Indeed, freedom to print things and publish things. It is not institutionally freedom of the press. Every saturday at 8 00 p. M. Eastern. Lectures in history is also available as a podcast. Find it where you listen to podcasts. Wherever he goes, he speaks out, clearly and forcefully on the issues, answers questions, explains exactly where he stands on domestic and Foreign Policy. Everywhere he goes, the people are responding with enthusiasm for this new and different kind of person. Barry goldwater has been constantly on the go. Its a grueling schedule. And whenever he can, he catches a quick nap with his daughter peggy and his wife peggy. Soon its back to the campaign where Barry Goldwater is calling for courage and integrity in meeting problems. Hes calling for an end to donothing policies, for progress based on the dynamic principles of the republic. Hes calling for a rebirth of individual freedom. We put our reliance upon freedom, upon the Free Enterprise system. We reject, therefore, the ideas of the economic planners in washington that a group of people sitting in washington can plan what the country is going to make, where its to be made, the quality of the product, the price of the product, the wages to be paid, the profit to be made, et cetera, et cetera. We know that this system which, in simpler terms, is called socialism has never worked in the history of this earth and is not working today in countries where its been tried. Republican candidate Barry Goldwater campaigning in 1964. Cspans the contenders series coming to you from the Goldwater Institute in phoenix, arizona. As we look to goldwaters challenge and the influence during the second half of the 20th century, we welcome you tonight, we welcome our audience here at the Goldwater Institute and our three guests who will walk us through the life and political career of Barry Goldwater, beginning with nick pearlstein. Hes the author of the book Barry Goldwater before the storm. Hes also the author of the book nixonland. Thank you for being with us. And darcy who is also the host and ceo of the Goldwater Institute. She previously served as director of the Cato Institute in washington, d. C. Her editorials have appeared in the wall street journal, usa today and walter mchugh. He has produced more than 90 documentaries including Barry Goldwater and american life. Lets begin with you. In your book and his campaign, you called him a very different candidate for a different election year. How so . I think the thing that made him very different as a president ial candidate is that he was a reluctant president ial candidate. If we think of all the people running for president in 2012, we cant say any of them were reluctant. Its a fulltime job, its completely consuming. But ever since 1960 when the first kind of people came to Barry Goldwater and tried to draft him, saying, we want you to be a president ial candidate, he would always say, thats the last thing on my mind. He once told the chicago tribune, i dont think i have the brains to be president. Over and over, they said, we dont care, were going to draft you. Thats pretty much what happened. He was drafted by incredibly vociferous, passionate followers who raised money on their own, and he had to do it. Were going to talk about this later, but the assassination of john kennedy, how did that influence his decision to go ahead in 1964 . Actually, he was inching toward possibly doing it in the fall of 1963. One of the reasons was because president kennedy had introduced a civil rights bill that was actually beginning to build a strong backlash. And there were people talking about president kennedy actually being vulnerable in 1964. And goldwater was close to kennedy, he liked kennedy, and when kennedy was assassinated, its very hard to kind of reconstruct the context in our minds now, but it was so harrowing for the American People. People blamed extremism. People blamed the kind of vociferous idealogical politics that americans didnt want to believe was part of their political system, and Barry Goldwater immediately lost interest. In fact, it was another month and a half before he finally answered the call of one more group of people coming to him, begging him, and saying it was his duty to support the conservative cause that he finally agreed to do it. In this book that came out, the conscience of a conservative was simply a manifest of why he was running and the idealogy that shaped him. In that piece of film we showed at the top of the program, he talked about freedom and Free Enterprise and a failed socialistic experiment that the democrats were pushing in the 1960s. Right, Barry Goldwater stood for one thing and he was very clear about it, and that was freedom. That book today is just as relevant as it was when it was written 50 years ago. Barry would say, circumstances change, principles do not. And when he was getting ready to run for office, he said, you know, as i survey the landscape and i look around at all the different questions that might occur to me, the most important concern that i will have, the most important question that i will ask myself is, are we maximizing freedom . And that was the beginning and the end of his political analysis. Bill mcewen, take us back to 1964 that led him to two terms. What led to this point on the International Stage . Really, in a sense, the simplicity of his perspective. Simplicity as compared to more complicated