Goldwater

As 1961 began, my good friend John F. Kennedy became President of the United States. His personal charm and eloquence lifted the spirits of millions of Americans. We conservatives were not, however, happy with what we saw and heard.

I was about to fly to Luke Air Force Base outside Phoenix on a chill April morning in 1961, when a sergeant climbed onto the wing and said the President wanted to see me as soon as possible. While driving across the city, I had a foreboding about the meeting. I began to suspect that the reason for the President's summons was the invasion of Cuba. The coming mission was known on Capitol Hill, and there was already speculation about it in the media. Why would he call me unless there was trouble? There was only one reason: He needed me to support him publicly.

The White House appeared quiet, even somber. That seemed to be the President's mood when he entered the room. He appeared to be preoccupied, though he walked briskly. We were relaxed in each other's company, because of years of private chats in the Senate. He bantered, "So you want this fucking job, eh?"

I laughed and replied, "You must be reading some of those conservative right-wing newspapers."

Kennedy grinned but quickly came to the point. He said grimly that the first phase of the invasion of Cuba by anti-Castro Cuban forces had not gone as well as expected. Fidel Castro's air force had not, as planned, been completely demolished on the ground. Eight B-26s flown by Cuban exile pilots had made their surprise attack but had destroyed only half of the Cuban air force. Three planes flown by the exiles had been lost.

Kennedy was clearly having second thoughts about U.S. participation in the action. He was questioning the planning for the invasion and further involvement. The President finally said he thought the whole operation might fail. He turned, sitting on the edge of his desk, and faced me directly. He then asked what I would do in the situation.

I was stunned.

The President was not a profile in courage, as portrayed in his best-selling book. He projected little of the confidence and lofty resolve of his eloquent speeches. He was another man now that we were, in effect, on the shores of Cuba. He did not seem to have the old-fashioned guts to go on.

Kennedy could see the shock on my face. There could be no turning back now. Nearly 1500 men would soon be on the beaches at the Bay of Pigs. We had helped put them where they were. The commander does not abandon men he has sent to fight. The President had a professional and moral responsibility to those men.

Slowly, so the words would sink in, I reminded the President that our Navy and its fighter planes were standing ready in nearby waters. They could be launched to protect the next attack of B-26s. We must destroy all of Castro's planes on the ground. Then the exiles could fight their way from the beaches and spread out across the terrain.

I told Kennedy that our action was moral and legal and would be understandable to the entire free world. The United States could not tolerate Soviet nuclear missiles in Cuba. Every great nation must be willing to use its strength. Otherwise, it's a paper tiger. Whether we agree or not, power belongs to those who use it.

Kennedy still seemed to equivocate. I didn't understand how he could, or why he would, abandon those men. They would be killed or captured without a chance of accomplishing their mission or even defending themselves.

I remember the moment well. Kennedy continued to search my face and eyes for an answer. This was also a crucial moment for me. For the first time, I saw clearly that I had the toughness of mind and will to lead the country. Others might be more educated or possess greater speaking and social skills, but I had something that individuals of greater talent did not have. I had an unshakable belief in, and willingness to defend, the fundamental interests of my country. It was not a boast. It was simply a matter of personal principle.

I told the President, "I would do whatever is necessary to ensure the invasion is a success." I repeated, "Whatever is necessary." The President seemed to relax. My voice had risen. It was clear and emphatic.

Kennedy replied, "You're right."

I left the Oval Office fairly sure that the B-26s, escorted by U.S. Navy fighters, would soon blow holes to lead those freedom fighters off the beaches toward Havana. I was wrong.

The brigade left Guatemala. The B-26s were first to destroy Castro's air force on the ground and then support the landing group with air cover. Kennedy gave the go-ahead for the first air strike with the B-26 bombers launched from Central America. Then, for reasons he never explained, he canceled the follow-up attacks. U.S. Navy jet fighters, ready to support the B-26s from the nearby U.S.S. Boxer, never launched their attack. Kennedy had clearly lost his nerve. The brigade was routed. Some 300 men were killed and the rest were imprisoned.

The President backed away from the counsel of all his top advisors when he refused to support an all-out attack and invasion of Cuba. He allowed the Russians to remain on the island on the condition that they withdraw their nuclear missiles. The fact is, instead of the eyeball-to-eyeball victory that the Kennedy Administration claimed over Nikita Khrushchev, the President actually made concessions to the Soviet leader. Those included removing U.S. missiles from Turkey. The decision not to attack Cuba was disastrous. We are still paying for it.

