Milestones: Jul. 23, 1984

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ARRESTED. Stephen Bingham, 42, fugitive lawyer charged with five counts of murder and one of conspiracy for aiding an alleged 1971 prison-breakout attempt by black Radical George Jackson in which the prisoner, two trusties and three guards were killed; in San Rafael, Calif. Bingham turned himself in, and denied smuggling a gun to Jackson, who had been in San Quentin awaiting trial for murder. Bingham said he had fled because he was convinced that he could not get a fair trial.

DIED. George Oppen, 76, Pulitzer-prizewinning poet of spare, free-form verse; in Sunnyvale, Calif. An active leftist, he gave up poetry for 28 years for political involvement, living by publishing the work of such poets as Ezra Pound and William Carlos Williams and by laboring as a tool-and-die maker and furniture designer.

DIED. Raymond Patriarca, 76, undisputed godfather of organized crime in New England for a quarter of a century; of a heart attack; in Providence. Despite more than 40 arrests and 18 convictions for crimes including bootlegging, armed robbery, auto theft, and breaking and entering, the Massachusetts-born Patriarca always denied that he was anything but a legitimate vending-machine distributor. Indicted in 1980 and 1981 on charges of labor racketeering and ordering the execution of two underworld figures, he never stood trial because of poor health.

DIED. Peter Kurd, 80, acclaimed artist of the American Southwest whose paintings, murals and lithographs depicted the sere, light-drenched landscapes and unworldly local personalities of his native New Mexico; of complications of Alzheimer's disease; in Roswell, N. Mex. A West Point dropout who studied with N.C. Wyeth and later married the illustrator's daughter Henriette, also a painter, Kurd was a World War II combat artist for LIFE. During the 1950's and '60s he painted more than a dozen covers for TIME, the most notable being that of President Lyndon Johnson as 1964's Man of the Year, which Hurd did jointly with his wife. That led to the 1965 commission for Johnson's official portrait, which L.B.J. rejected as "the ugliest thing I ever saw."

DIED. Brassaï, 84, internationally renowned photographer who recorded the nighttime Parisian underworld of whores, hoodlums and homosexuals, of brothels, cabarets and opium dens, with a unique combination of directness, detachment and generosity; of a heart attack; in Eze sur Mer, France. Born Gyula Halász in Brassó (the origin of his pseudonym), in what is now Rumania, he went to Paris in 1924 to sculpt and write, then turned to photography to illustrate his articles. In 1933 his first major collection of seamy scenes, Paris de Nuit, was a sensation; a larger, franker version published in 1976, The Secret Paris of the 30's, was a U.S. bestseller. Brassaï's multiple talents included friendship, and in his volumes of portraits there are reminiscences of Bonnard, Giacometti, Henry Miller, Samuel Beckett and, especially, Picasso.