Proclamation 3995—Captive Nations Week, 1970

The Eighty-Sixth Congress on July 17, 1959, by Joint Resolution authorized and requested the President to proclaim the third week of July in each year as Captive Nations Week. The aspirations of the peoples of oppressed nations for independence and basic human freedoms are vital and inextinguishable. It is in keeping with our own principles and traditions as a free and independent nation that we should look with sympathy and understanding upon their hopes and efforts to realize these just goals.

Now, Therefore, I, Richard Nixon, President of the United States of America, do hereby designate the week beginning July 12, 1970, as Captive Nations Week.

I call upon the people of the United States to observe this week with appropriate ceremonies and activities, and I urge them to renew their dedication to the cause of freedom and independence for all nations and to sustain these high ideals, which are both the precious heritage of this Republic and a foundation stone of lasting world peace.

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

RICHARD NIXON