DIED. Mason Welch Gross, 66, former president of Rutgers University (1959-71); after a long illness; in Red Bank, N.J. A critic of U.S. involvement in Viet Nam, Gross maintained a quiet campus during the '60s era of protests.

DIED. General Charles Hartwell Bonesteel III, 68, commander in chief of the United Nations troops in Korea (1966-69); after a long illness; in Alexandria, Va. Bonesteel served as operational planner for the Normandy invasion under General Omar Bradley and after the war helped lay the groundwork for the Marshall Plan. Throughout the '60s and '70s he repeatedly called for expanded conventional--as opposed to nuclear--capabilities.

DIED. Ruth Elder, 73, aviatrix who made a well-publicized but unsuccessful bid in 1927 to become the first woman to fly across the Atlantic; of emphysema; in San Francisco. After Elder took off from Roosevelt Field, Long Island, her plane, The American Girl, splashed down near the Azores, where the pilot and copilot were rescued by a tanker. The failed flight, however, turned into a launch for a lucrative film career.

DIED. MacKinlay Kantor, 73, prolific writer best known for his Pulitzer-prizewinning novel Andersonville, which depicted the brutalities of a Confederate prisoner-of-war camp; of a heart attack; in Sarasota, Fla. Kantor, great-grandson of a Union Army officer, first became intrigued by the Civil War at the age of ten, when he perused a Civil War encyclopedia. The intrigue became an obsession 20 years later as he launched his 42-book career. A stickler for accuracy, he did prodigious research, visiting and revisiting Gettysburg and Andersonville for his Civil War novels and flying eleven combat missions with the British Air Command for his World War II stories. His work was also the basis for the Academy Award-winning film The Best Years of Our Lives.

DIED. Bing Crosby, 74, perennial crooner-comedian who made nonchalance an art; of an apparent heart attack; on a golf course near Madrid (see SHOW BUSINESS).

DIED. Laurence E. Bunker, 75, former chief aide to General Douglas MacArthur; of cancer; in Boston. Bunker retired from the Army in 1952, following Truman's dismissal of the five-star general from his Korean command. During the '50s, Bunker became a member of the national council of the John Birch Society.

DIED. Joseph L. Greenstein, 84, diminutive (5 ft. 4 in.), Polish-born strong man billed as "the Mighty Atom"; in Brooklyn. Greenstein, who ran away from home at 15 to become a professional wrestler, settled in the U.S. in 1911 and gained vaudeville renown for feats like biting iron chains in half.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.