•

I didn't want to run for the Presidency in 1964. That's the God's truth. To my knowledge, no individual who has run the race has ever made such a statement. It's also true that I knew, and said privately from the start, that I would lose to President Johnson. Also, as best as I can determine, no Presidential candidate has ever said that on the eve of his campaign. From my perspective--explaining the conservative viewpoint--the race itself had greater historical value and meaning than winning.

On November 2, 1963, the Associated Press released a poll of G.O.P state and county leaders. An overwhelming majority, more than 85 percent, chose me as the "strongest candidate" against Kennedy. But on November 22, I knew that the bullet that had killed Jack Kennedy had also shot down my chances for the Presidency. I would not run.

The overwhelming reason for the decision was my personal and political contempt for Lyndon Johnson. Johnson was a master of manipulation. He solved tough public issues through private plotting. His answer to almost everything was a deal--an air base here, a welfare project there.

Within a month, I made a complete turnaround. Under tremendous pressure, I agreed to run against Johnson.

On December eighth, there was a small meeting of some G.O.P. leaders in our Washington apartment. One by one, as casually as if we were talking about a Sunday-afternoon pro football game, they brought up the G.O.P. Presidential nomination. Each maintained that I had to reconsider my decision to drop out of the race.

I got damned mad at all of them. Jack Kennedy was dead. It was over. There would never be a battle of issues. No battle about the liberal agenda. Johnson was a dirty fighter. Any campaign with him in it would involve a lot of innuendo and lies. And Johnson was treacherous, to boot. He'd slap you on the back today and stab you in the back tomorrow.

Moreover, L.B.J. was dull. He was a lousy public speaker. The man didn't believe half of what he said. He was a hypocrite, and it came through in the hollowness of his speech. L.B.J. made me sick.

The last thing L.B.J. wanted to do was talk political principles or beliefs. He wouldn't do it. He never believed in either. His only political dogma was expediency. Things were never right or wrong. Most problems could be fixed with cunning and craftiness.

Finally, one by one, each of the Senators spoke. They talked of millions of conservatives around the country who had made a stand in favor of Barry Goldwater. My friend Denny Kitchel--low key, thoughtful--turned, looked directly at me and said, "Barry, I don't think you can back down. You could lead this country. You've got to try it."

Instinctively, intuitively, I knew that the commitment--the bond I had made with so many conservatives and they with me--was virtually unbreakable at this point. It was all over. I said, "All right, damn it, I'll do it."

We made a lot of mistakes. It was my decision to discuss the selling of the Tennessee Valley Authority in Knoxville and Social Security's financial crunch in Florida. We made other strategic and tactical errors from the shortsighted viewpoint of an election victory. I never blamed anyone. "Our ineptitude made us different from most campaigns," said Kitchel later. It was a magnificent, screwy, splendid undertaking.

We were a bunch of Westerners, outsiders, with the guts to challenge not only the entire Eastern establishment--Republican and Democratic alike--but the vast Federal apparatus, the great majority of the country's academics, big businesses and big unions and a man with an ego larger than his native state of Texas, Lyndon Johnson.

Following the convention, we embarked on a 100-day journey that took us to more than 100 cities and towns--nearly 100,000 miles. I addressed millions of fellow citizens and ate more lousy cheeseburgers than I care to remember.

As we kicked off the campaign, two concerns began nagging at me--that neither the racial debate nor the Vietnam war should become an issue in the campaign. In late August, I phoned President Johnson and requested a private meeting of "mutual concern." Johnson agreed but quickly sent his White House scouts around Washington to "find out what Goldwater is up to." He never learned, since no one but me even knew I wanted a meeting. Some White House aides guessed, however, that I might bring up civil rights. They were half right.

The meeting took place in the White House a few days before Labor Day. Johnson shook hands warmly. He put his hand on my shoulder. In the Senate, we called it the "half Johnson": You were in a bit of trouble, but it wasn't serious. When he stretched his long arm around your back to the other shoulder, that was the "full Johnson." It meant you weren't cooperating and he was going to squeeze you on some project you needed back home until you voted for his latest pet bill. Then there was "skinny-dip Johnson," who invited you to the White House pool and insisted you swim in the raw with him. Some fellows got embarrassed when Johnson began leading them around the basement without a towel. A few would agree to almost anything to keep their shorts on. Not me. I've been swimming in the nude since I was a kid.

