July 15, 1964 - Senator Barry Goldwater (pictured left in January) accused President Johnson today of being “the biggest faker in the United States” and the “phoniest individual who ever came around.”
The Arizona Republican made his extemporaneous remarks on his way to a service elevator in a back hall of the Mark Hopkins Hotel in San Francisco after addressing a rally.
A reporter asked him if the Republican National Convention’s refusal to strengthen its civil rights plank would not give the Democrats a good issue in November.
The Senator’s head snapped around. With an edge of scorn in his voice, he said:
“After Lyndon Johnson — the biggest faker in the United States? He opposed civil rights until this year. Let them make an issue of it. I’ll recite the thousands of words he has spoken down the years against abolishing the poll tax and F.E.P.C. [Fair Employment Practices Commission]. He’s the phoniest individual who ever came around.”
Later in the day, Goldwater told a news conference that he intended to wage a “vigorous campaign” but assumed that it would not be a campaign of personal attack.
The Senator said he hoped the campaign would give the American people “time to think, and I hope that I’m the better salesman.”
The Senator also indicated that “law and order” would be a major theme of his campaign — a broad issue in which he would discuss everything from the Bobby Baker case to civil disobedience.
Goldwater spoke of crime and “slaughter in the streets” and of a general and growing “disrespect for the law.” He asserted that it could be traced to general contempt for honesty and law in high places.
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