For those unfamiliar, America began to have its aircraft shot down by Russian SAM installations during the latter end of the Vietnam War. America's air superiority took a major hit. The Wild Weasels were F-4 Phantom jet fighters specifically geared with Electronic Countermeasure (ECM) equipment to detect these sites and try to either jam them and attack them or evade and attack. The military came up with a tactic which involved two flight crews: one of "bait" and one of "bombs."

The "bait" team would fly toward a suspected SAM site in an attempt to lure the site into firing. The sites were laid out in a star (typically five or six launchers) with the C&C vehicle in the center. By going in at medium to high altitude, they would give the pilots enough time to see the missile trails out in front of them. (Missiles fired from behind could simply be outrun.) When the "bait" craft had identified at least three (and preferably four) trails, they could identify the location of the C&C vehicle - which was key. They would radio that position to the "bomb" crew who would then prosecute a low-level bomb run on the site in an attempt to kill as many of the vehicles as possible. Then the "bait" craft would "hit the deck" and try to evade the missiles coming after them.

It was a controversial tactic as it placed the very best (and most expensive) American flight crews in extreme peril while risking less expensive Russian ground crews and equipment.

Moot point. Goldwater is dead and can't answer for himself.
I doubt if anyone still alive was close enough to Goldwater to provide anything more than idle unsupported speculation.
My unsupported opinion is that nuclear weapons would not have been used by Goldwater unless in response to direct
Soviet attack on America.

and today we have non-nuclear EMP methods

LBJ and SOD Robert McNamara were concerned that Russian SAM crews would be killed leading to Soviet retaliation, but EMP detonation doesn’t kill people, however significantly destroys electronics and electric infrastructure.
https://www.airandspaceforces.com/art...

Although this work is likely considered conspiracy theory due to forward by Lew Rockwell, I don't find anything wrong with Hathaway's arguments.

https://www.amazon.com/EMP-Hoax-David...

We should have stayed out of that stupid war in the first place.
The "Domino Theory" was military industrial complex propaganda and that is just what it proved out to be.
Our Forefathers warned us about getting involved in foreign wars. What a waste of American lives!

What are EMP detonations?