Obituaries

Guillermo Endara, Who Helped Lead Panama From Noriega to Democracy, Dies at 73

Guillermo Endara, who suffered electoral fraud, a cracked skull and hunger on his path to succeed the strongman Gen. Manuel Antonio Noriega as leader of Panama in 1989, then helped steer the country to democracy, died Monday at his home in Panama City. He was 73. The Associated Press reported that Mr. Endara had diabetes and kidney ailments and had been hospitalized recently for dialysis treatment. As the leader of a reform coalition, Mr. Endara appeared to have won a d

Don Fisher, Co-Founder Of Gap, Dies at 81

Donald Fisher, who set out to create a new kind of clothing store to fill "The Gap" he saw in retailing, died of cancer Sunday at age 81. Mr. Fisher wasn't known as a merchant or fashion designer. Rather, he propelled his business with an intense competitive drive and a passion for real estate. Under his leadership, the San Francisco-based retailer quickly spread to malls and urban centers across the U.S. He recruited talent to make up for his lack of apparel knowledge.

William Safire, Nixon speechwriter, dies at 79

William Safire, who died Sunday of pancreatic cancer at age 79, was for 32 years a standard bearer of what he called"libertarian conservatism" in the otherwise mainly predictably liberal Op-Ed pages of the New York Times. A former public-relations executive who claimed to have staged the famous 1959"kitchen debate" in Moscow between Richard Nixon, then vice-president, and Soviet leader Nikita Khruschev on the merits of capitalism and communism, Safire went on to work in the White House as a spee

Kevork Hovnanian, Founder of N.J. Builder, Dies at 86 (Update4)

Kevork S. Hovnanian, who fled Armenia for Iraq before coming to the U.S. and building a small family-run company into New Jersey’s largest homebuilder, died yesterday in Manhattan, the company said. He was 86. The cause of death was not disclosed. “Kevork was a giant, understanding, wonderful man who personified the American dream,” Robert Toll, chairman and chief executive officer of Horsham, Pennsylvania-based homebuilder Toll Brothers Inc., said in an e-mail. “He lea

Recording Pioneer Who Led Classical Music's Hi-Fi Wave

Just 23 years old when she recruited the Chicago Symphony Orchestra for a recording contract in 1950, Wilma Cozart Fine went on to create hundreds of orchestral albums that set the standard for classical-music recording for decades. Mrs. Fine, who died Sept. 21 at the age of 82, led Mercury Records' classical-music recording business in the 1950s and 1960s, at a time when senior female executives in the industry were rare. She initiated and produced the label's "Living Presence

Professor JB Kelly, 84, was one of the foremost commentators on the Middle East

As such Kelly was occasionally accused of being pro-Zionist. That was a simple error. He was critical of both Arab and Israeli actions at different times. His real admiration was for the British imperial servants, generally in the India Office, who had brought stability and genuine progress to Arabia and the Gulf. His real contempt was for the British and American governments who had appeased weak anti-imperial challengers, betraying their own diplomats, their sheikhly regional allies, and the s

The Life and Death of a Mexican Environmental Prophet: Felipe Arreaga Sanchez

Don Felipe is dead. An internationally-known forest defender and organic farming promoter, 60-year-old Felipe Arreaga Sanchez was killed September 16, Mexican Independence Day, while driving his ATV in Petatlán, Guerrero. The longtime campesino activist was struck by a mini-bus and died a few hours later in a hospital in nearby Zihuatanejo. Although Petatlán is the site of a military base, the town lacks civilian medical facilities capable of handling serious injuries. The driver of the mini-bus

Ultrasound Pioneer Offered Early Glimpses Inside Body

Using an old wartime Navy radar simulator, John J. Wild developed the diagnostic ultrasound machine that would ultimately provide pregnant mothers with the first image of their unborn children. Dr. Wild, who died Friday at 95, developed the ultrasound technology and techniques in the late 1940s and early '50s. And they remain in use today. Ultrasound fetal monitoring is a standard tool in obstetrics, and it is frequently used to diagnose heart abnormalities. "The m

Elizaveta Mukasei, Soviet Spy, Is Dead at 97

MOSCOW (Agence France-Presse) — Elizaveta Mukasei, a Soviet spy who was half of one of the most famous husband-and-wife duos in the history of espionage, died here Saturday. She was 97. Her death was announced by Sergei Ivanov, spokesman for the Foreign Intelligence Service, in a statement published by Russian news agencies. From the 1940s until the late 1970s, Ms. Mukasei worked with her husband, Mikhail, on a string of undercover operations abroad. They used the code

Bernie Fuchs, Illustrator for Magazines and Advertisements, Dies at 76

Bernie Fuchs, an artist of magazine illustrations and advertisements, presidential portraits and postage stamps, whose vibrant paintings captured of middle-class life in pre-Vietnam America, died on Thursday in Fairfield, Conn. He was 76 and lived in Westport, Conn. The cause was esophageal cancer, said David Apatoff, a friend and illustration scholar. Mr. Fuchs’s work, once a mainstay of leading magazines like Good Housekeeping, McCall’s, TV Guide and Sports Illustrate