politics. We have to go back. You have to know about Barry Goldwater in the context of his time. He grew up, born in 1909 in dusty Little Phoenix that had eight or nine thousand people at the time. Life was simpler here than it was in the east. Arizona wasnt even a state. When he was born, it was not a state for two or three more years. But just lifestyle was very this is part of the old west at that time. It wasnt new york city, you know, and whatever. So you have to look at barry, lets say, from his family history, which meant a lot to him, but from 1909 clear up to world war ii, what was life like here . It was very simple. It was very unsophisticated. It was black and white. It was right and wrong. It was the old west. It wasnt sophisticated east coast. I bring that up because thats what shaped where did he get these views, you know, which i call small libertarian, but very simple views about right, wrong and this and that. It was the context in which he grew up. Now, you asked me a question, but i cant remember what the question was. What led him to 1964 to shape his idealogy in the 1950s until he ran in 64 . It was what i just said. It was simple. I dont mean that in a negative way, but i mean it was sort of simple. There was right and wrong, and there was, you know, good and bad, and this and that and the other. You get into world war ii, which he served in very much. Remember world war ii was the major right versus wrong, good versus bad thing, and then you get in the cold war and us versus the soviet union. All of these things, from goldwaters perspective, and from the sign of the times were really black and white, especially compared to todays politics where you dont know quite who is doing what to whom and saying what. So i think thats was the pers personification of good versus bad, right versus wrong. He was the personification of that. You met Barry Goldwater. Im going to come back and ask about your impressions of him, but lets focus on the 1964 race. You had other names in the race like governor of scranton, pennsylvania. Walk us through how these candidates challenged Barry Goldwater and ultimately how he got the nomination. The Republican Party was a very Different Institution than it is now. It was controlled by moderates and even by liberals. The whole idealogy of the American Party system was different. Each party had in it both conservatives and liberals. The Democratic Party had very conservative members from the south, very liberal members from the north. The Republican Party had an isolationist conservative wing from the midwest but it also had a liberal wing from the northeast, people like jake jabitz. What the campaign was all about was trying to take over the party from the bottom up, the bottom up being these conservative idealogical activists. We talk about the bottom up, but often they had their meetings in country clubs and very fancy places. And it was presumed that someone like Nelson Rockefeller was the heir apparent for the republican nomination. The idea that a conservative could have won the nomination was absolutely seen as impossible by the pundits because the pundits then said that america was esconsed within a liberal central. When Dwight Eisenhower opened up the deal and even expanded it, like the department of health and welfare, it was just presumed that the conservatism of the 1920s which was something that seemed to have gotten in the depression was nothing like modern life. You point out two key things that were critical in 1964. Oregon, which rockefeller won, and california, which Barry Goldwater won. Yeah. California was an absolutely fascinating, knockdown, dragout political fight. I talked earlier about how Barry Goldwater had these impassioned supporters who would do anything he would want even if they were told not to do it. Some of them were segregationists, they were full of far right, as they were called at the time, extremists. And they were basically willing to knock on doors until their knuckles were bloody. They were willing to sabotage other campaigns. It was seen as a fight for civilization itself because the other candidates, the liberal candidates, Nelson Rockefeller, were seen as the sort of harbingers of the socialism that they believed was destroying civilization itself. It was incredibly impassionate. Two years after Richard Nixon lost his governorship, he was still a player in the Republican Party in 1964, and according to your book, was trying to figure out a way that the party might turn to him if they didnt want either rockefeller or goldwater. You mentioned the oregon primary. He actually established a secret boiler room in a basement. Yes, Richard Nixon, in which people were hired to make phone calls to voters saying, hey, wouldnt it be a neat idea if Richard Nixon was drafted to be president . This is Richard Nixon were talking about, right . Someone found out about it, and a camera crew showed up. Richard nixon was always scheming and he always hoped goldwater and rockefeller would knock themselves out. There was a great cartoon which showed rockefeller and goldwater having a shootout in the middle of an old western town, and nixon was rubbing his hands, and richa in Richard Nixons political undertaker parlor. We always want to hear from you. If you live in the eastern or central time zones, 2027772002. If you live in the mountain and pacific time zones, well also get questions from those here in the