NET Journal; That Was the Election That Was

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Good evening. This city of Washington is full of good humor and warm humanity. So too in their way are political campaigns. To be sure, a candidate at the time has to be funny and smiling on everybody. He has to work very hard. He has to appear to be an expert on every conceivable subject. He has to take himself rather seriously. Between public exposures, however, a candidate is a human being. As James Reston has noted, even a candidate for president when he gets up in the morning puts his trousers on one leg at a time just as any other man does. Campaign humor is usually confined at the time to those in the entourage of the candidates. And afterwards, it's talked about it, small Georgetown dinner parties, campaign reunions, meetings of the gridiron club, and a few other exclusive groups. Tonight, we've brought back together in Washington, the two Republican standard bearers in 1964. They've agreed to sit and reminisce about that campaign with

good humor, perhaps even poking a little fun at themselves from time to time. Trying, we hope to show that a campaign does have its lighter its human side. And they're going to do it on the record and in front of the cameras. May I say at the outset that willing is to see the light side of a campaign in retrospect does not and should not be construed

to mean that that campaign was undertaken or carried out frivolously. The 1964 candidates were serious and responsible men. I think it's fair to say that millions of people who didn't agree with them nonetheless respected their sincerity. But any campaign, even a rather unsuccessful one, has its lighter moments and we're going to try to recapture some of those moments today. Mary M. Goldwater keeps his old apartment here in Washington. It spends most of his time in Arizona where he's preparing to run for the United States Senate next year. His 1964 running mate for McCongwism and William E. Miller is now a lawyer in Buffalo, New York, retired from politics and planning to stay retired from politics. With his also his Joseph Stern of the Baltimore son who covered the Goldwater campaign. I'm Paul Nevin and I traveled with Mr. Miller. Now you begin, Congressman Miller, by asking you a question. While Senator Goldwater has said he's never going to run for president again, it's well known that American political history is littered with such promises and if he

comes back to the Senate and has three or four good years, he may be tempted again. If he does and he asks you to run with him, what will you say? Well, I think I'd have to say that Senator Goldwater made an elder station with me at a fairly early age as it is. There's another thing I think and that is that Senator Goldwater has made lots of mistakes but I've never known to make the same mistake twice. Senator Dick? Well, I would disagree of course that it was a mistake. If it wasn't a mistake, it was costly because I found out that he has some other prowess than being a good lawyer and a good congressman and I think you found out the same thing. In fact, I think it got so on that plane of his that he had to have a morals committee, is that right? It's true, but actually I think, I think one of the few Republican candidates who ever ran for national office that ended up the campaign having the press owe me something.

Yeah, that's a point. Senator, you were campaigning on a program of morality and law enforcement. No running makes systematically lured members of the Eastern establishment think of press after the front compartment played bridge for high stakes. Took great sums of money for them. Did you knowingly condone this? Not only condoned it, I participated in it. It's probably the only time in history that the vice presidential candidate wound up ahead while the presidential candidate wound up in the hole. Well, all during the campaign, you were campaigning against the Eastern Liberal Press and yet you seem to get along very well with the reporters along with your plane right now. How did that affect your campaign? Well, I get along with individuals, all right. I think it's sometimes that groups misunderstand me. Well, we sort of made Christians out of the reporters real early in the campaign. I think you were along when we were down at the Tri-State Airport in Bristol. And when

the pilot took the plane off, the tower operator asked him to pass in review. Well, in the parlance of those of us who've been flying a long time, that means buzz the field. And he'd done this here before at Ford Tri-Motor. So without telling the press in the rear or some 50 odd men who had probably never done anything with fly straight and level, he did climbing 360 and came back down over the field at 480 indicated. And that shook the press up, but we never had much trouble with that. Sometimes, I'm security people in public life that while the press always wants to criticize anybody else, it looks for corruption everywhere. It demands the highest ethical conducts. Members of the Fourth Estate are not only willing to freeload anywhere. They complain bitterly if the quality of the transportation or the drinks of the order is, it's a wonderful thing that nobody can write about them. Why not? It's a wonderful thing. I remember how Kennedy would always resist putting on steel workers helmet or any kind of unusual headgear. What did

you do about it? Were you embarrassed by the strange attire that you were expected to win? Well, I didn't like it. Frankly, I've never been a big leader or steel cap wear or a baby kisser. I think a man ought to be natural. The baby's 21, I'll think about it, but anything... That reminds me, Barry, when you talk about beagles. I don't know whether you were aware of this or not, but there were a lot of people that were for us, unfortunately, couldn't vote. But you remember, early in the campaign, Lyndon was photographed as holding the beagles by the years. Do you remember that? One of our first trips, wasn't it so city aisle upon? Somewhere in the Midwest. Because I remember it. I met at the airport. There were flowers for Stephanie and so forth. And then the goldwater and nor girls came up and presented me with two beagles. Beagles for Barry and Bill. It's very odd. Not housebroken. And of course... I still get their shoes. We didn't want to lose the dog lover's vote.

