Proclamation 3793—Captive Nations Week, 1967

Whereas the joint resolution approved July 17, 1959 (73 Stat. 212), authorizes and requests the President of the United States of America to issue a proclamation each year designating the third week in July as "Captive Nations Week" until such time as freedom and independence shall have been achieved for all the captive nations of the world; and

Whereas freedom and justice are basic human rights to which all men are entitled; and

Whereas the independence of peoples requires their exercise of the elemental right of free choice; and

Whereas these inalienable rights have been circumscribed or denied in many areas of the world; and

Whereas the United States of America, from its founding as a nation has had an abiding commitment to the principles of national independence and human freedom:

Now, Therefore, I, Lyndon B. Johnson, President of the United States of America, do hereby designate the week beginning July 16, 1967 as Captive Nations Week.

I invite the people of the United States of America to observe this week with appropriate ceremonies and activities, and I urge them to give renewed devotion to the just aspirations of all peoples for national independence and human liberty.

In Witness Whereof, I have hereunto set my hand this twelfth day of July in the year of our Lord nineteen hundred and sixty-seven, and of the Independence of the United States of America the one hundred and ninety-second.

LYNDON B. JOHNSON