Divorced. Robert J. Dole, 48, Junior U.S. Senator from Kansas and for the past year chairman of the Republican National Committee; by Phyllis Dole, 47; on grounds of incompatibility; after 23 years of marriage, one daughter; in Topeka, Kans.

Died. Kenneth Patchen, 60, poet of protean passions; of a heart attack; in Palo Alto, Calif. Sometimes compared to Whitman and Blake for its visionary quality, Patchen's work since the 1930s has been alternately described as Freudian, surrealistic, Marxist and mystic. Always evident was the poet's abhorrence of violence:

From my high love I look at that poor world there;

I know that murder is the first prince in that tribe.

Died. Chen Yi, 71, Chinese Foreign Minister since 1958 and longtime intimate of Mao Tse-tung; of intestinal cancer; in Peking. Like Chiang Kaishek. Chen honed his formidable military talents at Canton's Whampoa Military Academy. He then joined Chiang's famed 1926 Northern Expedition to defeat the warlords and reunify China. After the split between the Kuomintang and the Communists the following year, Chen excelled as Mao's kuai-tsu-shou (hatchet man). He led Mao's rear guard during the Long March, and commanded the New Fourth Army in its fight against the Japanese during World War II. In the civil war that followed, Chen captured Nanking and Shanghai for the Communists. Though suitably bellicose toward the U.S., Chen was considered somewhat bourgeois by the Red Guards, and he dropped from sight at the height of the Cultural Revolution. Mao's presence at a memorial service for Chen indicated that he was no longer in disfavor.

Died. King Frederik of Denmark, 72, robust sovereign of the small constitutional monarchy for a quarter-century (see THE WORLD).

Died. Edwin Weisl, 74. longtime confidant of Lyndon Johnson; of a heart attack; in West Los Angeles, Calif. An up-from-the-tenements Wall Street lawyer with an earthy demeanor, Weisl first met Johnson at the urging of F.D.R.. who described the lanky Texan as "a live Congressman [with] a fine future ahead of him." Thereafter Weisl helped fulfill Roosevelt's prophecy, advising the Texas Democrat on politics both foreign and domestic for more than 30 years. In 1964, Weisl became Democratic national committeeman from New York, and was considered L.B.J.'s envoy to the state party.

Died. Nubar Gulbenkian, 75, eccentric scion of oil-rich Calouste Gulbenkian (see BUSINESS).

Died. William H. Grimes, 79, who helped expand the Wall Street Journal from a specialized financial paper into a national publication offering broad coverage; in Delray Beach, Fla. Grimes spent 38 years with the Journal, first as Washington bureau chief, then as managing editor (1934-1941) and editor (1941-1958). His thoughtful editorials, some of which called for minimum government controls, won him a Pulitzer Prize in 1947.

Died. Ted Shawn, 80, doyen of modern dance in the U.S.; of a heart attack; in Orlando, Fla. Shawn was studying for the ministry when an attack of diphtheria left his legs paralyzed. The prescribed therapy--ballet exercises--worked so well that Shawn decided to "evangelize" through dance. Though the hulking six-footer's early performances were greeted with sneers, Shawn found an ally in the late Ruth St. Denis; they were married in 1914. Together they reigned during the 1920s as the nation's top modern dance team, their repertory drawing heavily on American and ethnic themes. They also formed the Denishawn schools, which trained Martha Graham, Doris Humphrey and other stars. The schools folded when the couple separated in 1931. After that Shawn attacked the male dancer's lavender image by selecting college athletes for an all-male dance troupe that toured the country under his direction. He later staged the annual dance festival at Jacob's Pillow near Lee, Mass.

Died. Padraic Colum, 90, a figure in the turn-of-the-century Irish literary renaissance that included James Joyce, William Butler Yeats and Sean O'Casey; of a stroke; in Enfield, Conn. He was brought up, he said, "where waifs, strays and tramps congregated, and was entertained by the gossip and history of old men and old women who were survivals from an Ireland that had disappeared." Joyce, in Ulysses, credited the gnomelike storyteller with "that strange thing called genius." Yet towering Irish writers like Joyce himself partially eclipsed the less assertive talent of Colum. His literary legacy to Ireland was nonetheless enormous. Colum helped set up Dublin's Abbey Theater and the Irish Review before emigrating to New York in 1914 with his wife, Literary Critic Mary Gunning Maguire. Both Colums occasionally taught at Columbia University, but Padraic devoted most of his energy to producing hundreds of poems, essays, plays, histories, biographies and children's stories.

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