Copyright by Gregory Krauss 2007 - The University of Texas at Austin

Lister probably affected the bureau most by his relationships with opposition
leaders from abroad. Abrams’ performance evaluation of Lister, written in 1985,
stresses the astounding array of countries in which Lister had established
relationships with opposition leaders, including Guatemala, Chile, Nicaragua, Poland,
South Korea, El Salvador, Uruguay, Uganda, the Philippines, the USSR, the
Dominican Republic, Yugoslavia, Paraguay, and Cuba. 120 Lister also knew
Panamanians, Argentines, South Africans, and Czechs, Abrams noted recently. 121
Opposition leaders often sought help with a short-term problem, such as the release of
a political prisoner, and sometimes sought larger changes in U.S. policy. Regardless
of whether the human rights bureau or the State Department decided to do nothing or
take action, by giving democratic activists an entrée to the administration via the
human rights bureau, the bureau became a starting point for policy discussion.
Lister’s extensive range of contacts with opponents of both left-wing and
right-wing regimes also helped the human rights bureau to treat human rights
concerns more objectively than it might have. Abrams, in his memorandum outlining
his vision for U.S. human rights policy prior to taking charge of the bureau, had
emphasized the fight against Communism as the principal value of a human rights
policy. Although Abrams advocated a moralistic foreign policy, his identification of
Communist governments as the principal object of Reagan’s human right policy
echoed Jeanne Kirkpatrick’s distinction between authoritarian and totalitarian
regimes. However, Lister’s contacts shaped Abrams’ agenda, causing him to give
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