And so we took them on the plane. Well, a campaign plane is not exactly the right place for two very little beagles, not housebroken. We had enough problems without this. So finally, we took them back to Washington when we returned and we had a housekeeper at this time taking care of our small children allow her campaign. And she claimed, of course, it wasn't her contract. I'll take care of two beagles either. The weren't housebroken. So we had lots of problems, but I did want you to know in case you didn't. There were a lot of beagles for us. Well, I was given a beagle, but they took it back. It's your suggestion. No, I even had a robe over the back. Beagle for Barry and Bill. And I thought, oh boy, the grandkids will love this beagle. So I carry it around in my arms. And when the camera's all left, the girl came up and said, can I have my dog back? He didn't pick up a tag to hide. Well, I learned not to pick beagles up by the ear.

That was that example of the president. Of course, he's the last one that should pick anybody up by the ear. Is the American political campaign of which to the traditional ritual of which you to what president is for about eight weeks? Is it an efficient institution, an efficient way of choosing Arleigh? I don't think so, frankly. And I've given this a lot of thought. In fact, I'm well into a book that I've been writing. I don't know if I'll ever finish it or ever publish it. Expressing some of the ideas that I picked up about campaigning and no bill picked up, I think campaigning, frankly, is getting to be, first of all, I think most people know who they're going to vote for. It's too long to expect. And way before we ends, too much money, too long. And tell a major more doing it. Didn't the National Committee or some group at least take a poll very shortly after the election which showed that as a matter of fact, at the time we were nominated in San Francisco,

we couldn't win. Well, 60% of the people that already made up their mind now as a result of spending millions of dollars and all kinds of energy for 10 weeks, maybe we changed three, four, five percent of the vote. We did a little better than that. This isn't humorous, but the day of the nomination, just before I went to the convention, and I didn't tell you about this because I didn't want to lose you. Our polls have shown us charts that when they erased everything, it was 80% for Johnson, Humphrey, and 20% for Goldwater Miller. I think we did a pretty darn good job. We knocked them down 20 and we came up 20. We lost, we got the daylights beat out of us, but we came up, but it's still too darn much money. I don't mind the energy. The fun way to see the country, though? Well, I gained five pounds and you can't deny that visiting with American people and seeing America is probably the greatest thrill and pleasure

that a man can have. But it's also expensive. It's expensive, and we've got to cut this thing. Today, I think, with radio and television and with jet air transportation and so forth, I think frankly, the English system is preferable. I think four weeks would probably be entirely sufficient, and I think it's utterly ridiculous to almost physically assassinate at least one of the two who are going to be present for the next four years. Every four years, we hear these complaints, though, but it seems like we're right on the treadmill again. Well, you're never going to change this. You're never going to change this as long as you're faced with a campaign in which an incumbent present will be a participant because always the outs feel that they need a longer time and more expulsion. There are about 24 hours in the day, even of a candidate. I guess there's a temptation always for the staff to over-schedule you. Was this a problem, Senator? Well, it was with me on one occasion, in fact on two, and this isn't the trouble of the staff. The local people get so over-excited and over-exuberant that they have to have you there. I remember in the primary in

California, they had me scheduled for 26 speeches in one day. Now, this isn't a 24-hour day. It's from about seven o'clock in the morning till eight, and then a banquet after it. Well, I got to the banquet. I said, no, I'm going to bed. And then in New Hampshire, as you remarked, I was tumbling around there with my right leg in a cast, and I made 223 speeches in that state, and I would say it was way over-scheduled. Something you don't like because you like to take care of everybody, but some funny things happen when you... I remember one afternoon in New Hampshire, we were scheduled to go to the next town, and the meeting was to be in this nice elderly woman's house, and the radio reports came that there was icing conditions on the runway, and we were scheduled back here that night, so I had to skip the meeting and come down here, and I know I lost the whole the vote of the whole house and probably the whole precinct, but it was either me spend the week up in New Hampshire or get back here and attend the business. And you find it hard to

go up to a man and ask for his vote. No, no, it's very easy. I certainly disagree with some of the things that they ask you to do, for example. I tried it going up into a restaurant and asking a man eating a hamburger for a vote. If I was a guy, I'd shove the hamburger right down his throat. I don't think it's right, I don't think it's polite, but if you're talking on the street corner something like that's a... I appreciate your vote. Someone will tell you to go to hell, and the others will say, well, I'm going to vote for you. It's amazing. How in our system is sophisticated really as most people are. How many people are still are in this country who simply like to be asked to vote for you? It's really, but talking about scheduling, I'll never forget, on one of our trips, we ended up in County, Nebraska, at midnight. And we landed and there wasn't one single soul at the airport. Lights were out, the airport was

closed, and it's got a little fog. And finally it finally developed that we were actually supposed to land at Grand Island, which was 40 miles south, I think, of carrying a brass gun. Here they had the motorcade and the reception committee and flowers for Stephanie and so forth, but they were 40 miles away, and we didn't even have a ride to the hotel. Well, I remember one night we left, I won't mention this town, but it was left a southern town about midnight after winding up the evening meeting and landed at another city. And in the meantime, I had been sleeping and they shake me real fast. All the reception's ready outside and I said, what reception? Nobody told me about it. So at one o'clock in the morning, here's all the goldwater girls and jumping up and down waving their bonnets and hats and people back there. And I'm half asleep and kind of grumpy. And then to make me grumpier, some radio newsman insisted on sticking the mic right in my mouth.

