Died. John Mecklin, 53, journalist; of cancer; in Fairfield, Conn. A cum laude graduate of the Ernie Pyle school, Mecklin began covering the world's wars in 1942 as a correspondent for the United Press in the Mediterranean theater. Then, broadening his scope, he cabled his battlefield and political reports to TIME from Indochina and the Middle East. Mecklin's service as U.S. Public Affairs Officer chief in Saigon from 1962 to 1964 provided the background for his book, Mission in Torment, a widely praised account of the Viet Nam conflict's early years. Later, he became a member of FORTUNE'S board of editors.

Died. Philip Wylie, 69, the polemicist-novelist who coined the term "momism" in Generation of Vipers, his 1942 best-selling harangue against American mores; of heart disease; in Miami. "I didn't expect to become known for the rest of my life as a woman hater," said Wylie, but Vipers, he figured, had made the epithet inevitable. "That's the first thing they'll put in my obituary--a woman hater. I certainly was a damned odd one." In fact, Wylie was an early supporter of women's rights. But his description of Mom as "a puerile, rusting, raging creature" did little to dispel the notion that he was indeed a confirmed misogynist. Few facets of society escaped Wylie's wrath over the 50-year span of his literary career. The Princeton-educated iconoclast was a prolific writer of overstated and splenetic books and magazine articles in which he inveighed against everything from preachers to pollution to "pompous slut" politicians. This year, in Sons and Daughters of Mom, Wylie turned his guns from Mom to her hippie children: "second generation vipers."

Died. Paul H. Terry, 84, dean of animated film makers; in Manhattan. Walt Disney was still in grade school in 1915 when Terry began to create a barnyard full of animated characters for the silent screen. Operating from a converted Knights of Columbus hall in suburban New Rochelle, N.Y., he cranked out hundreds of "Terrytoons"--seven-minute mini-adventures starring such cartoon immortals as Mighty Mouse and Heckle and Jeckle.

Died. Carl Ruggles, 95, pioneering American composer; of heart disease; in Bennington, Vt. A salty, cracker-barrel philosopher who attributed his longevity to dirty jokes ("If it hadn't been for all those laughs, I'd have been dead years ago"), Ruggles wrote out atonal works with crayon on brown wrapping paper. Though he was a notoriously slow worker and a painstaking perfectionist--only eight pieces that require a total of 90 minutes to perform survive him--his sober tone poem Sun Treader is considered a modern masterwork.

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