Lee Edwards
Encyclopedia
Lee Edwards is a distinguished fellow in conservative thought at the B. Kenneth Simon Center for American Studies at The Heritage Foundation
. He is considered one of the foremost historians of the conservative movement in America, and he has published more than 15 books, including biographies of President Ronald Reagan
, Senator Barry Goldwater
, Attorney General Edwin Meese
III and William F. Buckley, Jr.
, and his father was a journalist for the Chicago Tribune
.
He holds a bachelor's degree in English from Duke University
and a doctorate in world politics from Catholic University
. He also did graduate work at the Sorbonne
in Paris
.
(YAF), and later served as the director of information for the Barry Goldwater
presidential campaign in 1964
. In 1969, the New York Times dubbed Edwards “the voice of the silent majority.” He has acted as a consultant for the Richard Nixon
administration, Senators Strom Thurmond
and Bob Dole
, the Republican National Committee
, YAF
, the American Conservative Union
, the Committee for a Free China and the American Council for World Freedom.
Edwards has written biographies of Ronald Reagan
, William F. Buckley, Edwin Meese
III and Goldwater, as well as a number of other books, which include The Conservative Revolution: The Movement That Remade America, The Power of Ideas, a retrospective on the first 25 years of the Heritage Foundation
, and a history of the Intercollegiate Studies Institute
.
He was the initial editor of the Conservative Digest in 1975, and has been a senior editor for The World & I. He has also written for major newspapers including The Boston Globe
, Detroit News, Los Angeles Times
, The Wall Street Journal
and The Washington Times
, as well as magazines such as Crisis, National Review
, Policy Review
and Reader's Digest
. He is a frequent commentator on television and radio and has appeared on Fox News Channel
's The O'Reilly Factor
and Fox and Friends, PBS' The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer
, C-SPAN
's Booknotes
and Washington Journal
and NPR
's The Diane Rehm Show
. He has lectured in nearly 20 nations on various aspects of American and world politics.
Edwards was the founding director of the Institute on Political Journalism at Georgetown University
and a fellow at the Institute of Politics at the John F. Kennedy School of Government
at Harvard University
. He is a past president of the Philadelphia Society and has been a media fellow at the Hoover Institution
.
He is a distinguished fellow in conservative thought at the B. Kenneth Simon Center for American Studies at The Heritage Foundation
, and , holds the title of adjunct professor of politics at the Catholic University of America and at the Institute of World Politics. In addition, he is chairman of the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation
, an organization dedicated to the creation of an international memorial in Washington
to the victims of communism
across history and the online Global Museum on Communism.
Honors he has been awarded include the Millennium Star of Lithuania, the Cross of Terra Mariana of Estonia, the Friendship Medal of Diplomacy from the Republic of China (Taiwan), the John Ashbrook
Award, the Reed Irvine
Accuracy in Media
Award and the Walter Judd
Freedom Award.
, Virginia. They have two daughters and eight grandchildren.
The Heritage Foundation
The Heritage Foundation is a conservative American think tank based in Washington, D.C. Heritage's stated mission is to "formulate and promote conservative public policies based on the principles of free enterprise, limited government, individual freedom, traditional American values, and a strong...
. He is considered one of the foremost historians of the conservative movement in America, and he has published more than 15 books, including biographies of President Ronald Reagan
Ronald Reagan
Ronald Wilson Reagan was the 40th President of the United States , the 33rd Governor of California and, prior to that, a radio, film and television actor....
, Senator Barry Goldwater
Barry Goldwater
Barry Morris Goldwater was a five-term United States Senator from Arizona and the Republican Party's nominee for President in the 1964 election. An articulate and charismatic figure during the first half of the 1960s, he was known as "Mr...
, Attorney General Edwin Meese
Edwin Meese
Edwin "Ed" Meese, III is an attorney, law professor, and author who served in official capacities within the Ronald Reagan Gubernatorial Administration , the Reagan Presidential Transition Team , and the Reagan White House , eventually rising to hold the position of the 75th Attorney General of...
III and William F. Buckley, Jr.
William F. Buckley, Jr.
William Frank Buckley, Jr. was an American conservative author and commentator. He founded the political magazine National Review in 1955, hosted 1,429 episodes of the television show Firing Line from 1966 until 1999, and was a nationally syndicated newspaper columnist. His writing was noted for...
