MILESTONES

DIED. PAT PAULSEN, 69, doleful comedian whose mock campaigns for President may have fooled even himself; of complications from cancer; in Tijuana, Mexico. The deadpan Paulsen sharpened his stump wit on the Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour, opposing sex education ("Let the kids today learn it where we did--in the gutter") and declaring a war on poverty "by shooting 400 beggars a week." His 1968 run for the White House won him about 200,000 write-in votes.

DIED. ANDRES RODRIGUEZ, 73, iron-fisted Paraguayan general turned President who overthrew his repressive boss, Alfredo Stroessner, in 1989; of cancer; in New York. Stroessner's right-hand apparatchik for most of the dictator's nearly 35-year reign, Rodriguez abruptly unlearned his loyal habits when he was elected President after the 1989 coup, urging democratization. He silenced skeptics by voluntarily stepping down in 1993, but the grand gesture was later tainted by persistent charges of drug smuggling.

DIED. NANCY CLASTER, 82, peppy original hostess and co-creator of the quintessential kids' TV show for baby boomers, Romper Room; in Baltimore. A last-minute stand-in on the show's 1953 debut, Miss Nancy spent 11 years on air admonishing her moppet guests and tiny fans at home with the "Do Bees" and "Don't Bees" of good behavior.

DIED. HENRY MUCCI, 88, no-nonsense World War II Army colonel who rescued 513 survivors of the brutal Bataan death march; in Melbourne, Florida. After hearing reports of Japanese atrocities against Allied prisoners in the Philippines, the tough-talking, pipe-smoking Mucci led his Rangers 25 miles behind enemy lines and liberated the emaciated prisoners at Cabanatuan.

DIED. JEAN LOUIS, 89, Oscar-winning designer whose fluid fashions draped Hollywood's most mythic figures; in Palm Springs, California. Louis's rapport with his leading ladies (Marilyn Monroe reportedly introduced herself by disrobing) inspired such creations as Rita Hayworth's come-hither black satin gown in Gilda and the sequined formfitting dress that Monroe wore to serenade birthday boy (and President) John Kennedy in 1962.

DIED. THOMAS CONNOR, 91, last surviving member of the fbi squad that gunned down Public Enemy No. 1, John Dillinger, in 1934; in Southbury, Connecticut. A minor bureau clerk whose on-the-diamond skills got noticed by baseball fanatic J. Edgar Hoover, Connor was drafted as a special agent, and ended up stationed in a Chicago alley during Dillinger's final and fatal showdown.

DIED. HERBERT ZIPPER, 92, unconquerable Jewish conductor whose formation of a secret orchestra in a Nazi concentration camp inspired the acclaimed 1995 documentary Never Give Up; in Santa Monica, California. While interned at Dachau, Zipper led his fellow musicians on makeshift instruments--a defiance echoed in his co-composition of the resistance anthem Dachau Song.