audience at the Goldwater Institute. Well show political ads from 1964. You remember this campaign. How did Lyndon Johnson run against Barry Goldwater . What was his tactic . Rottenness. Johnson ran a very Smart Campaign because he made goldwater the issue as opposed to the issues being the issue, and barry was painted as a, you know, a crazy person, you know. There were things put out by the Johnson Campaign that some group of psychiatrists in america came out with a statement that barry was mentally ill. Some of you probably remember that, and that he was crazy. And then, of course, the famous 10, 9, 8, 7, you know, the nuclear bomb commercial which only aired one time, but it got a lot of attention. It was designed by bill moyers, actually. It was a totally do the guy in of a campaign. Its important to realize the nuclear stuff didnt just come out of nowhere. In the conscience of a conservative, he made a very strong argument that a craven fear of death had crept into the american psyche. And by that he meant people were so afraid of nuclear war that they didnt want to confront the soviet union. There was a good reason that people were afraid to confront the soviet union, because an allout war with the soviet union would have meant the end of civilization itself. But Barry Goldwater never freaked out with the thought that if were afraid of going to war with the soviet union, even if it means nuclear war, we are on a path to surrender. That was a genuinely frightening notion, especially after the cuban missile crisis where people actually came within hours, so they thought, of armageddon itself. So he did have some very unconventional ideas about the necessity of confronting the soviet union head on militarily. Well talk a little bit later about that iconic daisy ad. We have put together some other 1964 ads to give you a sense of the issues and the personality in that campaign. This particular phone only rings in a serious crisis. Keep it in the hands of a man who has proven himself responsible. Vote for president johnson on november 3. The people asked Barry Goldwater. I have a question for mr. Goldwater. We keep talking about old wars and brushfire wars. I have a classmate now serving in the armed forces. Id like to know what mr. Goldwater will do to keep us out of war. Let me assure you here and now, and ive said this throughout every corner in the land in this campaign and ill continue to say it, that a goldwater administration will mean once more that a proven policy of peace through strength, that was the hallmark of the eisenhower years. The eisenhower approach to Foreign Affairs is our approach. It served the cause of freedom and avoided war 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 hes right. Vote for Barry Goldwater. On october 24, 1963, Barry Goldwater set up a nuclear bomb. Merely another weapon. Merely another weapon . Vote for president johnson. The stakes are too high for you to stay home. Graft swindles 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 and immediate 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. Americas greatness is the greatness of our people and let this generation make a new mark for that greatness. Let this generation of america set a standard for responsibility that will inspire the world. In your heart, you know hes right. Vote for Barry Goldwater. Darcy olsen is the president of this institute, and you look back at those campaigns from 1964. Your reaction . Well, a lot of different thoughts come to mind when i see that array, including how many of these commercials inspired modern day political commercials. But what i take away from that is the slogan, in your heart you know hes right. I think the American People proved that 15 years later when they elected Ronald Reagan who campaigned on virtually an identical platform but with a little different packaging and a little bit more gloss. And this messaging, i mean, rick, you were talking about with the soviet union and how, you know, goldwater had too much bravado and it was scaring people. That is exactly what reagan ran on, won with, and we have history to tell the tale that that was actually the right Public Policy to pursue. I think that speaks a lot about the timing and what is happening socially when you are campaigning and how important that is and how much that influences ultimately whether or not you get through with your ideas. Two very different approaches. Tony schwartz was behind a lot of the Lyndon Johnson ads as you wrote about in your book, a different tactic by the goldwater campaign. When i look at the goldwater ads, i think about how embarrassingly atrocious they were. The goldwater team was not very impressive for all kinds of reasons, one of them being, goldwater being one of the reluctant candidates, he hired a lot of his friends who were not necessarily professional. That ad was written by the bbc. I interviewed one of the guys who produced one of the big goldwater ads which was goldwater talking to eisenhower. It was a total bust and they got lots of telegrams saying, im not going to give to this campaign again, that was such a bad commercial. The guys name was Chuck Lichtenstein who is now passed away. He told me, i didnt have much experience with tv. I said, you mean you didnt produce many commercials . No, i never watched tv. Were going to be showing during the course of this evening some of the documentary that you put together, so