Index St-Sz

Staal, Gerard Johan (b. Sept. 5, 1870, The Hague, Netherlands - d. Nov. 15, 1936, The Hague), governor-general of Dutch Guiana (1916-19, 1920).

Stack

Stack, Sir Lee (Oliver Fitzmaurice) (b. May 15, 1868, Darjeeling, India - d. Nov. 20, 1924, Cairo, Egypt), governor-general of the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan (1917-24); knighted 1918. He was shot in his car by seven assailants on Nov. 19, 1924, and died the next day.

Stafford

Stafford, Robert T(heodore) (b. Aug. 8, 1913, Rutland, Vt. - d. Dec. 23, 2006, Rutland), governor of Vermont (1959-61). Having become state deputy attorney general in 1953, he won his first statewide race in 1954 for attorney general. Two years later he was elected lieutenant governor, and then in 1958 governor. In 1960 he won his first term in the U.S. House of Representatives and continued to win reelection until he was appointed to the Senate in 1971 on the death of Sen. Winston Prouty. Stafford won the special election in 1972 to serve the five years remaining in Prouty's term, and remained in the Senate until his retirement in 1989. As ranking Republican on the Senate's environment committee, he repeatedly defended the Superfund program to clean up contaminated sites and shepherded bills combating acid rain and automobile pollution. In 1988, Congress saluted his dedication to education measures, renaming the Federal Guaranteed Student Loan program the Robert T. Stafford Student Loan program. The low-interest loans came to be known almost universally as Stafford loans to the millions who qualified for them each year. Stafford, who once considered himself conservative, even hawkish, wasn't shy about bucking presidents of his own party. He led a successful effort to override Pres. Ronald Reagan's veto of amendments that strengthened the Clean Water Act, and tangled with industry when he believed it was thwarting efforts to clean the environment.

Stagno

Stagno (Ugarte), Bruno (b. April 8, 1970, Paris, France), foreign minister of Costa Rica (2006- ). In 2002-06 he was permanent representative to the United Nations.

Stĺhlberg

Stĺhlberg, Kaarlo Juho, originally Carl Johan Stĺhlberg (b. Jan. 28, 1865, Suomussalmi, Oulu county, Finland - d. Sept. 22, 1952, Helsinki, Finland), president of Finland (1919-25). He was elected to the Diet in 1904, becoming a leader of the Constitutionalist party. He consistently advocated democratic principles and was among the first to demand universal and equal suffrage. He was a member of the Senate (government) from 1905 until he resigned in 1907. He later served several terms in the newly established unicameral parliament and was elected speaker in 1914. After the end of Russian control, he contributed decisively to the adoption of a republican form of government. His draft constitution of 1917 became the basis of the one adopted in 1919. He was president of Finland's highest administrative court in 1918-19. Leader of the National Progressive Party, he was elected president of the new republic in 1919. He set a precedent of making full use of his constitutional powers. He tried his utmost to conciliate "Reds" and "Whites" after the Civil War. In 1925 he did not seek reelection as he thought that the right would become reconciled to the republic sooner if he stood aside. In October 1930, he was abducted by fascists in Helsinki who planned to drive him over the Soviet border, but he was released when the automobile ran out of gasoline. He twice came close to being reelected president: in 1931 he was defeated by Pehr Evind Svinhufvud by two votes, and in 1937 he failed by only one vote to obtain a majority in the first round but then finished third in the second round.

Stalev

Stalev, Stoyan (Zhivkov) (b. Dec. 5, 1952, Sofia, Bulgaria), foreign minister of Bulgaria (1997).

Stalin

Stalin, Joseph, original name Iosif Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili (b. Dec. 18 [Dec. 6, Old Style], 1878¹, Gori, Russia [now in Georgia] - d. March 5, 1953, Moscow, Russian S.F.S.R.), Soviet leader. Between 1902 and 1913 he was seven times arrested for revolutionary activity. In 1912 Vladimir Lenin - then in emigration - co-opted him to serve on the first Central Committee of the Bolshevik party. By 1913 he had adopted the name Stalin. In 1913-17 he was exiled to Siberia. He played a secondary role in the October Revolution (1917) and became commissar for nationalities (1917-23) and for state control (or workers' and peasants' inspection; 1919-23). But it was his position as general secretary of the party's Central Committee (from 1922) that provided the power base for his dictatorship. After Lenin's death in 1924, he outmanoeuvred his rivals, especially Leon Trotsky, and became the undisputed leader. He industrialized the Soviet Union, collectivized its agriculture, and consolidated his position by totalitarian methods. In May 1941 he recognized the growing danger of German attack on the Soviet Union by appointing himself chairman of the Council of People's Commissars (premier); it was his first governmental office since 1923. His prewar defensive measures were exposed as incompetent by the German blitzkrieg that surged deep into Soviet territory after the attack of June 22, 1941. But he helped to organize a great counteroffensive; the battle of Stalingrad (1942-43) turned the tide of the war against the Germans, who capitulated in 1945. After the war he extended Soviet control to include a belt of eastern European states. He created a mighty military-industrial complex and transformed the Soviet Union into a superpower.
¹ Date fixed by the birth register of the Uspensky church in Gori; Stalin himself maintained that he was born on Dec. 21 (Dec. 9, O.S.), 1879.

Staliyski, Aleksandur (Aleksandrov) (b. Aug. 4, 1925, Sofia, Bulgaria - d. Jan. 13, 2004, Sofia), defense minister of Bulgaria (1992). His father of the same name served as minister of justice in the government of Ivan Bagrianov between June and September 1944 and was executed after the Communist takeover. The younger Staliyski joined the centre-right Union of Democratic Forces after the fall of the Communist government in 1989. He was elected to parliament in 1991 and served as defense minister from May to December 1992 in a minority government of anti-communists which was ousted after losing a confidence vote.

I. Stambolic

Stambolic, Ivan (b. Nov. 5, 1936, Brezova village, near Ivanjica, Serbia - d. Aug. 25?, 2000, Fruska Gora mountain, near Novi Sad, Vojvodina, Serbia), Yugoslav politician; nephew of Petar Stambolic. He was president of the Executive Council (1978-82), chairman of the Central Committee of the League of Communists (1984-86), and president of the Presidency (1986-87) of Serbia. He was the political father of Slobodan Milosevic, who ousted him in 1987 over the situation in Kosovo, where ethnic Albanians started demanding more substantial independence of Serbia. Stambolic's backers argued that the crisis in the province should be resolved in a phased manner and through dialogue, and opposed Milosevic's support to Serb nationalism. In 1988 he was appointed president of the Yugoslav Bank for International Economic Cooperation and he remained at its helm until resigning on Oct. 20, 1997. Stambolic, who continued to be critical of Milosevic, disappeared mysteriously on Aug. 25, 2000. Serbian police found his remains on March 27, 2003. It was announced that he was abducted in Kosutnjak Park, Belgrade, taken to the Fruska Gora mountain, killed with two bullets, and then dropped in a hole by Milosevic's elite police Unit for Special Operations (JSO).

Stambolic, Petar (b. May 12, 1912, Brezova village, near Ivanjica, Serbia - d. Sept. 21, 2007, Belgrade, Serbia), secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party (1948-57), prime minister (1948-53), and president of the National Assembly (1953-57) of Serbia and president of the Federal Assembly (1957-63), of the Federal Executive Council (1963-67), and of the Presidency (1982-83) of Yugoslavia.

Stamboliyski

Stamboliyski, Aleksandur (Stoimenov) (b. March 1, 1879, Slavovitsa, Bulgaria - d. June 14, 1923, near Slavovitsa), prime minister of Bulgaria (1919-23). In 1908 he was elected to the National Assembly (Sobranye), where he led the Agrarian Party. He began to organize the peasant masses, who formed 80% of the population of Bulgaria, into agricultural associations. His opposition to King Ferdinand came to a head in 1915 during the negotiations preceding Bulgaria's entry into World War I. He threatened the king with violence if he should fight against the Allies. Ferdinand ordered his arrest, and he was court-martialed and condemned to penal servitude for life. Freed in September 1918 when the resistance of the Bulgarian troops began to crumble, he led an insurrection that resulted in Ferdinand's abdication and flight. Under the new king, Boris III, Stamboliyski became a member of the cabinet in January 1919 and prime minister in October. He then went to Paris to sign the Treaty of Neuilly (November 27), which considerably decreased Bulgaria's territory. He dissolved the Sobranye in February 1920 and his Agrarians won a majority in the March elections. His determination to promote the interests of the peasantry against the bourgeoisie of the capital was expressed in the words: "Sofia, that Sodom, that Gomorrah, may disappear... I shall not weep for it." He made persistent efforts to improve relations with Yugoslavia and concluded an agreement at Nis (1922). His ideal was to establish a South Slav federation embracing Bulgaria. He also advocated a "Green International" to unite the peasants of all countries. He won the April 1923 elections overwhelmingly, but bourgeois elements, aided by the military, overthrew him on June 9; he tried to escape but was caught near his village and shot.

Stambolov

Stambolov, Stefan (Nikolov) (b. Jan. 31, 1854, Turnovo, Rumelia [now Veliko Turnovo, Bulgaria] - d. July 18, 1895, Sofia, Bulgaria), prime minister of Bulgaria (1887-94). Early involved with Bulgarian revolutionary committees, he led an anti-Turkish rising at Nova Zagora in 1875 and organized another at Orekhovitsa in 1876. He fought in the Serbian campaign against Turkey in 1876 and, with a Bulgarian irregular contingent of the Russian forces, in the Russo-Turkish War of 1877-78, as a result of which Bulgaria gained autonomy. Soon elected to the new Bulgarian national assembly (Sobranye), he became its president in 1884. He was instrumental in persuading Prince Aleksandur I to accept the union of Eastern Rumelia with Bulgaria in 1885, despite Russian opposition. When pro-Russian officers abducted Aleksandur in August 1886, Stambolov set up a government loyal to him at Turnovo and his measures led to the downfall of the pro-Russian provisional government at Sofia. On Aleksandur's final abdication (September 1886), Stambolov became head of a regency council and eventually (July 1887) secured the election of Prince Ferdinand of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha to the vacant throne. Under Ferdinand he became prime minister and interior minister in September 1887. His foreign policy was to obtain the recognition of Ferdinand and to win the support of European powers against Russian interference in Bulgaria. He ruthlessly stamped out recurrent plots and armed risings engineered by equally ruthless political opponents who were backed by Pan-Slavist circles in Russia. The growing violence became unbearable to Ferdinand, who, moreover, sought reconciliation with Russia, and he finally forced Stambolov out of office in May 1894. Now exposed to the vengeance of his enemies, Stambolov was brutally assaulted in the streets of Sofia on July 15, 1895, and died three days later.

Stamenkovic, Dragi (b. 1920, Leskovac, Yugoslavia [now in Serbia] - d. Feb. 17, 2004, Belgrade, Serbia), president of the Executive Council of Serbia (1964-67). He was a partisan during World War II and leader of the Communist Youth of Serbia (1942-45), then organizational secretary of the Serbian Communists and secretary of the Belgrade branch of the Communist Party (1947-51), Serbian minister for energetics and extractive industry (April-October 1951), president of the Serbian Workers' Union (1952-64), and again head of the Belgrade Communists (1964-65). He became president of the Executive Council after the (suspicious) death in a car crash of Slobodan Penezic Krcun. Later, he was president of the Conference of the Socialist Alliance of Working People of Serbia (1967-71), Serbian member of the Presidency of Yugoslavia (1971-74), and Yugoslav ambassador to the United Kingdom (1974-77).

Stammati, Gaetano (b. Oct. 4, 1908, Naples, Italy - d. Feb. 11, 2002, Rome, Italy), finance minister (1976) and treasury minister (1976-78) of Italy.

Stanchov, Dimitur (Yanev) (b. May 9, 1863 - d. March 23, 1940), prime minister of Bulgaria (1907).

Stanchov, Ivan (Ivanov) (b. April 1, 1929, Sofia, Bulgaria), foreign minister of Bulgaria (1994-95).

Stanfield, Frank (b. April 24, 1872, Truro, N.S. - d. Sept. 25, 1931, Halifax, N.S.), lieutenant governor of Nova Scotia (1930-31).

R.L. Stanfield

Stanfield, Robert L(orne) (b. April 11, 1914, Truro, N.S. - d. Dec. 16, 2003, Ottawa, Ont.), Canadian politician; son of Frank Stanfield. He served on the Wartime Prices and Trade Board in Halifax in 1942-45. In 1947 he became president of the Nova Scotia Progressive Conservative Association, at a time that the party was not represented in the local legislature. He became leader of the provincial party in 1948 and rebuilt its miserable fortunes, eventually forming the government in 1956, ending 23 years of Liberal rule. Taking up the posts of premier, treasurer, and minister of education, he initiated extensive programs for education, health, welfare, and highway construction. He was reelected three times, then resigned in 1967 and was elected national leader of the Progressive Conservatives. He entered the House of Commons in a November 1967 by-election. As opposition leader until 1976 he continuously attacked Prime Minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau's economic policies. But his slow way of speaking, which belied his sharp wit, did not translate well onto the national scene. A photograph of him fumbling a football during the 1974 federal election campaign seemed to galvanize public sentiment against him. Stanfield's awkward style contrasted sharply with the dashing, more youthful Trudeau and helped cost the party every election it fought under his leadership (1968, 1972, 1974). He was nevertheless widely seen as "the best prime minister Canada never had." After leaving parliament in 1979 he became chairman of the Institute for Research on Public Policy (1983-87) and of the Commonwealth Foundation (1987-91). In his later years, he was regarded as the conscience of the Conservatives, representing their progressive or "red" side on social issues.

Stang

Stanhope

Stang, Axel (Heiberg) (b. Feb. 21, 1904, Oslo, Norway - d. 1974), Norwegian politician. He was one of the acting councillors of state (from 1941, ministers) during the 1940-45 German occupation.

