context of the time meant things like the john birch society, the southern segregationists who are changing their democratic affiliation to republican affiliation. so the public itself, also in the context of this kennedy assassination in which the idea that the bottom had dropped out of america easily civility, and people longing so much for normalcy, it really just seemed like something, once again, that was frightening, that was strange, that was perverse, and his numbers went way down. and by the way, a week after that, there was a terrible riot in harlem, so it increased people's sense of barry goldwater was associated with these frightening forces in

american life. our republic cause -- when people were rioting in harlem, people were saying, they're shooting black people. it shows the paranoia that surrounded barry goldwater in this atmosphere in which people felt the springs were being loosed in america's consensus. >> matthew is joining us from miami, florida. good evening. welcome to the program. >> caller: thank you for taking my call. in 1986 congress passed a scholarship named after barry goldwater, and i don't know if irony ever escaped them based on what i heard from the panel that goldwater's archeology and his that a federal scholarship will go to students, and i don't know

if this is too esser teroteric panel, but there was a story of goldwater filibustering his own named scholarship but if that's the case, just comments on his views on public education and if there's any known feelings about his congress awarding him the scholarship? >> thank you, matthew. darcy olson? >> i had not heard that. that's something i would like to learn more about. certainly it would be ironic if it's true and if it is true it is ironic. he looked at the constitution. he didn't see any role in there given to the federal government to be involved in education and he spoke out against federal involvement in education. he said i don't want the federal government to educate my children. i don't want the state government to educate my children. i want to educate my children. and i think if we can bring this up to modern times, what's so interesting and i think is a great tribute to barry goldwater is that arizona is one of the leading states in offering choices to parents, school choice so people aren't forced

to go into government schools but can use some of their tax money and take that to private schools or use online tutoring and things like that. i think barry would have absolutely loved that and been crazy about that because this was something that he believed. look, at bottom he believed in freedom. and nothing is more fundamental than being able to direct how your children are educated. so certainly i would love -- do you know if the scholarship part is true? have you heard that? >> i've heard something or i remember after the senator died there was something about congress passed something in science and technology in his name, i can't remember what it was whether it was a scholarship thing -- it's vague in my mind. >> you cannot talk about barry goldwater and the 1964 campaign without bringing up the ad that you mentioned before. it aired once on september 7, 1964, labor day monday. it aired on nbc, cbs and abc.

then used it as subsequent stories and it is infamously 7, 8, 9 --he daisy ad. 4, 5, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, 0 [explosion] >> in these are the stakes to make a world in which all of god's children can live are to go into the garden. we must either love each other, or we must die. >> vote

>> vote for president johnson on november 3rd. the stakes are too high for you to stay home. >> 50 years later they are still talking about this ad. why? >> well, it was devastating at the time. he never mentioned barry goldwater's name. he didn't need to. keep in mind that the whole campaign up to even up to that point focused, focused on the word extremism, extremist, extremist, over and over again. this was just another little piece of goldwater is an extremist, he's going to get us into a nuclear war. but i want do tell you something about that ad. that ad was written and designed by what's his name -- >> tony schwartz. >> no. >> bill moyers. >> that's not true. that's absurd. >> no, no, let me finish.

barry goldwater in my show is on camera. he said, yeah, bill moyer was behind that. okay. and he said i tried later, years later, afterwards to talk to bill moyers about it, because barry thought it was pretty rotten deal. and i tried to talk to bill moyers and bill moyers never returned my phone call. after barry passed away, susan, his second wife told me after, later, she said, you know, bill moyers was in town for something not related to politics and she had occasion to talk to him and bill moyers said to susan, this is susan saying this, she said bill moyers said yeah gee it was a shame i tried to get a hold of barry to talk to him about that a lot of times but we could just never meet up which susan was implying that was baloney. >> i can state categorically having read through every memo of how the advertisements were created in 1964, that bill

moyers had nothing to do with creating that ad. >> he was white house press secretary at that time. >> yes. >> we should point out. >> yes. >> he was involved in the campaign. he wrote memos about the ad. and he, you know, was involved in the media strategy but the idea that he created the idea is not -- -- is an solecism. >> i'm ron from minnesota and arizona, depending on the season. the subtitle for your book is "unmaking of a consensus." i'm interested in what makes something a consensus, what was it that was unmade and did we make a new one? >> excellent question. i think that in a sense the word "consensus" would have to appear in quotation marks. there was a myth after world war ii, certainly since the eisenhower administration accepting the new deal as a basic template, eisenhower saying anyone who fiddled with social security would never live to another political day, him

