Arizona, Washington Memorialize Goldwater

Arizona paid its last respects to the state’s most prominent and popular politician on Wednesday, as Barry Goldwater was memorialized in a ceremony that joined military pomp with the conservative former U.S. senator’s type of plain-spoken honesty.

Speakers told of Goldwater’s fearless honesty and unwavering patriotism and lamented his death as the passing of the last honest politician. Goldwater died Friday of natural causes at his mountaintop home in Paradise Valley. He was 89.

The powerful mingled with the common under a blazing sun before the ceremony, held at the 3,300-seat Grady Gammage Auditorium at Arizona State University. Those who did not get a seat inside spilled onto a broad lawn and listened to the ceremony, which was broadcast live via radio and television in Arizona. The nondenominational memorial included traditional songs as well as a haunting flute solo from a Native American performer.

A small group from a Baptist church in Topeka, Kan., made good on its pledge to picket the service, protesting Goldwater’s approval of gays in the military, but officials placed them at a distance from the center.

A congressional delegation required two planes and arrived in a parade of air-conditioned tour buses. A who’s who of American politics emerged as the lawmakers descended the steps of the bus. In attendance were such conservative stalwarts as House Speaker Newt Gingrich, Sens. Orrin G. Hatch and Strom Thurmond, California Gov. Pete Wilson, former Sen. Bob Dole and former Vice President Dan Quayle. Socializing among a throng of Arizona politicians were Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan and former First Lady Nancy Reagan.

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), who replaced Goldwater in the Senate, was asked if he considered Goldwater one of the greatest senators of the century.

“I don’t think there’s any doubt,” he said before the service. “What you’re seeing today is testimony to that. He wrested the Republican Party from the Eastern establishment and gave it to the nation.”

Goldwater reveled in the title “Mr. Conservative” and has been given credit for reviving and reshaping the Republican Party. His ideas about less government and a strong military helped launch the political career of Ronald Reagan, among others.

Even though Goldwater ran a failed bid for the presidency in 1964, Arizonans revered the often profane politician for his blunt honesty and dedication to the state’s causes.

Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt, who was governor of Arizona while Goldwater was in the Senate, represented the Clinton administration at the memorial and read a note from Clinton to the Goldwater family.

Babbitt said that when he was governor he learned that Goldwater’s name and the state were synonymous. “If you were to go anywhere in this country--virtually anywhere in the world--you would discover there are two Arizonans who are literally known throughout this planet,” Babbitt said. “One is Geronimo, and the other is Barry Goldwater.”

The procession drove slowly from Phoenix into the college town of Tempe. The streets there were festooned with American flags, and children from nearby elementary schools were released from class to line the route and wave flags.

Much of the ceremony reflected Goldwater’s long affiliation with the military. The casket of the retired Air Force major general was attended to by an Air Force honor guard and serenaded by a military band. Four Air Force F-16 fighters streaked across the sky, arrayed in the “missing man” formation to symbolize a fallen airman.

An American flag was presented to Goldwater’s widow, Susan, who was accompanied by some of Goldwater’s children and 10 grandchildren.

Rick Henry of Phoenix was first in line, arriving at 4 a.m. to secure his place in the auditorium. Henry said he was repaying an old debt to Goldwater.

“Thirty years ago I had a legal problem that no one wanted to deal with,” he said. “I wrote to Goldwater in Washington. I didn’t even know his address, just sent the letter explaining my problem. Three days later I got a telegram. The problem was solved. That’s the kind of guy he was.”

Goldwater had been in failing health for years, but his passing has his family and well-wishers scrambling to devise suitable memorials in the state. Arizona is already dotted with streets, buildings and schools named after the five-term senator.

A faction of Arizonans seeks to rename a Phoenix-area mountain Mt. Goldwater. Phoenix’s mayor wants to rename the airport after Goldwater. Others say only a statue will do the former senator justice. The topic is being hotly debated on talk radio and elsewhere.

Family members haven’t stated a preference about a memorial. They are still debating what to do with Goldwater’s remains.

The family announced Monday that Goldwater’s ashes were to be mingled with those of his first wife, Peggy, who died in 1985, and scattered over the Grand Canyon. A day later one of his sons said that isn’t going to happen.

Meanwhile, leaders of the Arizona Navajo tribe object to the scattering of ashes, saying it goes against tribal taboos regarding the dead and desecrates the Grand Canyon, which is considered sacred.