And I finally said, if you don't take it out of my mouth, I'm going to shove it in yours. And he didn't, so I did. And I got a very bad press on that, of course. But these are the little things that crop up that you don't know about and you're not really at your best when you ought to be. Well, actually, Senator, as you said, in most cases, this is not the fault of the staff. Now, it's the local people. In other words, for instance, we would be scheduled out of Washington. Let's say Monday morning and would end up in Idaho after maybe eight or 10 or 12 stops and maybe 14 or 16 speeches. And on the schedule, it would say overnight, boy, see Idaho, let's say, to the hotel and so forth. Well, now this really was the instruction probably of the staff in Washington, the people in Idaho or Nebraska, wherever it may be, plain land, just take candidate and staff and press and so forth to the hotel breakfast at eight o'clock in the morning.

But of course, they don't do this. I mean, they'll have a reception for you at the airport, and then when you get into the hotel, you'll find that the local committee also now has rented the ballroom. And so at 130 in the morning, instead of the rest, which it says on the schedule, you've got a speech in the ballroom. And there you are. And what can you do about this? We're all talking about New England. That's where Paul is. You remember, Stefan, I kicked the campaign off. Remember, our first trip was in the New England area. And I think wasn't Bangor a main the first stop, as I remember, I thought we'd never get the campaign off the ground tall if that was going to be any precedent for the rest of the campaign. The first place, I always wore those in a tab shirt with a collar button. Well, of course, I only had one collar button. I had lots of press people. We had lots of staff. We had lots of electronic equipment. But I only had one collar button. I'm getting dressed in the morning to go to a breakfast. That went down the drain or down the sink. And I mean, I got stuck with their manicuring equipment trying to find and get it out of the... So over then,

my daughter, Elizabeth Ann, who's now married, but at that time, with her mother was giving she was having a press conference with some of the female reporters and what they liked to wear and how they dress and how they pick their clothes out and so forth. And just as my daughter is leaving, the press conference over the elastic and her skirt broke. I mean, her skirt fell to the ground. So, you know, I said this stuff, if this is any omen, this is going to be a long, hard campaign. But wasn't the one point when you were stranded with no telephone, no clothes? That was in... I think that was in the Laramie wine omen. I'm sure that we had the only suite in our hotel. I'm sure it was also the one that Wyatt Earp shot up a couple of years ago. In any event, as you know, the advanced people would always arrange telephones in the room and so forth. We got in this suite. It was one little living room, one bedroom. Oddly enough, they put all the telephones in the living room.

So, and stuff, and I went to bed that night to close the door and, of course, no telephone in the room and so forth. And then she remembered that she left her hairdryer out in the living room. So, I went to get the hairdryer and the door knob came right off of my hand. At this point, I'm totally undressed in the node. And second floor, there isn't a light street light out in front, but not a soul walking the streets and no telephone. And here I am in the node with the door knob in my hand. When I turned to Stephanie, I said, look, I know I don't look much like a vice president. But in the node, at two o'clock in the morning with the door knob in my hand, there'd be little chance if anybody ever saw this. We'd be elected anything. It's funny. National candidates seem larger than life during the campaign. I'm sure the public never thinks of a guy going after his wife's hairdryer at two o'clock in the morning.

Have time to do that. Oh, candidates are no different than anybody else. As you campaign for an office like president and vice president, you have a lot of things you don't have. Normally, I remember in my house at home, if I wanted to call Bill, I just dialed a number and there's Bill. If I wanted to talk to any member of the party, Mingo, there it was. Tell a type in the airplane. We were in constant touch with everybody. So I like this. I could never find you. I call him and somebody says, he's just about to gin. He'll call you back and I'll never get him. But when it was all over, I said to Peggy, I said, you know, this is great. I said, we ought to keep this set up. Well, she said, call down to your friend at the telephone, come in and ask about it. It was $5,000 a month. I said, skip it. It was nice to have an airplane. Send them smoke signals. This is the only time I've ever had an electric phrase. It's all my own. Very interesting for eight weeks. You could get spoiled in that business, but it was real fun.

I saw Hubert Humphrey yesterday, vice president. I've always liked Hubert. I know Bill does. He's a very enjoyable fellow, very fine fellow. And he complained about a column I'd written, said I was wrong about him. And I said, well, I always remember what old Harry Truman said if you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen. And he wrote me and he said that he hoped that we Republicans could stand the biscuits they were cooking in the kitchen. So I asked if I could come in and say hello. We were talking about the campaign. And I said, you know, this is the greatest honor that ever befell me of one of what 37 men that the Republican Party has ever picked, just like Bill, one of the 37 men. Well, he said, I never thought of that. And it is. It's true. No matter how many mistakes you make or made, see if you win, you make no mistakes. If you win, everybody connected with your campaign is immediately a genius. Where if you lose, everybody's a bum.

