 It's suggested that I say that he's not as old as the Statue of Liberty, that he's still got a lot of less to rise to go, but anyway, we're writing the book and perhaps three questions come to mind. One is Senator Goldwater's contribution to the Republican Party or the conservative movement. The second one is to the nation, and the third one would be to your own political life. Well, I think he was the John Baptist, John the Baptist of the Republican Party and the conservative movement. My own memories go back, as you know, I come from way over on the other side having been an ardent New Deal Democrat, but also, as I've often described it to many people, in the motion picture industry, I discovered that if you don't sing or dance, you become an after-dinner speaker. And some of that came out of my sports announcing days, the usual route for sports announcers at the end of the season, the football banquets and so forth and being invited to speak. But anyway, I always did my own speeches and then in Hollywood, as an official of the Screen Actors Guild and so forth, I began speaking out on public affairs and without realizing that I was converting myself as I began based on things happening to people in the picture business, tax policies and so forth, that I was assailing governments intrusiveness and so forth. My memory isn't all that clear. I wasn't used to looking at Republican conventions in 1960, but I can still remember a Berry Gold Water. There was an abortive movement on the part of some Republican conservatives to bring forth Berry Gold Water at the time. And I can still remember seeing him standing there when he said resoundingly in that convention from the platform, conservatives grow up and then turn them back to the direction they wanted to go. And I remember at that time then, I believe that he should have been the vice presidential candidate. I'd become acquainted with him. Nancy's parents had their home in Phoenix and it was a, they shared that between the doctor hadn't retired yet, they had in Chicago and we would go and visit them when they were there. And many times Berry Gold Water was a visitor and I became personally acquainted with him. And I remember once mentioning to him the idea of his being the presidential candidate and he acted as if I was out of my mind. But his book, Conscience of Conservatives, had a great deal to do with my developing conservative position, which finally led me to recognize the Democratic Party had left me a long time ago. Is it a fair statement, Mr. President, to say that Berry Gold Water was a kind of political godfather? You used the expression John the Baptist. How would you? Well, he was the epitome of this whole rising attack on the great growth and power of government and so forth. And he spoke with great good common sense. And so when being a brand new Republican, some people that later supported me for some of my activities saw that I was at least an alternate delegate to the 64 convention. And I was all out for him and I wound up as the co-chairman, state chairman for the Gold Water Campaign in California and was all over the state speaking in his behalf. Is it fair to say, Mr. President, that your speech, your 64 television speech which created a great wave of interest in Ronald Reagan across the country really launched you as a national political figure? Well, evidently it had a great deal to do because when then my turn came after the 64 election which had led to great divisions in the party and all, the first people who began approaching me about the coming gubernatorial campaign in 66, believe me, I dismissed them as Berry had dismissed me once before. I thought they were out of their minds. I always believed you'd pay your way. So I had always, as a figure in show business, been willing to participate in fund raisings and campaign for causes and people that I believed in, that sort of thing. Because if you're in show business, you can attract an audience. And I thought that I'd done my bit and I kept over and over saying no, no, that isn't for me, public office isn't anything I want, I like what I'm doing. But you find a candidate and I will go out and work for them as I did in this last campaign and that finally it didn't work and I was drag kicking and screaming into doing something I thought I would never do. But that particular speech, there might be something of interest to you about this that I had made that speech statewide. And then one night, getting very close to the end of the campaign, I addressed a fundraising group at the Coconut Grove in Los Angeles. And a little group at a table, some pretty prominent Democrat or Republicans caught me on the way out and asked me if I would come over to the table, their table for a few minutes and sit down with them. They broached the idea to me that if they raised the money to pay for it, would I make that speech on television? And I said yes, I'm very happy to because it had been well received throughout the state. I'd seen it to many, given to many audiences. And so they bought the time. And then we invited a lot of Republicans, it was done at a studio, but I said I think it would be much better if it were done with an audience instead of like it as if it were a regular affair rather than just me standing up making a speech. So they filled one of the studio auditorium studios there with an audience of Republicans and I made the speech. Well, about the day before the speech was to go on, I got a call from Barry. And he asked me if I would relinquish that time for them to put on and repeat one of his appearances with Eisenhower, that they wanted his people to talk to him. He says, I haven't seen your speech or heard it. I don't know anything about it, but he said my people tell me also that you've got a line in there about social security and he said I've been trying to kill that, spent a million dollars trying to kill this attack on him, people just as they have against me recently had launched the thing that he was against social security and so forth. And I told him on the phone that that had been very well received because what I was talking about was actually the giving more private control on the part of the people of recipients of social security, removing some of the restraints and so forth and restrictions. Well after I told him I remember I was sitting there, I didn't realize at the time I couldn't have given up that time, it wasn't mine, it had been bought by