WashingtonAccording to friends and relatives, Richard Boucher, who was the assistant secretary of state for public affairs and the spokesperson for the State Department for over ten years, has away at the age of 73. According to two family members, he battled an aggressive form of cancer before passing away on Thursday in a northern Virginia hospital.
From the George H.W. Bush administration to the administrations of Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, Boucher has served as the spokesperson for U.S. foreign policy at the State Department podium throughout the 1990s and early 2000s. Boucher was the spokesperson for Condoleezza Rice, Colin Powell, Madeleine Albright, and James Baker, the secretary of state.
In a career that began in the Peace Corps and took him to Africa, Asia, and Washington, Boucher also served as the U.S. Consul General in Hong Kong during the 1997 British-Chinese handover of the territory. He later used the skills he gained there to help orchestrate the resolution of the U.S.-China spy plane crisis in early 2001.
Following his resignation as spokesman, Boucher served as South and Central Asia’s assistant secretary of state before becoming ambassador to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.
Charles Wolfson, a retired senior CBS journalist who had worked with Boucher for many years, praised him as a treasured professional colleague and friend in addition to being an outstanding State Department spokeswoman.
According to Wolfson, he was a great diplomat, a great spokesperson, and an even greater person.
