REMEMBERING CIA'S HEROES: LESLIANNE SHEDD

• Document Type: FOIA
• Collection: FOIA Collection
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): 06767428
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: U
• Document Page Count: 3
• Document Creation Date: March 8, 2023
• Document Release Date: July 25, 2019
• Case Number: F-2017-01475

Approved for Release: 2019/05/29 C06767428
Remembering CIA's Heroes: Leslianne Shedd
This is part of our series about CIA employees who have made the ultimate sacrifice. Here we will look at
the lives of the men and women who have died while serving their country.
Currently, there are 117 stars carved into the marble of the CIA Memorial Wall. The wall stands as a
silent, simple memorial to those employees "who gave their lives in the service of their country." The CIA
has released the names of 84 employees; the names of the remaining 33 officers must remain secret,
even in death.
Leslianne Shedd�a young, courageous, highly successful CIA operations officer serving in East Africa�
was a passenger on an Ethiopian Airlines flight when it was hijacked and then crashed into the Indian
Ocean on November 23, 1996, killing 125 people, including Lesli. Survivors said that Leslianne spent her
final moments comforting those around her.
Early Years:
Born in Binghamton, New York, Leslianne moved with her family to the state of Washington when she
was two years old. She graduated with honors from Puyallup High School in 1986; graduating in the top
3 percent of her class.
She took on an active leadership role in school, and was a member of both the Spanish and German
clubs. She also participated in her high school's American Field Service program for students interested
in working with students from foreign countries.
Her high school principal recalled that Lesli was known as being "outgoing and vivacious," and her
English teacher remembered her as a warm, caring, and kind person. "She was perky and just a little ray
of light," she said.
Lesli went on to earn a bachelor's degree from the Jackson School of International Studies at the
University of Washington in 1990. She spent the spring 1988 semester studying in Cologne, Germany.
At the University of Washington, Leslianne was a member of the Chi Omega Sorority. She played
intramural soccer and was also a runner. She enjoyed dance � jazz and ballet. She also worked as a
nurse's aide, a secretary at Weyerhaeuser Company, and a law office clerk and paralegal researcher.
Life at CIA:
Leslianne began working at the CIA in February 1991. She received extensive training in operations and
completed the Career Training Program in 1992. Her training included an interim assignment in the
Directorate of Operations (DO) Africa Division, where she was responsible for operational support to
several stations abroad.
Her first assignment was at Headquarters in the DO's Africa Division, where she served as the desk
officer helping to prepare outgoing correspondence to the field, among many other tasks. By the spring
of 1993, she had also completed six months of French language training in preparation for an
assignment overseas.
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In July 1993, Lesli began a two-year tour as a junior operations officer in West Africa. As a first-tour
officer, she impressed her colleagues and managers with her imaginative developmental work, including
risky but successful recruitment efforts aimed at targets with access to terrorist groups. All of this added
up to a highly successful first tour.
Her Final Mission:
Leslianne's second overseas tour began in summer 1995 at one of the DO's most active stations in East
Africa. Lesli arrived at an extremely dangerous time: there were increased threats against US personnel
in the region, and a terrorist group had recently staged an attack against Egyptian President Hosni
Mubarak while he was visiting Ethiopia.
Tensions were high in the region, which meant that she and her co-workers had to operate with a
heightened sense of personal and operational security. They also faced serious threats from internal
opposition groups.
Leslianne, however, appeared undaunted by all this.
Lesli was very successful in her mission, which included developing and recruiting agents, some of whom
provided critical information on individual terrorist movements. She performed her time-consuming
duties with distinction.
Her bosses and co-workers constantly highlighted her fun-loving spirit, and brilliant use of precise,
pointed language in her reports and correspondence back to headquarters. The Chief of Africa Division
praised Lesli's courageous efforts against terrorist targets in Africa.
As part of her work combatting terrorism, Lesli planned to pursue a Master's degree in international
finance once she returned from her overseas tour so that she could track terrorist funding.
The III-Fated Flight:
Leslianne Shedd was killed on November 23, 1996. She was a passenger on a hijacked Ethiopian Airlines
plane that crashed in the Indian Ocean near the Comoro Islands.
Flight 961 was about to take off from Addis Ababa when several apparently intoxicated Ethiopians
boarded the plane and demanded that it be flown to Australia. The hijackers ignored the pilot's
repeated claim that the plane needed to refuel.
Several hours later, during an emergency-landing attempt at Moroni, the capital of the Comoro Islands,
the plane ran out of fuel and crashed into the ocean near a beach resort.
That ill-fated flight was the first leg of what was to have been a Thanksgiving holiday in East Africa for
Lesli and several friends. About an hour into the flight, a hijacking was announced. Lesli and her
companions were seated in the economy class section toward the rear of the aircraft; the terrorists
tended to concentrate near the cockpit. As a result, the group got no more than a brief glimpse of the
hijackers.
No panic occurred; everyone remained calm.
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About three hours later the pilot announced that he was about to attempt a crash landing in the Indian
Ocean and that passengers should put on their life preservers. The plane headed toward the water at
150 mph.
Leslianne did not panic. From her window seat, she assisted her friends sitting beside her. She then
spotted an elderly Ethiopian woman fumbling with her life jacket. Lesli unbuckled her own seatbelt,
stood up, and helped the woman. She then sat down and tried to calm her seatmate and best friend in
Africa.
Just before the plane hit the water, Lesli turned to her friend and said, "it's going to be okay, it's going to
be okay. We're in the safest part of the plane. The best part of the plane. It'll be okay."
Her friend, who survived the crash, could only remember being under what she estimated as some 20
feet of water. The next thing she recalled was being on the surface, with no sign of Leslianne. Her friend
made it to shore, but because of head trauma, was nearly unconscious for two days.
Leslianne Shedd was survived by her mother, father, sister, and brother. She was 28 years old.
Honoring Her Memory:
Leslianne received a star on the CIA Memorial Wall in 1996 and was posthumously awarded the
Agency's Exceptional Service medallion. Her name was unveiled in the Book of Honor in 2012.
During the 2012 Annual Memorial Ceremony, standing before the Memorial Wall in the lobby of CIA
headquarters, Director David Petraeus talked of the sacrifice and service of Lesli and her colleagues:
"The souls represented by the stars on the wall behind me all heard the same call to duty and answered
it without hesitation," he said. "Never for acclaim, always for country."
He continued: "They devoted their hearts and minds to a mission unlike any other, at an agency unlike
any other, serving on the world's most dangerous frontiers to defend our people, defeat our
adversaries, and advance our freedoms. Their words and deeds will inspire us forever, and their service
and sacrifice will never be forgotten."
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