Before the unveiling of the Taras Shevchenko monument in Washington that took place on June 27, 1964, journalist Philip Love of the North American Newspaper Alliance had his commentary on the matter published in The Ukrainian Weekly’s June 20, 1964 issue.
Mr. Love noted the propaganda war raging over the Shevchenko legacy, with Moscow claiming that Shevchenko was a Communist before his time, some Americans seeing Shevchenko as a nationalistic reactionary, and Ukrainians viewing him as a national hero, poet and freedom fighter.
Mr. Love stated: “It’s a confused and confusing age we’re living in. Alice could come back Through the Looking Glass and – unless somebody like the walrus should tell her – never know that she’d left Wonderland. What we know to be dictatorship, Communists describe as ‘democracy.’ When Reds take over a country they say they are ‘liberating’ it, and any nation that opposes them is an ‘aggressor.’ [Soviet military intimidation dictates that] any other country that tries to remain strong enough to defend itself is ‘militaristic.’ Any nation that refuses to give the Communists their way is ‘imperialistic’ and protection of a country they covet is ‘colonialism.’”
Quoting President John F. Kennedy after his meeting with Soviet Premier Nikita Krushchev in Vienna, Mr. Love wrote: “The facts of the matter are that the Soviets and ourselves give wholly different meanings to the same words: war, peace, democracy and popular will. We have wholly different views of right and wrong.”
Mr. Love continued, “To the Free World, Shevchenko was a leader in the struggle for human liberty against all forms of tyranny and sought national Ukrainian independence from Russian despotism.”
Source: “American journalist on Shevchenko” by Philip Love (North American Newspaper Alliance), The Ukrainian Weekly, June 20, 1964.