The Foreign Service Journal, November 2020

68 NOVEMBER 2020 | THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL ProQuest Historical Newspapers database, it has a great collection of books on diplomats. To my surprise, its collection includes at least three books on diplomats who have been overlooked on the plaques: Samuel Shaw, Henricus Heusken and Edward Ely. Shaw is described in some detail in Peter Eicher’s recent book Raising the Flag: America’s First Envoys in Faraway Lands (2018), and his published diaries are in the library. Ely’s diaries, published as The Wanderings of Edward Ely (1954), include a postscript explaining how he died of dysentery in Bombay (Mumbai) in 1858. Heusken, secretary at American outposts in Japan—both Shimoda and Edo (Tokyo)—died at the hands of anti-foreigner samurai; his activities in Japan are described in amazing detail in Oliver Statler’s Shimoda Story (1969). Violence, Accidents and Changing Criteria Other overlooked consuls I discovered include Henry Sawyer, who served as consul in Paramaribo, Suriname, for 23 years. A sailor killed Sawyer on May 7, 1877, after Sawyer attempted to take him into custody. During the Civil War, Sawyer played a role in the near capture of the Confederate privateer Sumter , captained by Raphael Semmes. Semmes, who captured several ships off the coast of South America in late 1861, stopped in Paramaribo to obtain coal. Sawyer attempted to purchase all the coal in the port. Although he failed in this endeavor, he did manage to rent or buy almost all available small ships, making it very difficult for Semmes to load the coal he purchased. As such, Semmes was delayed in port for more than a week as opposed to the expected few hours. Sawyer used this time to contact the U.S. Navy, which had a steamer in nearby Cayenne; but because of what the Chicago Tribune called “cowardice or treachery,” the ship did not respond, and Semmes escaped. In the meantime, Sawyer successfully rescued Semmes’ personal slave. Violence also claimed the lives of William Baker and William Stuart. Baker served as consul in Guaymas, Mexico, but died in Mazatlán on Dec. 20, 1862, after being attacked by what the contemporary press called “Apaches.” Stuart, who served as vice consul in Batum, Russia (now Batumi, Georgia), died after being PARALLEL EFFORTS Others became involved in the search for overlooked diplomats, as well. Consular Card Project. FSOs Lindsay Henderson and Kelly Landry, while working in the Office of Policy Coordination and Public Affairs of the Bureau of Consular Affairs, conducted their own search for early colleagues who died in circumstances distinct to overseas service but are not honored on the AFSAMemorial Plaques. Over many off-duty hours during 2019-2020, they reviewed each of the approximately 6,500 “consular cards” on which the State Department tracked overseas assignments of consular officers and diplomats from the 1790s to the mid-1960s. On those mostly handwritten index cards, they found 762 annotations of death at post. For each case, they queried a large online database of U.S. newspapers dating back to the 1700s to attempt to determine the cause of death (which is rarely noted on consular cards). They found contemporary newspaper reporting on approximately half of the deaths. Those reports docu- mented 11 colleagues who had died between 1826 and 1942 under circumstances qualifying for inscription on the plaques. The AFSA Governing Board approved adding them in June 2020. Foreign Service Specialists. Consular cards rarely record assignments of employees who today are catego- rized as Foreign Service specialists. But AFSA Governing Board member John Naland discovered that the Bureau of Diplomatic Security had posted documentation on its website about Foreign Service diplomatic couriers who died overseas in accidents during official travel. One, Seth Foti, who died in 2000, was already on the AFSA Memorial Plaque. But four others, with dates of death between 1945 and 1963, were not. The AFSA Governing Board approved their inscription in May 2020. Researching further, Naland discovered that Foreign Service secretary Nicole Boucher also died in a 1963 crash. She was 28 years old and was returning to the United States after completing her first assignment when the airliner that she and diplomatic courier Joseph P. Capozzi were flying in crashed into Mount Cameroon, near Douala, Cameroon. The AFSA Governing Board approved her inscription in June 2020. —J.V. I was surprised to learn that … the Department of State kept no records of the diplomats or consuls who had died in the line of duty.