Milestones

By Melissa August, Harriet Barovick, Elizabeth L. Bland, Sean Gregory, Rebecca Winters

RESIGNED. BERNARD CARDINAL LAW, 71, as Archbishop of Boston; over his protection of priests accused of sexual abuse; after a meeting with Pope John Paul II; in Rome. (See page 33.)

DIED. PAUL VATHIS, 77, Pulitzer-prizewinning Associated Press photographer; in his sleep; in Mechanicsburg, Pa. Covering the President in 1961, he got yelled at for snapping a photo between the legs of a Secret Service agent after an aide to President Kennedy ended the photo session. The shot that resulted, of Kennedy and Eisenhower at Camp David, won him the Pulitzer.

DIED. ARVELL SHAW, 79, longtime bassist for Louis Armstrong who said his job was a mission ordained by God; of a heart attack; in Roosevelt, N.Y. Armstrong, on a stint in Shaw's native St. Louis, Mo., in 1945, needed someone to fill in for his regular bassist, whose wife had just given birth. Shaw took the gig, which lasted 25 years.

DIED. THEODORE SHACKLEY, 75, the mysterious CIA operative known as the Blond Ghost; of cancer; in Bethesda, Md. In a 28-year career he saw undercover duty in many cold war hot spots (West Berlin, Laos, Vietnam) and was the subject of the 1994 book Blond Ghost: Ted Shackley and the CIA's Crusades.

DIED. DEE BROWN, 94, brave historian whose 1970 chronicle Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee swept away the conventional belief in the "Indian savage" and the "noble white settler"; in Little Rock, Ark. The white librarian upended the movie mythology of the Old West and documented the Indian Wars of 1860-90 as less Hollywood than holocaust. The 1890 slaughter of 300 Sioux at Wounded Knee Creek, S.D., turned the grounds into a shrine and the site of a 71-day protest in 1973 that ended in the deaths of two more Indians.

DIED. FAY GILLIS WELLS, 94, pioneering journalist and pilot who covered the White House during four presidential terms; in Fairfax, Va. She was one of three female reporters who accompanied Nixon to China in 1972 but was perhaps better known for her extrajournalistic exploits. When a plane in which she was taking a stunt lesson lost control over New York's Long Island, Wells parachuted to safety, and she later joked that her first job, teaching women that aviation is safe, was one she fell into.