On This Day — Remembering CIA Jacqueline K. Van Landingham (1962 – March 8 1995) [Why was Gary Durrell not honored with a Star?]

“An attack in Karachi, Pakistan, during which another NSA employee Gary C. Durrell was shot in March 1995 is believed to be related to Crypto AG.”
MINERVA — A History
[Released Feb. 11 2020]

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. Today, there are 135 stars carved into the white Alabama marble wall. At least eleven represent women.

March 8 2021 — Jacqueline K. Van Landingham joined the CIA in July 1985 as a clerk-typist, working in the Directorate of Operations (now the National Clandestine Service), Near East (NE) Division, Logistics Branch. She was gunned down on March 8, 1995 in Karachi, Pakistan. On May 22, 2012, her name was added to the Book of Honour.

According to Time Magazine of March 20, 1995, CIA employee Durrell was the primary target of the attack.Time Magazine reporters believe that Van Landingham only died because she was sitting beside Durrell and came in the line of fire. Follow us on Twitter: @Intel_Today

RELATED POST: Jane Wallis Burrell — First CIA Officer to Have Died While in Service
RELATED POST: Mother, Daughter, Sister, SPY – Women of the CIA
RELATED POST: CIA : A Few Good Women
RELATED POST: CIA : A Few Good Women – Barbara A. Robbins (July 26, 1943 – March 30, 1965)
RELATED POST: CIA : A Few Good Women – Monique N. Lewis (October 29, 1946 – April 18, 1983)
RELATED POST: CIA : A Few Good Women – Deborah M. Hixon ( 15 Sep 1952 – April 18 1983)
RELATED POST: Remembering CIA Phyllis Nancy Faraci (1939 – April 18 1983)
RELATED POST: On This Day — CIA Jacqueline K. Van Landingham (1962 – March 8 1995)
RELATED POST: Remembering CIA Leslianne Shedd (September 15 1968 – November 23 1996)
RELATED POST: Remembering CIA Molly C. H. Hardy [Dec. 15 1946 – Aug. 7 1998]
RELATED POST: Remembering CIA Rachel A. Dean (April 10 1981 – September 30 2006)
RELATED POST: On This Day — Remembering CIA Elizabeth Hanson ( February 14 1979 – December 30 2009 )
RELATED POST: On This Day — Remembering CIA Jennifer Matthews ( December 6 1964 – December 30 2009 )

“To complicate the mystery, it appears that Ms Landingham, described as a secretary at the Karachi consulate, and Mr Durell, a technician, may have been working under cover for the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).”

UPDATE (March 8 2020) — On March 8 1995, two Americans on their way to work at the United States Consulate in Karachi were murdered.

A third American, Mark McCloy, 31, of Framingham, Mass., who worked in the consulate’s postal section, suffered a minor gunshot wound to the leg. The gunmen spared the Pakistani driver.

On March 10 1995, the United States Ambassador to Pakistan — John C. Monjo — offered a $2 million reward for information leading to the arrest of the gunmen.

In a statement read to reporters at the consulate, the ambassador vowed that the American and Pakistani authorities would “track the guilty down and bring them to justice.”

[Pakistani police released sketches of four men who the police said were involved in the attack. A leading Pakistani newspaper, Dawn, printed the sketches on March 10 1995.]

Twenty-five years later, the crime is still unsolved. The culprits were never found. Their motive remains unknown.

“To complicate the mystery, it appears that Ms Landingham, described as a secretary at the Karachi consulate, and Mr Durell, a technician, may have been working under cover for the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).
Neither diplomat was registered as required with the Pakistani foreign office as belonging to the US embassy staff in Karachi.” [FBI on trail of Karachi killers — Independent (March 24 1995)]
“Although Pakistani officials said at the time that one of the Americans who died in the 1995 shooting, Gary Durrell, was known to them as a CIA employee, no motive for the attack on the diplomats was ever established, at least publicly.” [Tampa Bay Times — October 2 2005]

Timing — Jackie Van Landingham, a secretary, and Gary Durrell, a communications specialist, were killed just four weeks after F.B.I. agents in Pakistan arrested Ramzi Ahmed Yousef — the man convicted of masterminding the World Trade Center bombing in 1993.

