This week's White House statement infuriates communists the most
Fox News
Captive Nations Week gives Americans the opportunity to reassert our determination to keep alive the hopes of freedom.
Dr. Lee Edwards is the founding chairman of the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation.
Eisenhower did not mince words, declaring that communism had created "a vast empire" that posed "a dire threat" to America’s security and all the free peoples of the world. The word "empire" anticipated President Ronald Reagan’s reference to the Soviets’ "evil empire" in a 1983 address.
Attesting to the bipartisan nature of the proclamation, President John F. Kennedy declared that "this country must never recognize the situation behind the Iron Curtain as a permanent one but must… keep alive the hopes of freedom of the peoples of the captive nations."