Obituaries

Buchenwald Liberator, James Hoyt, Dies at 83

James Hoyt delivered mail in rural Iowa for more than 30 years. Yet Hoyt had long kept a secret from most of those who knew him best: He was one of the four U.S. soldiers to first see Germany's Buchenwald concentration camp. Hoyt died Monday at his home in Oxford, Iowa, a town of about 700 people where he had lived his entire life. He was 83. His funeral was Thursday at St. Mary's Catholic Church in Oxford, with about 100 people in attendance. The Rev. Edmond Dunn offic

Mahmoud Darwish, Palestinian Poet Was a Political, Cultural Icon, Dies at 67

Mahmoud Darwish, whose poetry helped make him one of the leading cultural voices for the Palestinian experience, died Saturday in Houston of complications from open heart surgery. He was 67. A revered cultural icon in the occupied Palestinian territories and among the Palestinian diaspora, Darwish in his poetry often touched on the themes of exile and resistance. He wrote the symbolic Palestinian Declaration of Independence in 1988. Palestinian Authority President

Anthony J. Russo, 71, Pentagon Papers Figure, Dies

Anthony J. Russo, a shaggy-haired, countercultural, unemployed policy wonk when he teamed up with Daniel Ellsberg, a more button-downed antiwar figure, to leak the voluminous, top-secret government history of the Vietnam War called the Pentagon Papers, died Wednesday in Suffolk, Va. He was 71. Mr. Ellsberg announced the death on a Web site, antiwar.com. Mr. Russo suffered from heart trouble. Mr. Russo chafed at being called the “Xerox aide” because of his role in findin

Kathleen Kinkade, Founder of Utopian Commune, Is Dead at 77

American soil has proved to be fertile ground for utopian communities. Since the days of Brook Farm, they have come and gone — most of them quickly. Twin Oaks, an experimental community near Charlottesville, Va., inspired by the behaviorist ideas of B. F. Skinner, still survives after more than 40 years. Kathleen Kinkade, one of its founders, died there on July 3 at the age of 77. The cause was breast cancer, said her daughter, Josie Kinkade. Inspired by the ideal socie

Michael DeBakey, Rebuilder of Hearts, Dies at 99

Dr. Michael E. DeBakey, whose innovative heart and blood vessel operations made him one of the most influential doctors in the United States, died Friday night in Houston, where he lived. He was 99. His death at the Methodist Hospital was announced by the hospital and Baylor College of Medicine, where Dr. DeBakey was chancellor emeritus. “Many consider Michael E. DeBakey to be the greatest surgeon ever,” The Journal of the American Medical Association said in 2005.

Grigory V. Romanov, Former Gorbachev Rival, Is Dead at 85

Grigory V. Romanov, a Politburo member who was Mikhail S. Gorbachev’s chief rival to become Soviet leader in the mid-1980s, has died in Moscow. He was 85 and had lived in retirement in Moscow since losing out to Mr. Gorbachev in 1985. The Communist Party announced the death but gave no date or cause. Mr. Romanov became a full member of the ruling Politburo in 1976, when the Soviet Union was led by Leonid I. Brezhnev, who treated Mr. Romanov as his successor.

William Odom, 75, National Security Director, Dies

William E. Odom, a director of the National Security Agency in the Reagan administration who became an early and outspoken opponent of the Iraq war, died last Friday at his vacation home in Lincoln, Vt.. He was 75. The cause was a heart attack, his family said. Mr. Odom, who also worked at the National Security Agency under President Jimmy Carter, was once described as a “blue-ribbon hawk” for his opposition to détente with the Soviet Union. His long military and natio

Jordan Wright, 50, Political Archivist, Dies

Jordan M. Wright, who at 10 was thrilled to learn that politicians hand out self-promotional baubles, then collected more than a million bumper stickers and other campaign artifacts — from the time of George Washington to that of George W. Bush — died on May 11 at his home in Atlantic Beach, N.Y. He was 50. The cause was an embolism, his mother, Faith-Dorian Wright, said. Mr. Wright, a lawyer, businessman and publisher, died just as his political treasure chest (if “Cle

NASA pioneer Ernst Stuhlinger dies at 94

Ernst Stuhlinger, one of the last surviving German rocket scientists who came to America after World War II and formed the engineering foundation of the nation's space program, has died. He was 94. Stuhlinger, who died Sunday, had been in failing health for several months, according to the U.S. Space & Rocket Center. Stuhlinger served as chief scientist for Wernher von Braun and was among the group of German scientists who moved with him to Huntsville in 1950 when

Michael Rossman, Who Fought for Campus Rights, Dies at

Michael Rossman, an organizer of the Free Speech Movement at the University of California, Berkeley, who was later known for his books on politics, society and education, died May 12 at his home in Berkeley. He was 68. The cause was leukemia, his wife, Karen McLellan, said. Mr. Rossman’s first book, “The Wedding Within the War” (Doubleday, 1971), was a collection of essays chronicling his experiences in the free speech, antiwar and counterculture movements. Reviewing the col