[Following a tip-off from Istaique Parker, on 7 February 1995, Agents of Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) and Special Agents of the U.S. Diplomatic Security Service, raided room number 16 in the Su-Casa Guest House in Islamabad, Pakistan, and captured Yousef before he could move to Peshawar.]

Extraordinary Revelation (February 2020) — A CIA document [MINERVA — A History] released last month (February 11 2020) makes an extraordinary revelation.

According to a former Director of German Foreign Intelligence Services [BND], Durrell was probably murdered because of his involvement in the CIA/NSA Rubicon Operation.

“An attack in Karachi, Pakistan, during which another NSA employee Gary C. Durrell was shot in March 1995 is believed to be related to Crypto AG.”

At the time of his death, Gary C. Durrell was no longer an NSA employee. Durrell was working for the Special Collection Service, an elite eavesdropping unit culled from the ranks of the National Security Agency and Central Intelligence Agency.

RELATED POST: Crypto AG — The Missing Piece of the Snowden Puzzle

Although Gary Durrell was killed in the same attack as Jacqueline K. Van Landingham, the CIA did not honor him with a star. Why on earth not?

END of UPDATE

“African Americans have long made critical contributions to our Agency’s mission, taking the risks and bearing the sacrifices that intelligence work often demands. We at CIA join our fellow citizens in remembering the immeasurable sacrifice, strength, and courage of African Americans in building a more free and just society. It is a cause they nobly advanced, and one that we all must carry forward to this day.”
CIA Director John Brennan — February 26 2014 CIA’s Black History Month Celebration

Also killed in the attack was a signals intelligence (SIGINT) intercept operator named Gary C. Durrell, who worked for a joint CIA-NSA SIGINT organization called the Special Collection Service (SCS).

In September 1999, a Pakistani anti terrorism court acquitted three suspects in the Van Landingham-Durrell killings and dismissed the case for lack of evidence.

Her legacy was immortalized with an anonymous charcoal gray star carved into the Agency’s Memorial Wall.

Life at the CIA
With no previous Agency experience, Jackie adapted quickly to the frenetic pace of the NE division, handling high volume cable traffic and an assortment of logistical support duties for her colleagues both at Headquarters and overseas.
She was a fast learner who impressed her superiors time and again with her abilities.
Less than a year after she joined the CIA, she was selected to undergo training for an assignment overseas as an operations support assistant (OSA).
She also received a substantial cash award for her excellent performance—not a routine occurrence for a new employee.
Her Final Mission
Her fourth overseas assignment was in Karachi, Pakistan. starting in the summer of 1994. Once again, she applied her specialty as an operations support officer. Both of her young daughters lived with her overseas, while her husband was stationed in another country.
In the morning hours on Wednesday, March 8, 1995, the US Consulate’s 20-passenger shuttle bus was attacked by two gun-wielding terrorists armed with AK-47 rifles.
The bus had just picked up three passengers in a residential area and had turned onto a major road from the airport to the city center.
While the bus was stopped at a traffic light, a yellow taxi pulled up next to the vehicle. Two men leapt out of the cab, shot out the bus’s windshield, and then walked alongside the vehicle, methodically firing a large number of single rounds into it. The shooters then jumped back into their taxi and sped away.
All three passengers were hit, but the driver was unharmed. One slightly wounded passenger told the driver to head for the hospital.
One passenger was pronounced dead at the hospital and, shortly thereafter, Jacqueline Elaine Keys Van Landingham, the only Agency employee on the shuttle, died from her wounds as doctors at the hospital struggled to stabilize her condition.
Jacqueline K. Van Landingham was survived by her husband and their two young daughters. She was 33 years old. [CIA website]