POSTAL CARD TO THE CAPITAL FROM GOLDWATER, WITHOUT SOFT SOAP, TO...

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP99-00418R000100370025-5
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: May 10, 2012
• Sequence Number: 25
• Publication Date: October 4, 1988
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

STAT - - I I - ~
Declassified in Part -Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/05/10 :CIA-RDP99-004188000100370025-5
- ~
:Postal CaM to the Capkal
FromGoldwater,
Without Soft Soap, to .. .
By MARTIN TOLCHIN
Special to'tfie New York Times '
WASHINGTON, Sept. 27 -Barry
Goldwater seldom minced words in
more than 30 years in Washington,
andhe is no more circumspect in re-
tli?ement.
~~ The former Arizona Senator, who is
' widely accepted as a leader of mod-
ern Republican conservatism, has
contempt for some fellow Republi-
cans, praise for some Democrats and
'advice on how to get ahead in Wash-
~~ ington.
President Reagan either knew of
'~Fl-e diverting of Iranian funds to the
Nicaraguan rebels and lied to the
public, Mr. Goldwater said, or ''he
`wasn't paying much attention to his
`)ob." He pronounced Richard M.
?' axon "the world's biggest liar,"
'while Harry S. Truman was "the best
.'President of the last 100 years."
Nobody expected the ailing Mr.
Goldwater, who will be 80 on New
Year's Day, to put his arthritic legs
up on his desk and while away the
hours watching sunsets from his
mountaintop home in Phoenix, but
few foresaw his current schedule.
Memoirs and Lectures
He is busy publicizing his memoirs,
compiled in a new book, "Goldwa-
ter," which he has written with Jack
Casserly. He lectures daily at Ari-
zona State University, which he calls
"the best fun I've ever had in my
life," as he reflects on the mores and
pitfalls of political Washington.
The greatest lesson that Washing-
ton teaches, he said in a telephone in-
terview from Phoenix, is: "No mat-
ter what you do, be honest. That
sticks out in Washington."
Find a mentor, he advises new
senators. "I look back at my own ex-
perience," he said. "As soon as I got
to the Senate, I had already picked
~t the man I admired, and I made it
a point to get very close to him."
The man was Senator Robert A.
Taft of Ohio, a Republican leader who
championed the conservative cause
in unsuccessful campaigns for the
Presidency, and is memorialized by a
carillon on Capitol Hill. "I pretty
much let him guide me," Mr. Goldwa-
ter recalled. "Every new senators
needs a man like that, somebody he
feels free to go to for advice. You need
somebody who's been around, who
knows how to do things, knows the ins
and outs, all the intricate maneuvers
of the Senate, maneuvers you don't
learn overnight."
Wasted Talent in Senate
There is a lot of wasted talent in the
Senate, Mr. Goldwater said. "They.
don't always pick a man fora com-
mittee based on his experience," he
noted. Consequently, "a lot of people
don't like their committees and don't
do their best."
He laments what he sees as the de-
cline in stature of his colleagues.
"When I got there, l wouldn't say that
the Senate was filled with giants, but
we had great men," he said. "When
you heard they were going to speak
on the floor, you dropped everything,
and went over and listened to them."
"Dick Russell was one of the
giants," Mr. Goldwater said. "Walter
George was another."
Yes, the two Georgia Senators were
segregationists, Mr. Goldwater said,
but "all the Southerners were segre-
gatiof-ists - it wasn't a big issue
when I first went there." He added,
"It should have been."
But things haven't changed that
drastically, Mr. Goldwater.continued.
"Today most of the Southerners are
basically segregationists, but they
don't sound that way," he said.._"You
can't be raised in the South, and not
be a segregationist."
An exception, Mr. Goldwater said,
is the younger senators. "The. new
breed is anti-segregationist, but the
old breed is not."
