Deaths elsewhere

Last update: November 22, 2009 - 9:06 PM

Herbert J. (Jack) Miller Jr., 85, who led the Justice Department's war on organized crime in the 1960s and later brokered the pardon of former President Richard Nixon and prevented the release of Nixon's White House tapes, died Nov. 14 in Rockville, Md., of renal failure after being treated for influenza.

Miller, who was born in Minneapolis, had been one of Washington's top lawyers since the 1950s and was among the first to specialize in white-collar criminal defense. As chief of the Justice Department's criminal division under Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy from 1961 to 1965, he directed the successful prosecutions of Teamsters leader Jimmy Hoffa. He once ran for lieutenant governor of Maryland as a Republican but was widely respected among both parties.

Elisabeth Soderstrom, 82, a Swedish soprano who was greatly admired for her sensitive operatic roles and for her refined, delicately shaded voice, died Friday of a stroke in Stockholm. During a career of more than 50 years, Soderstrom was renowned for her dramatic skill and the subtlety of her performances. She had a wide-ranging repertoire that included more than 50 roles in 10 languages.

Konstantin Feoktistov, 83, a Russian spaceship designer, died of unspecified causes Saturday in Moscow. In 1964, he traveled aboard the Voskhod spaceship as part of the first group space flight in history. Approval of his flight met resistance from the Politburo since Feoktistov was not a Communist Party member. Feoktistov helped design the Soyuz, Progress and Mir.

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Deaths elsewhere - November 22, 2009

Deaths elsewhere - Morris Lasker, 92, the federal judge who sentenced Ivan Boesky to prison in a 1980s insider trading scandal and helped eliminate horrid conditions in New York City jails, died last Friday in Cambridge, Mass. In 1987, he sentenced Boesky to three years in prison in what was then Wall Street's biggest insider trading case, saying it was essential to incarcerate white-collar criminals. More