The Foreign Service Journal, July-August 2012

72 F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L / J U LY- A U G U S T 2 0 1 2 peacefully on April 14 in Washington, D.C., after a brief illness. Mr. McClanahan was born on Oct. 22, 1919, in Tanta, Egypt, toDrs. Frank and Helen McClanahan, Presbyterian medical missionaries. After high school he left Egypt to attend the Stony Brook School in Long Island, N.Y. Planning to be an Egyptologist after graduating from Muskingum College in Ohio in 1941, he studied at the Uni- versity of Chicago and was a guide at the Oriental Institute. He was also president of the eating co-op and active in a pacifist organization, the Fellow- ship of Reconciliation. In 1949, he re- ceived a master’s degree from Ameri- can University. After Pearl Harbor was bombed, Mr. McClanahan enlisted in the U.S. Navy and served in naval intelligence in Chicago, Egypt and Washington, D.C. Immediately after the war, he decided to take a position in the Department of State, initially in research. He then joined the Foreign Service, serving overseas in Dhahran, London, Paris and Baghdad, retiring in 1968. In retirement, while living in Lon- don and Tuscany, he wrote a book for the Institute for the Study of Diplo- macy at Georgetown University, Diplo- matic Immunity: Principles, Practices, Problems (Palgrave McMillan, 1989). He also contributed a chapter to Diplo- macy Under a Foreign Flag (George- town University Institute for the Study of Diplomacy, 1990), describing his ex- perience closing Embassy Baghdad when the Iraqi government expelled the U.S., British and other Western diplomats during the 1967 Arab-Israeli War. Mr. McClanahan also enjoyed writ- ing poetry and short stories — among them an account of Sherlock Holmes’ missing years, spent (in Grant’s telling) in Egypt. At Ingleside at Rock Creek, where he and his wife, Pauli, resided during the last four years, Mr. Mc- Clanahan helped organize a writers’ group and found great satisfaction in sharing his stories and poems with other writers there. He worked for many years with his daughter Jill on his memoirs and pa- pers. Portions of these, covering his early years in Egypt at the time of the discovery of Tutankhamun’s tomb, were compiled and published by his daughter Gailyn under the title In an Ancient Land (Lulu, 2010) . Mr. McClanahan did not consider himself a linguist although he spoke and read Arabic, French, Italian, Ger- man, Greek, Latin, Hebrew and Japan- ese. He also had a lifelong interest in Egyptian hieroglyphics. He was an ar- dent numismatist and a scholar of clas- sical and Napoleonic history. In London, he was a member of the Reform Club and Pall Mall for more than 50 years. And in Washington, he was a longtime member of DACOR. Mr. McClanahan is survived by his wife of 68 years, Pauli; two daughters, Jill Watson of Chevy Chase, Md., and Gailyn Saroyan of Los Angeles, Calif.; and four grandchildren: Strawberry Saroyan and CreamSaroyan in Califor- nia; Armenak Saroyan in Nevada; and Dr. Ariel McClanahanWatson in Nova Scotia. As he wished, Mr. McClanahan’s ashes will be scattered over the Nile and Danube rivers. Linda Sue (Howard) Muncy , 63, a career Foreign Service officer, died on Jan. 31 after a sudden illness in Kabul, where she had been serving since January 2011 with her husband, Don Muncy, an FSO with USAID. A 1970 graduate of Duke University, Linda Muncy moved to the Washing- ton area to begin her government ca- reer following graduation. Following her marriage to Don, then a Marine Corps officer, she moved to Camp Lejeune, N.C. When her husband fin- ished his military tour, the couple re- turned to the Washington, D.C., area, and both began their civilian govern- ment service careers. Before joining the Foreign Service, Mrs. Muncy worked at the U.S. Civil Service Commission and the U.S. De- partment of Agriculture. She then served with the Department of State for nearly 27 years. Mrs. Muncy was posted to Quebec, Bangladesh, South Africa and Yemen, in addition to as- signments in Washington, D.C. The call to serve one more overseas tour brought her to Kabul, where she was able to join her husband, already posted there. Her assignment in Af- ghanistan was to have been her final posting before retirement. Mrs. Muncy is survived by her hus- band of 40 years, Don, of Potomac, Md.; her son, Michael, and daughter, Laura, of Rockville, Md.; her father, Jackson Howard of Salisbury, N.C.; and her sister, Margaret of Ellijay, Ga. In lieu of flowers, the family re- quests donations to be made in Linda Muncy’s name to the American Dia- betes Association, PO Box 11454, Alexandria VA 22312. Please view and sign the family guestbook at www. pumphreyfuneralhome.com Sandy M. Pringle , 90, a retired Foreign Service officer, died peacefully with his son and daughter at his side on Feb. 19, in Spotsylvania, Va. I N M E M O R Y