expanding the welfare state in certain ways. this idea that, you know, i might even sort of read just a classic statement of how the american consensus was a thought of at the time. the dean of rutgers wrote in the magazine "partisan review" in america there's no basic disagreements between intellectuals, bankers, artists, trade unionists, big businessmen, beatniks professional people and politicians to name a few. or between the economic classes. there's no real critics, no new ideas, no fundamental differences of opinion. the idea that the western world not just america had converged on the idea of the welfare state as the way to organize the world was just seen as permanent. and what is so fascinating to me and why i called the book "before the storm" is almost immediately the 1960s gives lie

to that notion. americans are at each other's throats. we're debating over the role of the state. in the most fundamental and vociferous ways. that was the american consensus. in 1964 is where we begin to see these fissures come apart and barry goldwater is central in that. >> if you could in just a minute, because it's a huge topic, but the issue of civil rights in the 1964 vote, barry goldwater voted against it and it became one of the issues of that campaign. >> now, a couple of very fascinating points about that. we talked about the lyndon johnson television commercials. they had a bunch of commercials in the can boasting about that civil rights bill and excoriating barry goldwater voting against it. they didn't run those because the idea of a backlash against civil right was already present. and in california -- in the book i publish a headline in "the new york times," backlash did not develop. people were terrified,

maybe people would vote for barry goldwater because they were terrified of blacks having civil rights. in california on the same day that lyndon johnson won by a million votes there was also a vote for a referendum and that was on open housing. by 1 million votes californians voted to reject the vote of open house, to reject a law that you said you cannot discriminate on the base of race to whom you rent your home. the idea of a backlash against civil rights was latent at the time and became the most explosive issue in decades to come in american politics. >> if you look at what happened in 1952 when dwight eisenhower won and you look at the south and the impact the civil rights vote had for democrats in 1964, what's the difference? >> of course, no one in the republican party, because that was the party of the carpet baggers, that was the party if you voted for the republicans and they got a toehold they

would, you know, monopolize the black vote and there were all these panics and we've all seen "gone with the wind." the shift began in 1964. five southern states voted for goldwater. 87% of mississippi voted for goldwater. when lyndon johnson signed the civil rights he said i'm signing away the south for the democratic party for a generation. that was one of the most profound hinges in the entire electoral alignment of the united states. the south now is a primarily republican region and that's because conservatives led by barry goldwater decided to retreat from the idea of the federal government advancing civil rights for african-americans. >> two years after ge ended the program, the ge theater that ronald reagan was hosting and two years before he became

governor of california he was involved in this campaign and we have just a portion of the speech the heat delivered, titled "a time for choosing," late in the campaign as ronald reagan talked about the virtues of barry goldwater. >> but i think it's time we ask ourselves if we still know the freedoms that were intended to us by the founding fathers. not too long ago two friends of mine were talking to a cuban refugee, a businessman that escaped from castro. in the midst of his story, one of my friends turned to the other and said you don't know how lucky we are. how lucky you are? i had some place to escape to. in that sentence he told us the entire story. if we lose freedom here, there's no place to escape to. this is the last stand on earth. this idea that government is beholden to the people that it has no other source of power except the sovereign people is still the newest and unique idea of all of history in man's relation to man. you and i have a rendezvous with

destiny. we'll preserve for our children the last best hope for man on earth or sentence them to take the last step into 1,000 years of darkness. we'll keep in mind and remember that barry goldwater has faith in us. he has faith that you and i have the ability and the dignity and the right to make our own decisions and determine our own destiny. thank you very much. [ applause ] >> from october 22nd, 1964. what's the history behind that speech? why did he deliver it? >> i don't know -- reagan you mean? >> why did he deliver it? >> here's why. first off i don't know who actually drafted the speech, he

probably knows. but that's okay. that's okay. barry himself, i have to give a little background. barry himself was a great extemporaneous speaker. i mean dramatic. he was wonderful. he didn't like prepared written speeches, okay. somebody wrote that speech for barry. and submitted it to him. my source on this is bob goldwater and john shadegg, and some other historian types. they wrote it and gave it to barry. barry read it and said this is a great speech but i'm not good at giving written speeches. ronnie reagan can do it better and they sent it over to ronald reagan to deliver it on tv or wherever it was and reagan did it and somebody said that was the beginning of reagan ending up as president was that speech which was written for barry. >> which also led a number of california executives to coach him into running for governor in 1966. >> yeah. that was a little different. he had given a similar speech through the early '60s, and the people who had been in charge of basically handling the money for goldwater's television account

