Milestones: Apr. 28, 1967

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Died. Roland J. Thomas, 66, president of the United Auto Workers from 1939 to '46, a tough, tobacco-chewing unionist who fought his way from welder at a Chrysler plant to the top of his union after taking part in the bloodily bitter 1937 General Motors and Chrysler strikes, later allowed far-leftists to infiltrate many of his locals, and subsequently lost his job to Walter Reuther after an angry, close-fought election in 1946; of a stroke; in Muskegon, Mich.

Died. Ruth Houghton Axe, 67, economist and financier, the only woman to head a mutual fund, who met her writer-economist husband, Emerson Wirt Axe, while she was assistant editor of the Annalist, a financial weekly, in 1932 formed with him E. W. Axe & Co., investment counselors, helped run the firm until his death in 1964, then took the reins herself, directing with boundless energy its four mutual funds and private-investment accounts worth $500 million from a turreted 45-room Westchester County castle; of a heart attack; in Tarrytown, N.Y.

Died. Charles E. Arnott, 85, president of Socony Vacuum Oil Co. from 1931 to 1935, a brilliant salesman who in 1932 introduced the company's Flying Red Horse as a symbol of speed, power and reliability, later became something of a symbol himself when he was chosen in 1934 to help F.D.R.'s Secretary of the Interior Harold Ickes stabilize the industry's chaotic oil prices by pool-buying arrangements—only to find himself and other oilmen convicted on antitrust charges four years later when the Government decided they'd gone too far; of a stroke; in Summit, N.J.

Died. Konrad Adenauer, 91, the man who made a new Germany; of influenza and bronchitis; in RhÖndorf, West Germany (see THE WORLD).