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JACK BASS:

I want to ask you a political question. If goes back to '64. Because we've heard some divergent opinions on this. When Goldwater swept the state, how big a factor, in your opinion, was the fact that he voted against the civil rights act that year?

HOWELL HEFLIN:

Goldwater? Oh, I think it was a sizable factor. I think that had a sizable influence on Alabama voters at that time. You know, you go back in your history. . . . Didn't Wallace withdraw? Was he running at that time and then he withdrew?

JACK BASS:

Withdrew after Goldwater got the nomination.

HOWELL HEFLIN:

He withdrew after he got the nomination. And who was running against Goldwater? Lyndon Johnson. Yeah. That was the race. . . push the button, the man pushes the button and atomic bombs go off. Vietnam and all. [And of course] Johnson got a lot of mileage nationally out of. . . that Goldwater's liable to do something erratic and put us all into a nuclear war. I don't know. It's hard for me now to all of a sudden think back ten years ago and give you that answer. But at the time I felt like that his withdrawal, Wallace's withdrawal, and Goldwater's position on civil rights at that time was a sizable factor in Goldwater's sweep of certain southern states. Mostly in the real deep South. Of course Goldwater also is a hard-nosed military man which may have been popular at that time. Basically the South is very patriotic. They like strong military, strong defense. Of course that's hard to divorce. . . separate your mind as you view Goldwater today and then how he was in '64. But I'd think about it a long time.