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Ed Feulner Has Died

English Pages, 22. 7. 2025

On Friday, July 18, one of the most prominent American conservatives, Ed Feulner, founder and for decades president of the famous Heritage Foundation, passed away at the age of 83.

It is a tremendous loss. No one was such a steadfast, resolute, and persuasive American Republican and conservative, a champion of individual liberty and a defender of the free market, like him. He was close to every Republican president – from Nixon and Ford, through Reagan and both Bushes, to Trump. He was a staunch Republican and conservative, but he never became a neocon.

In 1989, he was among those who understood the significance of what had happened in our country and who knew that the countries of Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union needed support – support through ideas, not foreign aid. He even established a branch of the Heritage Foundation in Moscow. He knew how to be influential.

He visited the Czech Republic several times. He co-organized the Mont Pelerin Society meeting in Prague in September 2012, and on that occasion, I awarded him the Presidential Plaque at Prague Castle. At the time, I held the view that awards given on October 28th were primarily a domestic affair – that this is our national holiday and that foreigners should not be decorated on this day. I still regret not awarding him a state decoration. What influenced my thinking were the awards given during the communist era to various questionable figures from abroad, as well as Masaryk’s award to Mussolini. I did not want to please anyone. But in the case of Feulner, I truly regret it.

He wrote relatively simple and short, yet very concise texts – the kind one might say should be “carved in stone.” I often quoted them. He never deviated from his Republican and conservative convictions. He was among those who made it possible for me, already in 1990, to become the first person “from the East” to join the Mont Pelerin Society. I also knew his wife Linda well, who often accompanied him on his trips abroad.

There will be a great void after Ed Feulner. There already is. His Heritage Foundation is no longer what it was during his 37 years of leadership of that vast institution. And I’m not even speaking of America itself, which he always symbolized for me.

Václav Klaus, July 21, 2025