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Era VII · 1964–1980

Goldwater and the Conservative Movement

From Barry Goldwater’s landslide defeat in 1964 through the Nixon and Ford years and Watergate, a conservative movement built the ideas, institutions and coalition that carried Ronald Reagan to the presidency in 1980.

Overview

The conservative movement that captured the Republican nomination in 1964 was built largely outside the party’s leadership. William F. Buckley Jr.’s National Review, founded in 1955, drew traditionalists, free-market thinkers and anti-communists into a common cause, and Senator Barry Goldwater of Arizona gave the movement a political voice. His short book The Conscience of a Conservative (1960), largely ghostwritten by L. Brent Bozell Jr., argued for strictly limited federal power, lower spending, respect for the authority of the states and a firmer stand against Soviet communism. Young activists organized around it, and in 1964 they outworked the party’s moderate, largely Eastern establishment, led by Governor Nelson Rockefeller of New York, to nominate Goldwater at the Cow Palace in San Francisco.

The 1964 campaign revealed both the movement’s energy and its limits. Goldwater, who had voted for the civil rights acts of 1957 and 1960, voted against the Civil Rights Act of 1964, arguing that its public-accommodations and employment provisions exceeded Congress’s constitutional authority. Senate Minority Leader Everett Dirksen of Illinois took the opposite course: he helped rework the bill and delivered the Republican votes that broke the Southern Democratic filibuster, and in both houses a larger share of Republicans than Democrats voted for final passage. In November Lyndon B. Johnson won 44 states and 61 percent of the popular vote. Goldwater carried only Arizona and five Deep South states where Republicans had rarely or never won a presidential contest since Reconstruction—an early sign of a regional realignment whose causes historians still debate. The campaign also introduced Ronald Reagan, whose televised address “A Time for Choosing” made him the movement’s most effective spokesman, and trained a generation of activists who stayed in politics.

Richard Nixon, elected narrowly in a three-way race in 1968 and reelected with 49 states in 1972, governed as a pragmatist rather than a movement conservative. He opened relations with the People’s Republic of China, signed the first strategic arms-limitation agreements with the Soviet Union, withdrew U.S. forces from Vietnam and ended the military draft. At home he proposed the Environmental Protection Agency, signed major environmental and workplace-safety laws and imposed wage and price controls in 1971—steps many conservatives opposed. The Watergate scandal, which began with a June 1972 break-in at Democratic National Committee offices and grew into a case of abuse of power and obstruction of justice, ended in August 1974 with the only resignation of a president in American history. His successor, Gerald R. Ford, the first vice president appointed under the Twenty-fifth Amendment, pardoned him a month later.

The years that followed were a proving ground. Ford narrowly defeated Reagan for the 1976 nomination and then lost to Jimmy Carter. Outside Washington, conservatives built new institutions and causes: Phyllis Schlafly’s STOP ERA campaign helped halt the Equal Rights Amendment three states short of ratification; California’s Proposition 13 and the Kemp–Roth tax proposal made tax limitation a national cause; and the Heritage Foundation (1973) and organizations of religious conservatives such as the Moral Majority (1979) joined older anti-communist and free-market networks. In 1980 Reagan, campaigning under the slogan “Let’s Make America Great Again,” won the nomination and then 44 states, and Republicans won a Senate majority for the first time since the 83rd Congress of 1953–1955. The party that emerged drew more of its strength from the South, the West and religious voters than the party of 1964—a shift its members, its critics and historians interpret in sharply different ways.

Timeline

  1. The Conscience of a Conservative

    Senator Barry Goldwater publishes a short manifesto, largely ghostwritten by L. Brent Bozell Jr., calling for strictly limited federal power, lower spending and a firmer stand against Soviet communism. It becomes a founding text for a new generation of conservative activists.

    Historical Record

  2. The Senate breaks the filibuster and passes the Civil Rights Act

    On June 10, after Minority Leader Everett Dirksen helped rework the bill, 27 Republicans and 44 Democrats voted 71–29 to end a Southern filibuster—the first time the Senate had invoked cloture on a civil rights bill. The Senate passed the act on June 19 by 73–27 (Republicans 27–6, Democrats 46–21); Goldwater voted no, and President Johnson signed the law on July 2.

