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PHOENIX — A high-pitched yapping violates the air, providing an unwelcomeaccompaniment to Barry Goldwater's pronouncements. Finally the formersenator has had enough.

"Throw that damn dog in the incinerator and turn it on!" Goldwaterroars to an aide in his Western-style ranch house.

It's the sort of remark that got him into trouble during thelegendary presidential race of 1964, when he was the Republican nomineeand the hero of the Radical Right – an evangelist of extremism whodefended the John Birch Society, argued for making the Social Securitysystem voluntary and mused aloud about defoliating Vietnam with nuclearweapons before being swept away in a Lyndon Johnson landslide.

"He's a 100-year-old French poodle. Barks all day long," Goldwaterexplains to a visitor as the aide hops to and tries to fix the problem.

Surely that couldn't be his dog?

"No – my wife's," the senator confirms (though it's not really apoodle but rather a schnauzer named Sofie). "We're waiting for him {thatis, her} to die."

Nobody seems to be waiting for Barry Goldwater to die.

At 85, after a life in politics spanning five decades (he retiredfrom the Senate in 1987), Mr. Conservative has found himself an unlikelynew career: as a gay rights activist. While that's not his sole pursuit– he returned to Capitol Hill yesterday to testify in favor of scenicoverflights of the Grand Canyon – in recent years he's championedhomosexuals serving in the military and has worked locally to stopbusinesses in Phoenix from hiring on the basis of sexual orientation.This month he signed on as honorary co-chairman of a drive to pass afederal law preventing job discrimination against homosexuals. Theeffort, dubbed Americans Against Discrimination, is being spearheaded bythe Human Rights Campaign Fund, the influential gay lobbyingorganization.

"The big thing is to make this country, along with every othercountry in the world with a few exceptions, quit discriminating againstpeople just because they're gay," Goldwater asserts. "You don't have toagree with it, but they have a constitutional right to be gay. Andthat's what brings me into it."

"He's the kind of spokesman who makes people focus on thisissue through new eyes," says Goldwater's co-chair, Oregon Gov. BarbaraRoberts, a Democrat who ardently opposed his candidacy in 1964. "Hecauses people to focus on the real issue: Should the country thatcelebrates life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness allowdiscrimination for a group of Americans based on sexual preference?"

Gay rights aside, Goldwater is doing lots more to drive would-bedisciples nuts. In 1992 he backed a Democrat for Congress over aChristian conservative Republican (his candidate, Karan English, won),and has been applying the full force of his cantankerous personality tofrequent denunciations of the religious right and occasional defenses ofBill Clinton – calling a press conference recently to urge Republicancritics of Whitewater to "get off his back and let him be president."

Some of the faithful think he's lost his marbles.

"I am often asked by people inside Arizona, and outside of Arizona,about Barry," says Republican John McCain, Goldwater's successor in theSenate, in a tone that suggests he's apologizing for a crazy uncle inthe attic. "I always say that Barry Goldwater has the right to saywhatever he wants to. He has made his contribution – which transformedthe Republican Party from an Eastern elitist organization to thebreeding ground for the election of Ronald Reagan." (Goldwater likes toremind McCain, a Vietnam-era Navy pilot who spent 5 ½ years in the"Hanoi Hilton," that if he'd been elected president in 1964, "youwouldn't have spent all those years in a Vietnamese prison camp."McCain's reply: "You're right, Barry. It would have been a Chineseprison camp.")

The Sage in His Aerie

Goldwater hurls his bolts of wisdom from a barren hillside abovedowntown Phoenix, where he presides over his well-to-do yet sparselylandscaped neighborhood as the Oracle of Paradise Valley (as the suburbis called). One climbs to his front door through a shocking blast ofheat that makes a non-Arizonan feel like a kernel of air-popped popcorn.The first thing one sees – after being ushered into The Presence byDoris Berry, his aide for the last three decades – are two sun-brownedankles stuffed into laceless canvas boating shoes. Rounding a corner,one gradually notices the khaki trousers, the blue cotton work shirt andthe famed granite-jawed face and piercing blue eyes, topped off by afull, white mane.

