Hecht recalls friendship with Goldwater

Wednesday, June 3, 1998 | 10:29 a.m.

Former Nevada Sen. Chic Hecht is among a host of mourners who planned to attend the funeral services of Barry Goldwater today at 1 p.m. on the campus of Arizona State University in Tempe.

He also is among a vastly larger number of people politically inspired by the 89-year-old icon of Republican conservatism who died Friday at his Phoenix home of natural causes, two years after suffering a stroke.

"He changed my life," said Hecht, one of the two-or-three most conservative members of the U.S. Senate from 1982 to 1988.

Goldwater represented Arizona in the Senate from 1952 to 1987.

In 1964 he ran for president against Lyndon B. Johnson, losing by one of the largest margins in history. However, while on the campaign trail he inspired a conservative movement that one day would result in a virtual lock on the White House for more than 20 years.

Before the debacle of that presidential race Hecht was not interested in taking an active role in politics.

Though the seeds of his later interest were sown when Dwight Eisenhower decided to run for president.

Hecht was an intelligence officer with the military, working as a spy behind the Iron Curtain in 1952.

He wasn't registered to vote at that time but when he learned Eisenhower was going to run he came out from behind the Iron Curtain long enough to register Republican and then went back underground.

Hecht was a retailer when he first met Goldwater when the presidential candidate made a stop in Las Vegas.

"This guy made sense to me," said Hecht, who is acquainted with most of the movers-and-shakers in the Republican Party and served as ambassador to the Bahamas under President Bush.

He and Goldwater liked one another immediately.

"He was in retailing, I was in retailing," Hecht recalled.

In 1966, when Nevada was in a financial straights, Hecht ran for the state Senate on his business background and won.

He was defeated in 1974, blaming the loss on a voter backlash that slapped the Republican party after President Gerald Ford pardoned Richard Nixon after Nixon resigned from office.

In 1976 and 1980 Hecht ran Ronald Reagan's presidential campaigns in Southern Nevada and in 1982 decided he had a good shot at winning a national office himself.

He won his U.S. Senate race but was only able to hold onto it for one term.

While in Washington, D.C., he made a deep impact as a conservative. "I introduced Jesse Helms as my token liberal," Hecht smiled.

He worked closely with Goldwater though they did not always agree on things. "I had a more conservative voting record than he did," Hecht said.

Hecht said Goldwater's health began deteriorating in the late 1980s.

Because of his health, Goldwater declined to become involved in anyone's campaigns but for Hecht in 1988.

Hecht recalled Goldwater was to fly to Reno for the campaign but was stricken with an illness and went to the hospital instead.

Eventually Goldwater made campaign advertising spots for Hecht.

"It was very flattering to me that he would campaign for me but no one else," Hecht said.

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