Goldwater, Barry (Morris) (1909–1998)

US Republican politician; presidential candidate in the 1964 election, when he was overwhelmingly defeated by Lyndon Johnson. As senator for Arizona 1953–65 and 1969–87, he voiced the views of his party's right‐wing faction. Many of Goldwater's conservative ideas were later adopted by the Republican right, especially the Reagan administration.

Goldwater was born in Phoenix, Arizona, and educated at Staunton Military Academy, Virginia, and Arizona University. He entered the family store business in 1929. He served in the Army Air Forces during World War II, and achieved the rank of major general in 1962 in the Air Force Reserve. After a stint in 1949 on the Phoenix city council, he ran successfully for the Senate.

After his defeat in the presidential elections, Goldwater was discredited for a time, but his stock rose as a consequence of the Vietnam War and of his position on the Watergate scandal that brought down the Republican president Richard Nixon. He wrote The Conscience of a Conservative (1960) and Why Not Victory? (1962).