Died. Saro Melikian (born Solomon Teilirian), 63, Armenian hero acquitted in a sensational 1921 German trial despite his confession that he had assassinated Talaat Pasha, World War I Turkish Grand Vizier (who introduced genocide to the 20th century by ordering the massacre of 500,000 Armenians); of a cerebral hemorrhage; in San Francisco, where he was employed as an office clerk. Said Melikian to German police after his arrest: "It is not I who am the murderer; it is Talaat. I have lived only to revenge."

Died. Richard John Talsh, 73, onetime editor of Cottier's Weekly and Asia Magazine, founder and president of the John Day Publishing Co., whose stable of authors included his wife. Pearl S. Buck; after a series of strokes; in Hilltown, Pa.

Died. Yen Hsi-shan, 77. governor of China's arid Shansi province much of the time between 1912 and 1949, who, in the defeat that sent Chiang Kai-shek's government to Formosan exile in 1949, served as Nationalist China's last mainland Pre mier; of a heart attack; in Taipei.

Died. Frank Hefferly, 82, oldtime Socialist picked in 1935 by John L. Lewis to be president of the Colorado and New Mexico district of the United Mine Work ers of America, which has not had a district-wide election since 1922, and has seen its membership drop from a high of 40,000 to a current estimated 2,000 even while continuing to pay annual salaries of $25,000 to Hefferly and of $18,000 to his son. District Secretary-Treasurer Fred Hefferly; in Denver.

Died. James Montgomery Flagg, 82, illustrator, portraitist, writer and actor, who used himself as model for the famed Uncle Sam I WANT YOU military recruiting poster; after long illness; in Manhattan (see NATIONAL AFFAIRS).

Died. Georges Claude. 89. called "the Edison of France," a pioneer in the use of liquid air and rare gases, inventor in 1910 of the neon light; of a heart attack; in St.­Cloud. France. A political royalist, he was sentenced to life imprisonment in 1945 for wartime collaboration with the Nazis, was paroled 4½ years later.

Died. Dr. Ida S. Scudder, 90, third-generation American medical missionary of the Reformed Church in America, who dedicated her life to the fight against plague, cholera and leprosy, and who in 1918 started in Vellore, India what is today one of Asia's foremost clinic-medical schools, with current support coming from more than 40 missions;* of a circulatory ailment; in Kodaikanal, India.