Milestones

By Richard Lacayo; Melissa August; Harriet Barovick; Elizabeth L. Bland

DIED. PHILIP JOHNSON, 98; in New Canaan, Conn. One of the nation's best-known architects and architectural tastemakers, he was also one of the great American enthusiasts. As co-organizer of the pivotal 1932 International Style exhibition at New York City's Museum of Modern Art, he introduced the U.S. to the European glass-and-steel modernism that would dominate its skylines after World War II. As an architect he produced some fine work in the modernist vein, like his own Glass House. But modernism's refusal of historical reference made him restless. In 1984, with his Chippendale-topped AT&T building in Manhattan, he proclaimed himself postmodern. He was capable of very good buildings, like Pennzoil Place in Houston, and mere concoctions, like so many of his later-life office towers. And for a while in the 1930s his enthusiasms included fascism, a nasty episode of which he later repented. In a long, nimble career, his only constant was change. --By Richard Lacayo

CHARGED. JUAN ALVAREZ, 25, disturbed laborer who, in an apparent aborted suicide attempt, allegedly abandoned his Jeep Cherokee on a heavily traveled commuter-rail track in Glendale, Calif., during the morning rush, causing a colossal derailment that left about 200 people injured and at least 11 dead; with 11 counts of murder with "special circumstances," making him eligible for the death penalty; in Los Angeles.

DIED. JIM CAPALDI, 60, drummer and co-founder, with Steve Winwood, of the '60s band Traffic, whose hits included Paper Sun and Hole in My Shoe; of stomach cancer; in London. After the band split up in 1974, Capaldi went on to a successful solo career, hitting the charts with a '70s cover of Roy Orbison's Love Hurts.

DIED. NICK MCDONALD, 76, Dallas police officer who, on hearing a report of a suspicious man in a movie theater, struggled with an armed Lee Harvey Oswald and arrested him about an hour after the assassination of President John F. Kennedy; in Hot Springs, Ark.

DIED. JOHNNY CARSON, 79, elegant, unrivaled king of late-night television; of emphysema; in Malibu, Calif. (see page 86).

DIED. ROSE MARY WOODS, 87, doggedly loyal secretary to President Richard Nixon who famously took part of the blame for an 181/2-min. gap in a tape recording of a conversation between Nixon and his chief of staff, H.R. Haldeman, made three days after the Watergate break-in; in Alliance, Ohio. Woods said that while transcribing the June 20, 1972, recording--which was considered critical because it might have shown that Nixon knew in advance about the break-in and was involved in a coverup--she could have erased part of the tape by accidentally hitting the erase key while reaching for her phone. A photo of her demonstrating the acrobatic maneuver fueled speculation about Nixon's complicity.

DIED. CONSUELO VELAZQUEZ, 88, classically trained Mexican pianist turned pop composer whose sultry World War II--era ballad Besame Mucho became one of the most recorded songs of the 20th century, covered by such artists as Frank Sinatra and the Beatles; in Mexico City.

DIED. BRANDT STEELE, 97, pioneering psychiatrist who with pediatrician Henry Kempe coined the term battered-child syndrome in 1962; in Denver. The pair also first documented that parents who hurt children were often themselves childhood victims of abuse and neglect.

DIED. WILLIAM BOOTLE, 102, progressive Southern judge who in 1961 ordered the integration of the University of Georgia; in Macon, Ga. In ruling that two black students who had been denied admission--one of them future TV journalist Charlayne Hunter-Gault--were "fully qualified," he set in motion a chain of decisions that resulted in the school's integration within a week. "Right is right," Bootle said.