Eilts, Hermann F. (Hermann Frederick), 1922-2006

<p>Hermann Frederick Eilts was born in Weissenfels Saale, Germany, on March 23, 1922. His family brought him to the United States when he was 4, and he grew up in Scranton, Pa., where his father worked for the railroad.</p>

<p>He became an American citizen in 1930 and graduated from Ursinus College in 1942. Before being drafted into the Army in World War II, he briefly attended the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University, where he took a student job researching the legal status of Sudan under British and Egyptian control and became fascinated.</p>

<p>He served in Army intelligence in World War II in North Africa and Europe, earning medals including a Purple Heart and a Bronze Star. After his discharge, Mr. Eilts earned a master’s degree in Middle Eastern studies from the School of Advanced International Studies in Washington; it is now part of the Johns Hopkins University.</p>

<p>While there, he met Helen Josephine Brew, a former Navy Wave who was specializing in the Far East. He persuaded her to switch to studying the Middle East, and they married after he entered the foreign service. She survives him, along with his sons, Frederick, of Wichita, Kan., and Conrad Marshall Eilts of Bahrain, and four grandchildren.</p>

<p>Mr. Eilts was ambassador to Saudi Arabia from 1965 to 1970. In his first tour there in the 40’s, he had many meetings with the founder of the kingdom, King Abdul Aziz. The trust he established at the highest levels of the Saudi leadership enabled him to press for their support for the Israel-Egypt peace process, although unsuccessfully.</p>

Eilts was born in Weissenfels, Germany, and immigrated to the United States with his parents in 1926. He grew up in Scranton, Pa., and became an American citizen in 1930. A graduate of Ursinus College and the School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University, Eilts earned the Purple Heart, the Bronze Star, and seven European and North African campaign stars for military service in World War II. He joined the Foreign Service in 1947. In addition to participating in the Camp David Summit, Eilts also served as a member of the U.S. delegations to the United Nations, NATO, and other international conferences. At BU, he gained a reputation for his ability to recruit outstanding scholars, teachers, and practitioners in the field of international affairs.

<p>Career Foreign Service Officer</p>
<p>State of Residence: Pennsylvania</p>
<p>1. Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary (Saudi Arabia)</p>
<p>Appointed: October 20, 1965</p>
<p>Presentation of Credentials: January 15, 1966</p>
<p>Termination of Mission: Left post on July 23, 1970</p>
<p>2. Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary (Bangladesh)</p>
<p>Appointed: September 11, 1972</p>
<p>Declined appointment.</p>
<p>3. Principal Officer (Egypt)</p>
<p>Presentation of Credentials: November 1973</p>
<p>Termination of Mission: February 1974</p>
<p>4. Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary (Egypt)</p>
<p>Appointed: March 19, 1974</p>
<p>Presentation of Credentials: April 20, 1974</p>
<p>Termination of Mission: Left post on May 20, 1979</p>

<p>Hermann Frederick Eilts (March 23, 1922 – October 12, 2006) was a United States Foreign Service Officer and diplomat. He served as an American ambassador to Saudi Arabia and Egypt, assisted Henry Kissinger's Mideast shuttle diplomacy effort, worked with Egyptian President Anwar el-Sadat throughout the Camp David Accords, and dodged a Libyan hit team.</p>

<p>Early life</p>
<p>Eilts was born in Weißenfels, Germany, immigrated to the United States as a child, and became a citizen at age 8 in 1930. He grew up in Scranton, Pennsylvania and graduated from Ursinus College in 1943. He served in the Military Intelligence Corps during World War II.</p>

<p>Diplomatic career</p>
<p>After graduating with a master's degree from Johns Hopkins' School of Advanced International Studies in 1947, Eilts joined the foreign service. He would go on to be a diplomat for 32 years. He first served in Saudi Arabia when the kingdom had just learned to pump oil for the international market and later was U.S. ambassador there during the 1967 Arab-Israeli Six-Day War. Eilts was one of only a few of the State Department's Arabist diplomats who did not advocate a blindly pro-Arab policy in the runup to that conflict, as he wrote cables saying that the views of other diplomats regarding hostile responses to a planned (later aborted) Western flotilla to re-open the Straits of Tiran to Israeli vessels were overstated because the Arab states lacked the materiel to counter such a move, and that forcing the Egyptians to back down here would reduce the risk of open warfare. He was appointed U.S. Ambassador to Egypt on February 28, 1974. He aided former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger during the 1974-75 period of shuttle diplomacy and became close to Egyptian President Anwar Sadat during the tense negotiations with Israel in 1977 and 1978. As Ambassador to Egypt, he was "considered by his American colleagues, Egyptian peers and Sadat as an extraordinarily talented diplomat."</p>

<p>That alliance, as well as his standing as a leading American in the region, apparently prompted Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi to send hit squads to Cairo in search of Mr. Eilts. U.S. intelligence agencies discovered the plot, and President Jimmy Carter immediately warned Gaddafi that he would be held responsible if Mr. Eilts was harmed.</p>

<p>Academic career</p>
<p>After retiring from the foreign service, he joined the faculty of Boston University. In 1982 he established the Center of International Relations (CIR) at Boston University, which became the Department of International Relations in 1988, with Amb. Eilts as its founding Chair. Later, this was to become the core of Boston University's new school of international affairs, the Frederick S. Pardee School of Global Studies, in 2014. In 1993 he became professor emeritus at Boston University. Eilts died at age 84 from complications of heart disease at his Wellesley, Massachusetts home on October 12, 2006.</p>

<p>May 08, 1979</p>

<p>The President today announced that he will nominate Alfred L. Atherton, Jr., of Palm Beach Gardens, Fla., to be Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the United States to the Arab Republic of Egypt. He would succeed Hermann F. Eilts, who is retiring from the Foreign Service.</p>