DIED. James Raymond, 64, illustrator for more than 40 years of the comic strip Blondie, which brings the antics of Dagwood and Blondie Bumstead to more than 1,800 newspapers in 55 countries; of cancer; in Boynton Beach, Fla. Raymond was 17 when he started working as an assistant to Chic Young, creator of Blondie, but not until Young died in 1973 and Raymond formed a collaboration with Young's son Dean did his name appear on the strip.

DIED. Moshe Dayan, 66, former Israeli Foreign Minister and hero of the Six-Day War in 1967; of a heart attack; in Tel Hashomer, Israel (see WORLD).

DIED. John W. Mecom Sr., 70, former oilfield roustabout whose success at turning abandoned wells into profitable operations, along with his initiative hi developing new fields in locales from Louisiana to Saudi Arabia, once ranked him with independent Oil Tycoons J. Paul Getty and H.L. Hunt; of a heart ailment; in Houston. An unpretentious man who never had a chauffeur (but who occasionally donned a chauffeur's cap to drive his wife around in a limousine), "Big John" at times was estimated to be worth more than $200 million, but in 1970 filed two bankruptcy petitions. Out of that period of reorganization emerged a Houston-based oil firm, John W. Mecom Co., with Mecom as chairman and his son John Jr., owner of the New Orleans Saints football team, as president.

DIED. Louis W. Fairchild, 80, former chairman of Fairchild Publications (Women's Wear Daily, W), the firm founded by his father Edmund and uncle Louis and now headed by his son John, though it was acquired by Capital Cities Communications in 1968; in Hanover, N.H.

DIED. Brooks Hays, 83, folksy former Democratic Congressman from Arkansas whose moderate stands on racial issues, notably his attempt to mediate the 1957 integration crisis at Little Rock's Central High School, prompted a white supremacist campaign that ended his 16-year congressional career in 1958; in Chevy Chase, Md. After his defeat, Hays filled posts in the White House and State Department under Presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson. Of his role in trying to resolve the confrontation at Little Rock, Hays once said: "I felt like the sparrow that flew into the badminton game."

DIED. Emma Bugbee, 93, suffragist and onetime high school teacher of Greek who broke through the barriers excluding women from city rooms in the early 1900s to become a reporter for the New York Herald, later the New York Herald Tribune; in Warwick, R.I. During her 56-year career, Bugbee was especially noted for her intimate coverage of Eleanor Roosevelt, who held her own press conferences for female journalists, banned from the all-male presidential briefings of the day.

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