were so fed up with the terrible tv commercials, they basically said unless you let us spend it the whole way, we'll spend it the way we want to, we're going to basically sequester this money. they played hardball. that's how they got ronald reagan on the air. and after he gave that speech telegrams poured into the campaign and money poured into the campaign, and people started talking about ronald reagan as a gubernatorial possibility. and david broder said it was the best political debut ever heard of since the cross of gold speech by jennings bryan in 1896. >> one quick sidenote. the relationship in 1964 between barry goldwater and ronald reagan, was it a close relationship or more of an acquaintance? >> well, ronald reagan vacationed in arizona. his father-in-law was a wealthy

chicago physician who knew the goldwaters. and there's a whole fascinating soap opera i write about in my book about how the people around barry goldwater who were running his campaign what they called the arizona mafia didn't want ronald reagan to give this speech. it's a little different, because he had said things about social security that goldwater had gotten in trouble for earlier in the year, and basically ronald reagan said to goldwater, why don't you listen to it and if you object to it we don't have to run it. and goldwater heard it. he said, this is great, i don't see what the fuss is about. and the rest is history. >> we'll go to dan joining us from cambridge city, indiana. good evening. >> caller: good evening. you pretty much answered my question. i wondered what goldwater thought of the way reagan gave the speech that night and also mr. goldwater and mr. reagan and william f. buckley, did they ever have any difference of opinion as far as conservatism

or they were pretty much in accord? and with that i thank you for taking my question. >> thank you. >> william f. buckley was shut out of the goldwater campaign. late in 1963 by a power play by a fellow by the name of bill barude. he was the head of the american enterprise institute. it was power politics. he leaked the story that bill buckley was trying to take over the campaign. william f. buckley on several different occasions said he didn't think barry goldwater would make a good president. that he wasn't ready to be president, that he wasn't smart enough to be president. that -- in our now, ronald reagan's relationship to william f. buckley is fascinating,

complicated, they went to logger heads on a lot of major issues. for example, the panama canal, they had famous debate in which william f. buckley argued the panama canal treaty of the late '70s was a good thing. ronald reagan had basically run his 1976 campaign on the idea it was a bad thing. these are these kind of personality clashes that any movement will have. >> can i just recommend a great book for this questioner? william f. buckley, his last book published after he passed is called "flying high." it's a book about barry goldwater. it's a wonderful book. one of the best books ever written about goldwater. so if that is your interest, i strongly recommend it. >> along with but before the storm," right? we'll get a question here. >> two quick questions for the panel to address. first, i wonder whether by engaging more directly over the issue of vietnam in 1964, barry goldwater could have perhaps forced lyndon johnson to define victory in vietnam and dictate

some kind of exit strategy. and perhaps hasten that war's conclusion. the second -- >> let's get that point and follow up on your second one. >> i'm not sure that -- there were forces trying to persuade lyndon johnson to do lots of things about vietnam and none of them prevailed. i'm not sure that he could have had much influence on lyndon. i don't know. i'm not an expert on that. we have some vietnam veterans in the crowd here. maybe they know. but i don't know. >> your second point? >> my second question we heard a lot about barry's consistency. in the 1996 election he endorsed bill clinton for president. i would love the panel to speak to the motivations behind that endorsement. >> he was a guy who could bear grudges. bob dole had been around a lot. in republican politics. i wouldn't be surprised if bob dole angered him somewhere along the way. i don't know the back story behind it. i would love to know. >> he also endorsed a woman named karen english for a congressional seat in arizona, a

democrat. she won and served one term. >> along those lines, when you ask about his consistency, one of my favorite stories is about that. he endorsed someone who he believed was a fiscal conservative but was a democrat over the republican who he thought was a profligate big spender. and so the republican party chairman in arizona -- this is how the story goes -- called him up, and said, barry, you are speaking out too much and you need to get in line. if you don't, you know, if you don't stop endorsing this democrat we'll take your name off of the republican party headquarters. and barry said to him, if you republicans don't remember the principles that we stand for i'm going to make you take my name off that building. [ laughter ] >> over the years especially as he was in retirement a number of public figures, democrats and

