Alexander Feklisov, 93, the Soviet-era spy chief who oversaw the espionage work of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg and helped mediate the 1962 Cuban missile crisis, has died, a Russian official said Friday.
Feklisov died Oct. 26, said Sergei Ivanov, a spokesman for the Foreign Intelligence Service, one of the successor agencies to the KGB. He gave no cause of death.
Feklisov was trained as a radio technician and was recruited into the American department of the KGB’s predecessor, the NKVD, according to his official biography posted on the Foreign Intelligence Service’s website. He published an autobiography, “The Man Behind the Rosenbergs,” in which he described his work guiding the intelligence-gathering efforts of the couple. The Rosenbergs were executed in 1953 after being convicted of supplying the Soviet Union with top-secret information on U.S. efforts to develop the atomic bomb.
Feklisov later spent four years in Washington – where he was known as Alexander Fomin – and was a behind-the- scenes intermediary between the Kremlin and Washington during the missile crisis, which brought the U.S. and the Soviet Union to the brink of war.
Florence Miller Pierce , 89, an artist who was part of the Transcendental Painting Group of Taos (N.M.) in her 20s but gained broader attention decades later with her Post-Minimalist works of tinted resin, died Oct. 25 at Presbyterian Hospital, near her home in Albuquerque.
The cause was complications from lung disease, said Charlotte Jackson, Pierce’s art dealer in Santa Fe.
Born in Washington, D.C., she moved to Taos at age 18 to study with locally prominent painter Emil Bisttram. She became a member of the Taos Transcendentalists, an art movement Bisttram helped found that emphasized abstract art and spiritual overtones.
Pierce explored various mediums. During one phase, she made totem-like sculptures of balsa wood. Her work took a new direction in 1969 when she happened to drip liquid resin onto aluminum foil and became fascinated by the effect of shimmering light it created. From then on resin was her main material.
Former Navajo Nation Vice Chairman Wilson Skeet, 83, who served two terms in the tribe’s second-highest office, has died.
Skeet, a former Navajo Code Talker, died Wednesday at Albuquerque Veterans Hospital, said David Emerson, his nephew and president of the Navajo Nation’s Baahaali’ Chapter south of Gallup. He said his uncle had been ill.
Navajo Nation President Joe Shirley Jr. ordered flags on the reservation to fly at half-staff in honor of Skeet’s “long and dedicated service to the Navajo Nation and his community.” A memorial service was planned for Saturday at the Sacred Heart Cathedral in Gallup.
