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Died. Selden Chapin. 63. U.S. career diplomat. Chargé d'Affaires to De Gaulle's wartime Free French government, both in Algiers and in Paris after the 1944 liberation; Minister to Hungary in 1949. where he was declared persona non grata for "conspiring" with Joseph Cardinal Mindszenty; Ambassador to Panama in 1955, where he renegotiated the "in perpetuity" agreement under which the U.S. controls the Canal; of a heart attack; in San Juan, Puerto Rico. At the time of his death. Chapin was on his way to meet his wife on her return from the marriage of their niece and ward, Hope Cooke, to the crown prince of Sikkim; at week's end the newly wed royal couple flew to the U.S. for the funeral.
Died. George Clinton Biggers, 70, former president of the Atlanta Journal (1946-57) and Constitution (1950-57), and president (1953-55) of the American Newspaper Publishers Association, a driving perfectionist who learned the editorial side as a sports reporter, then turned to journalism's other half; of cancer; in Orlando, Fla.
Died. Carl Florman, 76, Sweden's pioneer of commercial aviation, founder and longtime (1924-49) president of Swedish Air Lines, a spirited optimist who in 1937 talked the Russians into granting his line the first regularly scheduled route from the West to Moscow, saw his company become the cornerstone in 1946 of the $137 million Scandinavian Airlines System (SAS); of a cerebral hemorrhage; in Stockholm.
Died. Lyman James Briggs, 88, director of the National Bureau of Standards from 1933 until his retirement in 1945, a physicist of scope and versatility who devised the earth inductor compass, a navigation boon that Charles Lindbergh used on his transatlantic flight, developed the centrifuge method for classifying soils by moisture content, and helped lead the U.S. into nuclear physics as chairman of the Uranium Committee (forerunner of the Manhattan Project); of a heart attack; in Washington.
Died. Henry Bordeaux, 93, oldest of the 39 immortals in the Académie Française, author of more than 100 books, one of France's most popular novelists at the turn of the century, when his novels, such as La Robe de Laine, caught the mood of the late Victorian era, extolling the ideals of family life, religious piety and love of one's country; in Paris.