Ed Crane, Who Built a Libertarian Stronghold, Dies at 81

Edward H. Crane, who built the Cato Institute into the nation’s pre-eminent libertarian think tank and led it for 35 years, died on Feb. 10 at his home in Falls Church, Va. He was 81. The cause was heart failure, his wife, Kristina Crane, said. Mr. Crane helped found the national Libertarian Party in 1972 and opened Cato five years later in a San Francisco storefront with $500,000 in start-up money from Charles Koch.

A third founder, Murray Rothbard, proposed the name. The organization moved to Washington, grew rapidly and, beginning in 1993, occupied its own six-story building near the White House. Colleagues credited him with recruiting scholars, raising money and guiding libertarianism from a fringe movement into wider respectability; The Washington Post in 2002 called him “the lion king of button-down libertarianism.” Under Mr.

United States, Falls Church, Virginia

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