Veterans reflecting on their experience, sunday at 4 00 p. M. Eastern time here on cspan3s American History tv. Coming up next, exploring former senator Barry Goldwaters commitment to environmental preservation and look at how his commitment evolved over time. The Kansas City Public Library hosted this hourlong event. Good evening and welcome to the Kansas City Public Library. I am henry fortunato, director of public affairs. I want to thank you all for participating in my ongoing Stealth Campaign to provide speaking opportunities for all of my buds from graduate school. All the guys i went to graduate school with at the university of kansas. Tonights interest in that category is Brian Allen Drake an upandcoming environmental historian who studied under the incomparable donald wurster, and now, he is a lecturer in history at the university of georgia but before i tell you anymore any more about him, let me introduce the topic of his talk adapting an opening line that another of our fellow graduate students used every fall on the first day of the undergraduate history classes that he taught. 100 years from now, he would say, all of you will be dead. Hows that for a wake up at 8 00 in the morning for sleepy undergraduates . 100 years from now, all of you will be dead, and unless you accomplish something utterly extraordinary or perpetuate some horrible evil, the odds are that no one that alive will remember you. He would then go on to say that even if you do get into that rarefied zone where your name lives on, the odds are it will be as a caricature, which is to say you will be remembered all right, but possibly for the wrong thing. Which brings us to Barry Goldwater. 50 years ago today today right now the then senator from arizona known as mr. Conservative accepted the republican nomination for president at the cal palace in san francisco. Only two things about that moment in time i generally remembered. First, eighth raise from goldwaters speech, which and its mangled form go Something Like this extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice. Moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue. Second, the fact that goldwater went on to suffer and elect world defeat of landslide proportions at the hands of Lyndon Johnson. But what if we are remembering Barry Goldwater for the wrong things . What if there is a different Barry Goldwater, someone who wrestled with apparent contradictions between his intellectual believes in limited government and his personal attachment to the great outdoors. That, in a nutshell, i think is the question that brian drake is going to explore in tonights presentation. An original lecture developed just for us titled very goldwater the conscience of a conservationist. His talk draws on his first and recently published book, loving nature, fearing mistakes environmentalism before antigovernment politics and reagan. It is for sale after this talk and he will be selling copies. One last comment before i depart a month for now, it will be hard to believe 15 years since i went back to school to begin work on what i called my middleage masters degree. Ryan drake brian drake was in post of my first two classes that semester. I was struck by the cogency of his arguments and his unerring ability to decipher the point of the assigned readings, which well, many of which were rather opaque and somewhat slow going. Then when we started to write papers, which were p are reviewed by other class members, i was struck again by his phenomenal talent for writing, his ability to produce scholarly work that was totally accessible. Brian had cracked the code, the first one in both classes to do so. Some people never quite figured it out, but i digress. In his remarks tonight, i have no doubt he will demonstrate that talent or all of you for all of you. Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome brian drake. [applause] thank you. Thank you very much. Let me begin by saying a few things about henry, who is one of the most hes one of the smartest, wittiest people i know. He is a treasure. You are lucky to have him here. Thank you very much for those comments. I also wanted to say, as well, it is a thrill to be in kansas city. I love this town. This is a great town. And i love this region. Im a big fan of the great plains, and ive been reminded of that over the last 48 hours or so. Just what a great place it is. So thank you for that. I think its time to cut to the chase. I wondered if we might begin by hearing those famous words of Barry Goldwater from 50 years ago today at cow palace. If we could cue that video to begin, or not. [laughter] i will remind you that extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice. [applause] let me remind you also that moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue. There they are, and they are in somewhat edited form. Before i talk about that, let me tell you about myself. As henry mentioned im an , environmental historian. What that means is i study the influence of nature on Human History and the reciprocal human influence on nature. What do people think about nature, how do they treat nature, and how does nature respond in turn and affect us . Its sort of back and forth. Its one of my favorite historical topics. When i was in graduate school, i got interested particularly in the environment movement, who became an environmentalist, why did they become an environmentalist, what happens when other parts of their lives intersect with their environmentalism, and particularly, i got fascinated by people who became environmentalists that you would never expect. You can kind of see where this is going. One of the things i love about historical