Friday, May 4, 2007

Press Release

U.S. Under Secretary of State Nicholas Burns to Honor Fallen Colleagues on Foreign Affairs Day, May 4, 2007

U.S. Under Secretary of State Nicholas Burns is scheduled to give remarks during the American Foreign Service Association's (AFSA) Memorial Plaque Ceremony at the State Department's Diplomatic Lobby on Friday, May 4. The event, part of the annual Foreign Affairs Day celebration, honors those U.S. Embassy employees who have lost their lives while serving their country overseas in the line of duty. AFSA President J. Anthony Holmes will also give remarks.

The Under Secretary will read a message from President Bush and pay his respects to the families of those employees who will be added to the plaque. The employees who will be honored this year are:

Henry W. Antheil, Jr., a clerk at the U.S. Legation in Helsinki, killed on June 14, 1940 while serving as a diplomatic courier when the Finnish passenger plane Kaleva was shot down over the Gulf of Finland near Tallinn, Estonia.

Margaret Alexander, a Foreign Service Officer serving as Deputy Director with the USAID Mission in Nepal, killed on September 23, 2006 in a helicopter crash. Finnish Chargé d'Affaires Pauli Mustonen was among the 24 people killed in the same crash near Ghunsa in the Himalayan Mountains.

Doris G. Knittle, a Foreign Service nurse in Kabul, Afghanistan, found murdered in her home in August 1970.

This solemn ceremony offers an opportunity to remember and honor fallen colleagues who made the ultimate sacrifice for their country and serves as a reminder of the dangerous and difficult conditions that U.S. Foreign Service personnel often face around the world. The addition of these three names to AFSA's Memorial Plaque will bring the total number of Foreign Service employees known to have died in the line of duty to 225.

Participants in the ceremony will include the surviving relatives of Henry W. Antheil, Jr. as well as those of Gunvor Maria Luts, a Finnish-born Estonian citizen who was one of the nine people who died aboard the Kaleva.

The U.S. Embassy in Tallinn has been helping the Estonian film company Polarfilm document Henry W. Antheil, Jr.'s life and death. The initial results of this ongoing research will appear in the Foreign Service Journal (May 2007), Akadeemia (June 2007), and in the forthcoming documentary film “The Story of the Kaleva.”

For more information, please contact the U.S. Embassy in Tallinn.