Milestones, Oct. 17, 1960

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Born. To Hollywood Producer-Director Otto Preminger, 53, recently back from shooting a film version of Leon Uris' best-selling novel Exodus in Israel and Cyprus; and his third wife Patricia, 29, his onetime movie costume coordinator, whom he married last March: twins; in Manhattan. Names: Victoria and Mark.

Died. Joseph Nye Welch, 69, Iowa-born Boston barrister who on coast-tocoast TV gently and repeatedly needled the late Senator Joseph McCarthy into fury during the 1954 Army-McCarthy hearings; of a heart attack; in Hyannis, Mass. Seventh and youngest child of English immigrants, Republican Welch worked his way through Iowa's Grinnell College and the Harvard Law School (No. 2 in the class of '17). Joining a venerable Boston law firm, he soon began making a reputation as a lawyer's lawyer, a demon at crossexamination, a suave, subtly histrionic persuader of judges and juries. Little known nationally until the Army-McCarthy hearings, in which he acted without fee as the Army's special counsel, courtly Joe Welch soon became a public figure, was showered with fan letters. He continued his active practice after that, but also became a TV star in his own right as a narrator on Omnibus and Dow Hour of Great Mysteries. Last year he went to Hollywood, got excellent reviews for playing a small-town judge in the movie version of Anatomy of a Murder. "I took the part," explained Actor Welch, "because it looked like that was the only way I'd ever get to be a judge."

Died. Claro Recto, 70, Philippine Senator and violently outspoken nationalist; of a heart attack; in Rome, while on a world tour. Lawyer Recto presided over the framing of the Philippine constitution in 1934-35, served as Foreign Minister in the puppet government set up by the Japanese in World War II, returned to the Senate at war's end. An early supporter of the Philippines' late President Ramon Magsaysay, Recto soon turned bitterly against him, claimed that Magsaysay had welshed on a promise to serve only one term. Recto avidly sought the presidency for himself but never could swing enough voters to his extreme views, became loudly anti-American.

Died. Clarence Ellis Harbison, 75, who went to the dogs early in life, wound up as their best U.S. friend; of a pulmonary embolism; in Norwich, Conn. As a gag in 1949, Harbison, long a kennel owner and writer on dogs, set himself up as a canine psychologist at a Buffalo dog show. Before the show ended, dog owners, seriously perplexed by their pets' behavior, were queueing for consultations. The queue continued for the rest of Harbison's days.