Barry Goldwater

I used to exchange letters with Barry Goldwater on a regular basis. He rarely agreed with me, but he always sent me a real letter, not the computer generated dribble that most politicians send you now. One time I wrote him about some issue. I got a pretty venomous letter in return. I got to wondering who wrote that letter out of his office, so one day I called his office to inquire about the response. A lady answered the phone. I identified myself and asked about the letter I sent to Mr. Goldwater. She was quiet for a moment and then she said "I told the Senator that he should not send you that letter." I was a bit surprised that Senator Goldwater had written that letter. She told me that he had. She said she held the response a day or two to see if he would change his mind. He did not, so she mailed it with trepidation. She then informed me that I was on the list. I asked what the list was. She said it was the people who Senator Goldwater wanted to see all the mail from. She told me it also allowed me to talk with Senator Goldwater. She said he was in the office and I could talk to him if I wanted. I could not think of anything to ask him. She laughed and said the Governor of Arizona was not even on the list. A few years later, I asked Senator Goldwater to see if there was a FBI file on me. He called me at work. He said he would be glad to ask, but he could not even find the FBI file on himself, so he held little hope that I would find anything. He said when those requests went to the FBI, the request was held and clerks got a list of names to pull the file. The files were then sent to other agencies. When the clerks were allowed to try to find the file, there was never a file, so the clerk could respond that the file did not exist. He imagined that after he died, the FBI file on Barry Goldwater would suddenly appear. Several years later, after Barry Goldwater's death, the file on him was released. All in all, it was pretty boring, but he was correct that there was one that remained slippery to find. After he was out of office, I once saw him at a car wash in Phoenix. I sat down next to him. I said I was surprised to see him getting his car washed. I figured he would have minions to do that. He said he did not even have minions when he was Senator. It was just him and his secretary that did all the work. He said he never had a very large staff like the people that replaced him.