a group of Republicans. But I said Barry, I wish you'd give it a thought because I said it has been well received that speech and I said I think you come out very well in it. And then, well he said well I'm going to get it and run it here at the hotel. Well my brother was a vice president of McCann Erickson who were the advertising agency handling the Goldwater campaign, he was in the hotel suite. And finally Barry's people who had been the ones that had been urging him to shut me off, they brought it in, they couldn't see it, but they brought in soundtrack and played the soundtrack. And my brother told me later that Barry just looked around the room at his people and said what the hell is wrong with that? And he called me back and said forget the first call that it was going to go on. Well then I started sweating blood. Who was I to tell the candidate that he should let my speech go on instead of an appearance of his own going on? And we had a date to go out to dinner and we were going to at that dinner in some friend's house watch the telecast. And I will never forget that about three had to be three o'clock in the morning here in Washington. And it was just midnight out there I was awakened with a call from one of the campaign staff in Washington to tell me that the switchboard were still open back here and that I can't remember how many millions of dollars had already before the night was over been pledged. And my guilt feeling disappeared and I'm very good about it. But it is true that it was that then that made a group of Republicans think that I could bring the party together that was badly divided in California if I were the candidate. So this sounds like I'm talking more about me than. No but it's a very important part of Barry Goldwater's history and your own history. Mr. President if I may ask you one really important question for the book and it's this how do you view the role of Barry Goldwater after more than 30 years on the American scene. What is his contribution to the nation. Well I think it starts with that other that the very fact he changed the direction of the Republican Party. Believe me the Republican Party when I first began coming around I saw it as trying to imitate the Democrats in other words he even outspend them. They thought that that was the answer to politics was to offer more and he stopped that stopped it cold and the party started down a new new path and he has been a voice of reason and common sense ever since. And also an outstanding voice of integrity I don't think even of the critics of Barry Goldwater and those who disagreed with it no one ever doubted that what he said he was on any subject he was saying from the heart and meant. Mr. President just one last question and it's this is Barry Goldwater is a character Barry Goldwater is known all over this country as a character the guy who really says exactly what it's on his mind is he the last a kind of a last of the breed in this city and in the Senate and in Congress. Oh no no I think there are you can you can now find other people that maybe he is their inspiration but that now follow their own beliefs and so forth instead of trying to look for the political expediency he's unique there's no question of that and some of the things that I talked about in that in the speech about him that and learned about him that not only the things people and particularly his critics would look at the kind of a a a cervix attitude and so forth when he was speaking and hammering on points he believed in but what about the Barry Goldwater that at a time when our servicemen in Korea and so forth come back and wait hours at airports and couldn't get tickets on planes to get to their homes when they had to leave and so forth and over in Phoenix the the airports they would take soldiers who couldn't get on and were faced with this who knows how long a wait there were people that would then point to them to an airplane over on a runway and say if you go over there I think there's a fellow that would take you to your home and it was Barry Goldwater in his plane and he would sit there day after day and fly these servicemen where they were supposed to go. Well in the final few words Mr. President Senator Goldwater has told me to say to you that he thinks you're a fine president and that he likes you. Well it's very much returned I can assure you and you know the thing that happened to him politically when I use the term John the Baptist to look what happened to him so yes Barry took it on the chin after that 64 campaign but it never changed him and it never it never slowed him in his efforts to keep on preaching the the message that now as I say I think has become a standard republicanism. Thank you very much Mr. Criff. Appreciate it a lot sir. My pleasure. Yeah. It's wonderful. Thank you again sir. Great. Jack if you have a problem with the... Yeah. I think we'd get you a transcript. All right thank you. All right thank you. Oops don't walk away. I don't want to walk away. I'll walk away with the electricity. Thank you sir. You have to tell me that Barry Goldwater is casting a new T-46 trainer. Yeah. He was our member. He used to film last Saturday. Oh he said the SR7. Yeah I asked him why he was going up in the 46th season. I want to find out if he'll get my money. I think we are. I've heard from the things of this. And who was it? Who was the original? This thing that the opponents jumped on him about at the convention in 64. The extremism. The extremism. The extremism. The extremism. Moderation. Yes but that was a quote. And who was it? Cicero. Cicero. Yes. And what the hell was wrong with that statement? Ben Bradley, I talked to him the other day, he said if Jack Kennedy had said the same thing it would have been ignored and would have said hey what a lie. Yes. Ben Bradley admitted that on this tape recorder. Yeah. They did do a job on going around in 64. Oh yeah. You see the opponents having the difference between that and the image that they've created or someone else was there. They didn't want to admit that he might know what a Cicero said. He was not supposed to be an intellectual. Well he took Latin at Stanton, the military academy, four years of Latin. Not many people know that. Oh I didn't know that. Yeah, he can get a Slatin that's not too bad. He started studying at Stanton. Okay. Okay. Thank you very much Mr. President. Good luck. Thanks a lot sir. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.