Young Americans for Freedom

In September 1960, several young activists met at William F. Buckley, Jr.'s Sharon, Connecticut, estate to form a national youth movement based on conservative principles. Emerging from that conference, Young Americans for Freedom (YAF) embodied the new conservatism that had materialized after World War II. Whereas old conservatism—symbolized by Ohio Senator Robert Taft—embraced economic conservatism and international isolationism, new conservatives—led by conservative journalists at Human Events and National Review—fused economic libertarianism, social traditionalism, and active anti-communism into a new movement.

YAF chapters quickly sprouted on college campuses across the nation, joining the national Republican debate over a liberal or conservative identity on the side of conservative Barry Goldwater. The organization proved instrumental in drafting Goldwater over Nelson Rockefeller as the 1964 Republican presidential candidate. YAF also helped Ronald Reagan—who joined the YAF National Advisory Board in 1962—gather support among American conservatives.

Goldwater overwhelmingly lost the 1964 election, but the process inspired YAF chapters to mobilize on other national issues. In 1965, for example, chapters began their Stop Red Trade program to discourage American companies from conducting trade with the Soviet Bloc. That same year, as anti-war protests and civil rights activism spread across American campuses, YAF took up the conservative mantle in response to groups like the Students for a Democratic Society (ironically, many consider Students for a Democratic Society's Port Huron Statement an unofficial response to YAF's Sharon Statement). Support rallies for Vietnam Veterans failed to prevent internal division, however, and by 1969 several members split from YAF and went on to form the Libertarian Party.

As members of YAF grew older, their interests shifted from campus politics to national and global issues. In the early 1970s, YAF became one of the first conservative groups to criticize the Nixon administration for its abandonment of conservative fiscal principles. In 1974, YAF collaborated with the American Conservative Union to sponsor the Conservative Political Action Conference, an annual event that would develop into one of the largest meetings of conservatives in America. Finally, in 1976, YAF threw its support behind Ronald Reagan in his run for the Republican presidential nomination. The organization's efforts would be rewarded 4 years later when Reagan became the 40th president of the United States.

While for many the early 1980s seemed the organization's heyday, by 1985 the organization found itself mired in financial scandal and organizational infighting. New leadership proved unable to manage the group profitably, and when anti-war sentiment pushed the organization to oppose George H. W. Bush's Iraq War, YAF membership declined precipitously.

In the last decade of the 20th century, YAF struggled to regain its former impact and cohesiveness. Focusing on advocacy politics, the YAF organized support rallies for Oliver North and Dan Quayle and [Page 1504]protest drives against Janet Reno, Anita Hill, and homosexual rights.

As the organization entered the 21st century, the annual Conservative Political Action Conferences provided YAF with a new generation of aspiring conservative activists and politicians. Nonetheless, YAF's most important legacy remains its first two decades of activism, when young loyalists drew countless college students into the new conservative coalition, a movement that had its fruition in the Reagan revolution of the 1980s.

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