Obituaries - July 30, 1999

Faidon Gizikis; Former President of Greece

Faidon Gizikis, 82, president of Greece during a military dictatorship in the early 1970s. Gizikis, a native of the port city of Volos, had a less than distinguished military career until George Papadopoulos brought a junta to power in a 1967 coup. Embracing the junta’s authoritarian principles, Gizikis rose steadily in the ranks and by 1971 was a lieutenant general with a senior post in the Hellenic Army Command. In 1973, he was given command of the Greek First Army, whose troops made up 70% of the nation’s army. He was offered the presidency in November 1973, when promises of elections led to Papadopoulos’ ouster in a coup masterminded by military police chief Brig. Gen. Dimitris Ioannides. By the next summer, however, Greece was mired in domestic political woes and problems with nearby Cyprus. Gizikis summoned Constantine Karamanlis, the prime minister defeated in the 1963 elections, back from Paris to head a new government. Gizikis retired from the army and was never prosecuted for his role in the coup, while others were convicted of treason and imprisoned. On Tuesday in Athens of undisclosed causes.

Bernard Kaplan; Correspsondent Covered Korean War

Bernard Kaplan, 71, a longtime foreign correspondent who was one of the youngest reporters to cover the Korean War. Kaplan, who had been based in Paris since 1956, was for decades a roving European correspondent for the Hearst Newspaper chain. Kaplan was born in Brooklyn and graduated from Washington and Lee University in Lexington, Va. He began his career at full throttle, as one of the youngest American correspondents covering the Korean War for the Hearst-owned International News Service. After the war Kaplan was drafted and served two years in the Army. In 1956 he joined the North American Newspaper Alliance as a correspondent in Paris. In 1975, he joined the Hearst Newspaper Chain and also worked for the Montreal Star, NBC and the Canadian Broadcasting Corp. In 1965, he won the Canadian Newspaper Publishers Award for a series on the European Common Market. On Tuesday at the American Hospital in Neuilly, outside Paris, of complications from a cardiac arrest he suffered last December.

Fred W. Kline; Journalist, Former Fire Commissioner

Fred W. Kline, 81, former journalist, public relations consultant and Los Angeles fire commissioner. Kline, an Oakland native who graduated from UC Berkeley with a degree in history, served in intelligence for the Air Force during World War II. After the war, he became a journalist, working as a reporter and columnist for Hearst newspapers, including the old Los Angeles Examiner. In 1957 he moved into public relations, serving clients in law enforcement, business and the entertainment industry through his company, Kline Communications. In 1970 he founded the Sacramento-based Capitol News Service, a news outlet that covered state politics for newspapers and radio stations statewide. He was the news service’s executive editor and columnist until 1992. Kline played an active role in civic affairs, serving on a variety of commissions, including the Los Angeles city and county fire commissions. Once described in a newspaper article as “a burr beneath many saddles,” Kline took his duties as an overseer seriously, often irking officials. As chairman of the county Board of Fire Commissioners in 1987, Kline and fellow Commissioner John T. Stevens accused Fire Chief John Englund of mismanagement and called for the replacement of Englund’s top staff. The allegations were denied by Englund and riled other county officials who said the commissioners had overstepped their authority. The Board of Supervisors later disbanded the commission. On Wednesday at Mercy General Hospital in Sacramento after a long battle with cancer.

Harrison Holt Richardson; Antarctic Explorer

Harrison Holt Richardson, 80, a member of Admiral Richard E. Byrd’s Antarctic Expedition of 1939-41. Richardson was 18 when he and his father attended a commencement speech by Byrd at Beaver College in Pennsylvania. Young Richardson became fascinated with Byrd, who had led two expeditions to Antarctica and was the first man to fly over both the North and South poles, and wrote several letters to him asking for a job. Two years later, he was hired by Byrd for what was to be a summer job but instead marked the beginning of a lengthy involvement in polar exploration. The 1939-41 expedition, the third of Byrd’s five trips to the region, marked the first time Byrd received U.S. government funding, thus setting a precedent for future operations in the Antarctic. Scientific investigation also assumed a more important role on the trip, with members of the expedition studying animal life, collecting seismological data and surveying previously unrecorded areas. Richardson, the youngest member of the expedition, served as a dog-team driver and meteorological observer with a group that surveyed Antarctica’s Pacific coast. Lugging a 16-millimeter movie camera, he was the first person to make color movies of Antarctica. Mt. Richardson in Antarctica is named for him. According to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Byrd had high praise for Richardson, calling him “a very splendid and articulate young man of great intelligence. He is one of the best men I have ever had with me on one of my five expeditions.” Richardson returned to Pennsylvania, graduated from Geneva College and the University of Pittsburgh Medical School, and later served as medical officer on Navy expeditions to both the Arctic and the Antarctic. After his discharge from the Navy, he and his wife, the former Sara Meanor of Pittsburgh, settled in Beaver. Richardson practiced radiology for the next 40 years. On July 17 in Claiborne, Md., of complications from hip surgery.

Albert Sinkys; Actor and Stage Director

Albert Sinkys, 59, actor and director. Sinkys was a Lithuanian immigrant who grew up in Boston and attended Boston University and UCLA. He studied acting at the Herbert Berghof Studio in New York. He was highly praised by critics for his work in two plays presented in 1981 at the American Jewish Theater in New York: his portrayals of Captain Queeg in “The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial” and of Pilate in “From the Memoirs of Pontius Pilate.” As Queeg, a ship’s captain accused of mental incompetence by his crew, Sinkys projected “a powerful image of a man whose inner torment is working its way to the outside,” the New York Times wrote in its review. A few months earlier, the Times had described him as the “perfect Pilate . . . languid, epigrammatic.” Sinkys also toured with productions of “Richard III” in the title role and “The Tempest” in the role of Sebastian, and starred in a 1983 revival of “The Man in the Glass Booth.” Among the plays he directed were “Bonhoeffer 1945” at the Cazale Theater in New York in 1995 and “Lulu Plays” at the Odyssey Theater in West Los Angeles in 1991. His television and film work included appearances on the ABC-TV soap opera “All My Children” and the 1983 film “Zelig.” On Sunday at Mt. Sinai Hospital in New York of complications of cancer.