Thirty-two CIA stars have no public name

The CIA’s memorial-wall page is specific in the way a mason’s note is specific. The wall is on the north side of the Original Headquarters Building lobby. The CIA Fine Arts Commission commissioned it in May 1973. Harold Vogel sculpted it in July 1974. Each star is 2-1/4 inches tall, 2-1/4 inches wide, and half an inch deep. Stars and rows sit six inches apart. A carver traces a template, cuts with a pneumatic air hammer and a chisel, sprays the cut black, and watches it fade to gray. The page says the current carver learned the craft in a line that runs back to Vogel.

The arithmetic is on the companion page, “CIA’s Heroes,” and it is the fact that does not soften. “Currently, there are 140 stars.” The Agency “has released the names of 108 employees; the names of the remaining 32 officers must remain secret, even in death.” The inscription above the stars reads: “In honor of those members of the Central Intelligence Agency who gave their lives in the service of their country.” The Book of Honor in front of the wall holds names beside gold-leaf stars. To protect sources and methods, some of those names stay classified. Once a year, the Agency’s own page says, every name — including the unlisted ones — is read aloud at the Memorial Ceremony.

One more institutional detail, because it is not a metaphor. CIA officers are administered the Oath of Office in front of the Memorial Wall on their first day. This brief does not guess which of the thirty-two blanks belongs to which operation. The Agency has said the blanks stay blank. A director’s later remark that counted a different total is not substituted for these two pages.

Notice Nearby is a paid public-notice register, not a newspaper and not the Agency. This is a publisher-desk brief of cia.gov. It is not Legal Publication.