Died. Saul Alinsky, 63, radical activist and organizer who for more than three decades taught the poor and oppressed how to fight for change; of a heart attack; in Carmel, Calif. The Chicago-born son of a Russian tailor, Alinsky first tasted combat when he sided with dissident miners against John L. Lewis during the 1930s. Inspired by the era's mass organizing methods, Alinsky set up a training school for organizers, the Industrial Areas Foundation. With pickets, boycotts and stockholder revolts, he worked in behalf of impoverished Irish Americans in Chicago, unemployed blacks in Rochester, Chicanos in California and even tax-burdened middle-class whites in Pittsburgh. The emotional and Utopian character of recent radicals offended Alinsky's sense of pragmatism. He had no patience with either revolutionary black separatists or white hippie dropouts because both "dogmatically refuse to begin with the world as it is," scoffed at pure theorists because "a movement without organization is nothing more than a bowel movement." When asked about death, Alinsky replied: "They'll send me to hell --and I'll organize it."

Died. Dr. Georg von Bekesy, 73, Hungarian-born physicist and winner of the 1961 Nobel Prize in medicine for his research on the human ear; of cancer; in Honolulu. Von Bekesy was a scientist employed by a Budapest telephone laboratory when he began his research into the physiological aspects of hearing during the '20s. Over the next four decades his equipment and techniques--he once glued tiny mirrors onto an eardrum to observe its response to varied sounds--helped in the diagnosis of hearing disorders.

Died. Admiral Felix Stump, 77, former commander of the Pacific Fleet; of cancer; in Bethesda, Md. A brusque, no-nonsense Annapolis man, Stump was skipper of a seaplane tender at the start of World War II. He was soon given a carrier command and then led the U.S. Navy carrier task force during the battle of Leyte Gulf. As chief of the Pacific Fleet (1953-58), Stump was responsible for maintaining the nation's military ties with Asian allies.

Died. Edmund Wilson, 77, protean man of letters (see BOOKS).

Died. Kirke L. Simpson, 90, who as an Associated Press reporter coined the phrase "smoke-filled room" to characterize the Chicago hotel suite in which Warren Harding's presidential nomination was arranged, then won a 1921 Pulitzer Prize and the A.P.'s first byline for his eloquent account of the burial of America's Unknown Soldier; in Los Gatos, Calif.

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