Milestones

By Melissa August, Peter Bailey, Elizabeth L. Bland, William Han, Nadia Mustafa, Jonathan Rick and Elizabeth Sampson Sunday, Aug. 01, 2004
    • ARRESTED. AHMED KHALFAN GHAILANI, senior al-Qaeda suspect on the FBI's Most Wanted Terrorists list; in Gujrat, Pakistan. The Tanzanian was indicted in the 1998 bombings of the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.

    CONVICTED. JOSEPH (Big Joey) MASSINO, 61, the once powerful Bonanno Mob boss; of racketeering, arson, extortion and money laundering; in New York City. The former 400-pounder — dubbed "the Last Don" for evading prison while the heads of New York's other four Mafia families were behind bars — was also found guilty of having a role in the slaying of Dominick (Sonny Black) Napolitano, who let FBI agent Joe Pistone (posing as jewel thief Donnie Brasco) infiltrate the family.


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    DIED. TIZIANO TERZANI, 65, Italian-born journalist who reported from Asia for the German newsweekly Der Spiegel and various Italian publications; of cancer; in Florence, Italy. When a fortune-teller predicted he would die in 1993, he refused to fly for a year and wrote a book about it: A Fortune-Teller Told Me: Earthbound Travels in the Far East.

    DIED. VIOLA FREY, 70, artist whose colorful, larger-than-life clay sculptures of men and women pushed the boundaries of the refined ceramic medium of the 1950s and '60s; of colon cancer; in Oakland, Calif. Her 9-ft.-high, robust, cartoonish figures — a fusion of Abstract Expressionism, Pop Art and what was later known as California Funk — were comical but politically pointed: a 2002 work, Man Kicking World, shows a seated man pushing a massive globe with his foot.

    DIED. FRED LARUE, 75, mysterious aide to President Richard Nixon and key figure in the cover-up of the 1972 Watergate break-in at Democratic National Committee headquarters; in Biloxi, Miss. The bagman, who lacked title, salary or mention in the White House directory, served 136 days in jail for paying more than $300,000 to Watergate conspirators and supervising the shredding of documents and financial records related to the scandal.

    DIED. FRANCIS CRICK, 88, Nobel-prizewinning British scientist who, with American James Watson, discovered the spiral double-helix structure of DNA in 1953; in San Diego. (See item below.)

    DIED. JACKSON BECK, 92, versatile master of the microphone for nearly 70 years whose forceful voice introduced the Man of Steel ("Yes, it's Superman, strange visitor from the planet Krypton ...") on more than 1,600 broadcasts of The Adventures of Superman in the 1940s; in New York City. He also played such characters as the Cisco Kid on radio; narrated The March of Time newsreels; and voiced the character of Bluto in nearly 300 Popeye cartoons.

    DIED. WILLIAM MITCHELL, 92, food scientist who accidentally invented Pop Rocks, the exploding candy that burst onto the market in 1975; in Stockton, Calif. During 35 years as a chemist for General Foods, he patented more than 70 inventions, including concoctions that led to the development of Cool Whip, quick-set Jell-O gelatin and the drink mix Tang. In the 1950s, while attempting to create an instant soft drink, he discovered Pop Rocks when he placed sugar flavoring mixed with carbon dioxide on his tongue.

    DIED. CARMINE DE SAPIO, 95, who ruled New York politics as the last boss of Tammany Hall; in New York City. He rose through the ranks as a messenger boy for political captains and ensured that the most politically deserving, needy families received their holiday food baskets. As head of the New York organization in the 1950s, he handpicked Robert F. Wagner Jr. as mayor and W. Averell Harriman as Governor and, some said, could have named the Democratic presidential nominee. But by the late 1960s he had been denounced as authoritarian, convicted of petty bribery and defeated in local elections.