When Johnson negotiated, and it was clear that he felt some deal would be proposed, his eyes would begin to narrow. He was taking a bead on you, as he would on a squirrel. It was his intimidation routine. I began that day by saying that both of us had been around Washington a long time, that we were divided by philosophy and party but that we shared a love of country.

"That's right, Barry," he said. "You and I are not like some people around the country. We're Americans first."

He appeared to refer to antiwar protesters. It was a perfect opening, and I took it, telling the President that there was already too much division in the nation over the war. We should not contribute to it by making Vietnam an issue in the campaign.

Johnson took a deep breath and sighed in relief. He jumped into his Sam-Houston-at-the-Alamo defense, with a do-or-die pitch about his difficulties in Vietnam. Finally, out of ammunition, he thanked me for the pledge. I interpreted that to mean he agreed.

I said the same about civil rights--that if we attacked each other, the country would be divided into different camps and we could witness bloodshed. The (continued on page 146)Goldwater(continued from page 70) President solemnly nodded. He said events were moving too quickly and we should try to calm the country. We shook hands. We honored the spirit of that private pact throughout the campaign.

But reflecting on the campaign now, perhaps the Vietnam war should also have become a matter of public debate. I had suggested to and agreed with President Johnson not to make a partisan political issue out of it to avoid further division on the home front. In retrospect, had Johnson and I squared off on the issue, the President might have revealed his intention to escalate the conflict without a military plan or diplomatic policy to win the war. We might have saved many American lives.

•

During 1964, I discussed the theoretical possibility that some day, the American military might use tactical--not strategic--nuclear weapons. Today, NATO's defense is based on the possible use of nuclear weapons. As a candidate, I brought to the attention of the American people an issue of the gravest importance and was castigated for it. Never did I advocate the use of such weapons.

Yet Johnson, Bill Moyers, who later became his press secretary, and others in the White House waged a campaign of fear against me in what came to be known as the "card" and "bomb" ads. In their campaign television commercials, they portrayed me as a destroyer of Social Security and a mad nuclear bomber. I was depicted as a grotesque public monster. They converted my campaign slogan from "In your heart, you know he's right" to "In your guts, you know he's nuts."

Their card ad showed two hands--meant to be mine--tearing apart a Social Security card. That was what Barry Goldwater would do if he became President, the commercial threatened, so save the system and elect President Johnson. The ad was a repellent lie. Moyers knew it yet approved the ad, and it was shown throughout the campaign.

Moyers ordered two bomb commercials from the New York advertising firm of Doyle Dane Bernbach. He oversaw and approved their production. The first was a one-minute film that appeared during prime time on NBC. It showed a little girl in a sunny field of daisies. She begins plucking petals from a daisy. As she plucks the flower, a male voice in the background starts a countdown: ten ... nine ... eight ... his voice becoming stronger. The picture suddenly explodes and the child disappears in a mushroom cloud. The voice concludes by urging voters to elect President Johnson, saying, "These are the stakes: to make a world in which all of God's children can live, or to go into the dark. We must either love each other or we must die. Vote for President Johnson on November third. The stakes are too high for you to stay home."

There was no doubt as to the meaning: Barry Goldwater would blow up the world if he became President of the United States.

The White House exploded its second bomb about a week later, again on network television. Another little girl was licking an ice-cream cone. A soft, motherly voice explained in the background that radioactive fallout had killed many children. A treaty had been signed to prevent such destruction. The gloomy voice said a man--Barry Goldwater--had voted against the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty. A Geiger counter rose in a crescendo as a male voice concluded, "Vote for President Johnson on November third. The stakes are too high for you to stay home."

The commercials completely misrepresented my position, which called for treaty guarantees and other safeguards for the United States. Republican National Chairman Dean Burch filed a protest about the commercials with the toothless Fair Campaign Practices Committee. The committee requested that the Democratic National Committee drop the ads, which Johnson and Moyers were forced to do. They later claimed that the ads would have been canceled anyway.

Those bomb commercials were the start of dirty political ads on television. It was the beginning of what I call electronic dirt. Moyers and the New York firm will long be remembered for helping launch that ugly development in our political history.

