His Excellency Zygimantas Pavilionis, Ambassador of Lithuana, and the
Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation Invite You to Attend the
2010 TRUMAN-REAGAN MEDAL OF FREEDOM
2010 Medalla de la Libertad Truman - Reagan
AND EMBASSY RECEPTION
HONORING
ROBERT CONQUEST
HARRY WU
EMANUELIS ZINGERIS
at the
Embassy of Lithuania
2622 16th St. NW, Washington, DC 20009
Tuesday, November 9, 2010
6:30-8:30 PM
Truman -Reagan Medalla de la Libertad
Mr. George Robert Ackworth
George Robert Ackworth Conquest (born July 15, 1917) is a British historian who became a well-known writer and researcher on the Soviet Union with the publication in 1968 of The Great Terror, an account of Stalin's purges of the 1930s.
Robert Conquest was born in Malvern, Worcestershire, the son of an American businessman and a Norwegian mother. His father served in an ambulance unit with the French Army in World War I, being awarded the Croix de Guerre in 1916. Conquest was educated at Winchester College, the University of Grenoble, and Magdalen College, Oxford, where he was an exhibitioner in modern history and took his bachelor's and master's degrees in Philosophy, Politics and Economics, and his doctorate in Soviet history.
In 1937, after his year studying at the University of Grenoble and traveling in Bulgaria, Conquest returned to Oxford and joined the Communist Party. Fellow members included Denis Healey and Philip Toynbee.
When World War II broke out, Conquest joined the Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry and became an intelligence officer. In 1940, he married Joan Watkins, with whom he had two sons. In 1942, he was posted to the School of Slavonic and East European Studies, where he studied Bulgarian for four months.
In 1944, Conquest was posted to Bulgaria as a liaison officer to the Bulgarian forces fighting under Soviet command. There, he met Tatiana Mihailova, who later became his second wife. At the end of the war, he was transferred to the diplomatic service and became the press officer at the British embassy in Sofia, Bulgaria. He witnessed the gradual rise of Soviet communism in the country, becoming completely disillusioned with communist ideas in the process. He left Bulgaria in 1948, helping Tatiana escape the new regime. Back in London, he divorced his first wife and married Tatiana. This marriage later broke down when Tatiana was diagnosed with schizophrenia.
Conquest then joined the Foreign Office's Information Research Department (IRD), a unit created for the purpose of combating communist influence and actively promoting anti-communist ideas, by fostering relationships with journalists, trade unions and other organizations.[1] In 1956, Conquest left the IRD and became a freelance writer and historian. Some of his books were partly distributed through Praeger Press, a US company which published a number of books at the request of the CIA.In 1962-63, he was literary editor of The Spectator, but resigned when he found it interfered with his historical writing. His first books, Power and Politics in the USSR and Soviet Deportation of Nationalities, were published in 1960. His other early works on the Soviet Union included Soviet Nationalities Policy in Practice, Industrial Workers in the USSR, Justice and the Legal System in the USSR and Agricultural Workers in the USSR.
In addition to his scholarly work, Conquest was a major figure in a prominent literary movement in the UK known as "The Movement", which included Philip Larkin and Kingsley Amis. He also published a science fiction novel and the first of five anthologies of science fiction he co-edited with Amis.
The Great Terror
Mr. Harry Wu
Harry Wu (born 1937; Chinese: 吳弘達, Wu Hongda) is an activist for human rights in the People's Republic of China. Now a resident and citizen of the United States, Wu spent 19 years in Chinese labor camps. In 1992, he founded the Laogai Research Foundation, popularising the term laogai. In 1996 the Columbia Human Rights Law Review awarded Wu its second Award for Leadership in Human Rights.
Mr. Emanuelis Zingeris
Emanuelis Zingeris (born on July 16, 1957 in Kaunas, Lithuania) is a philologist, museum director, politician, and signatory of the 1990 Act of the Re-Establishment of the State of Lithuania.
]Bio
Zingeris graduated from Vilnius University in 1981 with a degree in philology. The topic of his post-graduate dissertation was the Jewish cultural heritage of Lithuania, a difficult subject at the time. He was a member of the pro-independence Sąjūdis movement and went on to serve in the Seimas (parliament) between 1990 and 2008 as Chairman of the Parliamentary Committee on Human Rights and as part of various interparliamentary relations groups.
Zingeris helped found the Vilna Gaon Jewish State Museum in Vilnius and has served as its director.
He is a founding signatory of the Prague Declaration on European Conscience and Communism
2010 Truman-Reagan Medal of Freedom Awards Reception
Date/time: TBD
Details:
In November of this year, the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation will be hosting the 2010 Truman-Reagan Medal of Freedom Awards Reception.
Past recipients of the award include such distinguished individuals as: Rep. Tom Lantos; Lech Walesa; Vaclav Havel; Elena Bonner; Pope John Paul II; William F. Buckley, Jr.; Sen. Henry "Scoop" Jackson, Sen. Jesse Helms and Sen. Joseph Lieberman; and most recently House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer and former Governor George Allen of Virginia.
2010 TRUMAN-REAGAN MEDAL OF FREEDOM
AND EMBASSY RECEPTION
HONORING
ROBERT CONQUEST
HARRY WU
EMANUELIS ZINGERIS
at the
Embassy of Lithuania
2622 16th St. NW, Washington, DC 20009
Tuesday, November 9, 2010
6:30-8:30 PM
~~~
Donations Will Benefit the Global Museum on Communism
INDIVIDUALS $100 / COUPLES $150
SUPPORTER $250
PATRON $1,000
BENEFACTOR $2,500
________________________________
Please RSVP by November 4, 2010 by calling 202-536-2373
e-mailing vocmemorial@aol.com
The Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation
1521 Sixteenth Street NW, Washington, DC 20036
www.victimsofcommunism.org
2010 TRUMAN-REAGAN MEDAL OF FREEDOM
AND EMBASSY RECEPTION
HONORING
ROBERT CONQUEST
HARRY WU
EMANUELIS ZINGERIS
at the
Embassy of Lithuania
2622 16th St. NW, Washington, DC 20009
Tuesday, November 9, 2010
6:30-8:30 PM
~~~
Donations Will Benefit the Global Museum on Communism
INDIVIDUALS $100 / COUPLES $150
SUPPORTER $250
PATRON $1,000
BENEFACTOR $2,500
________________________________
Please RSVP by November 4, 2010 by calling 202-536-2373
e-mailing vocmemorial@aol.com
The Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation
1521 Sixteenth Street NW, Washington, DC 20036
www.victimsofcommunism.org
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