One of the cues of the campaign for Mr. Humphrey was when he managed to have a face-to-face confrontation with you in Iowa. Remember that? We were talking about that. I understand that he arranged to have erroneous information given to you that he had left the airport. No, I didn't hear that. But yesterday, I reminded of that. And I said, you know, it's a darn good thing the press didn't know what we were talking about. We all, we lied to you. You know, I had a... Well, let me tell you, I couldn't tell you. It was very emotional. Even now. I had a letter from Gilbert, you know, after the campaign, which he said, if, I mean, in your travels, you come to Washington, I'd be delighted to have you sit in the seat for five minutes or something. You have similar invitations from the President? No. The only time that the President has ever talked to me, and you'll remember we were in the coordinating council meeting one morning, and it was very obvious to me that every time the Republican coordinating council met

the President would upstage us. He'd have something going on that would make the front page, and we'd be lucky if we got in the Wandaid section. So that morning, I said, now, gentlemen, can we please refrain from talking to the White House today? And I said, particularly, generalizing how don't see the President today, because it'll make the front page, and we won't. So that was just after I had my spine operated, and I wasn't pretty much in pain, so I couldn't go back for the afternoon meeting. I stayed at the apartment, took a couple of pills, and relaxed a bit, and the first thing, you know, the phone rang, and said, this is the White House. I made an appropriate remark, and hung up, and phone rang again, and said, the President wants to talk to you, and I said, well, I find out who's drunk this late in the afternoon. And sure enough, this voice came on and said, Bayes, let me send a call for you, and you all come down, have some coffee with me. Well, I said, Mr. President, I don't drink coffee, and when I come down to see,

I'll have a little snort of bourbon with you, but I can't make it today, really, because I am in pain, and the doctor told me to rest. Well, sure enough, the next morning, there's a picture with the General, and the President, and Lord knows what it would have been, the General and Goldwater and the President. And here's the poor coordinating, very back with Dick Tracy, and flying silos. Is this cricket? Try to steal that a lot of it, isn't it? I think it's the smartest thing in the world. Did you ever do it? I tried. Have you get away with it? No. Well, if I'm in a place where the press like me, I can get a little help, but the press controls that. They know what you're up to. And of course, when the President says something, that's news. The power of the office. This is something. When the President has a little dew out in the Rose Garden, or he, just like it's raining here today, and nobody knows what happened, but he called the weather viewer the other day, and he says, okay, boy, it's 40 days and 40 nights. That's what we're getting at. Is it, you think it's more than co-window's coincidence that every time the Republican Coordinating Committee is meeting, or there's

going to be an important budget for us, and there's some big news out of the White House. Why? It's just planned. I've even suggested to Ray Bliss that we meet in the dark of the night. Some place other than Washington, and not let anybody know about it, because the Coordinating Committee has put out some darn good papers. But if you want to read it in the press, you're going to have to look at Lyndon all over the front page, and General Eisenhower and Ray Bliss, and the rest of us back in the won't add section. No, this is smart politics in America. It's practiced all over the world, and I'll just have to say this, and I know that you'll agree. You've served with him at this man in the White House. He's probably the cutest, smartest, throat-cuttenest, political operator I've ever run into. Don't you gentlemen have the best of both worlds in the sense? The president has adopted your Vietnam policy. The Congress is curtailing many of his domestic spending programs, but he and the company are doing the work and you two gentlemen comparatively relaxed. Well, we're not getting the salary either.

You're not getting the salary or the prestige, and you don't eat. I've got to eat. I don't know. Have you ever regretted not being in? When I pick up the paper and look at the pictures I see of Hubert Huffrey, I can't say that. Of course, if we thought we could have had a Republican Congress, it would have been a different thing, but I can look back now and see where it probably would have been a mistake for the country to have had this mixture. In fact, this is one part of our political system that I think we ought to give consideration to. Whether we ought to have a Republican president in the Democratic Congress or vice versa, whether we ought to go to the British system of the majority party with a strong minority party. I've given this a lot of thought, how do you pace yourself so far as physical and mental strain during the campaign? How do you keep yourself going, Senator?

Well, I actually gained five pounds in my campaign, something I don't like to do. I've watched my weight, I watched my diet, I exercise, and I can take a cat nap, and I think, and one other thing, I don't smoke. No, I'm not anti-smoking, but I've never smoked in my life, and I seem to have a little more gold than the fellow that smokes all the time with looking at me. Miller is an exception. He, when he's old, riverboat types, you know everything. He gets exercise dealing cold and tired, picking up the money. Senator, he's at a point in the moment, whenever a man comes out of the crowd and says, Senator, I don't know if you remember me, but I met you in Chicago, and you can see behind him his children, waiting breathlessly for you to say his name and maybe his business associates, and you don't know him from that. I would say that this is the worst thing that any man can do to another man or other person, whether they're in politics or not. I can't think of a thing that embarrasses a person so much. You know that you know this person. You've seen the face, but you've seen millions of faces. You know the family wants to meet. Now, I have a little routine. I'll say,

oh, why sure I know you and then go on talking. And by the time I finish talking, he's told me who he is. In fact, I had an old uncle in politics, founded the Democratic Party and the territory of Arizona. And when I was a kid, I used to drive him around, and I'll never forget one day, and I wish I had the courage to do this. We were walking down the street, and this man came up to him and he said, Mr. Goldwater, I'll bet you don't remember me. And my uncle looked him up and down, and he said, no, I don't, I don't give a damn and walked on. Now, if I did that, you could hear the votes dropping all around. But if people would just remember, and in my own life, and I have no bill does it, I go up to people that I know, know me, and I'll say, I'm very Goldwater. And it's always nice to have somebody do that. Unless you, you know, I see you, I want to know you any place, but you run into a man that you haven't seen in a while, say your name and that's it. Generally, if stuff were with me, I would always say, you know my wife Stephanie, and of course I knew very well, he didn't