Over the years, I've watched Moyers appear on CBS News and the Public Broadcasting Service. He has lectured us on truth, the public trust, a fairer and finer America. He portrays himself as an honorable, decent American. Every time I see him, I get sick to my stomach and want to throw up.

•

Toward the end of the 1964 campaign, several newsmen asked me for one last thought. I was sipping a bourbon and was finally beginning to relax a bit. "There was one big disappointment," I said. "We may not have spelled out the issues as well as we could have. That was the point of it all--the point of the entire campaign." I put down the drink and said, "If Jack were here, we would have had a good campaign."

Those were my final words of the campaign. My wife, Peggy, and I went home. As we drove north toward Camelback Mountain, she was very quiet. I looked at her and simply said, "Peg, we were ahead of our time."

We lost to the Johnson-Humphrey ticket, 43,000,000 to 27,000,000 votes, a Democratic landslide. The Goldwater-Miller ticket won six states.

•

This old-timer has led two lives all these years, from my early days in school to my last in the U.S. Senate. Show me a gadget and you've found a handyman who'll be late to dinner. Lead me to a car engine or a television set on the fritz and you're talking with an amateur mechanic who just decided not to go to a party. Taxi a new military fighter plane onto a runway and you've got an old jet jock who has tossed his day's schedule--sometimes even in the Senate--into the wastebasket.

Flying is my first love. It has been a hobby and a part-time career. I flew in the U.S. Army Air Corps for about four years in World War Two. After the war, flying was so much in my blood that I formed Arizona's Air National Guard. The Government even paid me for it. That was the only time I ever beat the Feds.

Over nearly 60 years, I've piloted about 15,000 hours and logged 7,000,000 or 8,000,000 miles in the air. It always seemed better than a lot of the hot air around Washington.

My family will never forget fliers Jimmy Doolittle and Chuck Yeager for saying that for many years, every pilot in the military knew he had a copilot up there flying with him. His name was Barry Goldwater. He did his damnedest on the Senate floor to get them more flying time and better planes.

A plaque hanging from my office wall reminded me each day of my obligation to our younger generation of military pilots. It carried me through some heavy thunderstorms on Capitol Hill.

It was found by my friend Bill Quinn in a small shop in Seoul, South Korea. It reads:

A pilot's prayer god grant me the eyes of an eagle, the radar of a bat and the balls of an army helicopter pilot.

•

After the 1964 election, I got back on the speaking circuit, but this time, I was making money, more than I ever had in my life. The speeches covered the gamut of public issues, but audiences were primarily interested in two topics--where the Republican Party was going and how to win the war in Vietnam.

For the next four years, the war became one of the driving forces of my life. I regularly spoke with American troops in Vietnam through the MARS network that had been patched into the ham-radio shack next to our home. I also toured our military bases on five visits to Vietnam, getting the views of many old friends and acquaintances--military commanders, pilots and GIs in the field. I was still flying in the Air Force Reserve.

In the spring of 1965, I decided to visit President Johnson in the White House. We discussed the war and my travels to Vietnam and around the United States. I told the President that when you go to war, the first decision you must make is to win it. There were too many political restrictions on our commanders, including bombing limitations and a ban on "hot pursuit" into enemy sanctuaries in Laos, Cambodia and North Vietnam. We weren't trying to win the war. We were in a twilight zone, fighting a political conflict while using troops as pawns.

It was clear from our conversation that Johnson was playing the war by ear. Neither he nor Defense Secretary Robert McNamara had any definitive strategy or policy for victory. I told Johnson and old colleagues on Capitol Hill that we had two clear choices: Either win the war in a relatively short time, say within a year, or pull out all our troops and come home. If the choice had been to win it, I would first have addressed the Congress and the American people and spelled out our choices--a short or long war, projected casualties and financial costs, the long-term effects on the American economy and the need for national unity. As Commander in Chief, I would have stated precisely what I proposed to do. At the same time, I would have warned the North Vietnamese by dropping thousands of leaflets on Hanoi and the rest of the country. My address and those messages would have said clearly that either they halt the conflict or we would wipe out all their installations--the city of Hanoi, Haiphong harbor, factories, dikes, everything. I would have given them a week to think about it. If they did not respond, we would literally have made a swamp of North Vietnam. We would have dropped 500-pound bombs and obliterated their infrastructure. Also, I would have sent our troops north and used our sea power to mine and blockade North Vietnamese ports.