Stanhope, Jon(athon Donald) (b. April 29, 1951, Gundagai, N.S.W.), chief minister of the Australian Capital Territory (2001- ).

Stanishev

Stanishev, Sergey (Dmitrievich) (b. May 5, 1966, Kherson, Ukrainian S.S.R.), prime minister of Bulgaria (2005- ). He joined the Bulgarian Communist Party in the spring of 1989, just months before the fall of the regime. In 1995, he became a staff member at the foreign affairs department of the Bulgarian Socialist Party, the successor of the Communists. He took the helm of the party in 2001. Under his leadership, it managed to revamp its image, seriously tarnished by its 1994-97 governance that ended in an economic meltdown, and to regain power at the general elections in 2005 after eight years in opposition. With his youthful style, he managed to win the support of younger voters for a party whose traditional voter base was still in rural areas among people over the age of 50. His party came first in the election, but did not win a majority, and he formed a coalition government with the liberal party of former prime minister Simeon Sakskoburggotski and the Movement for Rights and Freedoms, a mainly ethnic Turkish party. He fulfilled his pledges to bring back Bulgaria's 370 troops in Iraq by the end of 2005 and to ensure European Union membership on Jan. 1, 2007.

Stanislaw I

Stanislaw I Leszczynski, original full name Stanislaw Boguslaw Leszczynski h. Wieniawa (b. Oct. 20, 1677, Lwów, Poland [now Lviv, Ukraine] - d. Feb. 23, 1766, Lunéville, France), king of Poland (1705-09, 1733-34). In 1702 King Karl XII of Sweden invaded Poland, enforced the deposition of King August II (1704), and then procured the election of Stanislaw to the throne. After the defeat of Karl by the Russians at Poltava (1709), Stanislaw left Poland and settled at Wissembourg, in Alsace, while August II recovered the kingdom. In 1725 Stanislaw's daughter Marie was married to Louis XV of France, and in 1733, after the death of August, France supported his candidature to the Polish throne. He went in disguise to Warsaw and was elected by an overwhelming majority of the Diet. The War of the Polish Succession then broke out, as Russian and Austrian armies entered Poland to annul his election. Thus before he could be crowned, he lost his throne a second time. Under Russian pressure, a small minority in the Diet accepted the Saxon elector Friedrich August II as king of Poland with the style of August III. Stanislaw took refuge in Gdansk (Danzig), which his enemies then besieged. Waiting in vain for French assistance, he fled before the city fell to the Russians. He escaped to Königsberg, Prussia, whence he directed the guerrilla warfare of his partisans in Poland. The preliminary peace between France and Austria (1735) and the definitive Peace of Vienna (1738) decided that August III was to remain king of Poland but that Stanislaw, retaining his royal titles, was to have the duchies of Lorraine and Bar for life. His court at Lunéville became famous as a cultural centre, and he proved himself a good administrator and promoter of economic development.

Stanislaw II

Stanislaw II August Poniatowski, original full name Stanislaw Antoni Poniatowski h. Ciolek (b. Jan. 17, 1732, Wolczyn, Poland - d. Feb. 12, 1798, St. Petersburg, Russia), king of Poland (1764-95). As an envoy to the Russian court, he gained influence through an affair with the future Russian empress Yekaterina II. With her support, he was elected king following the death of August III in 1763. For Yekaterina, who sought to keep Poland on its course of decline, he seemed a convenient pawn. He tried to strengthen royal power, to modernize the state administration, and to improve the parliamentary system, but his reforms were opposed by a group of magnates and Yekaterina forced him to drop his plans (1768). He was then faced with the Confederation of Bar, a union of nobles opposed to Russian interference, which proclaimed an interregnum (1770), thus making the king even more dependent on Russia. In 1772 Russia, Prussia, and Austria carried out the first partition of Poland, each annexing a portion of Polish territory. A new constitution, seen as a requirement to prevent further national decay, was finally approved by the Sejm (Diet) in May 1791. Russia then invaded and succeeded in crushing the constitutional movement. Stanislaw participated in the captive Sejm at Grodno in 1793, which had to assent to the second partition of Poland, with further loss of territory to Russia and Prussia. He took no firm stand during these upheavals, and in 1794 Tadeusz Kosciuszko led a Polish insurrection, overriding all royal authority. After the Russians defeated the uprising, the third partition of Poland followed in 1795, its entire territory now being annexed by Russia, Prussia, and Austria. Stanislaw abdicated at Grodno on Nov. 25, 1795, and spent the rest of his days in semicaptivity at St. Petersburg.

Stank, Jozef (b. Oct. 26, 1940, Nitra, Slovakia - d. March 7, 2005, Bratislava, Slovakia), defense minister of Slovakia (2001-02).

C. Stankevicius

Stankevicius, Ceslovas (Vytautas) (b. Feb. 27, 1937, Vilkaviskis district, Lithuania), defense minister of Lithuania (1996-2000).

L.M. Stankevicius

Stankevicius, Laurynas Mindaugas (b. Aug. 10, 1935, Aukstadvaris, Lithuania), prime minister of Lithuania (1996).

Stankovic, Zoran (b. Nov. 9, 1954, Trgoviste village, near Vladicin Han, southern Serbia), defense minister of Serbia and Montenegro (2005-06).

Stanley, George F(rancis) G(illman) (b. July 6, 1907, Calgary, Alberta - d. Sept. 13, 2002, Sackville, N.B.), lieutenant governor of New Brunswick (1981-87).

Stanley, Oliver Frederick George (b. May 4, 1896, London, England - d. Dec. 10, 1950, Sulhamstead, Berkshire, England), British politician. He was the second son of the 17th Earl of Derby. He served in the royal field artillery in World War I, receiving the Military Cross and the Croix de Guerre. In 1923 he unsuccessfully contested Edgehill, Liverpool, but from 1924 to 1945 sat in Parliament for Westmorland. From 1945 until his death he represented West Bristol. He became undersecretary to the Home Office in 1931 and two years later was appointed minister of transport. He was given cabinet rank in June 1934 as minister of labour, but in June 1935 was transferred to the Board of Education. In 1937 he was appointed president of the Board of Trade, and in January 1940 he succeeded Leslie Hore-Belisha as secretary of state for war. Stanley rejoined the royal field artillery in 1940 but returned to politics in November 1942 as secretary of state for the colonies, remaining in this office until the general election of 1945.

Stans

Stans, Maurice H(ubert) (b. March 22, 1908, Shakopee, Minn. - d. April 14, 1998, Pasadena, Calif.), U.S. politician. In the second Dwight D. Eisenhower administration, Stans was director of the Bureau of the Budget. He was Pres. Richard Nixon's commerce secretary (1969-72) and raised more than $60 million - a record - for Nixon's reelection campaign in 1972. But along with the TV ads, balloons, and bunting, the money bought the dirty tricks and outright crimes that eventually brought down the president. Stans was indicted along with former Attorney General John Mitchell on 10 counts of perjury and conspiracy involving a $200,000 contribution from financier Robert Vesco. They were acquitted by a jury. Stans later pleaded guilty to five nonwillful violations of campaign financing laws and paid a $5,000 fine. He said he wanted to avoid the further expense of defending himself, and spent much time in the ensuing decades trying to keep people from lumping him in with the worst of the Watergate conspirators.

Starhemberg

Starhemberg, Ernst Rüdiger (Fürst von) (b. May 10, 1899, Eferding, Austria - d. March 15, 1956, Schruns, Austria), Austrian politician. Although he took part in the Munich (Beer Hall) Putsch (1923), he distanced himself from Nazism, objecting to its racial theories. He became provincial leader of the Heimwehr (a paramilitary defense force) in Oberösterreich in 1929, and its national head in September 1930. He was Austrian minister of the interior from September to November 1930, but his Heimatblock (the political arm of the Heimwehr) failed to show electoral strength. He became an admiring disciple of Benito Mussolini, whom he often visited, and by whom the Heimwehr movement was supported and encouraged. Starhemberg stood aloof during the September 1931 coup attempt by the Styrian Heimwehr leader Walter Pfrimer, which was quickly suppressed. Under the chancellorship of Engelbert Dollfuss from 1932, the influence of the Heimwehr steadily increased; Heimwehr leaders successively joined the cabinet till they formed half of it; and on May 1, 1934, Starhemberg became vice chancellor. He had assisted in the formation of the right-wing alliance called the Fatherland Front (Vaterländische Front) and after the assassination of Dollfuss (July 25, 1934) became its head. It became evident, however, that there was not enough room in Austrian politics for both him and the new chancellor, Kurt Schuschnigg. Dissensions in the Heimwehr gave Schuschnigg the opportunity to expel Starhemberg from the government in May 1936. After the incorporation of Austria into Nazi Germany in March 1938, Starhemberg, who had sought to maintain a fascist but independent Austria, moved to France. In World War II he served briefly in the Free French forces. From 1942 to 1955 he lived in Argentina.

Starke, Heinz (b. Feb. 21, 1911, Schweidnitz, Schlesien, Prussia, Germany [now Swidnica, Poland] - d. Jan. 31, 2001, Bonn, Germany), finance minister of West Germany (1961-62).

Starodubtsev, Vasily (Aleksandrovich) (b. Dec. 25, 1931), head of the administration of Tula oblast (1997-2005).

Starova, Arjan (Avni) (b. Sept. 26, 1954), foreign minister of Albania (1997).

Starr

Starr, Kenneth W(inston) (b. July 21, 1946, Vernon, Texas), U.S. government official. He served as a law clerk (1975-77) to Chief Justice Warren Burger, as a counselor to the U.S. attorney general (1981-83), as an appellate judge (1983-89), and as U.S. solicitor general (1989-93). In August 1994 he became independent counsel investigating the pre-White House involvement of Pres. Bill Clinton and his wife Hillary in the Whitewater land development company and the failed Madison Guaranty Savings and Loan in Arkansas. He also investigated the suicide of Vincent Foster, a longtime friend of the Clintons and deputy White House counsel, but the matter was eventually closed. Later, his investigation expanded to Mrs. Clinton's law firm billing records on Madison, which were missing but then turned up in the White House residence. Then, he investigated the firing of workers in the White House travel office ("Travelgate") and requests for FBI files on Republicans ("Filegate"). His investigations resulted in the convictions, among others, of former Arkansas governor Jim Guy Tucker and former Clinton Whitewater business partners James and Susan McDougal. Finally, Clinton's relationship with Monica Lewinsky consumed Starr's attention. On Sept. 9, 1998, he submitted his report to Congress, finding that Clinton had committed perjury, obstructed justice, tampered with a witness, and abused his power as president. He charged that Clinton had lied under oath about a sexual relationship with former White House intern Lewinsky and had taken steps to cover it up. The investigative activities of Starr, a fervid Republican, were seen by many as politically motivated and an attempt to topple the president over a matter of private rather than public conduct.

Stasinopoulos

Stasinopoulos, Michail (Dimitriou) (b. July 27, 1903, Kalamata, Greece - d. Oct. 31, 2002), president of Greece (1974-75). He was originally member of the Council of State, then became an associate judge (1937), vice-president (1960) and president (1966) of the Council of State. He was removed from the latter position in 1969, due to a resolution of the council which declared the military dictatorship illegal. After the fall of the dictatorship in 1974 he was elected MP for the New Democracy party, and after the referendum which declared Greece a republic, the parliament appointed him as the first president of the third Greek Republic. He also served as ad hoc judge at the International Court of Justice at The Hague from 1976 to 1978.

Stassen

Stassen, Harold E(dward) (b. April 13, 1907, West St. Paul, Minn. - d. March 4, 2001, Bloomington, near Minneapolis, Minn.), U.S. politician. He started his political career as a county prosecutor. In 1938, at the age of 31, he became the youngest person to be elected governor of Minnesota, and he was reelected in 1940 and 1942. The latter election was Stassen's last successful campaign. He resigned the governorship in April 1943, four months after beginning his third term, and joined the Navy, where he served in the Pacific as assistant chief of staff to Adm. William Halsey. A progressive Republican, he first sought the GOP presidential nomination in 1948 against Thomas Dewey. Four years later he again jumped into the Republican presidential race, facing Dwight D. Eisenhower and conservative Ohio Sen. Robert Taft. Stassen swung the convention to Eisenhower by releasing the Minnesota delegation to him at the end of the first ballot. According to a statement released by his family after his death, Stassen advised Eisenhower not to pick Richard Nixon as his running mate. When Nixon was later elected president, the statement said, Stassen was twice audited by the Internal Revenue Service and both times the government agency found that he had over-paid his taxes. Stassen also sought the Republican presidential nomination in 1964, 1968, 1976, 1980, 1984, 1988, and 1992 - nine times in all, but some of his later attempts at the office were more symbolic than substantive.

Statius van Eps, Johan Marin (b. Jan. 18, 1894 - d. ...), administrator of Bonaire (1935-39).

Stauning, Thorvald (August Marinus) (b. Oct. 26, 1873, Copenhagen, Denmark - d. May 3, 1942, Copenhagen), prime minister of Denmark (1924-26, 1929-42).

Stavrev, Dragoljub (b. June 28, 1932, Skopje, Yugoslavia [now in Macedonia] - d. Dec. 23, 2003, Skopje), chairman of the Executive Council (1982-86) and president of the Presidency (1986-88) of Macedonia. He was mayor of Skopje in the 1970s.

Steeg, Théodore (b. Dec. 19, 1868, Libourne, Gironde, France - d. Dec. 19, 1950, Paris), governor-general of Algeria (1921-25), resident-general of Morocco (1925-29), and prime minister of France (1930-31).

