Milestones

By John F. Stacks Melissa August, Harriet Barovick, Sean Gregory, Janice M. Horowitz And Heather Won Tesoriero

DIED. RONALD ZIEGLER, 63, President Nixon's defiant, clueless press aide during the Watergate scandal; of a heart attack; in Coronado, Calif. Ziegler was only 29 when Richard Nixon sent him to manage the hostilities in the White House press room. "Ron Zig-liar," some reporters called him, but the lies Ziegler told were mostly the President's, given that he didn't really know what was going on in the White House. When Nixon packed himself off to exile in 1974, Ziegler went with him. It was as if he didn't know what else to do. He had become famous for calling the Watergate break-in a "third-rate burglary," which of course it was. Ziegler was credited with coining the term photo opportunity, now widely used to describe canned political appearances. He was also famous for rescinding one set of White House lies by calling them "inoperative." Ziegler never went to jail for his actions during Watergate, but like many of the others who served Nixon, he never quite regained his reputation either. --By John F. Stacks

RECOVERING. JOHN KERRY, 59, Senator from Massachusetts and Democratic candidate for President; from prostate-cancer surgery that doctors characterized as completely successful; in a hospital in Baltimore, Md. Given a 95% chance of full recovery, Kerry said he expected to be back on the campaign trail within weeks.

CONVICTED. CLARA HARRIS, 45, Texas dentist; of murder, by repeatedly running over her adulterous husband David with her Mercedes-Benz, as her stepdaughter sat beside her in the car; in Houston. Harris, who contended the death was accidental and that she was simply trying to ram the vehicle of her husband's lover, was sentenced to 20 years in prison.

--EUTHANIZED. DOLLY, 6, the world's first cloned sheep; after being diagnosed with progressive lung disease; in London. Cloned in 1996 with DNA from an adult ewe's cell, Dolly lived to half the expectancy of her breed. Her early death and illnesses--she also had arthritis--raised questions about whether she had aged prematurely and about the safety of cloning.

--DIED. JOHNNY LONGDEN, 96, Hall of Fame jockey who rode 6,032 winners over four decades; in Banning, Calif. He rode Count Fleet, a somewhat wild horse that Longden persuaded the owner not to sell, to a celebrated Triple Crown sweep in 1943, and won more races than any other jockey until Bill Shoemaker broke his record in 1970.

DIED. CLARK MACGREGOR, 80, moderate G.O.P. Congressman from Minnesota turned Nixon aide; in Pompano Beach, Fla. As chairman of the Committee to Re-Elect the President just after the Watergate break-in, he oversaw the strategy that led to Nixon's landslide victory over George McGovern in 1972. Never implicated in Watergate, MacGregor later said he had been "misled, deceived ...and lied to repeatedly." After the scandal, he left politics for good.

DIED. JOE CONNELLY, 85, who, with partner Bob Mosher, created Leave It to Beaver, The Munsters and other TV sitcoms; of complications from a stroke; in Newport Beach, Calif. A veteran of such '40s radio shows as Amos 'n Andy, he based the Beaver on his own son Ricky. In its six years on the air in the late 1950s and early '60s, and endlessly in reruns since, Leave It to Beaver created one of TV's most charming, unforced portrayals of the world through the eyes of a kid.

DIED. WALT ROSTOW, 86, easygoing yet hawkish adviser to Presidents Kennedy and Johnson whose unfailing optimism about U.S. involvement in Vietnam helped propel the war; in Austin, Texas. The son of a Socialist, he coined Kennedy's campaign slogan, Let's Get This Country Moving Again. The onetime M.I.T. economics professor saw the war primarily as a means of ensuring modernization and development in Southeast Asia. He never publicly regretted his position, saying in 1986, "I'm not obsessed with Vietnam, and I never was. I don't spend much time worrying about that period."

--DIED. KEMMONS WILSON, 90, founder of the Holiday Inn chain whom TIME once called "the Man with 300,000 Beds"; in Memphis, Tenn. Irate at shoddy accommodations during a family vacation, Wilson built the first Holiday Inn in Memphis in 1952 with the goal of offering customers something novel: comfortable, child-friendly, inexpensive lodging. Fueled by a growth in American families traveling the new interstate highway system, the chain expanded from 100 in 1959 to 1,700 in 1975. There are now some 3,000 motels worldwide bearing the Holiday Inn name.