I never discussed nor advocated the use of nuclear weapons with Johnson or anyone else in authority. I supported a total conventional air, ground and sea war. That was not to be. Indeed, late in the conflict, it would not have been supported by most Americans. By then, millions saw little purpose to the war.

•

Some argue that in the course of the conflict, we actually hit North Vietnam with more bombs than were dropped in World War Two. They add that our most sophisticated weaponry did not halt the march of men and supplies from North to South Vietnam along the Ho Chi Minh Trail.

The trail was the wrong target. There was, in fact, no single supply route. The trail changed every few days. In our limited time frame, knocking it out was not the answer. There was too much territory to cover in Laos and Cambodia.

I know, because I flew over the trail as well as over the North Vietnamese supply depots and troop sanctuaries in Laos and Cambodia on visits to Vietnam between 1965 and the end of 1969. My first flight over the trail and Communist staging areas in Laos and Cambodia in 1965 was about six months after the Presidential campaign. I was 56 years old. The last was in 1969, when I was 60 and had returned to the Senate. The official reason for my visits was to talk with MARS outfits to see if they had sufficient equipment to contact radio stations leading to the United States. I was still a brigadier general in the Air Force Reserve.

I never wanted to talk about those missions, because some people might say, "There goes Goldwater again, still trying to get into combat." Now that the war is over and I'm pretty much out of public life, a few thoughts about those flights may be informative.

My first reconnaissance was in a slow-moving Army twin-engine Beechcraft Bonanza, which flew at about 2500 feet. I wanted to have a close look at the thickness of the jungle and determine whether our pilots could see supplies moving. It was important to know if heavy bombing in the area was a realistic objective.

I saw very little of the trail, despite our low altitude and slow speed. The same was true for our small spotter planes. After a two-hour flight over the trail, during which we caught glimpses of narrow paths as well as some open stretches, I saw that hundreds of walkways crisscrossed one another over the long, wide terrain. It was a hidden and dispersed target, not ideal for heavy bombing.

On other missions, I flew in T-39s. We went farther north, where I spotted North Vietnamese surface-to-air missiles and smaller anti-aircraft support. Presumably, we were flying over North Vietnam, though I no longer have the flight plans. We again flew over Laos and Cambodia, where the North Vietnamese had placed SAM and other anti-aircraft firepower. U.S. pilots were not allowed to bomb those sites unless fired upon.

On several occasions, I flew Marine helicopters from Danang. We were never fired on, but those flights were tricky, because we often flew lower than the hilltops on either side. It would have been easy for any sniper to open up on us. After one of those flights, the North Vietnamese fired a 120-millimeter rocket into our Danang billets. It exploded nearby and killed several Marines. I still have a piece of that shrapnel as a reminder of that day.

•

Those flights convinced me that we should never have made the Ho Chi Minh Trail a prime target. Rather, we should have concentrated our firepower on the North Vietnamese's sources of waging war--harbors, cities, protective dikes and similar areas.

My plan--as tough as it may seem to some--would have been more merciful to both sides. The war continued for another decade, with 58,000 American dead, 303,000 wounded and perhaps 1,000,000 Vietnamese killed. Many more were injured on both sides. And none of this describes the civilian suffering.

As Johnson and McNamara upped the ante in Vietnam, an ironic twist from the Presidential campaign came to haunt them. It was an anonymous quote on Johnson's claim that if elected, Barry Goldwater would lead the nation into a massive war in Southeast Asia. The quote was, "I was told that if I voted for Goldwater, we were going to war in Vietnam. I did, and damned if we didn't."

•

In 1969, I returned to the U.S. Senate for a third term after defeating Roy Elson, a longtime aide to Senator Carl Hayden, by a wide margin. Richard Nixon became our 37th President.

Despite the positive contributions Richard Nixon made to his country, his lies will probably be remembered longer than his legitimate labors. He was the most dishonest individual I ever met in my life. Nothing in my public life has so baffled me as Nixon's failure to face Watergate from the time of the burglary and tell the entire truth.

In December 1973, after publicly criticizing Nixon for not coming clean to the American public, I was invited to have dinner with the President and Mrs. Nixon. It was, to say the least, remarkable timing and turned out to be a most unusual experience.

