Milestones: Oct. 28, 1966

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Married. Baron James de Rothschild, 70, oldest member of the banking dynasty's French branch, one of France's leading sportsmen; and Yvette Choquet, 27, a Théátre de Paris usherette who five years ago showed him to his seat so graciously he invited her to dinner at Lapérouse; he for the second time (his wife of 41 years died two years ago), she for the first; in Paris.

Died. The Rev. Dr. Robert W. Spike, 42, Protestant minister, writer (To Be a Man), civil rights leader, and executive chairman of the National Council of Churches' race commission until last December when he became head of the University of Chicago's new doctor-of-ministry program, who helped negotiate last summer's open-housing agreement in Chicago; of massive head injuries when he was bludgeoned to death by an unknown assailant in the guest room of a new religious center at Ohio State University; in Columbus.

Died. Douglas Stringfellow, 44, Utah Republican Congressman from 1952 to 1954, a paraplegic veteran whose wondrous accounts of his World War II adventures as an OSS agent got him elected, were broadcast on This Is Your Life, serialized in the press, then exploded as a hoax in 1954 (he had never been in combat, was injured in an accident), after which he became a landscape painter; of a heart attack; in Long Beach, Calif.

Died. Wieland Wagner, 49, grandson of Composer Richard and avantgarde opera designer; of sarcoidosis; in Munich. "I was born in a mausoleum," Wieland once said, referring to Bayreuth, where Grossvater Wagner had built his own shrine, and he lost not a moment in "clearing 80 years of Kitsch off the stage" when he was made co-director of the family-run Bayreuth Festival in 1951. He began by throwing out all the traditional trappings—animal skins, horned helmets, swan boats and ponderous sets—replacing them with simple robes and stark, dimly lit slabs designed to evoke modern psychological drama; the old guard cried, "Götter-dämmerung!," but critics and audiences hailed "the new Bayreuth style" which soon established itself in opera companies around the world.

Died. Jean-Pierre Peugeot, 70, retired head of France's third biggest automaker (after Renault and Citroën), with an output of 291,176 vehicles and $573 million in sales last year, who in 1945 took over the family business, had to rebuild its bombed-out and dismantled factories, nevertheless started producing cars again the same year, kept the Peugeot one of Europe's best-made, if somewhat stodgily styled, medium-priced cars; of a heart attack; in Paris.

Died. Harry Byrd, 79, ex-U.S. Senator from Virginia; of a brain tumor; in Berryville, Va. (see THE NATION).

Died. Florence Nightingale Graham, 82, who as Elizabeth Arden made a beautiful fortune; of a heart attack; in Manhattan (see MODERN LIVING).