Died. Joseph A. Walker, 45, foremost U.S. test pilot; in a mid-air collision of his F-104 Starfighter with one of the two XB-70 research bombers; near Barstow, Calif, (see THE NATION).

Died. Norman Baillie-Stewart, 57, British traitor twice over, a onetime army lieutenant who served five years at hard labor for passing secret information to the Germans in 1932, later went to Berlin to offer his services to the Nazis and spent World War II as a minor broadcasting clerk (nothing more because the Germans thought he was a spy); of a heart attack; in Dublin.

Died. Natacha Rambova, 69, Rudolph Valentino's second wife (1922-26), the strong-willed stepdaughter of Perfumer Richard Hudnut, who completely dominated the Latin Lover throughout their marriage--planning his career, dictating their way of life--until she decided to pursue an acting career of her own, whereupon she divorced the heartbroken Rudy just before his death at 31; of arteriosclerosis; in Pasadena, Calif.

Died. Blanche Wolf Knopf, 71, president of Alfred A. Knopf publishing house and wife of Board Chairman Alfred A. Knopf, who worked tirelessly for 51 years to bring the firm to its current prestigious place, personally garnering such luminaries as Freud, Sartre and Camus, as well as mystery writers Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammett; after a long illness; in Manhattan.

Died. Frederic A. Gimbel, 73, retired head of Manhattan's Gimbels department store, who helped his brother Bernard expand the family dry-goods business into an empire with annual sales of $560 million and 53 stores cross country, personally quadrupling sales in his own shop; of heart disease; in Pacific Palisades, Calif.

Died. Jean Arp, 78, a leader in abstract art, best known for his egg-smooth sculptures; of a heart attack; in Basel, Switzerland. Born in French-German Alsace, Arp was nourished in both countries--in Munich in 1912 he studied under Kandinsky; in Paris he worked with his friends Picasso and Modigliani. More for fun than anything else, he was a founding father of Dada, the 1916-22 Bronx cheer that razzed tradition and called it art; yet his own, very personal statements were serenely curved marbles and bronzes.

Died. Wellington Rankin, 81, Montana lawyer-rancher and younger brother of Jeanette Rankin, first U.S. Congresswoman (1917-19), who amassed one of the nation's biggest landholdings (900,000 acres of ranchland); following abdominal surgery; at the Mayo Clinic, in Rochester, Minn.

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