study is one heck torah the historical actors go off script and they do things you do not expect. To like the fact that people are complicated. That is a truism in real life. Its a truism for a reason. People are complicated. I wanted to explore that. My two interests came together in my book, and they come together in this talk today. I want to explore the complicated world of arizona senator and environmentalist Barry Goldwater who accepted the republican nomination for president 50 years ago today. The complicated world of Barry Goldwater if you remember Barry Goldwater, complicated is not a word that is usually associated with the senator from arizona. It might even elicit a laugh. The classic image of goldwater of course, this is one of his Campaign Posters the classic image looks Something Like this. Barry goldwater was extremely conservative, predictably and extremely conservative. The distilled essence of political conservatism. An opponent of the new deal. That equally vociferous opponent of Lyndon Johnson and the Great Society, opposed to welfare, opposed to regulation, opposed to excessive taxes, a defender of traditional morality, an opponent of unions, militantly anticommunist, a supporter of the military, etc. And so forth. We can just take them off take them off tick them off. Put together, he almost emerges as a cardboard cutout, a statue, an ideology attached to a warm body, uncompromising aggressive, perhaps even according to his critics dangerously so. You can see that in just a couple film clips that i would like to show you. Can we run the communism video . This is from a great website called living room candidates. This is the 1964 campaign commercial from senator goldwater. Hand over your heart, ready begin. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of america [foreign language] and the republic for which it stands, one nation, under god [foreign language] liberty and justice for all. I want American Kids to grow up as americans, and they will if we have the guts to make our intentions clear, so clear they dont need translation or interpretation, just respect for a country prepared as no country in all of history ever was. In your heart, you know hes right. Vote for Barry Goldwater. There is his Famous Campaign motto. Needless to say, this very intense anticommunism meme made people very nervous. The Johnson Campaign took full advantage of this. If we could run just another weapon, please. This is a Lyndon Johnson campaign commercial from that same year. [explosion] on october 20 4 1963, Barry Goldwater said of the nuclear bomb, merely another weapon. Merely another weapon . Vote for president johnson. The stakes are too high for you to stay home. And the next 1 yeah the next one is a little more fancy. More famous. You may remember this. This is the infamous daisy commercial of 1964. If we could run that, as well. Its a little bit longer. One, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 6, 6, 8 9 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. [explosion] these are the stakes. To make a world in which all of gods children can live, or to go into the darkness. We must either love each other or we must die. Vote for president johnson on november 3. The stakes are too high for you to stay at home. Maybe the most famous political cartoon in all of American History. Youll notice goldwater is not mentioned by name. It is sort of understood you are supposed to know who was being referred to. Barry goldwater scared many democrats, and he scared many republicans, as well. Id like to finish. One more commercial before we get into the meat of this. This one is lesser well known. Note theres an environmental element here. This is a commercial called ice cream. They use to explode atomic bombs in the air. Children should have lots of vitamin a and calcium, but they shouldnt have any other chemicals. These things come from atomic bombs, and they are radioactive. They can make you die. Do you know what people finally did . They got together and signed a Nuclear Test Ban treaty, and then the radioactive poisons started to go away. But now there is a man who wants to be president of the United States, and he doesnt like this treaty. He fought against it. He even voted against it. He wants to go on testing more bombs. His name is Barry Goldwater, and if he is elected, they might Start Testing all over again. Vote for president johnson on november 3. The stakes are too high for you to stay home. In 1964, as in 2014, we dont expect nuance in our political ads, adsnd ads from both sides were misleading. Lyndon johnson was not a socialist dictator. Not Joseph Stalin with a texas drawl. And Barry Goldwater was not a warmonger. Hey dr. Strangeloveesquetype character. In fact, if you look at his whole life, his whole political life, what you find is that Barry Goldwater often went off and very interesting and unexpected directions. He was a more supple thinker than he was given credit for. Not just by his opponents but also by his supporters. Some examples that you are familiar with at the end of his life, he broke with the Republican Party over the influence of the religious right. He was not a fan of Jerry Falwell and pat robertson. He championed the right of gay people to serve in the military, supported a democrat in 1992 when karen english ran for congress. He was a supporter of planned parenthood for his entire life. He was also a member of the naacp, which was dashing white supporters of segregation, maybe the most hated organization in the country. He even had a warm reputation we forgot this picture, this is from his 1968 Senate Campaign great picture. There he is in his backyard in this