"Clenching his square jaw, Rockefeller had hit the stage with an immediate task: to speak in favor of a proposed amendment to the Republican Party platform denouncing extremism, specifically that of the Communist Party, the Ku Klux Klan, and the ultraconservative, red-baiting John Birch Society. The platform committee, controlled by Goldwater loyalists, had rejected this resolution. Yet the moderates hadn’t given up. On the opening night of the convention, Gov. Mark Hatfield of Oregon had declared, “There are bigots in this nation who spew forth their venom of hate. They parade under hundreds of labels, including the Communist Party, the Ku Klux Klan, and the John Birch Society. They must be overcome.” That was not the predominant sentiment within the Cow Palace. Hatfield was met with a barrage of hisses and boos. He later called the response “frightening” and reflected, “It spoke to me not merely of strong political disagreement, but of a spiteful kind of enmity waiting to be unleashed to destroy any-one seen as the enemy — domestic or foreign.” The delegates were strident anticommunists — many feared evil reds were subverting the government and the nation’s most revered institutions — and for them, Goldwater was the leader of a do-or-die crusade against leftism. They would eagerly back a resolution reviling commies. And though the Grand Old Party — founded a century earlier by antislavery politicians — was now actively moving to court racist Southern voters opposed to desegregation and civil rights, they might disavow the Klan. But including the John Birch Society in this lineup of extremists to be deplored was a not-subtle-at-all dig at Goldwater and his fanatic followers. Everyone in the room knew what — and who — this resolution was aimed at."