Nov. 4, 1964 - Senator Barry Goldwater, his Presidential ambitions crushed by a landslide, conceded today but did not surrender.
Early this morning, he sent President Johnson a congratulatory telegram with a sharp cutting edge to it and later, at a news conference, indicated that despite the magnitude of his defeat he had no intention of giving up the fight for his conservative philosophy inside or outside the Republican party.
“Congratulations on your victory,” Goldwater wired the President. “I will help you in any way I can toward achieving a growing and better America and a secure and dignified peace.
“The role of the Republican party will remain in that temper, but it also remains the party of opposition when opposition is called for. There is much to be done with Vietnam, Cuba, the problem of law and order in this country, and a productive economy. Communism remains our No. 1 obstacle to peace, and I know that all Americans will join with you in honest solutions to these problems.”
Goldwater also indicated that he did not expect to be his party’s Presidential nominee four years from now.
Asked whether he believed Republicans had suffered a crushing defeat in view of losses in Governorship, Senatorial, and House contests, the Senator said that he thought “if some Governors and Senators and some Congressmen had more actively supported the ticket, they would have been better off.”
“You cannot in this game of politics fight your own party,” he declared. “It just doesn’t work.”
Last night, although it had been evident before sunset that he would lose, the Senator went to bed at 11 o’clock without issuing the usual concession statement.
He waited instead until this morning to go from his hilltop home in the Paradise Valley section of Phoenix to the Camelback Inn, where reporters and television men were waiting.
Goldwater appeared somewhat tired under his tan but remarkably composed. He had arisen early, written his telegram to Johnson, then conferred with members of his staff at his house before taking the drive to the hotel under brilliant sunshine in his Lincoln Continental.
About 100 well‐wishers crowded around him, applauding and cheering as he approached the Peace Pipe Room, which has “room for everything but gloom,” according to a poem on the wall. Inside, there were 50 more supporters and staff members, the men grim, some of the women sobbing.
They applauded Goldwater several times, most vigorously when he denounced newspaper, radio and television columnists for their criticism of him.
Of his future plans, Goldwater said that because he would no longer be a Senator after the first of the year, “I will have a lot of time to devote to this [Republican] party, to its leadership and to strengthening of the party, and that I have every intention of doing.”
Goldwater rejected the suggestion that the dimensions of his defeat had hurt the conservative cause in the United States. Despite the fact that he polled less than 40% of the vote yesterday, he found solace in the fact that more than 25 million Americans had voted for him.
“We are going to devote our days in the years ahead to strengthening the Republican party, to getting more people into it, and I feel that the young people coming along will provide the army that we need,” the Senator said.
Goldwater will return to Washington Friday morning on his last trip in the American Airlines jet that has carried him more than 80,000 miles during the campaign. Mrs. Goldwater will accompany him.
In Washington, aides said, the Goldwaters will spend a few days “taking care of odds and ends” before leaving for a vacation at an undisclosed place.
The Goldwaters plan to keep their Washington apartment in the northwest section of the city.
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