Steel

Steel of Aikwood (of Ettrick Forest in the Scottish Borders), David (Martin Scott) Steel, Baron (b. March 31, 1938, Kirkcaldy, Scotland), British politician. He became the youngest member of Parliament in 1965 when he was elected from Scotland. He was leader of the Liberal Party from 1976 to 1988. He was instrumental in creating the Liberal-Social Democratic alliance of 1981 and the merger between the two parties to form the Social and Liberal Democrats in 1988. At the 1997 election Steel retired from the House of Commons. He was subsequently created a life peer. In 1999 he was elected as presiding officer of the first Scottish parliament for almost 300 years. Within the Scottish parliament he is referred to as Sir David Steel.

Steen, Robert (Ashley) (b. Aug. 12, 1933 - d. May 10, 1979), mayor of Winnipeg (1977-79).

Steiger, (Alfred Armand) Adolf von (b. July 25, 1859, Bern, Switzerland - d. March 1, 1925, Bern), federal chancellor of Switzerland (1919-25).

Steiger, (Adolf) Eduard von (b. July 2, 1881, Langnau im Emmental, Bern canton, Switzerland - d. Feb. 10, 1962, Bern), justice minister (1941-51) and president (1945, 1951) of Switzerland.

Steiger, Niklaus Friedrich von (b. May 17, 1729, Bern, Switzerland - d. Dec. 3, 1799, Augsburg, Bavaria [Germany]), Swiss statesman. Elected to the Small Council of Bern in 1774, he was elected Schultheiss (chief magistrate) of the canton in 1787, holding office in 1787-88, 1789-90, 1791-92, 1793-94, 1795-96, and 1797-98. He warned about the threat of revolutionary France and favoured resistance against French intrusions, but the prevailing sentiment in the country was to preserve peace. The French defeat of the Bernese at Grauholz (March 5, 1798) ensured the demise of the old confederation and led to the establishment of the Helvetic Republic under French protection. As he later said, he did not want to survive his fatherland and hoped to find an honourable death with the army. When this plan failed, he intended to organize resistance in the Bernese uplands, but gave up on this too and fled to Bavaria. There he was received by representatives from Prussia and Austria and was given financial support by English agents. Other Swiss émigrés associated with him, and when war broke out in 1799, a Swiss legion of about 600 men joined the Austrians against France; but after initial successes, the French victory near Zürich on September 25 forced a retreat.

Stein

Steinbrück

Steiner

Stein Barillas, Eduardo (b. Oct. 20, 1945, Guatemala City, Guatemala), foreign minister (1996-2000) and vice president (2004-08) of Guatemala.

Steinbrück, Peer (b. Jan. 10, 1947, Hamburg, Germany), minister-president of Nordrhein-Westfalen (2002-05) and finance minister of Germany (2005- ).

Steiner, Michael (b. Nov. 28, 1949, Munich, West Germany), administrator of Kosovo (2002-03).

Steinmeier

Stelmach

Steinmeier, Frank-Walter (b. Jan. 5, 1956, Detmold, Nordrhein-Westfalen, West Germany), foreign minister (2005- ) and vice chancellor (2007- ) of Germany.

Stelmach, Ed(ward Michael) (b. May 11, 1951, Lamont, Alberta), premier of Alberta (2006- ).

Steltzer

Steltzer, Theodor (Hans Friedrich) (b. Dec. 17, 1885, Trittau, Holstein [now in Schleswig-Holstein], Germany - d. Oct. 27, 1967, Munich, West Germany), minister-president of Schleswig-Holstein (1945-47).

Stennis

Stennis, John C(ornelius) (b. Aug. 3, 1901, DeKalb, Miss. - d. April 23, 1995, Jackson, Miss.), U.S. politician. A Democrat, he was elected to the Mississippi legislature in 1928. He then served as a district attorney (1932-37) and circuit judge (1937-47) before winning the U.S. Senate seat left vacant by the death of Theodore G. Bilbo. The longtime senator (1947-89) wielded great power over military policy, serving as chairman of both the Armed Services Committee and the defense subcommittee of the Appropriations Committee in the 1970s. After becoming Armed Services chairman in 1969, he firmly supported Pres. Richard Nixon's requests to extend the Vietnam War. In the war's waning days, he co-sponsored the War Powers Act of 1973, which set limits on a president's power to commit American forces to combat without congressional consent. But a decade later, he opposed forcing Pres. Ronald Reagan to abide by the law in order to keep Marine peacekeepers in Lebanon. Although he never made racial issues his primary focus in the Senate, he did support segregation and was a staunch member of the Southern wing of his party. He condemned the Supreme Court's 1954 school desegregation decision and opposed virtually all civil rights legislation, although in 1983 he voted for an extension of the Voting Rights Act. Nicknamed the "conscience of the Senate" for his work on the Senate's ethics code, he was viewed by many as a symbol of integrity and was often selected to head sensitive inquiries. During the final years of his tenure he became a mentor to junior senators.

Stepanov, Viktor (Nikolayevich) (b. Jan. 27, 1947), chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet (1989-90), chairman of the Supreme Council (1990-94), and chairman of the government (1994-98) of Karelia.

Stepashin

Stepashin, Sergey (Vadimovich) (b. March 2, 1952, at the then Soviet military base of Port Arthur, China), prime minister of Russia (1999). He joined the Interior Ministry troops in 1973 as "politrabotnik" - a member of the Communist Party watchdog corps in Soviet power structures. Under the perestroika reforms started by Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, he ran for parliament, where he joined the liberal camp. He spent some time in the Supreme Soviet as the head of its security committee before establishing himself in the security service, which changed names several times during his stay. He was one of the few security ministry officials left in place after an abortive attempt by the parliament to depose Pres. Boris Yeltsin in 1993. In March 1994 he became the head of the new Federal Security Service (FSB). In his most prominent role, Stepashin was a loyal hawk during the catastrophic war in breakaway Chechnya. He resigned after a bloody Chechen hostage-taking raid on the southern Russian town of Budyonnovsk in June 1995. He later made a quiet comeback as a Kremlin aide, taking part in negotiations with the Chechens. In 1997 Yeltsin gave him a second chance, appointing him justice minister. Stepashin oversaw the transfer of Russia's notoriously overcrowded prisons from the Interior Ministry and pledged to bring prison conditions up to European standards. Yeltsin appointed Stepashin interior minister in March 1998. Stepashin again had to face problems over Chechnya; Chechen criminal gangs living off hostage-taking kidnapped senior Russian officials, foreigners, and ordinary Russians in and around the turbulent region. In 1999 Yeltsin elevated him to the post of first deputy prime minister, and soon afterwards to prime minister, but he lasted only three months.

Stephan, Léopold François (b. Oct. 14, 1815, Brest, France - d. ...), acting governor of Senegal (1861).

K. Stephanopoulos

Stephanopoulos, Kostis, byname of Konstantinos (Dimitriou) Stephanopoulos (b. Aug. 15, 1926, Patras, Greece), president of Greece (1995-2005). He first entered parliament in 1964 with the conservative National Radical Union. During the 1967-74 military dictatorship, the lawyer defended students accused of anti-government activities. Later he was a member of the New Democracy party and served as interior minister (1974-76) in New Democracy governments. He deserted the party in 1985 after losing a leadership contest and formed a splinter group called Democratic Renewal. Support for that party sank, and it eventually disbanded in 1994. But he remained a respected figure and was elected president in 1995. On Feb. 8, 2000, the Greek parliament overwhelmingly voted to reelect Stephanopoulos, granting the man who was probably Greece's most popular politician a second five-year term. He became the first president to be elected to two consecutive terms since the collapse of the dictatorship in 1974. Both the governing Socialists and opposition conservatives voted to return him to the largely symbolic office. He received 269 votes in the 300-member unicameral parliament - the largest number any president has captured in a presidential election since the dictatorship. Stephanopoulos had seen his approval rating rise above 70% in opinions polls.

Stephanopoulos, Stephanos (Christou) (b. 1898, Pyrgos, Greece - d. Oct. 4, 1982, Athens, Greece), prime minister of Greece (1965-66). He joined Parliament in 1930 as a deputy for the Populist Party. He served as economics minister in prewar governments and took part in the resistance to German occupation during World War II. After serving as minister of economic coordination until 1950, he helped set up a right-wing splinter party and, after Alexandros Papagos's Greek Rally had won the 1952 elections, became foreign minister (1952-55). In 1961 he helped form the Centre Union Party under Georgios Papandreou but defected in 1965 to become prime minister. His government was never stable and eventually fell in a deteriorating political situation that culminated in a 1967 military coup. After the return of democracy Stephanopoulos set up the right-wing National Rally, but he failed to win reelection in 1977 and the party collapsed.

Stephen, Marcus (b. Oct. 1, 1969), president of Nauru (2007- ). A former professional weightlifter and Olympian who won seven Commonwealth Games gold medals, he was elected to parliament in 2003.

N.M. Stephen

Stephen, Sir Ninian Martin (b. June 15, 1923, near Oxford, England), governor-general of Australia (1982-89). During World War II he served in the Australian Army (1941-46). A queen's counsel from 1966, he was appointed a judge of the Victoria Supreme Court in 1970 and elevated in 1972 to the Australian High Court bench. He was knighted in 1972. Stephen's hopes that his appointment as governor-general would be untainted by public controversy were soon dashed. Since Sir John Kerr sacked Gough Whitlam's Australian Labor Party administration in 1975, the governor-general had been regarded as fair game for journalists. Stephen was quickly confronted by a press demanding to know why his daughter had been arrested, while working as a journalist for the Communist newspaper Tribune, during Aboriginal land rights demonstrations at the time of the 1982 Commonwealth Games in Brisbane.

Stephens, Michael (Leslie), acting administrator of Norfolk Island (2003).

Stephens, Tun (Haji) Moh(ama)d Fuad, original name (before conversion to Islam Jan. 5, 1971) Donald (Aloysius Marmaduke) Stephens (b. 1920 - d. [plane crash] June 6, 1976, off Sembulan, near Kota Kinabalu, Sabah, Malaysia), chief minister (1963-64, 1976) and head of state (1973-75) of Sabah.

Stephenson, Sir Hugh Lansdown (b. April 8, 1871, London, England - d. Sept. 6, 1941, Oxted, England), governor of Bihar and Orissa (1927-32) and of Burma (1932-36); knighted 1924.

Stephenson, Sir Hugh Southern (b. Nov. 29, 1906 - d. Sept. 23, 1972, London, England), British high commissioner for Southern Africa (1963-64); knighted 1956; son of Sir Hugh Lansdown Stephenson. He was ambassador to South Vietnam (1954-57) and South Africa (1963-66).

Sterniuk, Volodymyr (b. Feb. 12, 1907, Pustomyty, near Lvov [now Lviv], Russia [now in Ukraine] - d. Sept. 29, 1997, Lviv), locum tenens of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church (1972-91). He was ordained a priest in 1931. During World War II he served parishes in the Ternopil and Stanislaviv regions (today Ivano-Frankivsk). The church was outlawed in 1946 and absorbed by the Russian Orthodox Church in what today is commonly referred to as an illegal synod of bishops. In the months after the church was banned, he and thousands of other clergy and faithful were arrested and imprisoned or exiled. He spent five years imprisoned in Arkhangelsk region near the Siberian city of Yertsevo, after which he returned to Pustomyty. There he worked at various menial jobs, including watchman, sanitation worker, and medic, all the while maintaining his status as a clergyman in the underground church. He was secretly consecrated a bishop in 1967 by Archbishop Vasyl Velychkovsky. In 1972 the exiled metropolitan Josyf Cardinal Slipy appointed him locum tenens (one who maintains the position) and senior bishop of the Kyiv-Halych Metropolis - in fact naming him the guardian of the underground church that survived the massive Soviet arrests of clergy and laity, a position he maintained until 1991, when the leader of the church, Myroslav Ivan Cardinal Lubachivsky, returned to officially take his seat in Lviv.

Stettinius

Stettinius, Edward (Reilly, Jr.) (b. Oct. 22, 1900, Chicago, Ill. - d. Oct. 31, 1949, Greenwich, Conn.), U.S. secretary of state (1944-45). Having been a vice president of General Motors and chairman of the board of U.S. Steel, he entered government service in 1939 as chairman of the War Resources Board, chaired the National Defense Advisory Commission in 1940, became director of priorities at the Office of Production Management in 1941, and later that year replaced Harry Hopkins as lend-lease administrator. In 1943 Pres. Franklin D. Roosevelt appointed Stettinius undersecretary of state, and the next year he succeeded the ailing Cordell Hull as full secretary of the department. At 44 he was one of the youngest persons ever to have held this position. He dealt effectively with the administrative functions of his post and soundly implemented, but played only a minor role in formulating, Roosevelt's foreign-policy decisions. He was, however, one of Roosevelt's chief advisers at the 1945 Yalta Conference. A firm believer in a postwar international organization, he played a principal role in the Dumbarton Oaks meetings of 1944 that laid the groundwork for the United Nations and in 1945 he headed the U.S. delegation to the San Francisco Conference, which drafted the UN Charter. Two months after Roosevelt's death, Pres. Harry S. Truman appointed James F. Byrnes as secretary of state to replace Stettinius, who then became the first U.S. delegate to the UN (1945-46).