Background
Edwards was born in Chicago in 1932. At an early age, he was introduced to conservative values and the importance of the written word by his parents; both of Edwards' parents were anti-communistAnti-communism
Anti-communism is opposition to communism. Organized anti-communism developed in reaction to the rise of communism, especially after the 1917 October Revolution in Russia and the beginning of the Cold War in 1947.-Objections to communist theory:...
, and his father was a journalist for the Chicago Tribune
Chicago Tribune
The Chicago Tribune is a major daily newspaper based in Chicago, Illinois, and the flagship publication of the Tribune Company. Formerly self-styled as the "World's Greatest Newspaper" , it remains the most read daily newspaper of the Chicago metropolitan area and the Great Lakes region and is...
.
He holds a bachelor's degree in English from Duke University
Duke University
Duke University is a private research university located in Durham, North Carolina, United States. Founded by Methodists and Quakers in the present day town of Trinity in 1838, the school moved to Durham in 1892. In 1924, tobacco industrialist James B...
and a doctorate in world politics from Catholic University
The Catholic University of America
The Catholic University of America is a private university located in Washington, D.C. in the United States. It is a pontifical university of the Catholic Church in the United States and the only institution of higher education founded by the U.S. Catholic bishops...
. He also did graduate work at the Sorbonne
Sorbonne
The Sorbonne is an edifice of the Latin Quarter, in Paris, France, which has been the historical house of the former University of Paris...
in Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
.
Career
Edwards' involvement in the conservative movement began in 1960. He was one of the founding members of Young Americans for FreedomYoung Americans for Freedom
Young Americans for Freedom is a 501 non-profit organization and is now a project of Young America's Foundation. YAF is an ideologically conservative youth activism organization that was founded in 1960, as a coalition between traditional conservatives and libertarians...
(YAF), and later served as the director of information for the Barry Goldwater
Barry Goldwater
Barry Morris Goldwater was a five-term United States Senator from Arizona and the Republican Party's nominee for President in the 1964 election. An articulate and charismatic figure during the first half of the 1960s, he was known as "Mr...
presidential campaign in 1964
United States presidential election, 1964
The United States presidential election of 1964 was held on November 3, 1964. Incumbent President Lyndon B. Johnson had come to office less than a year earlier following the assassination of his predecessor, John F. Kennedy. Johnson, who had successfully associated himself with Kennedy's...
. In 1969, the New York Times dubbed Edwards “the voice of the silent majority.” He has acted as a consultant for the Richard Nixon
Richard Nixon
Richard Milhous Nixon was the 37th President of the United States, serving from 1969 to 1974. The only president to resign the office, Nixon had previously served as a US representative and senator from California and as the 36th Vice President of the United States from 1953 to 1961 under...
administration, Senators Strom Thurmond
Strom Thurmond
James Strom Thurmond was an American politician who served as a United States Senator. He also ran for the Presidency of the United States in 1948 as the segregationist States Rights Democratic Party candidate, receiving 2.4% of the popular vote and 39 electoral votes...
and Bob Dole
Bob Dole
Robert Joseph "Bob" Dole is an American attorney and politician. Dole represented Kansas in the United States Senate from 1969 to 1996, was Gerald Ford's Vice Presidential running mate in the 1976 presidential election, and was Senate Majority Leader from 1985 to 1987 and in 1995 and 1996...
, the Republican National Committee
Republican National Committee
The Republican National Committee is an American political committee that provides national leadership for the Republican Party of the United States. It is responsible for developing and promoting the Republican political platform, as well as coordinating fundraising and election strategy. It is...
, YAF
Young Americans for Freedom
Young Americans for Freedom is a 501 non-profit organization and is now a project of Young America's Foundation. YAF is an ideologically conservative youth activism organization that was founded in 1960, as a coalition between traditional conservatives and libertarians...
, the American Conservative Union
American Conservative Union
The American Conservative Union is an American political organization advocating conservative policies, and is the oldest such conservative lobbying organization in the country.-Organization:...
, the Committee for a Free China and the American Council for World Freedom.
Edwards has written biographies of Ronald Reagan
Ronald Reagan
Ronald Wilson Reagan was the 40th President of the United States , the 33rd Governor of California and, prior to that, a radio, film and television actor....
