Edwin J. Feulner, founder and longest-serving president of the Heritage Foundation, died yesterday at 83. He is survived by his wife, Linda, and their two children.

Feulner founded Heritage in 1973 alongside Paul Weyrich and Joseph Coors. Since his passing, Republican politicians and conservative institutions have remembered him as a courageous and wise defender of truth.

“Sir Isaac Newton said, ‘If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.’ As a young Capitol Hill staffer, I learned what it meant to be a conservative by seeing the example set by End Feulner and the team of people he assembled at the Heritage Foundation,” National Review CEO Chuck DeFeo said. “It wasn’t just his commitment to principle, but the vision, leadership, and integrity that came forth so clearly, leaving a strong impression.”

“As a movement, we see further and have accomplished so much by standing on his shoulders. We are forever grateful. Onward — always.”

Feulner served for 37 years as Heritage’s president before he moved into an advisory role.

“His unwavering love of country and his determination to safeguard the principles that made America the freest, most prosperous nation in human history shaped every fiber of the conservative movement—and still do,” Heritage President Kevin Roberts said. “Whether he was bringing together the various corners of the conservative movement at meetings of the Philadelphia Society, or launching what is now the Heritage Strategy Forum, Ed championed a bold, ‘big-tent conservatism.'”

“He believed in addition, not subtraction,” Roberts continued. “Unity, not uniformity. One of his favorite mantras was ‘You win through multiplication and addition, not through division and subtraction.’ His legacy is not just the institution he built, but the movement he helped grow—a movement rooted in faith, family, freedom, and the founding.”

A former aide to Representative Melvin Laird (R., Wis.) and chief of staff to Representative Philip Crane (R., Ill.), Feulner would see his influence reverberate through the halls of Congress and the White House. Most recently, Feulner helped organize and co-write Project 2025, the Heritage Foundation’s policy recommendations for President Donald Trump’s second term.

The longtime conservative thinker was also a member of Trump’s transition team during the president’s first term.

“In the passing of Dr. Ed Feulner, the conservative movement has lost one of its true giants, and I have lost a mentor and cherished friend,” former Vice President Mike Pence said. “Ed Feulner was many things: scholar, strategist, counselor to presidents, but above all, he was a great man and an American statesman who devoted his life to the defense of our Nation’s first principles and he will be deeply missed.”

“Ed Feulner believed that this nation was not only exceptional, but good — and that her future would rise or fall on our fidelity to timeless truths,” Pence added. “In an age of cynicism, Ed reminded us that one man with courage and conviction can still shape the course of human history … just as he did.”