symposium & Lectures

11:00 a.m.       We Were There!

October 1956 Eyewitness Accounts and Recollections.  Hear the stories first-hand from freedom fighters and others who were actually in Hungary at the time.  Hear what they did, what they saw, and how they fled and found refuge in the United States.

Session Chair: 
Steven I. Reger, Ph.D.
1956 Eyewitness; Cleveland Clinic Research Scientist today

Panelists:        
Jim Balogh       
1956 Freedom Fighter; Engineer & Founder, Mar-Bal Inc.                                     
Peter Hargitai  
1956 Eyewitness; Author & Poet
Professor of Literature, Florida International University

Paul Hollander 
1956 Eyewitness; Author,
Professor Emeritus University of Massachusetts
Associate, Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies

John Szucs 
1956 Eyewitness; National City Bank Officer, Retired

1:30 p.m.         1956:  International Perspective & Decision Making

Panelists will explore and discuss national and international policies and related topics.  Find out who knew what and when; who acted, who didn’t, and why.  What were the U.S., Soviet and U.N. positions?  What was the “Cold War” and how did the Revolution fit into this policy? What role did Poland, Yugoslavia, Romania and other countries play? 

Session Chair: 
John Fund        
Journalist, The Wall Street Journal

Panelists:        
Marek Jan Chodakiewicz, Ph.D.                       
Author & Lecturer
Professor of History & Academic Dean, Institute of World Politics 

Lee Edwards, Ph.D.
Author, Lecturer and Professor, & Distinguished Fellow, Heritage Foundation

Honorable August Pust 
Former U.S. Commissioner for Preservation of America’s Heritage Abroad
Director Emeritus, Ohio Governor’s Office of Multicultural Affairs/International Relations.

2:45 p.m.         Historical Perspectives - Lessons Learned

Panelists will reflect on the political, social and economic lessons of the ’56 Revolution.   Was the blood bath worth it?  If Hungary was the “first domino,” who were the secondary dominos?” Did the Revolution herald policy changes?   What implications does the Revolution have for communism today? In China, North Korea, Cuba and other Latin American countries?  What was “Goulash Communism?” Are there universal lessons for all freedom loving people?
 

Session Chair:
Peter W. Schramm, Ph.D.
Executive Director, Ashbrook Center for Public Affairs and Professor of Political Science, Ashland University

Panelists:  
Andrew Gross, Ph.D.   
Professor, Marketing & International Business, Cleveland State University

Paul Hollander, Ph.D.   
Author, Professor Emeritus Univ. of Massachusetts
Associate, Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies

Andrew Ludanyi, Ph.D.
Professor of Political Science, Ohio Northern University

Laura Y. Tartakoff, J.D.           
Adjunct Associate Professor of Political Science, Case Western Reserve University