The Foreign Service Journal, November 2016

THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL | NOVEMBER 2016 67 Department. Claire, who accompanied her husband throughout his Foreign Service career, died in 2001. The McKiernans had no children. On completing military service, Mr. McKiernan was commissioned as a career officer in the U.S. Foreign Service. He was both a specialist in German affairs and a generalist with a unique variety of consular, diplomatic and politico-military assignments. His foreign postings were to Casablanca, Rotterdam, Berlin, Paris (NATODefense College), Bamako, Nicosia and Izmir. InWashington, D.C., he fulfilled assign- ments in the State Department Office of German Affairs and the Office of Multi- lateral Cultural Affairs, and also served as deputy director of plans and policy in the Department of the Air Force at the Depart- ment of Defense. In 1972, Mr. McKiernan retired as consul general at Izmir, and the McKier- nans settled inMarblehead, which he had known well as a boy. They enjoyed a very active retirement, highlighted in the earlier years by volunteer activities and foreign travel. Although retired, Mr. McKiernanmain- tained a close interest in foreign affairs. Building on a long-term avocation, he became a serious and locally well-known painter in oil and watercolor. Thomas McKiernan was predeceased by his brother, Brian. He is survived by his nephew, General (Ret.) David D. McKier- nan of Marblehead, and his niece, Kather- ine McKiernan Carney of Woodbridge, Va. n John A. Murtha, 83, a retired Foreign Service officer, died onMay 15 in Wakefield, Mass., after a long illness. Mr. Murtha was born in Sedro-Woolley in the state of Washington on Sept. 8, 1932. He served in the U.S. Air Force from 1952 to 1956, and received a B.A. degree from the University of Washington in 1961. For the next six years he worked as a supervisory auditor for the General Accounting Office inWashington, D.C. Mr. Murtha joined the State Depart- ment as an auditor in 1967. In 1971, he was posted to Canberra as budget and fiscal officer. He served in Vientiane from 1973 to 1975 and in Dublin from 1975 to 1978. From 1978 to 1980 he served in the Office of the Inspector General; and from 1980 to 1983 he was assigned to the Office of Protocol. Mr. Murtha retired in 1983. He is survived by his wife, Myra, of Malden, Mass.; and his daughter, Stacy, and son, Sean, of Virginia. n Carroll Christoph Ehringhaus Niles, 76, the wife of retired Foreign Ser- vice OfficerThomas Niles, died on June 18 at the Edgehill retirement community in Stamford, Conn. Mrs. Niles was born in Charlotte, N.C., on Nov. 24, 1940. She graduated from St. Mary’s Junior College in Raleigh, N.C., in 1958 and Goucher College in Baltimore, Md., in 1962, after which she worked in New York for several companies in the advertising andmarketing area. In 1967, she marriedThomas Niles, a Foreign Service officer. Following a year during whichMr. Niles studied the Russian language at the U.S. Army Russian Institute in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Mrs. Niles accompanied himon assignments inMos- cow, Brussels, Ottawa and Athens. These included ambassadorial assign- ments to Canada, the European Union, and Greece during whichMrs. Niles was recognized as an outstanding representa- tive of the United States and a compas- sionate and caring leader of the American embassy communities in those cities. In addition to her husband, Mrs. Niles leaves behind a son, John, a daughter, Mary, and five grandchildren.