Israel reduced its official discussion of Timerman, retracting from the "Southern Cone" a pamphlet that discussed awards he received in Israel. In 1982, Colonel Ramón Camps (the Buenos Aires Police Chief who had been directly involved in torturing Timerman) wrote, with assistance from "La Prensa" publisher Máximo Gainza, "Caso Timerman: Punto final", a response to "Prisoner Without a Name." He wrote that Timerman “was destroying the bases of society” with "La Opinión", particularly its “cultural supplements and section on international politics.” He called Timerman a “champion” of Marxism, "the heresy of modern times". In 1981, Timerman publicly opposed U.S. President Ronald Reagan's nomination of Ernest Lefever as Assistant Secretary of State for Human Rights and Humanitarian Affairs. When Timerman attended a hearing of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee pertaining to Lefever, his presence brought additional attention to the issue of human rights in Argentina. Timerman had praised Patt Derian, who had held the Human Rights position during his imprisonment. During the hearing, Senator Claiborne Pell asked if Lefever would speak against "disappearances" as Derian had done; Lefever responded, “I believe my job is to help sensitize the entire foreign policy establishment to the concern for human rights rather than play a Sir Galahad role going around the world on personal missions.” As a foreigner, Timerman was not allowed to testify at the hearing. He spoke to reporters in the hall outside, commenting that “a quiet diplomacy is a silent diplomacy […] Nations maintained a silent diplomacy with Hitler, and you see what happened.” He continued, discussing human rights and US foreign policy: Do you expect to change a government with a policy? No, if you want to change the government you have to send in the Marines. What a human rights foreign policy does is save lives. And Jimmy Carter's policy did. How many? I don't know. Two thousand? Is that enough? But that policy is even more important to you than to us. It builds up a democratic consciousness in the United States. It is more important for the United States that Lefever be defeated than for Argentina. I am very disappointed in President Reagan. A new administration is entitled to change an approach, to change a strategy, but not to change a policy. The policy of human rights belongs to United States history.