Barry Morris Goldwater (January 2, 1909 – May 29, 1998) was an American politician and major general in the Air Force Reserve who served as a United States senator from 1953 to 1965 and 1969 to 1987, and was the Republican Party's nominee for president in 1964.

"[17][18][19] His first cousin was Julius Goldwater, a convert to Buddhism and Jodo Shinshu priest who assisted interned Japanese Americans during World War II.

[20] After he did poorly as a freshman in high school, Goldwater's parents sent him to Staunton Military Academy in Virginia where he played varsity football, basketball, track and swimming, was senior class treasurer and attained the rank of captain.

Goldwater trained as a pilot and was assigned to the Ferry Command, a newly formed unit that flew aircraft and supplies to war zones worldwide.

A pilot, amateur radio operator, outdoorsman and photographer, he criss-crossed Arizona and developed a deep interest in both the natural and the human history of the state.

He entered Phoenix politics in 1949, when he was elected to the City Council as part of a nonpartisan team of candidates pledged to clean up widespread prostitution and gambling.

Goldwater worked with Phoenix civil rights leaders to successfully integrate public schools a year prior to Brown v. Board of Education.

"The day that Eisenhower appointed Governor Earl Warren of California as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, Goldwater did not hesitate to express his misgivings.

"Fulbright's startling revelation that military personnel were being indoctrinated with the idea that the policies of the Commander in Chief were treasonous dovetailed with the return to the news of the strange case of General Edwin Walker.

[49] Later, Goldwater would state that he was mostly in support of the bill, but he disagreed with Titles II and VII, which both dealt with employment, making him imply that the law would end in the government dictating hiring and firing policy for millions of Americans.

"[32] Goldwater was absent from the Senate during President John F. Kennedy's nomination of Byron White to Supreme Court on April 11, 1962,[53] but was present when Arthur Goldberg was unanimously confirmed.

[54] Goldwater's direct style had made him extremely popular with the Republican Party's suburban conservative voters, based in the South and the senator's native West.

Grenier would serve as executive director of the national GOP during the Goldwater campaign, the number two position to party chairman Dean Burch of Arizona.

"[61] His nomination was staunchly opposed by the so-called Liberal Republicans, who thought Goldwater's demand for active measures to defeat the Soviet Union would foment a nuclear war.

Future chief justice of the United States and fellow Arizonan William H. Rehnquist also first came to the attention of national Republicans through his work as a legal adviser to Goldwater's presidential campaign.

[77] Regarding Vietnam, Goldwater charged that Johnson's policy was devoid of "goal, course, or purpose," leaving "only sudden death in the jungles and the slow strangulation of freedom".

Goldwater campaign commercials included statements of support by actor Raymond Massey[81] and moderate Republican senator Margaret Chase Smith.

After the outbreak of the Harlem riot of 1964, Goldwater privately gathered news reporters on his campaign plane and said that if anyone attempted to sow racial violence on his political behalf, he would withdraw from the presidential race—even if it was the day before the election.

The Southern states, traditionally Democratic up to that time, voted Republican primarily as a statement of opposition to the Civil Rights Act,[102] which had been signed into law by Johnson earlier that year.

In contrast, Republican Congressman John Lindsay (NY-17), who refused to endorse Goldwater, was handily re-elected in a district where Democrats held a 10% overall advantage.

Throughout the late 1970s, as the conservative wing under Ronald Reagan gained control of the Republican Party, Goldwater concentrated on his Senate duties, especially in military affairs.

[109] Despite being a difficult year for Republicans candidates, the 1974 election saw Goldwater easily reelected over his Democratic opponent, Jonathan Marshall, the publisher of The Scottsdale Progress.

In this role he clashed with the Reagan administration in April 1984 when he discovered that the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) had been mining the waters of Nicaragua since February, something that he had first denied when the matter was raised.

"[131][132] 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".

He explained his position in 1969: I feel very definitely that the [Nixon] administration is absolutely correct in cracking down on companies and corporations and municipalities that continue to pollute the nation's air and water.

[146]By the 1980s, with Ronald Reagan as president and the growing involvement of the religious right in conservative politics, Goldwater's libertarian views on personal issues were revealed; he believed that they were an integral part of true conservatism.

[150] After his retirement in 1987, Goldwater described Arizona Governor Evan Mecham as "hardheaded" and called on him to resign, and two years later stated that the Republican party had been taken over by a "bunch of kooks".

"[156] In a 1994 interview with The Washington Post, Goldwater said: When you say "radical right" today, I think of these moneymaking ventures by fellows like Pat Robertson and others who are trying to take the Republican party and make a religious organization out of it.

"[158] In that same year, with Senator Dennis DeConcini, Goldwater endorsed an Arizona initiative to legalize medical marijuana against the countervailing opinion of social conservatives.

[187] Its goal is to provide a continuing source of highly qualified scientists, mathematicians, and engineers by awarding scholarships to college students who intend to pursue careers in these fields.