The Foreign Service Journal, February 2012

wacky, yet bizarrely beautiful, time that redefined me. Somehow, I think Shawn Dorman had a lot to do with this wonderful issue. I have always enjoyed reading the Journal , but this time it was espe- cially rewarding. By the way, I have already joined the Moscow Veterans Web site described in the December Cybernotes (ww w. moscowveteran.org ). Thanks for the memories! Barbara Dillon Hillas Alexandria, Va. Three Gems I would like to commend you for three articles in the November FSJ , all reprised from earlier issues. I particu- larly enjoyed Donald Roberts’ wonder- ful satire, “Human Rights Report for the Hun Empire, A.D. 451.” It brought me back to 1976, when I was assigned to what was then the Office of the Coordinator of Human Rights and Humanitarian Affairs. While there, I helped compile and edit the first human rights reports that the State De- partment submitted to Congress in April 1977. The reports were required on all countries receiving any form of security assistance, based on Section 502B (b) of the Foreign Assistance Act, as amended in 1976. Overseas posts and the department struggled with the un- precedented task of documenting the human rights practices of the 137 coun- tries that received any form of U.S. se- curity assistance — even if only an instruction manual — and crafting credible public reports to Congress. State did not want to destroy diplo- matic relations with those govern- ments, which were not accustomed to having their human rights records pub- licly divulged and judged by the U.S. We weathered the resulting diplomatic storms, and I am pleased to say that while the reports were not as blunt as critics would have liked, they did not descend to the level of the satire in the Hun Empire’s human rights report. Still, Mr. Roberts’ parody contained many phrases familiar to those of us who negotiated the initial reports with desks and bureaus. Those modest ef- forts were the forebears of annual human rights reports that subsequently became more detailed and candid, and ultimately were written about every country in the world. In the process, respect for internationally recognized human rights became a constant ele- ment of U.S. foreign policy. Second, reading the late Ambassa- dor Hume Horan’s commentary, “The U.S. and Islam in the Modern World,” which you first published nearly a decade earlier, reminded me of the clear thinker and clear writer that I re- member from 30 years ago. His com- ments on Islam’s frozen theology and practices, and the unnecessarily, but perennially, stalled Israeli-Palestinian F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 2 / F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L 7 L E T T E R S F OREIGN S ERVICE C ROSSWORD P UZZLE S OLUTION (January 2012 FSJ , p. 76)