Goldwater – a man out of step with his time

US Senator and 1964 Republican nominee – Barry Goldwater.

I’ve just reviewed US Senator Barry Goldwater’s 1960 book “The Conscience of A Conservative”. Goldwater went on to be the Republican Party’s 1964 Presidential nominee and he influenced what was to become the “Reagan Revolution” of the 1980s.

“The Conscience of a Conservative” while published in 1960 is mired in the post-World War 2 Cold War fears which emerged after the Soviet Russian invasion of Eastern Europe in 1945 and the 1948 Berlin crisis. The Korean War 1950-53 turned the Cold War into a hot war and tensions throughout the world were raised. By the time of the 1956 Hungarian crisis – where pro-democracy supporters were slaughtered by Russian -backed military – communism had emerged as the great menace for western democracies. In the US McCarthyism took hold as panic spread regarding Russian infiltration of domestic labour unions and left wing peace groups.

The book makes the case for an extreme version of American “conservatism”, heavily influenced by the Cold War in its foreign policy and promoting unregulated capitalism in its economic policy. It is arguably classical Liberal (in the 19th century European sense) rather than truly conservative in its promotion of free trade, ending subsidies and removing regulation.

Interestingly Goldwater is very critical of the failure of the US government to strongly resist the expansion of Soviet influence during the 1950s – a time in which the US had a moderate Republican President who could not be accused of not understanding military affairs – General Dwight D Eisenhower.

Goldwater became bogged down in an out of date ideology that owed more to the 19th century in economics and was unbalanced and fixated with Russia in its foreign policy. It was an ideology of fear that among other things rationalised the huge military spend-up that prevailed in the 1960s. In the 1980s Ronald Reagan resurrected a similar ideology to promote his brand of economics, tax cuts and a strong cold warrior pose in foreign policy.

In addition to being out of touch with his times some of Goldwater’s extremism was positively frightening. For example, he frequently called for the development of what he termed “decisive superiority in small, clean nuclear weapons” to counter the Russian and Chinese superiority in conventional military strength. (Goldwater, 1960, p.61). Not only did this ignore the existing tensions between Russia and China (the fact that they were both communist did not mean they would fight alongside each other). It would have substantially increased the risk of worldwide nuclear war. In addition Goldwater adopted a States Rights approach to civil rights legislation, which while popular with some white southern states, alienated much of the rest of the country.

In 1964 when Goldwater ran for President his views were recognised as outdated and the American people rejected them by a large margin. Goldwater lost the election to Lyndon Johnson by what was then the largest margin in US electoral history.^[2] Goldwater accumulated just 52 electoral votes to Johnson’s 486 and 39% of the popular vote (27,178,188) to Johnson’s 61% (43,129,566).^[158] Goldwater was a principled US Senator, a friend of and political opponent of President John F Kennedy but he was also someone who adopted an overly ideological perspective which saw the world in very black and white terms. Given the frailties of human nature and the complexities of life on earth sometimes life and politics resemble many hues of grey. By 1964 Goldwater was a man out of step with his time.