PASSINGS

Helen Elaine Freeman, 75, known to many as "the Jane Goodall of snow leopards" for her advocacy on behalf of the increasingly rare central Asian big cats, died Sept. 20 of lung disease.

Her death was announced by the Snow Leopard Trust, which she founded in 1981 after becoming fascinated with two of the creatures at a Seattle zoo.

Freeman traveled to Asia, Europe and around the United States to build support for protecting the endangered cats in their native habitat.

Helen Maniotas, the only child of Greek immigrants, was born in Everett, Wash. She graduated from Washington State University in 1954 and married Stanley Freeman four years later.

Her interest in snow leopards began with Nicholas and Alexandra, obtained from the Soviet Union in 1972, while she was working as a docent at the Woodland Park Zoo in Seattle.

Freeman went back to school and earned a degree in animal behavior at the University of Washington, then helped design a program that overcame zoos' problems in getting snow leopards to breed in captivity. Nicholas and Alexandra produced 29 cubs.

Harry Dent, 77, a former top advisor to President Nixon who helped Nixon win the South, died Friday in South Carolina after a long bout with Alzheimer's disease, the State newspaper of Columbia reported.

Dent worked for U.S. Sen. Strom Thurmond of South Carolina and became the then-Democrat's chief of staff in 1956.

He became chairman of the South Carolina Republican Party in 1966, leading a small group that won 26 seats in the General Assembly and helping Thurmond win reelection to the Senate as a Republican.

In 1968, Dent and Thurmond played a major role in swinging conservative Southern primary voters to Nixon instead of Ronald Reagan.

They helped Nixon win the White House by beating Democrat Hubert Humphrey by a slim margin that included winning the previously solid Democratic South. Dent was rewarded by being named special counsel to the president.

Dent was not involved in the Watergate scandal that swamped Nixon's second term, but he did plead guilty to a misdemeanor charge for "aiding and abetting" an illicit, secret 1970 campaign fund that steered nearly $3 million into Republican Senate and House races.