Eugene Boster; ambassador played key role in Helsinki accords
WASHINGTON -- Davis Eugene ''Gene" Boster, 84, a career Foreign Service officer and an ambassador who also served as head of the US delegation to the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe, died of cardiac arrest Thursday at his home in Arlington, Va.
Mr. Boster headed the US delegation to the conference in 1973 and 1974. The conference, which led to the Helsinki accord on human rights, was designed to recognize disputed post-World War II borders and to establish a way to settle other disputes. Human rights became a key part of the treaty and gave the United States and the West leverage to promote dissident groups in the Soviet bloc.
From that assignment, Mr. Boster became the first US ambassador to Bangladesh in 1974, serving two years. He then went to Guatemala as ambassador.
He retired from the Foreign Service in 1979 to become director of Radio Liberty, a Munich-based American station broadcasting to the Soviet Union.
From 1980 to 1994, Mr. Boster was a consultant on foreign affairs, principally for the State Department and intelligence offices.
Mr. Boster was born in Rio Grande, Ohio, and graduated from Mount Union College in Alliance, Ohio. During World War II, he served in the Navy in the Atlantic and the Pacific, including an assignment as executive officer of the cargo ship Hennepin. He retired from the Navy Reserve in 1980 as a commander.
Mr. Boster joined the Foreign Service in 1947 and went to the US Embassy in Moscow, later serving as desk officer for the Soviet Union and as liaison officer to the Soviet and East European delegations at the Japanese Peace Conference in San Francisco in 1951.
He was an assistant to Secretary of State John Foster Dulles, and was in charge of Soviet affairs in Moscow from 1959 to 1962.
Mr. Boster's marriages to Mary Shilts Boster and Constanza Gamero Boster ended in divorce.
He leaves five children from the first marriage, Davis E. Jr. of Los Altos, Calif., Janis E. of Red Bank, N.J., James S. of Ashford, Conn., Thomas D. of Napa, Calif., and Barbara A. of Richmond, Calif.; a daughter from the second marriage, Valerie of New York; eight grandchildren; and one great-granddaughter.
