IN HONOR OF THOSE MEMBERS OF THE CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY WHO GAVE THEIR LIVES IN THE SERVICE OF THEIR COUNTRY

CIA Memorial wall

The Memorial Wall is a memorial at the Central Intelligence Agency headquarters in Langley, Virginia. It honors CIA employees who died in the line of service. There are 125 stars carved into the white Alabama marble wall. Follow us on Twitter: @INTEL_TODAY

UPDATE — On Monday  May 22 2017, the Central Intelligence Agency held its annual memorial ceremony to pay tribute to the men and women of CIA who have died in the line of duty – courageous Americans who made the ultimate sacrifice for their country. Eight stars were added to the Memorial Wall this year.

Three of the stars added pay tribute to the lives of David W. Bevan, Darrell A. Eubanks, and John S. Lewis. All three men died when their plane crashed while carrying out a mission in Laos in 1961.

A fourth star was added to honor Mark S. Rausenberger, an Agency officer of eighteen years, who died while serving overseas. The circumstances of his death remain classified.

The names of the other four individuals honored with newly-carved stars this year remain classified.

Obviously, one — or several — of these four individuals could be a woman. We simply do not know.

Moreover, in September 2016, Abigail Jones published a piece in Newsweek titled “Women of the CIA“. Jones wrote:

There are more women in the CIA than ever before, with women operating at unprecedented levels on every floor of CIA headquarters and throughout its far-flung global outposts. Yet women remain underrepresented in executive-level jobs and the clandestine service.

The Memorial Wall, in the lobby of the CIA in McLean, Virginia, has 117 stars, honoring the agency officers who’ve died in the field. Eleven represent women.

I wrote a short post about ten of these women. QUESTION: Who is the missing star? Drop a comment or send an email if you know the answer, assuming — of course — that this information is not classified.

END of UPDATE

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Jane Wallis Burrell: The First CIA Officer To Die in the Agency’s Service

On January 6, 1948, an Air France DC-3 from Brussels crashed on approach to the Le Bourget airport near Paris, killing all five crew members and 10 of the 11 passengers.

Among the dead was a young woman who, press reports said, was either a clerk or a courier. She was neither.

Jane Burrell was a CIA officer, and her death—only 110 days after CIA was officially established the previous September—makes her the first CIA officer to die while employed by the Agency. (…)

Jane Burrell in Beuerberg, Germany. June 30, 1945.

We know nothing about Jane’s activity at the time of her death. She was returning from a trip to Brussels on January 6 — traditionally the end of the Christmas season—and despite speculation that she was on an operational mission, the limited documentation sheds no light. An official US spokesman at the time said Jane had been on vacation.

Jane was never a candidate for a Star on CIA’s Memorial Wall because the Wall commemorates Agency employees who died in specific circumstances, and deaths from crashes of commercial aircraft have generally not qualified.

At the same time, her service with CIA and its predecessor organizations was honorable and deserves to be remembered. [CIA Website]

Memorial Wall

The ‘Memorial Wall” has 117 stars [Update: 117+8 in 2017], honoring the agency officers who’ve died in the field. According to open source and declassified information, at least eleven represent women. Would you like to know their story? Stay tuned!

REFERENCES

Women of the CIA — Newsweek

The Mystery of Jane Wallis Burrell: The First CIA Officer To Die in the Agency’s Service — CIA news & Information

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