Married. Cornelius Vanderbilt Jr., 69, scion of one of New York's first families, journalistic gadabout, author of 27 books (Man of the World: My Life on Five Continents), mostly about himself; and Mrs. Mary Lou Bristol, 41, his sometime secretary; he for the seventh time, she for the second; in Reno.

Died. Gustav C. Hertz, 49, high ranking U.S. AID official kidnaped by the Viet Cong in Saigon in February 1965; reportedly of malaria; somewhere in Viet Nam. For almost three years his family, friends and the U.S. Government explored every channel, diplomatic and private, seeking his release. Last week his wife received a letter from Cambodia's Prince Sihanouk stating that her husband had died in captivity on Sept. 24. Sihanouk's source: Nguyen Huu Tho, leader of the V.C.'s National Liberation Front.

Died. Hulbert Taft Jr., 60, cousin of "Mr. Republican," the late Robert A. Taft, and chairman of Taft Broadcasting Co., which owns 16 radio and TV stations and produces Huckleberry Hound and The Flintstones kiddie cartoons; when leaking bottled gas exploded while he was on one of his frequent inspections of the family bomb shelter that he had constructed on his estate; in Indian Hill, a Cincinnati suburb.

Died. James E. Day, 62, president of the Midwest Stock Exchange; of a heart attack; in Chicago. Founder and boss of his own highly successful securities firm, Day took over Chicago's floundering stock exchange in 1946, within a few years had combined with three other Midwestern stock exchanges to create the nation's biggest market outside of Wall Street.

Died. Joseph Kesselring, 65, author of twelve ephemeral plays and one Broadway gem, Arsenic and Old Lace; of a heart ailment; in Kingston, N.Y.

Died. Adolf Lohse, 65, German financial wizard and longtime (1945 until retirement in October) top executive of the Siemens Group, maker of all things electric; of a heart attack; in Neugruenwald, Germany. Senior member of the group's managing troika, Lohse masterminded Siemens' recovery from wartime ruin to second biggest in Germany (after Volkswagen), ranging the world's markets with everything from appliances to computers.

Died. Dr. Rufus E. Clement, 67, Negro educator and president of Atlanta University since 1937; of an apparent heart attack; in Manhattan. Told in 1940 by an Atlanta cop that he would be shot entering a whites-only area, Clement replied: "If I get shot, I'll get shot in the back." That brand of mettle led him to reject Booker T. Washington's philosophy that Negro education should be aimed at vocational skills; instead, he gave A.U. intellectual aims to make it the best of its kind.

Died. Charles Bickford, 78, veteran actor; of emphysema; in Los Angeles. A ruddy-faced onetime lumberjack, Bickford most often merely played himself--a rough, tough, but good and decent man, remembered as the priest in The Song of Bernadette (1944), and recently as the leathery ranch owner in TV's The Virginian.

Died. Maximos IV Cardinal Sayegh, 89, Patriarch of Antioch and leader of Roman Catholicism's Eastern Melchite Rite; of cancer; in Beirut. One of the fathers of Vatican II, the outspoken patriarch stirred the Council by urging a college of bishops to advise the Pope, an idea that was implemented last September when the Synod of Bishops convened in Rome.

Died. John Nance Garner, 98, Vice President of the U.S. during F.D.R.'s first two terms (see THE NATION).

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