Barry Goldwater Lauded for Flight Contributions

Sen. Barry M. Goldwater (R-Ariz.) was awarded the Aero Club of Southern California’s eighth annual Howard Hughes Memorial Award last week at a banquet in the Spruce Goose Dome in Long Beach.

Presentation of the award to Goldwater for his “outstanding contribution to aviation and space flights” was made by William R. Lummis, 57, chairman of the board of Summa Corp. and Howard Hughes’ first cousin.

Goldwater, 77, 1964 Republican presidential candidate and longtime Arizona senator, was a pilot in the Air Transport Command in World War II and rose to the rank of major general in the Air Force Reserve.

Past Recipients

Previous recipients of the award include Charles E. (Chuck) Yeager, USAF, ret., legendary test pilot and the first man to fly faster than the speed of sound; and Gen. James H. Doolittle, awarded the Medal of Honor for leading the first American bombing raid on Tokyo, in 1942.

Doolittle, 89, was among the numerous top pilots of the last half-century and leaders of the aviation and aerospace industry at the banquet, attended by more than 500 members of the 61-year-old Aero Club.

“I feel very much at home with the Aero Club members gathered here and I feel very much at home with the big old goose,” Goldwater said from the podium beneath the giant right wing of the famed Howard Hughes flying boat.

Goldwater told how he was stationed with a Van Nuys flight replacement outfit during World War II and one of his duties was to check the progress of the Hughes flying boat every couple of weeks. “I watched the big old goose being built,” he recalled.

Caricature to Conrad

A caricature of the senator was presented to Goldwater by Times political cartoonist Paul Conrad. “I like to thank Barry Goldwater and all politicians who make my job easier. (Despite critical) cartoons we are still friends and that friendship goes back to 1964,” Conrad said.

“We politicians have made him a wealthy man,” Goldwater rejoined, adding:

“I’m going to live to be 100 years old just to keep you going.”