Milestones

By By Peter Bailey, William Han, Carolina A. Miranda and Kate Novack Sunday, June 20, 2004
    • INDICTED. DAVID PASSARO, 38, civilian contractor employed by the CIA; on assault charges, for allegedly beating an Afghan detainee who later died; in Raleigh, N.C. The four-count indictment, which carries a prison term of up to 40 years, is the first against a civilian in the prisoner-abuse investigations in Afghanistan and Iraq.

    DIED. ROBERT TEETER, 65, gentlemanly but tough G.O.P. pollster; of cancer; in Ann Arbor, Mich. After a stint coaching football at his alma mater, Albion College, he helped guide the campaigns of four Republican Presidents, beginning with Richard Nixon in 1968. A pioneer in the use of focus groups and daily tracking polls, he proposed Dan Quayle as former President Bush's running mate in 1988. Four years later, as the team's campaign chair-man, he drew much of the blame for its failed re-election bid from critics who said he had underestimated the strength of rival Patrick Buchanan.


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    DIED. JACEK KURON, 70, chain-smoking Polish academic and dissident in the 1970s who helped topple his country's communist regime; in Warsaw. As a co-founder of the Committee for the Defense of Workers (KOR), he helped bring Polish intellectuals into the fold of future President Lech Walesa's Solidarity movement. In 1989 he became Labor Minister in Poland's first democratic government (in which welfare payments were popularly dubbed "Kuron's money"), but his 1995 bid for the presidency failed. Upon Kuron's death, Walesa said, "There would have been no success or victory without him, without his intellect."

    DIED. HOWARD SOLOMON, 75, former owner of Cafe au Go Go, the basement nightclub in Greenwich Village where the comedian Lenny Bruce was arrested on obscenity charges in 1964; of a heart attack; in Crestline, Calif. Five years after being arrested with Bruce, Solomon sold his club and moved to Florida, where he worked as a real estate developer.

    DIED. DICK DURRANCE, 89, American ski racer who developed some of the most notable ski resorts in the Rocky Mountains; in Carbondale, Colo. After retiring from competition — with 17 national titles, an achievement that later got his face engraved on the medal awarded by the U.S. Ski Association — he became manager of the Aspen Skiing Corp. in 1947, ultimately transforming a three-run mountain into an international resort destination.

    DIED. ROBERT LEES, 91, former screenwriter who penned Abbott and Costello comedies and was blacklisted during the McCarthy era; after he was beheaded by a transient in his home; in Los Angeles. The suspect, who is also accused of fatally stabbing Lees' neighbor, was charged with capital murder.

    DIED. WHITMAN KNAPP, 95, irascible federal judge who led the commission that exposed police corruption in New York City in the early 1970s; in New York City. Mayor John Lindsay recruited the onetime editor of the Harvard Law Review in 1970 to head what would become the Knapp Commission. The report by Knapp's 30member team led to the establishment of an undercover anticorruption unit in the police department — and a featured part for the commission in the popular 1973 film Serpico. After the inquiry, President Nixon appointed Knapp to the federal bench, where he served until his death.

    DIED. ULRICH INDERBINEN, 103, Swiss mountain guide known as the King of the Alps; in Zermatt, Switzerland. He first ascended the Matterhorn in 1921. A year later he secured a job as a guide, and by the time he retired at age 95, he had climbed the 14,692-ft. peak some 370 times.