Barry Morris Goldwater (2 January 1909 - 29 May 1998) was a US Senator from Arizona (R) from 3 January 1953 to 3 January 1965 (succeeding Ernest McFarland and preceding Paul Fannin) and from 3 January 1969 to 3 January 1987 (succeeding Carl Hayden and preceding John McCain).
Biography[]
Barry Goldwater was born in Phoenix, Arizona on 2 January 1909, the son of the founder of the Goldwater's department store. He took over the family business after his father's death in 1930 and became a Republican Party member, promoting innovative business practices and opposing the New Deal; he became a good friend of Herbert Hoover. During World War II, Goldwater served in the US Air Force, spending most of the war flying between the United States and India. Following the war, he was a leading proponent for creating the United States Air Force Academy, and he also founded the Arizona Air National Guard, desegregating it two years before the rest of the US military, whose desegregation he championed. He retired from the Air National Guard in 1952, and from the Air Force Reserve in 1967, reaching the rank of Major-General.
In 1949, Goldwater was elected to the Phoenix city council, pledging to clean up widespread prostitution and gambling. He rebuilt the weak Republican Party and was instrumental in electing Howard Pyle as governor in 1950. In 1952, he won election to the US Senate in an upset, defeating Ernest McFarland in his native Maricopa County by 12,600 votes. Goldwater was identified with the radical right in the 1950s and 1960s and was the first important national figure to represent a prominent new republicanism, including the demand for lowered taxes, brinkmanship with the Soviet Union, and reduced government. In 1964, he became the Republican candidate for president, but he suffered a crushing defeat at the hands of Lyndon B. Johnson (losing 44 states and taking only 38% of the popular vote). Ultimately, however, it was this new conservatism which underpinned the Republican presidencies of Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, and George H.W. Bush.