H. Freeman Matthews Jr., 78; Diplomat Helped Shape Mideast Accords

H. Freeman Matthews Jr., 78, a career foreign service officer who played a role in the Middle East peace negotiations between Egypt and Israel, died July 22 of kidney failure at a hospital in Washington, D.C.

As the deputy chief of mission at the U.S. Embassy in Cairo, Matthews worked behind the scenes to facilitate peace talks between Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin.

Those efforts led to the signing of the Camp David accords Sept. 17, 1978, and the peace treaty between Israel and Egypt. Under the terms of the treaty, Israel withdrew from the Sinai Peninsula.

Matthews was born in Bogota, Colombia. His father, H. Freeman Matthews Sr., was also a foreign service officer and served as ambassador to Sweden, the Netherlands and Austria. He was also deputy undersecretary of state during the Kennedy administration.

The son served in the Army during the occupation of Japan after World War II. He graduated from Princeton and joined the foreign service during the early 1950s.

In the 1960s, his posts included chief of the political section of the U.S. Embassy in Saigon and director of the Vietnam Working Group in Washington.

After retiring from the foreign service in 1985, he did consulting work for the State Department’s Bureau of Diplomatic Security.