should all of them. And you'd say to Stephanie, well, I'm a phone phone. So I say, well, I'm sorry, I thought you knew Pat. I never realized how many close personal friends you and Steph had until that campaign, because in every congressional district, you would get the local congressman, because many of them, you did know, because having been a national chairman, but you would always say, now, Stephanie, it's so bad, glad to be back here for a reunion with Sam and Hortens, because we were not only political associates, we were close personal friends for 14 years. Well, actually, of course, in many cases, it's true. You've got to remember the stuff, and I worked here for 14 years, and we didn't make a lot of friends in the Congress, and still have me. Well, it was the same way with me. I was chairman of the Senate Campaign Committee for seven years, and I added up the other day that I made nearly 3,000 speeches in that time and traveled about two million miles, and I don't think literally there was a campaign, I mean a committeeman county or state wide that Bill and I didn't know in this country. This was the big leg up we had, and they talked about the experts that captured delegates for Goldwater and Miller. We had them before we ever were asked, but getting back to this memory business, I have to put a plug in for my wife.

She's got a memory on her like a computer, and she walks behind me, and she'll say, Sam, Jack, Mary, his wife's dead, his mother's here, and I just, oh, Sam, hello, Jack, and it's my wife, and she never misses. She's also people who check who it is. Could you tell from the way some of the Republican leaders around the country would introduce you, whether they were really for you or against you? Yes, they weren't there at all. In this, of course, was rather obvious. Now, it's customary, although I don't say it's required, it's customary to introduce the presidential or vice presidential candidate or senatorial candidate or gubernatorial candidate as the next president or the next governor. I was introduced in Michigan twice, just as Senator Goldwater, and I was introduced in New York once, just as Senator Goldwater. So, it happened. I remember once when you

were introduced as the man who was nominated by the Republican Convention. That was a second when I was talking about, but I'd say in every other state in the union, even though I knew that the man introducing me was not for me, he would be courteous enough to observe the niceties of the campaign by saying the next president of the United States, Mary Goldwater. Because here in Washington, friendships are always often trans and political and ideological frontiers, but I wanted to, in your respective hometowns, you had close personal friends who were on the other side for one reason, and did it embarrass them? It was a matter of fact. Paul, I looked right next door in Lockport with the editor and publisher of the local newspaper, and I played golf with him for three times a week, and we were very, very close friends, but the newspaper did not endorse us. You know, I've had that happen, but it's perfectly all right. My brother was a Democrat. Most of his life just changed for my campaign. Many close personal

friends of mine are high in the Democratic Party at home, and there's never any bones made about it. I expect them to be loyal to the Democratic Party. I remember late Senator Newberger writing after one of his long hospitalizations that he learned a lot, that a lot of his, what he thought were his close friends in the Senate, he never heard from, and they had a long handwritten letter every week from very old one. We did not know off the well, apparently. Well, that's true. You develop friendships in the Congress that you'll never develop anyplace else, and I can't think of a man that I ever met in this town that I disliked. In fact, I can't think of any man in the world probably that I disliked, but generally these men and women that serve in the Capitol are very dedicated, very likable, very decent, very honest people, and I get along with Democrats sometimes better than get along with the Republicans. Could you make a personal attack, another personal attack, but a political attack on a fellow sender on the floor or listen to him

attack you, and go off and have a drink with him? It depends on how a kind of attack it would. I wasn't on the floor when Bill Fulbright compared me with Stalin, and even though we're fraternity brothers, I think he would have heard a few words about his poor judgment. I've been castigated on the floor rather roundly, and I've done my share of castigating others, but never to the point of it leaving anything, I've had many an argument with Lyndon Johnson on the floor and lined up in his office at four o'clock in the morning sharing a drink and telling lies about Texas and Arizona. Were you surprised, Senator, at how you were treated by some of your fellow Republicans during the campaign, and has it had any lasting effects since the campaign in your relations with them? No, I would say that every Republican who opposed me and Bill, they told us about it. We knew where Tommy Kekel stood. I knew where Jake Javett stood. I was a little surprised at Keating, but not too much when I realized the state he's from,

but no disrespect to New York, I mean the politics of the state. I knew that Nelson Rockefeller, and George Romney would not support me. Those that didn't support me told me so. They were men enough to come up and say, I can't back you, and it's had as far as I'm concerned, it's had no lasting effect, although I can say that when you're no longer a member of the club, you're not a member. Most of my public speaking has been in colleges, universities, conventions. I don't think I've spoken before one Republican fundraising effort outside of my own state. I take it back one in California in the last three years. Why is this? Well, they probably feel that Goldwater is a kiss of death, that if he comes into Ohio or Illinois or some other state, that the crowds are going to stay away. This isn't my experience, and I'm not looking for dates. I doubt that I'd take them, but this is just a matter of let the dog lie. Do you think this is just a matter of time? Are people mellowing or some of the

emotions of the campaign? I think that, of course, the Republican candidates were caricatures. Let's face it, that Rockefeller and his cohorts had painted. I was a social security card cutter, and I was going to bomb the kids. They're plucking daisies out, you know. And so people meet me today, and I think they expect to see a guy with two horns and a long red tail, and some of them are shook up, that sort of passes a nice grandfather, teach my kids, well, I don't beat my wife, I could go to church and pay my dues, and I think that the image that was created of me particularly, and Bill, is disappearing. I think it's a shame that it ever came about. If they're going to make a carriage, you're out rather having to make a nice one out of it. I think one of the unfortunate parts it was, it actually is a result of that. It put us on the defensive in the campaign.

