Conservative icon who helped shape the political movement from the time of Barry Goldwater's presidential campaign in the early 1960s to Ronald Reagan's election in 1980. Most famous for drafting the Sharon Statement in 1960 on behalf of Young Americans for Freedom. As a 26-year-old protégé of National Review editor William F. Buckley Jr., he enunciated the central ideas of moral conservatism, which preach political and economic liberty, a limited government and the defeat of communism.