Stevens, (Moli) Jimmy (Tubou Patuntun) (b. June 15, 1927 - d. Feb. 28, 1994, Fanafo, Vanuatu), New Hebrides (Vanuatu) rebel leader. Born of mixed European-Islander descent, he had the ability to articulate the grievances of ordinary villagers. In the early 1960s he joined a small group of Espíritu Santo islanders opposing the encroachment of a cattle industry into "dark bush land." They called their movement Nagriamel (after two plants, nagaria and namele), and by 1970 it had a large following (he claimed 10,000). It rejected colonial control over New Hebridean land, championed "custom," and repudiated many of the highly suspect land sales of the early colonial period. In the 1970s the anticolonial initiative passed from Stevens to the Vanua'aku Party under Walter Lini. Stevens found himself heading a regional movement that was increasingly allied with pro-French and pro-settler groups opposed to decolonization and to the anglophone groups that dominated the new government. He was encouraged (and funded) by them and also by U.S. business interests that had invested heavily and speculatively in land. For example, the Phoenix Foundation, a group of libertarian U.S. businessmen hoping for a tax haven and a free hand in commercial development, backed Stevens and provided a constitution for his Vemarana (after a traditional Santo name) secessionist government launched on the eve of Vanuatu's independence (1980). French settlers imported arms through New Caledonia and drilled Stevens's force of bow-and-arrow-wielding tribesmen. But within a month of independence, Fanafo village, his headquarters, fell to Papua New Guinea troops called in by the new Vanuatu government. He was arrested and put on trial and on November 21 was sentenced to 14˝ years' imprisonment. He was released in 1991.

R.L. Stevens

Stevens, Roger L(acey) (b. March 12, 1910, Detroit, Mich. - d. Feb. 2, 1998, Washington, D.C.), chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts (1965-69).

S. Stevens

Stevens, Siaka (Probyn) (b. Aug. 24, 1905, Moyamba, Sierra Leone - d. May 29, 1988, Freetown, Sierra Leone), prime minister (1967, 1968-71) and president (1971-85) of Sierra Leone. He helped to found the United Mineworkers Union in 1943 and served as its general secretary for 15 years. In 1951 he was elected to the Protectorate Assembly, representing the Sierra Leone People's Party, and after the granting of internal self-government in 1952 he became minister of lands, mines, and labour. After serving as secretary-general and deputy leader of the breakaway People's National Party (1958-60), he formed the All People's Congress (APC). After independence in April 1961 he led the parliamentary opposition and also served as mayor of Freetown. The APC won the 1967 election, but he was overthrown in a military coup only minutes after being sworn in as prime minister. He was recalled from exile in Guinea after another coup 13 months later. He survived coup attempts in October 1970 and March 1971 and requested troops from Guinea to quell the protests surrounding his installation as president in April 1971, when Sierra Leone became a republic. After being returned for a new term of office in 1976, he won support for his plan to turn Sierra Leone into a one-party state, for which the necessary legislation was passed in 1978. He presided over the Organization of African Unity's summit meeting in Freetown in July 1980 and was elected OAU chairman for 1980-81. He survived in office despite a burdensome national debt and charges of gross mismanagement and governmental corruption. He voluntarily relinquished power in 1985 in favour of his hand-picked successor, Joseph Saidu Momoh, but in 1987 he was put under house arrest for alleged involvement in a coup plot.

Stevenson

Stevenson, Adlai E(wing) (b. Oct. 23, 1835, Christian county, Ky. - d. June 14, 1914, Chicago, Ill.), vice president of the United States (1893-97). Present at the historic Lincoln-Douglas debates during the Illinois senatorial campaign of 1858, he was stimulated to get involved in politics and was appointed to his first public office as a master in chancery (an aide in a court of equity) in 1860. In 1864 he was elected district attorney. Serving two terms in the U.S. House of Representatives (1875-77, 1879-81), he stood for low tariffs and a soft-money policy; he also took a conspicuous part in the congressional debate protesting the manner of settlement in the disputed presidential election of 1876. During Grover Cleveland's first term as president (1885-89), Stevenson served as first assistant postmaster general and was entrusted with the task of removing some 40,000 Republican postmasters and replacing them with Democrats. Upon Cleveland's renomination in 1892, Stevenson was selected as vice presidential candidate. After leaving office in 1897, he was sent to Europe by Pres. William McKinley as member of a commission which sought in vain to promote international bimetallism. He was again nominated for vice president on the ticket with William Jennings Bryan in 1900, and was also unsuccessful as the Democratic candidate for governor of Illinois in 1908.

Stevenson

Stevenson, Adlai E(wing) (b. Feb. 5, 1900, Los Angeles, Calif. - d. July 14, 1965, London, England), U.S. politician; grandson of Adlai E. Stevenson (1835-1914). He began his political career as a special counsel to the Agricultural Adjustment Administration in the 1930s. He headed the Civil Rights Committee of the Chicago Bar Association, battled isolationism as a leader in the Committee to Defend America by Aiding the Allies, and in 1941-44 was special assistant to the U.S. secretary of the navy. In 1945 he became assistant to the secretary of state and participated in the San Francisco Conference that founded the United Nations. He then became a U.S. delegate at the UN General Assembly (1946-47). In 1948 he was elected governor of Illinois by a sweeping majority, but this remained his only victory at the polls. His distinguished record as governor aroused interest in him as a Democratic presidential candidate. Although he preferred to serve a second term as governor, he was drafted by the Democratic National Convention in 1952. He then waged a vigorous campaign, but with his earnest speeches, which avoided offering easy solutions to problems, he could not overcome the personal appeal of his Republican opponent, wartime hero Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower. In 1956 he was again his party's nominee and was again defeated by Eisenhower. He nevertheless was admired by many and remembered for his eloquence and wit (one story goes that, when a woman called out to him "You have the vote of every thinking person," he replied: "That's not enough, madam, we need a majority!"). He did not rule out accepting the Democratic nomination a third time in 1960, but it went to John F. Kennedy. Kennedy won the election, and in 1961 Stevenson became U.S. ambassador to the UN, with cabinet rank; he served until his death.

Stevenson

Stevenson, Adlai E(wing), III (b. Oct. 10, 1930, Chicago, Ill.), U.S. politician; son of Adlai E. Stevenson (1900-1965). The Democrat served in the Illinois state legislature (1965-67) and as state treasurer (1967-70). He was U.S. senator from Illinois (1970-81), being first elected to fill the unexpired term caused by the death of Sen. Everett Dirksen and reelected in 1974, but not running for reelection in 1980. He was an unsuccessful candidate for governor of Illinois in 1982 and 1986.

Stewart, David (b. 1772 - d. Dec. 18, 1829, Saint Lucia), governor of Saint Lucia (1829).

Stewart, Duncan George (b. Oct. 22, 1904, Witkleifontein, Transvaal [now in South Africa] - d. Dec. 10, 1949, Singapore), governor of Sarawak (1949). He died as a consequence of a stabbing attack made on him on Dec. 3, 1949, by two Malays at Sibu, Sarawak.

Stewart of Fulham, (Robert) Michael (Maitland) Stewart, Baron (b. Nov. 6, 1906, London, England - d. March 10, 1990, London), British foreign secretary (1965-66, 1968-70). One of the Labour Party's most dependable members, he was first elected to Parliament in 1945, and two years later he was named under secretary of state for war. After the 1951 general election he served as party spokesman on education and housing issues, and in 1964 he returned to the cabinet as education secretary. The next year he was Prime Minister Harold Wilson's surprise choice as foreign secretary. Stewart actively sought a negotiated peaceful solution to the Vietnam war, but he resisted efforts by the Labour Party's left wing to unequivocally denounce U.S. involvement in that conflict. Stewart also provoked criticism for his support of Nigeria during the Biafran secession (1967-70). As economics secretary (1966-67) he was embroiled in controversy over the Wilson government's price and incomes policy. Although Stewart failed to gain a place in the Labour shadow cabinet after the 1970 election, he led the first Labour delegation to the European Parliament (1975-76). He was made a Companion of Honour in 1969 and was created a life peer in 1979.

Steyn, Marthinus T(heunis), byname Tienie Steyn (b. 1920 - d. April 14, 1998, Onze Rust farm, near Bloemfontein, South Africa), administrator-general of South West Africa (1977-79); grandson of Marthinus Theunis Steyn.

Steyn, Marthinus Theunis (b. Oct. 2, 1857, Rietfontein, Orange Free State [now Free State, South Africa] - d. Nov. 28, 1916, Bloemfontein, South Africa), state president of the Orange Free State (1896-1902).

Steyrer, Kurt (b. June 3, 1920, Linz, Austria - d. July 16, 2007, Vienna, Austria), health and environment minister of Austria (1981-85). He was a presidential candidate in 1986.

Stich

Stich, Otto (b. Jan. 10, 1927), president of Switzerland (1988, 1994).

Stikker

Stikker, Dirk Uipko (b. Feb. 5, 1897, Winschoten, Netherlands - d. Dec. 24, 1979, Wassenaar, Netherlands), Dutch politician and secretary-general of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (1961-64). In 1946 he was a founder of the liberal Party of Freedom, later known as the People's Party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD). As Dutch foreign minister (1948-52), he was a signatory of the North Atlantic Treaty in 1949. From 1950 to 1952 he was chairman of the Organization for European Economic Cooperation, and from 1952 to 1958 he was ambassador to Britain. He was the Netherlands' permanent representative on the North Atlantic Council from 1958 until his appointment as NATO secretary-general in 1961. His conciliatory role did much to preserve the alliance during a critical period.

Stimson

Stimson, Henry L(ewis) (b. Sept. 21, 1867, New York City - d. Oct. 20, 1950, Huntington, Long Island, N.Y.), U.S. statesman. He ran unsuccessfully on the Republican ticket for governor of New York in 1910 and was secretary of war (1911-13) in the cabinet of Pres. William Howard Taft. Though 49 years old, he fought briefly in France as a field artillery officer during World War I. In 1927 Pres. Calvin Coolidge named him special commissioner to Nicaragua, where he successfully mediated a truce between contending factions. In 1927-29 he served as governor-general of the Philippines. As secretary of state under Pres. Herbert Hoover (1929-33), he formulated, after the Japanese occupation of Manchuria (1931), what became known as the Stimson Doctrine, a policy of non-recognition of territorial changes brought about by force. He served as liaison man between retiring President Hoover and President-elect Franklin D. Roosevelt during the final days of the Hoover administration. He became more of an interventionist and in the early phase of World War II was a leading member of the Committee to Defend America by Aiding the Allies. Although he was a Republican, he was appointed secretary of war by President Roosevelt in 1940 in order to carry forward strong measures to aid Britain. He supervised the expansion and training of the U.S. Army, and general war operations, throughout the war. As chief presidential adviser on atomic policy, he recommended to Pres. Harry S. Truman that atom bombs be dropped on Japanese cities. He later said it was "our least abhorrent choice. The destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki put an end to the Japanese war... it ended the ghastly specter of a clash of great land armies." He retired in 1945, soon after the Japanese surrender.

Stitt, (Thomas) Clive Somerville (b. Jan. 1, 1948), administrator of the British Indian Ocean Territory (1986-88).

Stix, Karl (b. Oct. 24, 1939, Wiener Neustadt, Germany [now in Austria] - d. July 5, 2003, Hornstein, Austria), Landeshauptmann of Burgenland (1991-2000).

Stockdale, James B(ond) (b. Dec. 23, 1923, Abingdon, Ill. - d. July 5, 2005, Coronado, Calif.), U.S. politician. In the Vietnam War, he was a Navy fighter pilot based on the aircraft carrier Oriskany and flew 201 missions before he was shot down on Sept. 9, 1965. The highest-ranking naval officer captured in the war, he spent more than seven years as a prisoner before his release in 1973. He received 26 combat decorations, including the Medal of Honor, the nation's highest medal for valor, in 1976. He retired from the military in 1979. In the 1992 presidential election, Ross Perot, who was running as an independent, selected Admiral Stockdale initially as a stand-in on the ticket but later as the formal vice presidential candidate. Stockdale gave a stumbling performance in the nationally televised vice presidential debate against Dan Quayle and Al Gore and later said he did not feel comfortable in the public eye. Perot and Stockdale received 19% of the popular vote. When Perot ran again in 1996 as the candidate of the Reform Party, his running mate was Patrick Choate, an economist. Stockdale had rejoined the Republican Party.

Stöckling

Stofile

Stöckling, Hans Ulrich (b. 1941), Landammann of Sankt Gallen (1990-91, 1997-98, 2003-04).

Stoel, Max van der (b. Aug. 3, 1924, Voorschoten, Netherlands), foreign minister of the Netherlands (1973-77, 1981-82).

Stofile, Makhenkesi (Arnold) (b. Dec. 27, 1944, Winterberg, Cape province [now in Eastern Cape], South Africa), premier of Eastern Cape (1997-2004). In 2004 he became sports minister of South Africa.

Stoiber

Stoiber, Edmund (Rüdiger) (b. Sept. 28, 1941, Oberaudorf, Bayern, Germany), German politician. He became minister-president of the prosperous southern state of Bayern in 1993 after his predecessor Max Streibl resigned amid influence-peddling scandals. Stoiber, who led an ascetic lifestyle at the centre of power in the state famed for its beer and Alpine vistas, was able to finally move out of the shadows of his mentor Franz Josef Strauss with his unexpectedly strong win in the Bavarian state election on Sept. 13, 1998. Stoiber's Christian Social Union (CSU), the archconservative sister party to the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), won 52.9% of the vote, reversing an erosion in support. Stoiber helped make his state one of the most prosperous in Germany, with low unemployment and crime. Stoiber fought hard for Bayern, as Strauss did. But in sharp contrast to Strauss, Stoiber had a squeaky clean image. He seemed to step into the power vacuum in conservative ranks when the CDU's Helmut Kohl lost the Sept. 27, 1998, general election. In 1999 Stoiber became chairman of the CSU. Although he had earlier denied such ambitions, in January 2002 he became the CDU/CSU candidate for chancellor in the September elections, after the only other contender, CDU chairwoman Angela Merkel, stepped aside in his favour. He lost the election and continued to rule his state, winning another landslide in state elections in 2003. In 2005 Merkel was the chancellor candidate and won, and Stoiber was to take the post of economy and technology minister in the federal government, but he then made a U-turn and decided to remain in Bayern, a move that lost him some respect. As his leadership began to be challenged within the party, he was forced in January 2007 to announce his exit, effective September 30.

