Lister, George

George Lister, who has been referred to as “Mr. Human Rights,” was born in Chicago on September 20, 1913, and was a graduate of the College of the City of New York. He married Aleta Bierschwale Lister in 1948, and was divorced in 1970. Lister served in the United States Department of State for sixty years, and throughout his career he championed human rights and the importance of human rights as a tool for fighting Communism. He worked during the 1950s and 1960s as a Foreign Service Officer with appointments in Warsaw, Moscow, Germany, Columbia, and most notably, in Italy (1957-1961) as Embassy First Secretary. Mr. Lister played a major role in establishing contact with the Italian Socialists and persuading them to disassociate themselves from the Communist party.

In the 1970s Mr. Lister worked with Congressmen Don Fraser and Tom Harkin to establish human rights as an important goal of United States foreign policy, and in 1974 George Lister became the first Human Rights Officer ever appointed to the Department of State’s Bureau of Inter-American Affairs. In 1981 Lister officially retired but gained successive appointments as an Unpaid Expert and Consultant in the Bureau of Humanitarian Rights and Humanitarian Affairs, which later became the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor. In addition to acting as a consultant, Lister spoke on behalf of the Department of State to universities, colleges, and other organizations, published essays on United States policy and human rights, and met with numerous student groups and foreign dignitaries.

George Lister received formal recognition for his work in the form of several awards, including one from the government of Chile in 1992, one from the U.S.-Baltic Foundation in 1996 for “his outstanding work as the State Department’s Baltic Country Officer,” and an award from the United Nations in 1998. In 1997 he was nominated for, but did not receive, the Warren Christopher Award. Despite his success, George Lister often met with resistance from within the State Department. He fought and managed to survive numerous attempts to expel him from the State Department up until 2003. George Lister, who battled Parkinson’s disease at the end of his life, succumbed to aspiration pneumonia on February 21, 2004.

Sources: Remembrance and Celebration of the Life of George Lister; Personal and Biographical--General--Resumes