26 June 1998
Thanks to DN
June 26, 1998 Navajo Painter, Code Expert Dies Filed at 1:15 p.m. EDT By The Associated Press CANONCITO, N.M. (AP) -- Narciso "Ciso" Platero Abeyta, a World War II code expert and a painter whose works on Navajo themes are in museums across the country, died Monday of a cerebral hemorrhage. He was 79. Abeyta's watercolor works are included in collections at the Museum of the American Indian in New York, the National Gallery of Art in Washington, the Philbrook Museum in Tulsa, Okla., the Museum of New Mexico in Santa Fe and the Wheelwright Museum of the American Indian in Santa Fe. During World War II, Abeyta was among the 450 Navajos whose Marine unit stumped the Japanese by sending encrypted messages in the Navajo language.