    Historical Record

  3. Goldwater accepts the Republican nomination

    At the Cow Palace in San Francisco, after a bitter contest with Nelson Rockefeller and a late challenge from Pennsylvania Governor William Scranton, Goldwater accepts the nomination with an uncompromising defense of liberty and no gesture toward the party’s moderates. The speech thrilled his supporters and alarmed many Republicans.

    Primary Source

  4. Reagan’s “A Time for Choosing”

    In a nationally televised address on Goldwater’s behalf, the actor and former Screen Actors Guild president Ronald Reagan argues that Americans must choose between individual freedom and an ever-expanding government. The speech raises money for the campaign and launches Reagan’s political career.

    Primary Source

  5. Johnson defeats Goldwater in a landslide

    Lyndon B. Johnson wins 44 states, 486 electoral votes and 61 percent of the popular vote. Goldwater carries only Arizona and five Deep South states—Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana and South Carolina—and Republicans lose 36 House seats.

    Historical Record

  6. The Voting Rights Act becomes law

    Jointly sponsored by Majority Leader Mike Mansfield and Minority Leader Dirksen, who helped draft it, the act passed the Senate 77–19, with Republicans 30–2 in favor. It outlaws literacy tests, authorizes federal examiners and requires covered jurisdictions to obtain federal approval before changing election rules.

    Primary Source

  7. Nixon goes to China

    Nixon becomes the first U.S. president to visit the People’s Republic of China, meeting Mao Zedong, and the two governments issue the Shanghai Communiqué. The opening, prepared in secret by national security adviser Henry Kissinger, gave the United States new diplomatic leverage in its rivalry with the Soviet Union.

    Historical Record

  8. Congress sends the Equal Rights Amendment to the states

    The ERA, endorsed in Republican platforms since 1940, clears Congress with large bipartisan majorities. Later that year Phyllis Schlafly launches STOP ERA, arguing that the amendment would strip homemakers of legal protections and expand federal power; by the 1982 deadline only 35 of the required 38 states had ratified.

    Historical Record

  9. The Watergate break-in

    Five men connected to Nixon’s reelection committee are arrested inside the Democratic National Committee’s offices at the Watergate complex in Washington. White House efforts to conceal the campaign’s role grew into the scandal that ended Nixon’s presidency.

    Historical Record

  10. Peace accords signed; the draft ends

    On the day the Paris Peace Accords were signed, Defense Secretary Melvin Laird announced that the armed forces would henceforth rely on volunteers. The decision fulfilled a Nixon campaign pledge and created the all-volunteer force that has served ever since.

    Historical Record

  11. Nixon resigns; Ford becomes president

    After the Supreme Court unanimously ordered the release of subpoenaed White House tapes (United States v. Nixon, July 24) and the House Judiciary Committee approved articles of impeachment, a newly released recording showed that Nixon had approved a plan to obstruct the FBI’s investigation. Told by Republican congressional leaders, including Goldwater, that his support had collapsed, Nixon resigned, and Gerald R. Ford was sworn in shortly after noon.

    Historical Record

  12. Ford pardons Nixon

    Proclamation 4311 grants Nixon “a full, free, and absolute pardon” for any federal offenses committed during his presidency. Ford said he acted to spare the country a prolonged ordeal; the decision cost him public support, and in October he testified before a House Judiciary subcommittee that there had been no deal.

    Primary Source

  13. Ford edges Reagan at Kansas City

    After a primary season in which Reagan won a string of Southern and Western contests, President Ford secures the nomination at the Kansas City convention by 1,187 delegates to 1,070—one of the closest nomination fights of the modern era. Reagan’s impromptu remarks from the convention podium positioned him for 1980.

    Historical Record

  14. California passes Proposition 13

    California voters approve, by nearly two to one, a ballot measure sharply limiting property taxes. The “tax revolt” spreads to other states and helps make broad income-tax cuts, embodied in the Kemp–Roth proposal, a central Republican cause.

