AP News, June 15th, 2007
Ruth Graham
MONTREAT, N.C. (AP) _ Ruth Graham, who surrendered dreams of missionary work in Tibet to marry a suitor who became the world's most renowned evangelist, has died. She was 87.
Graham died Thursday at her home at Little Piney Cove, surrounded by her husband and their five children, said a statement released by Larry Ross, Billy Graham's spokesman.
Ruth Graham was bedridden for months with degenerative osteoarthritis of the back and neck and underwent treatment for pneumonia two weeks ago. At her request, she had stopped receiving nutrients through a feeding tube for the past few days, Ross said.
As Mrs. Billy Graham, Ruth Graham could lay claim to being the first lady of evangelical Protestantism. Behind the scenes she was considered her husband's closest confidant during his spectacular global career _ one rivaled only by her father, L. Nelson Bell, until his death in 1973.
The independent-minded Ruth Graham declined to undergo baptism by immersion and remained a loyal, lifelong Presbyterian.
Ruth Graham was the author or co-author of 14 books, including collections of poetry and the autobiographical scrapbook "Footprints of a Pilgrim."
In 1996, the Grahams were each awarded the Congressional Gold Medal for "outstanding and lasting contributions to morality, racial equality, family, philanthropy, and religion."
She helped establish the Ruth and Billy Graham Children's Health Center in Asheville, and the Billy Graham Training Center near Montreat.
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Kurt Waldheim
VIENNA, Austria (AP) _ Former U.N. chief Kurt Waldheim, who was barred from the United States for two decades after revelations that he belonged to a German army unit that committed World War II atrocities, has died. He was 88.
Although it was never proved that Waldheim personally committed war crimes, he left public life beneath a cloud of disgrace and died with his name still on a watch list prohibiting foreigners considered undesirables from visiting the U.S.
State broadcaster ORF said he died Thursday afternoon of heart failure at his home in Vienna, with family members at his bedside. He had been hospitalized late last month with an infection and a high fever.
Waldheim's legacy as U.N. secretary-general from 1972-81 _ and his later tenure as Austrian president from 1986-92 _ was tarnished by his secretive wartime past in the Balkans.
His backers saw him as an innocent victim of a smear campaign, while opponents clamored for his resignation.
His past began surfacing early in his campaign for president, when he published a memoir that did not mention his service for the Nazis. His initial denials of serving with Hitler's Wehrmacht _ and then assertions that he and fellow Austrians were only doing their duty _ led to international censure.
In April 1987, the Justice Department put Waldheim on the list prohibiting him from entering the United States _ an embarrassment no other Austrian public figure had ever experienced.