Goldwater is surrounded in his perch by huge picture windowsaffording an appropriately majestic view. He sits behind a kidney-shapeddesk amid a welter of digital gauges and other electronic gewgaws (whichhe assembled himself out of mail-order kits) measuring barometricpressure, rainfall, time and temperature (100 degrees Fahrenheit at 9a.m., on its way to 108), looking for all the world like an air-trafficcontroller. He extends a liver-spotted hand, not bothering to rise:After nine times under the knife to replace knees, hips and a shoulder,it would take too long and waste valuable time.

"Go ahead," he instructs briskly after a minimum of small talk,ordering the interview to commence, taking an aspirin off his desk topop in his mouth and chew without the aid of water. "It tastes good," heinsists.

So how did this super-patriot, former fighter pilot and retired AirForce general get involved in gay rights?

"The first time this came up was with the question, should there begays in the military?" Goldwater says. "Having spent 37 years of my lifein the military as a reservist, and never having met a gay in all ofthat time, and never having even talked about it in all those years, Ijust thought, why the hell shouldn't they serve? They're Americancitizens. As long as they're not doing things that are harmful to anyoneelse. ... So I came out for it."

He says he's mystified by the origins of homosexuality. "You try tofind out where it started, even going back to old Egyptology – and youknew damn well the Egyptians had to have those people – but you can'tfind any writings," he says. "I have one grandson who's gay. And mybrother {Bob Goldwater} has a granddaughter who is gay. We're sort of ata loss to know what the hell it's all about."

Goldwater says that having openly gay relatives doesn't influencehis beliefs, which are animated by libertarian principles thatgovernment should stay out of people's private lives.

"He's pretty secure in feeling that discriminating against gays isconstitutionally wrong," says Goldwater's gay grandson, Ty Ross, aScottsdale, Ariz., artisan who says he is close to his grandfather (whomhe calls "Paka") and has even brought boyfriends to meet him. Ross, whois HIV-positive but healthy, adds, "We haven't really talked about it.He's so funny. He says, 'You people need to stand up for your rights' –one of those 'you people' kind of things."

Phoenix real estate entrepreneur and gay rights activist CharlieHarrison, who has been friendly with Goldwater since the senator beganpatronizing a restaurant Harrison owned 12 years ago, recalls a recentfund-raising dinner for Arizona gay men and lesbians at which Goldwaterreceived one standing ovation after another. "He was treated like God,"Harrison marvels. "Like the Grand Canyon come to Phoenix."

"Well, Charlie, I'm an honorary gay by now," Harrison says Goldwatertold him.

All in all, a far cry from those glory days on the Radical Right.

"What I was talking about was more or less 'conservative,' "Goldwater recalls, saying he was smeared by the people around PresidentJohnson – "the most dishonest man we ever had in the presidency."Goldwater continues: "The oldest philosophy in the world isconservatism, and I go clear back to the first Greeks. ... When you say'radical right' today, I think of these moneymaking ventures by fellowslike Pat Robertson and others who are trying to take the RepublicanParty away from the Republican Party, and make a religious organizationout of it. If that ever happens, kiss politics goodbye."

That's the sort of apostasy that has provoked some of Goldwater'sfellow Republicans to question his sanity and his loyalty, and to try toimpose stiff sanctions.

Goldwater seems amused.

"They want to change the name of the party headquarters from theGoldwater building to something else," he boasts. "They want to take myname off the airport. They want to take my name off the high school.They want to take my name off the lake up north."

"And the boulevard," Doris Berry chimes in.

"Yeah, that's right," Goldwater grins. "But they don't get veryfar with it."

And on the Subject of ...

Very little can rattle this man who was born in Arizona when it wasstill a territory, the grandson of a Polish-Jewish pioneer whosedescendants became Episcopalians, arriving in 1860 to launch amerchandising fortune – "when there was nobody here but Indians and afew Mexicans," Goldwater says. "My mother came out here withtuberculosis, was given three weeks to live and she died at 94 fromdrinking." The senator had the luxury to pursue his passions, whichstill include American Indian art and culture, photography, aviation(though he's been reduced to building model airplanes instead of flyingreal ones) and ham radio. "For Barry Goldwater, whom I urge to followthe career for which he has shown much talent – photography," reads aninscription on a photo hanging in Goldwater's "ham shack." It's a notefrom Jack Kennedy.

"Had he lived, he would have been a good president," Goldwater saysof his late friend and Senate colleague, the Democrat he had wanted torun against in 1964. As for Richard Nixon, Goldwater never forgave himfor lying about Watergate, and recently declined to attend his funeral.His 83-year-old brother, Bob, who along with their 82-year-old sister,Carolyn, still lives an active life, pleaded with Barry not to give outany statements after Nixon's death – fearing that they would beungenerous and intemperate.

"And I didn't," Goldwater says tersely.

In the course of an interview that amounted to a bull session,Goldwater gave his opinions on everything from Senate Minority LeaderBob Dole's temper, to President Clinton's foreign policy, to HillaryRodham Clinton's management skills.

On Dole: "I said one day that Dole had a temper, and he got madderthan hell. He has one. He has a mean one."

On alleged racism in the Marine Corps: "They had a program on '60Minutes' about a black man who was a decorated captain in the Marines,and ... I think they asked him to retire because he was black. TheMarines are still a little funny about that. There are lots of blacks inthe Marines – there are black pilots – but they don't like 'em. ...They're changing, but not that fast. I think they have one blackgeneral." (A Marine Corps spokesman said that Goldwater is mistaken, andthat the Marines offer equal opportunity for all.)

On Shannon Faulkner, the young woman who recently won a courtdecision to enter the corps of cadets at the previously all-male Citadelmilitary academy: "It's a state-financed and state-run institute, andthere's no way you can say no to women. Now, if it were privately runwith private money, they could tell women to go to hell."

On Clinton's relations with the military: "The thing that worries meright now is Clinton. I don't think he understands the military. And Idon't think the people around him understand the military. Andevidently, they have no real compunction against cutting the military.... If a country wanted to go to war with us, we better be ready,because we might not win the next war. It worries the hell out of me."

On Clinton's conduct of American foreign policy: "I worry about itbecause he doesn't know a goddamn thing about it. We don't have anyforeign policy. ... The best thing Clinton could do – I think I wrotehim a letter about this, but I'm not sure – is to shut up. Every time I turn that radio on, there's Clinton, making a speech. And he makesspeeches on a subject he doesn't know anything about. He'd be muchbetter off if he'd quit it, because even though he makes a good speech,I don't think he should talk all the time. ... He has no discipline."

On Hillary Clinton, who was an ardent Goldwater supporter in 1964:"If he'd let his wife run business, I think he'd be better off. ... Ijust like the way she acts. I've never met her, but I sent her a bag ofchili, and she invited me to come to the White House some night and saidshe'd cook chili for me. Someday, maybe."

On the Clinton health care proposal: "If you made it law, it wouldcost as much as the whole country is worth. I would have to sell myautomobile, my house, my property, everything, and contribute it tothat, and you know that's not going to happen."

When the senator's comments on health care are repeated to SusanGoldwater, she says, "He's so ill-informed about it, and he shouldn'teven talk about it."

Thirty years his junior, she is a registered nurse and the directorof a 200-employee hospice that tends mainly to terminal cancer and AIDSpatients. A handsome, chic woman with an air of command, she has alsobeen the senator's wife for the last three years. They met soon afterthe death of Goldwater's first wife, Peggy, when she came to take hisblood pressure. Some, like John McCain, attribute much of Goldwater'soutspoken contrariness, which occasionally makes him sound like a ravingliberal, to Susan Goldwater's influence.

"Baloney," she snorts, holding forth in her spacious office. She addsthat she always encourages her third husband to think whatever he wants.

So what's it like being married to Mount Rushmore?

"Rocky at times," she quips. "Great fun at others."

"She's a very strong gal," Barry Goldwater says. "She does what shepleases."

"I've never been so well off in my life," he adds, noting that heswims and rides a bicycle through the hills nearly every day. "My firstwife passed away when I retired. And I said I'd never get married again.You lose a woman you've been married to for 52 years, it makes adifference. Susan and I started going together and then we got married.We've been married almost three years. She has four children and I havefour children. Between us we have about 14 grandchildren. So we'regetting along."

Goldwater affects bemusement at the Sturm und Drang he seems to havecaused among those who once saw themselves as his ideologicaldescendants. As a good conservative should, he says, "I haven't changedmy outlook at all."

And in due course he abruptly dismisses his guest, having beenwaiting impatiently all morning to play with a visiting grandchild.