republicans, you talked about bob dole and bill clinton would come out here to meet with barry goldwater. why? >> they admired him. he was one-of-a-kind, a person of integrity. they may not agree with him on this, that or the other issue. but he was one of a kind. they admired him. keep in mind, when barry died bill clinton, the democratic president had the flag of the united states lowered to half-staff for a day on the day of goldwater's funeral of the opposite party. that never happened before. probably never happen again. >> one quick point about clinton, hillary clinton being a goldwater girl in 1964. >> he had a very fascinating rehabilitation kind of in the '70s. there was an article in the "new york times" magazine in 1974. in 1964, he was bela lugosi, but the liberals love him now. love barry goldwater now.

it's about the unfairness we're talking about and the reconsideration centered around the fact that he was so forthright in excoriating richard nixon for his lies. >> we'll go to judy next in san francisco. welcome to the program. >> caller: thank you so much. i was raised in phoenix and my family worshipped goldwater. we were active in his campaign and later my brother became a libertarian. he said there never needs to be a libertarian party if goldwater had just become president. then i was a '92 delegate to the republican convention and there was going to be a big fight that year, a platform fight over putting abortion in the platform. a week before the convention barry made a statement to the press there was no blank, blank, blank way that should be in the platform. when i got to the convention a

week later there was all these paraphernalia tables and a big blue button that said, "barry's right." i wore it the entire week and to this day it's my most prized position because barry is still right. >> thank you for the call. darcey olson? >> you know, that is -- i think that is a difficult issue and i think a lot of people liked to use that to call -- i'm not saying your caller did this but to position barry as a libertarian. i think that they know 2% of the public considered themselves libertarian and they tried to marginalize him that way. but the truth is that a lot of conservatives believed that the federal government should not have any role in the question of whether or not abortion, for instance is a crime.

william f. buckley is a pretty strong conservative. i don't think anybody would quibble with that. he also believed that that was not the role of the federal government. marketing comes into play. what people took barry said is not the way they took what william f. buckley said. they were saying the same thing. >> we should point out that he left the senate in 1964 because his term expired, he came back in 1968 and he had a very important role in august of 1974 as he met with richard nixon two days before his resignation. what's the story? >> well, he was the guy who led a delegation of republicans. it's very simple, actually. you know, impeachment is a political process. he said that you do not have the votes in the senate to win in a trial and, therefore, you don't want to be the first president to be thrown out on your ear by the senate, you ought to resign. and nixon took his advice and

richard nixon resigned on august 9th, 1974. >> the relationship between the two? >> testy. barry goldwater, as i mentioned in this article about the liberals, you know, lionizing him, consistently throughout watergate would prod richard nixon to tell the truth. he said this is beginning to smell like tea pot dome. there was a very famous showdown between barry goldwater and richard nixon at the 1960 republican convention, one of the most important kind of set pieces in conservative history in which nelson rockefeller

basically threatened a floor fight unless he could dictate the terms of the republican platform and forced richard nixon to fly to new york to negotiate the terms of the platform. it was announced in chicago where the convention was as a fait accompli. and barry goldwater was so mad he gave a vituperative, angry speech calling it the munich of the republican party. that was when people started to campaign for barry goldwater to usurp the nomination from richard nixon. so every since that point i don't think he really trusted richard nixon. >> jumping ahead to watergate, which is what brought on the resignation. barry told me and in my show barry told me and in my show bob goldwater reiterates there, he said the reason why barry was so angry at nixon leading up to the resignation was because, quote, nixon was a gd liar, lying about watergate. the thing in their family --

bob goldwater talks about this in some length in the documentary that from childhood he said if we did something wrong and we told the truth we didn't get punished. if we lied, we got punished. and there's just this very strong thing on the part of barry and others about lying and he was so angry at nixon for lying through the watergate period. that's why he was so angry. >> edward is joining us in new orleans. go ahead, please. >> caller: this is ed clancy in new orleans. in 1968, i was covering the republican convention in miami and i was able to meet, of course, barry goldwater who was there and he was extremely nice. he struck me as totally different from his national

image, and i also discovered ronald reagan in the back of the news section of the auditorium being interviewed in the booth by nbc. i was the only one to see him there. of course ronald reagan was making noise about running for president at that convention. so i stood outside while he was finishing the interview, i believe it was with david brinkley, and then he came out and by that time a whole bunch of other reporters had gathered out there and mr. reagan came out and i asked him a couple of questions and then these other reporters circled him, about 20 or 30 of them and we just went as a circle with mr. reagan in the middle and i was throwing questions over the top of him. he was very nicely yelling his answers back to my microphone. then we went around the corner and where the tables were of all the reporters and their typewriters and the whole gang of people swept into this table at the end of it, knocking over a little man at his typewriter, all his books. i let them go. i stopped and helped this little man and i looked into his face and it was theodore s. white. and that stopped me right there.

