Milestones Jan. 16, 2006

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Died. FRANK WILKINSON, 91, anti-poverty Los Angeles public-housing official turned civil rights activist, and one of the last two people in the U.S. to be jailed for refusing to answer the question, Are you a communist?; in Los Angeles. In the early '50s, at a hearing for an innovative low-income, racially integrated housing project—one viewed with suspicion by the city's business leaders—an official asked for a list of his affiliations. After refusing to answer, and later doing the same before the House Un-American Activities Committee, he was fired, spent nine months in jail and later co-founded the pro-dissent First Amendment Foundation.

DIED. HEINRICH HARRER, 93, Austrian adventurer and ex-Nazi whose 1953 memoir, Seven Years in Tibet, was the basis for the 1997 film, in which he was played by Brad Pitt; in Vienna. A onetime SS member who later renounced Nazism, Harrer was a skilled alpinist. In 1938 he took part in the first ascent of the Eiger north face in Switzerland. The next year, he embarked on a Himalayan expedition that led to his stay in Tibet, during which he became a teacher, adviser and friend to the Dalai Lama.

26 YEARS AGO IN TIME The Abramoff scandal is only the latest example of dubious money sources greasing politicians' palms. In 1980, the Abscam controversy spotlighted CONGRESSIONAL CORRUPTION.

"Everybody was laughing at what was happening. It was like guys coming out of the bush, saying, 'Hey, give me some of the money.' They'd pay one guy and the next day five guys would be calling them, guys they didn't know. The tapes are hilarious." So said a former federal prosecutor last week, but on Capitol Hill no one shared the amusement. Too many of "the guys" were members of Congress, and "the tapes" were both video and audio, catching the sight and sound of them accepting money to perform special favors ... [T]he FBI had lured the lawmakers into the focus of hidden television cameras in the most sensational undercover operation it had ever conducted. When the FBI sting ended, its supervisors alleged that the ... money had attracted one U.S. Senator, seven members of the House and two dozen state and local officials.  —TIME, Feb. 18, 1980

>Read the entire article at time.com/years