The Foreign Service Journal, September 2003

John W. Mowinckel , 82, retired FSO, died on May 7 in West Palm Beach, Fla. A soldier, journalist, diplomat, businessman and raconteur, Mr. Mowinckel was born in Genoa, Italy, where his father represented the Esso Petroleum Company. When his father was appointed the European representative of Esso, the family moved to Paris. Mr. Mowinckel attended St. Paul’s School in Concord, N.H., and the Le Rosey School in Rolle, Switzerland, and graduated from Princeton University in 1943. During World War II, Mr. Mowinckel served as a lieutenant in the U.S. Marine Corps assigned to the Office of Strategic Services. A day before General de Gaulle and his Free French entered Paris on Aug. 25, 1944, Mowinckel and Lt. Col. Ken Downes drove to Paris, and, as Larry Collins and Dominique Lapierre describe in their book Is Paris Burning? , the two American soldiers “liberated” the Hotel de Crillon. The Collins-Lapierre book describes the event vividly. When the two American officers walked into the Crillon, they found 176 German officers and men who obviously had failed to connect with the general German withdrawal. Lt. Col. Downes asked Lt. Mowinckel to dis- arm the Germans, who preferred to surrender to Americans than to the French resistance that had taken over Paris prior to the arrival of French forces. Though Mr. Mowinckel was the first U.S. officer to enter Paris during the liberation, and was decorated with the Silver and Bronze Stars as well as France’s Croix de Guerre, he is best remembered by friends as the man who took back the Crillon from the Nazis and drank Taittinger left behind by the Germans as his prize. After the war, Mr. Mowinckel worked as the regional editor for U.S. News and World Report in Rome and Paris. In 1950 he joined the Foreign Service, moving from the Educational and Cultural Affairs Bureau to the USIA in 1953. He served in Rome, Paris, Kinshasa, Rio de Janeiro and Washington, D.C., and retired in 1975 as minister and deputy chief of mission in Vienna. Mr. Mowinckel will be remem- bered as a consummate diplomat who took his firm belief in U.S. for- eign policy to his postings around the world. Through his experiences as a diplomat, he enjoyed great success in his later business career. This took him back to Paris and, later, Monte Carlo. He retired in West Palm Beach, Fla. Mr. Mowinckel is survived by his wife Letizia (nee Crostarosa) of West Palm Beach; a sister Augusta; a son John, and grandchildren John and Hedy, of London, England. Mr. Mowinckel was interred in Monte Carlo. Memorial donations may be made to the Hospice of Palm Beach County Inc., 5300 East Ave., West Palm Beach, FL 33407. Pat Kilarny Terranova , 74, retired FSO, died in Winter Park, Fl., on April 2. Born in Wilmington, Del., Ms. Terranova moved with her family to California after high school, and went on to business school. She loved working for the State Department, as a secretary in the Foreign Service. She served abroad in Greece, Thailand, Iran, Germany, Russia, Belgium and Turkey, before return- ing to Washington, D.C. While in Russia, she was promoted, and served the rest of her Foreign Service career as a personnel officer. In 1979, Ms. Terranova retired from the Foreign Service and moved to Winter Park. She was active in the Winter Park Women’s Club and the Winter Park University Club. Pat Terranova never met a stranger. She stood by her friends in times of trouble and in return they supported her. She thought it was her job to help people. Her generos- ity knew no bounds: If you asked her for something, she would do every- thing in her power to make it happen. Ms. Terranova loved her family and brought everyone together: cousins know cousins and will all be connected because of her. She is sur- vived by nieces Pam Chavez of Virginia and Angela Chavez of California; nephews Tom and Robert Chavez of California; stepdaughters Jaime Duffy of Arizona and Elisa Domzalski of California; and great- nieces Jessica and Jennifer Chavez of California. ■ 78 F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L / S E P T E M B E R 2 0 0 3 I N M E M O R Y Please send your In Memory item to: FSJ , 2101 E Street, N.W., Washington, DC 20037, or e-mail to j ournal@afsa.org, or fax to (202) 338-8244.