, William F. Buckley, Edwin Meese
Edwin Meese
Edwin "Ed" Meese, III is an attorney, law professor, and author who served in official capacities within the Ronald Reagan Gubernatorial Administration , the Reagan Presidential Transition Team , and the Reagan White House , eventually rising to hold the position of the 75th Attorney General of...
III and Goldwater, as well as a number of other books, which include The Conservative Revolution: The Movement That Remade America, The Power of Ideas, a retrospective on the first 25 years of the Heritage Foundation
Heritage Foundation
The Heritage Foundation is a conservative American think tank based in Washington, D.C. Heritage's stated mission is to "formulate and promote conservative public policies based on the principles of free enterprise, limited government, individual freedom, traditional American values, and a strong...
, and a history of the Intercollegiate Studies Institute
Intercollegiate Studies Institute
The Intercollegiate Studies Institute, Inc., or ', is a non-profit educational organization founded in 1953 as the Intercollegiate Society of Individualists...
.
He was the initial editor of the Conservative Digest in 1975, and has been a senior editor for The World & I. He has also written for major newspapers including The Boston Globe
The Boston Globe
The Boston Globe is an American daily newspaper based in Boston, Massachusetts. The Boston Globe has been owned by The New York Times Company since 1993...
, Detroit News, Los Angeles Times
Los Angeles Times
The Los Angeles Times is a daily newspaper published in Los Angeles, California, since 1881. It was the second-largest metropolitan newspaper in circulation in the United States in 2008 and the fourth most widely distributed newspaper in the country....
, The Wall Street Journal
The Wall Street Journal
The Wall Street Journal is an American English-language international daily newspaper. It is published in New York City by Dow Jones & Company, a division of News Corporation, along with the Asian and European editions of the Journal....
and The Washington Times
The Washington Times
The Washington Times is a daily broadsheet newspaper published in Washington, D.C., the capital of the United States. It was founded in 1982 by Unification Church founder Sun Myung Moon, and until 2010 was owned by News World Communications, an international media conglomerate associated with the...
, as well as magazines such as Crisis, National Review
National Review
National Review is a biweekly magazine founded by the late author William F. Buckley, Jr., in 1955 and based in New York City. It describes itself as "America's most widely read and influential magazine and web site for conservative news, commentary, and opinion."Although the print version of the...
, Policy Review
Policy Review
Policy Review is one of America's leading conservative journals. It was founded by the Heritage Foundation and was for many years the foundation's flagship publication. In 2001, the publication was acquired by the Stanford University-based Hoover Institution, though it maintains its office on...
and Reader's Digest
Reader's Digest
Reader's Digest is a general interest family magazine, published ten times annually. Formerly based in Chappaqua, New York, its headquarters is now in New York City. It was founded in 1922, by DeWitt Wallace and Lila Bell Wallace...
. He is a frequent commentator on television and radio and has appeared on Fox News Channel
Fox News Channel
Fox News Channel , often called Fox News, is a cable and satellite television news channel owned by the Fox Entertainment Group, a subsidiary of News Corporation...
's The O'Reilly Factor
The O'Reilly Factor
The O'Reilly Factor, originally titled The O'Reilly Report from 1996 to 1998 and often called The Factor, is an American talk show on the Fox News Channel hosted by commentator Bill O'Reilly, who often discusses current controversial political issues with guests.The program was the most watched...
and Fox and Friends, PBS' The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer
The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer
PBS NewsHour is an evening television news program broadcast weeknights on the Public Broadcasting Service in the United States. The show is produced by MacNeil/Lehrer Productions, a company co-owned by former anchors Jim Lehrer and Robert MacNeil, and Liberty Media, which owns a 65% stake in the...
, C-SPAN
C-SPAN
C-SPAN , an acronym for Cable-Satellite Public Affairs Network, is an American cable television network that offers coverage of federal government proceedings and other public affairs programming via its three television channels , one radio station and a group of websites that provide streaming...
