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

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larger role for human rights in U.S. foreign policy. However, at the same time that Lister was helping to build human rights policy from within the State Department, he was shaping how others outside the State Department were pressing the human rights cause. Lister also had a substantial impact on the place of human rights in U.S. foreign policy by encouraging young people to pursue their human rights goals. Encouraging a Culture of Objective Advocacy Persuading Activists to Lobby the U.S. Government Lister’s ubiquitous presence at human rights meetings and events in Washington, D.C. often puzzled some activists. “So George started popping up at all kinds of events, solidarity events,” said Eldridge. 134 “I mean I’d look around the room and there you’d have a bunch of hardcore leftists and George was sitting over in the corner.” Some activists suspected Lister was a spy, but he was too conspicuous for that. “I thought…if they’re spying on us this is a darn clumsy way to do it,” said Eldridge. “He was the only one with a coat and tie, for heaven’s sakes, and it just didn’t compute.” 135 Lister had a number of reasons to go to human rights events—aside from the fact that he probably found them interesting. As mentioned above, Lister was the main contact between the human rights bureau and the human rights movement during the 1980s. To some degree, he was, indeed “spying.” Attending the events helped him to get good information on human rights issues, and it gave him the 85
ability to update the State Department about the concerns of activists and their plans for advocacy. Lister, however, was not opposed to human rights advocacy. In fact, Lister’s memorandums on human rights events, which went directly to the Assistant Secretary of State in charge of the human rights bureau, performed some degree of advocacy for activist positions without so much as a request from the activists. Yet, Lister also wanted activists to directly lobby the State Department and the Congress. Often, they were fighting for the very same human rights concerns that he—and the human rights bureau—were advocating within the State Department. “Human rights advocates, both in and out of government, can help each other,” he noted in a speech at Florida International University in 1988. 136 NGOs had testified at the Fraser hearings and generally could expect a more sympathetic hearing in Congress than from the administration. It was not always a given that human rights activists would think to communicate with the U.S. State Department. This was particularly true during the Reagan administration, which many activists believed cared little about human rights. Lister sometimes encountered the attitude that Reagan had completely eliminated human rights as a foreign policy factor. On April 25, 1983, Lister attended a luncheon at the Women’s National Democratic Club where Patricia Derian gave a speech critical of Reagan’s foreign policy. The women at Lister’s table were surprised to learn that Lister was with the human rights bureau; they assumed that the bureau had been abolished. 137 Lister politely informed them that the human rights bureau was, indeed, still functioning. 138 86
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Copyright by Gregory Krauss 2007
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Impacting Foreign Policy as a Mid-L
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Impacting Foreign Policy as a Mid-L
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Chile..............................
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contributions to U.S. foreign polic
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etween personalities and more as a
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duties but not jeopardize his caree
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21 Morton H. Halperin and Patricia
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younger sister. As Lister’s long-
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as an ideological battle that the U
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February 1955, Lister received a le
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wanted to bring the entire Socialis
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Schlesinger soon began working toge
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espects Saragat more than vice-vers
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Socialist Party that this office ha
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First, his contacts with Italian So
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eceptive to the Italian Socialists
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64 George Lister, “Political Less
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As he frequently did though, Lister
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Impact in the Bureau of Inter-Ameri
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Page 47 and 48: away from the Communists, much as h
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Page 53 and 54: War effort. Besides his propaganda
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Page 79 and 80: encourage improvement. As if to und
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Page 131 and 132: 62 Letter, Kim Dae Jung to George L
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Page 135 and 136: movement—in particular, by insist
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Archival Documents Bibliography Abr
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Lister, George. Memo to Mr. William
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Lister, George. Memo to ARA Office
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Lister, George. Memo to Elliott Abr
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U.S. State Department. Career Histo
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Library of Congress, Chile: The Con
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Shlaudeman, Harry. Former Assistant
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Memorial Service for George Lister.
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