photograph. Goldwater, of course, was a good friend with one of his blog one of his big political rivals, john kennedy. They talked about campaigning together. Imagine that. Going on the campaign trail and debating each other but still remaining friends. So, back to the commercial, the last one that i showed the idea that goldwaters election would be an environmental disaster is especially relevant to this idea of goldwater being complicated. We are going to see the famous maverick streak of the senator verizon extended to environmental issues. Let me begin by telling you a little bit about Barry Goldwater. Barry goldwater was born in phoenix, arizona, first of january, 1909. He was the son of a welltodo Department Store owner named baron goldwater. He was an adventurous kid, a little wild, maybe a lot wild. He ended up in military school in stanton, new fruit virginia because of this. He loved to do all the things that boys did. Like pranks, run around with his buddies. He loves to camp. He loved to hunt. An area around child that mountain you will see Camelback Mountain, the most famous natural icon in phoenix. This is a picture of it in the early 1900s as Barry Goldwater would have seen it. It is covered in houses mostly now. Wideopen spaces, and these had a significant influence on goldwater for the whole of his life. These useful experiences in the desert are going to shape his environmentalism as an adult. Let me tell you a little thing about his mother, who was crucial to this. Josephine goldwater was from nebraska. She moved to arizona because she had tuberculosis. The idea was that the clear, invigorating air of arizona would cure you or at least make things a little bit less intense. She did not expect to live long. She ended up living for several decades. She met baron goldwater, married him, had three children, and she loved nature. Deeply. One of the things she loved to do was to go on car camping trips. This was in the 1920s. This is the era in which we first had car camping. Camping used to be the domain of the wealthy. You got on a train, and you went to yosemite. Now you get in your model t, and you head out to the desert. That is what she did. She took her kid with them. I believe that is Barry Goldwater at the wheel. He did a lot of driving on these trips. There they are crossing the Colorado River on their way over to southern california. One of these many trips that they took. Joan goldwater pointed out the beauties of nature. She was not an intensely religious woman, but she believed god was present mostly in his creation. She was very keen to point that out. That real church, so to speak, was the wild. That was a lesson that Barry Goldwater took part. Took to heart. Just some really wonderful experiences. As barry got older, he continued in this tradition. He picked up a rifle. This is Barry Goldwater on the left, rifle in hand. That is his younger brother bob and his younger sister carolyn. His mother is on the left. The other two folks are unidentified. This is one of their many camping trips. As he became an adult, he continued this and got into photography. When he got married, his wife gave him one for one of his first christmas gifts. Around the arizona countryside. He also learned to fly, and he would take aerial pictures. He became pretty quickly a really remarkable artist. This is something we didnt always appreciate. In 1940, he published what would be the first of several books of photography. He was accepted into the Royal Society of photographers on the basis of this book. Got a couple of shots here. There he is. I love this shot of him in his levis taking a picture of an arch somewhere in arizona. He was a big fan of the four corners area. As you can tell. Like this one as well, circa 1940. Take a look at some of these pictures. These next three shots are shots excuse me, one more this is later in life, wearing those same levis at his house in scottsdale with his camera cactus, and american flag. I wanted this to be my book cover, but we went with something else. This is one of his shots. I love this one. Hes not ansell adams, but hes not bad. They were very different politically, but they shared a love for this kind of photography. I think this is just a wonderful shot. My favorite maybe of all is this one, Monument Valley in arizona. Look at those clean lines. This is a man who has an eye for light and shadow and denied for that pristine ansell adamsesque look. I love this photograph. One of my favorites. One more he was also famous for photographing native people. This is a navajo man that may be his most famous and most reproduced photograph, this not a whole man. Long before he got interested in politics, long before he became a politician, he was a man who was thinking about the wilderness, thinking about nature. Briefly, he goes off to military school in virginia, comes back home to go to the university of arizona. He does not finish because his father dies, and he takes over the goldwater store. He ends up being a businessman. Gets married himself, has three children, and gets his career as a conservative. Deeply opposed to Franklin Delano roosevelt. Did not like their new deal for a variety of reasons. Editorializes against it in the arizona republic. Im getting ahead of myself. This one will be appropriate. Round about this time, 1939, 1940, he got a chance to go on a trip to the grand canyon. The Colorado River was a different place in 1940. There was only one dam on it hoover dam. The rest of the river ran wild. Not many people in 1940 had gone down it. Goldwater would be a member of the 13th expedition to go down the Colorado River and the 73rd person. He joined one of the expedition