of 140,000 Polish displaced persons, war victims and veterans of the Polish armed forces in Western Europe to settle permanently in the US. 1949: The PAC backs the creation of Radio Free Europe as a voice of truth to the peoples of communist-enslaved Eastern Europe. 1952: A special committee of the US Congress strongly endorsed by the PAC investigates the murder of more than 14,000 Polish Army officers at the beginning of World War II by the Soviet Union. 1957: Following the collapse of the Stalinist regime in Poland in 1956 and its replacement by a new, seemingly-reforming communist regime headed by Wladyslaw Gomulka, the PAC backs a US government foreign aid initiative aimed at weaning Gomulka away from Moscow's authority. Immigration to the US is renewed, enabling thousands of Polish families to be reunited in this country. 1960: Eisenhower is the first US President to speak at a meeting of the Polish American Congress when he addresses its fifth convention in Chicago. Senator John Kennedy, the Democratic Party's presidential nominee, also speaks to the assembly. In later years, Presidents Johnson, Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush, and Clinton will all address the Polish American Congress or its leaders on issues pertaining to ita concerns. 1964: The PAC endorses President Lyndon Johnson's policy of "Building Bridges" to "peacefully engage" the peoples of Eastern Europe and to encourage the democratization and independence of the entire region from Soviet domination. 1969: The first formal dialogues between the PAC and leaders of the American Jewish community begin in an effort to create new understanding and communication between two peoples who lived together in Poland for seven centuries until the Nazi occupation, devastation of Poland, and ruthless annihilation of the Jewish people. 1975: The PAC endorses President Gerald Ford’s signing of the international treaty on security and cooperation in Europe in Helsinki, Finland. Among other things, the Helsinki Accords legitimize a set of human rights for the people living under communist rule in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. 1980: The forming of the Solidarity Trade Union Movement in Gdansk in August in a time of extreme economic and political crisis brings an immediate PAC endorsement for the union's cause under the leadership of President Mazewski and Vice President Kazimierz Lukomski, a veteran observer of the Polish scene and a member of the World War II era Polish Combatants' Association. The PAC, working in cooperation