Milestones, Dec. 12, 1960

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Died. John Elliott Rankin, 78, for 32 consecutive years (1920-52) Congressman from the First District of Mississippi; of a heart attack; in Tupelo, Miss. A shrewd parliamentarian, for all his demagoguery, wiry John Rankin consistently backed veterans' benefits and rural electrification (he co-sponsored the TVA bill with Senator George Norris), was equally steadfast in vituperating Negroes, Jews, labor unions and Communists (real or imagined) in a manner matched only by his fellow Mississippian, Senator Theodore Bilbo.

Died. Donald Randall Richberg, 79, onetime New Deal lawyer who helped draft the National Industrial Recovery Act and the Norris-La Guardia Anti-Injunction Act, then shifted from business-baiting ("the despotic power of those 'royal families' which control large industries") to business-boosting (as counsel to Ford Motor Co., Transamerica Corp.) and wound up a vehement opponent of labor-union "monopolies," social security, public housing, integration, minimum wage laws; of a heart attack; in Charlottesville, Va.

Died. Dirk Jan de Geer, 89, Netherlands ex-Premier, who after the German invasion of his country in 1940 briefly headed a London government-in-exile, later returned to The Netherlands, where he spent the rest of the war, came close enough to collaborating with the Nazis to draw a one-year suspended prison sentence for high treason in 1947; in Soest.

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