Democrats, liberals and moderate Republicans believed they had much to celebrate in November 1964. The new conservative movement that had begun in the '50s and actually managed to nominate a candidate for president that year had been vanquished. Barry Goldwater hadn't just been defeated; he'd been crushed and most of the day's pundits were convinced that in crushing him the new political movement was dead.

They were wrong, of course, for out of the ashes of the 1964 defeat rose a stronger and more realistic movement that consolidated its hold on one of the nation's major parties and began searching for a new political champion.

Even as the old establishment celebrated the demise of these fractious upstarts, they were laying the groundwork for a political and intellectual movement that would change the course of history.

The survivors of the Goldwater movement emerged from the wreckage and began the task of rebuilding. Men and women like Frank Meyer, John Chamberlain, John Ashbrook, Katherine St. George and Bill Buckley weren't about to go away quietly as Lyndon Johnson began building his "Great Society." Five days after the election, they met and launched a new organization they named the "American Conservative Union."

They chose the name because, as one of them said at the time, it had "the ring of permanence." On Dec. 18, the ACU's first board of directors met, adopted a statement of principles that remains virtually unchanged today, and elected Rep. Don Bruce of Indiana as the group's first chairman.

This year, the ACU turns 40, boasts nearly 1 million members and has played an important role in every conservative battle over the past four decades. The movement of which the ACU is a part and that so many wrote off in 1964 has enjoyed astonishing success.

Scores of conservative intellectual and political organizations have been launched and flourish today. The conservatives who nominated Barry Goldwater in 1964 and discovered Ronald Reagan later that same year transformed the Republican Party and turned what was then dismissed by many as a fringe into the dominant U.S. political movement of the last half-century.

I was a student at the University of Wisconsin in 1964. Like many of my generation, I was addicted to National Review and Human Events, read F.A. Hayek, Russell Kirk and Milton Friedman and would have done anything for Barry Goldwater. I dropped out that fall to work for Goldwater, met the men and women who built the modern movement and who became lifetime allies and friends. I looked to them then and to the ACU for leadership, inspiration and organizational assistance in the battles we all knew loomed ahead.

It has been quite a ride. Over four tumultuous decades, ACU under the leadership of giants like Don Bruce, John Ashbrook, Stan Evans and Phil Crane has been at the center of the political storms that defined an era and has emerged as the umbrella organization of the movement welcoming traditional, economic, social and libertarian conservatives fighting for a common cause.

For 33 years, ACU has published its annual Rating of Congress, the widely recognized gold standard ideological assessment of Congress. And ACU's annual Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) has grown in 30 years from a mere handful of faithful activists to one of the nation's largest gatherings of grass-roots conservatives.

This year CPAC attracted almost 4,000 activists and has become the conservative movement's yearly family reunion.

ACU has been involved in the pivotal events in the history of the conservative movement. It was at CPAC in 1975 that Ronald Reagan issued his ringing call for a conservative philosophy of bold colors. When Mr. Reagan's primary challenge to President Ford faltered a year later, ACU mounted one of the first independent expenditure efforts and helped deliver a stunning victory in North Carolina. Had ACU not been there for Mr. Reagan then, there might not have been a Reagan candidacy in 1980, nor a Reagan Revolution.

ACU's other notable battles include a valiant if losing fight to stop Jimmy Carter's giveaway of the Panama Canal. ACU worked to pass the historic Reagan tax cuts in 1981 and George W. Bush's tax-cutting plan 20 years later. ACU led the fight in the early 1990s to stop Bill and Hillary Clinton's "ClintonCare" effort to socialize American medicine.

Over the years, ACU has stood firm and uncompromising for its principles. When principle has demanded it, ACU has broken with the Republican Party, for while most conservatives and ACU members count themselves as Republicans, they are unwilling to sacrifice principle for party. Thus, ACU opposed Richard Nixon's Family Assistance Plan, Republican tax increases,and George H. W. Bush's decision to scrap his no-new-taxes pledge.

At the same time, ACU has from the beginning recognized the pressures on elected officials and has worked with presidents, senators and members of Congress wherever and whenever their goals and programs are consistent with the values on which our organization was founded.

On May 13, 2004, ACU will mark 40 years of conservative leadership with a gala black-tie banquet at Washington's J.W. Marriott Hotel. President Bush has been invited to deliver the keynote address on this milestone occasion.

Get your tickets for ACU's 40th Anniversary Gala today!

Mr. Bush was invited because he stands in the direct line of succession from Barry Goldwater and Ronald Reagan. Today, the American Conservative Union stands poised to carry forward the conservative message of smaller and less-intrusive government, individual freedom, free-market economics, strong national defense, and traditional moral values.