APRIL 24, 2000 VOL. 155 NO. 16

Milestones
BY PENNY CAMPBELL

DIED. LARRY LINVILLE, 60, who played the hapless and neurotic surgeon Major Frank Burns in the hit American television series M*A*S*H; in New York. Part of the original 1972 cast of the satirical comedy about a fictional field hospital unit operating during the Korean War, Linville stayed with the show for five of its 11 years. Major Burns was noted for his whiny and officious personality and his adulterous affair with the head nurse, "Hot Lips" Houlihan. Linville started his acting career in the 1960s on the American stage after winning a scholarship to London's Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts. He had character roles in numerous other TV series and appeared in many films.

AWARDED. TO IMMACULEE BIRHAHEKA, veteran Congolese women's rights campaigner, the Martin Ennals prize for human rights; in Geneva. The $15,000 award, one of the top international honors for human rights campaigners, is conferred by 10 rights groups, including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch. Birhaheka was honored for her protests against ethnic massacres in the troubled eastern Congolese region of Goma.

APPOINTED. BANYAT BANTADTAN, 57, as Thailand's Deputy Prime Minister and to the powerful post of Interior Minister; in Bangkok. A trusted political associate of Prime Minister Chuan Leekpai, Banyat replaces Sanan Kachornprasart, who resigned last month amid corruption allegations. A veteran politician and senior member of the party hierarchy, Ban-yat was elected nine times as a member of parliament.

DIED. CLAIRE TREVOR, 91, actress who specialized in playing the tough-talking floozy with a heart of gold; in Newport Beach, California. She won a best supporting-actress Oscar for just such a role in 1948's Key Largo. Another of her memorable parts was opposite John Wayne in the 1939 classic Stagecoach.

LIBEL SUIT LOST. BY DAVID IRVING, 62, revisionist historian who claimed that the systematic murder of Jews in Nazi concentration camps never took place; in London. Irving sued Penguin Books and U.S. academic Deborah Lipstadt over a book in which she described him as a Holocaust denier. London's High Court found the comment was justified. He was ordered to pay $3 million in defense costs.

RE-ELECTED. EDUARD SHEVARDNADZE, 72, as President of Georgia; in Tbilisi. Shevardnadze won in the first round by a huge margin, garnering nearly 80% of the votes in an election criticized for irregularities by opponents and foreign observers. A former Soviet Foreign Minister under Mikhail Gorbachev, Shevardnadze has run Georgia since 1992. His leadership and pro-Western stance has brought relative stability to the country, although it suffers from widespread poverty and corruption as well as unresolved disputes with separatist regions.