Milestones

By Melissa August, Peter Bailey, Clare Beams, Elizabeth L. Bland, William Han, Unmesh Kher, Carolina A. Miranda and Elizabeth Sampson Sunday, July 25, 2004
    • RELEASED. JIANG YANYONG, 72, prominent surgeon who blew the whistle on China's SARS cover-up; after 49 days in custody; in Beijing. Chinese authorities, apparently bowing to pressure inside and outside the country, allowed Jiang — who has also been an outspoken critic of the 1989 violence at Tiananmen Square — to return home, and he is not expected to be charged.

    CHARGED. LUIS ECHEVARRIA, 82, former Mexican President; with murder in the killing of at least 25 student protesters in 1971. It is the first criminal charge against a former Mexican President and stems from the violent suppression of antigovernment protesters in the 1970s. A Mexican judge on Saturday refused to issue an arrest warrant, but prosecutors say they will appeal.


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    DIED. ANNE BURFORD, 62, contentious former head of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) during Ronald Reagan's presidency; of cancer; in Aurora, Colo. The second highest woman in the Reagan Administration, she was a lightning rod for environmentalists as she slashed the EPA budget and scaled back Superfund payments in the name of states' rights and sensible regulation. After two years, she was forced to resign following her refusal to hand over toxic-waste documents to Congress. "I was a small fish on the way to a big fry," she said later.

    DIED. ANTONIO GADES, 67, passionate Spanish dancer and choreographer; of cancer; in Madrid. Considered Spain's best dancer of his era, he helped popularize flamenco, lacking Gypsy fire but more than compensating with power and elegance. The artistic director of the National Ballet of Spain, he also made 10 films that brought him an international audience, notably Blood Wedding, Spanish director Carlos Saura's vibrant dance version of the Garcia Lorca play. Gades was an ardent communist who spent several years in Cuba. Fidel Castro was the best man at his wedding.

    DIED. JERRY GOLDSMITH, 75, prolific composer of movie scores and television theme music; of cancer; in Beverly Hills, Calif. In a career that spanned a half-century, his music adorned everything from film epics like Patton and The Sand Pebbles to TV classics like Gunsmoke and The Twilight Zone. He could be fast, writing the haunting score for Chinatown in just 10 days, or experimental, using mixing bowls for the score of Planet of the Apes. His creepy music for The Omen won a 1976 Oscar.

    DIED. ILLINOIS JACQUET, 81, innovative tenor saxophonist and bandleader; of a heart attack; in New York City. At 19, playing with Lionel Hampton's band, he bleated out an 80-sec. solo on Flying Home that became legendary. He was a master of the style known as screeching and was equally adept at slow ballads. In addition to playing with most of the jazz giants of his era, he was invited by President Bill Clinton to perform a duet on the White House lawn at his first Inauguration.

    DIED. EDWARD B. LEWIS, 81, Nobel-prizewinning geneticist; of cancer; in Pasadena, Calif. Using the lowly fruit fly, the Caltech professor was the first to explain how genes control the growth of a fertilized egg into a fully developed embryo. Further research has shown that the same mechanisms are at work in almost all animals, including humans.

    DIED. EMILE PEYNAUD, 92, pioneering enologist who raised standards of winemaking around the world; of complications from Parkinson's disease; outside Bordeaux, France. After working in the cellars in his teens, he earned a doctorate in wines and almost single-handedly changed winemaking from an Old World industry to one using rigorous scientific methods — including improved temperature controls, lower acid levels and cleaner casks — to produce richer, better wines.