    Historical Record

  15. The Moral Majority is founded

    Baptist pastor Jerry Falwell launches the Moral Majority to mobilize evangelical and other religious conservatives on abortion, school prayer and the family. Alongside the “New Right” organizers Paul Weyrich and Richard Viguerie, it brings new voters into Republican politics.

    Historical Record

  16. Reagan accepts the nomination in Detroit

    Sixteen years after “A Time for Choosing,” Reagan accepts the Republican nomination and chooses his chief primary rival, George H. W. Bush, as his running mate. The campaign promises tax cuts, a defense buildup and restraint in domestic spending under the slogan “Let’s Make America Great Again.”

    Historical Record

People

  • U.S. Senator from Arizona; 1964 Republican presidential nominee

    Barry Goldwater

    His campaign gave the conservative movement the party’s nomination for the first time.

  • Governor of California, 1967–1975; candidate for the nomination in 1968, 1976 and 1980

    Ronald Reagan

    “A Time for Choosing” (1964) made him the movement’s leading spokesman.

  • 37th President of the United States, 1969–1974

    Richard Nixon

    Rebuilt the party after 1964 and carried 49 states in 1972 before resigning over Watergate.

  • 38th President of the United States, 1974–1977

    Gerald R. Ford

    House Minority Leader and the first vice president appointed under the Twenty-fifth Amendment.

  • Senate Minority Leader, 1959–1969

    Everett Dirksen

    Delivered the Republican votes that broke the filibuster against the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and co-sponsored the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

  • Founder of National Review (1955)

    William F. Buckley Jr.

    Championed the fusion of traditionalist, free-market and anti-communist conservatism.

  • Author and founder of STOP ERA

    Phyllis Schlafly

    Her 1964 book A Choice Not an Echo backed Goldwater; her campaign against the Equal Rights Amendment mobilized conservative women.

  • Governor of New York, 1959–1973; Vice President, 1974–1977

    Nelson A. Rockefeller

    Leader of the party’s liberal and moderate wing and Goldwater’s chief rival for the 1964 nomination.

  • U.S. Senator from Massachusetts, 1967–1979

    Edward W. Brooke

    Elected in 1966 as the first African American popularly elected to the U.S. Senate.

  • U.S. Senator from Maine, 1949–1973

    Margaret Chase Smith

    In 1964 she became the first woman to have her name placed in nomination for president at a major party’s convention.

Documents

  • July 2, 1964

    Civil Rights Act of 1964

    Held by National Archives

    Passed the Senate 73–27 after sixty days of debate, with Republicans voting 27–6 in favor; Goldwater voted no.

    Primary Source

  • July 16, 1964

    Goldwater’s Address Accepting the Republican Nomination

    Held by Arizona State University Library (Goldwater papers)

    The defining statement of the 1964 campaign and of the movement’s refusal to moderate its message.

    Primary Source

  • October 27, 1964

    “A Time for Choosing”

    Held by Ronald Reagan Presidential Library

    Reagan’s televised address for Goldwater, the start of his political career.

    Primary Source

  • August 6, 1965

    Voting Rights Act of 1965

    Held by National Archives

    Passed with large bipartisan majorities; Senate Republicans voted 30–2 in favor.

    Primary Source

  • July 9, 1970

    Reorganization Plan No. 3 of 1970

    Held by National Archives

    Nixon’s plan consolidating federal pollution-control programs in a new Environmental Protection Agency.

    Primary Source

  • July 24, 1974

    United States v. Nixon

    Held by Supreme Court of the United States

    The Court ruled 8–0 that executive privilege did not shield subpoenaed tapes needed in a criminal trial.

    Primary Source

  • September 8, 1974

    Proclamation 4311: Granting Pardon to Richard Nixon

    Held by Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library

    Primary Source

  • July 15, 1980

    Republican Party Platform of 1980

    Held by Republican National Committee; text via the American Presidency Project

    Ended the party’s forty-year endorsement of the Equal Rights Amendment, instead acknowledging both supporters and opponents of ratification.

