WASHINGTON, May 22, 1946 – Alan Steyne, 47, State Department official, died tonight in Emergency Hospital several hours after he was found in the basement of the fashionable Metropolitan Club with a pistol wound in the chest.

Ten notes were found near him and police said there was every indication that the wound was self-inflicted.  Police said they were told he had been under a doctor’s care for nervousness.

The notes were not immediately made publis.  Police said one of them was addressed to Steyne’s fiancée, a British girl, one to the police and the other to State Department officials and friends.

After serving in various diplomatic posts abroad he was made Assistant Chief of the Planning Staff in the the Office of Foreign Service.  He was transferred several weeks ago to the Officer of International Trade Policy