(EN) President Honors 2003 Presidential Medal of Freedom Recipients, su georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov, 23 luglio 2003. URL consultato il 12 agosto 2018.
«Van Cliburn was last here in 2001, as one of the Kennedy Center honorees. His life of honor started early, as the 23-year-old winner of the Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow. In the years since, he has even further refined the gifts of a prodigy with the discipline and consistency of a true master. He has lived up the high standards of the music teacher who first inspired him: his mother, Rildia Bee Cliburn.
Today, throughout America and across the world, musicians find inspiration in his example, and all of us associate the name Van Cliburn with grace, and the perfect touch at the piano.»
