Barry Goldwater - Wikipedia

Barry Morris Goldwater (January 2, 1909[1] – May 29, 1998) was an American politician, businessman and author who was a five-term Senator from Arizona (1953–1965, 1969–1987) and the Republican Party nominee for President of the United States in 1964. Despite his loss of the 1964 presidential election in a landslide, Goldwater is the politician most often credited with sparking the resurgence of the American conservative political movement in the 1960s.

Goldwater was a vocal opponent of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 as he believed it to be an overreach by the federal government. Goldwater rejected the legacy of the New Deal and fought with the conservative coalition against the New Deal coalition. He also had a substantial impact on the libertarian movement.[2] A significant accomplishment in his career was the passage of the Goldwater–Nichols Act of 1986.

In 1964, Goldwater mobilized a large conservative constituency to win the hard-fought Republican presidential primaries. Although raised as an Episcopalian,[3] Goldwater was the first candidate of ethnically Jewish heritage to be nominated for President by a major American party (his father was Jewish).[4][5] Goldwater's platform ultimately failed to gain the support of the electorate[6] and he lost the 1964 presidential election to incumbent Democrat Lyndon B. Johnson.

Goldwater returned to the Senate in 1969 and specialized in defense policy. As an elder statesman of the party, Goldwater successfully urged President Richard Nixon to resign in 1974 when evidence of a cover-up in the Watergate scandal became overwhelming and impeachment was imminent.

Military career
With the American entry into World War II, Goldwater received a reserve commission in the United States Army Air Forces. He became a pilot assigned to the Ferry Command, a newly formed unit that flew aircraft and supplies to war zones worldwide. He spent most of the war flying between the U.S. and India, via the Azores and North Africa or South America, Nigeria, and Central Africa. He also flew "the hump" over the Himalayas to deliver supplies to the Republic of China.

Following World War II, Goldwater was a leading proponent of creating the United States Air Force Academy, and later served on the Academy's Board of Visitors. The visitor center at the Academy is now named in his honor. As a colonel he also founded the Arizona Air National Guard, and he would desegregate it two years before the rest of the U.S. military. Goldwater was instrumental in pushing the Pentagon to support desegregation of the armed services.[19]

Remaining in the Arizona Air National Guard and Air Force Reserve after the war, he eventually retired as a Command Pilot with the rank of major general.[20] By that time, he had flown 165 different types of aircraft. As an Air Force Reserve major general, he continued piloting aircraft, to include the B-52 Stratofortress, until late in his military career.

As a U.S. Senator, Goldwater had a sign in his office that referenced his military career and mindset: "There are old pilots and there are bold pilots, but there are no old, bold pilots."[21]