Robert White, former U.S. Ambassador to El Salvador and Paraguay, spoke to an overflow crowd in Boston College's Heights Room on November 15, 2004, in the keynote address to the symposium "Human Rights in an Age of Terror: The Jesuit Assassinations Remembered and the Future Envisioned."

White described foreign policy decisions and situation in El Salvador in the early 1980s, and identifed some dangerous parallels to be found in today's foreign policy decision-making. Boston College Chancellor Donald Monan, Boston College Law School Professor Daniel Kanstroom, and Boston College Professor of Community/Social Psychology M. Brinton Lykes also delivered comments as part of the symposium.

Hear Ambassador White's lecture or view a slideshow of the event.

Robert White is President of the Center for International Policy in Washington, D.C. During his twenty-five-year Foreign Service career, White specialized in Latin American affairs with a particular emphasis on Central America. He has been Director of the Peace Corps in Latin America, deputy permanent representative to the Organization of American States, and U. S. Ambassador to Paraguay and to El Salvador. After retiring from the Foreign Service in 1981, White served as a Senior Associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. White joined the Center for International Policy as its president in 1989.