Stoica

Stoica, Chivu (b. Aug. 8, 1908, Smeeni, Romania - d. [suicide] Feb. 18, 1975, Bucharest, Romania), chairman of the Council of Ministers (1955-61) and president of the State Council (1965-67) of Romania.

Stojiljkovic

Stojiljkovic, Vlajko (b. 1937, Mala Krsna, near Smederevo, Yugoslavia [now in Serbia] - d. April 13, 2002, Belgrade, Serbia), interior minister of Serbia (1997-2000). An apparatchik with an unremarkable career, he was chairman of the Yugoslav Economic Chamber in 1991 and of the Serbian Economic Chamber in 1991-97. He was appointed Serbian interior minister on April 15, 1997, after the previous minister, Zoran Sokolovic, became Yugoslav interior minister on March 20, and acting minister Radovan Stojicic Badza was assassinated on April 11. Stojiljkovic was member of the so-called "Pozarevac gang," the group of people that originated or lived in Pozarevac, Slobodan Milosevic's birthplace. A faithful follower of Milosevic, he was nothing more than a puppet who only figured as head of police. He resigned on Oct. 11, 2000. He was indicted for war crimes in Kosovo and his extradition was sought by the UN tribunal in The Hague. He announced several times that he would not go to The Hague alive, and he shot himself in the head on April 11, 2002, in front of the federal parliament in Belgrade, which a few hours earlier had adopted legislation permitting the extradition of war crimes suspects to the tribunal.

Stojmenov, Boris (b. April 4, 1940), finance minister of Macedonia (1998-99).

Stolfi, Fiorenzo (b. March 11, 1956, San Marino), interior minister (2001-02), finance minister (2002), and foreign minister (2002-03, 2006- ) of San Marino. Earlier he was minister for tourism and sport (1983-86) and industry (1992-2000).

Stolojan

Stolojan, Theodor (Dumitru) (b. Oct. 24, 1943, Târgoviste, Romania), prime minister of Romania (1991-92).

G. Stoltenberg

Stoltenberg, Gerhard (b. Sept. 29, 1928, Kiel, Germany - d. Nov. 23, 2001, Bad Godesberg, Germany), German politician. A no-nonsense Christian Democratic Union (CDU) leader, he was minister-president of Schleswig-Holstein in 1971-82. He had aspirations to run for chancellor in 1976 against the incumbent Helmut Schmidt, but made way for Helmut Kohl. Kohl lost the 1976 election, but when he later ousted Schmidt in 1982, he rewarded Stoltenberg for his earlier support and made him finance minister. Stoltenberg pushed the West German government's new borrowing down to 22 billion marks by 1985 - the lowest level since 1977. His policies helped push the inflation rate down toward zero - the lowest levels since the late 1950s. He was sometimes blamed alongside U.S. Treasury Secretary James Baker for triggering the 1987 stock market crash over an interest rates row. Baker had complained that West Germans were benefiting from an export boom but had done too little to stimulate their domestic economy. But Stoltenberg rebuffed Baker's call to push for lower German interest rates, and Baker shot back with a threat to let the dollar fall further. Just before that, Stoltenberg had been criticized for the West German government's inept announcement of a withholding tax for investors which shook financial markets. In a 1989 cabinet reshuffle, he was moved to the defense ministry, where he oversaw the difficult integration the two Germanys' armed forces after unification in 1990. Under Bonn's deal with Moscow, troop levels were reduced to 370,000 by 1994 from 525,000 in 1990. He was forced to resign in 1992 when bureaucrats in his ministry failed to stop the delivery of 15 tanks to Turkey after parliament had banned the sale. He was a member of parliament for nearly 30 years.

J. Stoltenberg

Stoltenberg, Jens (b. March 16, 1959, Oslo, Norway), prime minister of Norway (2000-01, 2005- ); son of Thorvald Stoltenberg.

Stoltenberg, Thorvald (b. July 8, 1931, Oslo, Norway), foreign minister of Norway (1987-89, 1990-93) and UN high commissioner for refugees (1990).

Stolypin

Stolypin, Pyotr Arkadyevich (b. April 14 [April 2, Old Style], 1862, Dresden, Saxony [now in Germany] - d. Sept. 18 [Sept. 5, O.S.], 1911, Kiev, Russia [now in Ukraine]), prime minister of Russia (1906-11). Appointed governor of the province of Grodno in 1902, he was transferred in 1903 to Saratov, where he attracted notice by his determination in quelling peasant disturbances. In May 1906 he was appointed minister of the interior, an office he retained on becoming premier in July. He set out to consolidate the new semiconstitutional regime by suppressing revolutionary violence and by improving the position of the peasants. His reform, inaugurated by a decree of Nov. 22 (Nov. 9, O.S.), 1906, and given final legislative shape in 1910 and 1911, involved a radical transformation of Russia's agrarian structure. Peasants were encouraged to leave their communes and to secure their holdings as individual property. They were also given greater freedom in the selection of their representatives to the zemstvo (local government) councils. He intended to create a class of prosperous farmers who would constitute a bulwark of loyal conservatism in the countryside. He sought the collaboration of the liberal opposition, but insisted on their accepting his terms. When the second Duma refused to endorse his policies, it was dissolved in June 1907 and a new, more restrictive electoral law was promulgated. He also instituted a network of courts-martial to try accused rebels and terrorists, thousands of whom were executed by "Stolypin's necktie" (i.e., hanged). On Sept. 14 (Sept. 1, O.S.), 1911, while attending an operatic performance with the emperor in a Kiev theatre, he was shot by Dmitry Bogrov, a revolutionary who had become a police agent; he died four days later.

Stone, Ellery W(heeler) (b. Jan. 14, 1894, Oakland, Calif. - d. Sept. 18, 1981, Montclair, N.J.), chief commissioner of the Allied Commission in Italy (1944-47).

H.F. Stone

Stone, Harlan Fiske (b. Oct. 11, 1872, Chesterfield, N.H. - d. April 22, 1946, Washington, D.C.), chief justice of the United States (1941-46). Appointed attorney general by Pres. Calvin Coolidge in 1924, he restored to public confidence a department which had been under grueling fire from Congress during the tenure of his predecessor Harry M. Daugherty. Stone's effectiveness prompted Coolidge to appoint him an associate justice of the Supreme Court in 1925. He often sided with "radical" justices Louis Brandeis and Oliver Wendell Holmes (and later with Benjamin Nathan Cardozo, who replaced Holmes in 1932) in dissent against the court's conservative majority. Stone, although a Republican, upheld many of the measures of Pres. Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal, including the Social Security Act of 1935 and the national minimum-wage law of 1938. In one opinion, he indirectly charged his colleagues with "a tortured construction of the constitution" under which he said they felt that it was "the business of the courts to sit in judgment on the wisdom of legislative action." Indeed, some of his dissents found him upholding legislation which, if he had been a legislator, he would have passionately denounced. In 1940 he was mentioned as a "dark horse" for the Republican presidential nomination, which went instead to another dark horse, Wendell L. Willkie. Roosevelt promoted Stone to chief justice in 1941 to succeed the retiring Charles Evans Hughes. During World War II, he presided over cases of martial law, military courts, and treason, many of which involved constitutional matters presented to the Supreme Court for the first time in U.S. history. During his 21 years on the court, he wrote more than 600 opinions and dissents.

S. Stone

Stone, Shane (Leslie) (b. 1950, Bendigo, Victoria), Australian politician. He joined the Country Party in 1971, and the Liberal Party in 1982. A few years later, Stone moved to the Northern Territory and joined the Country Liberal Party (CLP). He stood for the Central Australian seat of Sadadeen in 1987 but was unsuccessful. Stone was, however, elected president of the Country Liberal Party in 1988, and was elected for Port Darwin on Oct. 27, 1990. On Nov. 13, 1990, he was elevated to the ministry. Among other portfolios, he served as minister for Education and the Arts, Employment and Training, Mines and Energy, Asian Relations and Trade, and as attorney general. He became the territory's chief minister in 1995 and continued to hold many other portfolios. In his capacity as attorney general, he received a commission as Queen's Counsel in October 1997. In October 1998 a statehood referendum was defeated; Stone's attempt to get a controversial draft constitution accepted at the same time was widely seen as the reason. He also introduced a draconian mandatory sentencing law. He announced his resignation as chief minister in 1999 following concerns from CLP backbenchers about his style and unpopularity. Stone said he had party colleagues "snapping at the heels" for some time, and he was now being realistic.

Stoph

Stoph, Willi (b. July 9, 1914, Berlin, Germany - d. April 13, 1999, Berlin), chairman of the Council of Ministers (prime minister) of East Germany (1964-73, 1976-89). He joined a Communist youth group in 1928 and the Communist Party in 1931. He served in the German army as a private in the artillery (1940-42) and was released after being wounded. He became East Germany's minister of the interior (1952-55) and its first defense minister (1956-60); he was known as the architect of the East German National People's Army. He moved up in East Germany's Politburo hierarchy to become premier. In 1970 he met with West German Chancellor Willy Brandt for talks to ease relations. He was chairman of the Council of State (ceremonial head of state) from 1973 to 1976. A close associate of East German party chief Erich Honecker, Stoph resigned after Honecker was ousted (October 1989) as a result of a massive popular campaign to liberalize the country's Communist regime. Along with Honecker and four other defendants, Stoph went on trial in Berlin on Nov. 13, 1992, charged with 13 counts of manslaughter in the killings of people trying to escape East Germany. He was dropped from the case in August 1993 after the court decided he was too sick to continue because of heart problems.

Storani, Conrado (Hugo) (b. 1922 - d. Aug. 10, 2003, San Isidro, Buenos Aires, Argentina), public health minister of Argentina (1986-87).

Storani, Federico (Teobaldo Manuel) (b. Aug. 5, 1950, Hernando, Córdoba, Argentina), interior minister of Argentina (1999-2001).

Střre

Střre, Jonas Gahr (b. Aug. 25, 1960, Oslo, Norway), foreign minister of Norway (2005- ).

Storm van 's Gravesande, Jonathan Samuel (d. 1761), commander of Demerara (1750-61); son of Laurens Storm van 's Gravesande; brother-in-law of Laurens Lodewijk van Bercheijk.

Storm van 's Gravesande, Laurens (d. Aug. 14, 1775), governor of Essequibo (1742-50) and director-general of Demerara-Essequibo (1750-72).

Stott

Stott Despoja, Natasha (Jessica) (b. Sept. 9, 1969, Adelaide, South Australia), Australian politician. She entered parliament by filling a vacancy in November 1995 and was elected in her own right in March 1996, at 26 the youngest woman ever elected to sit in the Senate. A Democrat representing South Australia, her party responsibilities covered the areas of employment and training, higher education, youth affairs, immigration and multicultural affairs, and science and technology. Serving as a torchbearer for a generation that usually lacked political representation, she aimed to lower the average age in parliament (which was nearly 50) but also to change its gender ("I always joke about the fact that the Parliament House flagpole is the largest in the southern hemisphere, so size does matter in parliament"). Her skills soon became apparent as she marshalled contacts from student politics to outposition Labor as the focal point for opposition to the government's massive changes to higher education. Education Minister Amanda Vanstone saw her as a genuine threat, labelling her "Little Miss Keep the Bastards Honest." Membership in her party rose sharply in the 18-24 age group. In November 1997 she was elected deputy leader, and in April 2001 leader, of the Australian Democrats - the youngest person of any party to hold such a position. She resigned in August 2002, citing lack of support by fellow Democrat senators.

Stoutt, H(amilton) Lavity (b. March 7, 1929, Long Bay, Tortola, British Virgin Islands - d. May 14, 1995), chief minister of the British Virgin Islands (1967-71, 1979-83, 1986-95). A member of the Legislative Council from 1957, he was the longest-serving parliamentarian in the region.

Stow Hill, Frank Soskice, Baron (b. July 23, 1902, Geneva, Switzerland - d. Jan. 2, 1979), British politician. He entered Parliament at the 1945 election that brought Labour to power at the end of the war and was successively solicitor general (1945-51) and attorney general (April-October 1951). In 1950 he was Britain's delegate to the UN General Assembly. He was home secretary under Harold Wilson from October 1964 until December 1965 and then lord privy seal until April 1966. Soskice was knighted in 1945 and created a life peer in 1966.

Stoyanov

Stoyanov, Petur (Stefanov) (b. May 25, 1952, Asenovgrad, Plovdiv oblast, Bulgaria), president of Bulgaria (1997-2002). He became deputy justice minister in the first Union of Democratic Forces (UDF) government from 1991 to 1992, and was elected to parliament in December 1994. He defeated incumbent Pres. Zhelyu Zhelev in a U.S.-style presidential primary election in June 1996, winning 66% of votes cast, and ran as the candidate of the united opposition. Stoyanov, vice-chairman of the UDF, won the first round of voting in October 1996 with 44%. A pro-market liberal, he favoured closer ties with NATO and the European Union and criticized the Socialists for avoiding a clear position on the issue. He made pre-election visits to Germany and Poland where he met Chancellor Helmut Kohl and Pres. Aleksander Kwasniewski. A professional politician but untainted by the past, he offered a younger, slicker image and his speaking style was more pragmatic and businesslike than the philosophical speeches of Zhelev. He made a particular effort to appeal to young voters and had the support of Bulgaria's international soccer stars Hristo Stoichkov and Emil Kostadinov. In the runoff in November 1996 he defeated Socialist Ivan Marazov 60%-40%.

Straker

Straker, Sir Louis (Hilton) (b. Feb. 23, 1944, Layou, Saint Vincent), deputy prime minister (2001- ) and foreign minister (2001-05, 2005- ) of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines; knighted 2006.

Strakhov, Aleksey (Leonidovich) (b. Oct. 26, 1942), head of the administration of Sverdlovsk oblast (1994-95).

