# Sharon Conference (September 11, 1960) On **September 11, 1960**, approximately 90 young conservatives gathered at the Sharon, Connecticut, estate of [[William F. Buckley Jr.]]'s family to found **[[Young Americans for Freedom]] (YAF)** and adopt the **[[Sharon Statement]]** — a concise declaration of conservative principles that served as the **founding charter of the organized conservative youth movement** and the template for fusionist ideology: the coalition of free-market economics, anti-communism, and traditional values that would define the American right for the next half-century. The Sharon Conference matters for the KB because it is the **organizational origin of the conservative movement as a self-conscious political project**. While *National Review* (1955) provided the intellectual framework and the Goldwater campaign (1964) provided the electoral vehicle, the Sharon Conference created the **institutional infrastructure** — YAF became the farm team that produced the movement's future leaders, operatives, and donors. The conference's attendees and their ideological descendants built the organizations (Heritage Foundation, [[Federalist Society]], CPAC) that still dominate the American right. ## What Happened ### The Sharon Statement The statement, drafted primarily by M. Stanton Evans (a 26-year-old editor of the *Indianapolis News* and Buckley protégé), declared in under 400 words: - The **individual's liberty** derives from God and is the highest political value - **Limited government** and the Constitution's original intent must constrain state power - **Free market economics** is the system most compatible with freedom - **Communism** is the greatest threat to liberty and must be defeated, not contained - **International communism** must be opposed by victory, not coexistence The statement's significance was its **fusionism**: it welded together libertarian economics, Cold War hawkishness, and traditional moral values into a single coherent platform — the formula that [[Movement Conservatism]] would ride from Goldwater through Reagan to Gingrich. ### Who Was There The ~90 attendees constituted a who's who of the emerging conservative movement: - **M. Stanton Evans** — Primary drafter of the Sharon Statement - **Lee Edwards** — Conservative historian and Heritage Foundation co-founder - **[[Howard Phillips]]** — Later founded the Conservative Caucus - **David Franke** — Early [[New Right]] organizer - **Robert Schuchman** — YAF's first chairman Buckley himself served as host and godfather. The conference was organized with significant input from Marvin Liebman, a conservative publicist and organizer. ## YAF's Impact ### The Conservative Farm Team YAF grew to an estimated 50,000–100,000 members during the 1960s and served as the training ground for the conservative movement's next generation: - Recruited and trained activists who staffed the Goldwater campaign (1964) - Provided organizational infrastructure for campus conservatism during the 1960s counterculture - Developed direct-mail fundraising techniques (with [[Richard Viguerie]]) that would become the conservative movement's financial backbone - Produced operatives who later built the Heritage Foundation, the [[Moral Majority]], and the Reagan campaign apparatus ### The Goldwater Pipeline YAF's most immediate impact was on the 1964 Goldwater campaign. The organization provided volunteer infrastructure, campus energy, and ideological commitment that helped Goldwater win the Republican nomination despite the party establishment's opposition. The Goldwater campaign was, in significant part, a YAF operation. ### The 1969 Split YAF's annual convention in St. Louis (1969) produced a dramatic split between **traditionalists** (anti-communist, socially conservative) and **libertarians** (anti-draft, pro-individual freedom). The libertarians walked out and many eventually formed the Libertarian Party (1971). This split prefigured the tension within the conservative coalition that persists today — between social conservatives and libertarians, between national security hawks and non-interventionists. ## The Through-Line The Sharon Conference is the organizational bridge between Buckley's intellectual movement and the institutional conservative apparatus: | Stage | Milestone | Function | |-------|-----------|----------| | Intellectual foundation | *National Review* (1955) | Define what conservatism is | | Organizational infrastructure | **Sharon Conference / YAF (1960)** | **Build the activist base** | | Electoral vehicle | Goldwater nomination (1964) | Test the formula at the ballot box | | Think tank layer | Heritage Foundation (1973) | Produce policy | | Legal infrastructure | Federalist Society (1982) | Capture the courts | | Media ecosystem | Talk radio (1988) → [[Fox News]] (1996) | Control the narrative | | Governing coalition | Reagan (1980) → Trump (2016) | Exercise power | ## See Also - [[William F. Buckley Jr.]] — Host and godfather of the conference - [[National Review]] — The intellectual organ that preceded YAF - [[Movement Conservatism]] — The coalition the Sharon Statement codified - [[Heritage Foundation]] — The think tank that Sharon Conference alumni helped build