    Official GOP Position

Elections

YearElectionResultElectoral votes
1964Election of 1964Johnson won 61.1 percent of the popular vote and 44 states plus the District of Columbia. Goldwater carried Arizona and five Deep South states for 52 electoral votes, and Republicans lost 36 House seats.Lyndon B. Johnson (D) defeats Barry Goldwater (R)486 of 538
19661966 Midterm ElectionsTwo years after the Goldwater defeat, Republicans rebounded: Ronald Reagan was elected governor of California, Edward Brooke won a Senate seat in Massachusetts, and the new House class included George H. W. Bush of Texas.Republicans gain 47 House seats—
1968Election of 1968In a year of war, urban riots and the assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy, Nixon won 43.4 percent of the popular vote to Humphrey’s 42.7 percent. Wallace carried five Southern states with 13.5 percent.Richard Nixon (R) defeats Hubert H. Humphrey (D) and George C. Wallace (American Independent)301 of 538
1972Election of 1972Nixon carried 49 states and 60.7 percent of the popular vote, losing only Massachusetts and the District of Columbia. Democrats kept both houses of Congress.Richard Nixon (R) defeats George McGovern (D)520 of 538
19741974 Midterm ElectionsThree months after Nixon’s resignation and two months after the pardon, Republicans lost more than 40 House seats, falling to 144, and a large class of reform-minded Democrats entered Congress.Democrats win large gains after Watergate—
1976Election of 1976Carter won 50.1 percent of the popular vote to Ford’s 48.0 percent. Ford, who had trailed badly in summer polls, nearly closed the gap; one Washington elector voted for Reagan.Jimmy Carter (D) defeats Gerald R. Ford (R)297 of 538
1980Election of 1980Reagan won 44 states and 50.7 percent of the popular vote; Anderson, an Illinois Republican congressman running as an independent, won 6.6 percent. Republicans gained 12 Senate seats and a Senate majority for the first time since 1953–1955.Ronald Reagan (R) defeats Jimmy Carter (D) and John B. Anderson (Independent)489 of 538

Policies

  • 1970

    The Environmental Protection Agency

    Nixon proposed the EPA in Reorganization Plan No. 3 in July 1970 to bring scattered federal pollution programs under one agency; the EPA dates its founding to December 2, 1970, when the Senate confirmed William Ruckelshaus as its first administrator. Nixon also signed the Clean Air Act of 1970 and the law creating the Occupational Safety and Health Administration.

    Historical Record

  • 1971–1972

    Opening to China and détente

    Secret diplomacy led to Nixon’s 1972 visit to China, and in May 1972 he and Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev signed the SALT I interim agreement and the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty in Moscow. Conservative critics, Reagan among them, argued that détente conceded too much to the Soviet Union.

    Historical Record

  • 1969–1973

    Vietnamization and withdrawal

    Nixon shifted the burden of ground combat to South Vietnamese forces while withdrawing American troops, who had numbered more than half a million when he took office, and expanding air operations. The Paris Peace Accords of January 1973 ended direct U.S. military involvement; the draft ended the same month.

    Historical Record

  • 1969–1972

    The Family Assistance Plan

    Nixon proposed replacing welfare for families with children with a guaranteed minimum income that would also reach the working poor. The House passed versions of the plan twice, but it died in the Senate, opposed by conservatives as too costly and by liberals as too meager.

    Historical Record

  • 1971–1974

    Wage and price controls

    On August 15, 1971, Nixon suspended the dollar’s convertibility into gold and imposed a 90-day freeze on wages and prices, followed by controls that lasted into 1974. Free-market conservatives, including the economist Milton Friedman, opposed the controls.

    Historical Record

  • 1974–1976

    Ford’s vetoes and the fight against inflation

    Ford launched the voluntary “Whip Inflation Now” campaign, then turned to tax cuts as a recession deepened, and vetoed more than 60 bills, many of them spending measures he argued would fuel inflation.

    Historical Record

  • 1980

    The 1980 Republican platform

    The platform called for across-the-board cuts in income-tax rates, a stronger national defense and less federal regulation. It supported a constitutional amendment protecting unborn life and dropped the party’s long-standing endorsement of the Equal Rights Amendment.