and he was just so -- he apologized actually to me for that. so i got to meet three nice people right there, barry goldwater, ronald reagan and theodore s. white. >> thank you for the phone call from new orleans. of course conventions were quite different in 1964 and 1968. >> by the day, i do think in "the making of the president" in 1964, teddy white was pretty patronizing to barry goldwater despite what the earlier caller said. the 1964 convention was angry and violent. and he mentioned david brinkley. alan brinkley who is david brinkley's son, a professor now at columbia, told me that so

kind of impassioned and angry, violently angry at the media, you know, the establishment press or the goldwater delegates and supporters, that david brinkley told his son alan brinkley who was a teenager at the time, you are under no circumstances to wear your nbc insignia around san francisco. so that's why people were afraid of this idea of the goldwater movement as this kind of quasi fascist thing. it was a very dangerous frightening time. >> in 1984, barry goldwater in his final two years in the us senate before retiring, he put forth ronald reagan's nomination to serve a second term and be the republican nominee in '84. >> a month ago i sat in my den and watched the democratic national convention. speaker after speaker promised the moon to every narrow, selfish interest group in the country. but they ignored the hopes and

aspirations of the largest special interest group of all, free men and free women. so tonight i want to speak about freedom. and let me remind you that extremism as a defense of liberty is no bite. >> quintessential barry goldwater? >> yes, absolutely. people loved barry goldwater, and his -- what he was expressing is akin to, give me

liberty or give me death. in america, we believe this, you know. and i think sometimes the loss of the '64 campaign is mistakenly mistakenly interpreted as an outright rejection of those ideas. and it wasn't anything of the sort. you can hear it from the cheering, you can see it from the reagan revolution and you see it from the ideas being alive today. but that is what the liberal press at that time wanted people to believe. in fact, when he lost that campaign, "the new york times" washington bureau chief james restin, had said that barry goldwater had not only lost, but the entire conservative cause and they were always talking about the death of conservatism. that is wishful thinking and it remains wishful thinking today on the part of the press. that is classic barry goldwater and it reflects what many

americans believe, which is that you cannot be too passionate, too committed or too extreme, if you want to use that word, in the defense of our constitutional freedoms. >> jay is joining us from new york city. go ahead, please. >> caller: i just recently became a student of politics, because you never really felt you had a stake. i tried to look to see what the backlash was regarding conservatives, so i looked up goldwater and read the book and ronald reagan, and you look at fox news and certain organizations, they praise these conservatives. but then when you look at the record, i try to wonder why do african-americans not vote for conservatives, why is the republican party monolithic, it doesn't look like a diverse party. what's the situation? you look at the civil rights and ronald reagan making the states right speech in philadelphia where the workers got killed, can conservatives at least

understand that when you keep praising people like ronald reagan and barry goldwater, all you have to do is pick up a book and their record is right there. so you can at least be honest and say, okay, they were wrong on this. you can't say freedom and equality when a whole segment of society feels like they're alienated. so i would just like to put that comment on the air and thank you for taking my call. thank you, jay. >> well, i certainly understand what the caller was saying in his views, but when he's talking about barry goldwater, i think more what he's referring to, whether he realizes it or not, is the image of barry goldwater that was, you know, put out there of being a crazy guy or a racist or, you know, whatever, which he really wasn't. barry goldwater, you can say whatever you want, barry goldwater was never a hateful person, was never a vengeful person in his handling of

politics. i wish some of these 10 or 12 people we have running around running for president presently would adopt some of the niceness of barry goldwater. >> it's important to note, also, that by the end of that 1964 campaign, barry goldwater did make a very important and subtle shift in his position on civil rights. he would always say, and he showed it, that he was an integrationist, that he was for integration. that was his goal for society. but by the end of that campaign, as he was trying to win those southern states, he did say, our goal is neither to have an integrated society, nor a se segregated society. it is to have a free society. so he seemed to move away from the idea of integration as a positive good. >> there were four debates in 1960, no debates in 1964. why? >> that was kind of a dirty trick by linden johnson.

