Obituaries in the newsPage 4 of 4 -- ------ Zenko Suzuki TOKYO (AP) -- Former Japanese Prime Minister Zenko Suzuki died of pneumonia Monday at the International Medical Center of Japan, according Kyodo News agency. He was 93.
Suzuki was appointed prime minister in July 1980 after the sudden death of his predecessor, Masayoshi Ohira. A member of Japan's long-ruling Liberal Democratic Party, Suzuki took over during a period marked by instability as cabinets frequently changed and factional politics splintered parties. His strong mediating skills had helped him chair the party's executive council 10 times and win support early in his term. In foreign policy, Suzuki helped define the close post-World War II relationship between Japan and the United States as an "alliance" after a summit with former President Reagan in 1981. However, he was also known for his blunders, including his handling of allegations -- immediately before a scheduled trip to Beijing in 1982 -- that Education Ministry officials were trying to gloss over Japan's wartime aggression in China in its official textbooks. Amid the escalating textbook scandal and deteriorating relations with Washington, Suzuki resigned in 1982. ------ David Wallace PHILADELPHIA (AP) -- David Wallace, an influential urban planner who spent decades reviving urban downtowns and waterfronts, most notably Baltimore's Inner Harbor, was found dead along with his wife Monday in their Philadelphia home. Police said the couple committed suicide. Wallace was 87 and suffering from prostate cancer, police said, and his wife, Joan, was 83 and terminally ill. In 1963, Wallace and partners Ian L. McHarg, William H. Roberts and Thomas A. Todd created the conceptual plan that was to be the blueprint for three decades of rebuilding along Baltimore's once-grubby waterfront. Today the project is considered one of the great U.S. urban renewal successes. Wallace's work in Baltimore won his firm a job in New York in 1965 writing a master plan for a redevelopment of Lower Manhattan to compliment the then-ongoing construction of the World Trade Center. The plan's central ideas included creating a new residential community on fill at the tip of Manhattan, easier public access to the waterfront and the depression of the area's elevated expressways. Many of those design elements were incorporated into Battery Park City. Wallace formally retired from his firm, now known as Wallace, Roberts & Todd, in 1992, but continued working on many of its projects. He recently co-authored a book, "Urban Planning My Way."
A graduate of the Philadelphia public schools, Wallace served in the Army Corps of Engineers during World War II, then later worked as a planner at the Chicago Housing Authority and the Philadelphia Redevelopment Authority and taught at the University of Chicago. © Copyright 2004 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
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