Died. Langston Hughes, 65, one o] the most gifted and prolific of American Negro writers; of uremia; in Manhattan. There was only one theme for Hughes--Negro life in the U.S.--and he was, as he said, "telling it like it is" long before the phrase became part of the language. From his Harlem apartment for over 35 years poured a flood of poems, short stories, columns, novels (Simple Speaks His Mind) and Broadway plays (1935's Mulatto), and the lyrics for a musical (1946's Street Scene), and in them all his messages came across with gentle irony and compassionate humor instead of the expectable rage and bitterness. To those angry younger men who put him down for a lack of "responsibility," Hughes replied: "Humor is a weapon, too, of no mean value against one's foes."

Died. Lyle C. Wilson, 67, longtime Washington bureau manager and vice president (1953-64) of United Press International, who in 40 years as a solid, sensible newsman counted as his finest hour the time in 1939 when he refused to kill a story on a rift between F.D.R. and Secretary of State Cordell Hull; of heart disease; in Stuart, Fla. As Wilson recalled it, F.D.R. threatened a feud that would "hurt U.P. and hurt you"--to which Wilson shot back: "What would hurt us even more is if word got around that you said to kill a story and we did."

Died. Vice Admiral Charles B. Momsen, 70, U.S. submarine expert and inventor of the Momsen lung for underwater escapes, who in 1928 devised the first successful escape device by rigging a mask to a rubberized bag of oxygen, testing it himself before it became standard equipment on all U.S. subs; of pneumonia; in St. Petersburg, Fla.

Died. Raymond Smith, 80, founder of Reno's Harolds Club and a pioneer of mass gambling, a onetime carnival worker who launched the club named after his son in 1935 with one roulette wheel and two battered slot machines, built it into the world's biggest casino under one roof (20,000 customers daily), and finally cashed in when he and his sons sold out in 1962 to an Eastern syndicate for $17,500,000; of cancer; in Reno.

Died. Canon Lionel Groulx, 89, Roman Catholic priest and early force behind French Canadian nationalism, a longtime (1915 to 1948) history professor at the University of Montreal who in lectures, countless articles and 30 books preached the revival of French Canadian civilization "contaminated by the Protestant and Saxon atmosphere," and advocated a Canada composed of virtually autonomous states; of a cardiac arrest; in Vaudreuil, Que.

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