- Info
An Agency Tradition: Remembering Fallen Officers
On June 1, 2009, Central
Intelligence Agency (CIA) employees gathered before the beautiful marble face
of the Memorial Wall in the Original Headquarters Building (OHB) lobby to honor
fellow employees who have died in the line of duty. The memorial ceremony is an
act of commemoration that occurs around Memorial Day each year. The families,
whether their loved one died long ago or just that year, are invited, and many
come year after year.
During this year’s memorial
service, Director of the Central Intelligence Agency (D/CIA) Leon E. Panetta
started a new tradition. He presented a replica of a star from the Wall to the
brothers of Douglas S. Mackiernan, the first Agency officer killed in service
to the United States. Each family of the fallen will be given a star sculpted
by the artist who engraves them on the Memorial Wall.
This year’s ceremony also
marked the addition of a 90th star carved into the wall in
remembrance of an employee killed carrying out the Agency’s mission last year.
Due to continuing operational sensitivities, neither the name of the employee
nor details of his work can be made public.
Stars for the Fallen
One might assume that such a ritual—coming together to remember CIA’s honored
dead—has long been a permanent feature of Agency life. But that’s not the case.
For most of the Agency’s history, employees who died in the line of duty were
honored in small private ceremonies, usually with only the immediate family and
the Director or another senior CIA official present. It was not an act of the
Agency community as a whole.
This began to change in 1973, when officers of the Directorate of Operations
(today’s National Clandestine Service) sought to commemorate the sacrifice of
their colleagues who were killed in Southeast Asia. The Agency leadership
embraced the idea, but expanded it to include all deaths of CIA employees
regardless of directorate.
In 1974, the Memorial Wall
with its initial 31 stars was created in the OHB lobby, but it went up without
ceremony as a silent tribute to the fallen. The problem was that it was too
silent, and the memories and stories about the “Stars on the Wall”—as those
memorialized came to be known—were slipping from the Agency’s collective
memory.
A Tradition Begins …
Finally, in 1986, a counterintelligence officer suggested that a ceremony be
held annually in front of the Wall because “the majority of our employees,
particularly the younger generation, are barely aware of the existence or the
significance of this memorial.” The officer said this custom would result in
“rising morale and pride in our achievements which, in turn, would greatly
contribute to our continuing effort to achieve excellence.”
Again, senior management endorsed this idea from the ranks, beginning a new
tradition of honoring CIA’s fallen employees near the national observance of
Memorial Day.
On May 27, 1987—with the
Agency in its 40th year and with 50 stars on the Wall—Deputy
Director Robert Gates presided at the first annual CIA memorial ceremony.
… And Continues
The ceremony has been held every year since 1987 with increasing openness. In
1989, non-Agency family members were first invited, and in 1995, all the
memorialized names were read aloud for the first time.
Related Stories and Links:
Posted: Jun 18, 2009 11:12 AM
Last Updated: Jun 18, 2009 01:25 PM
Last Reviewed: Jun 18, 2009 11:12 AM