Pat Nixon greeted me in the second-floor yellow oval sitting room of the family quarters. A comfortable Christmas fire crackled. I had a small glass of sherry. We chatted amiably.

Other guests arrived--Bryce Harlow and his wife, Betty, Pat Buchanan and his wife, Shelley, speechwriter Ray Price, Julie and David Eisenhower, Rosemary Woods, the President's longtime personal secretary, and Mary Brooks, an old friend of the Nixons' who was director of the U.S. Mint.

The President entered after we were assembled. He was quite amiable, even garrulous. He moved quickly among us, rapidly jumping from one topic to another. Then, unexpectedly, his mind seemed to halt abruptly and wander aimlessly. Each time after such lapses, he would snap back to a new subject. I became concerned. I had never seen Nixon talk so much yet so erratically--as if he were a tape with unexpected blank sections.

Pat Nixon eased us into the private family dining room. It was the first time I had the pleasure of dining there. As soup was served, Nixon was preoccupied with whether he and Pat should take the train to Key Biscayne, Florida, for a brief Christmas rest. The question seemed odd, even bizarre, considering all that was happening in Washington. The President asked for my opinion. I told him that the trip was fine. However, if he were caught on the train without good communications and something serious happened in the world, the country would never forgive him. I said, "Act like a President."

The words shot out with a sting I never intended. Perhaps it was my subconscious talking. I was upset about Nixon's obsession with Watergate and his lack of leadership. What was so important about a trip to Florida? He didn't have his priorities straight. I bit my lips to say no more. But such gibberish coming from the President of the United States when the mood of the country was approaching a crisis worried me.

Nixon continued his ceaseless, choppy chatter. I was becoming more and more uncomfortable. What's going on? I asked myself. Why is Nixon rambling all over the map? Hunching and quickly dropping his shoulders? Incessantly sputtering, constantly switching subjects? Finally, searching for some reaction to his erratic behavior among his family and other guests, I asked myself the unthinkable: Is the President coming apart because of Watergate?

Suddenly, Nixon was addressing me: "How do I stand, Barry?"

He did not, of course, mention Watergate.

The table fell silent for the first time that evening. I said the obvious: "People are divided--those who want you to go and others who wish you'd stay. Among the latter, there's a particular group who believe a President should not resign."

It was a tip-off. I was telling him that some of us in Congress neither expected nor wanted a President of the United States to quit. It would humiliate the office in the eyes of the world and was too horrible for Americans to contemplate.

There was no reaction to my remarks--none whatever. I sat back, stunned and silent.

Julie looked at her plate. Price and Buchanan seemed to be staring into the distance. Harlow gazed at me without expression. Rosemary Woods toyed with her salad. Nixon peered into the bottom of his wineglass.

They all knew what I was telling them. It was simple and straightforward. I wanted the President to go on television and tell the American people the truth--whatever it was.

Dinner ended on a somber, strained note, with several stretches of silence--except for the President. He jabbered incessantly, often incoherently, to the end.

I phoned Harlow the following day and bluntly questioned him about the President's behavior. He said that Nixon was drunk before and during dinner. To this day, Pat Buchanan will not comment on it.

The evening was a watershed for me. Nixon appeared to be cracking. The Presidency was crumbling. I would not stand idly by if the situation worsened. Nixon had to come clean, one way or the other.

To this day, Nixon has never asked the nation for forgiveness. Yet he was given a pardon by President Ford. Ford called me just after granting the pardon but before announcing it. It was four A.M. when the phone rang at Newport Beach, California, where Peggy and I were on vacation. I said, "Mr. President, you have no right and no power to do that. Nixon has never been charged or convicted of anything. So what are you pardoning him of? It doesn't make sense."

Ford said, "The public has the right to know that in the eyes of the President, Nixon is clear."

I replied, "He may be clear in your eyes, but he's not clear in mine."

•

The changes in the Republican Party in the past three generations have been enormous. But some observers already see cracks in the solidity of the new G.O.P. and the conservative cause.

Ronald Reagan will be missed. I will miss him. We fought for the conservative cause and were good friends, to boot.

However, I am critical of President Reagan, especially for the Iranian arms sale. It was the biggest mistake of his Presidency to have traded with the most notorious terrorist gang in the world. I believe the President did know of the diversion of Iranian funds to the Contras. He had to know. The White House explanation makes him out to be either a liar or an incompetent.