Strandman

Strandman, Otto (August) (b. Nov. 30, 1875, Vanda, Undla municipality, Viru county, Estonia, Russia - d. Feb. 5, 1941, Kadrina, Estonian S.S.R.), prime minister (1919), foreign minister (1920-21, 1924), and state elder (1929-31) of Estonia. He shot himself when Soviet NKVD officers came to arrest him.

Sträng, Gunnar (Georg Emanuel) (b. Dec. 23, 1906, Järfälla, near Stockholm, Sweden - d. March 6, 1992, Stockholm), Swedish politician. He spent the 1920s and 1930s as an organizer of farm labourers and was elected chairman of the Swedish Agricultural Workers' Union in 1938. First elected to the Riksdag (parliament) in 1946, he joined the government as a consulting minister (1945-47) and then became minister of supply (1947-48), agriculture (1948-51), and social affairs (1951-55). As finance minister (1955-76) in a succession of Social Democratic cabinets, he was a chief architect of the renowned Swedish social welfare system. He sought a more even distribution of wealth by establishing a highly progressive system of taxes on personal income, capital, and private employers to finance generous social benefits including health insurance, pensions, and unemployment coverage. He also favoured a balance of austerity measures and incentives to maintain high employment. In 1969 he introduced a value-added tax. During his 21 years' responsibility for the budget, public expenditure grew from 28 to 58% of GNP. In the 1970s, he started to tighten Sweden's free-spending budgets as economic growth slowed. This policy at times earned him criticism from Sweden's powerful trade-union federation, the Landsorganisationen. Towards the end of his tenure he took the view that the world's highest income taxes could not be sustained in a climate of economic stagnation and intense international competition. (In the late 1980s the application of the value-added tax was expanded while other forms of taxation were cut, a policy he never spoke out against.) He left the government when his Social Democrats were defeated in the 1976 elections, but kept his seat in the Riksdag until 1985.

Stráský

Stráský, Jan (b. Dec. 24, 1940, Plzen, Bohemia and Moravia [now in Czech Republic]), prime minister and acting president of Czechoslovakia (1992).

G. Strasser

Strasser, Gregor (b. May 31, 1892, Geisenfeld, Germany - d. June 30, 1934, Berlin, Germany), German politician. An early associate of Adolf Hitler, he joined the fledgling Nazi Party in 1920 and participated in Hitler's Munich (Beer Hall) Putsch in 1923; he was imprisoned, but in 1924 regained his freedom by being elected to the Bavarian Diet. Also in 1924 he was elected to the Reichstag. An effective public speaker and organizer, he took over the party organization in northern Germany in 1925 and built a mass movement with the help of his brother Otto and the young Joseph Goebbels. In January 1928 he became organization leader of the party (Reichsorganisationsleiter) and the efforts of the Strasser brothers were part of the reason for the Nazi gains at the polls since that time. They appealed to the lower-middle classes and the proletariat by an anti-capitalist stance which was increasingly resisted by Hitler after 1930. While Otto left the party, Gregor at first remained with Hitler and was second only to him in power and popularity. But he favoured radical social reforms and opposed Hitler's courting of big business as well as his anti-Semitism. In December 1932 he was invited to become vice chancellor in the government of Kurt von Schleicher. He was ready to accept, but Hitler saw it as an attempt to split the party; Strasser backed down and resigned from all party posts. Hitler's preeminent position in the party averted large-scale losses in membership, and, after Hitler became chancellor in January 1933, Strasser had little influence. He was killed during the Röhm purge of 1934, when Hitler settled accounts with a number of political rivals.

O. Strasser

Strasser, Otto (b. Sept. 10, 1897, Windsheim, Germany - d. Aug. 27, 1974, Munich, West Germany), German politician. His brother Gregor introduced him to Adolf Hitler. He joined the Nazi Party in 1925 and became editor of several Nazi newspapers, but became disillusioned when he realized that, under Hitler's leadership, the National Socialist German Workers' Party was becoming neither socialist nor a party of the workers. As Hitler began forming alliances with Germany's industrial magnates in return for their financial support, Strasser left the party in 1930 and organized a rival movement, the Schwarze Front (Black Front). After Hitler's accession to power in 1933, he went into exile, moving from one European country to another before finally settling in Canada in 1941. He was deprived of his German citizenship in 1934. He won a legal contest to have it restored in 1954, against the opposition of the West German government, and he returned in 1955. He formed a right-wing political party called German Social Union in 1956, but by 1957 it was moribund and Strasser faded into obscurity.

V. Strasser

Strasser, Valentine (Esegragbo Melvine) (b. Sept. 15, 1966, near Freetown, Sierra Leone), head of state of Sierra Leone (1992-96). A captain known for winning disco contests, he headed up a group of twentysomething officers demanding unpaid salaries. The protests snowballed into a popular coup that ousted Pres. Joseph Saidu Momoh in April 1992, and Strasser became the world's youngest head of state. He was hailed as a saviour by many, being remembered for drastically cutting inflation, cleaning up the capital, and putting the long defunct national TV station back on air. He and his junta - known as "the boys" because most were only in their 20s - scored points by waging war, if unsuccessfully, on the nation's hated rebels. But Strasser was no angel. He was widely criticized when his government executed two dozen alleged coup plotters without trial on a Freetown beach. Strasser promised to hand over power in democratic elections in 1996. But he was beaten to the punch by his No. 2 man, Brig. Julius Maada Bio, who overthrew him in a bloodless coup in January that year. Strasser was forced into exile and soon ended up in Britain, where the United Nations arranged a special scholarship for him to study law at Warwick University in Coventry. He spent 18 months at the school before dropping out, saying in a letter that he ran out of money. He slipped away to London and changed his name to Reginald to avoid the press and potential enemies. After The Observer disclosed this, he fled to Gambia on Oct. 27, 2000. The Gambian government first sent him back to Britain, but he was refused entry there, so it sent him back to Sierra Leone, where he arrived on December 10. Not entitled to any benefits as former head of state because he took power by force, he moved in with his mother.

Stratan

Stratan, Andrei (b. Sept. 3, 1966, Kishinev, Moldavian S.S.R. [now Chisinau, Moldova]), foreign minister of Moldova (2004- ).

Straub, Brunó Ferenc (b. Jan. 5, 1914, Nagyvárad, Hungary [now Oradea, Romania] - d. Feb. 15, 1996, Budapest, Hungary), chairman of the Presidential Council of Hungary (1988-89).

Straub, Robert W(illiam) (b. May 6, 1920, San Francisco, Calif. - d. Nov. 27, 2002, Springfield, Ore.), governor of Oregon (1975-79). Elected to the Lane County Board of Commissioners in 1954, he was next elected to the Oregon Senate (1959-63) and served as state treasurer (1964-72), in which capacity he took the groundbreaking step of investing public retirement funds in the stock market, a move that reaped billions of dollars in revenue and allowed public employees to retire in unprecedented comfort. He was also a delegate to the Democratic National Convention in 1968 and made an unsuccessful bid for U.S. Congress. After two unsuccessful bids for governor in 1966 and 1970, he was finally elected in 1974. During a single term in office, he reduced the unemployment rate from 12 to 5% - the first time in a decade Oregon's unemployment rate had fallen below the national figure. Under Straub, more women, minority, and disabled held top government positions than under any other governor in Oregon's history to that point. He also helped quash plans for the Mount Hood Freeway and rechanneled the money into mass transit - a move that started what would become MAX, Portland's light-rail system.

Strauch, Maximilien (Charles Ferdinand) (b. 1819 - d. 1911), president of the International Association of the Congo (1885).

Straumann

Straumann, Erich (b. Sept. 6, 1945), president of the government of Basel-Land (2003-04).

F.J. Strauss

Strauss, Franz Josef (b. Sept. 6, 1915, Munich, Germany - d. Oct. 3, 1988, Regensburg, West Germany), German politician. He served as an artillery officer in World War II, being captured by U.S. forces near the end of the war. After his release, he helped found the Christian Social Union (CSU) in Bayern in 1945; he was its general secretary in 1949-53. Elected to the first Bundestag (federal parliament) in 1949, his forceful and colourful speeches, often peppered with Latin, caught the attention of Chancellor Konrad Adenauer, who named Strauss minister for special tasks in 1953. In 1955 he became minister for atomic affairs and deputy chairman of the Defense Council. Appointed defense minister in 1956, he oversaw West Germany's rearmament and played a major role in building up the Bundeswehr (armed forces) and in the deployment of tactical nuclear weapons on German soil. In 1961 he became chairman of the CSU. In October 1962, the publisher and senior staff members of the newsmagazine Der Spiegel, which had frequently criticized him, were arrested and their files seized on suspicion of treason for publishing an article about a NATO exercise. The "Spiegel Affair" shook public opinion and his involvement in it forced him to resign from the cabinet in December. He returned to national office as finance minister in 1966-69. In 1978 he resigned from the Bundestag and was elected minister-president of Bayern, and in 1979 the CSU and the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) nominated him as their candidate for chancellor in the 1980 election. He was unsuccessful in his bid, however, as most voters considered his stance too far right of centre. He remained CSU chairman and Bavarian premier until his death. He was one of the few political leaders in postwar Germany who appeared to dominate the political scene by the force of their personality alone.

Strauss, Lewis L(ichtenstein) (b. Jan. 31, 1896, Charleston, W.Va. - d. Jan. 21, 1974, Brandy Station, W.Va.), U.S. politician. He was a staff aide to Herbert Hoover in 1917-19 and as such attended the Paris Peace Conference following World War I; later he served with U.S. relief agencies in Europe. During World War II he was a special assistant to the secretary of the navy and served also on the army-navy munitions board and the interdepartmental committee on atomic energy, rising to the rank of rear admiral. Strauss, who was credited with the development of a number of navy weapons during World War II, was named an original member of the Atomic Energy Commission by Pres. Harry S. Truman in October 1946. He became chairman of the AEC in 1953. He often expressed opposition to any U.S. agreement to discontinue testing of nuclear weapons. He retired at the end of his five-year term as chairman on June 30, 1958, and was succeeded by John A. McCone. He then became a special assistant to Pres. Dwight D. Eisenhower in charge of the president's "atoms-for-peace" program. In 1958-59 he served as commerce secretary.

Strauss-Kahn

Strauss-Kahn, Dominique ("DSK") (b. April 25, 1949, Neuilly-sur-Seine, France), French politician. He drafted the Socialist Party's economic policy and was its frontline spokesman on economic affairs. A believer in an active government industrial policy, he served as industry minister in 1991-93 and as finance minister in 1997-99. In 2006 he was a candidate in the Socialist primary for the 2007 presidential election, but lost to Ségolčne Royal. In 2007 he became managing director of the International Monetary Fund.

Straw

Straw, Jack, byname of John Whitaker Straw (b. Aug. 3, 1946, Buckhurst Hill, Essex, England), British home secretary (1997-2001), foreign secretary (2001-06), lord privy seal (2006-07), and justice secretary (2007- ).

Street, Anthony (Austin) (b. Feb. 8, 1926, Melbourne, Victoria), foreign minister of Australia (1980-83).

Streibl

Streibl, Max (b. Jan. 6, 1932, Oberammergau, Germany - d. Dec. 11, 1998, Munich, Germany), German politician. His political career began in 1962 when he was elected to the Bavarian state parliament for the ruling Christian Social Union (CSU), the Bavaria-only sister party of the conservative Christian Democrats. Streibl quickly rose to prominence, serving as general secretary of the CSU in 1967-71. He became state finance minister in 1977 and minister-president in 1988 after the death of Franz Josef Strauss. He resigned in 1993 under the cloud of the so-called "Amigo affair," with allegations surrounding government loans worth millions of dollars to an aviation entrepreneur for a fighter plane project; Streibl was a frequent guest on the entrepreneur's Brazilian ranch. He remained a member of the state parliament until 1994.

Streicher

Streicher, Julius (b. Feb. 22, 1885, Fleinhausen, Germany - d. Oct. 16, 1946, Nürnberg, Germany), German politician. He served in the German army during World War I. In 1919 he joined the anti-Semitic German Social Party in Nürnberg; in 1921, taking his local party membership with him, he joined the Nazi party, becoming one of the earliest Nazis in northern Bavaria and a close associate of Adolf Hitler. He became Gauleiter (party district leader) of Mittelfranken in 1929 (renamed Franken in 1936) and was also known as the Frankenführer. After Hitler's accession to power in 1933, Streicher was named director of a "Central Committee for the Defense against Jewish Atrocity and Boycott Propaganda." As the founder (1923) and editor of the rabid anti-Semitic weekly Der Stürmer, he himself engaged in the opposite propaganda, calling for boycotts of Jews and denouncing Germans who patronized them. The paper's circulation reached almost 500,000 in 1937, and its impact was enhanced by a nationwide system of public display cases (Stürmerkästen). It initiated the general campaign that led to the passage of the Nürnberg racial laws in 1935. By corrupt and disreputable transactions he alienated many of his fellow Nazi officials, and after an investigation by a commission he was stripped of his party posts in 1940. Due to Hitler's protection, however, he remained publisher of Der Stürmer throughout the war years. After the collapse of Germany, Streicher, posing as an eccentric artist, was captured on May 23, 1945, by U.S. troops at Waidring, near Berchtesgaden. Found guilty of crimes against humanity by the International Military Tribunal at Nürnberg (Oct. 1, 1946), he was sentenced to death and hanged.

