Edwin Feulner, ‘Heritage Foundation’s George Washington,’ Dies at 83

Obituaries|Edwin Feulner, ‘Heritage Foundation’s George Washington,’ Dies at 83

Edwin J. Feulner Jr., a right-wing congressional aide who felt himself in the ideological “wilderness” in the 1970s, but who, as the co-founder of the Heritage Foundation and its leader for most of its existence, became one of the most influential figures of a resurgent conservative movement, died on Friday. He was 83.

The Heritage Foundation announced his death in a statement that did not specify where he died or the cause.

Mr. Feulner (pronounced FULL-ner) created Heritage with a friend, Paul Weyrich, in 1973. They wanted to go beyond informing public debate, as other think tanks did at the time, to influencing votes on legislation. Heritage would produce its work before big bills were introduced in Congress distill its findings into easily digestible blurbs, called “backgrounders,” for harried politicians and their aides.

Mr. Weyrich went on to found several other conservative groups. Mr. Feulner ran Heritage from 1977 until 2013, and he became interim head again for a brief period in 2017. Two years ago, during a 50th anniversary celebration at Mount Vernon, the organization’s current president, Kevin Roberts, called Mr. Feulner “the Heritage Foundation’s George Washington.”

As Mr. Feulner described it, the foundational principles of Heritage included “free enterprise, limited government, individual freedom, traditional values and a strong national defense,” The New York Times reported in 2018.

The group was in the news during the last presidential election, when Kamala Harris and other Democrats argued that a Heritage document called Project 2025 would become a shadow agenda for Donald Trump’s second term. Mr. Trump strenuously sought to disassociate himself from the nearly 900-page list of policies, which included doctrinaire right-wing positions on such politically delicate subjects as abortion.