Polish Holocaust Hero, Irena Sendler, Dies at 98

WARSAW, Poland — Irena Sendler, a Polish social worker who organized the rescue of some 2,500 Jewish children from the Nazis and was later honored by Israel's Yad Vashem memorial, has died. Sendler's daughter, Janina Zgrzembska, told The Associated Press her mother died at a Warsaw hospital Monday morning. She was 98. Sendler had lived at a Warsaw nursing home run by the Catholic Brothers of St. John of God since 2003, but had been in the hospital since last month with

Yossi Harel, Who, Defying British, Brought Jews to Palestine, Is Dead at 90

Yossi Harel, who renamed the rickety ship he commanded Exodus 1947 and sailed it to legend as a symbol of the righteousness of the mission by Jews to settle Palestine in the face of British opposition, died Saturday at his home in Tel Aviv. He was 90. His death of a heart attack and his burial were widely reported in the Israeli news media. Britain, which controlled Palestine under an international mandate, had in 1939 restricted the number of Jews it would allow to mov

'Father' of LSD dies at 102

Albert Hofmann, father of the mind-altering drug LSD whose medical discovery grew into a notorious "problem child," died Tuesday. He was 102. Hofmann died of a heart attack at his home in Basel, Switzerland, according to Rick Doblin, president of the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies, in a statement posted on the association's Web site. Hofmann's hallucinogen inspired -- and arguably corrupted -- millions in the 1960's hippie generation. Fo

French Resistance fighter Germaine Tillion dies at 100

Germaine Tillion, a French World War II Resistance fighter and celebrated anthropologist, died Saturday, her association said. She was 100. Tillion, who wrote about her experiences in a Nazi camp, died at her home in Saint-Mande, located in the Paris region, said the head of the Germaine Tillion Association, Tzvetan Todorov. Tillion — who was sent in 1943 to the Nazi camp for women and children in Ravensbruck, Germany, for her work with France's underground Resistance n

Robert Hartmann, 91, Dies; Wrote Ford’s Noted Talk

Robert T. Hartmann, who wrote the 1974 address in which Gerald R. Ford, assuming the presidency after the resignation of Richard M. Nixon, told the nation, “My fellow Americans, our long national nightmare is over,” died on April 11 in Washington. He was 91 and lived in Bethesda, Md. The cause was cardiac arrest, said his son, Robert. The memorable phrase coined by Mr. Hartmann, counselor to the president, almost failed to survive. In a three-hour ABC News program in 19

Polly Lauder Tunney, 100, Fighter’s Widow, Dies

Polly Lauder Tunney, a Connecticut socialite and Carnegie heiress whose secret romance and subsequent marriage to the former heavyweight champion Gene Tunney was one of the most sensational love stories of the 1920s, died Saturday at her home in Stamford, Conn. She was 100. Her death was confirmed Monday by her son John V. Tunney, the former United States Senator from California. His mother had had several strokes in recent years, including one about a week ago, he said.

William Hyland, Who Guided Foreign Policy, Dies at 79

William G. Hyland, who helped shape United States foreign policy, particularly toward the Soviet Union, as a top-level bureaucrat and then became editor of the influential journal Foreign Affairs, died on March 25 in Fairfax, Va. He was 79. The cause was an aortic aneurysm, his son James said. Mr. Hyland, who lived in Vienna, Va., held high posts in the Central Intelligence Agency, the State Department and the White House. President Gerald R. Ford named him to a top-lev

Dith Pran, Photojournalist and Survivor of the Killing Fields, Dies at 65

Dith Pran, a photojournalist for The New York Times whose gruesome ordeal in the killing fields of Cambodia was re-created in a 1984 movie that gave him an eminence he tenaciously used to press for his people’s rights, died on Sunday at a hospital in New Brunswick, N.J. He was 65 and lived in Woodbridge, N.J. The cause was pancreatic cancer, which had spread, said his friend Sydney H. Schanberg. Mr. Dith saw his country descend into a living hell as he scraped and scram

Philip Jones Griffiths, War Photographer, Dies at 7

Philip Jones Griffiths, a crusading photojournalist whose pictures of civilian casualties and suffering were among the defining images of the war in Vietnam, died on Wednesday at his home in London. He was 72. The cause was cancer, said Richard Hughes, an actor and activist who befriended Mr. Griffiths in Vietnam. The book that grew out of Mr. Griffiths’s reporting there, “Vietnam Inc.,” is considered a classic, and its publication in 1971 helped turn public opinion aga

Writer Arthur C. Clarke dies at 90

Arthur C. Clarke, a visionary science fiction writer who co-wrote "2001: A Space Odyssey" and won worldwide acclaim with more than 100 books on space, science and the future, died Wednesday, an aide said. He was 90. Clarke, who had battled debilitating post-polio syndrome since the 1960s, died at 1:30 a.m. in his adopted home of Sri Lanka after suffering breathing problems, aide Rohan De Silva said. Co-author with Stanley Kubrick of Kubrick's film "2001: