The following are the remarks of ConservativeHQ Chairman Richard A. Viguerie at the Heritage Foundation’s March 10, 2025 memorial service for conservative giant Dr. Lee Edwards.
In thinking about what I could add to the many accomplishments, achievements, and successes of our dear friend Lee Edwards that those speaking before me might not have mentioned and you might not be aware of. I remembered a conversation Lee and I had at his home last summer.
We were discussing the status of American politics, public policy, and the weaknesses of the Conservative Movement.
I made the point that the Left had many more nonprofit organizations than the right with many more leaders, donors, money, and energy. I said, leaders of most conservative nonprofits lack an entrepreneurial spirit.
Lee said that he considered himself an entrepreneur and that surprised me.
Quite frankly, I had not thought of Lee as an entrepreneur.
His BRAND, his life’s work, as we all know, is a chronicler of all things conservative. He was the historian of the Conservative Movement.
But as we talked it became clear to me that I had missed the entrepreneurial aspect of Lee’s life. To refresh all of our memories of Lee’s entrepreneurial spirit and activities, I’ve compiled a partial list.
1. In 1960 Lee launched YAF’s monthly New Guard magazine and served as its first editor.
2. In 1975 he launched my monthly magazine Conservative Digest and served as its first editor.
3. In the 1960s he founded and operated for 20 years America’s first conservative public relations firm.
4. In the early 1970s the Left was on an anti-FBI campaign, so Lee rushed to the defense of the FBI by founding and leading an organization he called Friends of the FBI.
5. Lee was the founding director of Fund for America’s Studies Institute of Political Journalism at Georgetown University.
6. In 1972 conservatives were concerned that Richard Nixon would replace Spiro Agnew as his Vice President. So, Lee launched and headed up Americans for Agnew.
7. The crown jewel of his ideological life was to co-found with his wife, Anne, Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation and Museum.
8. At a Frank Meyer Society Dinner when Dr. Paul Teller was the speaker, Lee and I sat together and spent the entire dinner making plans to launch a new project to record the history of the Conservative Movement.
That was less than 7 weeks before his death.
At his death, Lee was busy writing his 26th book Ten Unsung Heroes of the Conservative Movement. Lee’s list did not include himself, but on my short list of conservative unsung heroes would be Dr. Lee Edwards.
After his cancer diagnosis, Morton Blackwell offered the use of his Leadership Institute’s film studio with a camera and crew for Lee to be interviewed by his daughter, Dr. Elizabeth Spalding, Chairman of Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation and Museum.
That day, Lee spoke long and eloquently about the earliest days of the Conservative Movement, including comments about his late father, Willard, who was a well-known journalist for the Chicago Tribune. Lee also spoke about the founding of ISI, Human Events, and YAF.
His analysis that day on video of the past, present, and future of the Conservative Movement is priceless.
Lee and his wife, Anne, were perfectly yoked. Actually, it was her idea for Lee to start the Victims of Communism Foundation.
At his death, 11 days after his 92nd birthday, in addition to being loved, known, admired, and respected by the leaders of the Conservative Movement of the last 65 years, he was also known by many as 001—meaning he had been active at the national level of the Conservative Movement longer than every living conservative.
If you didn’t like Lee Edwards, you just didn’t like people.
Some of you will have heard this old saying, “Always preach the Gospel and if necessary, use words.” No one I’ve ever known has combined the two better than our dear, dear friend, Lee Edwards.
From the Old Testament, 2nd Samuel, 3rd chapter 38th verse, “And the King said unto his people. Know ye not that there is a prince and a great man fallen this day.”