Stresemann

Stresemann, Gustav (b. May 10, 1878, Berlin, Germany - d. Oct. 3, 1929, Berlin), chancellor (1923) and foreign minister (1923-29) of Germany. He joined the National Liberal Party in 1903 and was a Dresden city councillor in 1906-12. In 1907 he was elected to the Reichstag (parliament); at 28 he was the youngest deputy. The party chairman, Ernst Bassermann, helped to advance his political career, and he was soon considered Bassermann's "crown prince." But his advocacy of extended social-welfare legislation were opposed by his party's right wing, and this antagonism prevented his reelection to the party executive committee in 1912, nor was he returned to the Reichstag in that year. He was part of the great majority of Germans who greeted the outbreak of World War I with enthusiasm. In December 1914, he again became a member of the Reichstag in a special election. He moved increasingly to the right and emerged as one of the most vociferous exponents of pan-Germanism. After Bassermann's death in July 1917, Stresemann succeeded him as parliamentary leader of the party and in November also became its chairman. The German defeat of 1918 was a blow to him, but he quickly accommodated himself to the realities of a republican Germany and founded the German People's Party. In August 1923 he became chancellor at the head of a "Great Coalition" of Social Democrats, the Centre, the German Democrats, and his People's Party, but he was overthrown by a vote of no confidence in November. He retained the post of foreign minister and held it, in coalition governments of varying composition, until his death. Together with the French foreign minister Aristide Briand, he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1926 for his policy of reconciliation and negotiation.

Strickland

Strickland, Gerald (Paul Joseph Cajetan Carmel Antony Martin), (6th) Count Della Catena, (1st) Baron Strickland (of Sizergh) (b. May 24, 1861, Valletta, Malta - d. Aug. 22, 1940, Casal Attard, Malta), governor of the Leeward Islands (1902-04), Tasmania (1904-09), Western Australia (1909-13), and New South Wales (1913-17) and prime minister of Malta (1927-32). He succeeded to the title Count Della Catena in 1882, was appointed K.C.M.G. in 1897 and G.C.M.G. in 1913, and raised to the British peerage as Baron Strickland in 1928.

Strijdom

Strijdom, Johannes G(erhardus), also spelled Strydom (b. July 14, 1893, Willowmore, Cape Colony [now in South Africa] - d. Aug. 24, 1958, Cape Town, South Africa), prime minister of South Africa (1954-58). He became active in the Nationalist Party, taking an interest in the rights of his fellow Afrikaners. In 1929 he was elected member of parliament for Waterberg, Transvaal, a seat he held until his death. Called "the Lion of the Waterberg" for his uncompromising Afrikaner sympathies, he was a loyal follower of Prime Minister J.B.M. Hertzog until 1934, when Hertzog, leader of the Nationalist Party, and Jan Smuts, leader of the South African Party, joined forces to form the United Party. He was the only Transvaal Nationalist MP not to follow Hertzog and became Transvaal leader of Daniel F. Malan's Purified Nationalist Party. When the Reunited Nationalist Party won the 1948 election, he was given the post of minister of lands and irrigation in Malan's cabinet, where he devoted himself to maintaining white supremacy in South Africa. On the retirement of Malan in 1954, Strijdom was chosen party leader by the parliamentary caucus, in preference to Malan's candidate, N.C. Havenga, and became prime minister. His succession marked the ascendancy of the party's extreme Transvaal wing over the more moderate Cape faction. He immediately announced his intention of making South Africa a republic when the time was ripe. His government pushed vigorously ahead with apartheid, radically changing the composition of the Senate in 1955, and by thus gaining the necessary two-thirds majority in a joint sitting of both houses of parliament, in 1956 placed the Cape Coloured voters on a separate electoral roll. He died in office.

Ströbele

Ströbele, (Hans-)Christian (b. June 7, 1939, Halle, Germany), German politician. He was co-speaker of the Greens in 1990-91.

Stroessner

Stroessner (Matiauda), Alfredo (b. Nov. 3, 1912, Encarnación, Paraguay - d. Aug. 16, 2006, Brasília, Brazil), president of Paraguay (1954-89). Commissioned in the Paraguayan army in 1932, he fought in the Chaco War (1932-35) and afterward rose to the rank of general and in 1951 was made commander in chief. In 1954 he deposed Pres. Federico Chávez and, after an election in which he was the only candidate, assumed the presidency himself. Rigging his reelection every five years, he had the constitution modified in 1967 and 1977 to legitimize his continuing rule. He made Paraguay a refuge for fellow right-wing dictators, including Anastasio Somoza Debayle of Nicaragua, and Nazi war criminals, including Josef Mengele, the infamous "Angel of Death" at Auschwitz. He modernized the country through big public works projects funded by the International Monetary Fund and World Bank, including the massive Itaipú Dam built (1975-82) with neighbouring Brazil along the border. But most of the new wealth did not reach average citizens; much was spent on a military establishment necessary to preserve his authority. He participated in "Operation Condor," a network of right-wing military governments, secretly supported by U.S. intelligence agencies, to crush leftist dissidents across South America. He was elected to an eighth term as president in 1988 but by that time members of the ruling Colorado Party, his main tool of political control, began to distance themselves from him. He tried to stamp out the dissent by ordering many military officers to retire and trying to force retirement on a powerful army commander, Gen. Andrés Rodríguez. Instead, Rodríguez led a coup on Feb. 2, 1989. Stroessner surrendered and went into exile in Brazil. Brazil twice denied extradition requests from Paraguay.

Strougal, Lubomír (b. Oct. 19, 1924, Veselí nad Luznicí, Czechoslovakia [now in Czech Republic]), prime minister of Czechoslovakia (1970-88).

Stroyev, Yegor (Semyonovich) (b. Feb. 25, 1937), head of the administration of Oryol oblast (1993- ).

Struycken

Stubb

Struycken, Teun, byname of Anton Arnold Marie Struycken, originally spelled (until June 16, 1953) Struiken (b. Dec. 27, 1906, Breda, Noord-Brabant, Netherlands - d. Dec. 1, 1977, The Hague, Netherlands), governor of the Netherlands Antilles (1951-56).

Stuart, Andrew (Christopher) (b. Nov. 30, 1928), British resident commissioner of the New Hebrides (1978-80). He was ambassador to Finland in 1980-83.

Stubb, (Cai-Göran) Alexander (b. April 1, 1968, Helsinki, Finland), foreign minister of Finland (2008- ).

Studeman

Sturanovic

Studeman, William O(liver) (b. Jan. 16, 1940, Brownsville, Texas), acting CIA director (1993, 1995). He was director of the National Security Agency from August 1988 to April 1992 and deputy CIA director from April 1992 to July 1995.

Sturanovic, Zeljko (b. Jan. 31, 1960, Niksic, Montenegro), prime minister of Montenegro (2006-08). In 2001-06 he was justice minister.

D. Sturdza

Sturdza(-Miclausanu), Dimitrie (Alexandru) (b. March 22 [March 10, O.S.], 1833, Miclauseni, Moldavia [now in Romania] - d. Oct. 21 [Oct. 8, O.S.], 1914, Bucharest, Romania), prime minister of Romania (1895-96, 1897-99, 1901-05, 1907-09). The scion of a great boyar family, he became secretary to the Moldavian divan ad hoc of 1857 and then secretary to the commission of 1858 that prepared the de facto unification of Moldavia and Walachia under Alexandru Ioan Cuza. He later opposed the agrarian reform sponsored by Alexandru Ioan, the first prince of united Romania, and brought about his abdication (1866) and his replacement by Prince Karl of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen, thereafter Carol I. He was at times minister of public works, of finance, of education, and of foreign affairs. In the latter role, in 1883, he signed a secret treaty with Austria-Hungary and Germany. Chairman of the Liberal Party from 1892 to 1909, he served four times as prime minister. He represented the narrowest nationalism, and through his enmity to all that was "alien" did more than any other man to retard the political and industrial development of the country. He severely suppressed a peasant rising in 1907, at the cost of some 10,000 lives. He was also a longtime member and secretary-general of the Romanian Academy.

Sturdza, (Print [Prince]) Mihail (b. 1884? - d. Feb. 5, 1980, Madrid, Spain), foreign minister of Romania (1940).

Stürtz, Emil (b. Nov. 15, 1892, Wiebs, Ostpreussen, Prussia, Germany [now in Poland] - d. [in Soviet captivity] Dec. 31, 1945), Oberpräsident of Brandenburg (1936-45) and of Grenzmark Posen-Westpreussen (1936-38).

Sturza

Sturza, Ion (b. May 9, 1960, Pirjolteni village, Calaras district, Moldavian S.S.R. [now Moldova]), prime minister of Moldova (1999). From 1997 he was a member of the presidential Supreme Economic Board. In 1998 he was elected to the Moldovan parliament on the list of the centrist Bloc for Democratic and Prosperous Moldova (headed by Dumitru Diakov). In April 1998 he was appointed deputy premier and minister of economy and reform in Ion Ciubuc's Government. During his work in the government, Sturza was a member of the Presidium of the Inter-State Economic Committee of the CIS Economic Union. In 1999 Pres. Petru Lucinschi named him prime minister, but later that year a new parliamentary majority of Communists, nationalists, and pro-Lucinschi deputies voted to oust his centre-right government after a standoff over measures demanded by the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Deputies' final rejection of laws on privatizing the tobacco and wine-making sectors and amendments to the 1999 budget prompted the IMF to suspend its loan programme until further notice.

Su

Su Tseng-chang, Pinyin Su Zhenchang (b. July 28, 1947, Pingtung, southern Taiwan), premier of Taiwan (2006-07). He previously served as magistrate of Pingtung county (1989-93) and Taipei county (1997-2005) and was chairman of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) in 2005-06. He resigned as premier in 2007 after being defeated by Frank Hsieh in the DPP presidential primary.

Suárez del Toro Rivero, Juan Manuel (b. Sept. 28, 1952, Las Palmas, Canarias, Spain), president of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (2001- ).

Suárez Flamerich, Germán (b. April 10, 1907, Caracas, Venezuela - d. June 24, 1990, Caracas), chairman of the military junta of Venezuela (1950-52). He was ambassador to Peru in 1950.

A. Suárez

Suárez González, Adolfo, duque de Suárez (b. Sept. 25, 1932, Cebreros, near Ávila, Spain), prime minister of Spain (1976-81). He moved into politics in the 1960s as an employee of the Ávila civil government and was civil governor of Segovia and provincial head of the National Movement (the only legal political party) in 1968-69. In 1969 he became director of the national television system, and in 1973 president of the national tourism bureau. In March 1975 he was appointed deputy secretary-general of the National Movement and in December, after the death of dictator Francisco Franco, became secretary-general, with cabinet rank. In July 1976 he was appointed to head Spain's second government under King Juan Carlos I. Despite his Francoist background, he pursued moderate policies. In 1977 he challenged Francoist sentiment in the military by legalizing the Socialist and Communist parties, called Spain's first free elections since 1936, and formed the Union of the Democratic Centre (UCD), which won the elections. The push for autonomy by several of Spain's regions and Basque terrorist activity increasingly plagued his government. Following the adoption of a new constitution in a 1978 referendum, he called new elections for 1979. The UCD failed to win an overall majority in the Cortes, but he managed to patch up a workable leadership with the help of moderate regional parties from Catalonia and independent politicians. He failed to end terrorism by Basque separatists who assassinated almost 100 people in 1980. The UCD lost ground in municipal elections, and he resigned as premier and party leader in 1981. He was then created duque de Suárez. In 1982 he founded a new political party, the Democratic and Social Centre, which had limited success.

Suazo Córdova, Roberto (b. March 17, 1927, La Paz, Honduras), president of Honduras (1982-86). In 1979, on the death of Modesto Rodas Alvorrado, he became general coordinator of the Liberal Party. In April 1981, he was selected as candidate for the Liberal Party at their convention and also became president of the Constituent Assembly. In the Nov. 29, 1981, presidential elections he defeated Ricardo Zúńiga Augustinus, leader of the right-wing National Party. His Liberal Party gained an absolute majority in the 78-seat National Assembly. The election of a civilian after 17 years of almost continuous military rule (the last civilian president had been overthrown in 1972 after only 18 months in office) was greeted with relief both within the country and by other nations, especially the U.S. At his inauguration on Jan. 27, 1982, he reiterated his campaign promise to carry out "a revolution of work and honesty" and pledged to provide a "government of high public morality." He was strongly anti-Communist and favoured closer relations with the U.S. But his ambitions, to reactivate the sluggish economy and restore peace, were frustrated on two fronts: in the economic sphere by low foreign credit and commodity prices and politically by increased tension on the country's border with El Salvador and Nicaragua. Ultimate power appeared to lie not in the hands of the president but with the hardline commander in chief of the army, Gustavo Adolfo Álvarez Martínez. Internal security deteriorated after the president came to power, and Suazo found it difficult to consolidate his position within the country. In December 1982 his daughter was kidnapped by guerrillas and released only after an anti-U.S. statement had been published in Mexican and Central American newspapers.

Subandrio (b. Sept. 15, 1914, Kepanjen, Netherlands East Indies [now in Jawa Timur, Indonesia] - d. July 3, 2004, Jakarta, Indonesia), foreign minister of Indonesia (1957-66). He worked with the anti-Japanese underground during World War II and then in the postwar Indonesian struggle against the Dutch. He served as ambassador to the Soviet Union, first deputy prime minister, and intelligence chief and from 1960 was Pres. Sukarno's heir apparent. As foreign minister, he insisted on Jakarta's neutrality, welcoming aid, both economic and military, from East and West as long as it came without strings. He was accused by the army's right-wing leadership of supporting a mutiny on Sept. 30, 1965, in which six top generals were killed. He was arrested in March 1966 and sentenced to death in a brief trial. He always denied any involvement in the plot. The sentence was commuted to life imprisonment in 1982 upon the intervention of the British government. He was released from jail in 1995 because of failing health.

Subanov, Myrzakan (Usurkanovich) (b. Oct. 15, 1944, Tash-Tyube village, Talas rayon, Kirgiz S.S.R.), defense minister of Kyrgyzstan (1993-99).