    Official GOP Position1980 Republican Platform

Speeches

  • July 16, 1964

    Address Accepting the Presidential Nomination

    Barry Goldwater

    Goldwater answered calls for moderation by insisting that extremism in defense of liberty was no vice, a line that electrified his supporters and was used against him for the rest of the campaign.

    Primary Source

  • October 27, 1964

    “A Time for Choosing”

    Ronald Reagan

    A paid, nationally televised address for Goldwater that framed the election as a choice between self-government and centralized planning and made Reagan a national figure.

    Primary Source

  • November 3, 1969

    Address to the Nation on the War in Vietnam (“Silent Majority”)

    Richard Nixon

    Facing large antiwar demonstrations, Nixon defended his plan for gradual withdrawal and appealed over the protesters to Americans who had not taken to the streets.

    “And so tonight—to you, the great silent majority of my fellow Americans—I ask for your support.”
    Primary Source

  • August 8, 1974

    Address to the Nation Announcing Decision To Resign

    Richard Nixon

    With impeachment in the House and conviction in the Senate all but certain, Nixon announced that he no longer had a strong enough political base in Congress to continue.

    “Therefore, I shall resign the Presidency effective at noon tomorrow.”
    Primary Source

  • August 9, 1974

    Remarks on Taking the Oath of Office

    Gerald R. Ford

    Sworn in at the White House minutes after Nixon’s resignation took effect, Ford called for healing.

    “My fellow Americans, our long national nightmare is over. Our Constitution works; our great Republic is a government of laws and not of men.”
    Primary Source

Criticism & Debate

A historical institution earns trust by recording disagreement. It does not rewrite history around what a movement believes today. Each perspective below is stated in terms its own proponents would recognize.

Opposing View / Debate

How much did race drive the Republican Party’s rise in the South?

Between 1964 and the 1990s the South moved from the nation’s most Democratic region to its most Republican. Goldwater carried five Deep South states after voting against the Civil Rights Act; Senator Strom Thurmond of South Carolina switched parties to support him; and in 1968 Nixon competed with George Wallace for Southern votes. Yet Republicans did not win a majority of the South’s U.S. House seats until 1994, and the shift ran through growing suburbs, migrants from other regions and younger voters as well as older white Democrats.

Racial-backlash interpretation

Many historians argue that Republican strategists deliberately courted white Southerners opposed to federal civil rights enforcement—through Goldwater’s constitutional objections to the 1964 act, Nixon’s positioning on school busing and “law and order,” and later appeals such as Reagan’s invocation of states’ rights at the 1980 Neshoba County Fair in Mississippi—and that this “Southern strategy” remade the party. They cite Kevin Phillips’s The Emerging Republican Majority (1969) as a candid statement of the approach.

Economic and suburban interpretation

Other scholars, including the political scientists Byron Shafer and Richard Johnston, find that Republican gains began among middle-class voters in the South’s growing cities and suburbs and tracked economic development and generational change. On this view the realignment was gradual and driven by economics, national defense and, later, religion as much as by race.

Republican defenders

Defenders note that a larger share of congressional Republicans than Democrats voted for the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965, that school desegregation in the South advanced substantially under Nixon, and that the party’s Southern majorities arrived decades later. Some party leaders have also acknowledged fault: in 2005 Republican National Committee chairman Ken Mehlman told the NAACP that some Republicans had given up on Black voters or tried to benefit politically from racial polarization, and that they had been wrong.

Sources

  1. Landmark Legislation: The Civil Rights Act of 1964 · U.S. Senate Historical Office
  2. 1964 Presidential Election · The American Presidency Project, UC Santa Barbara
Opposing View / Debate

What did Watergate reveal about presidential power—and about the Republican Party?

Watergate began as a burglary and became a constitutional crisis over a president’s use of government power against political opponents and his efforts to obstruct investigations. Several of Nixon’s senior aides and his former attorney general were convicted, and Congress responded with the War Powers Resolution (1973), campaign-finance amendments (1974) and the independent-counsel law (1978).

