Former US Consul General Dies At 84
L. Ebersole Gaines Jr., US Consul General in Bermuda at a time when historic geopolitical changes ended the island’s strategic role as a Cold War military outpost, died in San Francisco last Thursday [Mar. 14]. He was 84.
Mr. Gaines [pictured] was appointed US Consul General to Bermuda in 1989 by President George H.W. Bush. He served here until 1992, helping to coordinate the 1990 and 1991 Anglo-American Bermuda summits between President Bush and British Prime Ministers Margaret Thatcher and John Major.
His time here coincided with the end of the Cold War between the West and the former Soviet Union and its East Bloc allies. With Soviet ballistic missile submarines beginning to withdraw from the Atlantic and no longer coming within range of aircraft stationed in Bermuda, talks about the future of the 50-year US military presence on the island began on Mr. Gaines’ watch. The US bases were finally mothballed in 1995.
In 1981 President Ronald Reagan had appointed Mr. Gaines to be executive vice president of the United States International Development Cooperation Agency’s Overseas Private Investment Corporation.
Previously he was executive vice president and director, Diversa-Graphics, Inc., New York and Chicago, from 1969-72; marketing manager, Nationwide Papers, US, Plywood-Champion Paper, Chicago and New York, from 1967-69; sales manager, central metal division, Continental Can Co., New York and Chicago, from 1960-67; district manager, Cincinnati district, Plax Corp in Hartford, Connecticut from 1953-60; and with the American Arbitration Association in 1951-53.
Born April 21, 1927, in Charleston, West Virginia, Mr. Gaines served in the US Navy in 1945-46. He graduated from Princeton University in 1951.
He is survived by four children and four grandchildren.
