On November 9, 2004, Atlas celebrated World Freedom Day with our 1st Annual Freedom Dinner at the Fairmont Hotel in Washington, DC. By calling the event the Freedom Dinner and having it on the 15th Anniversary of the Fall of the Berlin Wall, Atlas pays tribute to the free society and those crucial actors and factors in fall of communism. Without the presence of individuals and underground networks in communist countries along with the external pressures from great leaders such as Reagan, Thatcher and the Pope, the Wall never would have come down. Many of those individuals and underground networks gave birth to the free market public policy institutes that exist in these countries today. The fall of the Berlin Wall not only put freedom in the hands of millions but also set forth the challenge of making it endure.
PROGRAM
* Welcome & Introduction of the Master of Ceremonies by Alejandro Chafuen
*Celebrating World Freedom Day by Foster Friess
*Toasts & Tributes (PDF)
* Standing Up to Freedom’s Enemies by Michael Novak
* A Special Message from the former President of Spain, José María Aznar
ABOUT THE SPEAKERS
José María Aznar served as President of the Spanish Government from 1996-2004, during which time Spain’s GDP grew by 64% and per capita income advanced from 78% to 87% of the European average. He enacted the first reductions in income tax since Spain became a democracy, and achieved a balanced budget in 2002. Under Aznar’s leadership, Spain was a stalwart ally of the United States in the War on Terrorism. Aznar is the president and founder of the Spanish think tank Fundación para el Analisis y los Estudios Sociales and the author of the recent Spanish best-seller, Ocho Años de Gobierno. He is also a Distinguished Scholar at Georgetown University, where he currently teaches various seminars on contemporary European politics at the Edmund A. Walsh School.
Alejandro Chafuen is the president and chief executive officer of the Atlas Economic Research Foundation, which works internationally to build independent think tanks that advance the principles of a free society. A naturalized U.S. citizen born in Argentina, Chafuen is the author of Faith and Liberty and other books. Among his many affiliations with market-oriented foundations, Chafuen serves as a trustee of the Acton Institute of Religion and Liberty, the Chase Foundation of Virginia, and the Hispanic American Center for Economic Research.
Foster Friess is the chairman of Friess Associates, whose flagship Brandywine Fund has appeared on Money magazine’s list of the “World’s Best Mutual Funds” every year since Money began compiling it six years ago. He is well-known for his philanthropic efforts, focusing principally on one-on-one mentoring and entrepreneurial, faith-based urban charities. He has received the Muhammad Ali Humanitarian Award; Hillsdale College’s Adam Smith Award; The Canterbury Medal from the Beckett Fund for Religious Liberty; and The Richard M. DeVos Free Enterprise Award for Exceptional Leadership from the Council for National Policy.
Michael Novak’s masterwork, The Spirit of Democratic Capitalism, has been called “one of those rare books that actually changed the world.” It was published underground in Poland in 1984 and has since been reprinted in many countries of Latin America, Europe, and China. His writings on philosophy and theology have earned him many awards, among them, the 1994 million-dollar Templeton Prize for Progress in Religion. Novak is currently the George Frederick Jewett Scholar in Religion, Philosophy, and Public Policy at the American Enterprise Institute.
John O’Sullivan served as Special Adviser to Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. He is currently the editor-in-chief of The National Interest and editor-at-large of National Review. One of O’Sullivan’s many institutional affiliations is as a member of the Executive Advisory Board of the Margaret Thatcher Foundation.
Richard Pipes is a Professor Emeritus at Harvard and the author of Communism: A History (2001). During his tenure on the Reagan administration’s National Security Council, he was a leading advocate of using economic and diplomatic pressure to crack the Soviet empire. He is credited with principal authorship of the pivotal “National Security Study Directive on U.S. Policy Toward the Soviet Union” in 1982.
Walter Williams has been a John M. Olin Distinguished Professor of Economics at George Mason University since 1980. He is one of the most recognized advocates for the ideas of liberty, thanks to his weekly columns, syndicated in approximately 140 newspapers and Web sites, and his appearances as substitute host on the Rush Limbaugh radio program. Dr. Williams serves on several boards of directors, including Grove City College, Reason Foundation and Hoover Institution. Stanislaw Wojtera is a leader of the conservative movement in Poland. At the age of 27 he is the youngest president of a political party in Europe. Five years ago he created a conservative youth association. He graduated in history and political science from the Warsaw University, later he studied at the Complutense University of Madrid. Now he currently serves as a city councilor in Warsaw.
CELEBRATING WORLD FREEDOM DAY ABROADThe Fraser Institute (Canada) — ‘The Fall of the Berlin Wall: Saluting 15 Years of Freedom’
Transatlantic Institute (UK) — ‘World Freedom Day, London UK Commemoration’, ‘Czechs and Slovaks Mark Uprising’
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