Milestones Feb. 22, 1999

ACQUITTED. WILLIAM JEFFERSON CLINTON, 52, of perjury and obstruction-of-justice charges; by the U.S. Senate; in Washington (see cover story).

DIED. MARIUS SCHOON, below, right, 61, white South African antiapartheid activist; of lung cancer; in Johannesburg. Schoon was jailed for 12 years for a failed attempt in the ’60s to bomb a police building. In 1984 his wife and daughter were killed by a mail bomb sent at the behest of a police official who later admitted to the crime. Said President Nelson Mandela: “He destroyed the myth that all Afrikaners were racists and oppressors.”

DIED. IRIS MURDOCH, 79, erudite and macabre British writer, philosopher and Booker Prize winner; after a battle with Alzheimer’s disease; in Oxford, England. In her 26 novels, including A Severed Head and An Accidental Man, Murdoch described in intricate detail middle-class characters in the throes of what she called “erotic mysteries and deep, dark struggles between good and evil” (see Eulogy).

DIED. BOBBY TROUP, 80, sharp-witted actor and musician who wrote the classic 1946 road tune (Get Your Kicks on) Route 66; in Sherman Oaks, Calif. Among the artists who recorded Troup’s songs–including The Girl Can’t Help It and Baby, Baby All the Time–were Nat King Cole, Sarah Vaughan and Manhattan Transfer. In the ’70s, Troup was better known as Dr. Joe Early on the TV drama Emergency.

DIED. FRANKLIN LONG, 88, U.S. government adviser and Cornell University emeritus professor whose nomination to run the National Science Foundation was blocked in 1969 by Richard Nixon; in Pomona, Calif. Long, a vehement advocate of international arms reductions, had criticized the U.S.’s antiballistic-missile system, saying it would pose “strong pressure toward acceleration of the arms race.” When Nixon finally offered him the post, after protests from scientists, Long declined.