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Letter to the editor

Obituaries

By TIMES WIRES
Published July 22, 2007

Jesus de Polanco, 77, a media giant credited with helping restore Spain's independent press after the death of dictator Francisco Franco in the 1970s, died Saturday, his flagship newspaper, El Pais, announced. The billionaire chairman of the powerful Spanish media conglomerate Grupo PRISA was one of Spain's most influential people. He co-founded El Pais and founded Grupo PRISA, which also owns radio and TV stations and publishing companies, and was close to the ruling Socialist Party.

Odile Crick, 86, an artist who made the first widely published sketch of the double-helix structure of DNA, died of cancer July 5 at her home in La Jolla, Calif. Her husband, Francis Crick, was one of three men credited with discovering the structure of the molecule. Mrs. Crick made it visible to the world in an April 1953 issue of the journal Nature. Her graceful drawing of the double-helix structure with intertwined helical loops has become a symbol of the achievements of science and its aspirations to understand the secrets of life.

Sen. Antonio Carlos Peixoto de Magalhaes, 79, one of Brazil's most influential politicians who held on to power as the country came under a military dictatorship and returned to democracy, died Friday. His harsh manner of dealing with opponents of the 1964-1985 dictatorship earned him the nickname "Toninho Malvaldeza," or Tony Evil.

Gen. Wayne Downing, 67, one of President Bush's key counterterrorism advisers after the Sept. 11 attacks, died Wednesday. The four-star general, a West Point graduate, retired in 1996 after 34 years in the military, ending his career as head of all U.S. special operations forces. He commanded more than 47,000 soldiers, including the Army's Green Berets and Navy's SEALs.

Jerry Hadley, 55, a world-class tenor known for his agile and lyric voice, died Wednesday in Poughkeepsie, N.Y., a week after he shot himself in an apparent suicide attempt. Mr. Hadley, who was born in Illinois, sang everything from Mozart to show tunes.

[Last modified July 22, 2007, 00:45:40]