by WorldTribune Staff, December 19, 2024 Real World News

Dr. Lee Edwards, founder of the Victims of Communism Memorial and a key historian of the U.S. conservative movement, has passed away at age 92.

With authorization by unanimous congressional legislation signed into law by President Bill Clinton on December 17, 1993, Edwards and his friend Dr. Lev Dobriansky co-founded the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation in 1994 as an educational, research, and human rights nonprofit organization devoted to commemorating the more than 100 million people killed by communism around the world and to pursuing the freedom of those still living under totalitarian regimes.

Dr. Lee Edwards

Years of commitment resulted in the Victims of Communism Memorial, which was erected on Capitol Hill and dedicated by President George W. Bush on June 12, 2007.

Dr. Edwards’ vision eventually led to the Victims of Communism Museum, which opened in June 2022, and the development of numerous VOC educational programs and materials. Recently, the House of Representatives statutorily tasked the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation with expanding its student curriculum to teach about the evils of communism in classrooms nationwide.

Edwards served as director of public information for Sen. Barry Goldwater’s 1964 presidential campaign and ran a Washington, D.C. public relations firm before earning a doctorate in world politics from the Catholic University of America. He was the founding director of the TFAS Institute of Political Journalism at Georgetown University, a fellow at the Institute of Politics at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, and a past president of the Philadelphia Society. He later served as Distinguished Fellow in Conservative Thought at the Heritage Foundation and was an adjunct professor of politics at Catholic University. The Heritage Foundation instituted its annual Lee Edwards Lecture in Conservative Leadership in 2024.

Edwards was the author, co-author, or editor of over 25 books, including biographies of President Ronald Reagan, Goldwater, Dr. Walter Judd, and William F. Buckley, Jr. His works were translated into Chinese, Japanese, French, Hungarian, Polish, and Swedish. His most recent works included A Brief History of the Cold War (2016), with his daughter Elizabeth Edwards Spalding, and his autobiography, Just Right: A Life in Pursuit of Liberty (2017).

Spalding, the Chairman of the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundations and Founding Director of the Victims of Communism Museum, released the following statement on his passing:

Lee Edwards was a friend, mentor, and hero to many, including those who only know him through his works over the course of a life well lived. He was also a husband, father, and grandfather. He will be missed by all. But we rejoice that he is now at home with the Lord and is reunited with his beloved wife Anne. And we will all continue, and redouble our efforts, in the work that remains here for us.

The American Spectator noted in a tribute to Edwards: “This indefatigable conservative thinker, teacher, mentor, and scholar leaves behind a remarkable legacy.”

Paul Kengor wrote for The Spectator: “The conservative movement this week lost an elder statesman, its dean. He was Lee Edwards, 92 years old. Edwards was so very important and dear to both the conservative movement and to me personally.”

Richard Viguerie wrote for The Daily Signal that Edwards was a “Funding father” of the early conservative movement through his direct mail marketing operations:

Lee was known by many as “001”—meaning he had been active at the national level of the conservative movement longer than any living conservative.

In the summer of 1961, I went to New York City to become the executive secretary of Young Americans for Freedom, the rag tag group of college conservatives who met at William F. Buckley’s house in Sharon, Connecticut, in 1960 to launch the modern-day conservative movement. Lee was a founding member of Young Americans for Freedom and a member of the board of directors.

Thus began a lifelong, deep, and strong friendship.

We had so much in common—same age, both strong, conservative, anti-Communist, Catholics—consumed with saving Western civilization.

In early 1975, I mailed promotion letters for a new magazine I wanted to launch—Conservative Digest. My vision was to produce a monthly publication providing leadership, news, information, action items, for the new political movement known as the New Right.

As the subscriptions started to pour in, I began to realize I had no magazine. Almost in a panic, I called Lee and said, “Help.” Lee became the first editor of Conservative Digest and for the next 10 years, it had more subscribers and received more media attention than any other conservative publication.

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