Wallace W. 'Pic' Littell, Foreign Service specialist

Wallace W. "Pic" Littell, whose varied career took him from helping patients at the old Philadelphia State Hospital at Byberry to jumping into forest fires, to the U.S. Foreign Service as a Soviet and East European specialist during the Cold War, died May 28. He was 85 and lived in St. Petersburg, Fla.

Wallace was about to travel to the National Wrestling Hall of Fame and Museum in Stillwater, Okla., to be honored as a member of the 1947 national championship wrestling team from Iowa's Cornell College when he died at his summer cabin in Sherman, Pa.

"He was a wonderful man who led an interesting life," said his brother, Franklin Littell, retired chairman of the religion department of Temple University and a leading educator on Nazi Germany and the Holocaust.

Wallace was born in Meadville, Pa., and when World War II broke out declared himself a conscientious objector.

His alternative service began at the old Byberry mental hospital, where he assisted with practical nursing duties as an intern with mentally ill patients in 1940 and 1941.

While at the Iowa college, he worked as a smoke jumper, fighting forest fires for the Interior Department. He graduated as a member of Phi Beta Kappa in 1947. He was an outstanding athlete and was elected to the college's Sports Hall of Fame.

After World War II, he made several trips with the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration to war-torn Greece and Poland, an experience that led him to study for a diplomatic career.

He received a master's degree and Russian Institute certificate from Columbia University, and later studied at Heidelberg and Goettingen universities in Germany.

As a diplomat, he was primarily interested in opening the then-Soviet Union to educational and cultural exchanges. He served as director of policy and research for the 1959 American National Exhibit in Moscow.

Besides serving seven years in the Soviet Union, he also served tours of duty in West Germany, Poland, Yugoslavia, East Germany and Hungary. He retired in 1985 with the rank of minister counselor.

Wallace spoke several languages, including German, French, Polish, Russian and Croatian.

He also is survived by his wife, Ilda Hall Littell; five children, nine grandchildren and three sisters. He was predeceased by his first wife of 36 years, Betty Gay Paris Littell, and by his second wife, Helen Shaw Littell.

Services: Were Saturday in Deposit, N.Y. A memorial service will be held later in St. Petersburg. *