EVENT MARCH 7th – CHURCHILL AND REAGAN: STATESMEN OF THE COLD WAR

On March 7th the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation commemorated the speeches of two giants of Western leadership: Prime Minister Winston Churchill of the United Kingdom and President Ronald Reagan of the United States. Winston Churchill’s famed “Iron Curtain” speech on March 5th, 1946, in Fulton, Missouri, officially titled “The Sinews of Peace,” ushered in the Cold War and made the term a household phrase. Ronald Reagan’s “Evil Empire” speech on March 8th, 1983, in Orlando, Florida at the height of the Cold War identified the Soviet Union as “the focus of evil in the modern world.” The event explored how the path laid by Winston Churchill and preserved by Ronald Reagan was crucial to the ultimate demise of the USSR.

Dr. Lee Edwards, Reagan biographer and co-founder of the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation will provide opening remarks followed by a keynote speech from Dr. Steven Hayward.

Panel 1, “Wooing a Crocodile,” will dissect Winston Churchill’s opposition to communism from the First World War to the Second World War, “The Sinews of Peace” speech in Fulton, Missouri, and how his framing of the Cold War and his views on communism impacted western leaders after his death.

Panel 2, “Ronald Reagan’s Impact on Ending the Cold War,” will focus on the key events of the Reagan administration and the paradigm shift in foreign policy that ultimately led to the demise of the Soviet Union.

SPEAKERS

Ted R. Bromund studies and writes on Anglo-American relations, U.S. and British relations with Europe and the European Union, America’s leadership role in the world, and international organizations and treaties, with a particular focus on Interpol, as Senior Research Fellow in The Heritage Foundation’s Margaret Thatcher Center for Freedom. Bromund, who joined Heritage in 2008, previously served nine years as Associate Director of International Security Studies at Yale University, a center dedicated to the study and teaching of diplomatic history and grand strategy. He received his doctorate in history in 1999 from Yale. He also holds two master’s degrees in history from Yale and a Bachelor of Arts degree from Iowa’s Grinnell College. His doctoral thesis on Britain’s first application to the European Economic Community won the Samuel H. Beer Dissertation Prize from the American Political Science Association’s British Politics Group. At Yale, he was a lecturer in History beginning in 1999, and in International Affairs for the Master of Arts program beginning in 2004. In Washington, D.C., he has served as an adjunct professor of Strategic Studies in the Strategic Studies Program at the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies. Bromund writes regularly for a wide range of publications, including scholarly journals. He was formerly a columnist for Newsday and Forbes, and, in Britain, the Yorkshire Post. He is a regular contributor to The Daily Signal, Heritage’s multimedia news organization.

Dr. Anthony Eames is the Director of Scholarly Initiatives for the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation and Institute and teaches at the Elliot School of International Affairs at George Washington University. He is also an affiliate scholar with the America in the World Consortium. Eames is the author of A Voice in Their Own Destiny: Reagan, Thatcher, and Public Diplomacy in the Nuclear 1980s (UMass, 2023) and co-author of Sharing Nuclear Secrets: Trust, Mistrust, and Ambiguity in Anglo-American Relations, 1939-Present (Oxford, 2023). His other work has appeared in Technology and Culture, Journal of Military History, War on the Rocks and several other journals. He earned his Ph.D. in history from Georgetown University and holds an MA from King’s College London. Eames is now working on a book on conservative environmentalism.

Dr. Lee Edwards is the Founding Chairman of the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation and recipient of the Foundation’s Truman-Reagan Medal of Freedom in 2022. For over twenty years he has been a Distinguished Fellow in Conservative Thought at the B. Kenneth Simon Center for American Studies at the Heritage Foundation, and an adjunct professor of politics at the Catholic University of America. Edwards is a leading historian of American conservatism and author or editor of over 25 books, including biographies of President Ronald Reagan, Senator Barry Goldwater, Attorney General Edwin Meese III, and William F. Buckley. Edwards holds a Ph.D. in world politics from Catholic University and a Doctor of Humane Letters from Grove City College. He did graduate work at the Sorbonne and holds a B.A. in English from Duke University. He was the founding director of the Institute of Political Journalism at Georgetown University and a fellow at the Institute of Politics at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University and has also served as President of the Philadelphia Society and been a media fellow at the Hoover Institution. His awards and honors include the Order of Merit of the Republic of Hungary, the Millennium Star of Lithuania, the Cross of Terra Mariana of Estonia, the Friendship Medal of Diplomacy from the Republic of China (Taiwan), the John Ashbrook Award, the Reed Irvine Accuracy in Media Award, Legend of YAF from Young America’s Foundation, and the Walter Judd Freedom Award. Edwards holds a Ph.D. in world politics from Catholic University and a Doctor of Humane Letters from Grove City College. He did graduate work at the Sorbonne and holds a B.A. in English from Duke University.

Steven Hayward is currently senior resident scholar at the Institute of Governmental Studies at UC Berkeley, and a visiting lecturer at Berkeley Law School. He was previously the Ronald Reagan Distinguished Visiting Professor at Pepperdine University’s Graduate School of Public Polic and was the inaugural visiting scholar in conservative thought and policy at the University of Colorado at Boulder in 2013-14. From 2002 to 2012 he was the F.K Weyerhaeuser Fellow in Law and Economics at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington D.C and has been senior fellow at the Pacific Research Institute in San Francisco since 1991. He writes frequently for the New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, National Review, the Weekly Standard, the Claremont Review of Books, and other publications. The author of six books including a two-volume chronicle of Reagan and his times entitled The Age of Reagan: The Fall of the Old Liberal Order, 1964-1980, and The Age of Reagan: The Conservative Counter-Revolution, 1980-1989, and the Almanac of Environmental Trends. His most recent book is Patriotism is Not Enough: Harry Jaffa, Walter Berns, and the Arguments That Redefined American Conservatism.

