Milestones

RETIRED. William J. Obanhein, 60, tough, taciturn police officer in his native Stock-bridge, Mass., made reluctantly famous when he arrested visiting Folk Singer Arlo Guthrie for littering on Thanksgiving Day 1965, thereby becoming the heavy, "Officer Obie," in Guthrie's talking blues epic, Alice's Restaurant, and in the 1969 hit film in which each played himself; from his position as chief after 34 years on the force because, he said, of his frustration with the courts and smalltown politics; in Stockbridge. Obie and Guthrie, a resident of nearby Washington, Mass., became friends after the clash over trash.

DIED. Herbert Scoville Jr., 70, authority on nuclear arms and articulate advocate of their control; of cancer; in Washington. He worked on the development of atomic weapons for the Defense Department (1948-55), and after serving with the CIA (1955-63) devoted himself to preventing their spread and use as assistant director of the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency (1963-69), and as head of the private Arms Control Association, an organization he helped found in 1971 to educate the public.

DIED. Auguste Joseph Ricord, 74, French-born drug trafficker who from his base in Paraguay during the late 1960s and early '70s masterminded the Latin Connection, the syndicate that shipped $1.2 billion worth of Turkish heroin from Europe through Central and South America to the U.S.; of undisclosed causes; in Asuncion, Paraguay. Arrested there in 1971 on U.S. conspiracy charges, Ricord, one of the biggest drug kingpins ever snared by the U.S., was sentenced in 1973 to 20 years' imprisonment, but was released after ten because of poor health.

DIED. Eugene Carson Blake, 78, eminent American liberal churchman who as chief executive of a Presbyterian denomination (1951-66), president of the National Council of Churches (1954-57) and general secretary of the World Council of Churches (1966-72) used his salesman's savvy, administrator's organizing skills and diplomat's doggedness in a lifelong quest for union among Christians; of complications from diabetes; in Stamford, Conn. He strove to enlist his church in the fight for civil rights, and in 1960 he proposed the unification of the Methodist, Episcopal and Presbyterian churches and the United Church of Christ, arguing that "our separate organizations . . . present a tragically divided church to a tragically divided world." The result was the Consultation on Church Union, which eventually attracted nine denominations to talks that last year succeeded in forging a theological basis for merger.