Republicans who held Nixon accountable

Senator Howard Baker of Tennessee, the Senate Watergate committee’s ranking Republican, pressed the question “What did the President know and when did he know it?” Several Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee voted for articles of impeachment, and in August 1974 Goldwater and other party leaders told Nixon he had lost their support. Many Republicans regard that response as evidence that the constitutional system, and the party, held a president to account.

Nixon and his defenders

Nixon and his defenders argued that the scandal was pursued by hostile political opponents and journalists, that earlier administrations had used wiretaps and political intelligence operations without comparable consequences, and that executive privilege legitimately protected presidential deliberations. In his resignation address Nixon acknowledged that some of his judgments had been wrong but said they were made in what he believed to be the national interest.

Critics of the post-Watergate reforms

Some conservatives, and later some liberals, argued that the reforms overcorrected. Justice Antonin Scalia, dissenting alone in Morrison v. Olson (1988), warned that the independent-counsel statute threatened the separation of powers; Congress let the law expire in 1999.

Sources

  1. Records of the Watergate Special Prosecution Force · National Archives
  2. United States v. Nixon · Oyez
Opposing View / Debate

Was Ford right to pardon Nixon?

One month into his presidency, Ford pardoned Nixon before any charges were filed. The decision was deeply unpopular at the time and is often cited as a factor in his narrow 1976 defeat.

Ford and his defenders

Ford argued that a trial of a former president would take years, keep the nation fixed on Watergate and could hardly be fair given the publicity, and he believed that accepting a pardon carried an admission of guilt. In 2001 the John F. Kennedy Library Foundation gave Ford its Profile in Courage Award for the decision, and Senator Edward Kennedy, a critic in 1974, said he had come to see it as right.

Critics

Critics, including Ford’s own press secretary, Jerald terHorst, who resigned in protest, argued that the pardon placed a former president above the law, denied the public a full judicial accounting and raised suspicions of a prearranged bargain. Ford denied any deal in testimony before a House Judiciary subcommittee in October 1974.

Sources

  1. Nixon Pardon · Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library
  2. Proclamation 4311—Granting Pardon to Richard Nixon · The American Presidency Project, UC Santa Barbara
Opposing View / Debate

Should Republicans govern from the center, or offer “a choice, not an echo”?

From 1964 to 1980 the party’s moderate and liberal wing—often called Rockefeller Republicans—contended with the conservative movement for control of the party, in the Goldwater–Rockefeller contest of 1964, over Nixon’s centrist domestic program and in the Ford–Reagan race of 1976. The phrase comes from the title of Phyllis Schlafly’s 1964 book.

Moderate and liberal Republicans

Leaders such as Nelson Rockefeller, Senator Jacob Javits of New York and Senator Edward Brooke argued that Republicans could win national majorities only by competing for the urban North and the political center, pointing to Eisenhower’s victories and the 1964 landslide as proof. They championed civil rights enforcement, environmental protection and, until 1980, the Equal Rights Amendment.

Movement conservatives

Goldwater, Schlafly, Buckley and Reagan argued that a “me-too” Republicanism that accepted the growth of federal power and settled for coexistence with communism offered voters no real alternative. They believed a clearly conservative party could build a new majority in the South and West and among working- and middle-class voters, as Reagan did in 1980.

Historians’ assessments

Historians differ on the result. Some, such as Geoffrey Kabaservice, describe the eclipse of the moderates as a loss of the party’s capacity for bipartisan governance; others see the conservative ascendancy as the source of the party’s later electoral success and ideological coherence.

Images

Archival image collections. Rights are checked item by item before anything is reproduced on this site.

Sources

  1. Landmark Legislation: The Civil Rights Act of 1964 · U.S. Senate Historical Office
  2. Civil Rights Act (1964) · National Archives
  3. Voting Rights Act (1965) · National Archives
  4. Richard Nixon · Miller Center, University of Virginia
  5. Gerald Ford · Miller Center, University of Virginia
  6. Rapprochement with China, 1972 · Office of the Historian, U.S. Department of State
  7. Party Divisions of the House of Representatives · Office of the Historian, U.S. House of Representatives
  8. The Origins of EPA · U.S. Environmental Protection Agency

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