Oh yeah. In other words, you hardly can't win a football game on a defensive. And when we started in September, we were on the defensive. I think we stayed there. We had to, and we had to. Every time we'd go in, for example, the first man on the train, or the first man on the plane, the first one to reach, you say, now you've got to talk about social security here, or you've got to talk about the farms. Well, as far as I was concerned, the whole farm program was a screwy thing, and I made a speech pretty much to that effect, that by the way, it was written by the men from the farm area in the middle west. You make up your mind right at the start, either you're going to campaign honestly, or you're going to be a liar. I can remember being in the Congress. I can remember some of the most astute members of the House, who came to agriculture. Always said the only sound position for any candidate in the United States to take used to be against any farm program. Don't be for anyone. Just be against it, and you'll always be on Sound Ground. I remember a presidential campaign in which both candidates confided

privately that they knew nothing whatever about agriculture and had no idea how to solve the farm problem. I think this is a tribute to their candor. That's true. But only in private, yet every time we approached the the playing states, they would come up with a seven point, a 12 point program for agriculture, as if they'd been brought up on the farm. Why don't you actually call upon to pretend to be experts, the found of original wisdom on all subjects? Oh, I don't think this is true. I think that candidates feel they should be. I found it pays if you don't know anything about the subject to say so. But you can't spend 12 or 14 years in the Congress and not be exposed to a lot of problems. You don't become expert on them, but you're knowledge of a lot of problems. You lead very few solutions. You know, we were talking earlier about talking with the president. I did have a conference with him before the campaign. I don't know if it was ever mentioned, but my backers felt that this so-called backlash or white lash would figure prominently in the campaign.

And while not many urged me to get in this field, in fact, most of them said stay away from it. I was worried about it. I was worried about the possibility of riots and so forth. So I called the president one day and I said, can I see you? Now again, to show you how smart this man is, he wanted to know why. And I said, I want to talk to you about the dangers of getting into civil rights, et cetera, in this campaign. So he had a news conference about an hour before I showed up. He made all this if it was his idea to me. And he said, no, he said, if Senator Goldwater is concerned about this, and that the other in particular civil rights, I wanted to know that we're not going to get into it. Well, this was my idea. And I went to him in the White House that afternoon. And I said, Mr. President, I think we would both be very wise if we didn't talk about civil rights. The laws are on the books. The people know that both you and I are concerned in this field, although he wasn't at the time, but he was getting that way fast. And he agreed. And I hadn't even

walked out the Rose Garden and he'd hand out a press release had already written. But again, it shows the astuteness of this man. He never misses a trick. And so, as a result of this, civil rights was not mentioned during the campaign. Joe Stern had a question about that meeting, I think. Yeah, so I understand from democratic sources that you and Larry O'Brien had to talk about campaign strategy and tactics before you saw the president. Yeah, we did. What did you learn from Larry? Larry wanted to know what he said, how come a fellow like you from a little state like Arizona could get the nomination? Well, I said, Larry, all we did was read the Kennedy book and improved on it, which we did. The Kennedy book was our Bible. We followed the techniques that he used in the states, almost to the letter. We followed the techniques at the convention, although we improved them. Our electronic techniques were the best. I think so. And we might even

put it up in kit form and have a do-it-yourself electronic convention hall kit. And he started a laugh and we just chatted back. Well, Larry O'Brien is reputed to be a bit of a politician. Now, did he get any ideas from you? Well, he hasn't lost an election yet, so he didn't have gotten any from me. Has he stolen any? Have you seen Sephora? Oh, I don't think that Larry ever stole anything, even though he's postmaster. I miss a letter once in a while. In fact, I accused the post office department of any time a box leaves here with my name on it, I think they take it up the top of the Washington monument and drop it and then mail it because I never get anything whole. It's mailed out of Washington. I've changed my name out to Shapiro. How about espionage and counter-espionage? Did you find out much about what they were going to spring next week and use it or ward it off and then do the same thing? We had a train ride against my judgment. We took out of here one ride through a goal we were going out to

Pennsylvania, Ohio, Illinois, Indiana, and the Democrat stash to girl aboard. I didn't know about this. I have and mine some gentlemen of my entourage who didn't know, but they kicked her off the next morning and I would have kept her on. I wanted to meet her. In fact, I never have. I think that's a wonderful idea. She was publishing a Democrat newspaper with something like that. She went on with a new press badge and was traveling along. Yes, we had on trade to the Democratic plans. We knew pretty much what was going to come off and what they were going to say. Can you say how you did this without compromising? No, because another campaign's coming up. I know they had watchers in our ranks. You always do this. Do you know who they were? We knew fairly well. In fact, it was convenient at times because we would leave prepared memoranda around that had nothing to do with what we were going to do so they could pick it up.