Sadsfacdon and Regret
terlms igtt thee SenateSfMrioGoldwater
said, was enactment of his 1986 De-
fense Department bill, which
strengthened the position of the
Chairman of Joint Chiefs of Staff, pro-
vided more authority to field com-
manders and stiffened requirements
for senior officers in joint commands.
"It's getting along well," he said. "In
five, six or seven years, we'll have a
much finer military, with officers
with enough background to serve any
command they're given."
The Washington Post
The New York Times
The Washington Times ___
The Wall Street Journal _
The Christian Science Monito
New York Daily News _
USA Today
The Chicago Tribune
His greatest regret, he said, was
that his late wife, Peggy, to whom he
dedicates his book, never liked Wash-
ington. "She didn't live with me
much," he said. "She had to live out
here in the West, which she loved. I
just didn't have her with me and I
wished I had." '
An unvarnished conservative, Mr.
Goldwater nevertheless has unkind
words for Mr. Reagan and Mr. Nixon,
and praise for some Democrats.
''Ronald Reagan's problem was
that he appointed' people from Cali-
fornia who he felt loyal to," Mr. Gold-
water said. ~ "That's not always the
' way to act !n politics. If he didn't
know about Iran-contra, he wasn't
PaylnB much attention to his job. If he
did know about it, he told a lie."
':I don't know how any man sitting
what's~te House could fail to know
So1ng on with a lieutenant
colonel spending ;50 million," Mr.
Goldwater said, referring to the tor-
ttier National Security Council staff
officer, Oliver L. North. "That's quite
a chunk of money."
He has nothing but contempt for
Richard Nixon. 'I have no use for
Nixon," Mr.. Goldwater said. "I call
him the world's biggest liar, and he's
never done anything to disprove
that."
On the.. other hand, he believes
President Carter. has been underesti-
mated. "As Jimmy Carter goes fur-
ther into history, his standing is going
to go up," Mr. Goldwater said. ~"He
was a man who went into the office
without knowing much about it. He
got the wrong kind of people around
him. He was a very religious man,
and that served him well."
However Mr. Goldwater voiced
scorn or m. tans a Turner Mr.
arter's c assmate a[ the Naval
cam em~rw om a a~~nt as i-
~Pr nr n ~~-rr_--,t~.
ruined the C.I -
CONTINUED
Declassified in Part -Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/05/10 :CIA-RDP99-004188000100370025-5 _ _ _,
 Declassified in Part -Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/05/10 :CIA-RDP99-004188000100370025-5
President Ford "wasn't there tong
enough to set the world on tire," Mr.
Goldwater went on, but "the great
thing he did was to return dignity and
respect to the White House, after
Nixon had just destroyed it."
He has high praise for President
Truman. "Harry Truman was the
best political President, and he'll be
the best President of these 100
years," he said. "He understood poli-
tics, and was able to get the best peo-
ple around him."
Franklin D. Roosevelt also was a
good politician, he said, and added:
"You have to give F.D.R. a lot of
credit for a lot of things. But I liked
Harry Truman much better, mainly
because when he said something in
the evening, he felt the same way the
next morning."
Former Colleagues Assessed
As for his former colleagues, he
said that Senator Bob Dole of Kansas,
the Republican leader, was "a hell of
a nice man, and a very competent
senator, but he was never able to
gather the Republicans around him
and lead them."
"Bob has a temper," Mr. Goldwa-
tersaid. "That's his big trouble."
Howard H. Baker of Tennessee, Mr.
Dole's predecessor as Republican
leader, was a "better leader," Mr.
Goldwater said. "He could keep the
party pretty close together."
As for Senator Robert C. Byrd of
West Virginia, the Democratic lead-
er, "He's a nice fellow, but he spent
too much time making lengthy
speeches on the floor," 'Mr. Goldwa-
ter said. "I dont think that's the role
of a leader."
'These days, Mr. Goldwater said, he
is happy to be >n Arizona. "I don't
miss the Senate," he said. "I miss the
town. Mostly, I miss the people."
Declassified in Part -Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/05/10 :CIA-RDP99-004188000100370025-5 - A