The Foreign Service Journal, December 2006

In addition to Joanne, his wife of 50 years, Mr. Dyels is survived by their three daughters, Jocelyn Dyels Fuller, Karen Ann Dyels, Janice Dyels Strong; and their son, Kevin Richard Dyels. Mr. Dyels was the proud grandfather of April, Ryan, Jas- mine, Joy, Ronald, Ashley, Jona- thon, Vanessa and Brandon; and he was able to enjoy beautiful twin great- grandchildren, Kyan and Kyree. Hermann Frederick Eilts , 84, a retired FSO and ambassador to Saudi Arabia and Egypt who helped negoti- ate the Camp David peace accords, died on Oct. 12 of complications of heart disease at his home in Welles- ley, Mass. Ambassador Eilts was born in Weissenfels Saale, Germany, and immigrated to the U.S. as a child, becoming a citizen in 1930, at the age of 8. He grew up in Scranton, Pa., and graduated from Ursinus College in Collegeville, Pa. During World War II he served in Army intelligence in North Africa and Europe, receiving a Purple Heart and Bronze Star. Following the war, Amb. Eilts attend- ed Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies. He received a master’s degree in 1947, and immediately joined the Foreign Service. One of the State Department’s first Middle East specialists, Amb. Eilts was a figure in major events during his distinguished 32-year Foreign Service career. Described as “a man with unflappable self-con- trol” in a 1979 Washington Post pro- file, Amb. Eilts helped maintain peace during some of the major crises of the 1970s and 1980s. He served in Egypt, Libya, Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia and Yemen, in addition to Washington and a tour in London as a political officer monitoring the Middle East. Amb. Eilts’ first tour of duty in Saudi Arabia was in 1948, when the kingdom had just begun pumping oil for the international market: later he served as ambassador there during the 1967 Arab-Israeli Six-Day War. In 1973, he reopened the embassy in Cairo, which had been closed by the break in relations during the 1967 war. As ambassador to Egypt, he as- sisted Secretary of State Henry Kis- singer in conducting shuttle diploma- cy between 1974 and 1975. A letter from Amb. Eilts to Presi- dent Jimmy Carter on July 30, 1978, reporting on President Anwar Sadat’s impatience with what he saw as Israeli intransigence, set in motion the sum- mit meetings that produced the his- toric Camp David agreement in 1979. Amb. Eilts’ critical role made him a target of Libyan assassins during this period. Amb. Eilts retired from the Foreign Service in 1979. He then joined Boston University as founder and director of its Center for Inter- national Relations. He often wrote, lectured and was quoted as an expert on Middle East political crises. He served on the board of trustees for the American University in Cairo, and was a charter member of the Ameri- can Academy of Diplomacy. Survivors include his wife of 58 years, Helen Brew Eilts of Wellesley, Mass.; two sons, Conrad Marshall Eilts of Bahrain and Frederick Lowell Eilts of Wichita, Kan.; and four grandchildren. Clifton Forster , 82, a retired FSO with USIA, died Sept. 19 follow- ing a fall at his home in Tiburon, Calif. Mr. Forster was born in Manila, where his father was director of the Red Cross and field director for the Far East. He traveled with his par- ents and sister throughout Asia in the prewar years. In 1941, when Japan invaded the Philippines, Mr. Forster was a senior in high school there. With all the foreigners, he and his parents were rounded up and intern- ed at camps in Santo Tomas and Los Banos. His father had a heart attack soon after, and was removed from the camp along with his mother, leaving Mr. Forster to fend for himself. In 1943, he was returned to the U.S. in a prisoner exchange, and promptly enlisted in the Navy. Short- ly before shipping out to duty in the Far East, Mr. Forster was transferred to the office of the Chief of Naval Operations, where his vast experi- ence in the Philippines was useful in intelligence work. Following the war, Mr. Forster studied international relations at Stanford University, and joined the Foreign Service in 1949. His first assignment was to Davao, in the southern Philippines, to establish headquarters for the Mindanao-Sulu U.S. Information Service Center. He was then sent to Yale University for intensive Japanese language and area studies. During a 34-year FS career, Mr. Forster served a total of 15 years in Japan. He lived and worked on the islands of Shikoku and Kyushu, in Kobe and in Tokyo. There he was instrumental in developing “sister city” programs between San Fran- cisco and Osaka, and between San Jose and Okayama. He also served in Burma and Israel, and was assigned to the U.S. delegation to the U.N. under Adlai Stevenson. He retired in 1983 as director for East Asia and the Pacific for the U.S. Information Agency, with the rank of minister- counselor. Mr. and Mrs. Forster lived in D E C E M B E R 2 0 0 6 / F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L 81 I N M E M O R Y