Our team

Dr. Elizabeth Edwards Spalding
Chairman
Dr. Elizabeth Edwards Spalding is Chairman of the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation, Founding Director of the Victims of Communism Museum, and Senior Fellow at the Pepperdine University School of Public Policy. A frequent lecturer on U.S. foreign policy, the presidency, communism, and the Cold War, she is also a core faculty member in VOC’s National Seminar for Middle and High School Educators. Spalding is the author of The First Cold Warrior: Harry Truman, Containment, and the Remaking of Liberal Internationalism, the co-author of A Brief History of the Cold War, and currently at work on a history of world communism.

Ken
Pope
CEO
Ken Pope is the CEO at the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation. Previously he had a 34-year career in the U.S. Army, consulting industry and academia. While in uniform, he served in a variety of Armored, Special Operations and Russian Foreign Area Officer (FAO) assignments in Europe, the Middle East, and Central America. He commanded an Armored Cavalry Troop during the Persian Gulf War and later a Special Operations unit focused on Central America. He had over 12 years of operational fieldwork as an Army FAO with a focus on Russia and Eastern Europe, and security issues with a variety of assignments in Russia, Ukraine, Estonia, Azerbaijan, and Kosovo.
Thank you to the following authors, researchers:
Authors
Dr. Elizabeth Spalding
Ken Pope
Birch Smith
Bo Verdin
Peer Authors and Contributors
Dr. Elizabeth Spalding, Dr. Marek Chodakiewicz, Dr. Jonathan Brent, Dr. Flagg Taylor, Dr. Gregory McBrayer, Dr. Lee Edwards, Steve Mosher, Titus Techera, Dr. Martin Nekola, Dr. Stanley Payne, Dr. Naya Lekht, Dr. Thomas Metallo, Dr. Virgil Nemoianu, and Dr. Mary Prentice.
Research and Writing Contributors
Brendan Knoflichek, Agnes Tycner, Dr. Chelsea Mikta, Elena Naborowski, Eliseo Nesci, Megan Henderson, Will Kielm, Julianna Rylko, Paige Brasington, Zilala Mamat, Ana Leca Perez, Lily McHale, Michal Harmata, Oscar Hernandez, and Emily Johnson
High School Review
Birch Smith, Catherine O’Connor, and Zilala Mamat
Editing