DIED. Jimmy Ernst, 63, noted painter of spiky, delicate abstractions and son of Surrealist Max Ernst; of a heart attack; in New York City. Born in Cologne, Germany, when his father was gaining fame as a founder of the Dada movement, Ernst grew up among artists and, at the outbreak of World War II, settled in the U.S. His technique linked color blocks with lines or grids but did not exclude specific subject matter. His final paintings, currently on view in New York City, ranged in inspiration from his mother's cell at Auschwitz, where she died, to his research forays among Hopi Indians.

DIED. Henry S. Kaplan, 65, Stanford University radiologist and co-inventor of the first medical linear accelerator in the Western hemisphere, which became the cornerstone of modern radiation therapy and helped transform once fatal Hodgkin's disease, for example, into a relatively curable ailment; of lung cancer; in Palo Alto, Calif. In 1955 the Chicago-born Kaplan collaborated with Edward Ginzton in developing a 6-million-volt accelerator at the Stanford Medical Center, then in San Francisco. The device smashed atoms to produce high-dosage radiation that could be directed at various forms of cancer with much greater accuracy and effectiveness than older, lower-powered X-ray machines.

DIED. Gholam Ali Oveissi, 65, former commander of the Iranian army under the Shah, who became known as the Butcher of Tehran for a 1978 incident in which he ordered his troops to fire into a vast crowd of anti-Shah demonstrators, killing, by one count, more than 4,000 men, women and children; of a gunshot wound; in Paris. Oveissi was strolling along the fashionable Rue de Passy with his brother and a family friend when a lone gunman walked up behind the men and fired a 9-mm pistol at pointblank range. Both Oveissis died instantly; the third man escaped injury. Two groups, the Islamic Jihad and the Revolutionary Organization for Liberation and Reform, claimed responsibility for the killings. The next day, the United Arab Emirates' Ambassador to France, Khalifa Ahmed Abdel Aziz Mubarak, 38, was gunned down in similar fashion as he was leaving his Paris residence.

DIED. Yuri Vladimirovich Andropov, 69, General Secretary of the Communist Party and President of the Soviet Union; from complications of heart and kidney disease; in Moscow (see THE SOVIETS).

DIED. Henry Hugh Arthur FitzRoy Somerset, 83, tenth Duke of Beaufort and, from 1936 to 1978, Master of the Horse, third-ranking post in the royal household; after a heart attack; in Badminton, England. The Duke followed his pack of hounds for more than 70 years and once estimated that he had spent 4,000 days in the saddle pursuing foxes. He defended his passion by saying, "Hunting is the only thing that draws this country together--apart from war."