John Lenczowski served in the United States Department of State as Special Advisor to then Under Secretary for Political Affairs Lawrence Eagleburger. His highest priority was strengthening Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, so that it could overcome Soviet jamming and rapidly disseminate news of resistance to Soviet authority. Lenczowski succeeded in getting $2.5 billion authorized to modernize Voice of America and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. In 1981, he became part of the newly founded Active Measures Working Group, which aimed to counter Soviet disinformation campaigns. Lenczowski encouraged the group to take a more proactive role in countering disinformation. From 1983 to 1987, Lenczowski was Director of European and Soviet Affairs at the United States National Security Council. In that capacity, he served as principal Soviet affairs advisor to U.S. President Ronald Reagan. He was involved in developing many of the policies that helped prompt the collapse of the Soviet empire. One such policy came from a memo Lenczowski wrote to President Reagan outlining America’s strength and promoting military deterrence by better publicizing the truth and goals of communism and the Soviet Union.

James W. Muller is Professor Emeritus of Political Science at the University of Alaska, Anchorage, where he taught from 1983 to 2023, and Chairman of the Board of Academic Advisers of the International Churchill Society. Educated at Harvard University and the Ecole Normale Supérieure, Paris, he is a by-fellow of Churchill College, Cambridge. He was a White House Fellow in 1983–84 and an Academic Visitor at the London School of Economics and Political Science in 1988–89. Professor Muller is editor of The Revival of Constitutionalism (University of Nebraska Press, 1988), Churchill as Peacemaker (Cambridge University Press, 1997), Churchill’s “Iron Curtain” Speech Fifty Years Later (University of Missouri Press, 1999), of Churchill’s interwar books of essays, Thoughts and Adventures (ISI Books, 2009) and Great Contemporaries (ISI Books, 2012). His definitive edition of Churchill’s earlier book, The River War: An Historical Account of the Reconquest of the Soudan, 2 vols. (St. Augustine’s Press, 2020), won the 2021 Winston S. Churchill Literary Award of the International Churchill Society. He is at work on a new edition of Churchill’s autobiography, My Early Life: A Roving Commission. He lives in Anchorage with his wife Judith, a retired health administrator, and their daughter Helen, resident production stage manager of Anchorage Opera.

Justin Reash is the Executive Director of the International Churchill Society and the Director of the National Churchill Leadership Center at George Washington University. He oversees a dedicated international team that advances the understanding of the legacy of Sir Winston Churchill through research, scholarship, and programming. He holds a degree in History from Miami University and a graduate degree from DePaul University.

Timothy Riley has served as the Sandra L. and Monroe E. Trout Director and Chief Curator for America’s National Churchill Museum since 2016. During his tenure he has expanded the Museum’s collection, exhibitions, programs, publications and underscored the continued relevance of Winston Churchill’ legacy in today’s world. He received his baccalaureate degree from Lawrence University in Appleton, WI, before pursuing graduate study at Columbia University in New York City. He previously served at The Cloisters, a part of The Metropolitan Museum of Art. From 2006 to 2012 Mr. Riley served as director of The Trout Museum of Art in Appleton and was appointed Director Emeritus in 2012. Riley was inducted into the Association of Churchill Fellows of Westminster College in 2016.He has curated Churchill exhibitions throughout the United States including aboard the Queen Mary in Long Beach, CA; at the Society of Four Arts in Palm Beach, FL; Hillsdale College; and at Washington University in St. Louis. Vanity Fair called the latter exhibition “the most comprehensive collection of Churchill paintings ever to be presented.”He is an in-demand speaker on Winston Churchill and has been cited or interviewed by the Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, New York Times, Le Point, NPR, C-SPAN’s Washington Journal, and others.He recently contributed a chapter examining speeches by Winston Churchill and Mikhail Gorbachev in, The End of Cold War and its Aftermath, a book published by the Arthur D. Simons Center for Ethical Leadership Interagency Cooperation and published the Command and Staff College Foundation Press. He also is a contributing editor for Finest Hour, the journal of the International Churchill Society.He serves as an ex-officio member of the Board of Governors of the Association of Churchill Fellows of Westminster College and the Board of Directors for the International Churchill Society-United States.

Dr. Elizabeth Edwards Spalding is Chairman of the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation (VOC) and Founding Director of the Victims of Communism Museum. She has served as a VOC Trustee since 2018. As Founding Director, Dr. Spalding was instrumental in the establishment of the Victims of Communism Museum, overseeing the extensive research, writing, and execution of the entire project. A third-generation anticommunist, she has devoted her career to scholarship and education about the history and horrors of communism. Dr. Spalding teaches subjects ranging from U.S. foreign policy, national security, and international relations to the presidency, religion, and politics as Senior Fellow at the Pepperdine University School of Public Policy and Visiting Fellow at the Van Andel Graduate School of Government at Hillsdale College, and previously taught at Claremont McKenna College, George Mason University, and the Catholic University of America. A frequent public lecturer on numerous topics, especially communism and the Cold War, she is also a core faculty member in VOC’s National Seminar for Middle and High School Educators. She is the author of The First Cold Warrior: Harry Truman, Containment, and the Remaking of Liberal Internationalism and the co-author of A Brief History of the Cold War. Her scholarly and popular articles and reviews have been published widely, including in Journal of Church and State, Orbis, The Wilson Quarterly, Providence, The American Mind, Law & Liberty, H-Diplo, and Claremont Review of Books. Dr. Spalding holds a Ph.D. and an M.A. in international politics and political theory from the University of Virginia and a B.A. in politics from Hillsdale College. She lives with her family in Arlington, Virginia.