AP News, November 21st, 2007
Victor Rabinowitz
NEW YORK (AP) — Victor Rabinowitz, a lawyer who represented leftist causes and clients such as Alger Hiss, the Black Panthers, Fidel Castro and Weather Underground member Kathy Boudin, has died. He was 96.
Rabinowitz died Friday at his Manhattan home, his longtime law partner, Michael Krinsky, said Tuesday.
In a 1996 memoir, "Unrepentant Leftist," Rabinowitz said that he had been a member of the American Communist Party from 1942 until the early 1960s because it seemed the best way to fight for social justice.
Rabinowitz was the last attorney for Hiss, the American diplomat accused of spying for the Soviet Union and ultimately convicted of perjury in 1950 in one of the postwar era's most famous espionage cases.
Rabinowitz began his career at the firm of Louis Boudin, a labor lawyer involved in radical politics. Rabinowitz opened his own practice in 1944 and Boudin's nephew, Leonard Boudin, joined him three years later. They worked together until Leonard Boudin's death in 1989.
Rabinowitz eventually represented Leonard Boudin's daughter Kathy, a member of the student radical group Weather Underground who pleaded guilty to murder for her involvement in a 1981 armored truck heist. She served more than 20 years in prison.
The firm's other clients included such liberal activists as singer Paul Robeson, Dr. Benjamin Spock, the Rev. Philip Berrigan, Pentagon Papers figure Daniel Ellsberg and civil rights leader Julian Bond.
In 1960, Rabinowitz's firm was hired by Castro to defend the Cuban government's nationalization of U.S.-owned property. Rabinowitz won by arguing that U.S. courts should not question the internal affairs of other countries.
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Ian Smith
HARARE, Zimbabwe (AP) — Ian Smith, Rhodesia's last white prime minister whose attempts to resist black rule dragged the country now known as Zimbabwe into isolation and civil war, has died. He was 88.
Smith, who recently suffered a stroke, died Tuesday at a clinic near Cape Town, South Africa, where he spent his final years with his family, said longtime friend Sam Whaley, who was a senator in the former Rhodesia.
Smith unilaterally declared independence from Britain on Nov. 11, 1965. He then served as the prime minister of Rhodesia from 1965 to 1979 during white minority rule.
The country failed to gain international recognition, and the United Nations imposed economic sanctions. He finally bowed to international pressure, and Robert Mugabe's Zanu-PF party won elections in 1980.
To many white Rhodesians, he was "good old Smithy." To most blacks, his rule symbolized the worst of racial oppression.
Smith had imprisoned Mugabe in 1964 for 10 years, calling him a "terrorist" intent on turning the country into a one-party dictatorship.
Despite their bitter differences, Smith and Mugabe shared one common bond — their deep dislike of Britain, which they saw as a meddling colonial power.
Smith was born to Scottish immigrants in western Rhodesia on April 8, 1919, but renounced his claims to British citizenship in 1984.
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Paul Wasserman
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Celebrity publicist Paul Wasserman, the music industry giant known as "Wasso" whose clients included the Rolling Stones, the Who, Linda Ronstadt, Bob Dylan and Neil Diamond, has died. He was 73.
Wasserman died Sunday of respiratory failure at Kindred Hospital, publicist and friend Joan Myers said.
During his four-decade career, Wasserman represented Lee Marvin, Dennis Hopper, Jack Lemmon, Jack Nicholson and George C. Scott. He also publicized such films as "Cat Ballou," "Easy Rider," "Annie Hall" and "Star Wars."
But he made his biggest mark as a music publicist. The Mamas and the Papas, James Taylor, Paul Simon and Tom Petty were represented by him.
But an investment scheme ended his career in 2000. Wasserman was jailed for using the names of famous clients like Nicholson and U2 to swindle some of his closest non-celebrity friends.
In November 2000, Wasserman pleaded guilty to a felony grand theft count and he was sentenced to six months in jail, placed on five years' probation and ordered to pay nearly $87,000 in restitution.