Time religion editor who asked "Is God Dead?" is dead at 78

All journalists want to write a story that makes a big splash. John T. Elson, the religion editor at Time magazine, was no exception. But in 1966 he got more than he bargained for. For more than a year, Mr. Elson had labored over an article examining radical new approaches to thinking about God that were gaining currency in seminaries and universities and spilling over to the public at large. When finally completed, it became the cover story for the issue of April 8, as

James Krenov, Wood and Word Worker, Is Dead at 88

James Krenov, a renowned cabinetmaker and something of a philosopher who wrote lyrically about his craft and his reverence for the subtleties of wood, died Sept. 9 in Fort Bragg, Calif. He was 88. His daughter Katya Krenov-Hoke confirmed the death. A long-haired, bearded man who never stopped calling himself “a pre-Kerouac hippie,” Mr. Krenov was the founder of the fine woodworking program at the College of the Redwoods in Fort Bragg, one of the most influential program

Malcolm Wilkey, Noted Judge, Dies at 90

Judge Malcolm R. Wilkey might be described as Zelig-like, but the events he was involved in over the years — and often his roles in them — were far more important than that. One story he loved to tell involved the time he led the prosecution of George Parr, the longtime political boss of a huge expanse of South Texas. Mr. Parr had enlarged his place in history books in 1948 by ordering the “correction” in vote-counting that made Lyndon B. Johnson a senator by a plurality of 87 votes

Myles Brand, First College President to Lead NCAA, Dies at 67

Myles Brand, the first college president to lead the National Collegiate Athletic Association and a champion of stricter academic standards for athletes, died Wednesday after a nearly yearlong battle with pancreatic cancer. He was 67. Mr. Brand, whose face had grown gaunt in recent months as he underwent treatment, remained active in the association's work until his death. Although unsteady on his feet and significantly thinner, he attended the men's Final Four in April. Just Tuesda

Mary Travers of Peter, Paul and Mary Dies at 72

Mary Travers, whose ringing, earnest vocals with the folk trio Peter, Paul and Mary made songs like “Blowin’ in the Wind,” “If I Had a Hammer” and “Where Have All the Flowers Gone?” enduring anthems of the 1960s protest movement, died on Wednesday at Danbury Hospital in Connecticut. She was 72 and lived in Redding, Conn. The cause was complications from chemotherapy associated with a bone-marrow transplant she had several years ago after developing leukemia, said Heather Lylis, a sp

Mel Simon: He Built America's First Megamall

The leader of a boisterous and productive family partnership sometimes called "the Marx Brothers of Malls," Mel Simon helped transform the way Americans shop. Mr. Simon, who died Wednesday at 82, built shopping centers across the country, starting with strip malls and culminating in ambitious multi-use complexes such as the Mall of America, located outside of Minnesota's Twin Cities and the nation's largest mall. Such structures sometimes drew flak for shutter

Jody Powell, Trusted Aide to Jimmy Carter, Dies at 65

WASHINGTON — Jody Powell, a sandy-haired former Georgia farm boy who was President Jimmy Carter’s closest and most trusted aide, working with him from his days as Georgia governor through the Carter presidency, died Monday at his home near Cambridge, on the Eastern Shore of Maryland. He was 65. Mr. Powell collapsed outside his home, and efforts to revive him at a hospital were futile, said Jack Nelson, who hurled questions at Mr. Powell three decades ago as Washington bureau chief o

Poet-Rocker Jim Carroll Dead

Poet and punk rocker Jim Carroll died from a heart attack on Friday in Manhattan. Sixty-year-old Carroll earned a cult following for his poetry—he began publishing pamphlets in his teens—long before the 1978 publication of The Basketball Diaries, a journal he kept in high school as he descended from basketball-scholarship student at a Manhattan private school to hustling in Times Square for heroin. The book became widely popular on college campuses, and Leonardo DiCaprio played him in a 1995 fil

Father of 'Green Revolution' Dies

Nobel Peace laureate Norman E. Borlaug, whose breeding of crops for poor farmers led to Asia's famine-defusing Green Revolution four decades ago, died Saturday night after a long battle with cancer. He was 95. Dr. Borlaug, who was widely credited with saving hundreds of millions of people from starvation, upended conventional wisdom among scientists of his era both by the way he created super strains of wheat that have since spread across much of the developing world, and by proving

Juan Almeida Bosque, Laborer Who Rose to Power at Castro’s Side, Dies at 82

HAVANA (AP) — Juan Almeida Bosque, a comrade-in-arms of Fidel Castro since the start of his guerrilla struggle more than a half-century ago, died here on Friday, the government reported Saturday. He was 82. The cause was a heart attack, the government said. Mr. Almeida was one of several Cuban vice presidents and had been among only three surviving rebel leaders who still bore the honorary title “Commander of the Revolution” — a title reserved for top leaders of rebel t