Divorced. By Bobbie Gentry, 27, leggy pop singer (Ode to Billie Joe, 1967); William Harrah, 58, owner of Nevada's biggest gambling casino, Harrah's Club at Reno and Lake Tahoe; on grounds of incompatibility after four months of marriage; in Las Vegas.

Died. Merriman Smith, 57, senior White House correspondent, whose laconic "Thank you, Mr. President" heralded the end of presidential news conferences for almost 30 years; by his own hand (.357 Magnum revolver); in Alexandria, Va. Smith arrived in Washington in 1941 to cover the White House for the United Press, and there he stayed to take the measure of six Presidents. His daily reporting was characterized by speed and accuracy, and his books (A President is Many Men, 1948, A President's Odyssey, 1961, The Good New Days, 1962) were filled with anecdote and insight. Smith's highest honor, a 1964 Pulitzer Prize, was won for his swift, lucid reporting in the pandemonium-filled minutes following the assassination of John F. Kennedy.

Died. Richard Neutra, 78, architect of international renown for nearly half a century; of a heart attack; in Wuppertal, Germany. Born and trained in Vienna, Neutra emigrated in 1923 to the U.S., where he studied under Frank Lloyd Wright before moving to California. Like Wright, he rejected the stern horizontals and verticals of the then popular International style, instead opted for odd angles, diagonal roofs, warm-colored woods and stones. Most of his work was done on the West Coast, which he graced with literally hundreds of schools, hospitals and private homes. As he once put it: "I try to make a house like a flowerpot, in which you can root something and out of which family life will bloom."

Died. George H. Soule, 82, liberal economist, prolific author and longtime editor (1924-1947) of the New Republic; of pneumonia; in Warren, Conn. A socialist in the Norman Thomas style, Soule followed Founder Herbert Croly's guideline "to start little insurrections in the realm of the readers' convictions." The effort involved attacking U.S.-style capitalism and urging nationalization of industry by democratic means. Soule carried on the campaign in his books on economics--Coming American Revolution (1934), Prosperity Decade (1947)--arguing for "any new revolution that may be justified by the interest and reason of the common man."

Died. Patriarch Alexei, 92, head of the Russian Orthodox Church since 1945; in Moscow. Patriarch Alexei guided the Russian church during the postwar years as it came to terms with the atheistic Soviet state.

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