The former US Senator and Republican presidential candidate, Mr Barry Goldwater, one of the founders of the modern conservative movement in the United States, died yesterday, his family said from Phoenix, Arizona. He was aged 89.
A family spokesman said the crusty, blunt-speaking politician died of natural causes and quoted his widow, Susan, as saying: "He is soaring through the skies - what a pilot he has been" - a reference both to his years as an Air Force pilot and to her belief he was ascending to heaven.
A spokeswoman, Ms Christine Tobin, said: "He died as he lived, with dignity, courage and humility. He went with peace, with his family at his side."
His funeral will be held on Wednesday at the Grady Gammage auditorium on the campus of Arizona State University in nearby Tempe.
The President, Mr Bill Clinton, led the nation in mourning the political figure with whom he often disagreed but whose advice he often sought. He called Mr Goldwater, "truly an American original".
In recent years, Mr Goldwater condemned the Whitewater investigation, saying it was diverting the President from doing his job. He also came out for abortion rights and allowing gays in the military, saying he did not care if someone "was straight or not but whether he can shoot straight".
Mr Goldwater was the Republican standard-bearer in 1964, running on a slogan of "In your hearts, you know he's right". He went on to lopsided defeat at the hands of president Lyndon Johnson, who painted him as an extremist who would expand the war in Vietnam and could not be trusted with the nuclear button. Johnson then expanded the war.
While Mr Goldwater won only six states - five southern ones and his native Arizona - his ideas later triumphed with the election of Ronald Reagan in 1980.
Mr Goldwater was the dean of American conservatives, the man who led the revolution that forged conservative control of the Republican Party and, ironically, the man who convinced Richard Nixon it was time to quit the White House.