in order to have a debate, you had to suspend a rule of the federal communications commission so that every candidate, all 30 candidates, including the beekeepers party wouldn't have to be on the stage and linden johnson wired that in congress so that it was impossible. he didn't want to face barry goldwater. that says something about he thought barry goldwater would have been a worthy adversary. >> a question from somebody here. please go ahead. >> abraham from scottsdale. do you see the tea party movement as a resurgence of the goldwater movement? >> i definitely think that there are a lot -- you know, the tea party, i guess, the best way to answer that is to say that it's not monolithic. there are all kinds of people who constitute the tea party and a lot of different ideas in the tea party. but i think if you look at the tea party as a group of people

who have fought these gigantic bailouts in washington, they fought the raising of the debt ceiling, they fought the federal takeover of health care. all of those things, i think, barry goldwater would have been with them on. so certainly we see a lot of elements of goldwater-ism coming out in some of the major pieces of what the tea party folks are working on. >> from watertown, wisconsin, franklin is on the phone. we welcome you. go ahead, please. >> caller: yes, i would like to make a comment. i think if we would have elected barry goldwater as president in '64, we would have won the war in vietnam because he didn't believe in public opinions, per se, regarding the war. and i would also like to say that i think barry goldwater told mr. nixon that he could not hold the south for him or make sure the south would stay for

him, so they asked him to resign instead of be impeached. thank you. >> franklin, thank you. >> i mean, the stuff about how barry goldwater somehow kind of miraculously won the vietnam, the united states paved over the land mass of vietnam with a quarter inch of steel. if we had done a half an inch or three-quarters of an inch somehow would have done it, i think that's a fantasy. a pleasant one, but i think that's a glib position. >> we have just a minute or two left. did barry goldwater's views change as he got older? did they evolve? >> my contention is absolutely not. views, me meaning his basic core philosophy and the way he looked at life and looked at politics. i've had battles in op-ed pages where people say, oh, he got

senile and turned liberal at the end. he did not. he was always a matter of -- i call it small l libertarian, freedom of choice, whether it was abortion or gay rights or any number of things. he was totally consistent his whole life. >> i agree with that. almost any question at any time period in barry's life, if you look at what his position was and you ask the question of was it constitutional or not, that will give you the answer to what his position was. >> is that the mission of this institute? >> absolutely. i mean, you know, people look around today to find politicians who are as honest as barry and stand for principle and they're few and far between. that's one of the reasons that he gave us his blessing, because he knew that you couldn't count on politicians to stand for principle all the time. but with regular men and women supporting an organization that believed in those ideas, that you would always have a voice for freedom. >> i'm going to give you the

final word. what was the legacy of the 1964 campaign and what impact did barry goldwater have on the politics? >> i think the legacy of the 1964 campaign was organizational. it was the formation of organizations that became a permanent conservative movement that lost the battle in 1964, but lived to fight dozens of battles more. i think his legacy is to have inspired these people to become something -- become part of something greater than themselves, to inspire people who felt frustrated with the course of the country to take civic action. >> the book is called "before the storm: barry goldwater and the unmaking of the american consensus" by rick perlstein. thank you very much for joining us. to darcy olsen, first of all, for hosting us here at the goldwater institute, the president and ceo. we appreciate your time. and bill mccune, the author and producer of a documentary.

>> it's called "barry goldwater and american life". >> thank you for being with us. we want to leave you with some of the words of barry goldwater in an interview that we did with him as he was winding down his political career from the c-span archives in 1985. >> another thing i would tell young politicians coming into washington, your re-election is not going to make or break the united states. do the best job you can do. that's what you're here for, to defend the constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic. and be honest. that's all i would tell them. >> how about the republican party leaders today? >> well, i think we have good leadership today. lord knows we spent a long enough time out of office that we should have learned some things. politics go in a circle.

you'll find the liberal element running things for awhile and now we find the conservative on the way up and the conservative will run the place until he runs out of ideas and runs out of people, and then the other party or even the republican party that becomes the liberal party will take over. our politics in america go around in circles and i think that's great. you know ♪ go with goldwater ♪ you know where goldwater stands ♪ ♪ clap your hands and go with goldwater ♪ ♪ go with goldwater ♪ let's go with goldwater arizona senator barry goldwater accepted the nomination to be the