Subramaniam

Subramaniam, Chidambaram (b. Jan. 30, 1910, Pollachi, near Coimbatore [now in Tamil Nadu], India - d. Nov. 7, 2000, Chennai, India), Indian politician. In the early 1930s he was drawn to the independence movement led by Mohandas Gandhi and left his law career to devote himself to India's struggle to free itself from British rule. He was imprisoned in 1942 when Gandhi was leading the Quit India Movement to pressure the British to give up India. After India gained independence in 1947, Subramaniam was elected to serve in the assembly that drafted the new nation's constitution. In 1952 he immersed himself in politics in his home state and became a leader in what was then the Madras Legislative Assembly. In the 1960s he returned to national politics. He was elected to serve in the Lok Sabha, the lower house of parliament and held ministerial positions in various Congress Party governments, notably in agriculture. He employed his formidable skills as a political persuader and administrator to spread the use of a new wheat variety to more than a million Indian farmers in the mid-1960s, when he was minister for food and agriculture. India had been heavily dependent on wheat imports, but the "green revolution" produced sharp increases in harvests that enabled India to better feed its rapidly growing population. His singular achievement was to convince the prime minister at the time, Lal Bahadur Shastri, and other political colleagues that seeds for a wheat variety with dwarfing genes, which were developed by the scientist Norman Borlaug in Mexico with support from the Rockefeller Foundation, could transform Indian farming. Even with larger applications of fertilizer to increase the number of grains on each stalk, dwarf wheat could hold up grain, while the stalks of taller varieties broke. He later was finance minister (1974-77) and defense minister (1979-80).

Suchinda

Suchinda Kraprayoon (b. Aug. 6, 1933, Bangkok, Siam [now Thailand]), prime minister of Thailand (1992).

Suchocka

Suchocka, Hanna (b. April 3, 1946, Pleszew, near Poznan, Poland), prime minister of Poland (1992-93). In 1980 she joined the Sejm (parliament) as a member of the Communist-allied Democratic Party. She opposed the martial law imposed in 1981, and after voting against the 1984 law banning Solidarity, she was expelled from the Democratic Party. She ran for parliament on the Solidarity ticket in 1989 and later became a member of Tadeusz Mazowiecki's centre-left Democratic Union. She was little known when she was asked to serve as prime minister in July 1992. She was seen as acceptable to the fundamentalist Roman Catholic parties (she had been a sponsor of a church-supported bill to outlaw abortion) as well as the moderates in the Sejm. She became Poland's first woman prime minister, leading a coalition of seven parties descending from the Solidarity movement, notably the Democratic Union, the church-based Christian National Union, and the centre-right Liberal Democratic Congress. Her government faced its first crisis at the end of July, when a wave of industrial strikes erupted. By early September, however, leaders of the biggest strike - at a car factory in Tychy - had scaled back their wage demands. She welcomed the passage in August of constitutional amendments allowing the government to seek special powers to issue decrees equal in rank to Sejm laws. Labour troubles erupted again at year's end with rail and coal strikes. In May 1993 she lost a no-confidence vote. Solidarity, which normally supported the coalition, called the vote, accusing the government of ignoring ordinary workers while carrying out tough market reforms. After new elections, she was replaced as prime minister by Waldemar Pawlak in October. In 1997-2000 she was justice minister.

Sudarenkov, Valery (Vasilyevich) (b. June 13, 1940), governor of Kaluga oblast (1996-2000).

Sudarsono

Sudarsono, Juwono (b. March 5, 1942, Ciamis, Netherlands East Indies [now in Jawa Barat, Indonesia]), defense minister of Indonesia (1999-2000). He was environment minister in the last cabinet of Pres. Suharto at a time when Indonesia faced huge international pressure to stop choking smog from massive forest fires in Sumatra and Borneo. He then was education minister in Pres. B.J. Habibie's government, dealing with repeated anti-government protests by students. He was Indonesia's first civilian defense minister for decades.

Sudharmono (b. March 12, 1927, Gresik, Netherlands East Indies [now in Jawa Timur, Indonesia] - d. Jan. 25, 2006, Jakarta, Indonesia), vice president of Indonesia (1988-93).

Sudibyo

Sudibyo, Bambang (b. Oct. 8, 1952, Temanggung, Jawa Tengah, Indonesia), finance minister of Indonesia (1999-2000). He was chairman of the economic advisory board of the National Mandate Party and a member of the board of directors of the Centre for Strategy and Policy Studies in Yogyakarta. He was also on the board of the leading Muslim organization Muhammadiyah.

Sudirdja

Sudirdja, Surjadi (b. Oct. 11, 1938, Batavia, Netherlands East Indies [now Jakarta, Indonesia]), governor of Jakarta Raya (1992-97) and interior minister of Indonesia (1999-2001).

Sudiro (b. April 24, 1911, Yogyakarta, Netherlands East Indies [now Indonesia]), governor of Sulawesi (1951-53) and Jakarta Raya (1953-60).

Sudrajat, Edi (b. April 22, 1938, Jambi, Netherlands East Indies [now Indonesia] - d. Dec. 1, 2006, Jakarta, Indonesia), defense minister of Indonesia (1993-98). Earlier in his career, he fought communist activists and separatist insurgencies in Irian Jaya and Maluku. He was once considered a prime candidate to become Suharto's vice president, but the staunch nationalist was destined to remain a military man. He won praise for calling on soldiers to remain professional in their duties, to protect citizens and not to use their power to pursue business interests.

Sudre, Camille (b. 1948), president of the Regional Council of Réunion (1992-93).

Sudre, Margie, byname of Marguerite Sudre, née Demaiche (b. Oct. 17, 1943, Vinh, Vietnam), president of the Regional Council of Réunion (1993-98); wife of Camille Sudre.

Sudreau, Pierre (b. May 13, 1919, Paris), president of the Regional Council of Centre (1976-79).

Sudsai Hasdin (b. 1920? - d. Aug. 12, 2001), Thai political figure. A major general in the cavalry, he founded the Red Gaurs in 1974 after student protests toppled military dictator Thanom Kittikachorn and forced him into exile. It was one of several vigilante groups backed by conservatives in the military and the ruling class afraid of a Communist takeover. The Red Gaur, made up mostly vocational school students, served as shock troops in attacking left-wing activists and breaking up their meetings. The group also took part in a raid on Thammasat University in October 1976, when students were protesting Thanom's return from exile. About 100 protesters were lynched, shot, or burned to death, and the disorder was used as an excuse for the military to oust a democratically elected government. Security agencies mostly turned a blind eye to the often activities of the Red Gaurs and other vigilantes. Dozens of left-wing activists were assassinated in the 1973-76 period. The Red Gaur gradually faded from the political scene after 1976, and Sudsai later served as head of the Express Transportation Organization, a state enterprise, as a cabinet minister, and as a senator.

Suebu, Barnabas, byname Bas Suebu (b. April 29, 1946, Sentani, Netherlands East Indies [now in Papua, Indonesia]) governor of Irian Jaya (1988-93) and Papua (2006- ).

Sued Ismail, Amri (b. 1942, Ruhengeri, Rwanda), foreign minister of Rwanda (1999).

Suga, Tatsuro (b. Sept. 29, 1924), governor of Kagoshima (1996-2004).

Suharto

Suharto, ([from 1991:] Haji Mohamed), also spelled Soeharto (b. June 8, 1921, Kemusu Argamulja, Java, Netherlands East Indies [now Indonesia] - d. Jan. 27, 2008, Jakarta, Indonesia), president of Indonesia (1967-98). He joined the Dutch colonial army and graduated from its noncommissioned officers school. After the Japanese conquest in 1942 he switched to a Japanese-sponsored defense corps, receiving training as an officer, but by 1945 he was involved in the anti-Japanese rebellion. With Japan's surrender he fought in the guerrilla forces resisting Dutch efforts to regain control. During President Sukarno's flirtations with communism in the 1960s, the army became strongly identified as anticommunist; and, as major general and head of the Indonesian army strategic command, Suharto led the army in putting down a communist coup attempt on Sept. 30, 1965. In the following months hundreds of thousands of communists were massacred throughout the country. Suharto took control of the Indonesian government on March 12, 1966, under an emergency powers act, though Sukarno remained nominal president for another year. In March 1967 the Consultative Congress appointed Suharto acting president, and in March 1968 it elected him to a five-year term as president. His modernization programs brought roads, electricity, and irrigation systems to the most remote areas of the country, and there was steady economic growth. He was reelected every five years without opposition; his regime remained authoritarian. In 1976 his government forcibly incorporated East Timor into Indonesia. In 1997-98 Indonesia was severely affected by the Asian financial crisis, and there was increasing public disgust with Suharto's cronyism; after months of student-led pro-democracy demonstrations, he resigned in May 1998. His trial for corruption was canceled because of his illness.

Suherman, Gatot (b. Jan. 1, 1929, Yogyakarta, Netherlands East Indies [now Indonesia]), governor of Nusa Tenggara Barat (1978-88).

Suhr	Suhrawardy

Suhr, Otto (Ernst Heinrich Hermann) (b. Aug. 17, 1894, Oldenburg, Germany - d. Aug. 30, 1957, West Berlin), governing mayor of West Berlin (1955-57).

Suhrawardy, Huseyn Shaheed (b. Sept. 8, 1893, Midnapur, Bengal [now in West Bengal], India - d. Dec. 5, 1963, Beirut, Lebanon), chief minister of East Bengal (1946-47) and prime minister of Pakistan (1956-57).

Sukarno

Sukarno, (Ahmed¹), also spelled Soekarno (b. June 6, 1901, Surabaja, Java, Netherlands East Indies [now Surabaya, Indonesia] - d. June 21, 1970, Jakarta, Indonesia), president of Indonesia (1945-67). Originally named Kusnososro, he was given what was hoped to be a more auspicious name, Sukarno, after a series of childhood illnesses. For his challenge to Dutch colonialism he was jailed in Bandung (1929-31) and exiled on Flores and Sumatra (1933-42). Liberated by the Japanese after their 1942 invasion, he became their chief adviser and propagandist. As the collapse of Japan became imminent, he was kidnapped and persuaded by activist youths to declare Indonesia's independence (Aug. 17, 1945). As president of the shaky new republic, he led the ultimately successful struggle against the Dutch attempt to regain control; independence was recognized on Dec. 27, 1949. He neglected economic reconstruction, although gains were made in health, education, and national self-awareness. After 1956 he suppressed the country's original parliamentary system and instead ordained an authoritarian "Guided Democracy" and "Guided Economy" based on political concepts known by acronyms like Resopim, Nasakom, and Manipol-Usdek. In January 1965 he withdrew from the United Nations because it recognized Malaysia, which he had vowed to crush. On Sept. 30, 1965, a clique of Communist and military conspirators staged a coup attempt in which six top generals were kidnapped and murdered. General Suharto, the commander of the Jakarta garrison, swiftly put down the coup. An oblique contest for power between Suharto and Sukarno ensued. Sukarno, who was alleged to have been involved in planning the coup, was obliged to delegate wide powers to Suharto in 1966 and was finally deposed in 1967 and sank into disgrace.
¹ While he has often been referred to as Ahmed (or Ahmad, Achmed, Achmad) Sukarno, he himself disclaimed it, saying once in a speech: "When did I get the name Ahmad? As I recall my parents gave me only the name Sukarno... I repeat that my name is just Sukarno." And similarly, in an autobiography: "Sukarno is, therefore, my real and only name. Some stupid newspaperman once wrote my first name was Achmed. Ridiculous. I am just Sukarno."

Sukarnoputri

Sukarnoputri, (Dyah Permata) Megawati (Setyawati) (b. Jan. 23, 1947, Jakarta, Indonesia), president of Indonesia (2001-04); daughter of Sukarno. She entered parliament in 1987 as a representative of the Indonesian Democratic Party (PDI), becoming its leader in 1993. Although not known as a particularly effective politician, she became the best known opponent of the regime of President Suharto, who had replaced her father in 1967. In June 1996 the government engineered her removal from the PDI leadership, disqualifying her from running in presidential elections scheduled for 1998. In July her supporters were attacked by government soldiers, and her party headquarters were raided, triggering riots. She was then barred from running in the 1996 parliamentary elections. After Suharto resigned in May 1998, Megawati and her supporters, in October, formed the left-of-centre Indonesian Democratic Party-Struggle (PDI-P), which topped the 1999 parliamentary elections with 34% of the vote. When B.J. Habibie, the unpopular interim president, withdrew, it was widely expected that the People's Consultative Assembly would elect her as president, but instead it chose Abdurrahman Wahid, head of the National Awakening Party; she was chosen as vice president. In 2000 Wahid, facing growing criticism, transferred much of the day-to-day running of the government to her; in 2001 the assembly deposed him and made her president. She was defeated in Indonesia's first direct presidential elections in 2004. These polls themselves, cementing the country's transition to democracy, were seen as the main achievement of her presidency, which was otherwise marked by aloofness and a seeming disinterest in the affairs of government. Her rule was also blighted by three major terrorist attacks, including the Bali bombings of October 2002 in which 202 people were killed.

Sükhbaatar

Sükhbaatar, Damdiny, Sükhbaatar also spelled Sühbaatar, or Sukhe Bator (b. Feb. 2, 1893, Tsetsen-Khan, Mongolia - d. Feb. 22, 1923, Urga [now Ulaanbaatar], Mongolia), Mongolian leader. Joining the Mongolian army in 1912, he stood out from the other recruits and was selected for the army's elite machine-gun company. He proved himself a natural leader, was quickly promoted, and received the honorific title Baatar ("Hero") for fighting against pro-Japanese forces. He served until December 1919, and soon became involved in politics, organizing a group of revolutionaries, which in the following year united with another group led by Khorloogiyn Choybalsan. The establishment of Ünen, the first newspaper in Mongolia, in 1920 is also ascribed to him. Having visited Russia in 1920, he in March 1921 c