Walter Eytan; First Leader of Israel’s Foreign Ministry
Walter Eytan, 90, the first director-general of Israel’s foreign ministry, died May 23 at a hospital in Jerusalem.
Born in Munich, Eytan lived in England during his youth. He attended Oxford University, where he studied medieval and modern languages. From 1934 to 1940, he taught German at Oxford before leaving for war service. He worked on the project to break the Germans’ Enigma code.
Eytan settled in Jerusalem in 1946. Two years later, he was appointed the first director-general of Israel’s Foreign Ministry, a position he held until 1959.
In 1949, Eytan led Israel’s delegations to the Rhodes Armistice Agreement with Egypt and to the U.N. Conciliation Commission for Palestine at Lausanne, Switzerland.
In 1958, he wrote “The First Ten Years: A Diplomatic History of Israel,” published in English, Hebrew, Italian and Portuguese.
Throughout the 1960s, Eytan served as Israel’s ambassador to France. He returned to Israel in 1970 and served as a political advisor to Abba Eban, then Israel’s foreign minister, until 1972.
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