Nixon had "told one damn lie too many" and had to go, Goldwater told a meeting of Republican senators just before Nixon's resignation, according to one who was present.
During that meeting, Alexander M. Haig Jr., then the White House chief of staff, called Goldwater.
"Haig wanted to know what the Senate would do if there should be an impeachment trial," Goldwater wrote. "I told him I thought the president would be lucky if he got 12 votes. I said I would not defend the president.
"Haig thanked me for being so direct and said he would get back to me later on. I will always believe Richard Nixon was listening in on an extension."
The next day Goldwater joined Senate Republican Leader Hugh Scott of Pennsylvania and House GOP leader John J. Rhodes of Arizona in calling on Nixon at the White House. Nixon resigned the next day.
Years later, Goldwater, who once called Nixon "the most dishonest individual I ever met in my life," did not attend Nixon's funeral in Yorba Linda.
Criticism of the New Right
In his later years, Goldwater frequently startled people by saying warm things about Democratic politicians. At a private dinner with a group of reporters in 1977, Goldwater said that of all the politicians he had known, "the man I admired the most was Harry Truman."
"I disagreed with him on most things, but you knew where he stood," Goldwater said. Another, he said, was Humphrey.
"We have been political foes for years," he said, "but I don't know a person I like more. He would have been a good president."
Goldwater said he would have chosen Gen. Colin Powell as a running mate for George Bush in 1988, adding that Powell had "the best brain in Washington on foreign policy."
The publicly acerbic Goldwater grew gentler as an octogenarian, but he never mellowed beyond quotability. When news reports circulated in the late 1980s about a national political figure who had "shacked up with some girl," Goldwater said: "Well, if they're gonna apply that criterion, there'd be no politicians left."
In his final years in the Senate, Goldwater surprised many of his old supporters by questioning the rhetoric of some New Right conservatives.
In a 1981 Senate speech, for example, he attacked religious fundamentalists such as the Rev. Jerry Falwell's Moral Majority who threatened to campaign against politicians opposing them on such issues as abortion, school prayer and busing.
