Patricia Murphy Derian was an American civil rights and human rights activist who fought racism in Mississippi and went on to serve as Assistant Secretary of State for Human Rights and Humanitarian Affairs from 1977 to 1981. She was, remembered The Times of London, "a courageous champion of civil rights who took on some of the world's most brutal dictators in her role as a senior American diplomat".

Elliott Abrams is an American politician and lawyer, who has served in foreign policy positions for presidents Ronald Reagan, George W. Bush, and Donald Trump. Abrams is considered to be a neoconservative. He is currently a senior fellow for Middle Eastern studies at the Council on Foreign Relations. He served as the U.S. Special Representative for Venezuela from 2019 to 2021 and as the U.S. Special Representative for Iran from 2020 to 2021.