This is part of war. These things go on and you always have to be prepared for them. I think what we did in the convention probably will be a forerunner for more finely electronicized, if that's the word, conventions and hours. I will not reveal the name or names of people responsible, but we had every cable of every television company and every radio company marked up in the loft of the cow palace so that if anybody got a little bit too obnoxious towards us, there can always be cable trouble. You might recall Senator Hughes Scott got him once with a bullhorn and it didn't work and the batteries weren't in it. These are little things that you do is perfectly fair in love and war and this, oh, we had all kinds of things planned. We even had a plan once to try to keep Hubert Humphrey's crew of his plane locked up in his room so that

they couldn't get out the plane for next race. What happened to that one? Oh, they got out the window. Did you ever say it's good to be here in Kansas City again when you were in fact in Oklahoma City or get the name of a senatorial or congressional candidate wrong? Is this candidate so often do? I probably did because I have a memory about that long but I don't recall ever getting mixed up in in the city's particular Kansas City in Oklahoma City because you wouldn't have come out of either place alive. The only real mistake I made in my wife still loves to remind me of this. I used to have a, as you remember Paul sort of a reference to Orville Freeman saying that he was actually a lawyer instead of a farmer and that if we were elected. You mean awful Freeman? That's awful Freeman. That if we were elected that we would appoint a farmer as Secretary of Agriculture but I remember it was either an Iowa or Nebraska where I said

Orville Freeman is a farmer and believe me if we were elected we would appoint a lawyer. Oh, they've got the President has something of that trouble here now with appointing this new Central Commissioner and I remarked the other day that sort of like a mayor we have a day mayor. We have a day mayor. We have no day mayor but we have a nightmare. I got that little screwed up but you get mixed up in politics and speaking when you speak as often as we've spoken you just can't help but make mistakes and I'll say this that the press always corrects an obvious mistake. Now I notice in the case of George Romney lately who way down deep is a little shallow some people say but the press has taken to reporting him like they used to report General Eisenhower General Eisenhower is a man who thinks faster than he speaks and he

I do this occasion I know Bill does you get half through way through a thought then you're on another thought and when you sit down and read it you say my god I couldn't have said that I said it that way now they've been supporting George Romney in that fashion and I guess you can say this is accuracy but it doesn't do the man any good who it's trying to explain a lot of things and gets a little bit ahead of himself. All the press has a lot of cute tricks. A time magazine for example I think one of the great users of words and I can always tell when they like a man. Now if they liked you they'd say the Husky 230 pound Paul Niven but if they didn't like you it'd be a sloppy, a pear-shaped sloppy 230 pound Paul Niven. And photographs too. Oh yes and they'll take you know. Dr. Remember in our campaign we spoke wasn't it in Maine or in the New England say someplace and we got a fairly representative crowd I think it was

a fairgrounds I mean but the stand was tremendous of course we had a good crowd right in the middle when 250 which I was almost 300 I think Paul your cow was always long but in any of that the picture comes out in the time magazine focused right on the empty stands I mean so there wasn't anyone there so I was speaking to myself there were more people queued up for the merry go round down the were either of you ever attempted for a moment to do what Nixon did after the California campaign and dismissed the press for all time with a few. You will make too much money out as well that's I couldn't afford to lose a friendship at the beginning but also as you well know we made tremendous friendships during the course of the campaign and while I suspect that very few people are playing voted for us I still don't think that we we developed friendships would have left you didn't get mad when you read what we wrote well now I know I don't I've never been one

who've exactly blamed Nixon for that and I know many members of the press who said to me after by golly we had it coming I didn't get mad at the press I remember the night of the election returns I stayed home and they were all over Camelbackian about a half mile away and I know that some of them got mad because I didn't show up well I no sense of going over there at midnight and saying what everybody knew that I'd lost the election and the next morning we had our final go around and I said goodbye to them and I think those that were unfair with me and with Bill know who they are and I think in fact the handling of our campaign by the press will probably be the last time that the press is tempted to do this I think you're beginning to see a realization that from the top newspapers on down there were there was bad handling on both sides a conservative

paper would be unfair to Johnson a liberal paper like the New York Times would be unfair to me I found a change in this I found a change in and some of the reporters who used to listen to what I had to say and then say exactly the opposite now some of your very jealous supporters were mad at the press they were when they pound on the bus and curse the press they still do it like well denied at the convention the general Eisenhower said something about television everybody stomped and cheered and he's the best line he ever had you know one of the great memorable incidents of the campaign came in California however when a very jealous goldwater supporter ran up to one of Mr. Goldwater's press aides and said you've got to stop those reporters over there they're taking down everything the senator said we get to do that to understand that you're traveling a lot around Arizona making kind of pre campaign talks

