Page:United States Statutes at Large Volume 99 Part 1.djvu/471

 PUBLIC LAW 99-93—AUG. 16, 1985

99 STAT. 449

seq.), nominations to the Board of Directors for the United States Institute of Peace should be submitted to the Senate on a timely basis to permit implementation of the congressional mandate. SEC. 803. EX GRATIA PAYMENT TO THE GOVERNMENT OF SWITZERLAND.

Section 39 of the Trading With the Enemy Act (62 Stat. 1246; 50 U.S.C. App, 39) is amended by adding at the end thereof the following new subsection: "(f) Notwithstanding any of the provisions of subsections (a) through (d) of this section, the Attorney General is authorized to pay from property vested in or transferred to the Attorney General under this Act, the sum of $20,000 as an ex gratia payment to the Government of Switzerland in accordance with the terms of the agreement entered into by that Government and the Government of the United States on March 12, 1980.". SEC. 804. POLICY TOWARD APPLICATION OF THE YALTA AGREEMENT.

(a) FINDINGS.—The Congress finds that— (1) during World War II, representatives of the United States, International Britain, and the Soviet Union took part in agreements and agreements, understandings concerning other peoples and nations in Europe; (2) the Soviet Union has not adhered to its obligation undertaken in the 1945 Yalta agreement to guarantee free elections in the countries involved, specifically the pledge for the "earliest possible establishment of free elections of government responsive to the wills of the people and to facilitate where necessary the holding of such elections"; (3) the strong desire of the people of Central and Eastern Europe to exercise their national sovereignty and selfdetermination and to resist Soviet domination has been demonstrated on many occasions since 1945, including armed resistance to the forcible Soviet takeover of the Baltic Republics and resistance in the Ukraine as well as in the German Democratic Republic in 1953, in Hungary in 1956, in Czechoslovakia in 1968, and in Poland in 1956, 1970, and since 1980; (4) it is appropriate that the United States express the hopes of the people of the United States that the people of Central and Eastern Europe be permitted to exercise their national sovereignty and self-determination free from Soviet interference; and (5) it is appropriate for the United States to reject any interpretation or application that, as a result of the signing of the 1945 Yalta executive agreements, the United States accepts and recognizes in any way Soviet hegemony over the countries of Eastern Europe. (b) POLICY.—(1) The United States does not recognize as legitimate any spheres of influence in Europe and it reaffirms its refusal to recognize such spheres in the present or in the future, by repudiating any attempts to legitimize the domination of East European nations by the Soviet Union through the Yalta executive agreement. (2) The United States proclaims the hope that the people of Eastern Europe shall again enjoy the right to self-determination within a framework that will sustain peace, that they shall again have the right to choose a form of government under which they shall live, and that the sovereign rights of self-determination shall be restored to them in accordance with the pledge of the Atlantic

