Barry Goldwater

Former Arizona Republican senator Barry Goldwater, a leader of the extreme conservative movement in the 1960s and '70s, has recently attacked the religious right while championing abortion rights and advocating federal legislation to protect homosexuals against job bias. Many liberals have welcomed Goldwater into their fold, but the author, himself a liberal and a history professor at the University of Utah, points out that Goldwater's bedrock conservative principles emphasizing personal freedom underlie his latest stances. A longtime advocate of limited government and individual responsibility, Goldwater still urges a federal withdrawal from social programs, opposes gun control and believes that women should leave the workplace and return home to raise their children. This balanced, solid biography, written with Goldwater's cooperation (but unauthorized), traces his rugged individualism to his Western frontier roots, to his formative experiences in the Depression and as a gutsy cargo pilot in WWII and to his Jewish immigrant grandfather, Michel Goldwasser, self-made entrepreneur and refugee from Russian Poland. The author details Goldwater's behind-the-scenes role in supporting President Reagan's anticommunist crusade in Nicaragua and his overhaul of the U.S. military chain of command through major legislation in 1986. Photos. (Oct.)