do you find many newspaper men following you oh not in Arizona because they all know that I'm accessible AP UP have my unlisted number they call the television knows that when I have anything I think might interest their national networks that I'll call them no it's like campaigning at home anytime when the newsmen want something they know they can get it it's no trouble that senator isn't hard to go back to this after campaigning for president with the vast staff your every wishes the command of 20 people you know it's a place cause really isn't it kind of hard again to be worrying about getting your own suit pressed or how you're going to get from here to there I don't worry about them as soon as pressed or not but I have to keep a staff I have a staff of four I dictated 20,000 letters last year it's a matter of fact just a strike of serious note for a minute I think this also you were talking about the shadow cabinet and a loyal opposition

that really is functioning now of course this coordinating committee to a certain extent tries to take the place of this but one of the great deficiencies really I think in our system is that when you run for president and vice president of the United States and lose there is no provision in law which provides you with any money at all for any kind of staff uh uh uh clerical help uh mailing uh now for instance um I don't know how many hundreds and hundreds of letters that I received after the campaign from uh even young boys and girls who would say uh I contributed 20 cents to your campaign or whatever could I please have your autograph or what it will now uh I think if you've done any good uh for the cause in which you believe you simply can't throw these things in the waste paper basket when the election is over you've got to respond but when you do uh it takes uh a lot of a lot of staff it takes a lot of one allowance for the first year for the president but not the not for bill they didn't but they

did take care of my staff the first year but it cost me from 35 to 40,000 dollars a year just to take care of this mail which I don't think we can take no I don't think so as bill says they're from kids right and you can't you can't refuse to respond you can't just ignore these things and you have to turn them out down now you you have some funny experiences though uh because people continue to recognize you uh and I I went took Peggy to a movie oh it's about a year ago uh we never go with the movie we didn't see gold finger and on the way out I was following this uh rather large woman and her husband and she turned to him and says now that you've seen him aren't you glad you didn't vote for no you you have the uh people come up to me and say aren't you very gold water and I sometimes I said no and I didn't vote for that SLB and I don't like another time say no I'm his brother and a lot of people get us mixed up but usually say yeah and and then you have an enjoyable time

campaigning in our zone of course you don't need a big staff because there's chili everywhere isn't they're saying chili everywhere uh and you stop practicing and and and Buffalo every time you walk down a street with people no but it's amazing how many uh I think you don't realize that you're soft while you're going through the campaign but it is amazing the exposure that you must get in the course of a ten week national campaign because I can still even go to New York City and be walking out of the hotel and you can tell people looking at you as much as they want to see and they don't know they don't remember exactly whether I was on gun smoke or uh or whether I was a candidate from somewhere yeah faces familiar tell us about your chili operations and nonchilly territory senator well this is uh my desire for chili the the stewardess always knew where to look for chili because I like chili and I like to chili burgers and I got my staff so they were eating chili all the time and uh it's better thank you when we

borrowed your play for two days that's what we had left over no we just we just had it we just we just we just had it uh stashed away but uh no this recognition thing would I'll tell you a funny thing now Bill I don't know if it's happened to you and I don't say this uh in a braggadocio way at all but I think I've run into not more than 12 people since that campaign that said that they voted for Johnson well I was gonna say I think as a matter of fact the each day I live I think I'm more and more that we're entitled to a recount because uh actually as you say we we received according to the official tabulation 27 million votes but I I know that since November 1964 I've run into 32 million people who voted for us well even taxi drivers bartenders people in New York people in the big cities that you'd presume vote Democrat they say no I voted for you and Bill and I'll do it again and I as I said Bill said I often thought well we ought to ask for recount along the line we should offer the president vice president equal time to come on

NET and reminisce about their campaign do you think they be as frank as you too if you can get the two together might be interesting you think they're apart politically or geographically or well we better end it right there on uh what what the positions they're in but I would say this in all sincerity if I were Lyndon Johnson I would be saying thank God I've got Hubert Humphrey out there blocking for me and taking all the criticism and trying to smooth things out because I think actually Hubert's doing a great job I think he is too he's doing a real job in fact if he had any other vice president first of all he wouldn't have a loyal vice president and second he wouldn't have a man that is humorous that is a genuine that is readily accepted by Republican and Democrat alike and who can sound plausible where the president just can't sound plausible you've made the 1964 campaign sound like a mighty interesting experience now 1972 is only half a decade away would you want to try it again no I don't really I only did it for the

reasons we discussed earlier I think somebody else should have their chance I had my chance I intend to run for the Senate although that's not locked up but I intend to and I'll be about 70 years old in 1972 and I think that's a little bit old I think the face will have been around too long I think about that time I'll be thinking about taking grandchildren down the Colorado river on pack trips teaching them how to fly well I hope we've seen tonight that the 64 campaign did have its its letter side oh it was a wonderful campaign and I think Bill will agree with me that it's the greatest honor either one of us ever had in meeting these millions of American people in all the states of this union it's you can't I agree very and yet I hate to have you say that you might not be interested in 72 because well would you be interested well we nearly won well

suppose I think another chance suppose I ask you in 72 I say yes will you give up the Jen game and come along I say yes whatever happens in 72 I think we've seen tonight that the 64 campaign had its lighter moments it's been fun trying to recapture them and remember that we very nearly well thank you congressman Miller Senator Goldwater and Joe Stern good evening this is NET the National Educational Television Network