's Booknotes
Booknotes
Booknotes is an American television series on the C-SPAN network hosted by Brian Lamb, which originally aired from 1989 to 2004. The format of the show is a one-hour, one-on-one interview with a non-fiction author. The series was broadcast at 8 p.m. Eastern Time each Sunday night, and was the...
and Washington Journal
Washington Journal
Washington Journal is an American television series on the C-SPAN network in the format of a political call-in and interview program. The program features elected officials, government administrators and journalists as guests, answering questions from the hosts and from members of the general...
and NPR
NPR
NPR, formerly National Public Radio, is a privately and publicly funded non-profit membership media organization that serves as a national syndicator to a network of 900 public radio stations in the United States. NPR was created in 1970, following congressional passage of the Public Broadcasting...
's The Diane Rehm Show
The Diane Rehm Show
The Diane Rehm Show is a National Public Radio call-in show based in the United States. In October, 2007, The Diane Rehm Show was named to Audience Research Analysis’ list of the top ten most powerful national programs in public radio – the only talk show on the list...
. He has lectured in nearly 20 nations on various aspects of American and world politics.
Edwards was the founding director of the Institute on Political Journalism at Georgetown University
Georgetown University
Georgetown University is a private, Jesuit, research university whose main campus is in the Georgetown neighborhood of Washington, D.C. Founded in 1789, it is the oldest Catholic university in the United States...
and a fellow at the Institute of Politics at the John F. Kennedy School of Government
John F. Kennedy School of Government
The John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University is a public policy and public administration school, and one of Harvard's graduate and professional schools...
at Harvard University
Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...
. He is a past president of the Philadelphia Society and has been a media fellow at the Hoover Institution
Hoover Institution
The Hoover Institution on War, Revolution and Peace is a public policy think tank and library founded in 1919 by then future U.S. president, Herbert Hoover, an early alumnus of Stanford....
.
He is a distinguished fellow in conservative thought at the B. Kenneth Simon Center for American Studies at The Heritage Foundation
The Heritage Foundation
The Heritage Foundation is a conservative American think tank based in Washington, D.C. Heritage's stated mission is to "formulate and promote conservative public policies based on the principles of free enterprise, limited government, individual freedom, traditional American values, and a strong...
, and , holds the title of adjunct professor of politics at the Catholic University of America and at the Institute of World Politics. In addition, he is chairman of the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation
Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation
The Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation is a non-profit educational organization in the United States, established as a result of an Act of Congress in 1993 with the purpose to commemorate "the deaths of over 100,000,000 victims in an unprecedented imperial communist holocaust"...
, an organization dedicated to the creation of an international memorial in Washington
Victims of Communism Memorial
The Victims of Communism Memorial is a memorial in Washington, D.C. located at the intersection of Massachusetts and New Jersey Avenues and G Street, NW, two blocks from Union Station and within view of the U.S. Capitol...
to the victims of communism
Communism
Communism is a social, political and economic ideology that aims at the establishment of a classless, moneyless, revolutionary and stateless socialist society structured upon common ownership of the means of production...
across history and the online Global Museum on Communism.
Honors he has been awarded include the Millennium Star of Lithuania, the Cross of Terra Mariana of Estonia, the Friendship Medal of Diplomacy from the Republic of China (Taiwan), the John Ashbrook
John M. Ashbrook
John Milan Ashbrook was an American politician of the Republican Party who served in the United States House of Representatives from Ohio from 1961 until his death. His father was William A. Ashbrook, a newspaper editor, businessman, and U.S...
Award, the Reed Irvine
Reed Irvine
Reed Irvine was an economist who founded the media watchdog organization Accuracy in Media, and remained its head for 35 years....
Accuracy in Media
Accuracy in Media
Accuracy In Media is an American, non-profit news media watchdog founded in 1969 by economist Reed Irvine. AIM describes itself as "a non-profit, grassroots citizens watchdog of the news media that critiques botched and bungled news stories and sets the record straight on important issues that...
Award and the Walter Judd
Walter Judd
Walter Henry Judd was an American politician best known for his battle in Congress to define the conservative position on China as all-out support for the Nationalists under Chiang Kai-sheck and opposition to the Communists under Mao...
Freedom Award.
Personal
He and his wife, Anne, who assists him in all his writing, live in AlexandriaAlexandria
Alexandria is the second-largest city of Egypt, with a population of 4.1 million, extending about along the coast of the Mediterranean Sea in the north central part of the country; it is also the largest city lying directly on the Mediterranean coast. It is Egypt's largest seaport, serving...
, Virginia. They have two daughters and eight grandchildren.
External links
- The Lee Edwards papers at the Hoover Institution Archives.