 In 1964, Stewart campaigned for the conservative presidential candidate Barry Goldwater and, according to biographer Marc Eliot, erred on the obsessive prior to the election.Stewart was a hawk on the Vietnam War and maintained that his son, Ronald, did not die in vain.Following the assassination of Senator Robert F. Kennedy in 1968, Stewart, Charlton Heston, Kirk Douglas and Gregory Peck issued a statement calling for support of President Lyndon B. Johnson's Gun Control Act of 1968.