Goldwater, Barry M(orris) 1909-98
US Republican politician and author

Born in Phoenix, Arizona, the son of a Jewish father of Polish descent, he was educated at Arizona University and served as a ferry pilot during World War II. He worked at his family's department store, becoming president (1937-53), marketing a popular brand of men's undergarments, before representing his home state in the US Senate (1952-64). He was a conservative Republican, supporting Joseph McCarthy and opposing President Dwight D Eisenhower and state intervention in economic affairs. He contested the 1964 presidential election for the Republicans, but was heavily defeated by Lyndon B Johnson. Returning to the Senate in 1969, he chaired the Armed Services Commission, before retiring in 1987. He was one of the architects of the conservative revival within the Republican Party and many of his ideas were later adopted by the Republican 'New Right' and implemented by the Reagan administration. He wrote The Conscience of a Conservative (1960) and published his autobiography, Goldwater, in 1988.