But whatever mistakes he might have made, Reagan has managed to do something that no one in the nation has accomplished since Teddy Roosevelt. He has projected a Republican populism--indeed, a conservative populism. He represents the spirit of the modern Republican Party, with its themes of family, hard work, patriotism and opportunity.

•

Nostalgia for old days and other times rises like the sun most of my mornings. But in the evening, when the cool desert air refreshes my spirit, my blood flows faster and I shake my fist at the present. I am not happy with what I saw in my last years in Congress--nor about today or tomorrow.

A Senator no longer lives or dies on his legislative effectiveness, as in the old days. Appearances--media attention, staff-generated bills and professional packaging--often replace legislative tenacity.

The younger members of Congress seem to know a little about everything but not enough about anything. The Senate floor today is often chaos. It's every man for himself; his personal agenda, not completing the business of the institution. That makes one Senator temporarily more powerful, but often renders the body powerless.

Senators often don't know what they're voting on. That's a lousy way to run a lemonade stand, much less our national legislative process. My bill to reorganize the Department of Defense ran 645 pages. I myself had a helluva time understanding everything in it. Multiply that several thousand times and you begin to have some idea of the confusion in which Congress operates.

Worse yet, members often haven't the foggiest notion of the long-range implications of a law they have passed. Members of the Federal bureaucracy wind up interpreting and finalizing the law. No one elected them. They are responsible to nobody. So off they go into the wild blue yonder!

The final weeks of almost every session of the Congress now look and sound like a bargain-basement sale. Bills are passed so wildly that they often contain unprinted amendments. That means Congress is passing legislation it has never read!

A new breed of Senator, born of a much more independent and self-centered attitude, walks the corridors of power today. These new Senators are interested in doing a good job, but their mentality is different from that of most of their predecessors. The first priority of most is re-election. Genuine accomplishment in the Senate is secondary.

The same is true in the House. Thomas "Tip" O'Neill, in his decade as Speaker, was much of the time unable to control a bunch of Democratic Young Turks. They ranged from those with a TV-celebrity complex, such as Brooklyn Democrat Stephen Solarz, to political punk rockers, such as California's Ron Dellums, whose behavior reflected the unpredictability of the Democratic Party itself.

In my 30 years in Congress, the most self-serving group was the black caucus, which thrived on charges of racism. They saw most black problems as civil rights issues, not questions to be solved in and of themselves. Black leadership in Congress still lives 20 to 30 years in the past. Men such as Michigan's John Conyers, Jr., and Dellums peddle the past. Black leaders can no longer merely plead economic and cultural deprivation. It won't wash. The nation desperately needs new black leaders with ideas, ingenuity and modern goals--not yesterday's pols who treat their people with contempt by addressing them with old slogans and tired promises of Government salvation.

But I was never put under greater pressure than by the Israeli lobby, nor has the Senate as a whole. It's the most influential crowd in Congress and America, by far. The Israelis can come up with 50 or more votes on almost any bill in the Senate that affects their interest. They went to extraordinary lengths to get me to vote for them, even sending some of my dearest and closest Arizona friends, such as Harry Rosenzweig, to lobby me in Washington.

The Israelis never raised the fact of my being half Jewish, but they stressed protecting Israel in the event of war. I told them over and over, "Without a treaty, we've already promised to go to war to protect Israel. And the United States is not getting all that much out of the deal. I think Israel is doing pretty well. I don't worry about Israel when I go to sleep at night. I worry about the U.S. Constitution, which I've sworn to uphold--not Israel's constitution, not that of Saudi Arabia, Lebanon or anybody else in the Middle East or the world."

That usually shut them up, but they went away mad, because I was not about to support everything they wanted.

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In my life, I've personally spoken to and shaken hands with about 20,000,000 Americans. The one question I've been asked more than any other is this: Should a young person go into politics? Unhesitatingly, I've always answered yes. But....

You must have the courage to accept considerable criticism, much of it unjustified. You must feel it in your gut and have the courage to accept defeat and continue toward your goals. Finally, you must believe in yourself, in your principles and in people. Of all of those, I considered my belief in people to be my greatest strength. I genuinely liked people and still do. If you don't love people, don't go into politics.

Goldwater reveals:

• j.f.k.'s failure of nerve

• the day nixon broke down

• the senator's own bungled run for the white house

• his never-revealed flights over north vietnam

• his enduring political legacy